Statues

They’re home! From South Dakota! And they came bearing many tales of adventure…such as, “And then we went to this really awesome place…it’s called Hi-Vee” and “Then Daddy was sooo embarrassing in the bookstore” and “gosh, they sure do say you bet a lot out there!”. To which I naturally replied, “You bet!”.

And they found the base of a statue…I’m not sure why it was just the base and no statue. Perhaps someone stole the statue. Or maybe the Public Works Commision ran out of money. Or they somehow forgot to put it up. Or, possibly, they just found the large squarish chunk of rock to be extremely attractive and decided to leave it the way it was.

Whatever.

Anyway, of course they had to stand on it! Which led to this picture:

It’s quite historically accurate in every detail…save perhaps the green parka. And the sneakers.

Also, I have no idea what he’s trying to be, except that it looks vaguely drum-major-ish.

Ben is exactly the type of person to have the opportunity to act like a statue and use it to pretend to be John Phillip Sousa.

This one is called, “Assistance Please!”

Dad bought a book called the Worst-Case Scenario Travel Handbook, which contains several handy hints such as how to say “Assistance please!” in a variety of languages. “Assister sil vous plait!” is one. Also, “Bitte, Hilfe!”.

This photo I do not have a name for.

But it’s pretty cute.

Church

There were 6 baptisms plus new members on Sunday!!! Which means, we got cake!!!

And then I got a little bit bored and started imitating Pastor Dave. I feel confident doing this usually because we sit in the back, which means only the peanut gallery people can see me. I did not think that someone would catch me on camera.

   

This the the tiny person behind me, who was also named Olivia. During the sermon she started screaming, “Olivia pick her nose!” which was a little bit disconcerting.

This is the small person who sat in front of us. He managed to accomplish a number of cool feats such as opening a package of M&Ms, which exploded and rolled all over. He then crawled around underneath the pews to get them.

I am maybe not such a good influence on these children.

Also, the Red Sox are losing. Badly.

Also, I have to do the PSATs on Saturday.

Grr.

Welcome to Brady, Jenna, Christina, Jamie, Logan, Cheyanne, Stella, Bryan, Leslie, Nancy, Chris and Molly!

My Family

I showed you some of the results of our photo shoot the other day—after we got pictures of Mom we had to do pictures of everybody else too. And of course we will do this all again next month when it’s time for our Christmas Card Photos. I think we should just Elf Ourselves.

So here are Mom and Dad:

And Ben:

For everybody out there who is like my parents and thinks that he has gotten “Sooo big!” this is my almost-teenager brother.

Sophie was being a goofball and wouldn’t let us take her picture.

This is me.

Not actually a very good photo of me, come to think of it.

And then….as usually happens when one has a digital camera….we got a little wacky.

Cousin It!

Muahahaha.

These people, I love them.

Christmas is coming…

The goose is getting fat

Please to put a penny in the old straw hat

If you have no penny a ha’penny will do

If you have no ha’penny then God bless you.

 

I am pleased to announce that the holiday season has officially begun! We recieved our first Christmas catalog last week! (order now before it’s too late?)

Congratulations to LTD Commodities for having a strange sense of timing!

I am pschying myself up by finishing Week 2 of my school year and listening to the Chieftains, a cool Irish folk group that put out a Christmas CD.

Hark the herald angels sing….

Ben’s Fort

There’s a new one! The old one was deemed unsafe. So Ben went to Home Depot and made me wait for about an hour while he found adequate rope and pulleys and hooks. You’d think all rope is pretty much equal, but apparently not. For example, Ben would pick up a skein of rope and go, “Well, this one is 20lb test and 1400 kilowatts and 100 feet long….but THIS one is ALSO 20lb test BUT only 1300 kilowatts AND 98 feet long…” and I was able to try on every pair of construction goggles there was, learn quite a lot about installing window screening, and play with all the little metal doohickeys, and I WAS STILL BORED. And he FINALLY found the appropriate rope, which, believe it or not, was the EXACT SAME ROPE DAD POINTED OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

This is the new fort, complete with flag. It has a special name like “Fort Powderpuff” or something, but I don’t remember it off the top of my head. The old one was “Fort Anaconda”, I think.

This was actually supposed to be a picture of Ben in midair jumping on his fort, but I mistimed it.

Ben does yoga: The Crouching Frog Pose.

(Actually, he’s not doing yoga. I don’t know what he’s doing. Heck, I don’t even know whether the Crouching Frog Pose exists. But it sounded nice, don’t you think?)

Ben also recently built a pond, which is very cool indeed, and even has some frogs living in it. Also some pirates.

 

AND, my Taize item of the day, and one of the great mysteries of life: Why do people take photos like this?

No one ever looks good in them! It’s painful for the person who’s taking them! Especially in this case because the boys and I are sunburned! Inevitably someone’s mouth and chin get cut off! I don’t know why I’m ending every sentence with an exclamation point! But I am! My eyes look weird here. And please, please, please, no matter how bored you are, remember that photos like this never come out the way they should.

Randomness

The Friar Chuck Update: Friar Chuck versions 1,2, and 3 have been dispatched. Dad finally bought a Havahart trap to catch them. They promptly figured out how to lift up the trap and get the bait. It’s a constant battle.

In other news, Mom is in the process of staining the armoire, which is a long hard slog. Our kitchen is stain central, and the fumes are going to everybody’s heads.

Last weekend Mom took me to see Mamma Mia, which is a musical based on the songs of ABBA. Mom and Dad went to see it for their anniversary this year, and she liked it so much she took me too. It’s actually a really cute movie. Plus, it has Meryl Streep, and Peirce Brosnan, and Colin Firth* and Julie Walters, so how can you NOT see it? Dad got Mom the soundtrack, so now we are all listening to ABBA nonstop. Mom has even decreed that it’s unamerican not to like ABBA.Take a chance on meeeee….

I have gotten Facebook and become addicted.

I have also started school. Grr. BUT, hopefully I will be able to take December off the way I did last year! A&P is going super so far, and so is Latin. Math is just really really annoying, especially today’s lesson where all Dr. Shorman is was yak on and on about the area of transversal laterals or something. Brit Lit is OK, but Sonlight, so involved. I’m done with Beowulf and onto Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I just started Logic, and I haven’t begun French yet, although I have a new resolution to work harder at it after being to Taize. It comes easily to me but I haven’t been studying it the way I should. Orchestra and whatever band I end up with starts next week.

More on Taize tomorrow.

Um, that’s all the news from here I guess…boring boring end of summer…

*Incidentally, he has a really high voice. Like in Manly Men, the first verse, only actually very true.

Contest Winner! and other stuff

I have been slacking in my blogging! Majorly! So here is an update on my general life situation! Yay for exclamation points!

OK, the contest thing didn’t really work….oh well. Next time I’ll have to get a real prize. Thank you to everybody (all three of you ) for your quotes…..they will begin appearing in the header as soon as I get my act together. I put the names on little slips of paper and picked one out of a hat…..and MEAGAN WINS! So I will get those to you next week, Meg!

With blogging comes a little addiction to feedback, I think….and even though I get about 25 unique visitors per day, only about five ever comment. Those select few….I love you best.

 JUST KIDDING!

Father’s Day! Was nice….despite a little meltdown during lunch and the fact that church lasted about sixteen billion hours and it was 90 degrees in the sanctuary. We got Dad an assortment of grill paraphernalia. Here’s a photo of Ben’s present, a watch:

Guess who wrapped that? Ben has the Hanson gene for insane wrapping, I believe. Both he and my grandmother wrap gifts in such a manner that it takes a knife to open them. Some of these packages I’ve gotten could survive a bomb attack. Although my grandmother tends to use more attractive wrapping, while Ben sticks to the 12-year-old boy standby…..newspaper, duct tape, and rope. For my last birthday, he gave me a book that was wrapped in newspaper. And taped up with packing tape. And put in a box, which was not only sealed but literally wrapped in duct tape, which was then covered in more newspaper and tied with string. I must mention though that he thoughtfully arranged the newspaper so that the Students of the Month were on the bottom, the Lucky Few Who Read a Book and Got to Eat Lunch With the Principal were on the front, and the District 10 Chorus Winners were on the top. So the entire package was showing pictures of people I don’t know! It took me at least ten minutes to open it.

The Friar Chuck Update: Ben got one of them in the eye with a pellet gun, so we think that one is probably dead….the other one has not been seen for a while.

The School Update: I am taking the rest of the week off and then starting 10th grade next week. Portfolios are done, reviewed, etc.

The Music Update: Violin is in a slump….for some reason the Suzuki movement that I’ve been practicing for two months sounds awful and the one I just started playing today cause I was bored sounds pretty good. No rational explanation for this. I am trying to polish Fiocco Allegro up for no discernable reason, and teach myself the districts piece. Just in case. I also pulled out our old folk music and have been playing that.

Anyway. Happy Wednesday!

Various

Guess why this is named “various”?

 

That’s right! It’s a completely random collection of thoughts and scenes from my day!

Ben and I were messing around in the kitchen, and I asked him a question about a drill bit. Something really inquisitive and thoughtful, such as, “Is that a drill bit?”. To which he replied, “No duh, Taylor!”, so that is my new catchphrase. It stems from the movie Drillbit Taylor, which we haven’t seen, but hey, it’s a change from plain “No duh” or the more-used “No duh, Sherlock”, so what the heck?

Dad taught Ben and I to shoot a pellet gun tonight. (goodbye, Friar Chuck) On my first try I don’t even think I hit the target, but on my last one it was right on the edge of the smallest little yellow circle. Pellet guns require an insane amount of pumping and adjusting of bolts, etc, before you can fire, so if you were in a situation in which you were being attacked and you had to defend yourself with a pellet gun, you had better aim carefully the first time. By the time you reloaded you would be dead. Hey, that’s probably why soldiers don’t use pellet guns, right?

Recital tommorow! Pictures will be coming on Friday, assuming I like the way I look in them. Otherwise, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Friday the Thirteenth is graduation in our town, which seems kind of forboding to me. Friday the thirteenth, I mean, not graduation itself. There were photos of the graduates in the paper today, accompanied by amusing advertisments that say things such as, “Chili’s wishes to extend best wishes to the class of 2008″ and “the Crew at Balch’s Family Fish House Congratulates Jamie, Ryan, Anthony, and the entire Class of 2008″, and a great one from the county electric company urging all graduates to replace their lightbulbs with new energy efficient ones, and best of luck in all future endeavors. Sophie went through all the pictures and assigned animals to various people (if Bob were an animal, he would be a shark, and so on).

This afternoon I was singing the Oscar Mayer Song (yes, I have too much time on my hands). When I got to, “And if you ask me, why I’ll say……” but before I could yell “B-O-L-O-G-N-A” Ben screamed, “BOOYAH!!!”.

And JK Rowling’s prequel came out!!!!! It’s only two pages but you can read it typed here, and in Jo’s handwriting here.

Genius.

 

Go Red Sox!

 

MomQuotes

is the title of a new page I have just published, containing all the wacky things my mother has said over the years. There will of course be more as soon as I get my act together and think of them.

Meanwhile, here is a list of DadQuotes (he has a bunch too, but not enough for a separate page and ParentQuotes didn’t have the same ring to it.)

• When God was handing out brains, he thought he said trains and said, “I’ll take the next one”.
• This could be a positive thing.
• If your mother wakes up there’s gonna be hell to pay!
• I’ve met auctioneers who were easier to understand.
• Beats sitting on the back porch poking your eye out with a sharp stick!
• What are you thinking?
• Buddy, buddy, buddy.
• There are one-there are two- there are SEVERAL reasons why this was a bad idea.
• It’d be one thing if you were playing consertos, but….
• Don’t escalate.
• You’re escalating!
• Stop escalating!
• What is going on here?
• Ask your mother.

Weekend Pictures

Various random snapshots of last night:

Ben climbed in the pond-to-be.

Of course, it’s a hole in the ground and he got incredibly dirty and had to take a shower.

I try not to apply logic to him.

Can you say, “middle child”?

Then we played some football. I am pretty bad at football (no surprises there, right?) so it was really just catch. I only fell down once.

I look so serious…and my limbs appear to be on backwards. Hmm.

Laughing at my own ineptitude…

Hyaa-ah! Kung fu Olivia!

Mr. Grill Man