Good Bye 2010! Hello 2011!

Well, another year is coming to a close! This has been a truely wonderful year! I have enjoyed all of the good things and realized that the bad things that have happened have happened for a reason. The five most wonderful and memorable things that have happend in my life this year are:
1. My gaining four --yes, four-- nieces this year! Three of which came into my family by adoption (which is a wonderful thing!)
2. The building of my barn! Even though it isn't finished yet! It has been and continues to be a wonderful learning experience for everyone that works on it and it has also provided plenty of material for my blog.
3. Getting my learner's permit! I read the driver's manual, studied for the test, paid to take the test, and passed the test all by myself! I was/am so proud!
4. Going to the Southern Regional 4-H Competition in Clemson, South Carolina and getting to compete in Hippology (the scientific word for the study of horses). And my team even placed in two of the five devisions! We got third in team problems and fifth in horse judging!
5.Going to the letterboxing event. It was so neat to see how a hobby can bring so many interesting and different people from all walks of life together.
After looking back on the past I feel that it's high time to look to the future! On my list of things to accomplish/do/work at/etc. is:
1. Grow closer to God through reading my Bible and praying. I hope to read through the entire Bible in 2011.
2. Live a healthier lifestyle.
3. Get/stay caught up in school.
4. Read more. More classics, review books, inspirations, fiction, fantasy, maybe even a couple of biographies!
5. Blog more. I've only written half of what I should have this year!
That's all I have to blog about for 2010! What are your momorable moments from 2010 and what are your goals for 2011? I'd love to hear about them!

Christmas

Oh my! I can't believe Christmas has come and gone already! This was the most wonderful Christmas yet! I had all of the family gatherings, shopping trips, delicious dinners, and of course delightful presents I could wish for! Let me start from the beginning! My brother and his family came up about a week before Christmas. While they were here we went on the Annual Sibling Shopping Trip (where just Clay, Paige, Stephanie, Jack, and I go shopping), The Butler family Christmas Party (my mom's side), The Eavenson Family Christmas Party (my dad's side), and the family photo shoot. The most exciting of all of those activities was definitely the family photo shoot! Oh boy! It was one crazy day! (You can read more about that event here.) We had a wonderful time together and I was sorry to see my brother and his family leave on Christmas Eve even though I knew they had to if they wanted to get to Paige's family's farm before Christmas. After they left we all got new pajamas on Christmas Eve and Christmas presents on Christmas day. I love everything I got and I think everyone else does too! It's important to peer behind the commercialism sham and remember, appreciate and give thanks for the real reason for the season! Christmas day commemorates the day when the Son of God was born and God's plan to save us began to unfold. Merry belated Christmas!

A Christmas Miracle

It was family picture day! Everyone got all dressed up and we posed away! We were having a pretty good time, but of course all good things must come to an end! We were out in the front yard right next to the horse fence and "friendly" Red Rock wanted attention. Everyone was at their wits end with him because he just wouldn't go away or leave us alone! That's all well enough until you ad the fact that we had all three of the family dogs out there and two of them were off leash and just happened to have hidden herding talents! Well, there went Buddy and Chase chasing and barking and biting at Red Rock. Red Rock was not about to be run off so easily though! He started kicking, biting, bucking, and snaking (an aggressive herding behavior used by dominant horses to discipline disobedient underlings) at the dogs. There were several close calls for both of the pups, but then there was one well placed kick and one poorly placed dog head that ended with Buddy knocked out cold. He slowly rose up after almost being stomped (but Red Rock changed his mind about killing Buddy after Buddy was incapacitated) to death. Instead of walking Buddy limped, the convulsed and kept falling over. We all thought he was a goner! There was a lot of Crying and praying as Jack and Stephanie rushed Buddy to the vet! Buddy isn't just any dog-- he's Faith's dog. Those two love each other to death and Faith would be heart broken if Buddy died! Here's the Christmas miracle part: Buddy is fine! Not a broken bone or even a concussion! The vet said he was knocked out for a moment and probable had a seizure, but everything else is fine! Whew we were all very relieved!

The Event

No, not the T.V. show, the letterboxing event. So, I've been looking forward to this event for months! I love to letterbox and I thought it would be cool to meet other letterboxers and to make some exchanges (you swap signature stamp images with other 'boxers). Mom and I went to the event today! It was so much fun! We got there early and were a little nervous, but the host made us feel perfectly at home. We went in, logged into the event book (the book that's there to keep up with everyone that came), and stamped the event stamps into our books, fixed a plate of food, and started making exchanges. We probably met around thirty people, exchanged with about as many and that was only half the people there! Everyone was super nice. We enjoyed explaining our trail names and putting faces with the stamps and trail names that we've seen before. It was a very diverse group of people! There were little kids, teenagers, twenty-somethings all the way through senior citizens! It was a wonderful experience just getting to chat with everybody! At one time the host walks up to me and asks, "Do you know what getting cootied means?" I said yes and asked if I happened to have any cooties on me (cooties are little itty bitty stamps that travel from person to person. They can be on clothespins, hair clips, in boxes, anything. They don't have to have logbooks and usually don't. Once cootied you log them in your book and hide them on another person, in an unattended purse or coat, etc.) it turned out that I had two attached to my hoodie at the time. I logged them in my book and infected someone else with them. Before we left I checked my hoodie for more cooties and didn't find any. Well, I had only thought I had escaped! When I got home I discovered three more cooties! Two in my bag and one on my hoodie! What fun! :)

Letterboxing at Stone Mountain

Today, Mom and I set off to Stone Mountain Park for some letterboxing and other fun stuff. We started with the ambitious goal of finding seven letterboxes in one outing. We started in an area of the park that we were pretty familiar with and we were pretty confident in our ability to find the two boxes there. Both clues mentioned the same very specific landmark. Well, we found about 6 such places, but none of them were the landmark. We had been searching for over half an hour when Mom mentions that the picture in one of the clues appears to have been taken from waaaaaaay up. So, we broadened our search zone and ,finally, I spotted the landmark! There were only a few obstacles between me and success! One of those obstacles just happened to be a huge (over five foot high) "step" up. After climbing up and over the ledge, I hiked the remaining seventy-five steep yards (after the first hundred and fifty yards) up the mountain to the first letterbox. Yay! Success! But there was one more letterbox and I had come way too far and taken too much time to leave without retrieving both boxes! Well, the mountain got steeper as I breathlessly climbed the last thirty or so yards and snagged that last box! Victory was mine! Now all I had to do was try not to break my neck as I made my way back to the landmark where Mom was waiting. By this time, my knees were shaking because I was both tired and afraid. We stamped the stamps and hid the first box. Then I had to drag myself back up there and hide the second box. The hardest and scariest part was the descent because there are tons of little rocks and a few ice patches on an already steep mountainside, but thankfully Mom and I both made it down safely. At the end of our adventure I reiterated the fact that letterboxing takes you to places you would never have been otherwise-- like halfway up the backside of Stone Mountain! Haha! Don't get me wrong- the view was great (I could see the lake over the treetops and a ton of the surrounding landscape) and the boxes were cool and the adventure was fun! Plus it only took us a little over an hour and a half!

Homeless for the Holidays

Homeless for the Holidays is a wonderful, charming, inspirational, heartwarming, family friendly movie! This is the perfect movie to watch this time of year. I really enjoyed watching Homeless for the Holidays with my family. I especially loved that it’s a movie with an important message. In Homeless for the Holidays you follow the story of a successful man who goes from climbing the corporate ladder as fast he can to losing everything he has just in time for the holidays. Along the way he realizes that the important things in life are not the things that are bought and sold, but that faith and family are what life is really about. He also discovers the importance and joy of giving. This movie was awarded five out of five Dove Seals by the Dove Foundation which means this movie is family approved and you can’t say that about very many movies now. Another “fun fact” about this movie is that it is based on a true story. I really enjoyed watching this movie and I hope that you do too.

(I received this product for free from the BuzzBlogger program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255)

A Barn Raising. Part 6.

The Barn

Uncle Steve returned to us this past Sunday and we are all greatly relieved. Carter was unable to come because he got a job (from what I understand it involves bug catching for science.) He is greatly missed by all (especially when something heavy needs lifting down at the barn. lol) Uncle Steve, Dad and Jack have made great progress and the barn is really taking shape. We now have a hay loft floor, the first section of the ridge board and a couple of the second tier of rafters. It's so exciting to see it all come together!



The loft floor from below



It's a long way down



Hard at work



The floor



A precarious position



They inspect their work



Quite literally, The End.

The Seven Minue Difference and The Seven Minute Daily Planner by Allyson Lewis

After her life changing seven minute experience, Allyson Lewis wrote The Seven Minute Difference. She has laid out a practical plan for success full of easy-to-accomplish small steps. Allyson Lewis has a great writing style which makes this book one of the few nonfiction books that I can really say that I’ve enjoyed reading. She points out and explains everything that you need to know to succeed including the importance of knowing your purpose, having written goals and using small steps. The Seven Minute Life Daily Planner is the perfect companion to the book. It is easy to use and practical. All of the pages are laid out well and it provides plenty of instructions so that you can be confident that you know what you are doing. It provides a place where you can define your purpose, prioritize, and set goals (big or small) and achieve them one small step at a time. I’ve already recommended this book and planner combination to friends and family and will continue to do so because I believe that everyone can benefit from reading this book and using the planner.

(I received this product for free from the BuzzBlogger program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255)

My Trip to Mississippi

I recently returned from a fun, family trip to Mississippi. My family (my mom, dad and I plus my sister, her husband and their 6 children [Zhenya, Katya, Anya, Kristina, Faith, and Caleb]) went to see my brother, Clay, sister-in-law, Paige, nephew, Cade, niece, Clair, and my newest niece, Baby Caris (insert "awwww" here). We made the journey so that we could celebrate Cade's birthday and see everybody. It was awesome! They had the party at Mitchell Farms which is a fun farm and working farm owned and operated by Paige's grandparents, The Mitchells. We had a great time doing everything there was to do at the farm including the corn maze, the pool of corn (yes, you can play in a giant pool full of corn), playing on the playground, taking the tour of the farm in the tractor-pulled wagon, seeing all of the animals in the animal barn (they have ducks, quail, a rabbit, a fox, sheep, a miniature donkey, chickens, and even a pair of peacocks!), and seeing all of the historic buildings. We also got some behind the scenes stuff like getting to ride in the vintage Jeep (it's over 50 years old and still runs) all over the 4-wheeler trails with my brother (that was one of my favorite parts). I had an awesome time! I got to travel to a state that I've never been to before, hold Baby Caris (feel free to "awwww" again), hang out with my brother and his family, have a great time at Mitchell Farms, stay at a hotel (which was really nice, had cable and an incredible free breakfast spread! Did I mention we got to stay for free thanks to Marriott points?), and letterbox in another state (found a 'box and planted one too!) So, to sum it up: Mississippi was awesome! :)

10/10/10

The Cake!

Today was my birthday! It has been an absolutely awesome day! I had five of my friends come over yesterday and we went to see the movie Secretariat (Which was great!) then almost everybody spent the night at my house. Today we went to church and then came back to my house for cake and ice-cream. My sister made the coolest cake ever! It looked exactly like what our barn is going to look like! I couldn't believe how good it looked! For my birthday I got gift certificates, money, a book, personalized horseshoes, and a wall hanger for the barn for holding jackets, halters and the like. I am also in the process of getting barn! :) One of my favorite things was when my brother called and gave me some great advice. He said, "Don't waste your life. Work hard or do what you love, but don't just sit around." Clay, I plan on doing both of those things in the years to come (The working hard and doing what I love part not the sitting around part)! Thanks to everyone who made today so special!

Love,
Beth, who thinks that this was the best birthday yet!