A Conglomeration of Sorts

On Monday night the Candler's came over for a great night of food and fellowship, and one thing we definitely did was play...

Dutch Blitz.

And, of course, we couldn't just play without recording a game on camera! :D So now, I present unto you all a Gaffer Productions presentation of sorts that includes silliness, music, and other things along those lines...



Then on Wednesday, a total of 76 (?) people attended our first annual Providence Church 4th of July Celebration (not sure about the official name, though). More can be read about it here.



one of our many games of volleyball



Mr. Lansberry serving it up



Melissa, Pastor McDonald, and Jessica leading the singing of a patriotic song, of which I currently can't remember the name :P



Garrison enjoying the smoke...things



Emil and Garrison attempting to light a few somethings



the somethings going off in a shower of sparks and repeated booms

Trampolining

For the first time ever, as in, for the first time in my 18 years, something months, etc. days of living, I jumped on a trampoline. Yes sir, last Tuesday marked the day. Quite an experience, it was.

A more detailed post, including pictures, can be read here.

An Anniversary

Twenty-five years ago today, Steve and Kelley Bandy were married at Athens Christian Church in Athens, Illinois...



Happy 25th Anniversary, Dad and Mom... :) God has blessed the five of us kids with the bestest parents in the world.

And a most wonderful day to have it! The weather treated us nicely, but the highlight definitely would be the evening. Grace prepared our dinner (I shall decline from giving the details to prevent jealousy :D ), then after the main course dessert was served:





Following dessert, we all headed outside, doing nothing much of importance. The serenity of an Illinois country, with no big city to pollute the noise surrounding you, few cars passing by throughout the day...only your father reading to the family and everyone sitting around here and there listening intently...

Happy Birthdayness and General Updation

A shameless plug for Apple:

Safari for Windows

~~~

Yes, I know, I've been terrible about updating my blog--I apologize to y'all. I shall strive to post more often!

So, it's time to update.

Last week signaled my first week of full-time working, and not a better week could have occurred. Beautiful days, not exceeding 85 degrees (although the one day it went over--had the day off); receiving drenching rain and not wearing a jacket; nap times during long trips, such as that time we drove to Pittsfield over an hour away; wonderful lunches at the local mom and pop restaurants; and to top it all off, we swam at our neighbor's pool multiple times. :D

Also! On Friday Emil attained the age of 16 years. And to celebrate this event, a picture is posted. (with permission, of course ;)

That is...if I can find it.

Aha! Here we are--

Happy Birthday (albeit the few days late), Emil!!!

Graduation 2007

This past Saturday we held Grace's and my graduation party at our house--around 35 people came, and we had a great time. :D

Teen Pact

Oh what a stressful mornin', Oh what a stressful day, I've got a fearful feelin' everything's goin' the wrong way...

The above sentence crossed my mind multiple times this past week. And this past week was...Teen Pact. Even though I didn't attend this year, my brother, however, did so. Like previous years, we decided to open our house to guests for the week. Confused phone calls, false alarms, overcrowded capitals, and late-night conversations on IM (even though we were less than 15 feet away from each other :D ) describes everything perfectly.


Eric and Emil arm wrestling

Matthew Farmer

Allie and Grace

L-R: Sam, Kelly, Brent, Eric

Wednesday...Legislative Day.


singing in front of the capital



Then we have some other various pictures...



Benjamin, William, Eric, and Emil's hand

playing Mafia

goodbyes...

the 2007 Teen Pact graduating class

Friday....AHHH!!! That sums up the day rather well: I had an emergency trip to the grocery store in the morning, THEN later in the afternoon, we found out that Dad, while he was grocery shopping as well, received multiple injuries from shopping carts (too gruesome to get into details), and had to get stiches. Now it sounds like something normal that happens to us, BUT, Emil and Eric had speech class that day. So.......at the exact same time Dad was receiving stiches, they were both finishing up speech. AND Eric had a train to catch almost right after the class was done. So Ashton to the rescue. Commenced emergency situation, made multiple phone calls, drove over prompt care, picked up Eric's luggage, went to the capital, suddenly saw Emil and Eric standing beside the street, honked at 'em to get their attention, almost made the person behind me hit the van because of stopping abruptly, they ran over to the van and got in, we drove over to the train station, decided after a few minutes to buy some food at McDonalds, returned to the train station, found out Dad was there after all, few more minutes transpired then Dad and Emil drove off and bought some rounds of ammo, came back, Eric and I were still there, waited 20 minutes for the train, the train came, Eric left, then we came home. *draws breath*

Sam at the target shoot this afternoon after hearing about our week:

"If I were you I'd be back home in bed."

Fourscore and Seven Years Ago...

It's birthday time, y'all... ;)

Happy 14th Birthday, Grace!!!



and...

Happy Birthday to Jake!!!

Hymnsing Scenes

Praise the Lord!!

Justices Uphold Abortion Procedure Ban

Easter!

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.

~Matthew 28:1-8

[bold mine]

He is risen indeed!!

:)

~~~

Our day in pictures...








then an extra one thrown in for good measure ;)

Tree Felling

On Saturday, unbeknownst to myself until the last minute, it was decided to take down our pine tree beside the house. The weather wasn't the best of help: rain was in the forecast, and, not only that, tornado watches as well...but, we did it anyway. :D So you can imagine the state we were in at the time. The tree leaned repeatedly toward the house, scaring everyone. Neighbors and friends watched the scene from across the street, and Mom fervently prayed for safety while she cooked our dinner. We tied around 3-4 ropes to the poor thing, hoping it wouldn't threaten the house anymore--though it didn't ease Mum's fears much. Ropes break. :P In fact, I found that out the hard way because I accelerated a leetle too much with the truck. Oh yes, we definitely had the truck helping. Without a truck the tree would have hit our house regardless of 3-4 ropes. (as a side note to give better perspective, the tree was around 55 feet tall)

So coming to the tree falling (with the help of our across-the-street-next-door neighbor). It must be noted that the ropes were tied to the truck. I was told to go ahead and start bringing the tree down. We all heard the distinctive sound of a tree falling: those certain cracking noises. And when I looked in my side mirror, and saw that tree falling, in my head I told myself: "AHHHHH!! THE TREE IS FALLING ON ME!!! I NEED TO GO!!!" Down went the accelerator, the speedometer thing went up suddenly, and I went flying into...our garage. Thankfully, though, Mom suggested that we take all the vehicles out, or else we might have ended up with a dent the size of Haley's comet in the back end of the van. Hehe, I could see something happening on Sunday along these lines,

"Good morning! Um, what happened to your van?!"
"The van? Oh, Ashton freaked out when the tree fell down and flew right into the garage with the truck."
"What?!"

Then later on when everything was cleared out of the way, around eleven or so feet of the tree was left of the trunk. So Dad cut around the base, hooked a rope around the top, and I played some bungee jumping between the tree and truck. If the tree didn't fall down, the truck came jolting back. Fun stuff... :D

Pictures, pictures, pictures...





And on Sunday, here's something we did at the Evans' house... :D