A Hooptabazillion years since my last blog.

Yeah folks, so I'm back. And hopefully I will be able to get on here more often to write. I like doing it, but don't have heaps of time just at the minute. We just got our Christmas tree today. It's nice and bushy. I like that, I don't go for little skimpy trees. And I don't like the fake ones either. If you have a fake one, it doesn't make your house smell nice. And that's half the point of a Christmas tree. I tried to make a swaggy type thing out of cedar branches and holly to hang on our door but it didn't work very well and looked kind of tacky. We have a choir concert in three days, and our dress rehearsal is tonight. We get to perform in the big Christchurch Cathedral downtown. It's beautiful and really old. We practice in a tiny little choir loft up above the main part. There's a teeny weeny spiral staircase that goes up to it made out of stone. Very cool indeed. I am looking forward to it. Oh yeah, and we get to wear the big red choir robes. It will be delightful.

Delightful is a nice old sounding word. Just ponder that. - Catherine Felton.

Love you all.
Emma
p.s. hopefully it will be less than a hooptabazillion years until my next blog. Then again, you never know with me.

Adventures in Odyssey

A few days ago I got a really cool exciting gift. A huge box of old odyssey tapes! I am working on putting them on our computer now. I have converted 46 episodes so far. So that's exciting. And another exciting thing is that the farm gazette is getting back up again! I will make another post where you can download the editions of the farm gazette.

raw vegan chocolate pudding/ fudgsicle recipe!

NO SUGAR!
NO DAIRY!

This yummy recipe tastes like rich fudge but has no dairy or sugar and the only fat comes from the avocados.

Ingredients:
2 small ripe avocados
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3-1/2 cup maple syrup or a little less honey
2 teaspoons vanilla
dash of cinnamon
peanut butter (optional)

Take all the 'innards' out of the avocados and put them in a blender. Mix them and prod with a wooden spoon until they are completely smooth. Trust me, it tastes much better when you can't see any green lumps in it.

Put in the cocoa and mix until smooth
Pour in the maple syrup or honey and mix
If you are using peanut butter put in only about an 1/8 cup but it adds so much flavor!
Add the vanilla and cinnamon and mix them in

At this time taste a little and see if it is sweet enough for you. Add a little more sweetener if it is not.

At this point you can either eat it as pudding, use as chocolate icing or put in popsicle molds to make fudgsicles.

DELICIOUS!

The store

Today my brothers have friends over and they decided to have a store at the end of our driveway. They are selling things such as pieces of scrap metal, leaf arrangements and homemade cards. I only spent $4.50 and I got a nice trowel, a carved cross for an easter decoration and some cards. They are also getting buckets of water from the puddles on our driveway and marketing them for people to water their plants with. Go check it out!!

Emma
p.s. pictures to come, I promise!

Chemainus Theatre

Yes, I apologize that there are still no pictures of tofino. Very sorry, very sorry. Today my grandma and I went to Chemainus Theatre and watched 'Mr. Pim passes by.' It was really funny. After we watched it I was surprised to find out that it was written by A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh) and that he wrote seven novels and over 25 plays. Apparently Pooh was so popular that it overshadowed all the rest of his works, a fact that caused him great annoyance. He was hoping to become an author for adults but the only thing everybody thought of when they heard A.A.Milne is Hey, that's the Winnie the Pooh guy. His writing must be just kids' stuff. So, anyhow he was bugged by that.

Pictures!!

Oh, and I promise to put up photos of our trip soon!

Tofino!

We went to Tofino for a few days from Monday to Thursday this week. Monday was my 14th birthday! I'm sure I will have a lot of stories to tell but this is my favorite:

On the way home we stopped at Chesterman Beach for a few hours. We were going for a walk across the beach and I had been giving Eli lots of piggybacks along the way. I put him down for a while because I was tired. Then Eli said "Emma, I need a piggyback," in a little whiney voice. "Eli," I said "I don't think I can carry you." "Why not?" Eli whined. "Because," I said "You're just so big!" "No," he said. "Emma, I'm so little. And I am also scared of the ground."

Scared of the ground. That's one I've never heard before. 

held hostage by the evil baby bassinette

Today my mom and dad were cleaning out the crawl-space to make room for some more things to go in there. After they were mostly finished, we were going to take the little newborn baby crib that has been sitting in our family room since my little cousin grew out of it. My dad asked me to come and carry one end of it and we'd take it into the crawl-space. Now, our crawl-space is not truly a crawl-space. You can't stand up straight, but you don't have to actually go on hands and knees. However, you can't go from side to side. There is one path that goes straight down and the middle, about two feet wide, and there is nowhere else to go. So I took one end of the crib and pulled it into the crawl-space path. My dad came up behind. Once I had walked as far as I could go, I said to my dad "I can't take it any further, I'm in the way." I turned around, preparing to go back to the exit. The crib was standing there in front of me, taking up more space than the path. Hmmmmmm..... "Are you going to be able to get out?" my dad asked. No. I was trapped in a two foot by two foot by three foot space and I was not going to get out. So we pushed the crib to the edge of the crawl-space and then I crawled underneath. 

Reading Party

Today we had a party because my brother Miles finished all the lessons in his reading book. It was a lot of fun. All the guests were treated to a book from our 'to go' box and everyone read magazines at the party. I made chocolate cupcakes and put chocolate letters on top that said 'CONGRATULATIONS MILES'. Everyone had a capital time. 

chicken carcass

After dinner tonight, we were still sitting around the table talking and Eli takes the chicken bones out of the pot that we left them in to make broth and brought it to the table. He comes up and says to my dad with a curious look on his face "Daddy, what is this?" My dad and I are both trying very hard not to laugh. "That's a chicken carcass, buddy," says my dad. "Could you go put it back please?" "Oh," says Eli. As he walks back to the kitchen carrying it he says to himself "Chicken carcass... chicken carcass..." 

The Homeschool Play

I thought I would tell everybody about the play that I am in right now. It is called For The Temple and is based on a book by G.A. Henty. It is historical fiction and takes place in A.D. 70. It is about the fall of Jerusalem and the Romans destroying the temple. It is put together by a group of older homeschoolers and this is the sixth one they have done. Before this year they did:

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Secret World of Og

The Hobbit

Prince Caspian

The Princess and the Miner's Son (Better known as the Princess and the Goblin and the Princess and Curdie)

And this year is For the Temple. It is a formidable list. And very impressive. The rules are: You must belong to Victoria Christian Homeschooling (VCHS) and be between 6 and 18 years old. Anyone that falls in that category can be in the play. If you do an audition, you get lines. It is very well done and I love doing it. The first play was started and directed by a homeschool girl when she was thirteen years old. She has just turned twenty two weeks ago. Babies that were born during the year of the first play are in the play this year. Crazy stuff.

See you later everybody!

New years' resolutions

Today I am quite proud of myself for having actually started one of my new years' resolutions...even if it is February 7th: I have started a blog. Whether or not I will complete the resolution to actually keep a blog going and up to date has yet to be determined. In any case, the blog is started and hopefully I will nag at myself enough that it will actually continue! Let's hope so.