After a LONG 5 weeks....

Haven't posted for 5 weeks...they've been LONG...so, this post will also be LONG. I sure hope that Wierd Factor X-19 doesn't attack anytime...but be on guard...you never know with a post this LONG. Because of this every time I type long except for just a second ago - maybe two or three seconds ago, depends on how fast you read - it will be CAPITALIZED. So let's start with...

LAKE SHELBYVILLE

The Fisherman's Ultimate Freshwater Destination

At Lake Shelbyville, we spent the week at a real nice cabin in a cabin village called White Tail Crossings. If you don't believe me saying "That's a real nice cabin, I gotta tell you, if I could live there I would," then you're about to. Watch and learn as you see....

The text get REALLY small.

Wait up, that can't be...where was I? Oh yes. Watch and learn as you see the awesomeness of the cabin. See that picture? To the left? That was taken last year and the cabin looks just the same. You can tell it's from last year because my Dad still has his hair in the picture. To give a brief description, you enter to see a HUGE living room. To your left is a good sized table for when people eat I guess, never tried it myself though. There is a kitchen to the right where people cook food, never tried that either. If you are looking out the kitchen window, there is a pantry to your left. That's where people get food from...never tried that either.The room to the left of the kitchen is the sink hallway, right outside of the bathroom. Due to a pathblocking wall, which is really a big, LONG piece of wood, covered with drywall and wallpaper or paint, you have to take a LONG walk around that big, LONG chunk of wood, covered over with drywall and wallpaper or paint. The walk may be extremely tiring, but you'll get there. Anyways, like I said earlier, there is a sink hallway there, and the door in the direction of the kitchen window is the bathroom. To the left of the sink hallway, if your standing looking at the bathroom door that is, is another door that leads into the bedroom where my Mom and Dad stayed. Enough about that area. Now about the loft. The awesome loft. To the left is my brother's bed...and to the right is my bed. In between our rooms is a wall...like one of those typical walls that block your path. And we stayed there.

NOTE: No good pictures of the loft have been taken at all. Sorry. Maybe next year.

INTERMISSION

Okay...I started this post 2 weeks ago...and now I'm starting again. I suppose I haven't told you much about the Living Room at the cabin. Well, this is all that you need to know, to make a LONG story short:

There is a buck head up over the fireplace. So enough with the cabin. We had family over on the day of arrival/first day after the day of arrival. We played Nertz or Nerts or however you spell it late into the night...it's a crazy card game that can get violent quick. We were going to camp out. There were supposed to be 8 of us...crazy. Then the girls bailed out. Then Tim bailed out. Anderson dropped of when we were playing the violent card games. And I bailed out because I didn't want to be sun baked in the morning. Which resulted in me having to sleep on the floor next to Anderson's bed because Gma and Gpa Houpt or Gma Bush was sleeping in my usual bed. I can't remember which. So only Dad and Matt and Kevin slept out in the tent. Charlie snuck out in the middle of the night with some aluminum foil, walked up to the tent window and shook the foil while screaming "BoogaLooga!" or something of the like. Dad cramped up and couldn't move. Probably he yelled. Whole camp might have heard it. Not just our camp but the whole White Tail Crossing Cabin Village. Anyhow, we got rid of the family the next day. Decided the best thing to do without them would be to fish and eat and sleep and bike. So we did just that.

Fishing results: Nothing but an 11" bass, some bluegill, a few sticks, bunches of moss, and a rock.

Eating results: Stayed alive and well.

Sleeping results: Was ready for the next day after.

Biking results: Got a nice workout I guess.

My Dad's Account of our Lake Shelbyville Vacation:

"...we took a week off for a family vacation and got away for a bit down in Shelbyville, IL. Good times. Boating, late night card games, camping out, biking, tons of fishing, visiting a local wine vineyard and sampling some of their finest, campfires, getting terrorized in the middle of the night by my prankster sister (she snuck-up to the tent and screamed at me from point blank range through one of the screen windows while rattling some aluminum foil -- I screamed like a little girl and she wet herself laughing about it after the fact -- paybacks for all the crap I put her through when we were younger I suppose). Good stuff. Had perfectly mild weather the whole week as well although I only caught one stupid little 11" striped bass during our entire vacation. What a rip. Lost lots of meal-worms and wax worms to various unseen fishes, but I did manage to catch three good sized tree branches, four or five decently sized clumps of healthy moss, and an 8" diameter rock. I've never heard of anyone actually hooking a rock while fishing but somehow I managed to do so. And at first I thought I had a really big catfish or bass, or maybe even a huge snapper......you know.....the kind of critter that just stops your line cold and makes you think you got snagged. But alas as I reeled in my quarry, it offered no resistance, no fight, no struggle whatsoever except for its own geological girth. It was a pretty rock to behold though. One of those nicely shaped white rocks they use on lake dams and river banks to prevent erosion. And wouldn't you know that we were fishing right off of one of those banks in my Gpa Bush's boat. Wow. Next time I need a good looking rock like that I'll know right where the hot spot is."

The Lake Shelbyville Vacation Part of this Post is Over.

Congratulations! You have read one third of this post! I commend you!

And now for...

Red Mask Presentations

Blarney, Blather, and Balderdash

The play that I was in. Some of you saw it, some of you didn't. Well, I'm here to inform you. The storyline is that some Finn O'Grady guy wants to marry this Pageen girl. But Pageen's Mother Flaherty won't let Finn marry her unless he can tell her a story. "But I don't know any stories...wait! The Three Little Pigs!" Finn says, to which Mother Flaherty responds "That's nice, boyo, but a story of your own is what I'm looking for..." And so the story unfolds in Irish Cornball Tradition as Finn runs into Leprechauns, who teach him how to tell a story by illustrating three for him. The one I was in was "The Hunchback of Knockgrafton" where some Hunchback by the name of Lusmore runs into Little People, who sing about applesauce and butterbrickle and then hum hum hum. Lusmore realises that they are missing a part where the humming is, to which he exclaims "Boiled potato and a pickle!" The Little People somehow miss it, but are very interested. So they scare him half to death and he finally remembers. Lusmore tells them. They tell him thank you so very much. He replies it was nothing, to which they get mad and scare him again. They were going to give him treasure, but not anymore. Now they're gonna give him nothing. Nothing at all. Zusherate and Zuno (Witherato for nothing and zero.) Nothing...on his back??? That's right...they take his lovely looking hump off.

Oh how he loved that hump. It was his faithful companion.

Is the statement above true or false?

FALSE

He hated the hump. It kept him from making friends (and running.) So he goes off without and makes friends. Word spreads and this Evil Hunchback in a black suit with a mustache goes out with a net to find the Little People and force them to take his hump off. So they outsmart the Hunchback called Madden and give him a second hump.

The End. Oh yeah, did I mention? I was Lusmore! See the picture to the right? Tis' me, Lusmore, in full costume. Trying to do a smile with teeth that I'll never perfect. That's why I prefer the closed mouth picture technique. And that wierd dude in the back is Blather or Blarney, I never could keep track.

Anderson had several parts in the play, which varied from a Suitor to a Doctor to a Solider to an Irishman to a Villager. Wow. Some story about Aidan and this griffin's feather he has if he wants to marry some Landowner's Daughter is told. And then some thing about this broke for money Bridget and how she marries a Prince. And then Finn tells some story to Mother Flaherty, who accepts it, and I guess Finn and Pageen get married. Quite a bit of romance. Makes me want to vomit.

The Red Mask Theater Play Part of this Post is Over.

Congratulations! (Again) You have read two thirds of this post! I commend you! (Again)

Hopefully I'll just finish this whole post today with no more INTERMISSIONs.

And now for the final third...

A Trip to Springfield and New Salem

Learning About Abe Lincoln

Abe Lincoln. Interesting guy.

Didn't believe in slavery but thought whites were superior to blacks. Fell into depressions for weeks. Liked to read as a boy, and hated working in the fields. Wanted to be higher and more important then a farmer. Ran a trip with a flatboat clear down to New Orleans. Operated a store in New Salem.

He became a state legislator, married Mary (confusing), went on to be a senator, took a break from politics, left the Whig party, joined the Republicans and POW! You have Mr. President Lincoln. Several states are enraged by his election, and leave the Union. They form the Confederate. He forces the Confederate to start the war, showing he is not at any means hostile to them unless they attack. Against all odds he somehow wins.

Then he goes to a theater and gets shot by John Wilkes Booth. The General or Major what's-his-face (I can't remember for the life of me. Hawthorne maybe?), who was with Lincoln that day, gets up and tries to take down Booth, to which he is stabbed. Then Booth leaves the stabbed General or Major and prepares to jump onto the stage. But the by now wounded beyond reason General or Major gets up and grabs Booth's boot as he jumps. He has those Cowboy style spinny things on his boots, which get caught on a flag. He falls onto the stage and breaks his ankle. But he gets away due to the confusion in the Theater. The Military tracks Booth down and kill him while he is trapped in a tobacco barn.

Tis' what we learned during the last 4 weeks of the first quarter of Homeschooling. Since we've gotten back from Lake Shelbyville to be precise. On Monday we are going back to the Thirteen Colonies/Near-Revolutionary War era in U.S. History and also doing studies of the Medieval times. Anyhow, we went to Springfield with our Gma and Gpa Houpt to this awesome Museum with it's awesome exhibits. Like the hologrammed but looking very realistic "Ghosts in the Library," or the cool movie theater or the Lincoln's Cabin clone exhibit, or the White House Exhibit. Oh, that's all of them. Wow. And they were cool too. As you can see below, Anderson decided he was John Wilkes Booth's Little Sidekick.

So we went to eat lunch at Lincoln's burial site. Apparently the site just down the hill where Lincoln was for a few years before they actually completed the current tomb was planned to be robbed a while back. It was low security too...just a gate to protect Lincoln's coffin.

Now for a small sidestory...it's American History in itself. Until our trip, Anderson was always somewhat gloomy (as seen above,) because his opportunity to touch the Statue of Lincoln's Nose outside his burial site had been stolen when some of his misbehaving classmates had caused the SpringFieldTrip to be canceled. That was quite a few years ago. Well, he got to touch it this time. Now his life is fulfilled, and he has acquired the LLTTFBMLIF ailment. (The LLTTFBMLIF ailment is something that makes you think and say "Live life to the fullest because my life is fulfilled.")

After lunch we went to New Salem to see the small town Lincoln lived in before he became a legislator. It was cool. There were cool horses and some cool but wierd horse/some other horse related animal mixbreeds and there were cool sheep that those uncool Public Schoolers (boo!) were aggrivating. And there were cool cabins with cool things telling you there cool history. Everything there except for the uncool Public Schoolers (boo!) was cool.