Anyone for Coffee?

~Sacred Grounds Espresso Cafe~ Hey everyone! I have recently finished a doing a gig with Josie Olson and my sister Abbi. Josie and I have done it before, but I must say that this was the totally funnest one ever! First off, Abbi got to play with us on a couple songs...Abbi was really amazing. She pretty much had a week to practice and she did incredibly awesome! Josie and I played for the rest of the gig. We had loads of fun and the funny thing was: I wasn't nervous! I really enjoyed playing for all those people!

And then we began to take special guests. Abbi and I were just going to play a couple jigs, because Josie and I felt we were running out of "planned" songs, when Nathan Wilson comes in. I randomly invited him to come up and play mandolin with us and he did! It was really fun and Abbi did really well for a "first-time-right-on-the-spot" playing.

Josie also sang one of her own songs she recently wrote called: "And I." It is a very pretty song and i was excited by the fact that I had a mandolin to do a little back grounding in her song.

Josie also played with a friend of hers, Dan. They did really well for not have practiced. It was really great to be able to play for people and have them actually enjoy the music. We played various songs. From Howie Day's "Collide", to Carrie Underwood's "So Small;" it was a big variety of songs. We had a lot of fun playing and will hopefully be doing it again this Christmas. I will be updating soon with other things also, so be prepared. ~Hope :)

Things to Do...

Hey everyone. A lot of things have been going on this week. First off, we made cookies for Elva Kaffe at our church. It is a kind of festival for Scandinavian people in the area. Here is a picture of Grandpa and Abbi doing some cookies. And here are Noah and Ben decorating cookies. Mom kind of got in the picture (oops!) and I forgot to crop it before I downloaded it. Noah and Ben did a great job.

Elliott was a great help also. He is a great cookie decorator, even though he prefers eating them over decorating. :)

And, as always, there was a frosting fight. This one was pretty much between Grandpa and Abbi, though. I was spared because I had the Camera. Lucky me!

I will be blogging pictures of the actual Elva Kaffe soon. So keep looking! ~Hope

Fun at the Forsman's

Hey everyone. This is a picture of Ben, who has lost his two front teeth. He actually lost them a week ago, but I haven't really been on lately. (oops)

And here is Abby with her chocolate bar. I couldn't resist taking a picture of her like this! And yeas, the chocolate did come off!

Elliott loves chocolate, too! It got kind of messy in the car, but it was so worth the moment! This happened on the way home from REI in Minneapolis.

Look at Elliotto's big lips!! Wow. Goofing around at the Forsman's during school can get pretty interesting.

And now, for another Birthday!!! We can never have to many of those, right?

Happy Birthday Mom! Here she sits with Daddy and Elliott opening her gifts. Dad was able to take her out later that night for dinner while I watched the kid's. She had a great day.

Well, hopefully I will be able to blog again soon! Next time it will probably be for quizzing.

School Days and A Birthday

Hi everyone! So, here are some things that we have been doing lately.

Mom and the boys have recently finished a Hosta garden. They had to go into the back field and get ceder chips in the truck. The boys were a big help.

Here is a picture of the host garden. No, this is not all they did. They made a really nice one that took a lot of hard, dedicated work to get done. I remember this summer, all of us kids had to move rocks up our sledding hill (phew)! And they were big rocks, too!

Noah has also been busy with things. He has been a little chef in the kitchen. Here he is with some of his Jelly's. I am pretty sure they were from Chestnut Crabs that we got from Applecrest. It is really good jelly; especially if you put in on his home-made bread!

And here is Noah climbing the rocks at REI in Minneapolis, MN. We had a lot of fun there. Benji also climbed the rocks but mom accidental pushed "record" instead of "automatic." oops! I will try to get a picture of him next time!

Now for those who don't know, my birthday is today. I turned 15. Here is a picture of me with my "Shakespeare" and some of my gifts...Notice the new mandolin strap that is "leather" and not "hay twine." Mom and Dad got me a new strap for my mandolin. I was pretty excited about that. I also got some very cool gifts from my siblings. They are all so great!

And here is a card that I got from my cousins. I think it is the best birthday card I have ever received! It is also the biggest card. They all wrote me a little something. They are so sweet!
It has been a really great day and tomorrow we are having a party over here. No, its not for me. We are having a guest speaker, Hank Thompson, come over and talk. He is a missionary to Thailand and does street witnessing in St. Cloud when he is in Minnesota. He is a very amazing speaker and I am looking forward to his talk. I will blog about that later, though. Bye! ~Hope