Make A Joyful Noise

Well, I just got through my last week of no school. I'm kind of excited of starting school, but I know it's going to take a few weeks to get on a normal schedule. After we start school on Monday however, we will be leaving three days later to drive to Virginia Beach, VA! :) We will only be there for about three days, but if it gets me out of a couple more days of school then I'm fine with that. So really the Monday after that is when our serious school schedule starts hehe.

On another topic, I am still running to train for a 10K/half marathon. I have been running at least three times a week, and I'm averaging about 13+ miles a week! This is very exciting to me, since before I could barely even run 1 mile without almost passing out lol. Although there are some routes that are pretty hard (e.g...the ones with hills), for the most part I have found running to be fun and almost relaxing :) I'm really excited about doing this running plan, and even if I end up not running any major races, I'll still feel like I accomplished something.

Well that's all I have for now. I should have some pictures up from VA (If I take any :P) sometime next week. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post until then!

~Abs

Oh! I almost forgot! For several months now, one of the high C's on our piano has been broken, thus ruining several songs we tried to play. Well, finally we had a piano tuner/technician come in and fix the key! Words can't describe how happy this made me. Now I feel like I can play so much easier without having to worry about that one key lol
Ok that's all now =D I might post a vid of me playing one of my new favorite songs.

Friday night, Rachel B. had Rachel G. and I over for a fun night :) We decided to do a before and after makeover shoot hehe. Soooo, Rachel G was a crazy cheerleader, I was a messy singer, and Rachel B was a funky rocker lol. After our makeovers we were supposed to look more refined and proper, rather than messy and weird :) Thanks for a fun night girls, I'm so grateful for you both!

Here are the before and after pics:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Sorry it's been so long! Summer is usually when I post the least since I don't seem to think of posting! But, anyways, this past week all of us girls finally decided to get perms :) So my mom bought the supplies for our hair, and gave us each a perm (different days). So far I can't wash it with shampoo yet, so I've just been rinsing my hair with hot water. I have to wait 48 hours until I can wash my hair or style it. That's torture since the solution used for the perm smells HORRIBLE. lol So anyways that's what we have been up to recently! Here are all the pictures if you want to see more. Also there are some from Joel's 20th birthday (It's today:)

~My hair looks a lot more natural now since it's been a day since I've done it lol.

All last week my neighbor and friend, Rachel, stayed at my house! I had a lot of fun, and I hope she did too :P

Rachel, Thanks for being such a good friend to me, and for putting up with my weirdness all week hehe. I'm so glad that your parents returned safely and I know that you are LOVING having a new brother and sister.
I love you so much!
-Abby
(You can read Rachel's blog Here)

Sorry about the lack of pictures! I basically took no pictures this week, so I'm sorry this is such a boring post. I'll hopefully have better pictures soon.

I made this story in a very crazy way. I took 10 completely different books, and used the first sentence on each page 56. I put all the sentences together, and this is what I came up with. After each period is a new sentence from a different book.

And he loved the quiet times after Hester and Lester went to bed. Then they picked up their rubber mats and walked to the next room. G.T. looked at us with such kindness in his face. Mama ran into the house and shut the door behind her. We might have thought they were stupid if it hadn't been for them joining in the hopscotch. To his surprise Jokey, lying asleep at his feet, woke up with a start, hopping up on his three legs and then stood up on his hind legs, pawing Trad's knee impatiently. "Dear Mr. Henshaw, I finished Beggar Bears in two nights." And that's where we're going to start. He stopped on the doorstep to talk to Grandfather. "It's a whale!" Ashley yelled, splashing into the surf, "I think it's stranding!"

Tell me what you think of it :) Feel free to do the same thing, it's fun!

Sadly, my camera was pretty much completely dead so I only got 2 pictures of fireworks. Yesterday was a very fun and enjoyable day as we celebrated yet another birthday of our free country. We had some friends over to our house, then around 8:00 PM we headed to a grocery store and watched some fireworks go off behind it! After that we came home and watched one of our neighbors' fireworks as well. All in all it was a very nice night with friends and family. Sorry I've been neglecting my blog so much, but pretty much every day has been around the same up to now. Here's a little schedule of what I have going this week!

~Starting tomorrow, every day for the next five days I'm going to be at a local driver's ed class. It's going to be from 9AM to 4PM, so I won't be around very often this week. I'm attending the class with two of my friends (They're both named Rachel :) so I'm not totally nervous about it. I'm just hoping that the actual work won't be too hard since I haven't been in the "school" mode for a while.

~At the end of the week (Lord willing) my neighbor and friend, Rachel G is coming to stay with us for a week while her parents are gone. I'm very excited and I'm praying that her parents have a safe trip there and back!

~ Also at the end of this week, my dad and my older sister are leaving for a missions trip in Bolivia for 12 days! I know that they are both very excited, but also a little nervous. The place where they are going does not have the best living conditions, nor the best health conditions. But while they are there they are going to do various jobs including some medical work and other stuff to help the community. I'll be praying that they are able to reach out to natives there and preach the gospel to them.

So this is what my week looks like! I'm not sure if I'll have many pictures :P I have been pretty lazy in the picture taking department, making my blog pretty boring. Sorry! I'll do my best to take some pictures and post them on here. I'm not sure when my next blog post will be, so until then...