Benjie-Blog

Life. Such an interesting thing it is… takes a while to figure it out too.

I haven’t been updating much lately, so I figure I should let you all know about my latest ventures, news, interesting events and umm… whatevers.

I’ve finally learned how to do a cartwheel! It’s actually kind of fun… I never could do them before, but then Isaac showed me the method, and I can do them most of the time now. Just a matter of the landing for me now.

On the first, I was busy all day with… well… shooting people. See, in the morning, I went with my new friend Sam, and a bunch of his friends. You can actually see some footage, and pictures at their blog, The Air Soft Hideout. I did that from about 10 till 3:30, then went home, and following that we went over to the Eichers for the anual harvest party, where we also shot eachother… But just with wooden guns this time

Speaking of shooting….

I got my first duck last week. Purty cool! We’re goin’ huntin’ tomorrow morning early too, so I should get this post finished up soon.

And now, I’ll speak of ventures in brief.

It’s been interesting lately. My online business seems to be actually taking a hike. We’re predicting full-time income by the end of the month of things go as planned.

Hmm… I think that’s all. I need to finish up writing some letters, then head to bed. Gotta head out for huntin’ at 7:30 tomorrow morning!

See y’all! Hopefully I’ll write some more entries soon

-Benjamin

I haven’t updated for quite a while! It’s four days until Mary’s wedding, and I haven’t even gotten you the pictures of Rebecca’s wedding. Believe it or not, I haven’t even seen Rebecca’s wedding pictures yet As soon as I do get some on the computer though, you’ll definitely see them!

I’m certainly going to start updating this blog more (and changing the layout) soon. Things have been a bit interesting around here, but I suppose I don’t really have a good excuse for not updating for two months.

More later.

-Benjamin

Wow.

Four days ago was the wedding of my dear sister, and my new brother in law.

It was a good wedding I’d say… Everything went fairly smoothly. I’ll tell you about it!

Before I get in to the actual wedding story, I’ll tell you about what people came, what our roles were, and any other details that need to be cleared before you can fully understand the wedding.

There were several relatives and friends who came for the wedding. On his side, most of them live close by, but on our side we had: Uncle John and his brother Phillip, Uncle Dan, Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bob, Grandma and Grandpa, And Micah. Then Hwan was here, Sarah and Suzanne, and also Megan and Pam.

As for roles in the wedding… there were no groomsmen or bridesmaids, so that pretty much left ushers. I was an usher, and Isaac was an usher. Then one of his brother’s was an usher, and a friend (Thomas).

Now I can get on to the story…

The night before the wedding, I distinctly hear Mom say “Nobody is going to sleep past 8.” So naturally, I figured I would be waking up early. I was a bit surprised the next morning when I woke up at 8:30 to Rachel handing me the shirt I was supposed to wear that morning.

After I got up, I figured it was about time to get ready for going to the wedding (it was at 10:45 in the morning.) So I came downstairs and put the clothes that I had put in the wash the night before, in to the dryer.

Then I just sort of walked around the house watching what everybody else was doing to get ready. The house was pretty much like rush hour traffic, but I suppose you can’t expect much different on the wedding day of your sister!

I was simply waiting for the clothes in the dryer to get done, so I wasn’t particularly busy… Just making some conversation, and watching the various things happening. Including the coffee spill….

Micah and Isaac were goofing around, and Isaac just happened to have a cup of black coffee in hand. He didn’t see Dad standing behind him however, and that was how the spill happened… He turned sideways and was doing some sort of pose where he stretched both of his arms in opposite directions, and well, the coffee cup hit Dad and spilled all over his White shirt. Mom had only layed out two white shirts, so mine went to Dad and I got a maroon-ish shirt.

Finally the clothes in the dryer were done, so I went and got those, and was now ready for the wedding. By this time it was getting close to 9:30, so everyone headed down to the church.

The road to the church was uneventful.

After arriving at the church, Micah opened the trunk of his car, which he pulled his guitar case (with a guitar inside.) out of. I also pulled my accordion case (with an accordion inside.) out of the trunk. Then I went in to the reception hall and put my accordion (inside the case) right next to the piano.

After that we all headed in to the sanctuary, where not much was happening. I was starting to get a little bit nervous about playing the accordion for the reception, so I went outside and practiced a song… I then determined I was ready.

After not too long, people started showing up. I was a bit confused as to whether I was really going to be an usher or not, so I asked and confirmed that suspicion. After being briefed on how to seat people, we all began seating various people who showed up… Not all that interesting I suppose… I really had no idea what I was doing!

After everyone had been seated, I determined that I wouldn’t be needed for letting people out of the church, so I seated Rachel and sat next to her. The seating order got mixed up, but it all worked out.

Then Isaac seated Mom, and Grandma and Grandpa. Then Cody seated Bob and Leona. Next would come the Bride…

After a very short wait, Dad and Rebecca came up the isle. Wedding march played, and all eyes were on them. She looked happy.

They came up the isle, and at the front came the question “Who gives this Woman to be married to this Man?” “Her Mother and I.” Then Dad was asked to Join the hands of Rebecca and Joshua. And then Mark talked a little bit, and we were all asked to be seated.

Next came a talk from Cameron about marriage and subjection and things like that. And then Mark also gave a few words.

Then after that, Came the vows. It all went along as usual. “I do” “I do”

Then we sang two hymns, and the marriage ceremony was over. Rebecca and Joshua headed out, then the ushers came and ushered us out.

We all went out in sort of single file, then came to the greeting line in the hall, and shook hands and gave hugs.

Then came the reception.

The reception was good as well, I went out in to the reception hall and got out my accordion. I played several different hymns (I was supposed to play 4, but things went slower than expected) and got several people asking me all sorts of questions…. Little kids ask “What is that?!” “Is that yours?!” “Where’s your chimp?” Then Mark wanted a couple of specials (He didn’t know I played!) so I played those. Mom said it was kind of hard for most of the people to hear the accordion because of the position I was in (Hey, it was right next to the piano!)

Then umm, I locked up my accordion and got some stuff to eat. The food was sloppy Joe’s and vegetables with dip. I got about half done with my sloppy Joe when Micah was going to sing, and needed somebody to man the camera, so I was asked to do that.

I figured I’d probably be manning it for a few minutes, then I could go and finish my lunch, but it turned out I was going to be cameraman for the rest of the reception.

Basically, there were songs, talking and praying. It was a good reception

The truck was decorated really well for a wedding getaway car. It was poka-doted all over, and yeah… Had a lot of different things.

I’ll see if I can post the video of the entire thing if I can. If I can’t, I’ll at least post pictures

That was the wedding.

l8er

-Benjamin

Thursday, Rachel, me and Dad headed to Boise to pick up a new arrival from the airport. His name was Hwan. He’s a Korean friend who is n exchange student in America. Right now he’s living in Indiana, but he decided to come for a visit to Idaho.

The first night, we sat at the table and ate chips and salsa, then sang some songs, and umm went to bed!

Second day (Friday) in the afternoon, the Rudkins were going to some horse riding lessons and so asked Hwan if he and the rest of us wanted to come along and ride some horses. So Rachel, me and Hwan went along with them. When we got there, the guy hadn’t remembered that that day was riding lessons, so he was a little bit busy. He said that he had a group of preschoolers comming for horse rides, and that should only take 20 minutes. So we waited around, brushed some horses and then the preschoolers came. Just like he said, it only took about 20 minutes, but we didn’t really end up doing a trail ride or anything (they had said that was the plan.)

So, after that, Mrs. Rudkin brought us home, and we just sort of did a few things around the house. Then we went to FIGIO and the guy who was speaking was Mike Riddle. He spoke about Stem Cell Research, and said how Fetal stem Cell Research has yeilded no positive results, and adult stem cell research has saved more han 20,000 lives! Pretty interesting!

And also after FIGIO, Pastor Deskins talked to Hwan and Hwan got saved! Really really good news! It was exciting

Then also, right as we were planning on leaving, I asked Dad if we wanted to get a subscription to Answers Magazine because they were offering a free DVD with each year you subscribe. He said yeah and I asked how long: “However long you think” he replied. So I ran over to the church building (that’s where they were handling subscriptions) and came in right while they were packaging things up. “I hope I’m not too late!” I thought. But luckily, I asked if I could get a subscription and the lady said “Oh sure! Just fill this form out.” So I did… The paper they were using kept on making the pen not work. So right as I was filling out my email, it stopped as I was writing “gmail.com”. And the lady said “Is it gmail?” “yeah” “ok, I’ve got gmail” So she just took it without me having to finish that. Then I was going to get my DVD’s but they’d already put them in the car to take home! So I went out there, and they got all the boxes out. I was looking through all the different ones trying to find the ones I liked, and Mike said “You can just take a six pack if you want.” “Really?” “Yeah, sure. You can have a better deal for waiting till the last moment!” “ok!” So he got them out, and I picked his set.

So then I thanked them, and went back over to the gymn building. I was just leaning against the wall listening to conversations when the lady came in and said “You forgot to pay for your subscription!” I said “oh sorry!” So we went over to the church building again, and she said “22 dollars” So I gave her that, and she gave me the latest issue. Then as I was walking out the door I was thinking “Wait a minute… I got a two year subscription didn’t I?” So I turned around, went back inside and said “I got a two year subscription!” And she looked at the form and said “oh! 40 dollars!” So I gave her the extra money and they said “Thank you for your honesty!” And then I headed out to the car with my new issue, and put it in the car.

Then I went back in to the gym, and listened to them talk for a little while, and then we went home.

I went to bed shortly after we went home.

On Saturday, we played some table games including Scrabble, Upwards, and Settlers. Then in the evening we went over to Anna and Calebs house for dinner. While we were there, Joe and Laura and their family came over, and brought a canoe. Hwan had never been canoeing, so we took it out on to their pond, and went turtle hunting (sorta.) After we went around trying to sneak up on turtles for a while, we decided we wouldn’t be able to catch one in the canoe, so we heading back to the shore. There, two of Joe’s girls, one of his boys, and Rachel all wanted a canoe ride, so, they all got in, Joe got out, and we went for a ride around the pond. It was interesting; they tried to go fishing, but I think we were all just a bit loud for that.

Then we went back to shore, and everybody got out except me. Then Mary got in, and we went for a short ride. After we did that, it was just about time for Joe to go home, so we took his canoe back to their SUV, and put it on top. Then I went inside and had some dinner (I was hungry!) It was spaghetti.

After I had dinner, we left and went home. Once we were home, we finished the game of settlers we had started. Hwan won I think.

Then I went to bed.

On Sunday, the morning wasn’t too interesting, but we had a barbecue in the afternoon, and played baseball in the evening. It was pretty fun. We were all pretty tired after playing baseball….

Monday, not too much interesting happened that I can remember… We played some more bored games; In fact, we played a lot of bored games while Hwan was here! And umm, after that, we went to nursing homes. (and you know what’s strange, the phone just rang and it was Kathy asking if I was going to nursing homes tonight!) He had fun singing to all the elderly people. Then we went home, and played some more bored games!

On Tuesday, It was one of the less exciting day (aka, a relaxing day….) We played some bored games, and just sort of recharged.

Wednesday, Hwan came with me to the men’s breakfast at 6AM, and he decided he doesn’t like waking up that early We both wound up going back to bed, but he slept in until almost 4PM! I didn’t think I woke him up that early Anyways, that night, Rebecca and Josh were over, and we cooked some cake or something… It was fairly good. Actually got to bed fairly early that night… 11:30!

Thursday, Hwan went over to Anna and Calebs in the morning, and rode horses with Caleb. In the meantime, Rachel went shopping with Anna and didn’t get home until 2PM. While all of this was going on, I was just trying to catch up online, and read some of my Answers Magazine. First Caleb and James got home with Hwan, and James, Me and Hwan went out and shot the slingshot, sling and airsoft out in the barn yard. Then Anna and Rachel got home, and they brought home Dutch Bro’s coffee ^_^ It was verry good! Then we wound up doing a whole yard cleanup project around here. Everybody helped and we got a lot done! Before it got dark, Caleb and James went home. We stayed up pretty late that night, but it was Hwan’s last night here.

Then on Friday, it was Hwan’s last day; They went yardsaling in the morning, and I woke up pretty late. I decided to bike down to the trailer park where the yard sales were, and on my way there, they were on their way back, so they stopped, and I put my bike in the back of their truck, and we went home. Then in the afternoon, Rachel, Me and Dad took Hwan to Boise to the airport, and we said goodbye to him.

That’s pretty much it! Sorry it’s so long

-Benjamin

Here’s the next post

Sometime shortly after Isaac left for New York, one of our computers broke down. Basically that means that since one person was gone, a computer decided it didn’t need to work Not big news, but we haven’t been able to fix it yet.

Another note on computers is, Isaac ordered all the parts for building Dad a new system. So after he left, I built one of the first computers I’ve ever built. We were going to use one case that we had for it at first, but it turned out to be too short for the motherboard. So we wound up swaping cases with another system to finish his computer.

During that same point in time, I did some work for Grandpa on his new house. Putting up blinds, a ceiling fan, a garage door opener and some towel rings.

Next, during April, we had a marriage. Luke Parrish and Sarah Chaves are now Mr. and Mrs. Parrish. They got married at the court house, so there wasn’t a wedding (though there are plans for a reception…)

And moving a little bit forward in time, Mary went on a trip to Canada to visit with her Fiance` Anthony. She had a good time, and it was kind of interesting not having her around.

ok, that’s enough for this entry. Next I’ll tell you about our visitor, and some of the things we’ve been doing in the last week.

See you then.

-Benjamin

Yup I’m 16 now! So far it’s been going pretty well too. I’m not dead, I’m having a good day, I’m getting presents, I’m getting double greetings (”Hi” or “Good Morning!” And “Happy Birthday!”) and it’s cool

When is your birthday again?

Alright, as promised, here’s the pics

Here’s Rachel

And here’s James being silly

Isaac and Obadiah

And the best for last!

Lydia was cute in her outfit

We went sledding on sunday, so here’s the link to Rachel’s blog; she’s got pictures!

http://mingxing.5root.com/?p=281

It’s hard to believe it’s been two days already! Time sure flies. I’m going to be talking about the day before yesterday in this post. It might be a bit long so, brace yourself!

7:30 AM
“Benjamin, time to wake up!” said Mary. “Okay…” I grunted, and then fell back to sleep.

8:15 AM
“Benjamin! Wake up! It’s almost time to go!!” yelled Rebecca. “Okay, Okay, I’ll be down in a bit!” And I woke up, slowly. By the time I had fully gotten out of bed, got dressed etc. Rebecca came up and said “Luke’s going to come and get you before 9.” “Okay” I replied.

So I went downstairs and checked the furnace, then came upstairs, and got my “fancy duds” on. I was to be the “Paparazzi” at the Ladies Of The Lord, Victorian Tea. I know, every guy’s dream.

8:30 AM
Caleb arrives at our house. I had thought that Rebecca said Caleb was comming, not Luke! So, when he came by, I grabbed my coat, he grabbed a couple of things and we left.

Once we got to the tea, Not many people were there, because it was going to start at 9. So, I took off my coat, and revealed, my fancy duds. Surprisingly enough, Zeke was wearing the same kind of clothes! White shirt, green vest.

9:00 AM
People started arriving. There were a few boys at this ladies tea(in case you hadn’t noticed!). There was, Me, James, Caleb, Zeke and a few other ladies brougth their babies, so there was a few little boys. Barbara got there, and showed me a hat! It fit well with my paparazzi suit, so I put it on! Actually the hat was to go with an act at the tea, so I had to give it up later on.

There were some important roles in this tea, so I will disclose them here: I was the paparazzi, Caleb was the soldier in the armor of God, James was playing Jesus in the play, Ronda wore the tattered garments in the play, Barbara was heaviness, and I forget who the other lady was, but she played the old man. Mom did a little puppet act, and there were a few singers, as well as speakers.

Overall it was a pretty good tea. Went off without a hitch. They had good food there too!

Mom did a really good job of decorating the place.

9:30 AM
The play started. I played Jesus in this play once before, so it wasn’t really anything new. They all did a pretty good job though. I forget the one lady’s name who did “a perfect tree” but, she did a good job. Madison(I think that was her name) did a couple specials with Mom. Mary and Rebecca both did some songs, and Trudy did the main message.

11:00 AM
I got tired of my fancyt duds. underneat I had my regular T-shirt, so I took off the shirt, and vest, and took a few pictures in my regular clothes. Then people started leaving, and the girls and some of the other people all danced to the music Mom put on. Then, once everybody was gone, we all cleaned up.

Once we got the whole place cleaned up, we waited for somebody to come and get the “gates” and take them back to the petalers. When he finally came, we all left.

12:00 PM
We got home, and I put batteries in to the camera(they had run down). Soon we would head off to MAF to go on a flight(my first) over the Boise Valley! It was exciting. The people who went were: Me, Mary, Rachel and Sarah. Then the Christiansens came after a while. The people to ride would be: Me, Rachel, Sarah and Bonnie.

1:30 PM
Time for the flight! Oh, before I tell you about this, I’ll tell you something funny. When we first got out at MAF, we went inside, and talked to the lady at the front desk. Then somebody came by and said “Your lights are on!” MAry replied “Oh, it’s one of those cars that turns them off automatically.” Then the lady at the front desk answers the phone “Oh, they’ve already been informed.” Then she hung up and said “They were calling to tell you your lights were on!” LOL!

Okay, on to the flight. It was really cool. The Airplane was a Cessna. The pilot was a really nice guy, whom the girls had already met! He had lived in Africa for 15 years, and lived in lesotho for 13 of those! He was cool. He showed us how to do all the doors, and the seatbelts and such. The take-off was fun. It was really about how I had expected it, but It was way cooler because I was actually doing it.

We flew over greenleaf, and our house! It was so cool to see it from the air. Got tons of pics. The flight was about 40 minutes(10 minutes over the time expected), and was exciting. I guess I’ve actually flown now!

2:20 PM
We took a tour of MAF. Our pilot said he’d give us one. We were going to do it with another lady, but she was too busy, and he apparently wasn’t, so he gave us a tour MAF is kinda cool. They’ve got the actual plane the Nate Saint and them, flew. I’d already seen it though, so It wasn’t much new, but still cool!

2:50 PM
We headed off from MAF. We stopped at a couple places, but Mary forgot her wallet, so we didn’t buy much. Used up all of my cash though! We headed home though, after a while.

And that’s the most part of the day.

Here’s all the pics

Zeke

Caleb - The Soldier

Me in my duds. Sorry it’s so blurry, I didn’t smile for any of the pictures of me :\

One of the tables. I found out where my Bugle went!

Alice in her african dress.

NO ZEKE!!

Hi Aunt Pearl!

There’s Mary and the “Heart Balloon”

Tell you what Zeke, that hat fits you better than me!

They Brought their own treats.

Mom and Madison

One of the Posters Mom made

Soldier got tired.

They were having fun.

A Dancing circle. It got bigger, but this was the biggest snapshot I got!

My sisters

The Other Poster.

Mary and Lydia

Cute?

On to flying!

Here I am, in the plane.

Rachel

Heading to the run way

We’re off!

Nice view from up here!

How’s that for a dashboard??

That house almost looks familiar!

The Ice looked pretty neat from the sky.

There’s the street!(I know… ooooh!!! Ahhhh!)

Lake Lowell

Landed!

Comming in

They were waiting!

Picture time!

And the guys

A plane getting worked on(Not ours, don’t worry!!)

And there’s the plane.

“Wing Spar Bearing Machete Marks”

That’s all!

-Benjamin

I’m sick now. Yup I’ve accepted it finally. Got a sore throat yesterday, and then did the worst thing in the world: Consumed large amouts of sugar. Not exactly what you’re supposed to do when you’re comming down with something! So, last night I noted a good(bad) swelling in my throat due to this.

This morning I still had a sore throat, and by now my head is, shall we say… Clogged. It’s really not nice. Though I guess it’s “sick season”. I sure hope this doesn’t last long!

On a different note, I sure hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving day. As well as having a great black friday, and so on. Christmas is now on its way, so I guess we should start talking about that! Hope christmas season this year is the best one yet!

later.

-Benjamin