Texas! (and a little contest)

You may have wondered why I haven't posted in so long. It's not that I haven't been knitting, although I haven't really had that much time to knit in the past few weeks. I've been in Texas! I go every year and visit my Auntie Ann, Uncle Brian, Austin, (she's 7) Brett, (he's 5) and Addison. (she's almost 3) I had so much fun! The time went by far too quickly. We did so many things in two weeks that I never could write about them all. You wouldn't believe how many pictures I took! (This leads to the contest at the end of the post) We made flower fairies, went to the park, went to a pumpkin patch, (That was probably my favorite thing that we did.) and the list goes on! I love my family. Here are just a few of the many pictures I took.


They made me a birthday cake!

Swinging in the backyard.

We did each other's hair. :) Look at Brett's!


After church.


Austin and I painted each other's faces with sidewalk chalk!

Auntie Ann and and me with our new beanie babies. :)
Addison made me a tea party.

Austin got a potholder loom at a yard sale.


Ceramic painting! Probably one of my favorite things to do ever!
At the pumpkin patch.

Our scarecrow.

The kids got to ride the ponies!

Addison

Now, about the contest. See if you can guess how many pictures I took while I was there. The person who guesses the closest will win a pattern from my patterns blog, http://patternsbylindy.blogspot.com/ I'll announce the winner on Wednesday. Have fun!

My 17th birthday party

For my 17th birthday, I had a party at the park near our house. 13 of my friends came, and we had SO much fun! I had never had a big party like that before, but I'm so glad I did. We had to change parks last minute, because we found out that the one we had originally planned on going to was having their 10th anniversary celebration at exactly the same time. It worked out though, because we ended up under a beautiful tree, next to a field, and across from the lake. The weather was beautiful, and it was in the low 70s that afternoon. We played games, talked, and just enjoyed being together. I love my friends! It was such a special day.

Here we are! David and Kendra couldn't come until later on, so they didn't make it for this picture.

We played Ultimate Frisbee. I had never actually played before. I'm not at all athletic, but I managed! It was really fun.

My friend Joelle has more pictures on her blog.

September Mid-Month KAL

This KAL pattern called for red. I don't normally use red, because it bleeds. I thought I would just try orange and see what happened. Now I realize I should have gone for brown, but it still looks cute. :) It's a schoolhouse, and I love it!

In spite of my "summer break", things are starting back up around here. This week is the first week of CYT. We don't know all of the plays yet, but we do know that the Monday 13+ class is doing Reformation of Katherine and the Wednesday Homeschool class (the class I help with) is doing Little Princess. I am SO excited about Reformation! I've never seen it before, but I've read the script, and I think it's going to be amazing! I can't wait get started.

Also, be sure to visit the knitting calendar blog! The calendar is now available to order.

My 17th Birthday

Thursday was my birthday! I had a wonderful day. The morning and afternoon were very relaxing, and for dinner we went to Olive Garden. It was neat the way that came about. The past several years we have gone to IHOP for my birthday, but this year I kind of wanted to go to Olive Garden. I hadn't said anything about it at all, because it's pretty expensive. Then, the day Brandon left, he gave us a gift from his parents. It was an Olive Garden gift card! I love it when God does things like that. The meal was wonderful, probably the best I've ever eaten! Then I came home and opened my presents. :) Probably the thing I got that I had wanted the most was a new Bible. I had wanted one that was smaller and easier to carry around. I also got a new overhead light for my room, some cute shirts, a purse, earings, and lots of sweet cards! Here are a few pictures, because in my life, no event is quite complete without them. :)

First Trip of the "Summer"!

You may remember that, because Brandon was here, we did school through the summer. Because of that, this is the first week of our break! It's so nice to be finished. Summer was wonderful, but now I'm ready to rest. This past weekend we went to Asheville to visit the Biltmore house! I had never been before. It was amazing! Because we went on a school day it wasn't crowded at all. The weather was perfect too! Here are some pictures.

Eating lunch on the lawn.

Me and my brothers. :)

It was incredible! It's hard to imagine someone actually living there.
The flower carpet was only there for two weeks, and we were there on the first day it was open!

I liked this flower a lot.

In the gardens.

Souvenirs. :)

The next day we went to Chimney Rock State Park. The actual chimney was a rock high on the edge of a mountain. You have to understand, I am VERY afraid of heights. From the second I saw where we were actually going, I was about as afraid as I had ever been. Once I finally got up there it was worth it, because the view was amazing!

The chimney.

See how high we are?

The view was spectacular.

Conquering my fear.

My brothers.

After the rock we walked on a long trail.

August Mid-Month KAL and another ballband.

This KAL pattern was so pretty! It's definitely one of my favorites. I was in a fall mood this week, which always happens to me about this time of year. Because of that, I chose this variegated, and I love the way it turned out! The picture doesn't show the pattern that well, but you can still see how pretty it is.I also finished my second ballband. I love these colors together!

Today was my last day of school, and tomorrow will be the first day of our "summer" break. While Brandon was here, he had to do school. Because of that, the boys and I also did regular school work through the summer, and we'll be taking the fall off. It will be a much needed break! I'll have more time to knit, and work on some other projects that I haven't had time for. We also have some fun things planned! I'll keep you all posted with everything that's going on.

2009 Knitting Calendar!

I just wanted to remind you all to check out the 2009 knitting calendar blog! From what I've seen of it so far, it's going to be wonderful. There are so many talented people involved. I'm especially excited because this year the calendar will include two of my own patterns! This first one is called Bluebonnets, the second is called Stained Glass.

DANIEL: AN UNCOMPROMISING LIFE ~ CYT

These last two weeks have been a crazy marathon, but they have also been among the most wonderful weeks of my life! God did so many amazing things in my life, and in the lives of my friends. I have the greatest friends ever. The play was absolutely incredible! We were all so blessed. The costumes were awesome. In the ending "Older Daniel" said something about praying for future generations, and after the lights went down we all came out as ourselves and sang a reprise of the song "We Resolve"! It was a perfect ending, but sadly that meant that in all the pictures after the play we were wearing white and khaki. We had 2 performances yesterday! It was the 1st time I had done that. It was exhausting, but so much fun! I could go on and on about the whole thing, but the pictures say it better than I could!

Eating dinner before dress rehearsal.

All the animals in King Nebuchadnezzer's second dream. (minus one who didn't have his costume on) I was a peacock. I didn't have my mask on yet. It goes down in history as my favorite costume ever!

All the flappers/Babylon girls! We had an amazing time together!

The 4 guys! From left to right, David D. as Abednego, Jamey (my brother!) as Meshach, David E. as Daniel, and Nathan as Shadrach. They were wonderful!

The 4 boys and the flames.

Backstage in our court costumes. This is a great picture, except my hair is funny looking! They hadn't fixed it that night.

In the hall before the performance.

Jamey and Kelsey both had to get their hair cut for the play.

My best friends, Kelsey and Elise!

Me, Jamey, and Brandon

Carrie was the assistant director. I love her!

Me and Eliza

My grandparents came to see it!