What You Get When You Combine Rootbeer, Fear, and Exhaustion

I do apologize for not posting recently... This past Wednesday I traveled last minute down to West Virginia to visit my very good friend Olivia Howard. Some of you may remember a like visit last year in July/August. I was going to go on Thursday, but then we discovered that Mr. Clarke was in town, and going home that night! It would save plenty of gas for us. (The Clarkes only live 30 minutes from the Howards, and the distance from our house to the Clarkes is 3 hours... to the Howards, 3.5). So... having 15 minutes to pack, I did that.... and then...

(okay, short interruption for apology... I know I make long introductions! sorry!)

I went down to Southern Ohio with Mr. Clarke. We had a very interesting conversation that involved math/engineering, politics, government, prison, poor people, the abolition of the slave trade, history, and all sorts of stuff. :D It was very intelligent and fun.

So here I am at the Howards.

And now on to the actual post...

The Howards have a little apartment attached to their garage. It includes a kitchen/breakfast area, and then upstairs is the main room they use for schooling, or sewing, a library, bathroom, and a big bedroom. So during the time I'm here (till July 4) Olivia and I are staying in the apartment! The other day we bought rootbeer and ice-cream for - can you guess? Yup! rootbeer floats! So we had some one night... and then last night decided we needed more. There was enough ice-cream for us each to have one. We brought the stuff from the kitchen to the bedroom, and prepared and enjoyed them (thoroughly) there.

When I was little I watched a rather scary show on tv.... I don't need to go into specifics about it, but for years I had a dread of windows at night. I hated them... unless they had curtains or blinds. Even though I'm older now, whenever I pass by a dark window at night, it makes me nervous and giddy. What I saw when I was little terrified me to such an extent, that it never really went away.

Now, when we were done with the rootbeer floats, there was still a little more than a third of a 2 liter bottle of rootbeer left... It needed to go down to the fridge... but it was rather late, and Olivia and I both were exhausted from working in the garden all day... hauling 50 pound rocks from a creek up a hill to the car... plus a number of bricks... for landscaping... and a whole bunch of things.... In short, neither one of us felt up to getting up and taking the rootbeer downstairs to the fridge...

And also...

I was nervous about the windows....

"We'll just leave it and put it away in the morning," Olivia said.

"But Olivia... if we don't take it down, it will get flat, and lose it's fizz, and then tomorrow it won't be good!" I argued.

"Well... it's okay... just leave it..."

So I left it.

But after fifteen minutes, the bottle of rootbeer was bothering me. There wasn't any point in letting it get flat, was there? That would be a waste of good rootbeer!

What were we going to do?

...

I looked at the rootbeer. My martyrdom was drawing nigh. There was but one option, and one only (that we would consider) to save the rootbeer from flatting and that was....

to drink it myself.

I took a deep sigh as I submitted to my fate.

And then....

Drank all that was left of the rootbeer...

...experiencing the consequences all through the night.

Ice-Skating

Thursday afternoon, the Clarkes homeschool group went ice-skating in Wheeling at Oglebay park. :D Sooo... Here's some pictures from that most enjoyable afternoon. :) (I'm kind of in a smiley-face mood... As you'll see below...)

This is Tabitha Simpson, the little sister of the Simpson girls (obviously) who I know. :) You gotta love babies... I do.

Me and Rachel on skates. Surprisingly, there aren't very many good pictures of us. But that just figures when neither one of us looks that great. :P

Beautiful Olivia, :)

Jack. He's actually a really good skater. But then he's also a boy, and boys are good at almost anything. :)

All us girls!! L to R, Emma, Olivia, Me, Jordan, Allison, Rachel.

Me Olivia and Allison. I really like Olivia's hat.

Me and Olivia dear.

Aww, Jordan!

The skating rink. It was actually a pretty good size, and there weren't tons of people there, so it was nice. I love ice-skating.

Emma and me. Ya know, I don't know why there are so many pictures of me and people. Rachel uploaded them all for me while I was playing card games with Mr. Clarke and Jack. :P

Wow, that just looks dumb. :)

And Mrs. Clarke and Catherine will end this beautiful little post. :D

A Few Days At Olivia's....

So at OGAL-BEE park, there was this pond... and these two trees, and Olivia really enjoyed having a photoshoot there. I was her victim—although, a most willing victim I must admit— and we took a lot of pictures, trying out different lights and angles, and pretty much practicing Olivia's photography skills. :P

Notice the reflection of the trees in the water. :)

Aww. :)

I think this picture is self-explanatory

On a Monday, the Monday before I left for home, we made a trip up to Cabelas. I was quite impressed by all the dead and stuffed animals, but it was so much fun, and again, their fudge is impeccable. :)

The statue in front of Cabelas.

Reorganizing is FUN!!!! :)

Well, it's okay, I guess....


Olivia doesn't know this yet, but I really like this picture. :)

I thought this one was a bit... odd, but funny, as Olivia looks very young, and I look very weird.


So, I'm over on another side of the room, when I hear this really loud laughing... it came from Olivia, of course, and she was laughing because she was taking the most absurd pictures of herself. Some were quite funny, but they will never make it to the blog. :) Actually, I thought this one was quite nice.

Girls will be girls...

Note: I don't actually use this cheap mascara... Fortunately, Olivia had already bought Maybeline Defin-a-lash by the time I arrived, so we didn't have to use the stuff you see advertised in this picture. :) Olivia and I agreed that the new stuff is much better than that ^ stuff. :) (No offense intended towards Olivia's previous mascara.)

I thought that this would be a good picture to end the post with.... :)

A Chocolate Facial

Okay... So last night Olivia and I were up late baking and cooking lots and lots of.... stuff... for Emma's late tea/birthday party. We made chocolate covered strawberries, and we had quite a bit of the milk chocolate left over. So, we decided that it really needed to go on my face. Hence, the pictures below. Then... I saw the bag of flour... :D























































My nose is NOT that huge!!!!

Out of Town!!!

I am in West Virginia!! On Friday night, Mr. Clarke drove me down to St. Clairsville. I talked about graveyards and dead people for most of the ride, until we got into a discussion about... theological issues. After that, there was an awkward silence for about five straight minutes. Then I started eating bagels to take my mind off the silence. I stayed with the Clarkes Friday night. Rachel and I slept in a twin bed on the top bunk with no rails, as is our custom, and talked until two in the morning.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Clarke drove Rachel and I to Wheeling WV, where he dropped us off at Jordan's house. It was quite humorous when lunch time came around, and there was no food. So, we got some chips and cheese dip, bean dip, and salsa, sprite, homemade cookies. Mrs. Connor wasn't home, so Mr. Connor dumped the entire bag of chips on the table, and people ate them off of that.

Saturday afternoon we went to Target and bought mascara (which I recommended to Jordan, and now she loves it) fake nails for fun, lip gloss, etc.. We topped off the trip with Strawberries 'n Cream frappicinos from Starbucks.

Jordan had a part in this play called I Remember Mama and she did well. The play was thoroughly enjoyable.

We came home at about eleven PM and talked a lot... or at least until three, by which time I said:

"You guys, do you mind if I go to sleep? Because I stayed up Thursday night until 1:30 or 2:00 with Chloe, 2:00 with Rachel on Friday night, 3:00 tonight, and Olivia's going to want me to stay up late tonight with her! So I really need to get some sort of sleep!"

Of course they were laughing at me, and they were so hyper, but I went to sleep anyways. So we got up this morning and went to church, and I was so happy that Titus (age 1) let me hold him all the way through all the singing, and actually wanted me to! :D I love babies. During the sermon, though, a lot of my nails came off, except for the thumb ones, my index finger on my right hand, and my middle finger on the left hand, and I cannot get them off at all! It looks awfully funny.

We came home and tried on all my dresses... Jordan was particularly crazy about this Retro dress that I made, and Rachel was too, so then they just decided to try on every single one I had. Jordan ended up borrowing my red and white flower dress, which she declares every five minutes she "loves to death."

Mrs. Clarke just came to pick up Rachel with Jack. Last night Mr. Clarke and he were playing catch, and somehow Jack got hit in the mouth with a baseball bat, and this morning Mrs. Clarke called the dentist at home to see if he could look at Jack's loose teeth, which are fine, except for a broken one.

And now the Howard's will be here in about forty five minutes to pick me up, and I'll be with them until August sixth, where I'll spend the night with Rachel, and then Mr. Clarke will take me back to Cleveland (because he works up there sometimes) early in the morning on August 7th.

Okay, I'll try to post more updates, and possibly some pictures. We'll see.

~Ruby Jean