Monday, July 1, 2013

An Arkansas Trip

 Hello, hello, hello everybody!!! I am actually posting about I and my family's Arkansas trip ... imagine. :D

  Reason for me not posting this early is that it has been taking a while for me to get back in the normal routine and all, and also because my brother just had his tenth Birthday. :P

  All right, anyway, on with the show ... post, rather.


 So, we left out early, EARLY Saturday morning (five o'clock exactly). Strangely, all of us were a calm and cool group of sleepy, excited people leaving out in our twelve passenger van. Seriously, no one went back to sleep until around like seven maybe. My dad prayed that out trip would go well (no flat tires, or parking tickets, or ... KIDDING!! :P) and we were off for the great state of Arkansas.




  My mom's biscuits she made were the best things ever!! In truth, they were  better than any I have EVER had from any fast-food joint. My brother ate close to six or seven BEFORE lunch. All he did was sleep and eat, sleep and eat, and sleep and eat again. LOL! Wish I could do that. :O

  We stopped a little, just to stretch and walk around all the Wallmarts we could find ... hehe! We drove for ten hours or so, and we made wonderful time. We were all so excited I guess we could not calm  down, and someone would start singing, and then all of us would sing. Such is the life with six younger siblings. Hehe!

 Well, six and a half siblings really! My mom is expecting another!!!!!!!!! *excited*


  The Ozarks were so beautiful!!!! The greens were different then in my home state (won't mention it for privacy) but the weather is a lot like were I live, so there we no major changes.

The approach to a awesome tunnel going through one of
the mountains in the wonderful Ozarks 
  




SIDE NOTE: Two years ago I and my family drove to the Wyoming/Colorado area, but we took a different route (obviously) and went through more of Mississippi ... it was not too pretty a area, and we all just fell asleep. :D But on this route everyone just kept "ohhhing" and  "ahhing" over the all gorgeous scenes.

  No drama? Well, really, no there was not. Yeah, I did leave a pair of shoes at home that I REALLY needed, but, hey, it was a great excuse to go shoes shopping ... hehe! Found some amazingly comfy shoes.

But I guess that is not really drama is it?!?  :P







   So, when we got to out hotel and we opened the door all of us sucked in our breath. IT WAS HUGE!! We really do not stay in a hotel room usually that is a suite, so the room was crazy big to us. It had a small, but awesome kitchen, a sitting room, and the bedroom. Also a HUGE bathroom ... have no idea how I excited I was about that!! I am really not trying to brag at all ... just saying that (seeing we do have a large family) we do not staying a suite "all the time". :)

 Random pic of our van ...
  When we all got settled in, and ate something (it was like around seven maybe) the Young family (with whom we have been corresponding about a certain church in the area we were interested in visiting) came over and talked. They were such a sweet Christian family! Mrs. Young has a blog here.

  And I slept! Boy, was I tired. Me and my crazy sister stayed up laughing and giggling for a while at our brothers crazy stories they were telling. But we did drift off to sleep at last.

  We all got up and ate some breakfast ... and had some coffffffffeeeeee! LOL! So wonderful in the morning. I was up and ready to kiss the world. Hehe! Not exactly.

  The church which we visited was inspiring. We met so many wonderful Christian families. The young ladies I met were so excited about the Lord and I was truly encouraged. There was an after-service lunch and visiting time which was aptsolutly great!! We stayed for as long as five hours!!
  As for pictures, well, I did not get any because I was so busy introducing myself, and I have no idea how many times I told how many siblings I had, where I lived, why exactly I and my family were there visiting. But it was so nice for a change to have Christian girls my own age to talk nonstop with (almost everyone I met had more siblings than I do, excepting one girl).

  After meeting the Vanderhoff family (Mr. Vanderhoff is one of the elders in the church) they asked where we were staying for the night. My dad told them that we were praying that God would lead us to stay another night or just head back home. Well, turns out that Mr. Vanderhoff asked if we would like to stay in their "barn loft".

  Barn loft?!?!

The "barn" :P



   I know. I was a little surprised too. :D But when we pulled up into their driveway I kinda understood. Their "barn" was more of an outbuilding, and looked kind like a house in its own way. Really, I was very surprised.

  In a very good way though. :)
Up in the Vanderhoff's barn loft


  All right, just to clear things up the Vanderhoffs have twenty-one kids. Six I believe are handicap children which they have adopted. But these children are the sweetest little things in the world!! It was so amazing to see their whole family help with these precious little ones from the Lord, and how smoothly everything went. :P

  I and my family spent the remaining afternoon with them, just talking, and playing, and talking, and eating hamburgers and hot dogs, and playing piano. The little ones just pulled me over to the piano stool and I could not help but play. I don't know how many times they asked me to play Disney's Up theme.  Hehe! It was a wonderful evening.
  A group of the older girls and myself walked up and down their drive just talking about anything, everything! It was so fun to listen to their random stories and all. I could defiantly relate to almost everything they were talking about.

  All my brothers and sisters were SOOOO tired. After a shower I just fell to pieces on my bed. LOL!

This is Otto. He is a little older than my brother Seth who is four years old. He is unable
to use his legs from his waist down but he gets around so perfectly with his walker. He is TOO cute!!
  I am pretty sure I was kinda popular with the Vanderhoff kids (joking) after that because all of a sudden one of the little ones would go "Abiiiiiigggaaaaaiiill". I would go over there to Otto and then he just laughed and giggled. He was too sweet and funny! He had this finger thing he would do when he wanted me to come over to him. I had to laugh whenever I saw him doing "the finger thing" as I got around to calling it.

LoL! Caught Casiah in an action pic! (I think that is the way you spell her name ... I think!) 

  Woke up and ate a wonderful breakfast. Talked some more with everyone, and played the Up theme once more. :D  Let me tell you, I hated leaving. I had such a wonderful time, and they were so kind and wonderful.
I, Rebecka, and my crazy brother Josiah being funny on the rode home! 

  But it is always SOOO good to get back home, and sleep in your own bed, and get back to homy life.

  And, just saying, I don't have anything against Arkansas ... not that I ever did! :O LOL!

         ~*~

  Here are some extra random pictures I could not find a place for above.



My little brother after getting his hair done
My dad hustling to get done before church 

























Sarah, my very cute sister being cool! :)

My sis going iPhone happy ... LOL! And I and
some of us girls talking back there

I fixed this girl's bike and so one of her siblings came up
to me kinda said something like , "Well, yesterday you
were the pianist now you are the mechanic!"
I was VERY much gratified I will have you all know. :)
Hehe!
Some of us girls just trying to be cute!
Otto listening to my dad telling something :P

This sweet little girl is actually as old as I am. It was
so nice listening to and talking with her.



William on someone's iPhone and Zek (right) being funny!



 Bye for now ya'll!



P.S.  Hey, I put up a "follow me on Bloglovin'" button on the side of this blog.
Please follow me on it because Google Friend Connect is shutting down ... I think. :)

5 comments:

  1. Fun post [and lots of neat pictures], Abilaine!
    Hey, could you explain the Bloglovin button to me a little better? Is it just for Google Friend Connect or do you have to have it up in order for people to follow your blog at all? Thanks. 8)

    ReplyDelete
  2. You sound like you had a great time! I'm jealous...;)
    Great post and I loved the pictures!
    Congratulations on your soon-to-be sibling! My mom had twins recently, which makes us seven kids as well!
    To Analiese:
    GFC is now non-functional. I think you can still use it to follow someone's blog but you can't install it on your own blog anymore. On Bloglovin, you create an account and then you can transfer all the blogs you follow to your Bloglovin account. You can also claim your own blog and put a Bloglovin button on it for people to follow you on Bloglovin.
    I'm not sure how much sense that made, but I hope it helped! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, I just put GFC on my design blog today to see how it looked. It's at the bottom of "more gadgets" instead of on the main page. :)

      Delete
  3. LOVE the pictures! We've been sittin' waitin' on them!

    Hoping to drag you all back over here soon!

    The Young Family

    www.proverbsfamily.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. Please keep your language and ideas clean and God-honouring. And please respect my ideas and thoughts, because they are really only ideas and thoughts. :D


God Bless,
~Abilaine