Yom Teruah

Monday was Yom Teruah, or day of trumpets.

Me and two other people from our church group blew the shofar's, after which we went out to a river and threw rocks in, symbolizing throwing our sins away.

We then sang songs until 10:00.

Tommi comes to visit

A couple weeks ago our cousin Tommi came to visit us on her way to Arizona. Ironically she came right after Molly left for Tennessee for her birthday.

It was fun to see her again {I last saw her at the reunion}

We got to hike up with her to Palisade fall's and spend some time there.


A couple of days later she had to go, though.

Days Nine, Ten, Eleven

Well, today's the day we leave for home. I'm sure no one really wanted to go. I lingered behind to say good bye to Aunt Wanda, Uncle Lee, and Teresa. After we said good bye and left, no one really said anything for awhile, all thinking of how much fun we had. We stopped at a gas station for breakfast and drove on some more. Then my dad surprised us by stopping at the Davy Crockett birth place.

We stayed there for about an hour before we had to leave. We drove on to Nashville to see our old house, but on our way got caught up in a traffic jam. Finally we got there. My mom wanted us to take pictures of it so we did. My dad then went out and reassured the owners we ain't a bunch o' freaks takin' pictures of 'em. We then visited our old pastor and stayed there awhile. A few hours later we drove through St. Louis and boy, it was HUGE! We finally found a rest stop and slept.

1 1/2 days and several hundred miles later {Felt more like 100,000 miles and at least a month later} we reached Mt. Rushmore. We stayed there awhile before we hit the road again.

Several hours later we got back home, both happy to be home, but sad the trip ended.

P.S I would like to personally thank every one who opened up their home to us during our trip [And after several days in the truck, we really needed it.] Long story short, we had a blast.

Day Nine

Today we dropped into North Carolina to dig semi-precious stones. It was a long drive there and being cramped in the back with my three brothers didn't help any.

We had some problems finding the place at first. First we didn't go far enough, then we went too far and then we went to the wrong place. Eventually we got there though. While there my dad found a huge geode.
We found close to a thousand stones of all different kinds. Afterwards we went to lunch and dropped Sarah off at the airport, happy for the time we spent with her, but sad she had to leave. Then we went back to Aunt Wanda's house.

Day Eight

We picked up Sarah from Aunt Wanda's house and after having a huge toast and jelly breakfast we drove down to see the Heaton, Birchfeild and Irick family graves. We saw my Grandmother and Grandfather's grave, George ''Washey" Irick, who when his wife was in labor went to get get the midwife and came back two years later! I learned that almost every one of my relatives fought in one of America's wars and all came back but one, who died 4 days before the war ended.
Then we went to the reunion. [after almost getting lost again] My dad bet me $10 I couldn't speak in a British accent for the whole four hours, but I did! It was funny because some one would walk up to me and I would start talking and they would be all confused. I had one person come up and say "you aren't from around here are you?''
It was cool to see so many of my relatives on my dad's side.
Afterwards we went back to Deanna's house for the night.

Day Seven

We ate breakfast and drove down to the airport to pick up Sarah who was flying in from New York. We waited around an hour for her flight to come in then we realized[after actually checking the flight plan] her plane actually came in at 3:30! So we drove down to a dinosaur museum they have there. It was a lot of fun. There was a box filled with bits of rubber and dinosaur bone casts. There was also computers with different things that you could do on it. At 3:00 we left to go meet Sarah. We only had to wait a couple of minutes because her flight came in early. It was really good to see her again. We drove down to Aunt Wanda's house for dinner and stayed there for awhile talking. Then we left back to uncle Ronni's house.

Day Six

We left Deanna's house at 1:00 and went to Dennis Cove, the spot where my dad went camping and fishing as a kid. The road up there had lots of twists and turns and I got really sick. We [after getting lost] then went to Fort Wataga, a fort built against the Cherokee. Then we went to my Uncle Ronni's house for a little bit. After wards we went to Aunt Wanda's house for dinner. It was really yummy and after wards I sat down on her couch, still trying to get over being sick and aunt Wanda gave me a novel about Meriwether Lewis to read on the trip back which was greatly appreciated. A while later we left again for Uncle Ronni's house and he gave me a hunting knife, also greatly appreciated. After that we went to bed.