It's That Time of Year Again!

I came home from class today and saw a Monarch butterfly meandering about. Guess what I found?

Yep! Caterpillars! But have no fear. I won't be writing another series about them this year. I might share a few pictures I take though! Pictures are always fun. 

That also means that my Mom has a new batch of Biology students this year who might be reading this, so, HI EVERYONE. I am the unofficial photographer for this class, so any pictures that you aren't required to look at will most likely appear on this blog. Not that she ever requires you to look at pictures... this is just if you have the desire to see a little more than what she shows in class because I usually take more pictures and video than she has time for. Plus, who doesn't like looking at pictures?

With that said, have a wonderful year taking Biology with Dr. Owens. She's the best science teacher EVER. Psh, me? Biased? Hahaha... you're funny...

abby

P.S. Hey Marine Biology students! I didn't forget you. I'll probably share interesting items for that class too! Including the dissection of a horseshoe crab! Except I didn't really dissect it because they're not easy to dissect. I found it on the beach (it was dead!) and brought it home to take pictures because I'm weird awesome like that. 

It's Me Again!

Yes, I know it's been a while. And for those of you from my mom's science class, sorry, but I can't blog about caterpillars ALL the time. So this will be a non-caterpillar post. I'll try to do that one later. :)

I've been doing soooo much school, but I'm glad some of it is fun. I love all my classes this year, and of course my teachers are great. :)  I only do some of my school online, so I've still got things to do outside of my classes, but I think I'll be ok. 


I'm also playing on a volleyball team with my Dad this season, but it's through a church league, so it's not hard core competition. And I've found through playing that I really am not a competitive person. Oh well. :) It's fun and it's great exercise. 


So. To catch you up on the doings of the Owens family, two Saturdays ago was the first "Family Fun Day" of my Dad's engineering company. He is one of five principals, and the company is coming up on their 2-year anniversary! It's very exciting because God has blessed them tremendously in the past two years, being a start-up business in this economy. So that Saturday was a blast! The company's office is on an old navy base about 5 minutes from our house, and it is a beautiful area. If you ever come to Charleston, you need to see it. :) Here are some pictures:

You're probably wondering what that's supposed to be. Well, I'm honestly not sure, but it was a little white, seemingly fluffy bug that was flying (or floating) through the air and landed on my Dad's glasses. I thought it was cool so I took a picture. :)

At this "Family Fun Day" we had some of our neighbors from our street come, since the company actually worked out of our old house (right down the street from where we are now) for a few months, so we wanted to thank them. Most of our neighbors are older, but the Saturday showed me that older doesn't mean not funny anymore. ;) Old people are cool. That's all there is to it. :) I walked around the park near the office with one of our older neighbors who grew up around here, and I'm positive he enjoyed it very much. :) It's sad how many people my age don't respect older people. So, if you're reading this, go out and visit with an old person. They were once your age too. ;)


So that's it from that Saturday. But, this recent Saturday, I completed my drivers ed course! I'm super excited. :) And if you could pray for my sister who had a blister-like thing lanced on Saturday as well. They think it was a bug bite that got infected, but it had been bothering her for a while, so if you could just pray it will heal up and not be very painful. :)

AO

Short Trip to the Mountains

This past Sunday my Mother, sisters and I left for the lovely mountains on NC to visit my aunt and cousin. My aunt has a farm up there where she keeps her horses, and has over 200 acres of grass, trees and trails. I got to go on the most exciting trail ride ever while I was there. My aunt has a hired helper to take care of the horses when she leaves, and this helper is an endurance rider. That means, she rides her horse in races 50 miles long, and she even did one 100 miles long. It's amazing. I don't know how she does it. But she offered to take me on a trail ride while I was up there, and it was really fun. I rode one of her two horses, Nacho, and he's a very sweet horse. He is an Arabian- bred for endurance and speed. Most of the time we walked or trotted on the trail, but her horses kept wanting to canter. And once, on a very steep hill going up, the horses started going really really really fast and the horse in front of me was kicking up clay (so I had clay on my face when I got back) and she yelled to me to grab hold of the mane while we were going so fast so I did. I could hardly see anything because I closed my eyes so they clay wouldn't get in them, so I really had to trust the horse to not let me fall. :) When we finally got to the top of the hill, she said we had just galloped. So of course I was super excited that I galloped; I'd never done it before. That is definitely the highlight of my trip. The rest of the time we were just walking around, eating, or just talking with family. :) It was such a fun trip!

her beautiful driveway

the buds

the bloom

a little mushroom. i like mushrooms lol

an old graveyard on her property. a little creepy, but i think it's cool. :P

our dog Maggie slept in my room, and one morning she couldn't stop looking at the cat

a bit of her property

my aunts horse Crystal

my cousins horse Bugsy

my aunts helpers horses, Nacho on the left, Shadowfax on the right

Some of the pictures aren't that great of quality, but at least you know what it's about. :P I'd love to hear if y'all have any favorite pics or anything... :)

AO

ah....summer. :)

Pictures from Summer

I know I haven't been keeping up with posting (much less posting pictures), so I though I'd share some with you.

a random picture i took...

a cicada my mom saw on a bench at the pool

an old station wagon, that i was thinking about buying... 

an old gas can

a view from a window at my dads new office :)

AO

Independence Day

Yesterday, the 4th of July, was America's Independence Day. To America, that means hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, soda and fireworks. To some Americans, it represents the day our nation broke off from England and became it's own country. We should thank God for our freedom, and America, but ask Him that America will become a godly nation.

Last night, we packed up my Dad's truck and headed over to the park to see the fireworks. In Charleston, we do fireworks over the water, so these were over the Cooper River. They do them on and island, but traffic gets so bad afterwords. So now we just go to the park to see some. :)

My camera, as I discovered last night, takes very nice pictures of fireworks, so I thought I'd share some with you.

AO

Age with love

While we were in Tennessee, at the campground we stayed at, there was a lodge. A 'lodge' as in, where you can hang out, chat, and do other things in a much bigger space than your cabin. In this lodge, there was a piano. Not just any piano; this piano has been loved so much, and you can see it.

We are loved. Can others see it?

I love old pianos, but when you come across one that has been this loved, you can't help but to stop and play it, knowing that it has made many a happy face in ages past.


AO

Why I love where I live

No More Braces/ Is spring really almost here?

I got my braces off yesterday which is totally awesome. My teeth feel slimy and the retainer feels odd but at least the braces are off. :)

And, (at least here in SC) temperatures are starting to warm up. Not completely though, but the flowers in bloom sure make you want to believe it's spring. Around here, we have a lot of camellia bushes, and when they bloom they are gorgeous. Plus, we live in a neighborhood of somewhat "elderly" folk and a lot of them like gardening and they like to mix flowers so there are beautiful tye dye looking flowers around here. We also get azaleas but they bloom later that camellias. There is also this unknown flower right on our property line which is probably now my favorite flower ever. So here are some pictures for you to enjoy (at least I hope you enjoy them).


The flowers above are my favorites. The on below is a white camellia.


The red flower is also a camellia.


Happy Spring!

AO

Well well well

This weekend, my Mother and youngest sister have gone away to visit friends, and will be back tomorrow afternoon. They went somewhere in Texas(I'm not telling you where though=P), and they hopefully will bring me back an awesome cowgirl hat. They might bring back boots, but I doubt it because they're probably really expensive. Anywho. This weekend I reorganized my bookshelf in my room. Here's a picture, even though it's not very interesting.



So yeah. I'll point out some interesting things in my old things collection. First, you'll notice my record collection, (bottom shelf, left side), the two that you can see are the Goofy Greats album, and the hit TV show theme song record. Amongst the other records in my collection, I have two John Travolta albums, one Shaun Cassidy album, numerous Bobby Sherman albums, a few Evie albums, and a few random others. All of those are inherited from either my Mother, or my uncle.

Then you might see my $10 garage sale vintage Polaroid camera. I think it is awesome, but I haven't tried it yet to see if it works...



Then you'll see my Mother's old camera from when she was a girl. (sorry the pic is sideways)



I also have some old speaker thing in the shape of a cassette (remember those things?) They were my Fathers but not anymore. :P


Next, my wonderful Father found an original floppy disk, and he brought it home for me. :)


So yeah, then I found this Addiator thingamajig and a garage sale, and I have no idea how it works or what it's for or how much it's worth. :P But it being old and all, I had to buy it.


Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say today. My fam is watching the US/Canada gold medal hockey game, which is like AWESOME. (not really...)


AO

Snowy Marvels

As you may already know, it snowed here in Charleston last night(and Al Gore says we have global warming). It has been about 10 years since the last "sticking snow" in Charleston. Here are some pictures from our yard.







Maybe I'll post some more tomorrow. But I need to get to bed. :)


AO