We missed Philip...

As I mentioned in previous posts, one of our camping friends was missing from our trip on Mother's day weekend....Philip Warren. Here is our little photo project dedicated to him. Not nearly as impressive as "THE HIKE III" aerial pictures....

My siblings and I drove The Hike III route this morning. Parts of the road were washed out as a result of the storm, and the low water bridge where we all "took off our shoes and stockings and paddled" had quite a bit of water over it and was borderline terrifying...just kidding. There was quite a bit of water, but it wasn't too bad. We picked up a turtle on the way and named him Edwin Sherman the second...Edwin Sherman the first was the turtle I found on the Hike.

As we were driving, we were saying things like, "Here's where we spelled out "THE HIKE III," "This is the stretch where we were playing 'Going to the Beach'," and "Look, there's the bottle I picked up."

Driving the route, with 25 cent slushies and air conditioning, was much more pleasant than walking the route, but not nearly as much fun!

camping pictures...for lack of a better title

Mrs. Wiles, with Michael and Matthew.

Will....climbing.

The kangaroo....seriously.

Me and...Iron Man?

This one perplexes me.

Will Gaines...my bff.

The Gaines siblings....love you guys!

Stephanie and the sister

Mary Kate and the sister

Mary Kate and Stephanie

We invaded the park store...

An "attitude adjuster"....

Trying on pink hats...

...and sunglasses...

Visiting in the bathroom in the visitor's center

They both had French braids, courtesy of my sister.....but you can't see the braids at all, which I believe was the whole point of the picture....

An animal in the garbage bin..

Rachel, Ransom and Mary Kate

Mary Kate....flying.

Clarissa and Mary Kate

Fun was had by all.

A jolly good way to spend Mother's Day

Last weekend, we (along with our "camping group"....the Gaines, Brunos, Bransons, Grabers, Hartmans and Wiles) took a trip to Sam A. Baker state park. We (the camping group) have an annual spring trip (to Sam A. Baker) and an annual fall trip (to Big Spring...my favorite place in Missouri!). We cooked biscuits on sticks, built dams, hiked, waded, and had an overall jolly good time.

The most unexpected event was the spotting of a man carrying a....baby kangaroo.

(Yours is pink, but mine is blue!)

Points for whoever knows what I am referencing :)

Yup. A kangaroo. She was on a leash. And the man was carrying her because, as he told us, she's spoiled and likes to be carried. Her name was Jingles. The man showed us her pouch. It was very, very unexpected.

The man said that he bought a male and a female in Maken, Missouri (I do believe that's how you spell "Maken," correct me if I'm wrong) at an "exotics sale." The daddy kangaroo and mommy kangaroo had a baby kangaroo...hence, Jingles.

She was ten months old, and about as big as my beagle.

Weird.

Fun was had by all. And we have a new name to add to our list!

THE SAM A. BAKER.....UM, LIST
1. Big fat man in boxers
2. Little fat man in trunks, with the...harmonica
3. Dr. Pepper pants boy
and, the new one...
4. Red shirt boy!!

Congrats, Red shirt boy! You will live on in our memory as....well, as red shirt boy :)

I love our camping group.

Newfangled Gadgets

I had a nice phone. It was cute. It was red. And it wasn't "old." It was actually somewhat new. See? That's pretty cute. I really liked that phone.

That cell phone died at the hands of a mean old water balloon at Bible camp last summer. Since then, I've been using my mother's old phone.

No, not her most recently retired phone. That one died in the swimming pool last year.

This was phone was her second cell phone. Ever. It's old. We're talking dinosaur.

Recently, my grandpa lost his cell phone, bought a new one, and then found his lost phone. He really liked the old phone better than the new one, so he gave the new one to me.

My new phone...hmm....how to describe it honestly, and still convince you that I'm thankful for it?

My new phone: It's like my iPod.


I'll explain: My iPod is one of the earliest iPod Nanos. It can hold one little wee GB.


It's not the "latest thing": it can't hold all the song I want it to, play video, connect to the Internet, cook bacon, or any of the other things that newer model iPods/iPhones may or may not be capable of doing...


But it's not the Walkman I had when I was five. I wore that thing out listening to Focus on the Family's Radio Theater The Chronicles of Narnia. Seriously. My Walkman has lived a good life, and exposed me at a fairly young age to C.S. Lewis. I loved that thing.

My new phone is like that. It's not an iPhone, but it could be worse. A lot worse. I'm not complaining at all.


It has a camera.

A camera.

And....Bluetooth.


I'm in heaven. What will I do with such a newfangled gadget?

Green Acres is the place to be...

The sister...

Hide-and-go-seek

Sliding

Meredith

Tee hee...I like this shot. It's blurry, but I think it captures Matthew's personality well.

Meredith

Eh...me..

Clarissa was there, too, but there wasn't a good picture of her. Sorry.

Finger cymbals, camping....and creeping.

After much labor and dedication on my part, I have mastered the complex musical instrument that is...finger cymbals. Tomorrow night I'm playing finger cymbals for Susan Holmes and three other talented ladies. They're singing "Mr. Sandman" (which, by the way, Mrs. Holmes arranged...it's a capella for SSAA and really awesome! ) at the RCAS Benefit Dinner. The Rolla Community Choir (of which I am a member) is performing as well, and we're doing lots of fun stuff! Our program includes an insane arrangement of "Cindy" (like, the folk song), "Isn't It Romantic?" from some movie that I have not seen (I really don't like this song :P), an arrangement of "Simple Gifts" that is pretty nifty, and....my favorite....a massive Irving Berlin medley entitled, "Irving Berlin, A Century of Song." It's wonderful :) I have a wee little solo that goes like this:
"What'll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to?"

Isn't that just the bee's knees.

It's going to be an awesome concert.

I would invite everyone to come, but...as mentioned above...it's a benefit dinner, which means you have to pay a lot of money to get in; you can't just come for the singing.

Sorry, Charlie.

----

We're going camping this weekend, and, even though we aren't going to my favorite place, I'm super excited.

Camping = junk food we don't get at home, chocolate milk, hiking, biking, clover-chain-necklace making, sweet camaraderie, endless telephone games around the campfire, Dr. Pepper pants boy, big fat man in boxers, and little fat man in trunks with that...groan.... harmonica.

The last three are inside jokes based on previous camping experiences.

Oh, that harmonica. That stupid, annoying harmonica.

:)

------

The pool men came today to open our pool. Short version of the story: they left, and hopefully my mum will convince them to come back tomorrow morning to open it. Anyway...I decided that I would make it an annual game of mine to creep on the pool men as they open the pool.

So I did a wee amount of creeping this morning, and, if they come back tomorrow, I'll get out the camera and do some serious creeping.

I hope that's not illegal.

It is?

Rats.

Speaking of rodents...that mole that I buried in the flower garden? He's still in the ground.

For now....

???

I got bit by a spider this evening. It hurts.

I went to a wedding this afternoon. I love weddings :)

I watched Beauty and the Beast tonight. I love the ballroom scene.

I need to go do the dishes. Okay.

"The new Pride and Prejudice movie broke my heart."

There's a group on facebook called, "The new Pride and Prejudice movie broke my heart." Here's the group's description:

"Okay. Keira Knightly is cool. Really. And we understand how a six-hour movie can be tedious. We even acknowledge that we enjoyed it in moderation.

But if you believe that the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie was obnoxiously Hollywood-ized, slander against Elizabeth Bennet, severely lacking in accurate costuming, a parody of every character except Lizzy and Darcy, and generally ridiculous, please acknowledge so.

Item 1: The movie paints Elizabeth Bennet as extremely willful and headstrong, rather than a mature character who rises above the "inferiority of her connections."

Item 2: Who said anything about Darcy first proposing in a rainstorm? More romantic, perhaps, but verging on the ridiculous. Back then, that would have verged on the improper. No, Darcy proposed in a parish, and while this may be less romantic, Hollywood had no need to dirty the proposal scene by over-romanticizing it.

Item 3: A pig ran through the house. A pig. The Bennets were poor, but they were not living in a sty.

Item 4: The need to compact a long story into a two-hour movie is not enough justification to cause every character to talk at speeds that verge on breaking the speed of sound.

Item 5: No one, not even Matthew McFayden, can ever replace Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Enough said. "


I think it's funny.

Note: The fact that "no one...can ever replace Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy" (as mentioned in item 5) doesn't mean that I think Mr. Joel Nisbett didn't do an excellent job portraying Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. He did a marvelous, fantastic job! Colin Firth had a really unfair advantage over Joel and Matthew McFayden. Joel and Matthew McFayden were pretending to be Mr. Darcy. Colin Firth is Mr. Darcy....

:)

The Grapes of Wrath and James Barbour

I just finished The Grapes of Wrath. Is it cruel to say that I was kind of glad when Granpa died? All he did was use profane language and I was sick of reading it. I wish that Connie hadn't left and that Rose of Sharon's baby had lived. It was an unsatisfying book, I thought.

James Barbour has a blog! http://jamesbarbour.blogspot.com/


:)

Anvil Chorus

I've been enjoying having a car for many reasons, one of them being that I can listen to whatever music I want to, because I'm the driver and you're just a passenger, so deal with it! :) Recently, I've been listening to opera, and this one piece in particular has become a favorite.

It's the Anvil Chorus from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", and I think I like it so much because it reminds me of Pirates of Penzance...it just sounds like something Fine Linen would do, if Fine Linen was into operas and if "Il Trovatore" appropriate. I haven't read the synopsis yet.

Okay, I skimmed over the synopsis. I didn't really "get" all of it, but a bunch of people are burned to death. Hmm.

Here's the Anvil Chorus, conducted by this guy with really fantastic hair, Giuseppe Sinopoli:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXFZckzjcKw

I like it.

A Tale of Two Cities = ________________________



I have no words.



John Nisbett gave me the dvd of the concert to watch.



I wept. A lot.

Sit up, lie down, roll over, play dead...

It was funny.
It was thought provoking.
It was witty.
It was engaging.
It was very, very well done.
It made me want to laugh, and it made me want to cry (from laughing too much?).

It was SNOOPY!! :)

It was fantastic.

Everything...the singing, dancing, costumes, music...was beautiful and charming. The Woodstocks stole the show with the adorable "Woodstock Theme", the Lucys were loud mouthed, the Charlie Browns were charmingly wishy washy, the Linuses (Linuses? Lin-i?) were thoroughly educated in all fields pertaining to everything and were always willing to expound, the Sallys were sweetly naive, the Peppermint Pattys were persistent in the pursuit of "Chuck", and the Snoopys were wonderfully "Snoopy-ish." Let's face it...you can't beat red Converse.

My favorite scene? I can't decide. I like them all for different reasons. I loved Isaac Hall's adorable performance as the "crossed in love" Woodstock, I loved John Nisbett's enthusiastic attitude (AND bunny ears) as he hopped on stage as the Easter Beagle, I loved the tap-dancing girls and the unicycling boys, I love, love, loved Anna Nisbett's "Poor, Sweet Baby," I loved the "Clouds" number and the "Going to the Movies" bit and the "Wash Day" bit and "The Great Writer" bit, and I can't wait to see it again tomorrow night and the night after that (I'm working as an usher/handywoman/do-er of whatever needs to be done).

Go see the show! :)

Before the "Dah-nce"

The Light girls, before the dance last Saturday. I look kind of weird and I'm not wearing shoes, which looks even more weird.

Clarissa is a lot taller than me.

The car

In order for me to be of any help with the running around of children to all their activities, we needed another vehicle.




We got a 7 year old Toyota Camry. It's not MY car, but I'm the "primary driver"...so that's cool. I'll probably take it to college in a year and a half.

Woah. That's a little scary.