UPDATE about our life

A singing Christmas tree

    Yeah, nothing too special about this post.  It's just about us again.  Were you really expecting an update about something that would really be beneficial to your every day life.  You were?  Oh, my bad, I misunderstood you.  I thought you said yes.  I will stop this nonsense and start talking about something more sensible.  As you may have noticed there is a picture of a Christmas tree with lights on it at the top of this post.  The Christmas tree is rather impressive because people can walk into this Christmas, sing and then it can be called a singing Christmas tree.  It is so creative that someone had to create it about thirty years ago.  God just doesn't make brains like he used to. 

  Last week our youth group went to the Dickens Festival in Garrison, North Dakota.  We went there for the parade and drama that happens there every year.  While we were watching the parade I did not have a chance to take a picture.  My excuse for this crime is because it was to cold and short.  The play, which was called "Tiny Tim's Christmas", did not allow for pictures to be taken during the action.  Every they do a play that is based on "The Christmas Carol".  This year they made Tiny Tim the Scrooge.  Tiny Tim owned a little toy shop but did not treat his employees or customers in a friendly matter.  Nonetheless the little shop was successful.  The Scrooge died about three weeks before Christmas Eve.  In the play the Scrooge played the role of Jared Marley and haunted Tiny Tim.  It was very interesting and enjoyable. 



Cherry Cordials



  I am sure that pretty soon people will be ranting about all their Christmas goodies that they are making.  That is good for you all and I will be happy that you have once again found a way to stock up on the goodies in the Christmas season so you can have a new years resolution to lose weight.  I think I do this every year.  This year I decided not only to rant about the Christmas goodies but also rave about them.  My mother has already make sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, and ginger snaps.  Who in the world created the names of these cookies?  For instance, lets take sugar cookies.  Doesn't every cookie have sugar in it?  What does snickerdoodles have to do with anything?  I am not even to start talking about ginger snaps, I don't like them.  Today she started making cherry cordials, peanut butter balls, and coconut balls.  I understand that your keyboard is probably ruined right now because of all the saliva that has dripped out of your mouth onto your keyboard, but please hold with me until this post is over.  Some of these cherry cordials we are going to have to sacrifice and give them to the church for our Christmas cookie trays that are compiled every year.  But boy am I going to enjoy those peanut butter balls.  You put one into

The peanut butter balls are missing their chocolate

your mouth and let it melt away until it is gone, when you get to this point you put another one into your mouth.  We haven't even been able to get to talk about the coconut balls, but that is alright.  Somethings are better if you don't talk about them.  If I were to talk about those coconut balls you would become so jealous that you would come to my house and try to rob us.  I have one more picture I am going to put on this post.  It is one that might surprise some but is probably the starting of something new.  I am going to call this portion the picture of the post.  Remember the comment section is open to anyone that would like to comment about any of the pictures on this post or any of the random and confusing thoughts that I try to put together in a semi-sensible matter.   But anyways here is the picture...

That is my dad

Transition Ceremony

  Yesterday we became famous.  We took a trip down to Bismarck to be with now former governor Hoeven and then governor-elect Dalrymple.  We spent around 45 minutes listening to them talk about how North Dakota has improved since they became governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.  The meeting started at 11:30 but we decided that we would not be late and showed about an hour early.  During this time we were interviewed and are now an internet sensation with the two-line paragraph that was published on the Fargo Forum's (it is the third paragraph from the bottom) website.  After the meeting was over we decided to turn down luch with the former governor, governor, and lieutenant governor (Drew Wrigley).  We needed to get to other important things.  It was very interesting to see how things work in a meeting that all the congressman are at.  There were more standing ovations than I could fathom which were all put to the rest with the sound of a gavel hitting wood.  Everything had to have a second in order for it to happen all the way down to the governor-elect entering and exiting the room.  Good thing that is not the way it is at home because nothing would get done then.

Its not about the title, its about the post

  I am going to express my condolences to everyone that judges blog posts by its title.  This post practically does not have a title, but we are not supposed to judge things by the outside appearance because it is about the inside that counts.  Either way you should probably just go to the next post because neither side is very impressive.  But if you still want to read this post then read on and I hope that you are enlightened to things that are going on on this side of the world.

My cookies vs. their cookies

  To start off we are going to talk about how cookies are best.  I really like to eat cookie dough without chocolate chips.  It is so delicious and soft, you have to try it some time.  I have now took this a step further and bake this cookie dough into just regular cookies.  My parents and siblings do not agree with my taste buds and so I tried to please them with these late addition of chocolate chips.  You can tell that the chocolate chips are on top of the cookies instead of in the cookies.  You can also definitely tell that the cookies without chocolate chips look better than those that do have chocolate chips.

church parking lot

  While all of you guys in Oregon are able to enjoy your showers of rain, we here in North Dakota are getting sick (literally) of these flurries of snow and temperatures, including wind chill, in single digits.  Sometimes those single digits have a plus sign but other times they have a minus sign.  It has been snowing all day today, at least as long as I have been awake.  My parents had to cancel some plans because of the snow and instead spend the day at the hospital, something that they have been doing a lot lately (not because of any illness within our family).  Today we are getting by without seeing more than a mile because of the snow.

  Last and definitely least I am going to bring you the picture of the day.  By the way when I said "definitely least" that was not referring to the person in the picture but rather this part of the post.  When you tell someone that you are attending college they usually either think that you are smart and intelligent and are in the process of increasing those attributes or that you are on the dimmer side of the world and are trying to figure out how to turn the light switch on.  They also think that you are in up-to-your-ears in work and probably do not have much time for sleep.  Well the picture of today is going to show you how college students really study.  Hope you all have a great Holiday season and that all the kids are able to get a couple of days out of school because of snow.  Here is the picture...

New way to study, have computer look at you instead of you looking at computer

Funeral

 Today we celebrated the life of someone that meant a lot to Apostolic Faith Church.  Sis. Olga Newman was one of the oldest saints in the church.  Not just in physical age but also in spiritual age.  She had been attending AFC for over 30 years.  When she passed last Tuesday she was 96.

  This is the second funeral that my dad has had to perform since we moved to North Dakota.  If I ever went into the ministry I would hate to perform a funeral.  It is one of the toughest times to be able to reason with someone because they are going through such a hard time in their life.  You have to be very careful with the words that you use because one wrong word could offend the whole family.  But he has managed and has done a good job.  The previous funeral was for a kid that was like seven years old, it was vastly a different kind of funeral than this one.

 

Black Friday

  Thing morning I got up around 3:30 am (the sun is not yet up) to go shopping at the mall and Best Buy.  I stood in the cold and the Best Buy line for around ten minutes.  I jumped on the wonderful opportunity to get my name out there by getting interviewed by two college students who were bored just like me.  After walking around the wall for many hours I began to become slightly delirious.  I had the wonderful idea to walk up to a random person in the mall and ask them the wonderful question of "You look familiar, I think I know you" they would always reply "You don't look familiar" and I would be like "I think I saw you at Disney Land" and they would be like "probably not" and then I would say "My bad" and walk away.  Some of you probably thought that I was joking when I said that I tried to cause trouble on Black Friday, you are wrong.  Another time we were standing in line in Scheels and the lady behind got on her phone and started to talking to her mom.  She said that she ddn't know what to buy of something and so they bought one of each.  She also said that they maxed our their credit cards and had to start using other people's.  Garret and I got the brilliant ideas to get on our phones and act like we were talking on the phone to our moms.  What we talked to our moms about was supposed to be funny and for entertainmnet purposes only.  Eventually, I made it home, read my book and then I CRASHED.  Now I am alive again and trying to cause some other trouble.  Hope you all got in the spirit and had a great time shopping on Black Friday.

Thanksgiving Day

  Sorry about not posting and telling you all Happy Turkey Day (there are certain restrictions on this blog and I am not allowed to say that other term) (Just Joking).  I stayed up until around 5:30 and welcomed in the great day with a smile.  Preston and Garret Pearson were over at our house and spent the night.  We had a great time.  We woke up for a great "Thanksgiving" (Excuse me) Breakfast around 11:00 am which consisted of potatoes, french toast, pumpkin scones, syrup, utensils to eat the food, and that was about it.  At around 4:00 o'clock we went over to the elder Pearson's house and enjoyed a great Thanksgiving Dinner.  After we left the Pearsons's house we searched around town for a Thanksgiving Day Newspaper and were unsuccessful.  The whole Pearson family receives a big shout-out on the world renown blog for giving us an invite to their house to enjoy a great Thanksgiving Dinner.  What made it even better was the fact that they did serve Ham which would almost account for them worthy to receive a double shout-out.  Pigs are much bettter than turkies in my world.  I have a million dollar question with no reward.  Why in the world is Thanksgiving Day called Turkey Day and Christmas is called X-mas or such but Black Friday is not called "day you wake up early in the morning and spend lots of money and are really tired" Day.  Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Home School Field Trip

  Last week we took a trip down to Bismark and visited our state capital.  It was a very interesting tour that we went on.  Personally, I think that it would be very cool to go to a state legislative session.  It is very interesting how everything works.  Back a long time before I was born they decided to build this new capital building.  They decided that it should be the tallest building in North Dakota.  Even before they decided to build this mini skyscraper for our capital building they had another building that served as the building for our capital.  In one of the legislative sessions there was something proposed to build a new capital building this proposal was shot down but soon after that the capital building just happened to burn down.  Now the state of North Dakota had no other option but to build a new capital building.  It was then decided to build this capital building.  This all happened right around the time of the great depression.  Our capital building is the tallest building in North Dakota with a total of eighteen stories.  When you are on the top floor you can see for around thirty miles.  After that we went to the Heritage Center which was not quite as interesting.  Here are a few pictures of this adventure...

Corn Maze

  Now that it is almost December and fall here in North Dakota is well behind us.  I decided that it would be a good job of posting about the trip to the corn maze we took around a month or two ago.  We had a fun time playing on the hay bails and somehow figuring out the maze without taking any wrong turns.  We had a blast.  It turned that we would go again a second time with our youth group.  It was my mission to get lost and try to scare other people. Here are a couple of pictures of the big ordeal...

Hunting Trip

  A couple of weeks ago we went on our hunting adventure.  We drove almost two hours north to a campground that is close to Bottineau.  We stayed the night in a cabin that is at a campground.  There were a total of two deer shot, both of them were does.  Garret and Nate, respectively (always wanted to use that word probably not a good time to use but I am in a free country), were the hunters that accomplished this feat.  We had a great time which included great fellowship, good food, and excluded sleep. 

Time flies by...when you are busy

    It is November and we have had only one snow storm.  There is not much to show for that storm right now because the sun is trying to get us warmed back up again.  With the sun still showing, people have been trying to do as much as possible in the little time they have before winter really hits.  That would include doing small things like building houses and stuff like that.  Yesterday we drove about an hour south of Minot and helped someone lay some concrete for their basement.  They knew that we are really skilled in this area and were very glad that we were able to make it...or maybe not.  It did not take that long with all the help that was there.  It really is not that hard to do if at least one person knows what he is doing.  This weekend hunting season starts.  Last year we shot at some animals but they ran away, this year we are going to try not to let that happen.  While we were at the farm my dad was able to sight in the devices that are used to spew a bullet  out of its muzzle at a very fast pace.  He found that one of the guns definitely needed some help, it was way off target.  After some adjusting, it can now hit what the person holding the gun wants it to hit under one condition.  This is a condition that is known to all mankind, it has to be aimed at the animal.  Next week we are going to take our trek out in the wilderness and hope to bring something dead home .  We will definitely need a lot of prayer, you all may be able to accommodate us in that area.

  It is crazy to think that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner.  It seems like yesterday that I woke up at 3:00 in the morning to go cause some trouble in the mall on Black Friday and now I will have another opportunity in about three weeks.  Life does not get much better than that.   Christmas, for us, will be a month after Thanksgiving. After Christmas we will have the wonderful opportunity to start doing quizzing once again.  I am sure some of you are thinking that I don't really sound all that excited about quizzing, I would say that you are wrong and that I am definitely excited about quizzing this year.  Things are coming up, happening, then becoming history.  And now this post is officially history.

After the Storm

  The storm actually got half bad last night.  We ended up having to cancel church.  More than anything the roads were very icy.  The wind was blowing at a constant 40 mph with gusts over 50 mph.  We are glad that it is over and the sun is out trying to melt everything so that we can return to our summer.  The crazy thing about the whole storm is the two weeks leading up to the crazy thing the temperature was in the 60s and 70s.

Not everything is covered in snow but the wind was able to make some pretty big drifts.

We've Been Hit

I, on this day October 26, 2010, woke up to the threat that eventually became a reality.  IT IS SNOWING! :(  ALREADY! IT IS OCTOBER!!!  There is a chance that there will be an accumulation of up to five inches tonight and up to three new inches tomorrow.  We are not the only ones in the Union that have a chance of getting snow.  The temperature was around 18 degrees including the wind chill.  Right now the wind is consistently at around 38 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.  That takes a lot of gel, mousse, and hairspray to keep the hair intact.  So far today there has not been a lot of accumulation; I would not be surprised if tonight that changed.  Here are a couple of pics

Checking In

  The last couple of days weeks have been really busy so I have not had much opportunity to update the blog.  Last week, while my parents were at General Conference, the annual Hostfest was held in Minot.  People from all over the United States and probably a couple from across the globe came to attend the "GRAND" event.  The event has something to do with the Norwegian heritage thing.  My brother and I went on a twenty minute self-guided tour of the thing and found that it was something that should remain for the Norwegians and the people that are fifty and over.  I was trying to figure out how much the people that came got paid.  I am not sure what the cost of a ticket was, but it was a fair amount.  The reason why my brother and I were there was because our church helps set-up chairs for the concerts that happen twice a day there.  It keeps you rather busy.  My parents seemed to have a good time at conference.  They were able to see old friends and some that weren't  quite so old.

  School has been going great for all of us kids.  Jared has a day-off tomorrow for "assessment day".  Something that, by the sound of it, could possibly be a little bit scary.  As for me, I am just hanging in there plugging away each school day trying to meet the "very high and lofty" goals that I have set for myself.  My sister is trying to maintain getting her school done by noon and has been doing a great job at it.  She spent last week at the Sletten's Farm while my parents were at Conference.

  It looks as though life won't be slowly down anytime soon so the blog may not be updated as much as I would like.  Trust me I want the blog to be updated it is just hard to sometimes find the time and other times find the stuff to blog about.  Bear with us please.

~Jonathan

Nothing Much

We started our third week of school today.  Things are going great in that category.  Jessica has had it her goal to be done with her schoolwork by the time noon rolled around and has been doing a good job at accomplishing this task.  I am also trying to get my schoolwork done around that time and am also accomplishing this task more often then not.  The problem for me is that this is only the third week of school and the hard stuff really has not started yet.  This year I am taking Spanish, Geometry, Chemistry, United States History, and eleventh grade English.  Jessica is taking everything a second grader has to.  There has not been much stuff going on lately.  This weekend a neighboring church is having revivals services and a lock-in one night.  Yesterday we took a trip on down to Bismarck.  

Summer Recap

  This post will recap things that happened this summer.  Some of those things will include Nationals, Youth Camp and much more.

  This summer started out in a very sad way.  In a city called Bismarck, about 110 miles south of Minot, a quiz tournament took place.  The results of this tournament made some of us take a deeper look at our life.  It made me realize that I could study just a tad bit harder.  Many of my former coaches know how hard I work.  The results of this tournament hinged upon one question...it ended up hurting us very bad.  Our feelings, pride and confidence were diminished in that loss to Bismarck.

  The good news was that the next day we took off for Oregon to enjoy our summer vacation.  we arrived in Hubbard on Monday night after driving straight through.  We had a fun vacation with our family.  It was great to see them and not our quiz cards.  We also enjoyed going back to Bethel.  Here is a link to our family vacation photos.

  We got back from Oregon on Friday night and were able to watch some fireworks in our church parking lot as we arrived at our house.  Sunday night we took off for Family Camp to enjoy a great week with friends and God.  As I wrote in an early blog post Bro. Erskine from North Carolina and Bro. Conners from Arizona came up and preached the Camp for us. It was a great week.  It was especially great that the kids beat the preachers in the softball game.

  The next weekend was our Youth Trip.  We ended up going on a canoe trip to Riverdale.  It was a lot of fun we camped Friday night and the next morning we took off in those canoes.  There was a great adventure that happened on this trip that I recapped in a previous post.  On Friday we were practicing and somehow the canoe that I was in got tipped, if you want all the details you can click on the link I made.  I have forgiven the person that tipped the canoe and have gotten contacts since then.  Hopefully that will not happen again.

  We got back from this trip on a Saturday and on Sunday mooorning my cousins got from Oklahoma arrived at our house.  Melanie, Mark and Matthew arrived like at two in the morning, I was not awake to greet them.  We had a great time with them visiting several different places. Here is a slide show recapping those moments...


The Saturday following their departure we had a parade which our church participated in.  It was a lot of fun walking however log it was in the sun and handing out fliers.  After that our youth group went to the State Fair.  That was a little bit more fun.  Here are a couple pictures of the parade...


  The Thursday following the Parade we took off in the church van and headed for St. Louis.  Of course our plan was not to lose the two games that my team played, but it just happened that way.  We stopped at the Omaha Zoo on the way down.  On Saturday we visited the St. Louis Arch and went on a vessel that was able to carrier you on water.  Later on that day we would find out how tough of a draw that we got in the first round.  Our feelings, pride and confidence that was hurt at finals was smashed so bad at Nationals that we have put a search warrant out for it.  If we were in the army it would be called either a prison of war or MIA, I am not sure of which one it would be considered.  Either the other team stole it or it is MIA.  After both our team had lost their two games we headed out to a mall that was in St. Louis.  We consoled ourselves by spending money, what better way to do it.  We enjoyed the go-karting and laser tag that we played.  On our trip home we went out of the way a little bit and stopped at the MALL OF AMERICA.  The quizzer (except me), Bro. Vaughn and Jessica went to the amusement park and enjoyed themselves while my father and I played some miniature golf.  The next day we headed for home.  Here are a few pictures of the trip...


The Tuesday we got back from Nationals we headed our for Youth Camp.  Bro. Shay Mann from headquarters did the preaching and teaching.  He did a great job in both sessions.  I had a fun time hanging out with friends, staying up late and, in reality, not getting into too much trouble.  I tried to but it did not work out fro me.  Better luck next year I guess. 

  Other than all that we did not really do that much this summer.  Today we loaded the schoolwork on my computer and got the dates all set for school.  This coming Wednesday I am going to have to try and knock some stuff of the walls.  Jared started school at the beginning of this week.  I hope this post was not to boring to read.  Hope you all have a great school year!

~Jonathan

Something to Blog About

  Today Jared started school for the semester.  He had to go to a whoppin' two classes.  One was something to do with computers and the other was to do with statistics.  He has a long road ahead of him with school and work.  Like I said in a earlier post Jessica and I do not start school until next Wednesday which would be Sept. 1.

  Yesterday we went out to the Sletten's Farm and had a good time.  My mom endeavored into canning some delicious peaches while my dad, Jason, his dad, and I had nothing much to do.  Right now is the time that they are trying to harvest but the weather was not good yesterday.  Jason said that they had gone for eight days straight before yesterday. They were able to do about ten minutes of combining while we were there.  My dad and I rode with them as they combined. It is interesting how it all works. 

Things of Life

  Ever since we got back from nationals we have been very busy.  Last week we had Youth Camp we had our youth camp which was great.  Bro. Shay Mann came up to North Dakota and did a great job.  The campers were able to beat the staff in both volleyball and softball.  We had a great time and are now having to turn our lives toward school.  Jared starts around the 22nd and I start Sep. 1st.  Hopefully we are endeavoring into a great school which will be full of fun, success and a little bit of work.  The blog needs a major makeover but I have not had the time lately.  Sorry about the mess. 

Nationals Trip Day 5

We ended up killing ourselves and losing to Tennessee 2.  The experienced team is done for the tournament but the intermediate team is still chugging along they are going to be playing second quiz this morning and we are definitely hoping that they will be able to pull it off.

Nationals Day Trip 5

Yesterday we were not able to pull of a win against Texas 2.  Going into question 17 all we had to do was get the next three but we were not able to get a questionable 17.  Today we play Tennessee 2 and are hoping to turn the tide. 

Nationals Trip Day 4

Last night we had our draw and it ends we will be facing Texas 2 around 11:30 am today.  You can follow at upcquiz.com.

Nationals Trip Day 3

We made it into St. Louis last night around 11:30.  It was a nice long trip.  We stopped by the Omaha Zoo that morning and then started the rest of our journey down here.  We made it at last.  Quizzing registration starts at 7:00 tonight.  You can follow the quizzing online at upcquiz.com.  Actual quizzing starts tomorrow  at around 9:00 am.

Checking In

Things are going dandy out here in North Dakota.  Tomorrow we are taking off for the great city of St. Louis.  It is there that we will be trying to compete in the NABQT.  We have studied a little bit and are hoping that things will fall where we want them.  After that excursion we will be getting back just in time for Junior Camp which our quiz coach has to attend.  

Family Vacation Photos

Sorry about the long wait for some pictures but they are finally here.  Things have been crazily busy the last little bit. 

The Weekend

This weekend we had the pleasure of going on a canoe trip with our youth group.  It was much fun.  There were only two canoes that tipped and both times they were in practice sessions.  This is how it happened:  There was a water fight going on between the people in my canoe and the people in Jared's canoe.  My canoe had efficientely beaten them in the water fight when they were trying to get lots of water on us and tipped their canoe.  One of the kids in Jared's canoe went and climbed into our canoe, which was not smart.  The other person in my canoe, Jim, called out and said that someone should get the other canoe so we could row onto the shore.  The kid that climbed into our canoe took it upon himself to jump out of our canoe and tipped our canoe also.  We all had a great time and are still friends.  The weekend was capped when Melanie, Mark, and Matthew made it to our house at around 2:00 in the morning.

Happy Birthday

On this memorable day in history it is my father's birthday.  Just five years ago some of you fellow friends and family of mine sat in a backyard on Cornell Rd. in Hillsboro celebrating his 40th birthday.  Today he is celebrating his 45th birthday.  If you would like to try and encourage him you are more than welcome to, please leave a comment.

Busy

Sorry about the lack of posts on this blog over the last little bit.  We just got back from family camp yesterday and I was soooo tired.  We had a great trip to Oregon.  We really enjoyed seeing our family once again.  We stopped by Bethel and had an awesome time there.  We had a fine trip. 

  Family Camp was awesome.  Bro. Conners from Tuscon, Arizona and Bro. Erskine from Newport, North Carolina did a spectacular job.  The motto of camp was having a Friday night service every service, when finally Friday night came there was not that much jumping and aisle running but the Lord move mightily in that service and lives were changed.

Checking In

We have left Oregon and are lodging in Long Beach, Washington.  No need to worry, or maybe you should, we will be going back to Oregon.  Tomorrow we will make the trek back to Hubbard and will await the family reunion.  We went Seaside today but were not able to get a motel at Seaside or Astoria so we had to head over the bridge and go to Long Beach. Tomorrow will require a lot of driving but we will eventually get to Hubbard.  See you all later.

Musings from Minot, Uh Oregon

   We were not able to accomplish the thinkable and get first place at finals.  We will be heading to nationals in August.  Hopefully we are a little bit more successful. 

  We got into Oregon Monday night.  We left after softball on Sunday, drove straight through the night and the day and made it to Oregon.  Right now I am being pulled from the computer to go somewhere.  I will post some other time. 

Quick Note

Jared did make the team, also.  He was not tested at quiz practice, but on the way to work with his quiz coach.  Hopefully things will go successful today.  I am very tired.  I had to wake up at 6:15, problem was I had lots of trouble going to sleep with all of the nerves.  I will try to post the results as soon as possible which may end up being tomorrow.

Happy Anniversary

Today is my parents 22nd wedding anniversary.  If you would like, you can leave a comment.  Reality is you live in a free country and you are not forced to, so please use your rights.

Bible Quizzing

  Today we had our quote day amidst thunder storms and rain.  Not literally in the midst of it, we were inside the church.  I passed in weird yet lovely fashion.  I was through chapter 16 when my coach told me that I did not have to quote anymore.  Come to find out he was under the wrong impression and I should have quoted through the rest of the chapters.  Thankfully I did not have to and I made the team.  We will be having finals on Saturday and I will probably be forced to post the results on Sunday.  Hopefully things will go as planned.

Musings from Minot

  The last little bit has been a little bit hectic.  Sorry about the lack of posts on this blog.  In reality there has not been anything of much interest to post about.  Some of the highlights of the week was when the England goalie fumbled the ball into his goal for a point for the USA.  When ever soccer brings you one of the memorable things in your week you know something is wrong. 

  Thursday of this week we will be tested by our quiz coaches to see how ready we are for finals.  My understanding is that everyone will quiz at finals, but possibly not nationals.  Jared and I know all of our material but are still attempting to study hard for finals.  We definitely want to get first place.  This is Jared's last year and we want it to be memorable.

  The weather here in North Dakota is so unpredictable.  One day is rainy and very gloomy and then the next it is sunny.  From Thursday to Saturday of last week it was terrible.  There was rain and clouds, I hardly ever had a chance to see a blue sky.  Then on Sunday, after much prayer, it turned out to be a nice sunny day in which we had a wonderful softball game after church.  My team won, but that would be another story.

  It sounds as if the weather my be turning for the better for the people in Oregon which would be good for them.  They deserve a little bit of sun every once in awhile.  The difference between the rain in North Dakota and Oregon is in Oregon you expect it in North Dakota you expect snow not rain.  We get it all here. 

News from Minot

  WOWSER!  The last week has been crazy.  Sorry about not keeping the blog up-to-date.  My parents have experienced a safe voyage to Nebraska and back.  My Grandma Odum is doing fine.  Last I knew she was able to walk with a walker and was doing some rehab.  She will be spending some time down in Arkansas with one of her daughters until she has fully recuperated and then will head back up to Nebraska. 

  Nothing too much has really happened since I last posted.  School is out for everyone in this family for the year, that is good.  Finals is coming upon us fast and furiously in quizzing. And the weather can not decide whether or not to turn summer.  When the thing you are worried about the most is the weather you are doing pretty good.  I hope that everyone else is having a great start to their summer!

~Jonathan

Breaking News

  I Figured that it is always a good idea to give out some breaking news.  Yesterday, my Grandma Odum broke her hip.  Please keep her in your prayers.  She is going to be in the hospital for 3-5 days.  And will have to rehab for 4-6 weeks.  Please keep her in your prayers.

Boy's B-Day

Yesterday, Jared and I had our birthday.  As you might have been able to tell by the pictures it was Jared's 19th and my 16th.  We had a birthday breakfast and later on that day we had a birthday party with some of our friends.  Here are some more pictures...

Random Things

  This post I am going to talk about quizzing and any other things that I can think of.  Hope you all enjoy it.

  The first thing that came to my mind as I was this grand email that I received from an anonymous person that was confirmed not to be true.  Nonetheless it was so interesting and such a grand thought I figured I would still share it with you all.  Without further ado, here you are.

  Like I stated this story is false according to Snopes.

  The weather here in North Dakota has been great over the past few days.  The sun has been giving us radiant rays of sunlight.  We have very much enjoyed the weather.  According to the weather forecaster on this blog it is suppose to rain today, which has not yet happened, and it is suppose to rain more as this week progresses.  Hopefully this wind that is happening right now will blow the clouds right on out of the city and we will not have to worthy about the crazy rain.

  The quizzing year is progressing rather fast.  This weekend, we will be heading east to a tournament in Harvey, ND.  Is is actually suppose to be more of a quizzing demonstration.  Hopefully everything will go well for that.  Finals is going to be June 21st and I am planning on having all of my material learned for that.

  Today, as stated in a early post, Jared and I are celebrating our birthday.  My mother prepared us a wonderful birthday breakfast.  It consisted of biscuits, gravy, bacon, and eggs.  We were very thankful for that.

We were very tired!

 Last but not least I have prepared a slideshow of random things that have happened over the last little bit.

Birthday

 Jared and myself are celebrating our birthday today.  Jared is turning nineteen while I am turning sixteen.  If you would like to leave a comment for us you are more than welcome.

The Day After

  I have never been able to figure out what is so draining about Sunday.  It is the second day of your weekend, but when you wake up Monday afternoon you are still tired.  For me it might be the fact you go to church around 1:00 and get back to your house for the night around 9:45.  We normally play some kind of game that requires physical activity, but still I do not understand.  There are other days during the week that I play games that require physical activity other than a thumb with the Xbox controller.  There is just something very special about Sunday. 

  This weekend we had a quiz tournament.  The results were not what we wanted but it was a very good prep for finals.  My team, consisting of Preston and myself, took second to Bismark.  Jared and Anthony took third.  It sort happened just like last tournament.  Minot 1 and Minot 2 played each other the first game, Minot 1 won that game.  Minot 1 played against Bismarck, Bismark were able to hold on and win.  Minot 1 and Minot 2 played each other again, Minot 2 won.  Minot 2 went on to lose to Bismarck who was the undefeated team.  Jared and Preston took 4th and 5th on the all-tournament team, respectively.  I was able to manage to get to 2nd on the all-tournament team.  The quiz tournament was a little bit frustrating because every quiz I had a chance to quiz out but did so only once.  The first quiz I quizzed I got my first five correct and then managed to get me next five incorrect.  The second quiz I quizzed I got eight correct.  The last quiz I quizzed I got my first six correct, got the next one wrong, waited for the two questions I wanted and managed not to hit the buzzer again.  I think that we will be fine going into finals and have a chance to finish where we want to finish.

  My parents got back Saturday night from a trip that they took with the Pearsons down South.  They enjoyed their trip down and, I hope, are happy to be back home.  We enjoyed their time away by sending Jessica away to the farm and playing a lot of Xbox with Preston and Garret and doing a little bit of quizzing, which is fun again. 

Nothing Interesting But Something to Read

  I hope things are going great for everyone this fine week.  We have a few subjects to talk about in this post today.  We will talk about quizzing, school, and something else that I won't tell you yet.

  School is winding down for me and Jared.  Jared will be taking his last test of the semester tomorrow morning.  I will be taking my last test for the year somewhere between now and May 28th.  Jessica has done a great job of pioneering herself through her schoolwork and to the end of the year.  This week she has been able to sleep in and do whatever she wants, which just happens to be around her brothers.

  A couple of posts ago I wrote how quizzing was starting to be just a lot of work, that has changed.  I finally got back in the groove and it is a lot of fun again.  It has been a long time since doing my review and learning verses was fun, but it is.  This weekend we are going to be having a quiz tournament in Dickinson which is around three hours away.  Next weekend we will be having a quizzing demonstration in Harvey, which is around two hours away.  Needless to say there will be a lot of traveling happening over the next couple of weeks.

  Of course this post would not be complete without me ranting about the weather.  Since Saturday the weather has really picked up a lot and we have been enjoying some sunshine.  The temperature has been staying under 60, but we can deal with that.

  My parents, with Vaughn and Wendy, have taken a trip to a far away land this week.  Jessica will soon be going on a trip to someones house and then Jared and I will be at home all by our lonesome.  This is going to be great!  Would talk about this more but can't give up any of our secrets.


  And here is yet, another George Carlin quote.

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown, too? - George Carlin

Have a great day everyone!

A Musing from Minot

  I hope you all had a very happy Mother's Day!  I had a great one (this is Jonathan writing).  It all started by waking up around 10:00, it just doesn't get much better than that.  I did my quizzing and went to church.  It was after church that things really started getting to be fun.  I don't what you guys think about it, but when you go to a restaurant and there are what seem to be a million people waiting to be seated and you are able to walk on through the crowd tell them you last name is "Starr" (because you made reservations) and go to your table that is fun.  After that we were able to play some softball.  It was just a very memorable Mother's Day for me. 

  It seems to me you guys have been just having a great amount of fun with the new game we put onto the blog.  Judging by the amount of comments we got we would assume that nobody ever comes to this blog and we should shut it down.  You guys might be thinking "You should shut it down" but we will not let you guys have that relief.  As I am writing this post I just remembered that there was Student Convention in Oregon this weekend, that will get some of the Oregonians off the hook.  Please do play the game and tell us what you think of it.  If you like it we might try to get some more games of the same type on a game page.  Speaking of pages, please check out all of our pages.  I am in the long process of updating our "About Us" page and will tell you when it is done.

  Here is a story about just how important it is to be relaxed in life.

  There were a pair of robbers that were holding up a store.  When they went into the store one of the robbers demanded that none of the people in the store move.  When his partner-in-crime made the decision to that they should actually rob the store and moved his partner shot him.

That is why it is good to be relaxed.

   Here is something for all of the evolutionists that just may have stopped by to read the blog.

If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why are there still monkeys and apes? - George Carlin

Have a great day today!

More SNOW! :(

It is a terrible though to think that you already have had spring, summer, and fall and it is only MAY!.  That is what we are thinking here in North Dakota.  The weather has probably gotten way too much attention on this blog.  If you think so you can always leave a comment and let me know, or just continue to let me ramble on about it.  I went outside this afternoon without my coat on to retrieve my camera from our van.  Boy, was that cold.  When it is -60 you body gets used to the temperature so when it climbs up to -20 you feel great.  When it is +60 and the temperature drops down into the 30 you are cold.  There is not really that much snow on the ground, it will probably all melt away by the end of the day.  Hope you guys are enjoying the more frequent posts.  They may not be as information riddled, but they are something to read.

A Musing from Minot

  Some time when you think that you are having a blond day then you need to read this story.  I am sure that it will be very helpful for you to realize that you are not as blonde as you might think.

  There once was a women and a daughter.  The daughter found out that it just might be fun to eat some ants, she did.  The mother, being the brilliant mother she was, called the Poison Control Center to make sure that her daughter would be alright.  The helpful person at the Poison Control Center said the daughter would be fine because the ants would not harm her.  The mother then told the helpful person that she had given her daughter some ant poisoning to kill the ants.  The helpful person immediately told the mother to get her daughter to the hospital as soon as possible.

 I would say that the lady was probably insane, maybe she was just having a bad day.  I can tell, because it is pretty hard for me to grasp my mind around someone giving their daughter ant poison to kill the ants she just swallowed.  I think the digestive juices would have done a great job at killing the ants.  The women probably was just having a blonde moment.

  There is actually some family news in this post!  Jessica is planning on having her schoolwork done by the end of the week.  She took a few tests and self-tests on Thursday so she will  have the opportunity to pretty much close everything up this week.  Me on the other, I will be done on May 28th and it does not look like I will be able to expedite the process very much.  Jared is going to be doing his Finals next week so he will be also.  Great things happen this time of year.  Like the weather changes into nice sunny days and things like that.

  Bible quizzing is still going and is becoming a lot of hard work.  It is hard to do the stuff this time of year, but we just have to plow through until finals come.  After that, hopefully, nationals will come for us and we can have some real fun.

Isn't a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"? - George Carlin

The last couple of stories and quotes I found at a website.  I think them very much for their stuff and hope that they keep on putting good, clean stuff on their website.  Don't you even begin to think that I will tell you the name of the website, though.

Try this out

This is a really cool game.  It is actually kind of challenging.  At first you are going to think that it is really easy and then you will find that it gets really hard.  If you ever get to level 4 you will be amazing and please tell me.  If you turn up your sound really loud it might help you a little bit.  It helps to tell you when you are going to lose, sometimes.  Please tell me what you think about the game, hopefully it won't be to cheesy.

Sorry about the ad that is right before the game.  I don't know how that got there.  I was intending only to put the game on the blog not the ad also.  

Daily Musing

According to Snopes this story is inaccurate.  It never happened and has been said about former Presidents.
  
 For those of you who are just a little unsure about what a cattle guard is, cattle guards are horizontal steel rails placed at fence openings, in dug-out places in the roads adjacent to highways (sometimes across highways), to prevent cattle from crossing over that area. For some reason the cattle will not step on the "guards," probably because they fear getting their feet caught between the rails.  
  A few months ago, President Obama received a report that there were over 100,000 cattle guards in Colorado . Because Colorado ranchers had protested his proposed changes in grazing policies, he ordered the Secretary of the Interior to fire half of the guards immediately.
  Before the Interior Secretary could respond and presumably straighten him out, Vice-President, Joe Biden, intervened with a request that before any guards were fired, they should be given six months of retraining.

Not in anyway am I trying to mock or make fun of the President.  I thought this was a little interesting when it popped into my inbox.  

Here is a little something about money:
  People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.

Here is a good one-liner for you by Dave Edison:
I am desperately trying to figure out why kamikaze pilots wore helmets.


Here is a story:

A man walked into the corner store with a gun, planning to rob it. He demanded all the money in the till. The cashier put the money into a bag, as the robber instructed him to. The robber then demanded the bottle of Scotch he saw behind the counter. But the cashier wouldn't give it to him because he said he didn't believe the robber was over 21. The robber pulled out his driver's license to prove it and the cashier gave him the Scotch.
After the robber left, the cashier called the police with the man's name and address. He was arrested soon after.

Today's Musing

Where is the safest place in the world?

1.) Avoid riding in automobiles.
They are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents

2.) Do not stay at home
17% of all accidents occur in the home

3.) Avoid walking on streets or sidewalks
14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians

4.) Avoid traveling by air, water, or rail
16% of all accidents occur by these forms of transportation

5.) Avoid going to the hospital
32% of all deaths occur in hospitals

One thing that I would like to point out is that .001% of all accidents occur in church worship services.  An even smaller percent than that occur in Bible Studies.  Please, above all else, go to church and read your Bible you will become a lot safer of a person.

Here is something for you to remember about money:
Too many people spend money they haven't earned, on stuff they don't want, to impress people they don't like.

How about this story:
A female walked into a bank in Centereach, New York and handed the teller a note, demanding all her cash.  The note said she would start shooting if the teller didn't comply.

The teller asked her, "Are you serious?"


The suspect responded by fleeing the bank

Something to bore you with

  Today I woke and eventually came down stairs to do my schoolwork.  I looked out the window of my dad's office and saw our church van.  What I saw next was something that most states do not see in May.  It was this white stuff that I think they call snow.  It actually caught me by surprise, last year this time we were playing softball after church on Sundays.  This year we haven't been able to play a single game because of the weather.  If you look at the weather forecast widget on the right of your screen you will see that the weather is pretty nasty.  There is a lot of chances for snow in the forecast.  I guess Aunt Beth was right you guys are dealing with the same stuff we are just in a different form.  For the most part though we are both getting rain though. 

Musings from Minot

Alright, so I started not liking "Around the House" and decided to change the name to "Musings from Minot".  Maybe some day I will get real good and bore you by having "Daily Musings from Minot", if that happened you all would probably think that the world was going to end.

 This week we are going to talk about our guest speaker we had in church Sunday, the end of the Hunter Education Course, and at least one other thing.  I would tell you the other thing, but I am afraid if I do you will leave this page right now and that wouldn't be good for my sponsorships.  They might all drop me and I might would have to stop doing the blog.  Okay, maybe the last couple of  lines was a bunch of baloney.

  Sis Gleason came out to the great state of North Dakota over the weekend.  The reason she came was for Ladies Retreat and then we had her stop by our church and talk a little bit in our first service.  I am sure she did a great job (I was not in the first service).  We are very thankful that she was able to make the trip out here.  Today, I am feeling in a generous mood and am going to give her a shout-out (whatever that means).  Sis. Gleason here is your shout-out!  Receive it with honor and dignity.

  Last Thursday Sis. Wendy, Garret, and I took our test for the Hunter Education Course we were endeavoring in.  It turns out we all passed and Sis. Wendy was the only who did not get a question wrong out of the three of us.

  I know that there are a couple of Oregonians that read this blog.  They probably take their laptop outside sit back and relax as the sun beats down on them with rays that make them wonderfully comfortable.  Right now I am not complaining about snow because that is part of North Dakota, take that away and North Dakota would look pretty ugly in the winter, or in the summer for that matter.  What I am complaining about is the rain that keeps on invading the Dakota Territories.  Here I am, someone that is not used to the rain :) and when I wake up in the morning I instantly go into mourning because of all the crazy rain that is beating down on my head coming down outside.  When I moved to North Dakota I figured the snow would be cool (literally), but the rain?  I guess I had not prepared myself mentally for that surprise.

  Here are a couple of "Did you know?" facts.
On this day in the year 1871 the first professional baseball team, opened its first season.
On this day in the year 1904 the United States began construction on the Panama Canal.
On this day in the year 1904 Charles Stewart Rolls meets Frederick Henry Royce in the Midland Hotel in Manchester, England.  They are the founders of the Rolls-Royce.
On this day in the year 1949 almost the entire Torino football team was killed in a plane crash.  Click here to read the full story.  It is actually kind of interesting.

Around the House

  I am sorry about the long delay since my last post.  Things have been going on extremely fast we have had a trip to Grafton where my dad preached Sunday, a quiz tournament on Saturday, and on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday of last week and this week I have been taking a hunter education course.  Yea, I know I am taking it a little bit late in life but at least I am doing it.  We will have a lot to talk about this week.  I don't believe I will have any pictures in this post, so if that is what you were looking for you can go on to the next website you were planning on looking at.

  This Saturday we had an extremely competitive quiz tournament.  Jared and I were on different teams this tournament which really made things interesting.  Ashton and London from Bismarck joined teams.  It turned out to be Bismark's best team versus Minot split up.  Jared's team beat my team the first game, then his team lost to Bismarck.  In the loser's bracket my team beat Jared's team and then it was time for another Minot versus Bismark face-off.  My team won the first game and then lost the second game in a heart breaker on question 19. Jared and I were both on the all-tournament team. Jared took first with around 115 ppq and I took third with around 62 ppq.  Jared and I knew our material pretty good.  Pretty soon it will be time for us to really dig deep into our charting.  We are pursuing the first place trophy at finals so we will have the opportunity to go to nationals and hopefully have a lot of success. 

  This weekend, pretty much as soon as the tournament was over, headed east to go to Grafton.  It was a quick trip and helped my geography of North Dakota if nothing else.   We got down there Saturday night, my dad preached Sunday morning, and then we headed back on Monday.  I guess you may not call it all that quick of a trip, but it was definitely packed.  My dad preached about how we need to have an attitude of change in our life.  We cannot have the attitude of leave me alone, but we should have the attitude of God change whatever needs to be changed in my life.  We spent the evening with Charlie Pearson and his family, which pastor the church there in Grafton.  On the way home we managed to spend around two hours in a small little town of Devils Lake.  If you told that to someone in North Dakota they would really want to know what we did in order to spend that much time there.  It really wasn't all that bad, I was catching up on some studying I had to do for the Hunter Education Course, needless to say it flew by pretty fast.

  I don't think we really need to talk that much about my Hunter Education Course that I am taking.  It is a little bit more work than I was expecting, but I think that, that is partly due to the fact that I am spending three hours three nights a week listening to someone try to bore you as much as possible.  If someone called it fun, I would wonder what was wrong with them.  The first thing I would do for them would set them up with a psychiatrist.  I would have the doctor figure out what was wrong with the persons brain, then I would do anything possible to help them (almost).  After that I would pray that God would do a miracle in their life.  I think that there would probably be no other way for them to get better. 

  On Friday our home school groups got together and we toured the Scandinavian Heritage Park (or something like that).  It was actually half interesting.  The coolest part of the tour was when we went to this place that was a U.  It had seating all the way around the U.  When you stood in the middle of the U you could talk directly at the closed part of the U and your voice would magnify when it came back at you.  The acoustics were amazing.  It was very cool. 

 Thanks for suffering through all of this jumble.  I hope you found it half interesting and not very time consuming.  I also hope that you have a great week.

Extravaganza Pics

Here are just a couple of pictures, hope you enjoy them!

Extravaganza Recapitulation

Sorry about not updating the blog on Saturday, but I was so disgusted after that tournament it was not even funny.  It turns out that the experienced team took T7th while the intermediate team took T5th.  A girl from our intermediate team named Natalie took fifth on the all-tournament team with 62 ppq, while I took T5th on the all-tournament team with 47.5 ppq.  We had a great trip and ended up going to an amusement park on Saturday after quizzing.  I actually went on all the rides that everyone else went on.  You guys may not be surprised but this was a great step as far as roller coasters for me.  We started home on Sunday and got back to Minot around 11:30.  The trip home was a lot of fun and now it is time to get ready for our next tournament which will be taking place on Saturday in minot.  About the actual tournament, we lost that heartbreaker on Thursday night.  On Friday we had to wait five quizzes after lunch which ended up taking a toll on us.  We beat Bismarck and then ended up losing to Denver 1 which was a somewhat close game.  We had a chance to win the quiz going into the 30 pointers but soon after that they iced the quiz.

Extravaganza Day 2

Yesterday we won our first quiz, but lost a heartbreaker in our second.  The first quiz I quizzed our on question 10 and Jared had a 100 points.  The second quiz on question 12 we were up 140-0, but it is then that things fell apart.  The next five question we hit we got incorrect and on question 20 Jared forgot to say John and we ended up losing that quiz.  Today we are hoping and will receive better results.  Stay tuned!

Extravaganza Trip Day 1

4:30 pm - We have been around the town and have visited our quiz cards.  In thirty minutes it will be time for us to start the quiz tournament.  In any time we will be leaving the hotel and heading for the church.  Right now I am tired but am going to try to rest up right before the trip.  I have to go again.

We got into Kansas City, Mo. late last night.  We were very tired and therefore was not able to update the blog.  Today we have quizzing starting at five o'clock, I am a little bit nervous.  I literally have to go right now.

Around the House

Sorry for not being on time with this post, but here it is. 

  This week in "Around the House" we will again talk about the weather, quizzing, and hopefully a couple of other things that are more interesting.

  Yesterday was our big day in quizzing.  It is actually the main reason why I delayed this post.  Jared and I were tested to find out whether or not we would make the team and have the opportunity to participate in the extravaganza that will be taking place in Kansas City, Missouri.  It turns out that both of us were able to dig into our bag of tricks and pull out something that the coaches liked.  We will be leaving next Wednesday which will cause me not to be able to do the "Around the House" post. 

  The weather definitely is turning towards springtime.  Matter in fact it is spring.  I don't feel any threat of snow.  I am more worried of a world wide war (WWW) than snow in North Dakota right now.  In reality I don't feel a threat of a WWW. 

  My parents left today and are heading a little bit to the south and a little bit the east to preach a couple of services down in Valley City. 

  There really hasn't been anything that interesting going on over the past week.  Easter Sunday would probably rank up there with the best of the things.  Our church had a great drama performed by Jason Sletten and Tom April.  I did not take any pictures of them because they turned the lighting way down low so you couldn't get any good pictures.  Quizzing would be up there also.  Monday night I stayed up until 1 am, Tuesday until 3 am, and Wednesday until 1 am so that I would be ready for the quiz practice.



 

Happy Easter

  I am happy that Easter is here and that we will be able to celebrate our risen Savior.  He is a great God and I am very thankful to for all that he has done.  I hope everyone will be able to have a happy Easter in the year 2010!

Around the House

  This week in "Around the House" we are going to cover a variety of subjects.  Some of these subjects may include quizzing, Jessica's B-Day, and a couple of other things that are going on.  I was going to try to include some audio of Jared preaching from about a year ago, but I was unsuccessful.  If blogger ever comes out with a way to do that I will definitely post his message.
 
  I though you all might be interested to know that this day 30 years ago the great Olympic runner Jesse Owens passed from this earth.  Nothing of great interest to me happened today in history, as far as I know.  Yesterday was the day that Ronald Reagan was shot many years ago.

 Since this is the family blog I will post something about what is going on in North Dakota sometime in this post, but other things seem a lot more interesting.  Alright everything that was interesting is no longer interesting and I will say something about the family.

 As I mentioned earlier Jessica had her Birthday Party, it was a grand occasion.  It turns out that I found some more pictures and since that is the one thing that interests a lot of people I will put them on the blog.  I hope you enjoy them.


 It was around ten days ago that the calendar said that it was time for spring.  In North Dakota a lot of times we are late for spring but early for winter.  This year it turns out we will actually be able to have a spring.  The snow is not all the way done melting but things are progressing quite speedily.  For the past few days the temperature has been hanging in the 50s and 60s.  It is almost hot enough to get a heat stroke, well maybe not.

  It is time to talk about the lovely subject of quizzing.  We have been working pretty hard, at least harder than the past few years in quizzing.  We are working very hard right now to make the team for our extravaganza which will be happening between April 15-17 in Kansas City, Mo.  We have to know through Acts 20:38 by April 8th which is 111 new verses since our last tournament which was March 27.  That is around a week and a half to learn 111 which makes for us to be learning around 10 new verses a day.

  This is really off the subject, but yesterday me and my dad played some basketball.  I wore my shirt inside-out on accident until I realized that I was wearing it inside-out and then I decided I would keep it that way.  It really helped me while I was playing basketball.  My shot was going down, I think it gave me that extra step you need in order to be real successful at basketball.  I told you it was a little bit off the wall but, hey, you read it!

  I hope you guys really enjoyed this week of "Around the House".  If you would like to read lasts week post then click here.  Thanks for stopping at our blog!

Oh yea, almost forgot.  I would like to give a shout-out to whoever left a couple of reactions on the posts about Jessica's Birthday.  If you think birthdays are funny, more power to you.  This is a good shout-out and if you ever get one on this blog you should be very proud.  They don't come very often.  So yea, thanks for leaving a reaction.

Some random photos...

Mall of America

It turns out it took me longer than you expected for me to get the Mall of America pictures on the blog.  After much undeliberate deliberation I am finally going to put the pictures on the blog.  Here they are...

Jessica's Birthday

Jessica had her seventh birthday yesterday.  We had a birthday party for her at the church and invited all of her friends in the church.  There was a decent show but to illness and family things some of her friends were not able to make it. 

Jessica's Birthday

Today is the day that Jessica was born seven years ago.  We are happy to wish her a happy birthday and invite you to do the same.  If you would like to leave a comment for her feel free.

Quiz Tournament

We just got back from the grand city of Fargo.  We enjoyed our stay, especially after the quiz tournament was over.  The reason being is we got to ponder the feeling of getting 1st at a quiz tournament again.   That is until our coach smacked us back into reality and told us that we have to learn 111 verses in a 10 days so we can go to the extravaganza, that was rough.  Jared had over 60 ppq while I came in with over 40 ppq.  Our team still needs a lot of help but this tournament was a lot better than the first two. 

News Change

  Because I know that so many of you people really are very interested in who is preaching our District Conference.  I want to tell so you can all be disappointed with me that Jerry Jones will not be coming after all.  A major change has happened and Bro. Clifford from Arkansas will be preaching instead.  I have faith that he will do a fantastic job, although I have not heard him preach.  Hopefully the opportunity will be presented Friday and I will be able to hear him preach.  I thank you all for you genuine interest and care in this revolting development and hope you all will sympathize with me.

Around the House

  As I wrote in my last post we had our desert auction last Sunday.  Here is a picture of one of the great things hat my mother made...

  On March 20 the grand first day of spring arrived.  To prove the reason why I was late in changing the background on the blog to something a little bit more springy I will show you a picture of what it looks like outside...

  I am going to end this post with a picture of what it seem that I talk a lot about.  I am not referring to the person in the picture but rather about what the person is doing in the picture.  As a teenager grows up he seems to need more of that certain thing that this person is doing and to make what this certain thing is a little less complicated I will just show you the picture...

Seeing someone else do it makes me what to do it more.  Some people don't realize how much I suffer from lack of sleep.  I am only able to sleep till 8:00am in the morning at the latest it is just terrible.  I try to go to bed around 10:00 pm most of the time sometimes with quizzing it is hard.  I don't know about the rest of you all but the time change really killed me.  I was just getting back into the swing of things here in North Dakota after being out in Oregon.  Hope you all are having a great day!

News

  Sorry it has been such a long time since my last blog post.  The starting Wednesday of the week that we got back from Oregon our church had our Youth Revival.  We had Bro. Matthew Tuttle preach it, who did a fantastic job.  I believe every night someone got the Holy Ghost.  This bring us to this week.  Nothing spectacular went on this week.  It was Jared's spring break and that is about the only thing to note.  Our church had our annual desert auction today, that went great.  This weekend we have a quiz tournament in Fargo.  The same Fargo that you may have been hearing about the possibility of it flooding.  We are going to also have our District Conference this weekend, Bro. Jerry Jones will be coming out for that.  Sorry for taking so long to post again. 

Mall of America

During our long layover we had the opportunity to go to the Mall of America.  We enjoyed our time there.  We all had the fantastic privilege to go to the American Girl shop.  We spent a few days there (the American Girl shop) and eventually a some food there.  We left (the American Girl shop) and walked our legs off.  I think that is probably all I can say about the Mall of America.  I could go into detail about everything we bought there but that would be greatly personal.  I might be able to throw some pictures on the blog at a later time.

Oregon Trip Day 6 (Updated 12:04)

(12:04 am)  We are home, finally.  GOOD NIGHT!

I truly did not expect to be blogging today about the fact that we are still literaly on the trip, but we are.  We had enjoyed our flight to its full extent, but when we were ten minutes out of Minot we were told by the pilot that we were not going to be able to land safely and were going to have to head back to Minnesota.  When we got back to Minnesota we were told that we were going to be on the first flight in the morning to Minot, which was at 10:15 am.  We arrived at the airport at around 8:00 am and had a great time going through security.  When we finally got through security we went to our gate and received the news that the flight had been cancelled and we were going to have the opportunity to stay in Minnesota awhile.  We were finally booked, after some confusion, on the 10:00 pm flight to Minot, the same flight we were on last night.  Some of the great things that have come out of this mess was the opportunity to go to the Mall of America and on our flight that got turned around we were able to enjoy some biscoff cookies.  Now that I have finished telling the good new I will get back to the other stuff.  We have been paying attention to the weather report and are sad to report that there is suppose to be some freezing rain coming down in Minot which may make it hard to land.  If we understand why these flights were cancelled were because of some mechanical issues in Minot.  Starting tomorrow we are going to have a Youth Revival.  We are definently hoping that we will be able to make it back tonight for the revival.