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Another update

11/29/2010

As my mom posted, we decided against heading towards Nashville, Tennessee at 6:30 last night, and bundled up for what we were sure would be an almost freezing night, because the liquid propane gauge showed that we were below empty. That day my parents, Noah, and Nathan had really looked around on the Internet to try to find a place to get LP, but came up with a big fat zero. At one point I cautiously suggested to Mom, “Maybe we should just stop looking for right now – you know, give it a break.” I’m pretty sure that’s what Mom meant in her blog about lessons about LP. J The campground bathrooms near us were very warm, so Mom was seriously thinking about bringing a sleeping bag in there and sleeping on the floor, but ended up not doing it. J At about 7:00 PM we were still amazed that the heater was still working! We had not been able to have little church that day, so we went ahead and did that, which was after I posted yesterday evening. We had an over all great little church, and since the night was still early, we finally did blessings again, too. By the way, if you didn’t know, ‘little church’ in our family is when each of our family members bring a passage and sing songs together and pray before we start and after we’re all done. ‘Blessings’ is when we get together on Sunday night and one parent blesses and prays for two of us children and the other parent blesses and prays for the other two. So there you go. J

Anyway, before we went to bed we turned the heater – that was astonishingly STILL working – down to about 65 degrees Fahrenheit or so, and I put my coat and gloves on and went to sleep. J Why be cold when you can be warm? Then we woke up and the heater was miraculously still working!! We thanked God the whole morning – and all day, really. By the time we all got showers, ate breakfast, and did the laundry, it was about 1:30 PM. So we are currently still driving to Nashville. Oh, and as you may have well guessed, we filled up on liquid propane and clean water and we dumped on our way out. J We are going to stay in the parking lot of some friends near Nashville while we’re there. I hope everyone had a great weekend!! God bless!

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Update...

11/28/2010

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Hello, everyone! Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been pretty busy lately, and I’ve loved meeting a lot of my family! I don’t remember a lot of people even though they claim that they’ve met me before when I was little. J

Let’s see…the last time I posted was before we threw our Uncle Joe a surprise birthday party. Yeah, his wife decorated the whole house and made a ton of delicious food while he was away, and Wednesday evening a bunch of people – including us – came over and brought even more food. It was a lot of fun – there were five Gregory siblings together at one time!! That’s pretty rare for my dad’s siblings – there’s nine in all, you know. J The next morning was…Thanksgiving!! We hung out at the RV until our Aunt Sue (my dad’s sister) and Uncle Mike came over at about 4:00 and went to the lodge for a Thanksgiving lupper, a.k.a. lunch and dinner mixed together. Both of us, our family and them, had a late breakfast so we weren’t hungry until then. And I can assure you, we weren’t hungry when we finished the meal! J We stayed there talking for a while, then they left to visit their son and we left to go to sleep. J

Friday we went to the Creation Museum!! It was really, really cool. We spent practically the whole day there. Then Saturday we went to another museum for a large part of the day. Yesterday evening we also went to our Aunt Sue’s daughter’s house, and spent time there with Aunt Sue’s daughter’s family, Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike, and her son and his family came over, too. And this morning, well, we had cheese eggs. J Yum! Oh, and Noah’s eyes were sort of red so my dad gave him some eye drops while I snapped pictures. He was making all sorts of faces, but he told me doesn’t want me to put those pictures of him on here. Oh, well – I’ll just save them for blackmail. J Just kidding! Here are some other pictures from the last two days:

We were going to leave tomorrow morning for Nashville, Tennesse...but our liquid propane is on empty. So we're going to leave tonight. Oh, I have to go and I really want to just post this on my blog, so bye! God bless!!

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Real Smart, Huh? :-)

11/23/2010

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                As my mom posted, we had an awesome time with our neighbors from Florida!!! They were actually heading north to their family in Michigan while we were heading south to our family in Kentucky, so we decided meet up here in General Butler State Park. They stayed at a hotel room in the lodge for the night, and we’re staying in the campground, of course. As you’ve probably already heard from the rest of my family, we were, uh, “blessed” with the incident of a shredded tire on the way here (which was Saturday). J It took my dad and brothers (and my mom and I helped a tiny bit) to change the tire that was – thank God – an outside wheel. Then we skedaddled out of there as fast as a RV can skedaddle, and made it to the campground about fifteen minutes before our friends, so we only had enough time to hook up the RV and tidy up a little.

                We met them at the lodge, and since we had long since dumped our plans to serve them dinner, we drove to the nearest Burger King. Back at the lodge, we hung out on a sort of deck thingy that was still inside but a little higher up than the lobby (and also on top of the cafeteria). We talked and watched TV while lounging on the couches. The four of us oldest kids (Nathan, me, Meghan, and Josh) very maturely turned the channel when Nicholas didn’t know we had the remote (that was funny), threw a bouncy ball at each other, played card games, and the girls did splits, straddles, and cartwheels, etc. We did all this until midnight. Yeah, we didn't get to sleep until almost 1:00 AM, and then Nathan, Mom and I woke up early the next morning to meet them at the lodge again. Real smart, huh? J Hey, I was going to get in as much time with them as possible – I don’t know if I would have lasted until Christmas without seeing my friends!! J

                Sunday we went to St. John the Evangelist’s Church, where my dad attended church and elementary school. We had a Thanksgiving dinner there that was delicious! After that we visited one of my uncles at his house which was right next door; for the record, let me just say that my dad’s side of the family is very confusing (no offense!!). J There’s a lot of adults and kids and teens and just a whole lot of people that I’m related to!! J If you didn’t know, my dad has eight siblings. J Yesterday we went with my Aunt Sue and her husband, Uncle Mike, to a few gravesites where some members of my family are buried – my grandmother, my grandfather and his parents, my great-aunt, my cousin and aunt, my great-uncle, and I think another great-uncle and great-aunt. It’s really sad when people die young, like my cousin and aunt who died in a car crash – my cousin was only fourteen (or was it thirteen). I also saw another girl’s gravesite who was only four when she died. She was born in 1997, in April. She would be my age right now; maybe she would be a Christian. Her gravestone read, “Daddy’s Little Girl”. Her family must have been very, very sad to lose her. I’ve never experienced any major losses in my life.

                Anyway, you probably already heard about my camera from my mom's post. I’m not going to just repeat what she said, but I really, really, really hope and pray that they will exchange my camera. Please pray! J I hope everyone had a great weekend and a great day to start the week. God bless!!

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Things Going "Wrong"

11/20/2010

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OK, you know how we’ve been saying how great this trip is? It is great – but I noticed that we often failed to mention several of the things that are going ‘wrong’. Like the days when we get aggravated at each other – we need prayer for peace, forgiveness and joy, please, with a side of teamwork, and for dessert, a big whollop of love. J But seriously, in these close quarters we don’t just get occasionally aggravated with each other…more like every other day. Then there’s times like nights ago, after we got back from looking around in town, we discovered that we didn’t have enough liquid propane to heat our RV for the entire night. So we unhooked and headed out to find propane. Remember, we hadn’t even had dinner yet.

Five stops, two and half hours, and several rumblings of tummies later, we had our propane. Some places weren’t licensed to fill our kind of tank (it’s not removable), one was out, and a few didn’t have the right fittings. By the time we got back, we were really hungry!! However, one good part of that experience was the great price for propane we ended up with – it was about a third of what we usually spend!

And electronic devices can become a problem, too, as everyone knows. The laptop that we kids use stopped charging a little more than a week ago. We took it to Staples, but the guy there explained that we would have to ship it to the manufacturer, have them fix, and then they would have to send it back. Along with that, my mom’s charger for her computer is only sort of working (kind of hard to explain) because I, uh, accidentally stepped on it and somehow messed it up. Thank God she was able to find a charger on EBay for only $8 – and it wasn’t from China! J

Anyway, I decided I wanted to say that. Oh, and tonight in Kentucky, we’re meeting with a family from our old neighborhood!! We’re both driving there right now – us heading south, they heading north. They’re actually going a half an hour out of their way to spend this evening with us; they’re going up to Michigan to spend Thanksgiving with their family. We’re going to spend Thanksgiving with my dad’s family near Cincinnati. I can’t wait!

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School, Fat Man Squeeze, and Glowing Eyed Deer

11/17/2010

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Today was another fun day. We got a lot of schoolwork done this morning, and my mom was able to visit her friend for lunch. She came back at about 2:00, we had lunch (after another late breakfast) and then we headed for the hills – in other words, we went hiking. :-) They have some great trails here, and we went on one that had what was called the ‘Fat Man Squeeze’ on it. We reached a small opening between two huge rocks (we figured that was the Fat Man Squeeze), snapped some pictures, and then trudged on. The sunset was beautiful – everything was gorgeous! Eventually Dad, Nicholas and Noah went the short way back while Mom, Nathan and I continued the whole way around. Oh, and we heard some owls calling. That was cool. Then Dad called Mom on her cell phone to check where we were (we were almost there), and as she was closing her cell phone, she heard him whisper, “OK, they’re on their way.” We figured they were going to try to scare us, and sure enough, we make it to the top of a hill and see Noah coming up. As he was trying to smother a grin he said, “Hey, um, I lost Dad and Nicholas. [giggles] C’mon, they – um, they’re this way – I mean, I think they’re this way – I think that’s where I last saw them.” We were thinking, “Yeah, right,” but we went with him anyway. Eventually we told him, “Noah, you’re so obvious! We know they’re going to try and scare us.” But he didn’t give up – Dad did. When we passed them he thought we saw him, so he came out with Nicholas without scaring us. Basically, the whole thing was a flop. :-) Mom, Nathan and I enjoyed it though. :-) We played some four-square until it got way too dark (and our fingers were about to fall off because it was so cold), and on the way home in the car we saw some deer. Mom tried to get a picture with my camera, but...well...tell me what you think:

We all busted out laughing when we saw that. :-) It’s pretty cool, I think. Here are two more pictures from today:

Well, we’re about to have dinner, so I better go (it’s grilled cheese – yum!). God bless!!

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Wonderful Birthday!!

11/16/2010

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Today was an amazing birthday! Mrsgrammy, I will definitely remember this birthday as ‘different’. J Kiefer family, how in the world did you do that?? That thing is so cool - thanks!! Annabelle and Rachel, thanks so much for wishing me a happy birthday! Even though my birthday was great, I still miss all my friends!! Oh, and Rachel, I was actually going to delete that page a while ago until my mom and I actually had the time to sit down and do it, but she said to keep it up so it’ll be a reminder. :)

I am so blessed to have such an amazing family – today has been great. And the way this day turned out, I think God wanted to us to have a great celebration for our birthday, too. This morning my parents took us to breakfast at Denny’s. (Nathan, um, he has story to tell about that. J I’ll see if I can talk him into posting it on his blog.) It turned out all three of us were free because it was our birthday!! Then we went to this archery place...but it turned out that they had gone under in March. That was a bummer. But then we visited two houses that my mom had lived in elementary school, and that was pretty cool. She told us the story of when she was walking back from school, and the blacktop got so hot that it bubbled. So she sat down on the side of the road and started popping the bubbles with a stick. Her mom – my grandma – was freaked out; she was looking around all over for her and finally found her by the side of the road, contentedly poking at bubbles. J

Then we went by Southern Illinois University and looked around a bit. Mom showed us one part of the building where it had once been the elementary school that she attended, kindergarten through third grade. That was pretty cool. Then, after looking around the town a little bit, we ended up going to the movie MegaMind, which we found to be great! From the previews I wasn’t exactly sure if it was going to have a good moral (the bad guy was the main character, right?), so I didn’t know how that was going to turn out. But we all agreed that it was a very, very good movie. Oh, and we all got in free because we had some gift thingies from a long time ago. And evidently we all got free popcorn, too. But I didn’t eat any because I was still full from breakfast. J So, guess what we did next? There just happened to be a ‘family fun center’ next door – that had Lazer Tag! The whole building was pirate themed – Mom said that was because they stole your money. J It was kind of expensive, but we had a lot of fun. On the way home Nicholas and Dad went into Kroger’s to get lasagna and some other things. They came out with a large white box, like a cake box, and Nicholas told us it had donuts in it. Well, after our delicious, it turned out that it was a cake!! It even had our names on it. The people in Kroger’s were really quick with the cake. It was really good, too – we were all pretty full, but Noah had a small piece, and Nathan and I split an ‘itsy-bitsy’ piece, as Nathan said. Here are some pictures from today (I was having some problems with loading the pictures and everything, and I don't think that there's any captions - sorry):

You see that last picture? Pay close attention to the headlights on the car – they have a tiny ‘windshield’ wiper for each one. Is that hilarious or what?! At least, we thought that was a funny picture. J Oh, and speaking of funny pictures, here’s some ‘captured candids’ of my parents snitching candy from our trick-or-treat candy bag yesterday (I think the one of my dad is the best – does he look guilty or what?):

All in all, it’s been a great birthday – and I’m officially a teenager – 13!!! Awesome. J God bless!!

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Awesome Little Church!!

11/14/2010

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We parked in Camp Wally last night (Wal-Mart) and the RV was completely level! ☺ That was nice. And my mom’s childhood friend came over after dinner and they talked while we watched the movie Hotel for Dogs. We’re going to meet her and her family for dinner tonight! By the way, this morning we had waffles, sausages, and orange juice. Yum! After that we had little church, which we all agreed was one of the best ever. We had decided last week that we wouldn’t use computers during little church anymore; we usually used them for songs. So I wrote down the lyrics to my song by hand on a piece of paper and the rest of the songs we sang from memory – including ‘This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…’. :-) Anyway, that seemed to make it a little better, along with the awesome ‘coincidence’ that Nicholas and I picked the same passage apart from each other (Matthew 5:13-16)…and Mom and Dad picked the same passage apart from each other (Isaiah 58:11-14)!! Amazing, huh? :-) It was a great time of worship and fellowship (hey, you can have fellowship within your own family, right?).

Before lunch we drove the RV around a campground and were met with the discouraging fact that all the sites were either unlevel or reserved. So we are now, after eating lunch, parking in a different campground next to a lake (but it doesn’t have heated bathrooms!!). I hope you have had as…interesting a day as ours. Then again, all our days are interesting - some bad, some good, some in between. So far, I think this has been a pretty good day. :-) God bless!!

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pie and....the Gateway Arch!!

11/13/2010

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Yesterday was wonderful!! We spent the two thirds of the day at the Gateway Arch (well, driving there, waiting in line, riding in the pod/tram to the top, and then spending time 630 feet up in the air in the Arch!!) in St. Louis, which was a LOT of fun!! Here’s some pictures that I took (remember to click on the pictures for captions, especially for the first pic!):

It was really cool. Oh, and then, after lunch, we went to the Old Courthouse (where the Dred Scott case took place) and hung out there for a while. I loved looking at the paintings all along the walls (they were dazzling – so detailed and creative!), and the boys enjoyed standing in the center of the building which acted as a microphone because of the acoustics. That was pretty cool, too. After that we drove over to a park and played on the cool playground there. Mom and one of her friends had arranged to meet each other there, and so we did! Mom’s friend has an eight-year-old daughter, and she tagged along. We had a lot of fun talking with them, and then we treated them to dinner at Burger King. And then she treated us to dessert – yum!! We all had a slice of chocolate chip cookie dough pie. Delicious!!

Oh! I forgot to say, though, yesterday morning the boys and I were being silly and I tripped and banged my big toe really, really, really hard on something. I couldn’t put pressure on it at all and could barely move it, so I had some trouble getting out to the car. I did, though, along with a handy dandy ice pack. By the time we got to St. Louis (it took about an hour) it felt a little better, and I could walk on it – carefully. Today I can almost walk normally, which is really good, because yesterday morning we were afraid I might have actually broke it. Anyway, it’s OK now. ☺ I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far! God bless y’all!! ♥♥♥

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☺ Ladybugs and Family ☺

11/10/2010

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We’re being invaded by ladybugs!! Seriously, every time we open the door to the RV, ladybugs fly in. They’re like the love bugs we get down in Florida – annoying. J

It has been a great couple of days hanging out with our great-aunt and her husband. We just call them Aunt Deb and Uncle Jeff – they’re both in great shape, and it doesn’t seem like they’re old enough to actually be our great-aunt and uncle. Anyway, they own a yoga studio and the part that they live in is on the third floor – the first floor is some other rooms that business’ rent. It’s actually very roomy – the kitchen is very large, as is the living room which overlooks the street in the front. There’s a hallway with pictures on the walls of their families, our great-grandparents and even our great-great-grandmother!! They have a spacious bedroom that Uncle Jeff renovated himself, and the bathroom in the hallway is sizeable – I should know; I took a shower in there just two or three hours ago. J Oh, and this building was built in 1888!! Cool, huh?

Anyway, it’s been wonderful to get to know them, and tonight we’re going to visit another yoga studio that they own. I hope everyone has had a great week so far! God bless!

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‘Hang Out’ Day

11/6/2010

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Hello, everyone who may or may not be reading this!! J I’ve had a pretty good day today so far - I had an especially great day last Thursday, but today isn’t so bad, either. J Last Thursday Mom and Dad announced to us that we were going to have a set schedule for schoolwork now. I was so relieved!! They said that we were going to do schoolwork on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and they explained the exact routine. So we tried it out yesterday, and it went pretty well. It was a bit complicated with all our school books crammed in between us and all over the car, but we made it work.

The Museum of Science and Industry was great - like my mom said, we thought that it was going to be like MOSI, but at least a little better ’cause it’s in Chicago. We were totally wrong! It was amazing. There was so much hands-on stuff to do, and it was all so interesting. We saw a baby chicken hatch!! It was SO cool. The poor thing worked and pecked and worked and pecked until it was finally free of its egg! Then it just laid there catching its breath. J We also went to this thing where you could find out how to see a strand of your DNA. Three people did it, including 25-year-old Kate who was living at the museum for a month! That thought is cool and freaky at the same time. J Anyway, the guy said that one teeny-tiny strand of DNA is actually - if you could stretch it out all the way - 6 feet tall!! We had a lot of fun there. Oh, and yesterday my parents’ anniversary was yesterday - 22 years!! They went out to dinner while we kids stayed here and watched Astro Boy and Toy Story 3. We’re still kids. J

So far today we’ve just hung out here - ate a late breakfast of delicious pancakes made by my Dad, did our chores, went to the exercise room here at the campground, etc. Today’s our ‘hang out’ day. J God bless!!

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Hey, peoples! :) I'm glad you found my blog - now I'm going to tell you to go to another blog! ;) This is my old blog (hence the post to the left over there), so you can go to my new blog (with Blogger) with this link: *Forgiven Mess*

A Lot about Me,
Nicole Gregory:

I am your untypical 13-year-old girl (well, I like to think of myself that way). :) I love my Savior, Jesus Christ, and I try my best to obey my awesome God. I like writing and enjoy reading even more. My favorite Christian author is Nancy Rue. My two favorite colors are teal and fuchsia. I love animals, especially dolphins, dogs, cats, and horses. My favorite Christian radio stations are JoyFM and K-Love, and some of my favorite Christian singers and bands are Francesca Battistelli, Britt Nicole, Chris Tomlin, Matthew West, J.J.Heller, Mandisa, MercyMe, Casting Crowns, Sidewalk Prophets...the list goes on and on and on. I am home-schooled and I love it! I lovespending time with the wonderful friends God has blessed me with! I love my family who I always thank God for. :) By the way, I am a TRIPLET, with three brothers, Nathan, Noah, and the youngest by a year and a half, Nicholas. God has blessed me abundantly, and I can't wait to see what He has in store! God bless!!

Awesome pic I took of Nicholas at the beach!

Here are some places that I posted from while we were on our road trip

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A Lot about Me,Nicole Gregory:

Awesome pic I took of Nicholas at the beach!

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Here are some places that I posted from while we were on our road trip

A Lot about Me,
Nicole Gregory: