New Blog

From now on I will only be posting at my new photography blog.

Katie

Ballet

I put some pictures up on my photography blog of my sister's dance rehearsal.

Countess of Monte Cristo Pictures

Me as a Citizen and Michaela as the Abess

the cast

Our directors...and there's an assistant director, but i'm not sure where she is.

i'm the one in the purple dress and shawl.

here i'm the doctor-the one with the suit coat on

i'm the one in the middle

i'm the doctor again

the doctor

this is when i die a second time. i'm Lady Austin

i'm a pirate here. i'm the one on the far left with the red shirt and black vest.

pirate

pirate

pirate

pirate

i'm the prison matron-the one with the red shirt on

prison matron

16th Birthday

Another important event was my 16th Birthday. For my birthday I had a 5 hour drama rehearsal and then I had my three friends, Laura, Joy and Michaela over.

all of us, minus Michaela

me and Laura

Me and elaina

me and joy

Countess of Monte Cristo

Hi, so instead of catching you all the way back up to date with what's been happening in my life, I just decided i'd start now. So one of the big things that have been going on in my life was, the play I was in. It was the Countess of Monte Cristo (its the same as the Count of Monte Cristo). I had five parts. A Pirate, Citizen, Prison Matron, Lady Austin, and Doctor d'Avringy. I got to sword fight, and die two times. For those of you have never heard of the Count of Monte Cristo, I strongly encourage you to read the book. Right now I don't have any pictures, but hopefully i'll be getting some soon. so please come back and look for some :)

Quote

"There are no requirements to get into hell"- Katie (me)

From the Inside Out- Hillsong

A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
my heart and my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
In my heart, in my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Chorus 2x
Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out Lord, my soul cries out

Caption Contest

I am having a Caption Contest on my Photography Blog, please go there to see more details.

D.C.

D.C. was a blast! I took over 4000 pictures. seriously. And the best part of the trip was that it was all paid for! Here are some hilights of the week:

• We looked at every tourist attraction there was in D.C. in about 6 hours except for Mount Vernon and the FDR memorial.
  
• We walked a total of about 8 miles the entire trip. which was 4 days, but two of the days were spent on the bus
  
• The Halocust Museam was gut renching. and I don't know how anybody can every say that it didn't happen.
  
• I felt underdressed the entire time I was in the hotel. no joke!
  
• Hot tubs are the best, especially after walking 6 miles
• Me, Elizabeth and Michaela figured out that steps are really, really cool :)
• Seeing the First Ladies exibit at the Smithsonian of American History was cool.
• We got to the Star Spangled Flag and that was neat.
• I offically hate when my ears pop. especially since I am from michigan, and everything is flat!
• I have never really heard that many awesome speakers in my entire life
• oh, and I can't forget this one...the food was awesome!
  

I'll be writing more about the trip hopefully soon! And maybe some pictures too!

Washington D.C.

I have been absent for a long time on this blog, but i have been busy with homework, going to school, and babysitting.

But one that I am really looking forward to is going to Washington D.C.- I have never been there, and i have never really been traveling either, so it should be fun!

We actually just found out on tuesday morning that we were going. And Me, My sister Elizabeth, my mom, my friend Michaela, and Michaela's mom are all going. Oh and on a side note, the hotel is awesome!

We are actually going with a whole group of people, so we will be traveling on a bus, but the bus is really nice, (its got dvd players at every seat!) we are leaving tomorrow (thursday) at 9 in the evening, and were driving though the night (because its a 10 hours drive) and we'll get at the hotel around 8 or 9 in the morning. And we are coming home on Sunday at about 9 or 10 in the evening.

So be looking for pictures some time soon!

Katie

Happy Birthday!

Happy 6th Birthday Elaina!
(i did get her a matching michigan hoodie to mine)

"Joy is not gush: joy is not jolliness. Joy is simply perfect acquiescence in God's will, because the soul delights itself in God himself... rejoice in the will of God, and in nothing else. Bow down your heads and your hearts before God, and let the will, the blessed will of God, be done." -Amy Carmichael

" One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving."- Amy Carmichael

My New Camera

At the beginning of this month I ordered and received my new camera! I love it. I got a Canon Powershot SX10 IS. A couple of the things that i was looking for when I got this camera was that it still had to have the swivel screen, and I wanted it to take good pictures without having it be a SLR camera. Here's what my camera looks like:

The Front- And the lense does not come off.

The Back

And what's also nice is that the camera is not really heavy, and you can also hook a flash up to it ( I haven't tried it yet though), and the picture quality is fantastic!

This is amazing

This is from the Ukraine's Got Tallent, and boy does this girl have talent! I'm not sure if she actually won or not, but I think she should win. And if you are wondering what she is drawing about, she is drawing about the Nazi invasion on the Ukraine in 1940.

Grand Rapids

Here is some more pictures of our trip to grand rapids.

this is while we were laughing about the one guy in the gas station! haha...good times... :)

The really really nice farrari (sp)

us and the essay thingy

Our essay/book thingy we wrote.

your eyes look halirious michaela!

Quote of the Day

"Just because God can do everything doesn't mean He does."-Michaela

New Haircut

So i felt really really guilty getting my hair cut, because i got it cut only 1 month ago, but i did it anyway because my hair was sooo heavy and thick. so here are some pictures and let me know what your think:

Before

Before

After

After

Blue Angles

This past weekend there was an air show near or house, and the blue angles (which is an air plane group that is apart of the Navy) were there and on friday we went and saw them in a big field, but we got there kinda late so we didn't see much, but on saturday we went down Michigan Avenue (which is like a highway) and we pulled off the side of it and watched there.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the blue angles

• the sound that they give off is sooooo amazing
• i have never pulled off of a highway just to sit there and watch airplanes
• i have never had so much fun sitting on top of a car!
• there colors of the planes are really cool
• i loved it when they came right over our heads (i think in the second or third video you can see it)
• I have never seen soooo many people pulled over on a highway- there must of been at least 300 cars with people sitting on top and watching them- and there was even at least 10 families we saw that were playing football!
• Oh and thank you kristin for taking some of the videos/pictures for me :)
  

Frankenmuth

So for my grandparents 50th anniversary they took all their kids and their husbands, grand kids, and great-grand kids to Frankenmuth Michigan. And let me tell you, when you get our entire family together, there is lots of fun, laughing, and joking.

My grandparents had rented a privet room a Zhenders (my spelling is a little off) for dinner which started at 4. The dinner was very, very good. At one point we even made our waiter start to sweat because we asked for so much food! And I even had to admit that at one point during the dinner when my grandparents go up to say some things, i cried.

After dinner, all of us older girl cousins walked around the town, which is sooo fun because there is all the little shops you can go in. And for the record we tried all most every flavor of taffy that there is.

We walked around the town till about 9, and then we went back to our hotel (we were staying at the Bavarian Inn). My grand-parents rented 6 different rooms (one for each family + one for the older girls) So after around 11 ish, after we were doing watching tv, all the girls that were staying in the room decided to have a devotional time...which lasted all of about 2 min, because we were laughing so much! Throughout the rest of the night and early morning me accomplish to have a pillow fight, jump on the beds, and have bits and pecies of the ceeling fall on us (the ceeling was falling because we were hitting it to hard with the pillows!)

So once we were all hot which was around 1 in the morning we sat on the deck, which was facing the lake, but we were still hot so we turned the air down to 64! we eventully went to bed at about 2 ish. and when we woke up in the moring we were all freezing cold!

At 10 the next morning my grandparents had scheduled a brunch, and let me tell you, the bavarian inn has the BEST breakfasts.

After breakfast we took family pictures, and then we walked around the town again, and we also walked around the River Place.

But overall my weekend was fun and wonderful and i wish i could do that every weekend!

Homemade Soft Pretzels

Here is a really good homemade pretzel recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

1 package dry active yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

3 cups flour

1 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons oil

1. Place ingredients in bread machine pan in the order suggested by the manufacturer.

2. Select Dough setting, then press start.

3. After the machine has beeped (i let is sit about 15 min. after it has beeped) put it onto a very lightly floured surface.

4. Pull small/medium sized chunks from the dough, put on a greased cookie sheet (you can use cooking spray of Crisco)

5. Let rise arround 15-20 min.

6. While pretzels are rising, but in a 3 quart sauce pan, 2 quarts of water and 1/3 cup baking soda; bring to a boil

7. After the water is done boiling and your dough is done rising, place one pan full (there should be about 2 medium/large sized pans) of dough into the water let sit 5-10 seconds.

8. Once you have done both pans, beat one egg white and spread lightly over the dough

9. Sprinkle Kosher Salt over (you can decided how much you want)

10. Preheat oven to 425

11. Put one pan in at a time for 4 min. the turn pan around and bake for 4 more min. then put the second pan in and Enjoy!

12. Enjoy