The Visit to David Kline

I know, I know this is a long overdue post. David Kline is an Amish man who is the author of two books, Scratching the Woodchuck and Great Possessions. The visit to David's place was amazing! I learned a lot and enjoyed the time being with him at his house. It was just cool to listen to him talk with his German accent. He talked about nature and Anabaptist history with my dad. We mostly listened, but Emily brought up her favorite quote of his "a faint tinge of skunk," and he knew exactly what she was talking about. He even went on to tell us that it sometimes is fox when it is just a faint tinge. He had his wood stove going and his wife came in and had a rack for clothes close by and hung up the wash and turned a heat powered fan toward them! He has a chest full of books and a closet filled with books and two whole bookshelves full of books! I like to read, but that is a lot of books. Reading his book and then seeing him in person was cool. Plus, I think reading the book made me enjoy the visit a lot more. It was funny, because our Sunday School teacher said you have to remember to tell your dad that field trips are for you and Emily too not just him, but I think I liked it almost as much as he did (actually liking it as much as him is pretty hard to match.) David was a very kind and easy to talk to person (although I didn't talk to him as much.)

Christmas Break

For Christmas this year we stayed home for Christmas Day. Then we went to Ohio (my mom's side) on the 26th and stayed there for about 3 days. We got to go snowmobiling in the field! I love to go by myself and fast. When your the driver the wind is blocked by the wind shield, but when you are the passenger you get all the wind in your face! Emily rode with me and she likes to be in control so she wanted me to go really slow.... Boring! We also got to go to a pool with a game room! I beat my mom in Air Hockey (7 to 6) and if you know my mom and me (we are both very competitive) that was huge accomplishment for me... she will never hear the end of that. We left for Indiana (Dad's side) in Grandpa and Grandma Helmuth's van, because we wanted some space and our Honda does not give that to us. We had the best meals....... Michigan Meatballs, Pork Loin, Pancakes, etc. We had Christmas the day we got there. We all had Barnes 'n Noble gift cards so we went to Barnes 'n Noble and got books then we got some Annie Anne's pretzels! Our cousins have a video camera so we did a talk show ( I wasn't in it much because I'm not a good actress!) The four oldest slept down in the basement which was awesome because we can pretty much stay up as long as we want to. We went to Ohio for the night so we wouldn't have to travel the whole way in one day. We got home yesterday at 4:00. Now we settle in for 4 days then Emily, Anya, Dad and I are going to Ohio for a week, while my G-ma and G-pa H. are going on Mennonite Disaster Service Project.