Easter

Iquara is really getting big and so cute!

Me, Rashida, Meadow, and Mercy

Rashida

Us Girls

Autumn, Iquara, and Sahara playing in the sand pile

Praise the Lord, He is Risen! On Easter, Me and the Campbells went to the little home church in Lyles, and then we came home and had a picnic outside. Pearl's family, Rocky's family, and Evangeline's family brought food and came ate too. Pearl told us about her and Serene's adventure during the tornado warnings a few days or the day before. They had some or all of their children, and they were driving along, and heard tornado warnings, and could see like the tornado forming, so they pulled into someone's driveway and went down to their basement. The man in the basement was pretty scary evidentely, and Serene and Pearl were scared to death. Praise the Lord they were kept safe! It was a nice meal, and afterwards, us older girls took pictures, and got others to take our pictures. It was fun.

-Hannah

Waller Wedding and Weekend

Rashida and Mercy by the Lake!

Me by the Lake

The Bride and Groom and Bridesmaids dancing


The Bride and Groom jubilantly dancing around!



The Bridesmaids dancing to the song Talitha wrote

The Bride and Groom and wedding party

CeCe West, Mercy Campbell, and I all matched for the wedding. We are alll heading to the wedding site.

The Bride, her dad, and bridesmaids waiting for the Bridegroom

The beautiful Lake by the State Park where we stayed and the wedding was

The big Mobile Home we rode down in. Mr. Campbell borrowed it from the Newsboys. It is kinda their spare or something. It was a most comfortable ride!

The Weekend before Easter, I went with the Campbells to Family Week in Kentucky put on by the Wallers, missionaries to Israel. The Campbells were going to stay for the entire week, but I only stayed for the weekend, and then came back to work in the office. That weekend was Brayden and Talitha's wedding. Brayden is the Waller's oldest son. It was quite an amazing wedding. It happened on Saturday evening. Noone really knew exactly when it was going to take place. An hour before it was to start, the Waller boys went through the camp blowing the Shofar, signifying that everyone had an hour to get ready. Then we all met at the Playground and sang worship songs, Talitha, and her parents and bridesmaids got there, and everyone was waiting for the bridegroom to arrive. This was to show how the church waits for the Jesus the Bridegroom to come. The whole wedding was rich in symbolism of Yeshua/Jesus and His Bride the Church. Finally the boys came, and Brayden was riding on a white horse. It was so awesome. Everyone started going towards him, and him and Talitha were so happy to see each other. After their betrothal,etc. they hadn't seen each other in 3 months, because he had gone to prepare a place for her. They kissed, and then they led the procession and we all walked about a mile to a place by the lake where the wedding was held. It was a long, chilly, but quite a nice wedding, and then they had several Godly couples pray for them. The bridesmaids did a Jewish sort of dance to a song Talitha had wrote for Brayden too. It was very beautiful. When the wedding was ending there was music, and Brayden and Talitha started Jumping/dancing around. It was cool. Then there was music, and lots of people, including me and I think Rashida and Mercy joined in the dance, except it was more of a walk with a few jump sorta things. The people were just all in a long big circle holding hands and just kinda dancing along. It was really fun and joyful. Then we went to the reception,also mostly outdoors. It was nice too. There were lots of young people doing Jewish dancing afterward too. It was interesting. The next day, Rashida, Mercy, Sahara, and I went down to the lake. It was so beautiful, and a pretty day. We had fun! I rode back to Primm Springs with the Carpenters. I didn't end up getting home until really late though on Sunday night, because the Carpenters had to go to a church meeting and then a birthday party, that lasted a really long time at some friends of theirs from church. They had good Mexican food though, and the lady of the house was really sweet. It was interesting meeting and talking with some of the girls. It was a very interesting weekend!

-Hannah

At The Wisconsin Retreat

Abigail, Me, and Lisa

Abigail and Lisa escorting Mercy out to the snow

Rashida reciting a Poem

The Lawrence family singing and playing "I'll Fly Away."

Lisa Lawrence's family singing at the Talent Show

There came a big snow while we were at the Wisconsin Retreat. One night, right after the snow, and maybe while it was still even falling, Abigail, Lisa, and I told Mercy to close her eyes, and we escorted her outside to the snow. Then we had fun having a snowball fight. That was great! It was so great getting to hear Lisa Lawrence's family sing and play their instruments at the Talent Night in Wisconsin. They did such an amazing job! One day Meadow sang her song, which is sorta titled "The Simple Life." It was good. During Talent Night, Rashida and Mercy recited poems. It was a good retreat!

-Hannah

Going to Wisconsin!

The good Chinese restaurant where we ate.


The geese in front of the Chinese restaurant

Rashida's dad is named "Howard Johnson" so we thought it was cool we stayed at his hotel.

Several weeks ago, we went to the Wisconsin Above Rubies Retreat! I was the only Rubies Girl at the time. Mercy, Rashida, and Meadow also went along. Mr. Campbell drove us. He and Mrs. Campbell were both going to be speaking since the Wisconsin Retreat is a Family Camp. We left in the afternoon on Thursday, and that night we stayed at a Howard Johnson Hotel. On the trip we played a quiz game with Mrs. Campbell giving us quiz questions in rounds about all kinds of different topics. It was really fun. She would give a dollar to the winners. I won at least once, and I bought a sausage with my dollar. That night at the Howard Johnson Hotel, Mercy, Meadow, Rashida, and I watched the movie, "Sahara." It is a really scary exciting adventurous, good movie. We had fun watching it. The next morning we went to eat breakfast. We had really yummy waffles, and other yummy things. Then we went swimming. It was an indoor swimming pool, but the room was pretty chilly, and so was the water, so I asked the man at the desk if he could turn the heat on in the room and in the pool. He did, and it got a little better. Mercy and I finally decided to brave getting in the pool. Meadow and Rashida were already in it. The water was so cold, It was never really pleasant, even though we had some fun. After that, we changed quickly and we were on our way. We went to Walmart later in the day, and looked and looked for a Chinese restaurant in Champaigne Illinoise. We finally found a really good one. There were some geese outside in the parking lot, it was funny. They even had a place there where you could bring your raw veggies, and cooked noodles of your choice, and he would put meat with it, and make you a good stir fry. It was pretty good. We had a fun meal. After that, we were back on the road. We finally got to the retreat in Wisconsin, and unloaded, and set up the book table. I got to see Abigail Gantner and Lisa Lawrence. That was so exciting! They are past Rubies girls. Lisa and I were here together for awhile last fall, and we had a lot of fun together, and I met Abigail at the Arkansas retreat in the fall. She is really sweet too. This retreat had a lot of families. The Thelen girls led the worship, and the night service was quite good. Afterwards, we had snacks, and Lisa, Abigail, and I talked until really late in the dining hall. We had a great time getting caught up on each other's lives.

-Hannah