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.