Wow. REALLY long time!

I know it's been a while. However, I've been busy. Not busy enough to neglect the blog, though. I'm sorry. I'll bring you up to date. But, since it's been a long time between posts, it'll be a long post. And I mean long. You think any of the previous posts were long? This one'll probably be longer.

Alright. Saturday of last week (eight days ago) Dad and I got to do a bit of shooting. I found out, among other things, a .45 auto isn't too hard to shoot. The .357 revolver gave me some more trouble, but then when someone pointed out to me that I was flinching before the shot, my groups tightened up remarkably! That was the big thing on Saturday.

The Lord's Day after was quite good. Worship was generally well-attended, although one family was absent. After the "morning" (really afternoon) worship, we had the Morton family over for dinner. They were really tasty. Really, we had a great time of food, fun, and fellowship. Evening worship was also quite edifying.

Monday and Tuesday were wonderful. The weather was great. I think I did all right with other stuff too. :)

Mowing and schoolwork mostly occupied this week. I'm about to insert the first of the photo montages. This one is the day of the mowers, following us through an average yard.

The van before loading.

Blower, Trimmer, rakes, gas, etc. loaded in.

The way of getting the mowers in when Mom is doing something else (see below)

The drinks. Refreshments are necessary. :)

Mom working in the garden a little while I was getting the van ready.

Checking the weather before we go is kinda important...

More snacks. Unfortunately, there were only two marshmallows left... :(

Reading material is nice. In case you can't read the title, it's "The Young Carthaginian" by G. A. Henty.

Mom's filling up a mower's gas tank.

Mom mowing. Yes, I did do work. I also took pictures. :)

After mowing before cleanup.

Ditto.

Back yard before mowing.

While mowing.

After mowing before cleanup

Blowing away the grass clippings. It really works.
Mom trimming some.
After cleanup. This looks pretty good, doesn't it? :)
Me happy at being done. Check out the specialized shoes. They've seen better days!

The place where we mowed has a bunch of really neat birds. Raising them is one of the husband's hobbies. This is one that they've kept and will keep. His wings are clipped, so he's often out of the cage. I have a short video of him too, but I don't wanna fool with posting it. Comment or email me if you want the video!

Another picture of the same bird.

Who knew doves needed redeye remover? :)

More birds.

These guys were really cool. I have a short video of them, too. Same as the previous one: if you want it, tell me.

All right. That's it for the mowing stuff. Let me save this first. Be right back...

Back. Anyway. The rest of Monday was uneventful.

Tuesday, we did mowing and school. Of course, there was also the troop meeting. This was on fire building. No big deal, right? YOU try starting it with a flint-like sparker. It isn't too hard, really. Milkdud and Bumpas, the troop's two expert fire builders, thought there wasn't enough air room in the fire. Logan and I proved them wrong! :)

Wednesday, I finished up the COPE training. If you need to know what that is, look at the last post. It has a description on there. Anyway, we did several events. One is the classic "get-your-whole-team-on-this-square-block-of-wood" thing. That wasn't hard. I'm now certified as a "Low Cope Instructor-in-Training." This just means that I'm certified to help run low COPE and I'm under 18. You knew that I was under 18, right? :)

Thursday was more fun. We went bowling in the morning, and I managed to do pretty poorly. The average was around 95 or so. Oh well. Just a game. After that, we went out to the BMV office and picked up a state ID card for the SAT this Saturday. Oh, we also picked up a permit pack for me! Hopefully, I'll be able to get the permit soon. The picture turned out to be, well, interesting. I'm wearing a bright orange shirt with black stenciled letters. All you can read is the word "survived." :) It's really a scout T-shirt. Oh well.

Friday was great. We did some schoolwork but not a ton. However, we also went out to the SONrise party. We is Mom, Dad, Bumpas, his sister, Milkdud, and me. SONrise is an evangelistic party, sort of like a lock-in. We had a strong gospel presentation that I tried to record but the mp3 player didn't cooperate. After that, there are some team events, but it's mostly just free time. The whole thing starts at 2000 on Friday and goes to 0800 on Saturday. I, unlike most people, got about one hour of sleep. Most totally neglect sleeping until the trip home. If you're a driver, you're required to get at least three hours sleep, or else you might not do too well on the trip back! :)

OK. Time for the pictures. Just so you know, some are blurry because I wasn't using the flash so I wouldn't use up so much battery power. After seeing some blurry pictures, I used flash. However, this led to many red eyes. Most of the eyes after a certain point look weird. I removed much of the redness, but not all the time. Sorry everyone! :(

Bumpas on the way out. Sorry, man. Not the best picture. :)

Milkdud on the way out. Ditto on the picture.

Left to right: Brandon, Milkdud, Jason, and Bumpas.

Sudoku as a group activity. Grrr. I can't stand the stuff. Can't do it either, for that matter! :)

One of the best things about events like this: meeting new friends like Aaron here.

Daniel with a large grin! :D

David Whitla, the main person running things, introducing the guest speaker, of whom I have no pictures, except for one that's excessively blurry.

Aaron and me again.

Mandi.

Johanna and Mandi.

Left to right: Nick (my roommate at Covfamikoi 2006), Jason, and Victoria. Victoria's the one that drew all the butterflies that you can see on various people's hands. I even got one. That's a later picture.

Andrew.

Eric, another new friend. Jacob. Several people had fun with sharpies and his nearly bald head. He was quite willing, just so you know. It wasn't a prank. :)
Ben getting ready for a picture.

Ben and Zachary. Left to right, as usual.

Ben and Daniel. Jacob's on the right side. If you look closely, you might be able to see some more of the "graffiti" on his head.

First picture of the actual sunrise.

Eric again, this time without redeye remover. Pretty incredible, isn't it?

A group sitting around talking.

John and Brandon.

Strawberries. See, Mortons, we also had strawberries in April! Bet yours were better, though...

Matt. Remember, we were all tired. Sorry. :)

Another sunrise picture.

Me. Wow. I do look tired!

Luke. He's tired, too.

Later in the sunrise. It keeps getting better and better!
Allen.

David.

A bunch of people talking.

Left to right: Abby, Arial (sorry if I spelled it wrong,) Laura, and Ben.

Aaron again.

The butterfly. Sorry it's blurry.

Alright. That's it for pictures. The rest of Saturday (after we got back) was mowing and recuperating. I got May's Pizza for supper. It's a local place that loads on the grease. Yummy! :)

Today was very good. The Mortons were out of town, but everyone else was there. We had a dinner schedule--worship, Sabbath school, worship, then a dinnner. After dinner, a bunch of us guys headed back to my house to show my bike and flightsim controllers to a couple friends from church. After that, we came back here, and Michelle got to come too. She's a college girl who actually lives in California, but goes to school only about an hour north of here. This was her last week here, so that was kinda sad.

After that, I've been working on this post for about two and a half hours. Maybe a little bit more. I hope you're happy. It was kinda fun doing one this long, but, hopefully, I won't need to again! :)