Yellowstone National Park

From Everyone!!

(But, as usual it's me, the Youngest Daughter, who is actually taking the time to post it all!)

Photo credit goes to: The Eldest Daughter (Of course. She's a photographer, what do you expect??), plus the Mom and the Youngest Daughter.

Last week we went on an Uh-MAZING vacation to Yellowstone National Park!! We rented a cabin a few miles away from the park. One night we went to sleep with the surrounding mountains all black, the next morning we woke up to see snow on them!

This is the first stop we made in the actual park:

Isn't it beautiful? The colors and textures were amazing! And the smell too. Yuck. It smelled gross. But what do you expect from sulphur and mineral filled boiling water?

Right next to that location were a bunch of signs stating: DANGER DO NOT APPROACH ELK. But there were so many elk it was kind of impossible not to approach them. :)

Another place we stopped at was a river. Of literally boiling water. It was the weirdest thing ever.

All over the park were dead trees. And they were strangely beautiful!

This tree had fallen over, and those are it's roots. Cool, no?

These signs were everywhere!!!

But apparently some of the visitors couldn't read. Hence the hoof prints right smack in the middle of a colorful pool of sulphur water:

That's me. :)

This friendly chipmunk stole a potato chip. Right off of my shoe!!

Isn't he cute?! :-D
Almost everywhere you looked there were random holes in the ground. Some steamed. Some boiled. Some had mud that bubbled. Most stank.

This random guy had a very interesting way of keeping his son out of mischief. :)

Meet Old Faithful everybody!! This is what it looked like as we were waiting for it to blow:

All of a sudden it started making huge whooshing noises and shooting hot water!

The spray kept getting higher. It was really cool! :)

Later we visited some mud pots. It was basically mud. That bubbled. :) It was so funny! It sounded and looked a bit like if you were making cream of wheat and then let it boil. It was bubbling and burping all over the place! :-D

Aren't the next few pictures pretty?

We saw this buffalo walking along towards the boardwalk. He was very lazy, just ambling along.

When he got to the path, he stepped up onto it very slowly.

Then he looked lazily around at the tourists, posing for pictures.

And then he went on his way. It was funny. :)

More beautiful pictures:

Oh, you know how I said everything was stinky? Well, I bring before you a photo of an adult. Who is plugging her nose.

She didn't know I took this pic. And I don't know who she is. And it was NOT posed. So there you go. Smelly.

This is what the ground looked like in a few places. :)

This thing was SO cool! It was just a random hole full of super boiling water. Amazing. Again.

Geysers, water, smelliness and steam, everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.

Three times a buffalo walked down the road. Right past my window. See that black line on the bottom of the pic? That was the bottom of my window, so you can see how amazingly close he was!!

So close in fact, that if you zoomed the camera in, this is what you got:

Oh, and this is the view from one window in the cabin we rented:

Pretty, no?
And this whole place inside the fence was our yard for the week!

And what better thing to do with wild flowers than to stick 'em in you hair??

For the trip home we had to get up at 5. I repeat. FIVE O'clock in the MORNING (!!!!).

The beginning of the dawn was beautiful behind the mountains. :)

Well, that's it for now. I've already posted too many photos. But I have more. :) I think I'll do one more post about Yellowstone, and then be done.

The end.

Pew Portraits

From the Youngest Daughter :)

I have a confession to make. *Deep breath* I doodle in church. ;)

Actually, to be more precise, I draw the people I see. Now you may think that it must distract me from the sermon, and maybe it does a little. But at the same time, I don't do well sitting still and doing nothing.

This is one of the first ones I drew. Ever.

Now, as I was trying to think of a way to write this post to make it sound less shocking, I really started thinking. My mom thinks this habit of mine is funny, and has even drawn a few herself. (Sshhh. Don't tell.) My oldest brother and his wife think it's hilarious. Sooooo ... does God mind? He has a sense of humor. Maybe He thinks it's funny too!

Eric Liddell said: "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I fell His pleasure."
God made me with a sense of humor. And He made me enjoy drawing. Perhaps He is pleased when I doodle in church! I don't know. It's just something to think about.

I never seem to run out of characters to draw. Maybe God makes sure I sit behind drawable subjects. :)
This boy below had just about the messiest hair I have ever seen! It was like bed head x 95. Frizzy parts, bumpy parts, curly parts, un-brushed-for-a-month-looking parts, etc. It looked better, or perhaps I should say worse, in person. :)

While thinking about God having a sense of humor, it made me think: When was the last time I told God about something funny that happened in my life? I tell Him my problems. Why not my hilariousness too?

Oh, and by the way, there are lots of younger people at my church. They're just not as fun to draw. :)

This last man was at my brothers church. Hence the comfy theatre chairs instead of pews. :)



So what do you think about my slightly shocking post? Am I just crazy, or do I have a couple of good points? (I almost wrote, do I have a couple of good pints! Haha! Care for some milk? :)

DIY Screen Printing!

From the Youngest Daughter :)

And the Firstborn Daughter ... sort of.

(As promised, super cool post #2!)

These past weeks our family has been doing an amazingly fun and addicting and cool project. Screen printing!!

Here's how to do it:

(Note: the first pics are from my sis, who did post some of them on her facebook. So you may have seen them before. However, toward the end there are some new ones.)

1. Get an embroidery hoop and old pair of nylons, a pen or pencil and the picture you want. You can design your own picture, or print it off of the computer, or you can use words.

Now stretch the nylon over your embroidery hoop. This can be tricky, so you may need to tape down some corners to hold them in place. Or just grow another five hands. That would work too. :)

Once you have the nylon secured in the embroidery hoop, set it nylon side down on top of your design. Trace the design onto the nylon. A permanent pen works well.
(Better than the pencil pictured. ;)

Now you'll need Mod Podge and some oldish smallish paint brushes. Paint the Mod Podge around your design. Do not paint the part of the design you want showing. Basically you're making a stencil. :)
Let it dry.

Now lay your screen nylon side down on whatever you want to print. Shown here is a book bag.

Now put your paint on the screen! We used stuff called Simply Screen, a water based screen printing paint that we got at Hobby Lobby. Use a stiff paint brush to work it into the stencil. Be careful not to move the embroidery hoop!

Now comes the super scary part! Pick up your screen. AAAAHHHH!

*Whew!* It worked!

Be sure to rinse off your screen so you can use it again!

Here we used the same screen to print a green T-shirt. Isn't it cute?!

A few days ago I had a friend over, and we made a panda screen! We printed dishtowels:

And this amazingly cute T-shirt!! Doesn't it look super expensive/professional?

We're so awesome. ;)

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. You NEED to put a piece of heavy paper, preferably cardboard inside your shirt, or under whatever you're printing. Because the paint leaks through! And you don't want that on the inside/back of your shirt.

It leaks a lot, actually. This is the paper we put under the dishtowels.

I thought it looked really cool though, so I painted around it and made this.

A sweet towel. A T-shirt. And art. All from the same screen. :)

Are you gonna try screen printing now? Cuz you should. Definitely.

However, be forewarned. It's so much fun you're going to want to print everything in sight! It's even tempting to print the walls. ;-P

Two dollar bills

From the Youngest Daughter :)

(As promised, here is the first of two extra fun posts!)

America still makes two dollar bills. Look it up if you don't believe me! Or ... go to a bank and ask if you can trade in some money to get a stack of twos! That's how Mom got mine for me. :)

A few months ago I got the idea to get a bunch of two dollar bills and then spend them and see people's reactions to it! Well, I finally did! :)

The first two that I spent was at the swimming pool concession stand. I ordered a small bag of twizzlers for one dollar. By this time I was almost a little nervous to spend my two! And it was very hard to keep a straight face. (OK, more like impossible. I failed.)
"Here's the twizzlers," the girl behind the counter said. I grinned and handed over my two. She began putting it into the till when she noticed. Her face went blank, and then she mumbled to herself, "Oh, it's a two dollar bill." Then she straightened her face, obviously trying to look nonchalant. She held the bill above the till for a split second, waffling. Which slot to put it in? Finally she shoved it in a random place and closed the till quickly, hoping no one saw her confusion. Oooh! Hehe! It was so much fun to see! :)
As I walked away laughing, I saw her lounging against the counter, still attempting the nonchalant look while smiling a confused sort of smile. I loved it. :)

The next time I spent a two was at a garage sale. I was buying a whole stack of books that came to a total of $5.00. I almost just handed over a regular five dollar bill, but decided that was too boring. I gave the lady three twos. Her face went blank, and then she kind of smiled. "You don't see those very often!" she said with a laugh. It almost seemed as if she felt she had to say something, but didn't quite know what. :)

Another time, we were at the Arc, a second hand store. I had another book. Go figure. :) At first, I thought I would skip the twos for that day. Somehow the way the employees acted made me suspect they wouldn't appreciate a two. But when put on the spot at the check-out, I grabbed a two without thinking. Turns out I was right about that non-appreciation. The girl behind the counter took the two and typed it in as if she had seen them a million times and was sick of 'em.
Some people just don't know how to get excited. Pitiful, really. *Shakes head*

And the last time I spent a two was at Starbucks, buying not coffee, but one of my favorite drinks. An Izze! I got a bit excited again, as I always do when I'm about to spend a two.
I smiled as I handed it to the lady. She typed it in, no expression on her face. Blegch. How jolly disappointing.
However... now that I come to think of it, it was kinda funny. I think she was trying not to be impressed. Because who would want to look impressed when a teen is buying something from you? :-D

Anywho, I still have some more twos, and if I get any spectacular reactions, I shall tell you. Never fear.
So are you gonna try this experiment? It sure makes buying stuff interesting. You never know when you'll get an incredulous laugh, a blank stare, or some forced nonchalant-ness. :)

Don't worry!

Hey folks, sorry for the lack of posts lately. However I have two amazing posts planned to make up for it! I should have them up within a few days. :)
Here's a hint about the posts:
1. Think two dollar bills.
2. Think screens and t-shirts.

Egyptian Dodwoong & Other Random Art

the Youngest Daughter :)

I don't know if you read the comments on this blog, but on my last post, "Storyfingers" (http://www.thousandwords-storyfingers.blogspot.com) commented about a Dodwoong. That weird "word" was her word verification on her previous comment, and she said that we should draw a Dodwoong. (You may remember the Nnoyed we drew together?) Anyways, last night I decided to draw a really weird bird just for fun. And after I drew it, I thought I should call it a Dodwoong, as Storyfingers suggested. And so, here it is! The Egyptian Dodwoong!

I drew it in my "Commonplace Book", which is part journal, part sketchbook, and part random whatever-I-feel-like. And while we're on that subject, I guess I'll show you some of my other favorite drawings and doodles that are in my book!

Which one is your favorite?

P.S. Are you serious?! Only FOUR people have voted in the poll!? Dude. That's kinda depressing. I'm so unpopular. :)

Elssa

From the Youngest Daughter :)

I had a lot of fun taking pictures of Elssa today! I like a lot of the movement in some of them, and I also like the way parts of the pictures are in bright light, and parts are in dark shadow. Not exactly your normal pictures, which is probably why I like them so much. :)