This Christmas Season - Read the Words!

O come O come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

- image not mine -

That mourns in lonely exile here

 - image not mine -

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Give Thanks and Eat!

I'm amazed at how fast Thanksgiving came and went.  Did you get the same feeling?

I hardly got any pictures this year...not even one of the bird before my dad carved it up.  I guess that's good though - I was thinking about family and having fun and not about blogging.  Find the good in every situation, right?

Here's a picture of our full house - every name on our guest list is present.

I could describe in glowing detail who everyone is, what they do for a living (like Uncle Bill, who is the groundskeeper for the San Diego Chargers field!), and everything we did together...

But you would not enjoy it.  We just have too many in jokes, and if I tried to re-tell everything, it would lose its charm.  So...

Here's another picture.  The cousins!

Stuff we did..........

Saw Tangled.  (My favorite animated movie second only to Up! It was adorable and Rapunzel was so cute.  Even though I sensed a few bad underlying themes, you gotta see it.)

I learned how to play poker.  Not for keeps, of course.  :)   

Went on an excursion.  1 1/2 miles down the highway in the snow to get fried chicken...then we walked back.  It was fun.  And while we were there...

Returned a cell phone to its owner.  My brother found it, so we took it into the restaurant with us and scrolled through all the pictures (grand total of three) and finally, Uncle Bill called the home number and had this conversation.  

"Hello?"

"Who's this?"

"The person who found your phone."

"You found my phone?!"

"If it's your phone, I found it."

He said his name was Dwayne, so we left it at the counter for him to pick up.  Every person that walked into that restaurant was temporarily branded as Dwayne, until Dwayne himself finally walked it.  We didn't give ourselves away, and on the way home all our jokes were centered on Dwayne....oh, and hitchhiking.  With Dwayne.  Poor Dwayne.

Played games.  Battleship, Settlers of Catan, Taboo...and Sequence.  The Original Sequence Team has been going for maybe five years, and the teams consist of Blue: Cousin Frank and my brother John, Green: Cousin Larissa and me, and this year, since Larissa got married, we had to add Jimmy to the mix, so Team Red: Jimmy and Brothers Eli / Will.  

Red did very well, but I think it was partly because Green would much rather have Red win than Blue, and Blue would much rather have Red win than Green.  But Green did not do very well this year.  At least we won the last game.  Last Thanksgiving, Blue didn't win once though, so it was okay.  Here's our yearly team picture.

Ate a lot.  Of course! Sadly, the pecan pie and the peach pie didn't turn out, but the apple and pumpkin were good.  The 24 pound turkey was very good too.  And Thanksgiving Lunch - now that was a wonder all in itself.  Olives, crackers, fancy cheeses, salami, veggies and dip, and dark chocolate make a great feast, don't you think?

  

Naturally, I'm sad today since everyone is gone.  :( But I think a romp in the snow will do the trick.  I'm off!

Love from a very thankful,

Ellyn

I Heart Barnes & Noble

Let's face it...who doesn't?

Tessa Emily Hall from Christ is Write is hosting a GIVEAWAY of a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card! That's right, folks, twenty-five big ones that can go toward books, books, and more books.

Scuttle on over to this link so you can enter.

By the way, Happy Thanksgiving! Our guests are arriving late tonight and I'll do a post on my holiday week after its over.  But I can't think about that now; it's just beginning.

Love,

Ellyn

If I were...

If I were a gemstone, I’d be a peridot.


If I were a scent, I’d be sugarplum!


If I were a pair of shoes, I'd be suede boots with fringe or ruffles.


If I were the weather, I would be the day of the first snow and around 30 degrees.


If I were a facial expression, I'd be serious.  (Even when I'm happy I tend to look sort of mad...)


If I were a car, I'd be a pink Hummer or a girly pick-up truck.


If I were a time of day, I’d be sunrise.


If were a month, I’d be May and November.


If I were a place, I'd be a brook flowing over polished stones.


If I were a liquid, I'd be grapefruit juice.


If I were a taste, I’d be tart apple pie.


If I were a sea animal, I’d be a dolphin.


If I were a food, I’d be a thick slice of french bread slathered with butter .


If I were a color, I'd be turquoise blue.


If I were a musical instrument, I would be the banjo or guitar :)


If I were a flower, I’d be a small violet.


If I were a song, I’d be a soft country song...or a bluegrass tune!


If I were a planet, I’d be Neptune.


If I were an object, I'd be an umbrella stand.  (Caught you off guard, didn't it?)


If I were a fruit, I'd be a wild raspberry.

If I were a day of the week, I’d be Tuesday.  (*shrugs*)

If I were a sound, I’d be the rhythmic beating of horse hooves against earth, or the quiet sound of wind on water.

This tag is for everyone! Thanks, Nela and Olive Tree.

(Horse) Bucket List

I was spending the evening with a great big stack o' Horse & Riders given to me by Margaret Rowena when I came across a "Things to Do With Horses Before You Die" kind of article.  Naturally, I decided to do a blog post on mine.

- Gallop my horse on a beach.
YES! This is one of my most important.  And while I'm at this "beach", I might as well...

- Swim with my horse.
I did this at camp three years ago, I think, and it was safe to say that it was the highlight of the whole week.  And it was a fun week, too.  I rode this big black Percheron named Jack, and one of the counselors led us around in the water.  I could have done it forever, but we only got two turns.  And it'd be way more fun to direct the horse yourself.  :)

- Go foxhunting.  (Draghunting; aka, no real fox.)  I got this idea from the magazine.  Wouldn't it be awesome?

- Go on an overnight horse camping trip.  Ahh, just like Darby and Hoku in the Wild Horse Island series.  Except I don't believe I'd want to be alone.

- Ride with a drill team.  This is one of my more feasible goals.  I just need to do a little research on 4-H drill team.

- Go on a cattle drive.  YESS! A real old-west thing to do, this, with no judges peering over their glasses at you with little notepads.  Hours in the saddle ending with beans and bacon over a campfire, only to wake again and start all over, blissfully sore from so much riding.

- Do the apprenticeship program at Miracle Mountain Ranch.  My parents and I have already discussed this, and I hope to go when I'm 18.  In three years!! This is most of my motivation for PSEO.

- Teach a child to ride.  I've done this for maybe one time per child, but I think it would be cool to actually watch their progress.  One girl I led around on Indy wanted to trot, but I told her I didn't think we could because I told her mom we'd just walk.  Indy, however, had his own ideas and trotted in a little circle in response to some loud noise.  "Well, Grace," I said.  "That was a trot."  She responded with a big grin and a loud, "COOL!!!"

- Learn how to trim hooves.  A very useful skill indeed.

- Do an Extreme Cowboy Race.  Looks extremely hard, but really fun, if you had a good horse for it! Here's a video.




- Ride bareback, bridleless, and well.  I've loped with just a halter, but not with the best control! There was a video of Stacy Westfall I was going to post here, but it was "removed by the user." :( Here's a picture, anyway...(not mine)

I may be ambitious, but no sweat if I don't do any of these before I die...I'll just do them in heaven! :)


Love,

Ellyn

A Book's Cover

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but really, everyone does.  Literally speaking.  A cover can set in your mind what the characters look like and what kind of world you're going to enter when you open up to the first page.

I'm copying Margaret Rowena and doing a post on my most favorite book covers!

This book is really fantastic, and I've had a craving to read it again for quite some time...it's got such a rich, "scrumptious" feeling all through the pages.  McKillip makes you taste the tender roast lamb and feel the briny air on your face.  She really has a gift with imagery.   Here's another one of her covers.

--

I had to include this one.  It looks much more amazing in real life, though.  My dad LOVES this book.  He reads it all the time and he says he wishes I could read it, but as it is, I have to wait until I'm married....

AH! Fall of a Kingdom, a book which holds a fond place in my heart...(though book 2 is my favorite in the trilogy, its cover and that of book 3 are both kind of ish).

EAST! A fabulous book which I've been meaning to do a review on for months.  Sorry this picture is blurry.  Again, its much more amazing in real life, and I could - and have - spent a long time just looking at the detail on that polar bear's raised paw.  

Aagh! Blurry again...I just love this cover...you can see the fire in the girl's eyes and I've always longed to see the rest of her face...the horse is amazing too.  Naturally.

The images in this post are not mine.

What are some of your favorite book covers? And have you read any of these books? What did you think?

P.S. Our snow is melting, so its gone from Christmas to spring in just a day...I'm so confused.

Love, Ellyn

Blizzard!

Ha-ha! I think my state beat all of yours for the earliest and biggest amount of snow.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 4 something to blow my nose and cough.  (I have a cold.)  I looked out the window - something I always do if I wake up in the middle of the night - and saw SNOW! A glorious white layer of snow that made the yard look like a MiniWheat caked with frosting.  :)

Around six-thirty, my brothers and I couldn't wait any longer.  It was still dark, but the snow was falling fast.  And best of all - it was sticky!

My brother making a snowball.

It kept snowing.  The flakes grew bigger and bigger and after breakfast, we put on all of our stuff and went out into the winter wonderland again.  We rolled huge snowballs and I made a snow horse - I would have shown you a picture, but its head fell off.... :)  Snow horses are something my mom always made with us from the time we were small.

Check it OUT! :)

By the end of the day, we had at least four inches.  

Our pond is a beautiful steel gray color...

Later though, we had to shovel the driveway.  Our driveway is made of dirt / gravel, and since the snow was packed with water, it was extremely heavy.  That was a job.  But Dad got the bright idea of rolling snowballs down the driveway.  It didn't work quite as well as we hoped, but it did help lighten our loads.   :)

This morning, my cold was worse and we couldn't go to church because our power was out.  It was supposed to be out until 1 this afternoon, but luckily it came back by 7.

So here I am, holed up in my big old house, writing to you, hugging my littlest brother, and feeling very cozy surrounded by snowdrifts.  I think I'll go put on some Christmas music.




And if the power goes out again, that's okay...I've got a nice warm hat...   

There's plenty of firewood outside...

And our new wood stove is burning downstairs.

Besides...with a family like mine, who needs electricity? :)

Love, Ellyn