It's very strange, I think, that today I turn 18. I've never pictured myself as being "18" or growing up so fast. My how time flies. Why, it was just seems like yesterday when I carved my initials in the tree and carved "14" beside it.

Being 18 does not seem of feel any different, to me. I still look the same, I didn't grow overnight into  a 'big' person; I'm still me.

God has blessed me to be able to live and be raised in a Godly, Christian home with God fearing parents, protecting me from the corruption of the world and the apostasy of so-called "Christian Churches" throughout the years. I don't regret having left the churches, since I have been taken out of the worldly and ungodly environments and given the opportunity to work, learn and serve Christ now, here at home.

My life is not a boring one, as could be pictured if I lived in a big city where 'outdoors' would be a foreign thing and video games, school and computers would be my entire life. Instead, I have been raised on a farm, a place of work, where things are always needing repaired, mowing grass, watching the animals, building things, yard work, cleaning pens and daily chores.

Of course, over the last several years, I have taken a growing interest in repairing and building computers which has greatly helped with the amount of computer problems that we have around here. As an assignment for school one year, I bought the necessary parts to rebuild my first computer, and to this day, I use that computer for daily usage.

Most hardware or software related computer problems are not that difficult to diagnose if you understand how they work. Dad and I even rebuilt his computer. I took his old motherboard and hardware, and was using it for a server for quite awhile until it started to cause problems.

I have learned to keep things clean and organized, with what stuff I have. My room is clean and organized, my bookshelves, my closet, my computer, and my shelves in the barn. My desk is about the only unorganized thing I have, as I shuffle things around on it, on a daily basis.

I have taken, learned, and adapted to several paper-ciphers, of which I alter and make better use of my own, since I love learning about ciphers (at least on the level where I am able to comprehend it).

Several weeks ago, I went back through my old baby photo album to find some old pictures of me, and scanned them in. After about the age of 10, the pictures really stopped of me, so finding a picture for each of my ages would be utterly impossible. I am rather picture shy, since I think I look dorky in most. Thus, not many pictures exist of me. But here are a few that I scanned in:

The worldly generation can not wait to turn 18, get out from underneath their parent's authority and go have some 'fun'. But I would rather by like Moses, as in Hebrews 11:24 & 25:

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
(Hebrews 11:24-25)

In years past, we would have thanksgiving in West Virginia at Nana Self's house, where all the family gathered with dishes, pies and all the kids. I was too small to remember much about it, other than the ladies baking pies. After Nana died, the family that was in Virginia would have it at Aunt Linda's house, when we all used to go to church at Calvary in Culpeper.

For the past several years, we haven't been going anywhere for Thanksgiving, and generally just prepare a simple meal of Turkey with some dishes. Occasionally, Gran and Pap would come down and have Thanksgiving with us.

This year, Aunt Mel (on Mom's side of the family) came down to have Thanksgiving meal with us, along with Uncle Wayne, Kyle, Keira, Uncle Phil, Grandma, and Orrin. To say the least, the house was packed.

Lacy took all the pictures, and I got the camcorder (all the videos are way to big to post, and are generally just of the conversation). We had a good time, and I believe they did too. It's not so often we get so many of the family in one room together!

We had turkey (of course!), mashed-potatoes, baked beans, home-made rolls, ham, deviled eggs, cranberry salad, apple pie and pumpkin pie. Of course, we had left-overs, so we had turkey sandwiches for lunch and supper today.

Overall, I think it was a good visit. We generally don't get to see that side of the family very often, since they all live in West Virginia and we rarely make trips there anymore because of all the animals we raise on the farm.

Hello there. This is my first post to my new blog. I need not introduce myself with this post, as I have already edited the About page, that you can read if you want to.

Yesterday we finished up the new dog box that we had been building for Gabriel (our collie dog). We started working on it last Tuesday by building the base, frame and rafters in the building because it was calling for rain and we did get some small showers from it.

The box is 4 feet wide by 8 feet long on the outside (it is smaller on the inside of it, because we insulated the entire thing). Lacy was taking some pictures of us building it, so you can see the progress. We had to use the forks for the backhoe just to move it, because it is so heavy! Gabriel uses it and likes it, now that we have it set up where his pen is, so that is good