Well, life has been busy since my last post! The long-awaited graduation has occurred, as evidenced by this photo as I shake hands with the president of Northland Baptist Bible College:
I got to keep the cap, tassel and honor cords, but the robe and hood were just rentals. Good riddance, in my opinion! They were terribly hot and complicated!
My family made the trip all the way from NH to WI to see me graduate - well, part of my family. Two of my siblings were already at college with me as a freshman and sophomore. So, shortly after the big event, all 7 (eventually 8, as we picked up a friend in WV!) of us packed into this rented RV, where we would remain for the next 10 days or so.
Quarters were plenty tight, but it was a fun and very different experience for us! We turned the trip into a (rare) family vacation and stopped at the Mall of America, a Medieval Times Restaurant and the Creation Museum. We all really enjoyed the Creation Museum - it's definitely worth a stop if you're ever anywhere in the area! I have plenty of pictures from the trip, but I love this one of a peacock at the Museum petting zoo. I had never thought that I would get pictures of a real peacock, but this one was very cooperative! :)
The day after we got home from our trip, Dad and I went to return the RV and took a roundabout route home so that I could take pictures of the rocky Maine coast. The purpose - a cover for his book!! Check it out - The Winds of Nnim is a Kindle ebook on Amazon.com! It only costs a few dollars to download, and even if you don't have a Kindle, you can get a free download of Kindle for PC (there's a link on the side of the Amazon page). This is really a fantastic read! He even put up the sequel, The Forest Kingdom, just a few days ago, so you won't have to wonder "What happens next??" for very long! :) (And let me tell you, you will be wondering what happens next!)
We took our friend from WV out on a moose-spotting expedition, and we were not disappointed! Here is a bull moose; you can just see the start of some antlers. Maybe I'll go looking for him again this fall when he's got a full rack!
I have completed a few projects around the house and yard, some of them more random than others. For example, we girls repainted our bedroom tan last year, and I made my corner of the room kind of rustic, with lots of antique wood decorations. This white-plastic edged corkboard didn't exactly fit...so I fixed it!! This is before...
And after!! :) I edged it with strips of thin wood held on by mounting tape. I'm very easily pleased! :)
Oh, and here's an important life lesson that I learned! This is just to the right of the corkboard and is above my bed, so I see it every day. The lesson: when you repaint, make sure you scrape rough spots and spackle them if necessary before putting on your new paint. In other words, don't take lazy shortcuts like me!! :P
Here's another project I helped (does taking pictures count as helping?) with. Our light fixtures on the porch...um...needed help, to put it lightly. There are supposed to be metal and glass pieces surrounding this light bulb; it looks like there are only a couple left by this point. Plus, the metal was pretty worn and we wanted to switch to black appliances anyway, so...
Yay! And it wasn't even that hard! Especially because I mostly just watched and helped put in a couple of the little screws at the end. :D
I also listed some of my Dad's spectacular woodwork online. You can view a sampling of his stuff here. This below is an example of his treenware, very cool little things that come in all shapes, sizes and colors!
I visited friends for the day a couple weeks ago and got to spend a while in a kayak, which is always enjoyable. The most exciting part, though, was getting to see a whole family of loons! This may even have been the babies' first time away from the nest, as we had been watching the parents earlier in the day and they didn't have the babies with them then. In any case, this was definitely the highlight of the day!
Yesterday morning there were some stormclouds in the west, up over the Moat Mountains, and after a little while a rainbow showed up. I like where it ends! :) Gold at the end of the rainbow indeed! That is our church steeple you can see, and it's actually copper, but hey, whatever.
And I will close with a toad. What better way to end a blog post? My siblings and I went on a walk in good old Whitaker Woods yesterday, which doesn't happen very often anymore with our assorted and sundry work schedules. It was very fun to be out again!
Well, until next time! I hope everyone is having a fabulous summer so far!!!
