Confessions of a Homeschooler

What I've Been Up To...

2012-01-27T08:12:00.000-06:00

Someday, I will blog about the Dominican Republic. Someday, I will post those pictures. But unfortunately, I need to memorize conversion factors, the Periodic Table of Elements, and the names of ionic compounds containing polyatomic ions first. Fun, right? Welcome to my life.

Goodbye Minnesota...Hello Dominican Republic!

2012-01-06T17:22:00.000-06:00

45.8. Thanks to my biology and chemistry textbooks, as well as my tendency to pack basically all the contents of my dresser because I can't decide what to leave behind, my suitcase weights 45.8 pounds! Oh well, thank goodness for free checked luggage on international flights.

I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get on the Internet, but I'm hoping to be able to post a few pictures while we're gone. Until then, goodbye!

Sisters

2012-01-04T20:35:00.001-06:00

Today I decided to test Sadie on her knowledge of body parts. She sat on my lap and pointed to whatever I told her (checks, teeth, ears, etc). Once we had exhausted the parts of my face, I pointed to the little puff of hair at the top of her head and then asked, "Sadie, where's Emma's puff?" Puzzled, she searched my head before concluding, "Emma no puff!"

But don't worry, we fixed it right away.

Love. Peace. And sisters with puffs.

A Year in Review (In Pictures Of Course!)

2011-12-31T15:41:00.001-06:00

We experienced the BIG moments...

staying at Club Med in Sand Piper Bay, FL

going to Ethiopia a second time (with Mekdes, the wonderful girl I sponsor)

taking the ACT

staying at a cabin on Lake Superior

having this beautiful girl (and my best friend), Jeanna, stay with us before she moved to North Carolina!

attending (and running) fiddle camp

hosting the Button family reunion

attending the amazing (and wet!) U2 concert

saying goodbye to Grace (she started attending school in Mississippi)

visiting Jeanna and her family in North Carolina

going camping (for the first time!) on the north shore with Dad and the boys

cliff jumping - it was so fun! and yes, I don't look too sure in this picture, but I did end up jumping. It only took me fifteen minutes to work up the courage.

going to the State Fair (for the second time ever!)

attending the Desiring God Conference - Finish the Mission

being accepted to St. Thomas!

visiting colleges and enjoying Chicago

throwing our first neighborhood party

having Grace home for the first time since she left

preparing for Christmas with our very first artificial tree

living through Finals Week

enjoying Christmas Eve with old and new friends

Christmas!

We experienced the FUNNY moments...

Zeke and Sadie both decided to dress up as princesses (one day I will use this picture to blackmail him)

right in the middle of our fiddle performance, tornado sirens went off. we all ended up in the basement of the restaurant until the tornado was gone.

Sadie wasn't exactly feeling like a very sweet strawberry on Halloween

We experienced the FAMILY moments...

our Christmas card picture

the little kids and their pumpkins

the boys and I in Duluth

we actually set up the tent!

We experienced the BEAUTIFUL moments...

We (well, actually I) enjoyed the FRIEND moments...

Megan! who would have thought I could meet someone so cool at Century? she's an awesome friend and also the best babysitter in the world. I think Zeke and Lizzie like her more than me!

Tegan! even though we live on practically opposite sides of the country (well, state, although sometimes it feels like the country), we've still managed to stay thisclose! something I can't even do with my neighbors.

Elise! we went to Ethiopia together and I have loved getting to know her ever since. she's the only friend i've ever quoted Songs of Solomon with (for the curious, it was Songs of Solomon 4:1b-2a). plus she's the best photographer on the face of the earth (photo credits for this one go to her).

Jeanna! we first met when my family moved to Iowa to work at an international boarding school that her grandparents started (and yes, that is a true story). We've been best friends ever since. Even though we literally live across the country from each other now, we still can (and do!) talk about anything and everything.

We experienced the GOD moments...

This year wasn't all fond and warm memories. There were a lot of tears, a lot of mistakes, and a lot of pain. But God was through and in it all. Really, all of these moments in 2011 were God moments. And all of the moments in 2012 will be as well. May your heart be filled with gratitude for 2011 and trust for 2012!

"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

Christmas Break Enjoyments

2011-12-29T14:44:00.000-06:00

One of my Christmas presents this year was an iTunes gift card (thanks Grandpa and Grandma!). I have what you might called a love/hate relationship with iTunes gift cards. I absolutely love music, but when it comes time to buy it, I get super overwhelmed by everything that's out there. This time, however, the music buying process was relatively painless and I absolutely love the two CDs that I bought. So much so that I'm going to share them with you and hope that you'll at least listen to them, if not buy them too!

The first cd I bought is actually on sale right now on iTunes (so buy it ASAP). It's called the Goat Rodeo Sessions and it's a a compilation of an amazing group of musicians. You all know who Yo-Yo Ma is, and Chris Thile is the best mandolin player in the world. It's an amazing cd of blue grass, classical, and jazz all mixed into one. My favorite song is called "Attaboy," and you should definitely listen to it by clicking here as soon as you're done reading this blog post.

The second cd is called "Here For You" and it's a collection of the songs sung at the Passion Conference by artists like Chris Tomlin, Christy Nockels, and Kristian Stanfill. It is amazing. I listened to the entire cd in one sitting yesterday afternoon and I absolutely love it. I can't wait to learn all the songs. So far, my favorite songs are "Lord, I Need You" by Chris Tomlin (click here to listen), and "Always" by Kristian Stanfill (click here to listen).

Wow, two blog posts today! Can you tell that I don't really know what to do with myself now that I'm on break? Oh well, I'm not complaining.

Museums Make Me Sleepy

2011-12-29T14:33:00.000-06:00

I don't know if it's a genetic condition, or maybe a virus I picked up, but museums make me sleepy. Give me an hour with art from Europe in the 17th Century and I will give you a very tired girl. And yet, today found the whole family (minus Dad) at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, because seven kids and museums go so well together. However, the day turned out to be quite fun. We all split up and, armed with one little kid each, spent twenty minutes on each floor. It still made me tired, but it was fun and no security guards freaked out at us. Although, Sadie may have kind of touched the corner of a painting. But shh, you didn't hear that from me.
Here are a few pictures I snapped while we were there - the no flash rule combined with Sadie clinging to me because she was scared of the statue of an angel you-know-whatting with a woman (who wouldn't be scared?) made for some grainy photos. However, if nothing else, they just prove that we really did visit the museum.

Lizzie walked up to this painting, turned to me, and promptly announced, "Emma, this is my favorite painting!" So, of course, I took her picture by it.

This one was my favorite - it's made completely out of driftwood the artist collected from the shores of Lake Superior. It was amazing! I could have stared at it for hours.

Christmas!

2011-12-26T13:55:00.001-06:00

Sadie was a little stunned

Who wouldn't be? This is what happens when there are nine people in your family

She woke up pretty quickly though, especially when her brother made fun of her socks

Dad reading the Christmas Story

Look familiar? That's because you've seen them before - click here for a refresher

Sadie loved the monkey Grace got her

Post-Christmas carnage

The Starbucks gift cards and Caribou coffee made it a little easier to deal with

Playing with the wooden cupcake set I got the little kids

My cupcake - I think I liked the set more than they did!

Levi and I made our own sushi with the sushi kit I got him

Just call us Sushi Chefs!

Hope you had a great Christmas!!!

Update!

2011-12-23T19:33:00.000-06:00

I just talked to my parents! My mom had an appointment at Mayo today to talk to another radiologist about her aneurysms. The report was very encouraging. My parents really liked Mayo and the doctor they saw - he spent forty minutes talking with them! His best guess is that the aneurysms were caused by a virus or infection my mom got that spread to her brain. The biggest aneurysm is right next to her ear, which may have been causing some of her ear troubles. This doctor agreed that they would only need to operate on the largest one, and said that the other three are either too small to be a problem or positioned where even if they did swell, they wouldn't cause a stroke. We haven't scheduled a surgery yet, but it will probably be happening within a month. Thank you for your prayers and we'll update if anything changes.

Changes

2011-12-23T17:13:00.000-06:00

God is sovereign. I believe with all my heart and with all my mind that God exists and that He is in complete control of the entire universe. Before I say anything else, you, dear reader, need to know that that is true and that is the rock my family is standing on.
Christmases don't often happen as we would have expected. One year, we all got the stomach flu right before Christmas (2008). One year, we had just gotten a referral for two girls (not the one we had planned on!) from Ethiopia (2009). One year, those two girls were opening presents right next to us (2010). And one year, this year, we found out that my mom has four brain aneurysms. Let me tell you a story of God's sovereignty:

About two years ago, one of us picked up a nasty cold and graciously shared it with the rest of the family. This is pretty standard in our house - someone always seems to be getting a cold and before you know it, everyone has a cold. This cold, though, was especially vicious to my mom and infected her ear. Although she pretty much recovered, she's always had problems hearing out of that one ear. My dad kept urging her to check it out, but she kept putting it off in the hopes that it would heal itself. This year, however, we met our tax deductible, which has resulted in a flurry of doctors visits. My mom finally relented and went to see an ear specialist. The initial hearing test showed that she did indeed have less hearing in one of her ears. The ear doctor suggested that she get an MRI before they did anything to her ear just to make sure that there wasn't anything else contributing to the hearing loss. When the MRI came back, the doctor told my mom that he saw something on her MRI that kind of looked like an aneurysm (to read what they are, click here). He said that it was nothing to worry about. However, there's just something about having an aneurysm in your brain that seems maybe just a little serious, so we had it checked out. After a day of testing at St. Joseph's hospital on the 21st, the doctors discovered that my mom has four aneurysms in her brain. One is relatively big, one is medium-sized, and the other two are pretty small. The radiologist said the method they would use to treat the biggest aneurysm is a relatively easy procedure (compared to most!) called coiling. My mom got an appointment in at Mayo Clinic to get a second opinion this afternoon, so she and my dad are down there right now.
When I think about what God did for us, I get really overwhelmed. Most people don't even find out they have aneurysms until it's too late (aneurysms can cause strokes). Because we discovered them, because my mom is healthy, and because she's young, her aneurysms will be possible to treat. Although it's a little scary and a little uncertain, we all trust that God is holding us in His hand. He has watched these aneurysms for years, and is just now letting us in on the picture. To those of you who don't know Christ, this probably sounds cliche and blind and ignorant. I can't really do anything about that, except for tell you with total certainty that God is in control. We are so incredibly thankful that He is sovereign and that He has let us discover these aneurysms in time to treat them.
Another evidence of God's goodness is how eager people are to help! My mom hasn't even gone in for surgery yet, and we already have a neighbor over tonight cooking pasta for us while she's gone. Our fiddle teacher brought over a huge pan of lasagna. Another neighbor dropped off cookies. Friends babysat the little kids. Other friends brought over supper and cleaned the house. Tons of people have emailed, texted, and called to let us know that they're thinking and praying. It's been incredible and such a blessing.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned;

And the flame shall not consume you."

Isaiah 43:2

We serve a great God.

Random Updates

2011-12-16T14:41:00.001-06:00

1. I got all A's in my classes this semester! What a blessing. I remember being so incredibly overwhelmed at the beginning of the semester - I would sit on the back porch with my Bible on my lap, crying because I felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. God was so good to me this semester - I loved all of my professors (except for my crazy nutrition one), I enjoyed my classes, and I made a lot of new friends. It was a really good semester. Here's to hoping that next semester (my LAST one!) is even better!

2. I got my wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday morning. Oh man. There's just so much I could say. My recovery has gone pretty well - my cheeks are really swollen and Eli and Levi has been teasing me all day. Every time I come out of my room, they make chipmunk sounds and ask where I'm storing my nuts. Yes, they're great brothers. Actually though, I feel more like some big-jawed European nordic skier named like Boris or Sven than I do a chipmunk. My cheeks haven't really gotten rounder, they've gotten squarer. I would post a picture, but I still have some ~~pride~~ dignity left. But picture this guy, and you'll get a pretty good idea of what I look like:

{Robert Z'Dar - photo creds}

3. That was the very first time I'd gotten surgery or anything even close to it. I can only remember a few things about it, which is so weird. The first thing they did was give me laughing gas, which was extremely terrifying. My hands and feet got really tingly feeling and all of a sudden, I felt like I wasn't in my body anymore. My brain was totally awake, but my body was asleep. I heard the surgeon come and and ask how I was doing, but I couldn't open my eyes or mouth to tell him. He tapped my hand and I could suddenly open my eyes. I said I was fine and then he asked me to clench my fist. I closed my eyes again and felt them prick my arm. And the next thing I knew I was waking up on a couch in the recovery room. When I woke up, I felt like my mouth was stuffed with cotton. I reached in to take it out but my mom or the nurse told me that I had to leave the gauze in my mouth. As I brought my hand down, I realized that I'd actually felt my lip - they had numbed my tongue and my bottom lip and they felt like huge cotton balls in my mouth. I drifted back to sleep and woke up again crying. I remember the nurse handing me a kleenex and explaining to my mom that crying was one of the side effects of the anesthetic they'd used on me. My mom left to go bring the car around to the back door (they didn't exactly want me stumbling through the waiting room out to the car), and the nurse helped me put my sweater on. My sweater was reversible and I remember being really annoyed because she reversed it to the wrong side. Then we both walked down this hallway, but I could barely walk so I had to lean on her. When we got to the car, I sank into my seat and fell asleep. So yeah, there you go! I've been spending the past day lying in bed, listening to Christmas music, listening to John Piper sermons, and watching really dumb movies that make me crabby (aka "Morning Glory" - complete waste of time, don't even watch it). It's been nice, actually, just to lay in bed, but I am starting to get a little tired of it. Thankfully, I have awesome friends who are coming over every day starting tomorrow until Thursday when Grace come home from boarding school! I'm looking forward to the week.

4. This is now one of my favorite songs. We sang it in youth group on Wednesday night and I've been listening to it ever since.

DONE!

2011-12-14T16:57:00.001-06:00

I am done with first semester! Done!! D.O.N.E. DONE!!!!!!!!!!

Done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done.

{i have time to write all that now}

DONE!

{sorry, should have thought that one out better}

And do you know what the best part is?

I GOT AN A IN BIOLOGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a good semester. And now I will thoroughly enjoy my Christmas break filled with wisdom teeth pulling, chemistry reviewing, scholarship filling outing, Christmas celebrating, family seeing, and friends enjoying.

Studying

2011-12-11T16:29:00.000-06:00

Let's just say that if today was Friday, I'd be in great shape.

Hello from Pre-Finals Week!

2011-12-07T22:08:00.000-06:00

Next week is Finals week, which means that I am busily studying pretty much 24/7. I realized that, not only is this my first year of having cumulative finals, but I have three of them. Which I know isn't very much. But it sure seems like it! Especially when you're trying to remember how in the world you could solve matrices so well two months ago and now have absolutely no clue what to do.
Anywho, I wanted to share two discoveries I made today that I think will brighten your day. The first is the generic "Classical Christmas Radio" station on Pandora. If you're looking for something to put you in the Christmas mood, this is it! I've been listening to it all night and ah! it's made me excited for Christmas like nothing else. Pandora should have a banner along on the top that says like, "Try our Christmas stations!" or something like that. Just look around, you'll find it. They have set Christmas playlists for different genres - and so far classical has been the best one.
The second discovery is a verse I just found in Isaiah that kind of goes with my last post.

"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God...And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness...It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray." Isaiah 35:1-2, 8

That was pretty encouraging, because I feel like a fool a lot. And it's nice to know that God won't let even me go astray.

So enjoy your December! And expect to hear from me on the other side of Finals week.

An Average Increase of One

2011-12-05T17:14:00.000-06:00

I wasn't planning on hearing from God today. And I most certainly wasn't expecting to hear from him during math class. But God rarely works the way we think he will, does he?
Let me back up. The last few days have been not-so-good days. I've been overwhelmed with studying for finals and finishing a college application. It all culminated in being crabby, distant from God, and well, sinful. Yesterday, I received a wake-up call that wasn't very pleasant. I knew that I needed God's forgiveness and I knew he was offering it, but for some reason something just wasn't working. I went to school today feeling frustrated and tired of trying to get my faith to "work." Not only that, but I felt unworthy of God and unable to come before him. I felt like my sin had lowered his opinion of me. I entered math class having temporarily and conveniently forgotten about all of that. It was time to learn, not to try to figure out my spiritual life.
Today we started talking about computing the average rate of change for a function. It's basically finding the slope between two given points of a line that isn't just a straight line. The first function we worked with looked something like this:

{it's the graph on the left}

We computed the average rate of change and found that it was equal to one. My teacher started explaining what this meant. "Is the graph always increasing by one on that interval?" he asked. "No," he continued. "Look, at first it's moving up, but all of a sudden it goes back down. But then what does it do? After going down, it goes back up." And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, my mindset completely shifted from math to my life. Suddenly, although he didn't know it, my teacher was no longer talking about algebraic functions. He was speaking directly to me.
He kept talking. "But even though the graph is going up and down, there is a constant, overall, average increase of one. Even though it goes up and down, by the time you get to point b, the graph has increased." And right then, I knew that this was God speaking. I knew that this was something more than just graphs and the average rate of change. God was using this math lesson to speak to me. God knows my sin, God knows that I don't treasure him as he deserves, God knows my weaknesses. And yet, he continues to pursue me and to make sure that I know that I am His. My life may go up for a while. And then, like it did yesterday, it may crash back down. But God will make certain that overall, there is an average increase of one. I am His child, and He will sanctify me.

Pet Peeves

2011-12-03T18:41:00.000-06:00

I had originally planned to make a list of all of my pet peeves. However, that was a little depressing. So I decided to just share one that I experienced today. And that pet peeve is...

Emma's Pet Peeve #1: When little girls dress more fashionably than I do.

Ouch.

Rocking Around the [Artifical] Christmas Tree!

2011-12-01T21:40:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry, I'm too tired to post any cute stories to go along with this post tonight. But I think the pictures speak for themselves. I will say though, that every year we have staunchly bought a real Christmas tree, but this year, we decided to buy a fake one off of Craigslist. Although I miss the smell and the warm, fuzzy feeling that a Christmas tree brings, I do not miss the pokey pine needles, the sloshy water, and the constant fear that at any moment the tree could self-ignite and burn our entire house to the ground. So, on that note...

(p.s. It might boost the Christmas-y feel of this post if you listened to Christmas music and drank hot chocolate while you read this. Just a tip.)

And then, finally, SNOW!

Surrender

2011-11-29T15:55:00.000-06:00

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

-Jim Elliot

Lately, God has been teaching me to surrender. I'm not very good at surrendering. I want things done, and I want them done my way. I have dreams and plans and habits and relationships that, if threatened, I will cling to with all my might. That is not how God wants his children to live.

"I will make with an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them... I will rejoice in doing them good."

-God (quoted in Jeremiah 32:40-41)

And yet how quickly I forget that. How easy it is, when something good comes along, to latch onto it and refuse to let go. If I cling to a dream or a plan or a relationship that God is asking me to give up, though, I will waste my life. At the end of my life, I will look back and think, "I did not trust that God was who he said he was. I refused to sacrifice my plans for his glorious plan. I wasted my life." I do not want to waste my life.

"Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."

-St. Augustine

When God asks me, or you, to give up something, it's not for our harm. Whatever God calls me to do is for my joy. God longs for us to find rest in him, and the only way to do that is to give up everything. Surrender is a scary thing, but in the end, it's the best thing. You can see that in the lives of people like Hudson Taylor, who started China Inland Mission, the very first missionary society to go to the interior of China. When his little girl lay dying, he wrote,

"It was no vain nor unintelligent act when, knowing this land, its people and climate, I laid my wife and children, with myself, on the altar for this service. And He who we are and have been seeking to serve - though so unworthily, with much of weakness and failure, yet in simplicity and godly sincerity, and not without some measure of success - He has not left us now."

You can see it in the lives of people like George Muller, who started an orphanage right in the middle of the Industrial Age in Great Britain. George Muller made no requests for money his entire life - he and his 2,000 orphans depended on God alone for provision. And did God ever provide! (You'll have to read his biography for yourself!) You would think that a man with that much responsibility and that little security would be in a state of perpetual worry. Think again. Here's a description of Muller from a farmer living near the orphanages.

"Had I not known him, I should have said he was a gentleman of leisure and without a care, so quietly did he walk and so peaceful and stately was his demeanor! The twenty-third Psalm seemed written all over his face."

And Muller himself said,

"Our [his and his wife's] happiness in God, and in each other, was indescribable. We had not some happy days every year, not a month of happiness every year; but we had twelve months of happiness in year, and thus year after year. Often and often did I say, "My darling, do you think there is a couple in Bristol, or in the world, happier than we are?" "

You see it in the lives of people like Jim Elliot who wrote the quote I started this post with - "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." Jim Elliot and four other men were killed by a tribe in Ecuador they had hoped to share the gospel with. Later, Jim and other men's widows went back to the same tribe and succeeded in sharing the gospel.

I want that peace and I want that joy in God more than I want my safety, my security, my dreams, my plans, my desires. As I was struggling (and am struggling!) with surrender, I stumbled across a hymn I had never heard before. It has quickly become one of my favorites.

The Love of God

(Frederick Lehman)

The love of God is greater far,

Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star,

And reaches to the lowest hell;

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

God gave His Son to win;

His erring child He reconciled;

And pardoned from his sin.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade.

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

And it shall forevermore endure

The saints' and angels' song

Well, Hello There

2011-11-22T20:32:00.001-06:00

This is me. This was me. This was me after I spent almost an hour writing one measly little paragraph for a college application essay. There is nothing as uninspiring as a college essay question. But it is done. The battle is won! I came, I wrote... and we'll find out whether or not I conquered.

But all is not lost. My work is not in vain - today was proof of that. I got home from school to find a thin envelope on my desk from St. Thomas that said "Scholarship Information Enclosed!" Oh great, I thought as I opened it. This little guy is so puny that it's probably just a letter that says "Thanks for wasting our time." I pulled out the letter to find, however, that St. Thomas is offering me a scholarship that would cover roughly 40% of my entire college cost. And that's without any major-specific scholarships or financial aid loans/grants tacked on. Today, I am very thankful.

Confessions of a Girl Swamped in Biology

2011-11-21T14:08:00.003-06:00

Today I was at school standing outside my classroom, waiting for math class to start. All of a sudden, a boy with orange hair walked by and my first thought was, "Wow... Did you know that you have the rarest phenotype on earth?!"
Yes, that is what biology does to you.

Snowed In

2011-11-19T21:14:00.001-06:00

{photo credit}

We were supposed to have guests over for supper tonight, but after getting almost four inches of snow, the guests weren't able to make the drive. We had made a huge vat of chili and a pan full of cookies, so instead of letting the evening go to waste, we settled in to enjoy the night. Grace is home from boarding school for the week. so we had supper as a whole family for the first time since the end of July. The little kids played outside in the snow, Lizzie and I rolled cookies, we ate supper, talked about Christmas, and hung up the Advent calendar.

After supper, I put on my boots and winter coat and trudged around in the snow for the first time this season. I love walking in fresh snow, especially at night. There's something that just feels so wondrous about it. And as I walked around, I was reminded of the verse, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18). And suddenly, I was filled with a new thankfulness that Jesus Christ came to the earth to to save sinners like me. No longer am I facing the wrath of God. Because Jesus Christ came and was born on Christmas, and died on Good Friday, and rose from the dead on Easter, my sins are gone. Not only are they gone, but I am white and pure in the eyes of God. I am so thankful for the blood of Jesus, spilled for me, that cleanses me from my sin and makes me as clean and sparkling and pure as my yard now is under all the snow. As you enter the holiday season, may you be fully confident in what Jesus Christ has done for you, or for what he offers you. And as you celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, may you be thankful for the ultimate gift - Jesus Christ.

My Brothers

2011-11-16T18:03:00.000-06:00

A few nights ago, my mom came home from shopping with some Christmas presents for the toddlers. As she pulled the fuzzy little Halloween costumes out of the bags, I could just imagine all the little kids in their costumes - Zeke as a little bear, Lizzie as a ladybug, and Sadie as a bumblebee. What I didn't know, however, was that the boys had much different thoughts as they saw the costumes. See for yourself...

Discussing the Bible

2011-11-14T17:57:00.000-06:00

While doing school this afternoon, I heard a knock on my door and Levi walked in with his Bible. "Hey Emma - what does this word mean?" As he walked towards me I started envisioning the theological discussion that would ensue where I gently explained the concepts of the Bible as he slowly soaked it all in. Then he got to me and pointed to the word: circumcision.
Needless to say, he left a different little boy than when he came in.

Study Break

2011-11-13T16:08:00.000-06:00

Caribou now has its Spicy Mochas. The holidays are officially here.

Happy 11/11/11!

2011-11-11T23:13:00.000-06:00

This is the penultimate date where all the numbers are exactly the same. So in celebration, I though I'd post at 11:11 on 11/11/11. We'll see how well I can time this.

Oops okay I was a little late. Sorry guys. But I was typing this at 11:11, if that makes you feel better. Enjoy your weekend!

It Only Took Me 3/4ths of the Semester...

2011-11-09T17:04:00.000-06:00

I am now officially getting an A in Biology. Oh yeah!!!!

Success Tip: Give Yourself Achievable Goals

2011-11-07T22:17:00.000-06:00

After taking college classes for almost a year and a half now, I have finally discovered the secret to being successful, accomplished, and motivated. I'd read about this secret over and over and over again but never had I harnessed the incredible power until this morning. The secret is this - make goals for yourself that are achievable. Don't get caught up in trying to get everything done. Make your goals reasonable.

This morning, for the first time in months, I completed every single task on my to-do list. I attribute it all to the fact that I finally learned how to give myself reasonable goals. See for yourself:

Yes, for those of you who think maybe you're not reading correctly, it does indeed say, "[Put] new pen in backpack." That was one of my goals this morning. Done.

Hair

2011-11-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

Since my mom is in Arizona visiting my grandparents this weekend, I've had to do a few things I've never done before - like doing Lizzie and Sadie's hair. Ethiopian hair is beautiful, but apparently there are a few regions in Ethiopia that the beautiful hair gene kind of passed over. Sidamo, the region where Lizzie and Sadie are from, is one of those regions. The word we most commonly use to describe the girls' hair is "crunchy." Mom's done her best to soften it up using a plethora of paraffin hair oil, mixed chix conditioner, kids leave-in conditioner, de-tangaler hair spray, and so many other hair products, but alas there's just not much you can do to un-crunchify hair. This morning while I viciously scrubbed conditioner into Sadie's hair, I decided to actually try to style it. Surprisingly, it turned out super cute, and all day Sadie's been touching the clip in her hair saying, "So cute! So cute!"
After finishing Sadie's hair, I combed through mine and laughed to myself at the difference in our hair. Sadie's hair is thin, tightly coiled into short curls, and black as coffee. Mine is thick, long, and blonde. Here we are, two sisters brought together from two ends of the earth with hair as opposite as it could possibly be, and yet we're family. I can't imagine what life would be like without this little girl with a head full of crunchy curls.
Love you, Sades.

Term Paper

2011-11-01T21:51:00.000-05:00

This is me with my term paper for Biology on Down Syndrome. It was going really well until I realized that one of my paragraphs is pitifully short, which means I have to crack open my giant textbook yet again and figure out what in the world is going on. I am so close to finishing this. It's due tomorrow, as you could probably guess, and if I get the full amount of points, I will officially have an A in Biology for the first time all semester. I'm at 89.08% right now. Yes, it's frustrating. So it's pretty crucial that I do well on this paper. Which is why I will swallow my sighs, hide my yawns, play some good music, and crack open my Biology book. Wish me luck...

Carving Pumpkins

2011-10-27T22:38:00.000-05:00

When we were little, growing up on a Presbyterian boarding school campus, we didn't celebrate Halloween. Every year we went to this church's "Harvest Festival" for games and candy, but other than that, October 31st came and went and we didn't bat an eye. The closest we ever came to recognizing Halloween happened the very last year we lived at the boarding school. All of the various staff kids were sitting around after supper when someone had the brilliant idea of putting on our dress-up clothes and going to all the staff houses. I asked my mom if we could, and she agreed on one condition - that instead of "Trick-or-Treat" we say "Happy Harvesting." So off we went in a flurry of excitement, feeling slightly naughty that we were actually acknowledging such a holiday. Needless to say, our fellow staffers were rather surprised to open their doors on a cold, dark Sunday night to a chorus of "Happy Harvesting!" by a band of kids expecting candy. However, our excitement was contagious and even though no one was prepared, everyone contributed what they could to our bags. One couple was on a diet but they asked us all inside as they dug through their cupboards trying to find something to give us. Ten minutes later we emerged triumphantly laden with carrot sticks and Diet Pepsi. Our little tour of the campus ended in the warm kitchen of an older couple who served us hot cider and mini milky ways. Although that Halloween night was a far cry from what most kids experience, we loved every minute of it and went to bed that night counting down the days until next year.

Now that we're living in a suburb in Minnesota, our Halloweens look much different than they did at the boarding school. Now Halloweens entail actual trick-or-treating (yes, after her fifth child, Mom relaxed her "happy harvesting" rule) in actual neighborhoods wearing actual costumes (Disclaimer: my costume means jeans and a warm sweater). The little kids love it, and the neighbors always save their full sized candy bars for us. Before trick-or-treating, however, comes the real fun - carving pumpkins. Here are the results:

The carvers hard at work

Liz very faithfully dug out the insides of her pumpkin

Sadie was super grossed out by her pumpkin. She would only touch it after I had completely cleaned it out.

Things got a little intense....

My pumpkin is in the back, Zeke's is on the right, Sadie's is in the center, and Eli's is eating Sadie's head. Yes, I'm sorry you had to see that.

Chicago

2011-10-23T11:02:00.001-05:00

Hello. I'm posting this from my phone in the car in our way home, so I apologize if the format is a little weird. This trip was pretty eventful - my host at Wheaton didn't know she was supposed to host me so she wasn't there to meet me (it all worked out for the best though, more in that later); while we were at Navy Pier the police thought a plane had crashed into Lake Michigan so they sent out fire trucks, police cars, police boats, the scuba squad, and a helicopter; and we ended up running fifteen blocks through Chicago to catch our train home. We made it through it all, though, and managed to have quite a good time.

Fall

2011-10-16T16:10:00.000-05:00

Two Year Anniversary

2011-10-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

Today, October 9th, marks the two year anniversary of the day we got the call. The call where our adoption agency told us the little baby we'd been referred to had a two year-old sister. And not only did this two-year old sister exist, but we couldn't adopt the baby without her sister. Suddenly a crisp, fall day we'd planned to spend working on the yard was consumed by a huge, scary decision. There was much confusion, fear, and tears that day. However, after talking and praying for two weeks, we found that this little two-year old had captured our hearts - and we didn't even know her name.

Now here we are, two years later, with our lives completely changed because of these girls. There are some ups and there are some downs, but we are so thankful that God brought them from the other side of the world into our home.

Tonight we picked up injera and wot from Fasika, an Ethiopian restaurant in St. Paul, and enjoyed gasping through the spiciness with our dear, grandparent-like friends from the church, the Agnews.

Mr. Agnew rolling the injera like a true Ethiopian

Two of the wots made from lentils, spices, and oils

Even Liz was taken aback by the spiciness - she has definitely been Americanized

Flagella

2011-10-07T15:10:00.001-05:00

Yes. In case you were wondering, yes, this is exactly how I wanted to be spending my beautiful fall day. Reading about flagella.

As I sloughed through my Biology book yesterday reading about all the cell functions and what the flagella does (all I really wanted to know is who came up with the name flagella, because that's a guy I'd like to meet), I was getting pretty discouraged. There's just not much that's enjoyable about trying to memorize what ribosomes do. But then something happened. We heard about a family in Ethiopia that just lost both their parents. All of a sudden, God reminded me why I'm doing this. It's not so that I can make money or be successful or be knowledgable. It's not because my family wants me to go to college or because I want to go to college (although that is a big part of it). It's for those kids in Ethiopia who just lost everything. It's for them. And it's for Him.

Accepted!

2011-10-05T16:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I got this in the mail (complete with little confetti party hats!):

Even though I'm not entirely sure if I'll go to St. Thomas, it was pretty exciting to get the acceptance letter. Well, card, in this case. The acceptance packet with scholarship info is soon to follow!

Sadie

2011-09-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

Oh, Sadie. Where to begin? The first first time I met Sadie was in an orphanage somewhere around the capitol of Ethiopia. I didn't know it then, but there was a little chunk of my heart that was missing until she became a part of our family. I wish I could say that I loved her from the very first picture, but honestly, I was a little scared of her. See for yourself:

The scariness evaporated, however, the second her bald little head rested on my arm that afternoon in the orphanage. Although all I did was feed her a bottle while she slowly soaked through her blankets and onto my arm, she captured my heart.

Since joining our family on February 27th, 2010, Sadie has almost doubled her body weight, speaks in short sentences, and can sing "Baby" by Justin Bieber. I absolutely love her. ~~She's my favorite sibling~~. I love all my siblings, but Sadie holds a special place in my heat. Even though we were born on opposite sides of the world and there's a fifteen year age gap between us, we've managed to bond faster than I do with most of my friends.

Finish the Mission

2011-09-25T19:52:00.001-05:00

I should really be doing my biology homework right now. Or doing functions for math. Or reading about civil rights for American Government. Or fatty acids for nutrition. But for some reason, all I want to do is listen to "I Will Offer Up My Life" by Steve Green and think about this past weekend.
Every year, Desiring God holds a national conference with a specific theme. Last year, my mom and I volunteered at the conference themed "Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God." I blogged about that conference afterwards as well, and if you want to get a much better description of the DG conference than this post will be, read the post from last year! You can find it by clicking here. This year, however, I decided to attend the conference since the topic was near and dear to my heart - missions. The 2011 conference was called "Finish the Mission" and included speakers like Louie Giglio, David Platt, and, of course, John Piper. It was amazing. Simply amazing. I loved everything about it. The people who attend are so nice and friendly; the atmosphere feels as wonderful as if you'd just stepped into a room filled with thousands of people who love the same thing you do (which I did!); the worship was heaven-like; the speakers were hard-hitting, humble, and inspiring; and God worked in my heart. My calling still isn't any clearer, but it's been confirmed. Not only has my calling been confirmed, but I personally have been comforted and reminded that God WILL show me what he wants me to do. It's not like there's some obscure missionary calling out there that God expects me to blindly search for. No, He will make it clear.

Here's the first verse of the last hymn we sang during the conference. It is the hymn that Jim Elliot and four other missionary men sang as their plane took them to a cannibalistic tribe, and to their death.

"We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!

We go not forth alone against the foe;

Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,

We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go."

One of my friends who volunteered at the conference gave me one of her "Finish the Mission" t-shirts - I love it!

Black and White

2011-09-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

I love taking pictures of people. I especially love taking pictures of my family, specifically the little kids. I'm not very good at taking pictures - I just twirl the dial until the number looks right, snap the picture, and hope it turns out well. I hadn't taken any pictures of the kids for a while, so last night we finally did it. After half an hour of picking out outfits and calming hair, however, it was almost dark. I'm still not used to the fact that it gets dark at seven now. We loaded up into the car anyway, headed to downtown Stillwater, and hoped for the best. A few initial photos, however, quickly revealed that it was impossible to get good pictures of the kids with almost no natural light. I almost gave up when I remembered the black-and-white setting. While the kids started to shiver in the cold and worry about the dark-looking clouds, I snapped a few pictures to discover that the black-and-white was perfect. Sounds a little like our life.

They were baying at the moon. Yes, baying.

Zeke worried about the dark clouds (he's terrified of thunder storms)

Well, Hello Again

2011-09-18T18:21:00.000-05:00

Hi there. In case you haven't noticed, I blog pretty sporadically. Really sporadically, actually. Just so you are warned, I'll probably be blogging a lot for the next few weeks and then will write absolutely nothing for remainder of the year.
Today, after spending a scintillating afternoon writing about the constitutional basis for federalism; trying to memorize oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon cycles; and doing linear programming problems; my brain finally shut down and refused to retain any more information. So I finished off a bag of peanut m&ms (my nutrition professor would be proud) and sat down to start up my blog, yet again. I'm not quite sure what I'll blog about since my life consists of school, family, school, and more school right now, but I'll figure it out. You know, finishing my posts about Ethiopia might be a good plan... We'll see. Until that day, here are some pictures from our trip up north this summer, when I still had a life.

Yes, they actually let me touch them!

(he broke it)

Our very first time camping... not in our backyard. It was great!

Check Out Emma to Ethiopia!

2011-02-27T20:00:00.000-06:00

Hello Confessions of a Homeschooler readers! I haven't been blogging at all on this blog because I've been obsessively blogging on my other one! If you suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to eat a gallon of ice cream while looking at pictures of adorable African kids and reading long posts most likely filled with typos, then I highly recommend Emma to Ethiopia. You can find it easily by typing www.emmatoethiopia.blogspot.com into your browser-thingie or by clicking here (<-- that would be easier. Just saying. I mean think about it - would you rather type the whole thing into your brower-thingie and risk typing wrong, or simply click? I would go with just clicking). Anywho, in case you can't tell, I've been on the computer WAY too long trying to cram a two-week long trip into a ninety second long slide show to show my church. Talk about frustrating. So I'm going to give up, and instead make a cup of decaf tea and sit down with a Puritan prayer book and Stones Into Schools. And not study for my psychology exam tomorrow morning that I will totally fail because I've missed the past two weeks of class and now any ounce of motivation I had to do well in that class is totally, irrevocably gone. Good thing there's an extra credit paper. Goodbye.

Emma To Ethiopia

2011-01-19T16:28:00.000-06:00

I just created a new blog to chronicle my second missions trip to Ethiopia! I've posted a few pictures, as well as my financial update and prayer requests. You can easily find it at: www.emmatoethiopia.blogspot.com or by clicking here.
I hope that you'll check it out and appreciate your interest in this trip!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T13:04:00.000-06:00

Well hello there. I hope this post finds you enjoying a very happy and joy-filled Christmas. Our family doesn't really have any traditions for Christmas, but tonight we're planning on going to our church's Christmas Eve service and then tomorrow we'll open presents! I'm actually blogging about something that happened to me at Leeann Chin's last night (and this is not the racist comment someone made to me... but that's another post):
Yesterday I spent the whole morning and afternoon snowboarding with one of my friends. Right after that I had to work at LAC until close. I tried to start doing some closing cleaning around eight o'clock, but for the last hour we were open we had a constant stream of people. There were never more than three people at a time, but for an entire hour there was always someone. Finally, we locked the doors and surveyed the damage. I had been able to get most of the lobby cleaned up, but I hadn't been able to vacuum since there were always people. Half an hour later, the floor was clean and I was hot, tired, and discouraged. My manager had to go and do books so at 9:30, I was scrubbing and squeegging the floor. My dad was going to be there at 10 to pick me up, but I still had the floors, trash, glass, and pop tops. There was no way I could get it all done in half an hour. I was wondering if I should call Dad and tell him to come even later when suddenly, one of the cooks popped his head out of the kitchen. "Hey," he said. "What else do you have left?" "Uhh," I groaned. "Trash, glass, and pop tops." He walked out and grabbed the one of the trash cans. "I'll do trash," he said. I stared. Then the other cook came out, "What should I do?" he asked. Cook #1 nodded towards the soda machine and Cook #2 began taking off the pop tops. I stared some more. We all worked quietly on the lobby together until everything was taken out, cleaned off, soaped up, and squeeggeed. It was 9:57 when we all clocked out.
The cooks have never, EVER, helped me close. I'd heard rumors that sometimes they helped the server finish up the lobby, but I didn't believe it. Every time I've closed (which is once a week), they finish up the kitchen, say goodbye, and leave. But not yesterday. I hadn't acted any differently to them. In fact, I almost talked less to them than I normally do. There was nothing I had done that night that would have enticed them to come and help me clean up. While the cooks were busy doing my jobs, I went back to the office to find my manager. "Did you tell them to help me?" I asked. "No," she replied. "They just did it." God knew that I needed help. He knew that I couldn't do it all on my own before ten. So he sent the cooks to come and help me and got me out of LAC before ten.
May anyone and everyone reading this have a wonderful Christmas knowing that God is sovereign even over cooks at Leeann Chin who hope to spend their Christmas getting drunk and meeting hot girls.

Update On My Crazy, Breathtaking, Busy Life

2010-11-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

Hey! Guess what? I've decided not to quit Leeann Chin's. I know! It's very possible that I am the most fickle person on the face of the earth. But give me a minute, and I'll explain the decision, which I believe is a good one.
I had to main reasons for quitting - the first one was that I just missed not being home. It's hard to be gone three nights a week when you're so close to your family. The second one, though, that I didn't really mention in my other post, is that I just didn't really feel like I belonged. I felt awkward and quiet and like no one really liked me. However, when everyone (well, almost everyone) found out I was quitting, they were really sad! My manager told me that I could come back anytime and he'd have a spot for me. My shift leader said she liked closing with me on Mondays. The other server said she got along really well with me. One of the cooks said I was one of the only sane people working there. So suddenly, my main reason for quitting was gone! I thought about what to do for a long time because that family factor is still a huge part. So I talked to my manager today and asked him if I could work just one shift a week for however long. I don't know how much longer God wants me working at Leeann Chin, but I know that he still wants me there. And I'm happy to stay.
So until further notice, Emma Button is still serving Chinese cuisine.

Of Lemonade and Men

2010-10-28T16:08:00.000-05:00

Today, I was shown that in the midst of elections, the seemingly downward slope of bioethics, and the increasingly stupid and arrogant next generation, there is still hope. And that hope came in the form of an old man.
I was working at Leeann Chin today (I'm not done yet - November 17th will most likely be my last day) when an older man and his wife asked for cups for water from the fountain drinks. I gave them their two styrofoam cups and didn't think about it again until ten minutes later, when the man came back up to the counter. He showed me his cup, "I accidentally got Pink Lemonade instead of water," he explained (FYI: the water tab is connected to the Pink Lemonade - it's super easy to bump the lemonade accidentally while you're trying to get water). He reached for his wallet, "So I'm going to just pay for it." I stared at him in disbelief. While most people would shrug, think it was a lucky accident, and go on their way, here was a man willing to pay for it! I shook my head, "Don't worry about it!" I said. "You can just keep it."
That man and his lemonade makes me think that maybe the world isn't all so bad.

No More

2010-10-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

Hello blog readers! I have some big news to tell you. BIG news. ~~I'm pregnant!~~ Just kidding. Totally. Here is my real news: (ahem. drum roll please...)

I just quit Leeann Chin.

Yes. You read that right. It was super scary and I was super nervous and I'm pretty sure my legs are still shaking, but I quit! Well, I like to think of it as "resigning."
Sorry to just shock you with that. I'm sure you feel like I just sprang that out of nowhere, which would be a true observation. Honestly, though, I have wanted to quit for a long, long time. There are a couple reasons why:

I only want to work 2-3 shifts a week, but that's not helpful to my manager - he obviously needs someone more committed than that
When I do work 3 shifts a week, that means I miss three whole evenings of my week. That doesn't seem like a lot, but with only two years left at home, this is the time I need to be spending with my family, not at work.
I totally, totally, totally don't fit in at Leeann Chin (that's an understatement). At Nelson's, after two days of working there I fit right in. At LAC, it's been almost three months and I still feel like an outsider. But that's okay - I honestly don't want to fit in. I have totally opposite values than my co-workers, we lead totally different lives, and I'm really sick of being teased for not drinking and smoking.

So today, I told my manger (he was super nice about it. i actually wish he'd been kind of crabby or something because that would have made me feel better about it...) and offered to stay until Thanksgiving so that they don't have to train in a new employee during their $5 promo (don't even ask). Three more weeks, and then I'm done! I'm pretty excited. I'm thinking about burning my uniform? What do you think?

Craziness

2010-10-13T10:39:00.000-05:00

Life. Is. Crazy. No joke. I barely have time to breathe, let alone blog! With that said, I'm going to take my Bioethics midterm. And then study for my History midterm. And then edit my essay. And then maybe I should start one my Stem Cell research paper. While I'm doing that, I should probably finish my two lab reports. And it might be good to read that chapter on abortion.
Enough said.

Meeting John Piper

2010-10-05T17:00:00.000-05:00

At the DG Conference, I met John Piper. I know that's kind of weird, considering he's my pastor, but since our church is so big, it's not like I can chat with him every Sunday. It was really cool. I had bought "Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions" at the Conference bookstore because I'd heard that it's an incredible book on missions. With my second trip to Ethiopia coming up in February (more on that later...) and with the time coming to choose a college, I'm starting to wonder what God wants me to do. I'm hoping that God will use Let the Nations Be Glad! to show me if he wants me in missions. I carried it around in my bag all weekend just in case I had a free half an hour and could read it. Hope springs eternal and although each day I never read it, I kept packing it in my bag. John Piper spoke at the last session on Sunday morning. Mom and I had been disappointed because even though most of the other speakers were having book signing times, Piper wasn't. In a series of fortuitous events, Mom and I ended up in the auditorium about twenty minutes after his seminar was over. Mom was talking to someone and I noticed a line by the stage. It was the secret John Piper and Francis Chan signing line! I grabbed the book that I thankfully had and jumped in line. I started talking with the people in line with me and told them about maybe feeling called to Ethiopia. They were all super excited and said that L.T.N.B.G.! was a must-read. When I got to the front, I introduced myself, told him that I went to Bethlehem, and then explained how much my missions trip to Ethiopia had impacted me and how much I loved the country. I shared how I just didn't know what God wanted me to do. When I finally stopped for a breath, he just looked at me and said, "God will make it clear." And all of a sudden, I was like, Of course! Why didn't I realize that? If God wants me in Ethiopia, there won't be any gray. If God doesn't want me in Ethiopia, there won't be any gray.

And, of course, like a good mother, Mom was taking pictures the whole time.

Home!

2010-10-03T20:14:00.000-05:00

Hello Dear Blog Readers! I am home and exhausted after a wonderful, amazing, incredible weekend. Refresher: Mom and I spent the weekend in Minneapolis while we volunteered in the prayer room of the 2010 Desiring God National Conference. Three women from Iowa came up for the conference and so we all shared two hotel rooms a block away from the Minneapolis Convention Center. Dad graciously and bravely stayed home with everyone for the weekend.
This was my first time ever going to a DG Conference and I loved it! I've always loved the vision of Desiring God - to spread a passion for the glory of God, and they did a great job with the conference. Here were the highlights for me:

1. Atmosphere. The conference was held in the Minneapolis Convention Center, with the plenary speakers in the main auditorium and exhibitors and two stages in the exhibit hall. You walked in and immediately noticed the 10,000 square foot bookstore with thousands of quality, reformed, Biblical books; the corner with comfy couches and bookshelves where one could just sit and read; and the giant globe surrounded by exhibitors of ministries reaching out to the world. But the main thing I noticed was just the atmosphere, the feeling in the room. I walked in, and at the risk of sounding really weird I'm going to say this, you felt peace. There was a quiet hum of thousands of people conversing, there was a drone of a speaker on one of the stages, there were strains of music floating from somewhere, and there was just this feeling in the hall that I can't describe. All I know is that I walked in, and I didn't want to leave. DG brought in food vendors so that people didn't have to leave the convention center and find a place to eat. As I bought my sandwich, the cashier kept trying to strike up a conversation. He asked how I liked the conference and what group I was with. I said I was on the prayer team and he leaned confidingly toward me. "I'm a believer," he said. "And I've worked at several religious conventions in here. But this one feels different. I don't know what you guys are praying, but it is working! I can feel the Holy Spirit."

2. People. I cannot tell you how awesome it was to spend a weekend with more than four thousand people who love God, love to see Him glorified, and love the ministry of Desiring God and John Piper. But I'm going to try to. Whenever we went out to eat during one of the meal breaks, we were always surrounded by people with the Desiring God nametags. Because we were all coming from the same place, there was this acceptability in talking to the random guys sitting next to you in Panera. They had a Desiring God laynard, and that suddenly opened up countless opportunities to talk about. People let their guard down because they saw that you were passionate about the same God they were. Maybe that's how it should always be... And not only could you talk to anyone, it was perfectly fine to talk about deep things right away. There was no chitchat about the weather. No questions about what you did this summer. It was, "How did you like the speaker?" "What were you convicted of?" "How has God changed you through these mens' books and sermons?" I would walk through the exhibit hall and hear strains of debates, encouragements, confiding, it was wonderful! So different from strolling around Target and hearing teenagers whine about their iPods running out of space. I think I had more deep, intentional, godly conversations this past weekend than I ever had in my life.

3. The Speakers. The topic of this year's conference was "How do Christians think Biblically?" So often in religions, thinking is seen as negative - it's thinking that leads to knowledge that leads to desertion of religion, some would say. And yet the Bible commands us to think. So that's what this conference was about. How do we think in a way that honors God and fuels our passionate desire for Him? I was able to hear Rick Warren, Francis Chan, and John Piper talk. I missed R.C. Sproul, R. Albert Mohler, and Thabiti Anyabwile. Rick Warren I didn't enjoy so much... but Chan and Piper were so humble and encouraging. After Francis Chan spoke, the prayer room was packed.

4. The Prayer Room. The prayer room was so... prayer-saturated. There were about ten other people on the prayer team and I had a great time getting to know some of them and sharing about what God was doing in each of our lives. I also feel so blessed to have been able to pray for the people at this conference. That they would share their burdens with us and trust that God would answer was mind-blowing. God was so faithful to me during this past weekend. I would read a prayer request and He would remind me of the perfect verse. It was so encouraging.

I thought I was going to volunteer in the prayer room again next year, but I've decided not to. Why? Next year's proposed theme is Missions. And no way can I miss a second of that.

My Day Just Begged to be Blogged About

2010-09-30T15:53:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone! I know I said I wouldn't blog today, but today needed to be blogged about. So, here we go.

Today after Century, I had to pick up Grace from Stillwater so instead of going home my usual route, I had to take 694 to 36. I asked some of my friends how to get to 694 and a well-meaing person who will remain unnamed told me that I wanted 694 West. Dutifully and ignorantly, I took 694. Once I hit New Brighton, I started to worry. "Did I miss the 36 exit?" I wondered. I recognized the names of the towns I was going through, so I figured I could just keep going. Once I hit Fridley, however, I knew things were wrong. Seriously wrong. Of course, today of all days, I left my cell phone at home on accident. With no Mom to call to get directions, I stopped at a gas station and asked two guys how in the world to get to 36. They assured me that if I went on 694 East I would hit 36 right after Rice St. "Rice St" became my mantra. Every exit sign I read in hopes in seeing my beloved Rice St. Finally, I drove past Rice St and I began my intense lookout for 36 signs. And sure enough, there was a sign. But it was 35E. We take 35E into church every Sunday and I had a nagging feeling that I wanted it. But I didn't trust it. I was already on 694, it couldn't hurt to stay on, right? And if I was wrong, I could always exit off and turn around. But two miles later, there were no exits and I didn't recognize a single thing. That's when I started to cry. Alas, my driving horror story had to happen some time. And then, in the distance, there it was... the 36 exit sign. It was like a vision from heaven. Triumphantly, I exited and made it to Stillwater. The rest of my day was ruined, however. I was extremely frustrated. But then I went to a super cute place called "The Bikery" in Marine on St. Croix, talked to people from South Africa with the coolest accents ever, and found out that "The Bikery" is hiring. Hmmm.....
Well, I made it home. And I now know that I need 694 EAST. Lesson well learned.

A Coupla Things...

2010-09-29T19:46:00.001-05:00

I made it through Leeann Chin closing! It went off without a hitch. I had to vacuum the entire store which took a while. Especially because every time I pulled at the extension cord, it came unplugged. So I had set the vacuum up, walk over to the outlet, plug it in, walk back, and start it all up again. I'm sure it was a comical scene to watch, at least.
I got my first paycheck from Nelson's yesterday! It was very emotional. No, not really. But seriously, I would work at Nelson's even if they didn't pay me (but shhh, that's just between you and me!).
Remember how I was redoing my room? Yeah, I forgot about it, too... Well, it's STILL not done! If nothing else, us Buttons are incredibly good at starting things with good intentions and finishing them two years later.
We have a pet deer. Or a stalker deer. It depends on how you look at it... However you want to say it, we have an eight-point buck that comes to our yard almost every day and eats out of our hand. Lizzie is terrified of him. Today, Eli told her that he thought he heard Ming Sou (it's what we named him. We figured that after seven years of living with Korean kids in Iowa, the least we could do is name a deer after one of them) in the woods. She totally lost it. Burst into tears and just sat in my arms and played with my hair. With the exception of Lizzie, we all think Ming Sou's pretty cool. Except now rut season is coming up. Which means that we're going into deer lockdown because we're all freaked out that Ming Sou will freak out and impale one of us on his antlers. Can't you just picture it? All of the Buttons stuck in our house with Ming Sou pacing angrily outside the door?
After this post, I'm going to be out of commission until Monday. Mom and I are volunteering the prayer room at the Desiring God conference (see the video below) this weekend and I'm going to take a break from blogging in preparation for the conference. I'm really excited to be going to something only to pray. I've never done that before and I think it will be really amazing. I guess we'll know on Monday!

There's not enough room on my post for the video, so here's the direct link to Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F1V2fZS7yA

Homeschooler Convention: Been There, Done That

2010-09-26T21:54:00.000-05:00

We made it! And we lived through relatively unscathed. There were no capes, no handmade swords, no short jeans, no denim skirts. We were all pleasantly surprised at how nice and normal everyone was. We ended up just sitting at my dad's St. Croix Law table from 9-3, which was fine except it was FREEZING! It was set up in this Parks & Recreation gym and some physco was in charge of the A/C and turned it up way too high. The only other mishap was that Dad forgot his computer charger at home but couldn't leave his booth to go get it. So guess who drove all the way from New Brighton to Stillwater on 694? Your's truly! It went great and I had a sudden realization that... I am awesome. No, just kidding. I'm just a freakin' awesome good driver!! (Sorry Mom and Dad...)

At 3:15, Dad gave a seminar during a break-out session called "How to Foster a Spirit of Adventure in Your Child Without Going to the Grand Canyon." So he dragged us all along to go seem adventurous. He ended up getting a pretty big crowd, we think about 45 people, and they were all super nice and it seemed like they really enjoyed the seminar. But, the highlight of the day was when my dad told everyone about my blog, this woman raised her hand and said that her daughter reads my blog. It was so exciting! I felt like a celebrity. Okay, not really. But still, I felt super honored *sniff*. So daughter who reads my blog, whoever you are, hello! Thanks for reading!! Sorry we didn't get to meet at the convention. And also a big welcome to anyone who is actually visiting my blog after my dad mentioned it. I sure appreciate it.
So tomorrow, after Bioethics, I'm rushing to Leeann Chin where I'm working until 10pm. That's like five and a half hours! I'll be closing tomorrow night and I'm kind of nervous because it's the first time I've ever done it. But, I've heard a rumor that if there's extra food when you close, you get to take it home. (but shhhhh, you didn't hear it from me!) So, we shall see if I get to bring home the bacon! (or the bourbon chicken...whatever)
Until then, peace, love, and homeschoolers.
Ooh, hey, that's really catchy! Maybe if I'm ever famous, that will be my signature. Emma Button: Face of homeschooling. Okay, wow, I really need to go to bed. Sorry that you're still reading this"m ee just to stop. Like anytime. Because I don't know if I can stop typing. This could go on for days. Okay, now I'm done.

Emma's Field Guide to Homeschoolers

2010-09-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

Enjoy a random photo a Sadie from last fall that I just found

Tomorrow, Dad is taking the four oldest to a Homeschool Convention he's speaking at. Yes, homeschoolers have conventions. I'm not sure why. Maybe we all need to band together every once in a while to draw strength from each other to face the big bad public school system. Or maybe it's to reassure ourselves that we're not as weird as some homeschoolers. For whatever reason, tomorrow, families from all over Minnesota will be flocking to the Minnesota Homeschool Alliance convention. Dad is speaking in the afternoon about "How to Cultivate a Spirit of Adventure in You Child (Without Going to the Grand Canyon)". He'll also have a table for St. Croix Law set up in the business fair thingie that we'll all be sitting at all day. Homeschoolers have been much on my mind today, as I've been mentally preparing for tomorrow, so I decided to come up with another list. Here it is:
If you're unsure of whether the person you're talking to is just shy or if there's something deeper (but are too afraid to ask outright if they're homeschooled), here are five easy ways to tell...

Emma's Field Guide to Identifying Homeschoolers:
1. Take a quick glance at what they're wearing. Is the boy garbed in jeans that don't quite reach his ankles? Is the girl wearing a long denim skirt and a turtleneck that looks like it came fresh off the sewing machine? Chances are, they're probably homeschooled.
2. Casually question them about what sports they're involved in. Horseback riding? Bow hunting? Bowling? You may be talking to a homeschooler.
3. Carefully probe into their family life. How many siblings do they have? Eight? Homeschooled.
4. Ask what they like to do in their free time. Construct their own swords? Make their own clothes? Probably homeschooled.
And the last, most effective way to tell if the person you're talking to is homeschooled is to...
5. Nonchalantly mention something from Lord of the Rings. If they don't take that bait, blatantly butcher a Lord of the Rings fact. Something along the lings of, "Hey, didn't Stephanie Meyers write Lord of the Rings?" or "What's up with that ring anyway?" would work well. If they immediately and vehemently correct you, you've got a homeschooler on your hands.

Now to all reading this, please note that I am a homeschooler - always have been and proud to be one. I am just suggesting, however, that there are some interesting homeschoolers out there. Just as there are probably interesting public schoolers as well. The difference between the two, however, is that weird homeschoolers are innocently obsessed with J.R.R. Tolkien and his work and weird public schoolers are obsessed with... well, you know. Give me weird homeschoolers any day.

Five Things... Actually Ten

2010-09-23T19:44:00.000-05:00

Today was a raining, wet, my-purple-moccassions-bled-onto-my-socks kind of day. So, I decided to make two lists. Because of course that's what you do when it rains...
Five Things That Make Me Crabby:
1. Hordes of brainless, self-abosrbed, immature teenagers that hang out everywhere... So pretty much every single teenager in Stillwater. With the exception of like, four people.
2. When my brothers cry. Which, when you have three, is a lot.
3. When people text back one word answers. Grrrr...
4. When I try to practice violin and I get super hot. And then, my brain conveniently and helpfully reminds me of all the people from fiddle camp who were AMAZING. Cue crabbiness...

5. When a certain lady at a certain place I worked at rolled her eyes at me because I thought green beans were an entree. I'm sorry, lady. Sorry that green beans are so important to you.

Okay, on a happier note...
Five Things That Make Me Happy:
1. Sadie!

2. Getting mail

3. Working at Nelson's

{photo creds}

4. Working at Leeann Chin's

5. When I read things about God that I never thought of but that totally make sense. Like that God is most glorified in me when I'm most satisifed in him. Great stuff.

{photo creds}

Bringing Work Home With Me

2010-09-20T21:18:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have it when you hop in the shower after exercising and the steam opens your pores and it smells like sweat? Yeah. Well, today I hopped in the shower after work... and it smelled like bourbon chicken. Definitely a weird experience.

Born to Run (and wait in a super long line to get my book signed)

2010-09-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

Okay wow. Life is crazy. How in the world did I think I could pull off two jobs and three college classes?? It's 8:31 pm and I could seriously collapse in bed like right now.
To cheer myself up and make myself feel all athletic and on top of everything, I'm posting pictures of last Wednesday when our family went to hear the author of Born to Run speak. His name is Christopher McDougall and he wrote this amazing book about running that has totally inspired me to: 1. run barefoot, and 2. enjoy running (click here to read more).
Even though I couldn't really hear much of what he was saying, it was really neat just to see him in person and gaze in awe at all of the hardcore ultra runners. I was hoping that just by breathing the same air as them I could become a better runner, but alas, I have not yet had a sudden urge to run 100 miles in the mountains.
Here are some pictures of the night:

Me (left) and my friend, Tegan (right)! Born to Run inspired both of us to take a new look at running and motivated us to do all of our freakishly awesome Vibram running in Duluth (to read more, click here).

Notice: spiffy-looking shoes; muscular-looking legs; short, short shorts, on all three of them!

Notice: fashionable, impractical shoes; cute little bows and stripes; lack of short shorts, on both of us!

Um, yeah. Pretty sure he was showing off his underwear or something because he kept bending over!! Finally, I was like, "Dude, if you're going to behind over while wearing those things, I'm going to take a picture and plaster it all over the internet."

Chris signing Levi's shirt

Chris signing our book

I'm still waiting for all the ultra running vibes from the packed building of runners to hit my bloodstream. In preparation for the burst of incredible motivation and stamina, I've already signed up for the HURT 100 Mile Endurance Run in Honolulu. Premature? Maybe. But hey, with shorts like that guy, I'm thinking that I can do anything.

A Forgotten Friday

2010-09-14T21:03:00.000-05:00

Well, Bioethics started yesterday. Actually, as it turns out, it didn't start yesterday, but we'll get to that. It might be obvious from my bitter tone of voice, but it wasn't the brilliant start I'd been hoping for. Things started off on the wrong foot when I was late. Because yesterday was Eli's very first day of Yeah (let's just say that he was looking a little pale), I helped him figure out where his classes were. How was I rewarded? I was late. Thankfully, my Bioethics professor was also my Chemistry teacher last year so he knew who I was. After he'd finished taking attendance he looked around the room. "Well," he started. "Now that you've all had a few days to digest the information from Friday, any questions?" I glanced around the room in confusion hoping to see other kids in bewilderment. "Uh, guys?" I wanted to ask. "Did something happen to this guy over summer? What is he talking about? Our first class is today, isn't it?" But everyone else seemed totally put together, on top of it, and totally unsurprised. It was then that I glanced down at the syllabus he'd handed me. There, right on the top, it said in bold letters, "First Meeting: Friday, September 10th. Regular Meeting: Monday, September 13th." All of a sudden, it came back to me in flash: the email Mom had gotten that I'd so quickly skimmed and deleted. Something about a Friday class... I didn't read it thoroughly enough and assumed that there were two separate classes, one that would meet on Fridays and one on Mondays. Obviously, I was wrong. I spent the rest of the class in total shame and humiliation - why didn't I realize what the email meant? After class I talked to my professor about it, got super red, and figured most everything out (like how in the world do I get a module account??). There are still a few things I need to figure out, and I still don't feel as confident as I'd like to, but I think I'll be there soon. So, to sum it all up, I totally missed my first day of class and didn't even know it. The worst part is that, had I known about the class, I totally could have made it. My family was out and about but I had stayed home anyway because I had work. Arrgggghhhhhhh.
I've certainly learned my lesson. From now on, I will read every word of every email that I receive. I've already started by reading the email from the Consolidated Loan Company that wants to let me know that "There is loan funding within 42 hours from Diamond Finace at 2% .We grant any type of loan to people .All we need is amount, duration and ur phone no.Susan."
Think I should give them my phone "no."?

Bioethics

2010-09-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I start my third PSEO class. Confused? I would be too! I'm taking two classes at Century, which have been going on for a few weeks. I'm also taking one North Central class at my co-op in Roseville. It was supposed to start last week but it was Labor Day, so tomorrow is my first day. I'm super excited to take the class for a few reasons:
1. It's not at a commmunity college. Yes, I admit it. I'm looking forward to going to school, for one day at least, with ambitious, freakishly smart, socially impaired home schoolers. What can I say? It's in my blood.
2. The textbook looks intriguing. It's called "Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases", and it covers all of these super controversial medicine cases. For example, The Terri Schiavo Case, Roe v. Wade, John/Joan, etc. The day I got it, I started reading about the Nazi doctor who performed experiments on the Jews in the concentration camp. It was shocking. I seriously thought that I was going to be sick. So, I think it'll be a horrible class, but a great one at the same time.
3. I love debating. It's like my dirty nerd secret. Well, one of them. Seriously, I love it! In World History two years ago, we had to each present why we thought Rome collapsed. After each person presented, we all had to contest their view. And, let's just say that a few full grown men were in tears after my questions. No, I'm majorly exaggerating. But it was pretty exhilarating, and I'm excited to get back in it.
Bad part? It's three hours long. Ouch.

9/11

2010-09-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

I was seven years old when the September 11th attacks occurred. I can only remember two things - we were on our way to the dentist when Mom heard the news report on the radio. Once we got to the dentist office, she ran up to the receptionist's desk to asked if it were true. When we got back to Cono, classes were suspended for the day. We had a hymn sing and then spent the rest of the day in quiet and prayer. That's all I remember. I was too young to know what the World Trade Centers were so I didn't realize how devastating the attacks were. Although every 9/11 that's passed has been meaningful to me, I really hadn't fully comprehended it. I can only remember one other 9/11, and that was the first time my parents let me watch the footage. They were watching it on the news as the channel remembered September 11th. They didn't realize that I had come in so I stood there behind the couch and watched. I recall thinking, "Why is the building waving?" And then I realized that those were people. Horrified yet paralyzed, I watched as two people grabbed hands and jumped off the trade center.
And now today. I hadn't intended to be moved by the fact that today was the anniversary of 9/11. I thought it would just come and go like all the others. But today was much different. I was sitting at the table eating dessert and decided to scroll through my mom's Facebook on her iPhone. One of her friends had posted a link to a 9/11 tribute video. I glanced at the clock, saw that I didn't need to do anything right away, and played it. Five minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, I was totally shaken. It was the first time I'd watched footage of the world trade centers for more than a couple of seconds. The video had a recording of a man in the second tower call 9-1-1 to report the first tower hit and as he's talking, the second plane hits his building and the phone goes dead. There are bodies charred beyond recognition lying on the street. There are people so desperate that they're willing to jump more than seventy feet, ultimately to their death. Out of the 200 people that jumped, none survived. After the video ended, I quietly went outside and sat on our driveway. I had to process everything. So I just sat there and thought and thought and thought. I didn't come up with anything smart, no revelations or anything. Just a little anger and mostly sadness. Three thousand people died in one day.

I PASSED!

2010-09-08T21:55:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the reason I didn't blog the second I got in the door is because our internet stopped working last night. It took a grueling, forty-five minute long battle of two generations of Buttons again the evil monster called Messed Up Wires That Destroyed Our Internet Connection. Dad just got it up and running about fifteen minutes ago. So, here I am, blogging about today.
I passed!!!! And now that I look back on it, it was really easy. My parallel park was great (which was nice; I was worried the knocked over step stool was a foreshadow of things to come) and 90˚ back was no problemo. Oh yeah. Because our government is so efficiently run, I should be getting my hard license in the next, oh, four weeks or so. Until then, I have to drive around with my permit and a whole bunch of paperwork.
So far, I've picked up the toddlers from preschool (and yes, I did get very lost in the catacombs called "victorian Stillwater." Not so charming when you're late to pick up three year-olds!), driven me + the three next in line to Nelson's to celebrate (anyone see a disturbing pattern here?), and transported everyone but Mom, Dad, Levi, and Sadie to Levi's soccer game tonight. In case you're worried about me not driving enough, Mom's already got plenty of chaperoning events. Six months ago, when Mom and Dad worriedly confided in me that they'd heard teen drivers shouldn't drive alone until they were eighteen, I stifled my laughter and asked how long they were going to try to last. Apparently about fifteen minutes. Which is really nice, they've been super trusting and not creepily obsessive like where I need to pull over every five minutes to call.
Okay, it's 9:54, my Comp professor would be horrified at my comma splices, and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow I drive myself to college!!!!!!! (Dad's already made sure I know to park far, far away).
Goodnight, world!

Tomorrow...

2010-09-07T19:29:00.000-05:00

Once again, I apologize for not blogging in so long! With school and work going on, it's hard to find a good half hour to set aside to blog. It's kind of sad, but in a weird way it's really nice to be busy again! My days seem so much more fruitful now.
Sorry I didn't blog about Nelson's right away. I started a blog but then I realized it's probably not a good idea to blog about the particulars of my job. You always hear those stories about people who were fired because of their Facebook statuses or whatever, and I just don't want to push it. But I will say that I LOVE working at Nelson's!!! The people who come in are really nice and usually tip really well (which is appreciated very much). Also, the other teenagers who work there are really nice, mature, and scoop ice cream like nobody's business! I'm going to see if I can pick up another shift in addition to Friday night.
And lastly, tomorrow I take my driving test!!!!!!!!! Think of me at eleven! By 11:30, I'll either be ecstatic because I passed or devastated because I failed. So, no pressure. About two weeks ago when I took my parking behind-the-wheel, my instructor suggested that I get in 100 parallel parks and 75 90˚ backs before my test. As of this afternoon, I had done three parallels and five 90˚s. I figured I could probably use a little more practice since, oh I don't know, my test is tomorrow. Filled with adrenaline, I set out to practice like crazy. Since we don't live near any deserted parking lots, I had to make due with our neighborhood road. The result was a mock 90˚ back made up of a step stool, folding chair, and a rain boot. Painfully conscious that our next-door neighbors were home and probably watching, I nevertheless practiced my backing several times into my makeshift parking spot. Once I'd back in a couple times without knocking over the rain boot, I decided to switch to parallel parking. I readjusted my "cones" and started to cautiously pivot into the space. As my car began to turn diagonally into the space (which meant I was now completely blocking our road), I glanced up at the road. There was a car. And not just any car. A big, fat, black Jeep with two attractive teenage boys sitting in it. So there I sat in my Volvo, stuck diagonally in my stupid parallel parking spot, while the boys were waiting to get by. Embarrassed and not thinking very clearly, I attempted to quickly straighten out my car. I deftly (or so it felt) spun the wheel, got the rear next the road... and knocked over my step stool with my front. Thankfully, there was now enough room for the Jeep to scoot by so they laughed, I apologetically waved, and they drove by. I promptly gave up parallel parking in disgust. My enthusiasm was gone. I threw my step stool, folding chair, and rain boot into the trunk and zoomed into my garage.
I wonder what my neighbors thought. Maybe they thought I was cute. Or just really, really creepy.

Prepare yourself for a lot of exclamation points tomorrow.

Hi There!

2010-09-01T14:40:00.001-05:00

Hello dear blog readers. Sorry it's been so long! With all the craziness going on, I barely have time to eat scootch-a-roo bars, let alone blog! (and for those of you who have seen my eat scootch-a-roo bars, you know it's a big priority in my life).
Anywho, I started my job training at Nelson's on Monday. So for Leeann Chin's, I worked five training shifts for two to three hours each. At Nelsons, I get one one-hour long training. And then I'm totally, completely, utterly on my own. Monday night, I had nightmares of messing up peoples' orders. Twice I woke up almost in tears. There are so many things that could wrong: not serving the right amount, taking a really long time, breaking the cone as I try to scoop ice cream into it, messing up the order, scooping it wrong, trying to scoop but another worker needs the ice cream right next to me so I'm freaking out because he's waiting for me and I'm frantically trying to get enough ice cream while he waits and watches me and wonders why I was hired. Gahhhhhh. Obviously my nightmares have not influenced me at all.
I was supposed to start on Friday night, working from 6-10, but thankfully I got another shift for tonight from 6-9. I'm hoping I can ease into it because Friday is supposed to be really busy. So, if you live in Stillwater, tell all of your nice friends to come to Nelson's and ask to be served by me. Or at least think of me tonight from 6-9 and pray that I do none of the above!!!
One of the nice things about working at Nelson's though is the uniform. There isn't one! Obviously I'm not going to show up in nice clothes, but at least I get to choose the clothes I wear! Shall we compare my first day outfits?

Leeann Chin's...

Nelson's!

My First State Fair!

2010-08-29T16:14:00.000-05:00

This last month has been a month of first - my first car (Mom would vehemently disagree... it's "our" car), my first college classes, my first job, my first second job, and now my first state fair! I used to enjoy the shocked reaction I got when I casually mentioned that I'd never been to the fair. Alas, I can use it no more! But it was worth it.

More about this deep-fried, batter-covered, strawberry sauce-topped Twinkie later...

Asian Cuisine Server by Day, Ice Cream Scooper by Night

2010-08-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. How are you doing tonight? I'd just like to totally calmly announce that, no big deal, but I got another job. Another job. I GOT ANOTHER JOB!

I GOT ANOTHER JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I. Got. Another. Job.

So, totally calm. I am obviously not freaking out and totally, obviously not excited.

So, you may be asking, since Emma's life seems so not-busy what with going to college, redoing her room, trying to get her license, working at Leeann Chins, what in the world is she doing getting another job??? Well, I'm here to tell you. If you've ever visited us out here in Stillwater during the summer, chances are that we've probably taken you to a cute little local ice cream place on the corner of Greeley and Olive called Nelsons. Yesterday, I noticed that they had a sign out proclaiming that they were hiring on Fridays and Saturdays. "Boy," I thought. "Would it be fun to work there!" Our family visits Nelsons at least once a week and we've gotten our order down to an art. It really is incredible. I went back and forth trying to decide if I should apply or not but I finally decided that I would just submit my application and see what happened. So this afternoon, I called the number on the sign, without any idea who I was calling. This could be some teenager's idea of a sick joke and I was probably calling some guy in Mexico. It wasn't. It turned out to be the owner of Nelson's, named Dave. After we exchanged hi's, he got down to business. "How old are you?" "Sixteen." "Have you worked before?" "I'm actually working at Leeann Chin's right now." "And where do you go to school?" Here's where I hesitated for a split-second and wondered if I could escape stereotypes by simply saying Stillwater. I decided against it and sided with honesty. "I'm home schooled," I said. "Good for you!" he replied. That's weird. I thought. No one's ever said that before. He continued, "We home school, too! So, can you start Friday?"

He hired me without an interview, without references, he hasn't even met me yet! I'm pretty sure it had a lot to do with the fact that I'm home schooled. Oh yeah. Score one for the homeschooler!

Needless to say, as soon as I got off the phone, I ran outside to where everyone was loading up in the car to go to Target. "I GOT IT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Mom and Dad stared at me. "Got what?" Mom asked.

"THE JOB!!" I shrieked.

"What job???"

"NELSON'S!"

They freaked. Actually, I freaked and I can't really remember anything after that.

Starting next Friday, I work at Nelson's scooping ice cream from 6-10. Drop by and I'll scoop you up the best ice cream you've ever had!

Weird Eyes Kinda Run in the Family...

2010-08-25T17:47:00.000-05:00

Emma Button :: College Student (sort of)

2010-08-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry about my eyes. After three months of waking up at 8:30, I had to wake up at 6:50. :( So cue baggy eyes in the first picture, buggy eyes in the second.
This morning I started my very first college courses! I had World History: 1400 to Present and Composition 1. Basically the professors went through the syllabus and let us out early, which is great until you realize that your mom isn't coming to pick you up for twenty more minutes. I think it's going to be a good semester. Both of my professors seem really nice, gracious, but strict when they need to be. I found three other fellow PSEO students in Comp, so we banded together. It was good, but I'm really tired.

My Last Day of Summer

2010-08-23T20:18:00.000-05:00

Today is my last day of summer. And yes, I'm very near tears. But that could partially be because I just woke up from a nap, I'm listening to a depressing song, and I'm sitting all by myself outside (I couldn't bear to blog indoors when I only have one day of freedom left!!). Technically, we started school on Friday, but my PSEO classes don't start until Tuesday, so I'm claiming that as my first day of school. That means that today is my very last day of summer! I kind of can't believe how fast it's gone by. Last summer dragged on and on but this summer practically whizzed by. It's almost September!! Wow.
I've been trying to convince myself all day to jump in the pool but it's just so pleasant to sit out here on my porch and be dry. I'm sure that in the dead of winter sometime during February I'll really regret that decision.
Today was a pretty good day, although not the dramatic, inspiring last day of summer I'd pictured. Zeke woke me up this morning, and then I... what did I do? I did some Algebra II, cleaned my room, got nervous for work, swam (I wrote the above paragraph before I went swimming), got ready for classes to start tomorrow, and went to work! Today was good, it was the first time they didn't cut me early so I worked a full three hours. As soon as I got home, I calculated how much money I've made so far ($49). I rejoiced for a full thirty seconds when Dad asked if I'd subtracted taxes. I went back inside, wept, and subtracted $7.43 for the government. There you go. I hope you're happy, Mr. President. Use my stinking $7.43 wisely!
Instead of writing about my summer, I decided to just post pictures. I was going to set them to sappy music so we could all get teary thinking that my sixteenth summer is gone...forever, BUT I decided not to.

The summer started off with a delightful bang! when one of my dearest friends came up for a sorely needed visit from Iowa. It's our tradition to drink/slurp applesauce in the front yard whenever she comes (click here to read more)

Next came the giant, week-long tsunami called fiddle camp. Our teacher Brian Wicklund started/taught at it, Mom ran it, and we loved it. (click here to read more)

The Advanced class in fiddle camp

The scary note I wrote to keep kids from looking at the surprise - t-shirts.

Eli and I visited my grandparents at their new home on Lake Tahoe, Nevada. During the week, we took a road trip down to Monterey, CA and took a drive on the scenic 17-mile drive. That's the iconic lone cypress. (click here to read more)

Your very own grandpa-jacket-wearing author

Her comical brother, Eli

For the last weekend of August, our family (plus family friend, Tegan), vacationed in Duluth while Dad attended a solo-small lawyer's conference. It was an awesome weekend of swimming, eating, and running. (click here to read more)

Redoing my room! Speaking of which, I've gotten my first layer of paint up, now Dad and I have to cut the edges and throw another layer of paint on the walls and we're done! (click here to read more)

Team Emma/Dad/Eli - 1, Polka Dots - nil (click here to read more)

*not pictured*

North Carolina! It was a fabulous week of boogie boarding, eating, bowling, strengthening my core muscles, swimming, fiddling, driving my grandpa's BMW convertible, sun tanning, shopping, talking, and laughing. (click here to read more)

We got another car!!! Goodbye Suburban, hello volvo! (click here to read more)

And last, but most certainly not least, I got a job!!! Today at work, a girl came in to turn in her work application. Ha. Just kidding, I didn't gloat. Much. (click here to read more)

So there you go! Goodbye summer of 2010, hello fall!!!

Baby's First Day at Work

2010-08-19T14:22:00.000-05:00

Yes, that would be me. Just realize that the fact I'm showing you this picture shows how much I trust you. See Zeke in the background? He was shouting to Lizzie to come look at how gross I was. Thank you, Zeke.
Aside from the three-year olds' scathing comments about my uniform, it was a really good first day of work. For the first half hour, I just watched as the manager and the other girl working there served and weighed the food. After that, the manager had me serve almost all of the customers for the next hour. It went surprisingly well! I was having visions last night of me dropping plates, messing up orders, not knowing how much food to weigh out, but everything went smoothly. I just need to learn how to be chipper. And that's kind of hard to do when you're trying to remember if they wanted fried rice or white, and... what in the world did they order again??? Yeah, had one of those moments today.
My next shift is on Saturday. Until then, Mom and I are running around trying to find all black shoes and another pair of black pants. Any suggestions for comfy, cheap, black shoes?

My Spiffy Little Blog

2010-08-18T19:13:00.000-05:00

Wondering what this little bar of icons is? Well, I'm here to tell you. If you think my post is funny, sad, romantic, charming, winsome, creepy, homeschoolerish, or just plain awesome, you can share it! You can tell people about it through email, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and I have no idea what the last one is. So, feel free to do it! Like now. Yeah, now would be good. :)

"May I Speak to Emma Button?"

2010-08-18T18:57:00.000-05:00

Funny story. When I uploaded the picture on Monday, I had just finished speaking with the Leeann Chin's manager who had asked me to come in for an interview on Tuesday. However, before I could actually start writing the blog and tell you that I might have a job, I had finished the first interview. I was all ready for my second interview when the manager called Tuesday afternoon. "I don't usually do this over the phone," he said. "But I'd like to make you an offer, would you like a job?"

I HAVE A JOB!!!!!!!

Sorry, I'm in control now. So this morning I went in for orientation where I signed every piece of paper imaginable and, get this, filled out a tax form! Whoa. Tomorrow morning, 11-2, feel free to drop by the Stillwater Leeann Chin's and you'll see me being trained! I have to train for five shifts, and then I'm on my own. And yes, I'm kind of freaking out. I really don't feel qualified to serve asian food.

Some Sadie for Your Day

2010-08-15T14:56:00.000-05:00

I was going to wait to post this until tomorrow, but I started looking at the pictures and decided that they were too cute to wait another day.

The Newest Member of the Family

2010-08-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

Kidding. Just thought I'd freak you out.

This...

...is the newest member of our family!
A nine-year old, used Volvo station wagon may not seem that exciting, but this purchase has dramatically changed my life.

I will not have to parallel park during my driver's exam in the Suburban.

Fiddler on the Roof (actually, in a nursing home)

2010-08-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

Helloooooooooo from North Carolina!!!!! They turn into the wrong lanes, there are churches everywhere you look, and they have the cutest nursing home residents, please make welcome the loverly state of North Carolina!
Yesterday afternoon, my grandparents took us with a group of people to visit two nursing homes. We sang, someone preached a short message, and Grace and I played blue grass! At the first home we played and sang "Angel Band" and then played Golden Anniversary Waltz and Swallowtail Jig. As we were singing Angel Band, I glanced around the room and noticed this one woman sitting silently in her wheelchair. Well, almost silently... she was singing along to the song! And it struck me as kind of strange that here was a sixteen year-old singing Angel Band, a song about someone's last few minutes, at a nursing home. For a second I was worried that the nursing home residents would be slightly insulted, but they seemed pretty okay with it. I mean, she was singing along...
At the next home, we sang Jambayla and Angel Band and performed Swallowtail Jig. After we were done, two old men came up to thank us. One guy was raving about this southern gospel blue grass family that we HAD to watch. After listing their various qualities, he asked for my our phone number so that he could come over to give it to us. "You're way too old for their phone number!" the guy in the wheel chair behind him shouted. Grace and I glanced at each other and promptly burst into side-splitting laughter. He was so sweet.
We had a lot of fun. The residents were so appreciative and didn't notice when we messed up or sang off tune. It made me think that we need to do this more often.

Welcome Home, Myself!

2010-08-04T21:59:00.000-05:00

If you're reading this, that means that you are one awesome blog follower. Thanks for much for still checking in.
Well, this traveling blogger is finally home! It has been an intensely busy month. And I'm leaving again tomorrow morning to go visit my other grandparents in North Carolina! Here's a quick snapshot of my summer:
1. Lake Country Fiddle Camp. This is the fiddle camp that my fiddle teacher started and my mom runs. Out of the two fiddle camps I've ever been to, this one is the best (but seriously, like twenty other people have said the same thing. Okay, like five...). It was four days of playing fiddle with teachers from exotic places like Scotland, Canada, and Marine on St. Croix. From 9-4, we played fiddle, learned fiddle, listened to fiddle, talked about fiddle, ate, played soccer, and then learned more fiddle. It was super, super fun.
2. Lake Tahoe, Nevada. My mom's parents just moved to Lake Tahoe so Eli and I went to visit them for a week. We ate at amazing, over the top casino buffets, walked through smokey poker rooms, visited Monterrey and Carmel, CA, and explored Lake Tahoe. My favorite parts definitely had to be playing poker with my grandparents and Eli (and being totally cleaned out by him) and our boat ride on Lake Tahoe. The lake has three different shades of blue based on how deep the water is. It's amazing because it's not a gradual change, like where you can't tell when one color ends and the other begins. Instead, it's a vibrant, dramatic change between bright turquoise and a rich blue. I felt like we were cruising through the Bahamas, but then I would look up and see the mountains surrounding us, some even with snow still on the top!
3. Other Fiddle Camp. Two days after getting home from Nevada, Eli and I went to a second fiddle camp. It's not really worth a paragraph.
4. Duluth. This past weekend, my dad had a solo small attorney's conference up in Duluth, so the whole family plus my friend Tegan went up for the weekend. We absolutely LOVE Duluth and this year was especially fun because the water was so delightfully warm. There's a partially sunken grain house about 20-30 feet off the shore and we were able to swim out to it twice and jump off it. We brought up our fiddles (see an eerie pattern emerging?) because our hotel (The Inn on Lake Superior - totally recommend it) has smores every night on their back patio overlooking the lake. While everyone was roasting marshmallows, we pulled out our instruments and jammed together for about an hour. The entire weekend was amazing, but my favorite part was probably the running. There's a great sporty store called Trail Fitters that we always stop at, and this time my parents bought Grace and me..... VIBRAMS!! So for three days, every morning, Tegan would borrow Grace's shoes and we'd go run a couple miles on the trail around the lake. We got a few stares and raised eyebrows, especially from intense runner men with expensive Nikes, but we had a blast.
5. North Carolina. I actually haven't left yet so I have no idea.

Thanks for checking in and hopefully my blog will be up and running again soon.

Running Barefoot in Nevada

2010-07-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

Eli and I have been visiting our grandparents in their new home by Lake Tahoe, Nevada for the past week. Oh a whim, I decided to bring one of my dad's favorite books, "Born to Run", to read on the plane. It's been five days and I'm on page 247. I'm hooked. It's all about the author's quest to discover the secrets of running and his finds are pretty astonishing and inspiring. Inspiring in such a way that I decided to try to run a mile barefoot on a trail by the lake. This morning, my grandma and I pulled out around 8:15 and I apprehensively started to run. My grandma "crewed" for me in the sense that she pulled over every quarter of a mile to make sure my feet were still... there. At first it was kind of painful, but once I hit my stride it felt great. And it was also slightly gratifying to get strange looks from other joggers and walkers. After 3/4 of a mile, I decided to put my shoes on, and ran a little ways in them. Because of the high altitude (6,000 feet ), I quit before I hit a mile (I'm using every excuse I can get). During the day, I kept waiting for the soles of my feet to burn and ache but I felt nothing. Until, that is, I hit a rug in a weird spot and a spark a pain shot up through my foot. I sat down to see what was wrong and discovered a thick, black splinter comfortably lodged in my foot. Two hours later, I discovered a second one on my other foot. Thankfully, I got the first one out as soon as we got home, but after various valiant attempts from my grandpa, our neighbor, and myself, the second splinter is stubbornly here to stay. Which is unfortunent because it's slightly crippling, not gonna lie. I'm optimistically hoping that after a good night's sleep, the splinter will discover what a simple life I lead and decide to find someone more rambunctious. Until then, I'm left to explore different ways to turn my foot in order to avoid hitting the splinter. So am I giving up barefoot running? Not a chance. Once I get home, I'll start easy by just running in the grass and eventually work my way up. Or maybe I'll get a pair of Vibrams? Oh no, I'm sounding like my dad. I'll try not to get obsessive about running, but if this blog turns into "Homeschooler Running", you'll know something's wrong.

Darkness Into Light

2010-07-15T20:59:00.000-05:00

And the bad day continues. Finally, I realized that the only way to be content and okay with my situation was to be content with God. So after supper, I sat down with my Bible and soaked in God's promises to me. I'm still sad (I think I'm pretty tired) but now I'm also hopeful. Enjoy:

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken." Psalm 34:18-20.

"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." Isaiah 26:3

"Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are those who wait for him." Isaiah 30:18

"Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, you God will come with vengence, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you." Isaiah 35:3-4

"And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16

As I read through the Psalms and portions of Isaiah, I was suddenly reminded of God's faithfulness to me. I realized that God has my best interests in mind when he acts. I remembered that God knows me better than I know myself, so I can completely trust him to work for my good.

Tomorrow morning, Eli and I leave for Reno, Nevada. My grandparents just moved to Incline Village, an town right on Lake Tahoe, and Eli and I are going to visit them for a week. We'll be touring around Lake Tahoe and then driving to Monterey, California to spend a couple days. If all goes well, I'll try to blog a little!

Simple Math

2010-07-14T16:44:00.001-05:00

Is it a bad thing if Rocky Road ice cream is what makes me happy? I'm not really one of those girls who barrels her way through a gallon of ice cream when something bad happens, but today my heart leapt within me at the thought of a bowl of Rocky Road. My bowl of ice cream + Talking to an amazing friend = a better day.

Bad Days and Fond Memories

2010-07-14T15:30:00.000-05:00

Today was a bad day. I didn't get enough sleep last night, it's been rainy and gloomy the whole day, and painting my walls has failed.

The purple is the color I'm trying to paint. That darker purple peeping out on the right is the polka dot I'm trying to paint over. See the outline of the polka dot through the new layer of paint? It looks like we'll have to go through and sand the edges of all the polka dots, paint primer over them, and then paint the color. Hence the bad day.

As I was sorting through my bookshelf, I came across two cards from Eli and Levi that I'd kept. And boy did they brighten my day!

Several years ago, when Eli was probably eight and I was twelve, I babysat the family while Mom and Dad went out. During the time they were gone, Eli was super naughty and disobeyed me. When my parents got home, they promptly spanked him and then talked to him about it. Once he was sorry, Eli wrote me the above note. At the time, he pronounced his 'r's' as 'w's' so the note should say, "am sorry for being naughty" but Eli spelled it as you can see. In the circle, he taped a piece of his gum. I've kept the letter ever since.

This was taped onto my door when I got home from Ethiopia. Levi absolutely loves decorating and making thoughtful cards for people. It says, "I hope you had a good time" and at the bottom, "That's so cut that Lemlem giggled." Yes, cut. I'm pretty sure he meant cute. The night following the time I had met my sisters, I called my family to tell them about it. I shared how Lizzie (then Lemlem) had "giggled" after watching the video of our family saying hi to her. Hence the little sentence on the bottom.

Not Even My Bookshelf is Safe From My Blog & My Paint

2010-07-13T17:16:00.000-05:00

We haven't had time yet to buy the big gallons of paint for my room so I decided to use up the silly pint of sample orange paint on my bookshelf. While rearranging the books in my shelf after the paint had dried, I started thinking about my favorite books on the shelf. And here they are!
My Five Favorite Books (found on my bookshelf):

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2. The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas

3. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

4. Set-Apart Femininity by Leslie Ludy

5. Spectacular Sins by John Piper

I Will Definitely Be Calling the College

2010-07-11T17:48:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, I had my PSEO orientation date for Century College. I was constantly reminded that it was a community college, but everyone was super nice. Overall, it was a great orientation. Especially after my student ID picture turned out so well.
This afternoon, I had some time to kill and decided to activate my Century email account. I wasn't aware that the computer assigned you a username, so I didn't have any worries. Ignorance is bliss. I clicked the "Create Account" button and immediately let out a sound of completely despair.

Butt007. That's me.

Musical... er, Thursdays

2010-07-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

As a late birthday present, I got an iTunes giftcard. ITunes giftcards are my more favorite and my most dreaded present ever. I absolutely love to receive them because I absolutely love music. I absolutely hate to get them because I have no idea what to buy! I think I want this album but once I listen to it, I realize it wasn't as good as I thought. Two weeks later, I've previewed over three hundred songs on iTunes and still haven't come any closer to chosing an album to buy. Such was the case with this cursed giftcard. Finally, hope appeared. I heard a Needtobreathe song on the radio and was reminded of how much I liked them. I checked out their albums and tried to decide between "The Outsiders" and "The Heat." When I discovered that Sara Watkins (from Nickel Creek) sang a duet on one of the songs from "The Outsiders", it was no contest. I have been listening to "The Outsiders" with delight ever since. My favorite song is called "The Garden" about the singer's desire that his songs honor God. I highly recommend it.

Summer Reading

2010-07-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

Last night, at 9:52, I finished Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. This amazing book inspired this post. It was about a two month long project since the book is 644 pages. Unfortunately, the author died before she could finish the book, so you get to the end of 644 pages and still don't know how it ends. Thankfully though, Gaskell wrapped up almost everything so you can fairly easily imagine how the book will end. If your endurance is pretty strong (3/4 of the book is filled with the step-mother's horrible, frivolous comments) you will be well rewarded by the charming way Gaskell writes.

the book! (and me!)

its whopping size!

where the book ends

Watching Wet Paint Dry

2010-07-05T17:16:00.000-05:00

For my sixteenth birthday, my parents let me redo my room. Currently, my room is the same as it was four years ago - purple walls with purple polka dots and a lot of other themes I tried to start but never finished. Finally, we have enough time to work on my room. I'll be repainting the walls, repainting my closet, repainting the trim, and (well, Dad will be doing this part) doing something electrical to be able to hang up two japanese paper lanterns.
I've had my three colors picked out since even before my birthday - light blue for three walls, dark purple for one wall, orange for the closet, and cream for the trim. A few days ago, my dad and I went to Lowe's to buy sample paints of the wall colors. I promptly threw some up on my wall and here are the results:

The orange is for the closet, purple for one wall, and the blue at the end for the other three walls

I really like the purple and orange but I decided the blue looked too "sea-foamy". Because it's so light, it's hard to capture the true color on camera, but just take my word for it.

I tried to snap some artistic photos.

Then I got tired of taking pictures of paint and decided to take pictures of my patient spectator, Sadie. She was only too happy to let me take pictures.

Seriously, this is the face she gave me when I pulled out the camera. So cute!

Happy Fourth!

2010-07-04T17:08:00.002-05:00

We're about to head to some friends house for a BBQ before heading to downtown Stillwater for their fireworks. It's become a family tradition to mingle with mindless, self-absorbed, texting Stillwater teens as we wait and socialize before the fireworks. So, whoever you are or whatever you're doing for this holiday, have a good night!

Soft Drink Theology

2010-07-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

Because of our large family and my parents' desire to save money, we rarely buy soda when we go out to eat. Unless it's a celebration, special event, or we're eating with our grandparents, we have to content ourselves with the free tap water tab connected to the lemonade dispenser. However, today was a special event - instead of nine people, there were only two people in the truck. Yesterday morning, Eli woke up and promptly threw up. This afternoon, after his stomach calmed down a little, he requested salty, salty french fries. Dad and I were going to run errands and practice driving anyway, so we rushed through the McDonalds' drive-through. Innocently, I asked Dad if I could get a sweet tea. He was delighting in his his new iPhone software (don't worry, I was the one driving) so his mind wasn't totally there as he replied, "Sure!" My elation as I sipped the ice-cold sweet tea on this hot, sweltering day was more than words can describe. As I contemplated my happiness, I realized that my joy at drinking soft drinks was so immense because I so often had to go without it. And, to my surprise, I concluded that my happiness at buying a sweet tea so infrequently gave me a happiness and contentment greater than if I got a soda every time we went out to eat. It had been a happy day, so I kept thinking, and my thoughts strayed toward the Christian life. I wondered if the same idea applied - the notion that happiness in something is made greater by that something being occasionally denied. Immediately, I was reminded of 2 Corinthians 4:17: "For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."
So, I hope my sweet tea reminds you that God is may be withholding your "soft drink" in order to prepare you for your eternal weight of glory.

Five Perks of Reading Old Literature

2010-06-30T20:07:00.001-05:00

It gives you a momentary break from the fast pace of the world. Instead of getting frustrated over the extra three seconds it takes your computer page to load, you're left to read a captivating three pages all about a ball.
It raises your standards in terms of the opposite gender. Instead of reading books where the hero of the story is some punk who drives a beat-up car and listens to creepy music, the hero is an honorable gentleman who wins the heroine by protecting her.
It leaves you feeling tired, in a good way. You know that tiredness you get after a long run or a hard soccer game? After reading a few chapters of Austen, that feeling comes on pretty strong. But it's a good feeling.
It impresses other people. People generally aren't impressed when they see you reading some obscure coming of age book called something like, "The Year I Broke Free of my Parents." But whip out the six hundred paged "Wives and Daughters" and you get some admiration.
It rescues you from reading the trashy, shallow, and innocence-ruining books written for teenagers. Never do I feel uncomfortable while reading Jane Austen. Charlotte Bronte would never dream of her characters throwing away their lives for men. Instead, classic literature writers sought to protect your innocence by creating clean, pure, loveable men and women. You loved them not because they alleviate your guilt about the trash in your life but because they inspire you to a more honorable kind of living.

Some suggestions:

Pride and Prejudice; Jane Austen
Wives and Daughters; Elizabeth Gaskell
Sherlock Holmes; Arthur Conan Doyle
Three Men in a Boat; Jerome K Jerome
The Robe; Lloyd C. Douglas
Emma; Jane Austen

When You Have a Nine-Person Family...

2010-06-28T15:27:00.000-05:00

... laundry takes an hour to fold;

...you have enough cups to recreate an AT&T advertisement;

...a sibling tries a sprinkler for the first time and a sibling visits a college for the first time;

...when Mom and Dad go on a date, you have to call them on speaker phone for the bedtime story.

Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Live Without 'Em

2010-06-26T19:20:00.001-05:00

I love brothers. Especially my brothers. Especially Eli.

At twelve years old, Eli's the oldest boy in our family. I love all my siblings, but I'm closest with Eli. We have the same sense of humor, we notice the same things, and we can both cause equal bodily harm to the other. Today I realized just what a great brother he is. God's given him an amazing sense of (to steal a word from Jane Austen) propriety - he knows when it's appropriate to tease me, he knows when it's appropriate to protect me. For example, I was looking through the picture's he's taken on his new SLR camera (that's he's extremely proud of), and suddenly came across a super close-up photo of a boy I'd become friends with during fiddle camp. "Eli?" I asked. "Um, what's this?" He glanced at the picture, "Oh yeah," he said nonchalantly. "I took that for you."I stared at him in wonder as I realized all the consideration that had gone into that action. But not just that - there's so much more to tell. For example, today, he sacrificed playing with good friends to ease an awkward situation. Somehow, he could feel how uncomfortable the situation was and realized that his presence helped it a little. He's not always as considerate as he's been in the past few days, but overall he's a great brother. I'm amazed at the amazing young man Eli is turning out to be.

Dear P.S. I love you, I love you

2010-06-24T18:51:00.002-05:00

Whenever I'm sad or tired or lonely, I jump in the shower and use my tiny travel-sized "p.s. I love you" body soap. Why? Because a week before I left for Ethiopia, Bath & Body emailed me a coupon for a free travel-sized item. I happily decided to use the coupon to get a body soap to use while in Ethiopia. I guessed that after smelling bad all day, I'd probably like to smell nice, so I opted for the frivolous instead of the more sensible "Fresh Linen." During my trip, every time I took a shower, my "p.s. I love you" was right there with me, reminding me that in a world of poverty, I had my fancy body wash to remind me a little of home. Now, back in the states, whenever I open the cap and the bottle releases the scent, I'm whisked right back to a tiny, cold shower in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And for just that tiny amount of time, my body soap (of all things!) reminds me of my amazing two weeks spent in a country that experiences more suffering than I can ever imagine.

Safety Precautions

2010-06-22T16:40:00.002-05:00

It's my general rule of thumb that men in tank tops should be avoided at all costs. It has never failed me.

Best Friends

2010-06-21T14:49:00.000-05:00

Best friends are unexpected. They can be recently acquired best friends, they can be "I've known you all my life" best friends, they can be friends all your life until one day you realize how close you really are. I can stay up until 2 a.m. talking about theology with one of my best friends. I can swim in an Ethiopian swimming pool with leaches clinging to the sides with one of my best friends. I can spray perfume on a smelly bus with one of my best friends. This weekend, I spent three wonderful days with my best friend that I've known almost my whole life. We grew up together on the campus of a boarding schooled called Cono in the middle of Iowa. We could play Playmobile for hours, happily engaged with running the unfortunate plastic lives. We visited my grandparents together, thrilled to spend the weekend away from home. We created worlds that completely sucked us in - houses from grass shavings, houses from leaves, houses from cardboard bricks, colonies from a row of pine trees, rooms in the empty dorms. We went to school together. We got lice together. We chopped off our hair together. We got mad at each other together. We lip-synced Bono and Elvis together. We went through the geeky stage (glasses, braces, etc) more or less together. We ran the coffee carts together. We handed out cups and scrappers together. We survived elementary drama together. We've stayed long-distance best friends for five years together. We may go to different colleges, get married, and move far away from each other. We may live different lives and have different careers. We may have children all different ages and experience totally different things. Or we may stay best friends for the rest of our lives. Either way, I'm so thankful to have had Jeanna Belz as my best friend for twelve years and hopefully for many years to come.

(L-R: me, Jeanna, Grace -my sister)

1999

(L-R: me, Jeanna, Grace)

2010

An Open Window

2010-06-14T10:44:00.001-05:00

Last night, as I sang along to every song that came up on the christian radio station and folded laundry in my room, I wondered what someone would think of me if they saw me through my open window.

Awkward Grad Parties

2010-06-13T18:53:00.003-05:00

I'm working on redoing the theme and layout of my blog. Until then, please excuse the mess. Thank you!

Tonight, we attended our neighbor's graduation party. "Kids," our mom instructed us. "Eat a lot. This will be supper."
Most people don't learn things while attending grad parties. However, since I'm homeschooled, I make it a priority to learn something in every situation. This evening I learned that there's a reason my family is homeschooled. Or maybe we're a result of being homeschooled. Our neighbor was playing a playlist over a speaker of the popular songs, 90% of which are rap songs. As the drums beat and men rapped and women wailed, Zeke looked up from his cake. "Hey Emma, can I dance?" I glanced around as athletic Stillwater teens milled around and quickly decided. "No." Eli grinned mischievously at me. "Oh Emma!" he taunted as he started to... bounce, I think would be the best word to describe it. I groaned and pinched his arm. The pain as I crushed his blood cells didn't stop him, however, and he continued to "dance." I gave him one last pinch and decided that the best course of action would be to pretend I didn't belong to the family. Just then, Lizzie fell off the neighbor's retaining wall so I dropped my disguise and ran to her rescue. Five minutes later, we walked down their driveway and I let our a sigh of relief, thankful to be able to enjoy my family without worrying about who was watching. Maybe my family needs to change, but my guess is that it's me who needs a change.

Watching the Bourne Movies

2010-06-07T20:12:00.002-05:00

Last night, one of my friends spent the night. Because she'd never seen the Bourne series (Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum), we had a marathon and watched almost all of the three movies. Unfortunately, the Bourne movies are some my brothers' favorite movies. I say unfortunately because having Eli and Levi watch with my friend and I wasn't exactly what I wanted. My dad and I bartered about watching over dinner and decided that the boys could watch the first movie with us, but had to let us watch the last two alone. This plan was carried out to perfection until the first movie ended and it was time to kick my brothers off the couch. After fifteen minutes of me repeating "No! No! Get out! No!" my brothers finally got the picture and left the room. For the rest of our movie, however, we were interrupted every fifteen minutes by conversations that went something like this:
Levi: "Hi Emma"
Emma: "Um, hi. Go away."
Levi: "What part are you at?"
Emma: "The car chase in the tunnel."
Levi: "OH! Emma, I LOVE this part! Can I just watch this part?"
Emma: "No."
Levi: "Please, Emma! I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE this part, so much!"'
Emma: "No."
Levi: [Sadly, his spirit broken, he heads upstairs.]

Desiring God (times two)

2010-06-04T17:57:00.003-05:00

1. Desiring God - our concert went well! The group we played for consisted of the staff and volunteers for Desiring God, a ministry of our church. They spread the resources of John Piper through the world for the glory of God. We were nervous at first, but soon fell at ease as we got more comfortable and used to the mikes. While they liked the songs we played, they loved our singing. I have to admit, Grace and I can harmonize like nobody's business. Even though the singing went well, we did make several mistakes, which everyone was very gracious about. When we had to start over because I played the wrong song, no one even looked up. All in all, it was the best way to start off our possible band career. We are now looking for tour buses and people to make matching overalls for us.
2. Desiring God - I'm reading the book that the Desiring God ministry was named for - Desiring God, by John Piper. Its caption reads "Meditations of a Christian Hedonist," and it's all about how our desire for happiness is God-given. The only way our desire for happiness will be fulfilled is in delighting in God. Piper argues that our hearts were designed for God, and that God's passion for his glory in the world and our desire to be satisfied are the same pursuits. Even though I'm only on page 97 of 358, the book is already changing my life. John Piper quotes Jonathan Edwards regarding the mind-blowing traits of Jesus Christ and I'll share it with you because it's so incredible:

"We must see and feel the incomparable excellency of the Son of God. Incomparable because in him meet infinite glory and lowest humility, infinite majesty and transcendent meekness, deepest reverence toward God and equality with God, infinite worthiness of good and greatest patience to suffer evil, supreme dominion and exceeding obedience, divine self-sufficiency and childlike trust." (Piper, John. Desiring God. 94.)

Our First Real Performance

2010-06-03T19:42:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow, the Button family band - "Inviting Interruptions" performs their first performance! (As in, not a talent contest, or a recital). One of our church's programs/ministries, Desiring God, is having their end of the year volunteer picnic. One of our good friends who runs the picnic invited us to come and play background, casual, jammin' in the living kind of music. Eli will be on the fiddle, I'll be playing fiddle and guitar, Grace is strumming the mandolin, Levi's singing will be featured in two songs, and our friend will be making everything totally amazing with his accordion! We've pretty much killed each other as we've practiced for our first set, but nonetheless we're all excited for tomorrow.

Picture of the Day

2010-05-17T12:38:00.004-05:00

Right now, my brother, Eli, is in New York City with my grandparents. While I was in Ethiopia, every day he sent me a helpful little email outlining things like: what I should do if a lion attacks (let it eat my friend) or what I should do if my friend, Jenna, and I had to share a bed (push her off). So while he's gone, I've decided to be equally helpful by sending him a "Picture of the Day" every day. Now, Eli is oober protective. For example, his jar of Vaseline (yes, he has his own jar of Vaseline) says "Please Do Not Use". He used his own label maker (which has his name displayed on it) to make the label. So, here's my plan - every day, I'm going to take a picture of myself "using" his stuff, and then I'll email it to him! Here's the "Picture of the Day" I sent him yesterday.
Today, I'm planning on sending him a picture of my hair all over his bike handles (he's super hyper squeamish about my hair). Oh, revenge is sweet.

Child Sponsorships

2010-05-08T15:35:00.007-05:00

One of the things our missions team did in Ethiopia was interview 55 kids to find sponsors for them in the States. These kids were the poorest of the poor who lived in the slums of Addis. Many of them had family members affected by HIV. In the family of the girl our family is sponsoring, her mother had HIV, her brother had TB, and she had. Most of the families made about $12 a month, and lived in houses the size of my room. In one house my partner and I visited, he picked up the baby crawling on the floor. The mom rushed over to hand him a blanket to set under the baby. When he took it from her, three cockroaches fell out. Most of the kids we interviewed wanted to be a doctor when they grew up, so that they could heal everyone, or a pilot, so that they could fly out of Ethiopia. Even though most of the kids had clothes from churches or venders on the street, they came clothed in their best for the interviews. One of the girls I interviewed, Blaine, put on a pink dress with a droopy, dusty flower over an orange, polka-dotted shirt. Even though it clashed horribly, Blaine managed to look like a little girl straight off a Gap add.
After several presentations to different areas of our church, and several weeks of sitting with our table in the commons area of the church, we've received 22 sponsors. We still have 33 kids left. I'll post some pictures of the kids we met, as well as the slideshow I made to show our church's youth group. If you want to sponsor a child, let me know! It's $35 dollars a month, which goes to buy meat, oil, flour, hair oil (it's incredibly dry in Ethiopia), two annual doctor checkups, a pair of new shoes every year, school fees, uniform fees, and a small birthday and Christmas present. Let me know.

Blaine

Zenish

The "street" that Zenish lived on

Blaine is the girl on the far left, in the orange. Mekdes, the girl I'm sponsoring, is in the dark blue fleece coat with her arm around my neck.

Blaine again.

Mekdes

Bethlehem

Hayat

Abdulkadir (intense name)

A Drop of Randomness for Your Day

2010-05-08T15:22:00.004-05:00

Hey! Yes, I am know using color. Whenever you see a change in my blog, this is why: one rainy, drizzly afternoon, I get really bored. Because of the boredness, I hop on the computer and start blog surfing. An hour later, I've found five amazing blogs and have completely depressed myself. Then ensues a total makeover of my blog. Or just a font color change.
Last week, on April 31st, my parents and I drove to the U of M campus to hear Peter Kreeft and someone else debate about abortion. When we arrived, there was a line out the door. The auditorium for the venue could seat 350, and over 1,000 people had RSVPed. Needless to stay, we couldn't find a seat. We could, however, find a small space to stand. But our perch was quickly abandoned when our noses discovered the varied, hot, and strong smells of over 500 bodies crammed into a room. Since we were already in the cities, we decided to walk around the St. Thomas campus, a college that I'm interested in. St. Thomas used to be just another college to me that didn't really stick out except for one thing. On the plane ride home from Amsterdam to Minneapolis after my trip to Ethiopia, I noticed a group of about 100 college students. I asked the lady sitting next to me about it and she said a group of St. Thomas students had gone to Kenya to learn about early Christianity during Spring Break. I was so impressed that a college would send kids to Kenya for two weeks that St. Thomas stuck in my mind. Anyway, on that night, we leisurely strolled through the Student Center, when our eyes were caught by a large and colorful corkboard on the wall. We walked over to it and I noticed a feature called "The Country of the Month." Now, keep in mind that this was the last day in April, the last day for this certain country of the month to be displayed on the billboard. Wanna take any guesses about which country was posted to the billboard? Ethiopia.

Pictures of my Sisters

2010-03-03T21:12:00.001-06:00

Hey! Sorry about the total lack of blogging. But, no news is good news, right? Anywho, they're home! And adorable! A little sick and a little naughty, but home nonetheless. Here's a link to follow to look at picture of them.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57955&id=1311734205&l=c061b88ed7

Bon Voyage Mommy Dearest!

2010-02-18T20:06:00.002-06:00

This morning we said goodbye to my mom and her friend as they set off for Ethiopia. Right now, Lord willing, Mom is on a twelve hour flight to Dubai, where she'll spend the night in a hotel (compliments of Emirates Air), and then set off for Ethiopia Saturday morning. She'll arrive in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia around 11:30am Ethiopia time, which is 2:30am central time. On Saturday she'll get to her guest house, rest it up, and hopefully meet some of the people I met on my trip. Then on Sunday, she'll go pick Lizzie and Sadie up from the orphanage. I'm forcing myself to use their new names, or else I'll forget when they get here! At first, we heard Lizzie's name (Lemlem), we were like, "What?! A lemming?" It took us a while to call her Lemlem with a straight face. Now, however, we're all a little sad to be changing the names. Our conversations are something like, "I can't wait to see Lemle- I mean, Lizzie!" But we think it's probably best in the long run to change their names. Um, hello - junior high with the name Lemlem? It just screams for insults. Plus, can you imagine introducing yourself as a forty year-old with the name? I don't know, it just kind of sets the tone for a hard life. So, hence Lizzie (short for Elizabeth) and Sadie. Sadie's middle name will be Addis, which is the name of the girl who started all of this. (To read about her from my blog, click here. To read about her from my mom's blog, click here.) We haven't decided what Lizzie's middle name will be yet. Mom is going to try to find out the birth mom's name, so ideally we'll use that.
After we said goodbye to Mom, we piled into the Suburban (that we might have to trade out for a fifteen passenger van. Because we didn't feel homeschooled enough). Dad drove us downtown to the skyways in Minneapolis. On the way in, the boys were gushing about how much they would love to go to the top of the Capella Tower or the IDS building. Dad pulled out his iPhone and I typed an email for him that he sent out to all of his lawyer friends. He was asking if anyone had an office in the IDS building that we could come check out. Within five minutes, someone had emailed back. He officed on the 45th floor. Eagerly, we rode the elevator up. When the doors opened, and we (five kids, one in a stroller) stepped out, a chipper looking woman stared us in shock. "Um, what are you guys here for?" Dad gave her the name of the guy we were there to see and she rather reluctantly directed us to his office. The guy's office was incredible. It looked out over Minneapolis and highway 35. It was intense. We all peered out the window and oohed and ahhed and located our church. Then the guy asked if we wanted hot chocolate. We assumed there was just a cheap hot chocolate maker in the break room that he was going to raid, so we said sure. Fifteen minutes later, he arrived with a carrier filled with hot chocolate... from Starbucks. It was a good day.

PICTURES

2010-02-16T16:48:00.004-06:00

Hello! Well, I have now sifted through all of my pictures. But I still have to edit them and sort them in the right order. So it'll still be a while until I'll be able to upload them. However.... I have gotten the okay from my parents to post pictures of Lizze (Lemlem) and Sadie (Fikre). So! Enjoy: