Well that long break was really unintentional :) We have just been sooo busy busy busy!! Phil's been working hard with tuning pianos, working at WIS, lessons, etc. etc, and I have been busy getting recitals ready and organizing the house and such. hah! We are ready for our 3 week break here after next week!! AHhhh!!! yay.

About a month ago we did a mass-cooking day where we prepared 12 meals ahead of time. Here is what one of the meals looked like:

 

We freezed them all and then on busy lesson days I just throw one in the crock pot. That way it's ready whenever, since we often have our breaks at different times. I have been leaving the crock-pot on in the laundry room.......because then the smell isn't so strong for the students in the rest of the house!! haha. But this has really saved us a lot of time lately and it's good because then we still have something yummy and nutritious we can eat for supper. We will probably do the mass cooking thing again over Christmas break.
This was a favorite moment of mine in November:

PUMPKIN PIE AT KEWPEE!!!!!!!!!!!

And this was an emotionally straining day (Blaze of lights day):

But it turned out GREAT for Kaylah I think. It just felt like pulling teeth trying to make it happen.

We had a super amazing Thanksgiving with lots of yummy food and awesome family! Got to eat 3 yummy meals this year!! hehehee!!

Welp, gotta get back to making the Christmas goodie-bags for the music students. The goodie-bags look like this:

Each bag probably cost us .30! LOL. They will get 3 packs of gum, some starbursts, a Christmas pencil, and a gummy thing. And a "joy" ornament. Hopefully they like it!!!!!!!!

YEEOCH, coupon experiment, and gifts!

Today the big heavy window upstairs SMASHED my wrist on its way down as we were trying to get the AC unit out. YEEEOCH. Then Phil made me move my wrist to see if it was broken. I guess it's not because it moves when I had to move it. It is still sore and all cut up but OH WELL :)

Well last week I tried a little experiment at Meijer (Because appaently I have nothing better to do than to coupon) ((Phil was away last week remember?)) Before coupons the total was $108 (ish) and after coupons, $54. This is what I got:

2 Digiorno pizzas, 2 ice creams, 10 yogurts, 8 microwave meals,a cat toy, 2 things of cat treats, 2 scalloped potatoes, frozen lemon ice stuff, rice, 4 caisters of pillsbury rolls, 11 things of shampoo/hair stuff, 2 always, 6 air freshner things.

SO WAS IT WORTH IT????? I don't really know but I do know it was a lot of fun at the cash register watching my total go down, down, down. haha! So I will probably try it again sometime. So I made myself this awesome coupon binder:

*Disclaimer to family members* I am not in dire need financially to use coupons, just kind of did this as a personal challenge :) *

Here's what one of our awesome piano families gave me last week since they knew I was going to be home all by myself (well and the cats to keep me company):

Yes that is a giant tub of Edy's ice cream. THEY ARE AWESOME!!! And must know me pretty well :)

Some improvements from this week

I am so happy...Phil put up a 2nd rod for our curtains!!

So now you can move the curtains in front separately from the one in the back...Phew! much easier.

 

He also put up a nice little hook-thing for my purses. That's much better now (they were just on the floor of the closet)

 

He also got the bathroom drain fixed. WOW!

And I organized drawers.

 

WOW exciting huh??!? 

 

Be Merry! Merry, I say! Aye, anon, and alas (and all that good stuff)!

Dost thou comprehend mien ancient discourse? Art thou agog towards my conversation? How beist it so, that to render the conscience unravelled, doth it?

(whew.... I think they have to keep phrasebooks with them to keep that up.)

It's Phil this tme. We went to the Renaissance Festival which was not too far from Cedarville, and that was quite the enjoyable experience!

There were many people dressed in costume for the occasion, and sometimes we got to hear people talk in Ye Olde Englishe as they would have. The picture there only gives a small glimpe of what the whole thing looked like -- It was remarkably larger than I expected! Many castle or cottage- themed buildings all around with vendors of all types, including a plethora of clothing-- er, "vestments," jewelry, accessories, staffs and other magical walking sticks, and (of course) armories. Yes, swords, battle axes, knives, etc. (pretty sure I saw a mace there as well.)

There were some live shows that we saw, one of them being a comedy/stunt pair which did tricks like standing on stacked chairs, whips, hula hoops, and fire. lots of fire. Also included audience participation, and it wasn't just "here hold this" but it made you a little nervous! I think a good show like that should make you a little nervous - keeps it exciting.


They had some good eats there too. One we tried was a caramel apple with a green apple bathed -- nay, drenched-- in caramel. She claims it to be the absolute best caramel in her experience! Then, there was the famous turkey leg. This thing was as big as it looks.

MMMMMMMm, love that red meat!

The village has been doing severl different themes from week to week, and the theme when we went was Irish-Scottish themed, complete with bagpipes and kilts. Aye ye lads and lasses, ne'er was there such a manly sight as a pair of strengthly legs in that noblest of garments, the kilt!

 
Behind her (I didn't get a good shot of it) is an old fashioned thrill ride; a manually powered dragon swing in the fashion of Cedar Point's pirate ship thingie that swings back and forth really high. Except without powered aceleration, good ol' fashioned elbow grease is what powers that ride.







After chowing our turkey leg and wandering through the rest of the village, we declared it a successful and enjoyable visit, coming full circle towards the entrance. The parking kinda was like Cedar Point - lots and lots of cars. (But no Snoopy characters on light poles to help you out.)

We enjoyed a scenic drive both to and from the fair, taking in the fall colors of early October. We drove to Cedarville to hang out and have dinner with Joel! He's so famous. Everyone says hi to him.

Cedarville dining was very nice - I'm sure I could enjoy having it for four years! We asked each other if we had the chance to get another degree, what would we get. Joel answered that he would get a teaching degree. I said I'd enjoy getting a degree in composition & music technolgy. (we can't remember what Krysti wanted to do because she has too many interests to narrow them down to just 4 years!)

The last thing we did before coming home was going to a nature trail which led to an ancient Native American mound. It was rather tall, most of the way up th surrounding trees. Joel said he's played really intense King of the Hill in winter there, which would be incredibly difficult with snow and that steep uphill climb. It was fun, but the sun likes to go to sleep so we decided we should go home and do the same.

A good day. And good night! (or rather, "Good Eve', sirs and madams!")

Dig it up!

This week we decided to try tackling the weed jungle in back of the garage. We already lopped off some big trees that were growing up and now we're just trying to get everything else out of there. We've been burning up some of it in our campfire and just trashing the rest. We have a long way to go but here's a little clear patch of hope!

Now what should we do with it once it's all just dirt?? 

In the process of digging, so far Phil has found a couple flagstone pieces, a broken plastic toy gun, and some sort of pottery/ceramic 'thingy'. What else will we find?!??!

Awwwwweee...isn't my kitty CUTE....

Good-nite!!!!purrrrr

Annnnd, we're off!

We have had a busy and exciting start to the school year! With students coming back for lessons our schedule is full and we are starting to get into the routine of lessons. I (Krysti here) teach Mon-Thurs. 3:30 till 8:30 or 9ish, Wednesday starts earlier at 12:30, Thursday I have morning students, and Friday is just 3:15-6:15ish. Saturday a.m. 8:30-11. How many hours is that total..I don't want to think about it. Besides that I have been trying to organize our studio "systems". Getting everybody's birthday date figured out, putting it into excel. Putting September birthday's gifts together. Getting everybody's picture and putting them on our wall. Double checking everybody's on our email list who is supposed to be. Making sure everybody reads, signs, and returns our updated studio policy. Trying to make payments as easy and clear as possible. Trying to make everybody happy, happy, happy, happy. Replying to emails, calling new student inquiries. Playing new music books. Ordering new music. Keeping track of who bought music. Sending out invoices to people who have overdue payments. Scheduling Christmas recital dates, times, and venues. Researching student's pieces. Getting prize week ready. Fielding calls from people asking about where they can find a piano bench and can you tell me about my fiddle, and will you buy my organ? Coordinating rooms with the other teachers. Attempting to finalize the master schedule. Trying not to roll my eyes when a student who has been taking lessons for nearly 2 years JUST got a keyboard a couple weeks ago but does not have it set up yet. (REALLY??!??!). LOL. However, I am now going to attempt to take this teacher's sentiment about this type of family coming to lessons.

Phil has been busy as well with "WIS". I think I have been having more fun than him actually, organizing 'everything'. He's beeen tuning, teaching, stubsta-tooting, etc. etc. etc. BuSy BeAvErS!

In other news, I don't understand how anybody couldn't love cats. They are just so adorable. They purrrrrr and make biscuits on your legs and cuddle by you to keep you company. And they eat beef jerky, pumpkin, and pineapple. Or at least Whitney does. And Everett talks to me. Or rather, cat-er-walls at me.

This is what happens when you leave a drawer open in our house and it's sunny there.

purrrrrrr

Waiting Room Renovations

Today I thought I would show you our exciting waiting room renovation project.
Here are the before pictures, which shows kind of just a conglomeration of what we had already:

 

 

- (*just tilt your head to the left.-*( notice brownish yellow foor

 For the floors, we picked out a remnant carpet that they had uptown, and picked out the bathroom flooring. Then of course the paint....

 

Then we had to do some demolition. Cody helped with that.

 

And then the place REALLY looked...intresting...

 

but then we started painting, the flooring went in the next day, I painted some chairs, Phil painted some cabinets, we painted the doors, and voila!

The updated waiting room:

Thanks Joel for the help with the records!!

And the bathroom update:

 

 And Just for fun a before and after pic together....

 

Ahhh....I think it's better...what do you think???

The 5th annual Performathon

Hey, everyone – it’s Phil this time.

Last weekend we as the studio did our 5^th annual Performathon. (Performance + Marathon.) It’s a fundraising benefit for the Bluffton & Pandora Campus Life/Youth for Christ. Krysti went through this program as she was going through high school, so as a means of thanks and supporting the ministry, we have the students raise funds for them.

 

It’s also our summer “recital” of sorts, but much more laid back and easygoing. Normally for a recital, we would make up a program with students’ name, order and piece(s) performed; for this, the students give a time block of when they’ll be there, and we work up a few pieces for them to perform. However, it’s not so much a recital in that the students are not the focus. We like it to feel more like they’re providing background entertainment, so the families can chat with each other, have breakfast or lunch by Hannah and David – he almost set himself on fire again. (I kinda wanted to see it this time. But I at least checked his eyebrows and they were still intact.)

Every year, we have set a goal and the Lord has amazingly provided, then we’ve upped the ante every successive year. This year we went with $4,500 for our goal. We didn’t quite reach that this year, but we did help raise $3,684.50!  We hope it was a blessing for YFC.

 

Here's a picture of me and one of my students who's just started this summer. He did very well at improvising with me for everyone!

This one's for the girls

As many of you know we have gotten to know a few of our neighbors pretty well. I have been getting to know Kaylah since last summer. She had some questions about God but most of the time I just try to listen to her.  This is her friend Darian and these two are seriously joined at the hip right now. This picture is the girls at Lakeside!! They went with the "melting pot" group.

It seemed like they had an AMAZING week. It seemed like it was a good week for them to experience God, make new GOOD friends, etc. Wednesday night of that week they both accepted Christ!

Then was Bible school week. They were both mad at me the whole week for who knows why and a combination of things/me telling them what to do.  Then the following week, we made cookies.

You can see how she is TRYING not to smile here. It was their first time making cookies from scratch. Well then they were over here for like HOURS. So I guess they're not mad at me any more. Then the next day I did their hair.

And then a couple days later more hair-do-ing

A lot of the time they ask if they can come over here. If we don't have anything pressing we try to make time for them. I see SO MUCH potential in these girls. They both have been through so much...anything imaginable that could go wrong in someone's life... one of them has probably experienced it. I can SEE the desire in their eyes to change, to be better, etc. They have so many hurts and struggles it is definitely a process. If you will pray with me for them, the most pressing issue for them right now seems to be RELATIONSHIPS. Just figuring out what a healthy relationship looks like, whether it be with friends or a boyfriend. Figuring out that yes, they can trust me, but they can also trust other Christians to help them. I see baby steps of improvement all the time which is encouraging to me.

With the whole hair-do-ing thing I got an idea....how cool would it be if Kaylah had someone every school day telling her how beautiful she is on the INSIDE, how much she is loved by God. How cool would it be if she had someone to walk to school with and just build her up with encouragement? Hmm.

Treasure Hunting!

Whew! What a day! (Krysti here)We woke up really early, at 8am. (for those of you who know us…that really is early for us especially on a no-real-commitments kind of Friday). We rushed around and got ready and headed off to McDonalds for some breakfast, and then away we went to the west, on the garage-sale-lover’s dream voyage that happens every year, the Lincoln Highway sales!!!!! There were tons of them. We decided to bypass the sales till we were past Cairo, just because we have gone to those people’s sales in previous years.  We found this cool river 'just around the riverbend' near Gomer that we thought it would be fun to canoe in sometime. And we never would have found it if it weren’t for the sign saying

“Garage SaleS – MULTI!   --->”

There was also a totem-pole bird-watching station over there. This is close to where I found 2 of our first treasures….

So are you ready to see what we found?!?!?!??!??!?!

This was our filled car by the end of the day. We had to get creative and think positively to get everything in there. Now we’ll show ya everything….First thing…..

Because ever since going to the zoo with Phil and Cody that day I really like Peacocks! She was only 50 cents. And…..

Haha!! She is from Japan. This kitty was a real bargain at only 25 cents. How could I resist? She is SINGING to me! And plus, she’s pink. And she has some sorts of flower/bows on her. And have you ever stopped to think, “I wonder who made this poor little kitty figurine, and how much they got paid to make it, and how much they loved it, and now I am paying only 25 cents for it.” Then I start feeling guilty or sorry for them, feeling like they should be more appreciated. So, maker of the kitty-cat, I really truly like her and thank you for your time and efforts.

We continued on to Delphos. Had some yummy A & W.  They were busy. Left a studio flyer. Continued on.

We found this for the laundry room:

Which will be handy for stashing things.

 - - - - INTERLUDE - - - - - - -

We also found this awesome church

The guy who lived next to the church said it has not been in use for the past 15 years and some guy from New York bought it. I wonder why??  I love how you can see the dark clouds in this pic. They were with us all day which was fun.

Well then we got this trunk for only $10!

These are kind of “in style” now apparently. Whitney likes it best when it’s open so she can sit in it.

We’ve been searching for a while now for a storage cabinet or something for the upstairs bathroom, just to store some towels and things. The space up there is so narrow it’s been hard to find anything that will fit. We saw these drawers and Phil whipped out his measuring tape (all hard-core garage sale-ers bring this important tool with them) and it was JUST RIGHT!

We did have just a big pink tub with overflowing towels stacked up like a towel-mountain, just take our word that this is a huge improvement. Oh yeah and see the purple paint? Yep bathroom upstairs is light purple now instead of plain white.

This next piece just jumped upon us before we even realized we needed it! See our before pile of piano music downstairs in exciting crates:

And the after:

Our very own brand-new-to-us antique music cabinet! I don’t have my music actually in there yet so I’ll try to post a pic once it’s all organized. HOW COOL!!!!!  I used some birthday money I got for these furniture things.

We also got one thing for $5 that I can’t tell you about and another thing for .50 that is top secret. Oh yeah and I got some material for a little project.

I spent a while washing out the new furniture because I guess I’m a germ-a-phobe.

I'm going to try to get better at the formatting thing on here. And work on my picture-taking skills. Sorry so dark but you get the idea!