From Paper to Plastic !

So, I got my restricted license last week! Now, I have photo I.D.! The dumb thing is, to get said license, you have to have a birth-certificate and another form of "secondary identification". What I want to get is, how is a 15 year old supposed to have a plethora of I.D.? AND, the nasty people at the DMV wouldn't take a year-book as I.D., so they sent us to the bank to have some person sign a paper saying that I am, in fact who I am, and that dad is, in fact, my father. Dad and I kinda looked at each other, and were like, "duh, can't you tell? you need somebody from a bank to tell you that?". Man, some things are so dumb and time-consuming. AND, when I took the road test, the guy fussed at me for backing out of the parking space, even though I did it EXACTLY how the book tells you to! Then, he started this whole talk about how they should take that out of the book because "you can't fully control your vehicle if you don't have two hands on the steering-wheel at all times"... And then he got onto me about the way I stopped, and said I didn't come to a "complete" stop, because he didn't get slammed back in his seat. Sigh, if he thinks I did bad, he must not have been the one to give Lana her road test, because there would've been no way she could have passed it.;P

Something kinda cool is, when I was getting the license, I got to say I wanted to be an organ donor. Not that I want to have to donate any organs right now, but it's cool to know that if something were to happen to me, I could maybe give somebody a chance for a better life...

Anyways, mom and dad's anniversary was Friday, so they went up to Tulsa and Lana and Luke came to our house to help out(or was it, "make out"???;P).

On Sunday, Tim didn't end up showing the FtF video, but we still had like, 15 people sign-up to go, and several more were going to think about it. Not too bad, seeing as how they didn't know hardly anything about it...

What else? umm, Brandon and I each started an iPod Touch fund. We figure, by the time we get enough money for them, they'll be cheaper, at least, I hope so... I'm not gonna buy any extra little stuff, and I'll save my b-day and Christmas money, splitting it between savings and my fund, so it shouldn't take more than a 1/2 million years or so to get enough...;P



Now for an outlook on the not so distant future.

We're going to some friend's house on Friday(that's getting more and more rare as our family get bigger, I don't think we'd fit at a lot of tables ;P)! We start school next Monday, and spanish class starts the Tuesday, so that's cool. Microbiology starts the 25th, so that's pretty awesome too.

Oh, duh! FtF is less than two weeks away!! I almost forgot to mention that. I'm really excited that the CCC youth group is finally going!! I'm hoping more people will sign up to go next week.



I'm gettin' hungry, so, I'm gonna go now



-Tony, the most awesomest one by that name

A POST

Hello, welcome to clevertony.blogspot.net. (It's ".com")

Oh, welcome to clevertony.blogspot.net-it's.com.

Hey everybody, this is, A POST!

Are y'all happy? ;P

Seriously, this is a post.

What's goin' on?...

We got "Wii Fit" the other day, and it's AWESOME!!!!!

We'd been trying to find one for like, several weeks.

And they finally had some at Best Buy.

We actually got three of them.

One for us, and the other two for people at dad's work

(they couldn't find any either).

I had to go to church on Friday to practice the skits.

I was about ready to pass out for the first hour or so,

because I felt awful and my part requires lots of yelling...

Oh well, the pains of acting.

I get my seat reserved at church on Sunday (it makes me feel special),

'cause we don't want us drama people to cause a scene just getting out of our seats.;P

Brandon and I watched the Platinum Edition Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,

which was awesome!!!

What else?????

I went up to Luke's grand-parents house Tuesday evening/Wednesday to film Hunted,

and I think we finished almost all of my scenes,

including the much anticipated paintball scene(I was excited about that).

When we were having breakfast Wednesday,

Daniel looked over and saw some armidillos,

so we ran over there (barefoot), grabbed some rocks and had a war with 'em.

I hit one, but it ran into the woods.

When I got back over with Daniel,

he said one of them had fallen off of a small cliff thingy (around 15 feet high).

So, we climbed down (still barefoot),

but the dumb thing had crawled back were we couldn't get to it.

So Daniel went back up, and I stayed down there.

After a minute, it came out again, and Daniel threw a rock on it's head (from the top of the aforementioned small cliff-like thingy).

Then the thing started going bonkers and went into convulsions and stuff,

so I ran over to where it was and threw a rock at it and it ceased breathing.

So, I should get credit for killing it, but Daniel, will beg to differ.;P

What else?

Mom and dad's anniversary is next Friday,

whcih also means my permit expires next Friday

(not sure what we're doin' about that yet..)...

This is turning into an incredibly long and therefore probably boring post.

So, good-morning.

And in case I don't see you, "good-afternoon", "good-evening", and "good-night".

Except that it's already afternoon, so, that ruins that whole plan...

-Tony

It's not just the end, or where we begin. It is in the in-beetweens

Whooohooooo!!!!!!! It’s all over!!! I got to sleep in today!!!! We have a fridge full of leftovers!!! I can hardly believe that Lana is married. I’ve known all my life that she was going to get married eventually, but it seems so weird that she’s not gonna be around much.
For those of you that are wondering(and I know there are some, because I‘ve been asked). No, I didn’t “cry”, but my eyes did get watery twice. I couldn’t really help it though, seeing my sister walk down the aisle is kind of a once in a lifetime thing.
The ceremony was really good(but I was probably biased). I think Luke’s favorite part was the kissing. ;P
The reception was fun, but I had to wait for forever before I could go in because we had to get pictures taken first. Daniel, T.J., and I got some sweet bow-ties, I think a lot of people liked them.
I got to meet some of my great grandparents too. I had no idea who they were, but they acted like I was supposed to(I‘d only met them once before that, but I was really little).
I think we’re going to try to take it really easy today and not do much of anything.
We’ve got friends coming over on Sunday, and then I think grandparents are coming on Monday or Tuesday.
I think this is getting kinda boring, so I’ll stop now.
-Tony

This is the last night she'll spend alone

On the chance that anybody reads this before 7:00 P.M. tomorrow, please pray for us and that everything will come together smoothly(or at least not un-smoothly). There are a million tiny things that still need to be taken care of.

I have no idea what all is getting done tomorrow. All I know is that dad and I still need to go pick up our tuxes and some stuff for the reception.

I think this is the first time I've ever been really stressed in my life. It's not a very pleasant feeling. I need to go to bed.

The amazing thing to me is that in the midst of all of this extra stuff, life still goes on. Maybe not normally, but it goes on nonetheless.

Still, I cannot begin to describe how glad I am that we won't have to do this again for another 20 years or so. I mean, I'm really, really glad most of us are boys. ;P

I have mixed emotions. My sister is getting married. My sister is leaving. I get a brother-in-law. I get Luke(sorry, but I couldn't resist). So, yeah, it's weird.

I'm getting off now
-Tony

You say you're sorry, does that mean you're sad you got caught?

I think it’s about time to update, so, I update. Let us see… I can’t think of anything worth writing about other than the fact that the Hilde’s came over yesterday!!!! They came over after church and had lunch with us. Then we all went to Lana and Luke’s wedding shower. I think it was the first time I’d ever been to a wedding shower before. It was pretty fun. Probably helped that I knew everybody there.
They had a table set up with cards on it to write pieces of advice for them. I filled two out. I’m not sure if they’ll appreciate all of the work I put into it. ;P (you won‘t understand the humor if you weren‘t there. sorry).
I can’t believe I almost forgot what I’m about to write about. Brittany Hilde(my cousin) got her “dream car” the other day(that was the whole reason that they came up). I was almost jealous at first. But then I took a ride in it. It was a pretty tight fit… I guess I’ll tell you what it is. Better yet, I’ll show you a pic of it (I got this pic from some website, so it's not actually "her" car, but it looks just like it)

Pretty sweet, huh? Not as cool as this! (well, maybe it's as cool, but not as "me")

This is just like my dad's car (except ours has black stripes on the sides and a black rear bumper), which I'm going to buy later. Pretty sweet, huh? Moving on.......

What else??? Chemistry class again today. We took a propane torch to the edges of our poster board. Now it's AWESOME!!!!! I'll get some pics of it once it's finished. Somebody brought cookies and put a plate on our table. They were gone in less than two minutes. ;P I'm done for now, so, I'll be going. Bye!

I hope you like it. It took me three hours to complete the shading on your upper lip

Well, let’s see. *Somebody* told me I have a lack of "newpostness", which I don’t think is a real word.;P But I was gonna post anyways, so, here goes nothing.
Let me think...ah-ha! My dad had/has a kidney stone. The pain started REALLY bad the other day, so on Friday afternoon, Lana took me up to his work so I could play chauffeur for awhile. Then, on Saturday, we had milk run, so I got to drive MORE then!! I just love driving. There’s something about feeling that power under you feet and zooming along the highway. *sigh* It’s wonderful. One of the best parts is when you pass people. Even though I never speed (never "intentionally" that is), there’s always a car going slower than I am. It just gives me a good feeling to drive by someone while I’m in Lightning (that’s dad’s car). I don’t know if it’s just a guy thing or what, but I love driving. So, yeah, enough about cars.
Sunday: Church was good. Worship service was awesome, sermon was good, Sunday school was good. So, yeah, church was good. After church, me and dad ran some errands then we came home and had lunch real quick before Lana, mom, Pie, and dad left to go to Lana and Luke’s shower at his church. I got to stay home and watch the boys. It actually wasn’t too bad. We watched a movie and played outside and had several snacks (you can never forget snacks. Snack time is one of the second best times of day).After that, T.J. came over for awhile.(I’m not sure how long he stayed, I had to head to bed Fred)
Today, had chemistry class. We worked on our display board for our project some. I had completely forgotten about an assignment that we had, so I finished that up real quick while we were waiting for the lecture. I have math and then a little bit of other stuff to do today, then I’m done schoolwise.
Tomorrow, testing in the morning!!! WHOOOHOOOO!!!!! I’m excited!!Testing is soooo much fun. I’m kinda bummed that it’s only for one day though. It used to take like, three days. It’s my last year for it too. So that’s kinda sad.
Ummmm, what else? Normal busy week ahead for the home team. Oh!! I just remembered something! The Hildebrands are coming on Sunday!!!!!! I’m excited. They’re coming up for the wedding too. So we’ll get to see them more this year than we normally would in two years.
I can’t think of anything else. If I do, I’ll just write it later.
So, farewell from the Tony maestro.

Time for braces to say good-bye.

Hello everyone and welcome to Mountain Dew anonymous, for those that have abuse problems with Mountain Dew…. I think I’ll just stop there.

I don’t really have much to talk about, but I wanted to write a post. So, bear with me as I ramble a bit.
I GOT MY BRACES COMPLETELY OFF!!!!!! I am just a “little” bit excited.
It felt sooo good to finally get them off after two years of check-ups and adjustments and such. It also felt really good when Dr. Udouj told me teeth looked, and I quote, “beautiful”.
Now, whenever I brush my teeth, it seems so effortless, almost too easy, since I’ve had to brush around and under and over all of the brackets. Also, the first time I brushed my teeth after getting them off, they were literally “squeaky clean”. It was soooo cool!

On Thursday afternoon (Luke‘s B-day), Luke drove Lana, Brandon, and I up to Springdale to watch the Patriots play in the state tournament!! It was one of the best games I’ve ever watched. And, it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun if the patriots hadn’t won (the first game I mean, not the whole tournament )! Could somebody please let me know how they did yesterday!! I meant to call Daniel and ask him, but I forgot.

I can’t think of anything else that happened that is worth writing about, so, I guess I’ll stop now.

Oh, btw, the wedding is exactly three months away. Things are gonna start getting really crazy around here…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY

BIRTHDAY

LUKE!

First he graduated, then he turned 18,

and now, he's 19

and getting married to my sister in a little over three months....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Foul Play

Well, something happened with my music player. when I got on my blog today, it wasn’t my play list, it was somebody else's, and it was REALLY BAD. so I had to take it off. Sorry if anyone heard any of that junk.

I guess since I’m already writing I might as well do a quick update. Not too much going on.
Queenie, my big goat, died on Saturday. I was pretty stinkin’ sad. Oh well, moving on….

Sunday, T.J. came over after church for super bowl snacks and such. Actually, we don’t really watch the super bowl. We just have all of the snacks and watch movies.
Monday, I had chemistry class, which went really well. I understood completely everything.
Mr. R. showed us the format that he wanted our papers in, which was good because I was not quite sure exactly how he wanted it.
Monday night, we went to the PATRIOT BASKETBALL GAME!!!!
We didn’t see the junior b game, junior a team completely stomped the knights!! Girls team got beat. The senior team played a great game, but lost by like three points. All was fun anyways.

Oooh, I forgot to mention.
Sunday, I finally got the nerve and time to ask my youth pastor if he wanted to take the youth group to Fan the Flame. And he said YES!! Now, I need my wonderful future brother-in-law/Luke/warrior to get me a information packet to give to him. Please!

BTW, I get my braces off in NINE DAYS!!!!!!

Lana

Lana told me that I needed to post, so, I’m going to post about her (not quite what you expected, is it Lana?).

It was a dark and stormy night when Lana entered this world. Was it her that made the world stormy? Or was it the world's dislike of her that caused this dreadfulness? No one will ever know, because none of the nurses or doctors ever lived to tell the tale….
That wasn’t very nice at all. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.

Let’s see, she was born April 29th 1988, while my dad was in the Army, stationed in Landstuhl, Germany.
I wasn’t born for another four years so I don’t really know what she was like when she was little. *But*, I do know that when she was around three years old, she got hit in the head with a garden rake. She’s pretty lucky that she’s not mentally disabled, because the prongs of the rake went through her skull. My parents took her to the hospital and she ended up getting her head shaved and cut open, so the doctor could clean the dirt out of her brain. Once her hair started to grow back, she had a pretty nice mullet. I have to wonder how smart she’d be if that hadn’t happened… :p.
When she was little, she would tell mom and dad, “You're not my real parents, my real parents live in New York city”. I don’t think they appreciated that very much.

I think I’m gonna skip ahead about ten years to the not so distant past. A few years ago, she went on a nine-week trip to Puerto Rico, to help out at a Christian school. I think that’s also right after she started “Call to Battle”.
The summer before last, she went on another trip to Bogota, Columbia, to teach an English class.

More recently, five months ago today to be exact, Luke came over and asked if she would…. court him? Be courted? I don’t know what to call it, but she's bein’ courted.
This Christmas, Luke came over once again and gave her a ring.
Now, she’s leaving me and starting a new life and I get to go over to their apartment and not spill popcorn on Luke’s carpet and watch LOTR.

Now, just because I can, I’m going to list 5 things that we have in common.
#1, we both love to read.
#2, we both like to sing.
#3, we both enjoy doing outreach ministries at Riverwalk.
#4, we think most of the same thoughts. Which can get kind of freaky sometimes.
#5, most importantly, we both love Jesus with all of our hearts. She kinda loves Luke too
Now, I’m going to *not* list 5 things that we don’t have in common because, well, I'm just not going to.
Something that’s sorta funny is, she never wants to drive anywhere late at night because she doesn’t want to be gone when Luke calls (my parents don't think its safe for her to talk on the phone and drive at the same time....)

I could keep writing, things are coming to my brain but I don’t think she would like me to type some of them.

So, I’ll tell you about her in 7 words.
She loves God and she loves Luke.
There, I did it Lana, I wrote a new post. You happy now?

The Post I Wasn't Gonna Write.

Here I am, writing a post I didn’t intend to ever write, I don’t feel qualified to write,
and would prefer not to write. But, I'm writing it anyways, because for some reason, I feel like it’s what I was supposed to write; it’s what God wanted me to write.

Quite a bit lately, Lana and Luke have been writing about love, romance ect. Don’t get me wrong, I think love is great; after all, there’s a whole book in the Bible about love. Well, if love is so great, shouldn’t we all dive headfirst into it?

Years ago, my parents decided that none of us kids should date. It’s never made me upset because at the time that they told us, I was too young to care, and as I got older, it was easy for me to see how awful the dating cycle really is.

My parents told me that each time you have a relationship with someone, you give them a piece of your heart that you can never get back. In this day and age, not dating is a thing unheard of. Some people, if asked, would probably say that if you don’t date, you’ll never get married.
I’m sure there are also people that wonder how you’ll ever meet that “special someone” if you
don’t date (Luke and Lana are solid proof against that one :^).

I remember one of my relatives was bragging one time that he had, like five girlfriends in one semester. Once again, I was too young to care. But looking back, I can see that not only did he have five girlfriends, he lost pieces of his heart five times. People want to give their whole heart to their spouse, not just the crumbled remains of it.
One thing about not dating (or having dating-type relationships) is you can honestly say “there was never anyone else”. There’s no pressure from worrying that you might see an old boyfriend/girlfriend. Obviously, this has never happened to me, but it seems like it would be really awkward.

So what’s the alternative to dating? It’s called “courtship”. One of the best things about courtship is that the parents are involved every step of the way, ready to help and encourage you whenever you need it. When my parents first decided against dating, they didn’t even know what the alternative was called, much less how courtship was supposed to work. Years later, they found a book “When God Writes Your Love Story” by Eric and Leslie Ludy that helped encourage them that it could be done .

Through this book, the Ludys share how they came to realize that dating isn’t the way to go. They share how they overcame obstacles and ridiculing to stay pure. And of course, they
share their love story. I would encourage all of you to read this book if you haven’t already. It’s more proof that you can get married without ever dating.

One more thing that kind of goes along with this is another piece of wisdom my parents gave me (it’s mostly for the guys but it won’t hurt for girls to read it). This is what it is - start saving now! I don’t mean save for a x-box360; I mean save for a house. I’ve got a head start over lots of people since I started saving when I was about ten. Jeremiah and Josiah are going to grow up their whole lives saving. Saving for a house, saving for their futures, and saving their hearts for one person and one person only.

So to answer the question at the beginning, no we shouldn't just dive straight into love.
What should we do then? Well it says in the Bible, "do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires". We should save our hearts until the proper time comes.

While I'm Driving You Crazy, Should I Stop At The Mall?

Well, this week has been kind of interesting.

We had the Hilds over for new years. They came early Monday and left after dinner on Tuesday, not near long enough for friends that you see twice a year. But while they were here we had time to do plenty of stuff.

After they had been at our house for a while, I realized that Uncle Scott hadn’t seen my drivers permit, so I showed it to him, and he said I needed to go show it to my cousin Brittany (we’re not really related, but our parents have been friends since before we were born, so we might as well be related), ‘cause she didn’t have hers yet.
So I go show her and somehow my Aunt Jackie finds out and says that since I could drive, I could take her to the store (in her Pontiac grand prix:).
Well, it takes us a while to get ready and when we start to head out, we realize that there are six people going (one of which happened to be my “wonderful” future brother in law), her car only seats five.
So, instead of driving her sports car, I got to drive our minivan, *fun*.
Well, let’s just say that Luke has some issues as a passenger….
I *did* get to drive Aunt Jackie’s car on a trip to the store eventually. Let’s just say, Aunt Jackie, your car is pretty zippy.
Us older kids (T.J., Lana, Brittany, Brandon and I) went to A-Z to shop for... something; I really have no idea why we went. After that we had dinner and then they (the Hilds) left.

Later that night some of us went to NBC When we came back, I got some of the worst news possible at the time.
T.J. IS MOVING OUT :( I knew it was gonna happen eventually, just didn’t think it was gonna be this soon. So on top of Lana getting married and leaving, T.J. is moving out. He went over to look at a place last night and went back this morning to pay his first months rent. I think he’s moving in today and tomorrow. Tonight will probably be his last night in our house. :(

I realized the other day, that in a few months, I will be the oldest of the kids at home.
It’s gonna be pretty tough with all the changes about to take place. But at least I have Jesus to lean on when it gets tough. That’s more than some people have.

Okay, time for a real post. Umm, let’s see. Monday was chemistry class; we “tried” to make long lasting bubbles (not the flaming ones). After that I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend, we had pizza then we played basketball for a several hours.
I hadn’t touched a basketball (at least not with the intention of playing) in months. It was amazing; I still had the touch, I swooshed three threes in a row. My jumping needs some work though, I could only dunk on a nine or nine and a half ft. goal.
After that Mrs. M. took us home and visited with my mom for a little while. While they were talking I thought it was a good time to show my friends our swing. While we were walking over there my neighbor’s pit bull came over and started picking on the littlest friend. (poor kid is scared of dogs anyways). We ran Bull (that’s the pit bulls name) off and proceeded to the swing. Bull came back and we decided to just go back to the house after a few swings, we didn’t feel like messing with the dog.
After the Ms left I had to go lock up animals. I locked up the ducks and got over to the goats and realized that Bull was following me. I locked up the goats really fast (Bull doesn’t get along with the goats really well) and headed over to the chicken coop. While I was walking, Bull started nipping at my shoelaces, so I flicked him on the nose and said “no”. usually that does the trick and he’ll go home, but not this time. He just got mad and grabbed my shoe, squeezing my foot inside, and started pulling me around. Now I don’t know about you, but when a big huge monster dog bites my foot, I smack it on the nose. Well, this didn’t work, it just made him madder. So I made my way over to the gate at the garden so I could get inside the fence, kicked Bull in the head and disappeared in the tall grass. I snuck up to the house and that was all the fun that Bull could have with my foot that night.
A few days later Bull came over and was picking on Josiah, so I got onto him about it and he started barking, it was the meanest bark I had ever heard come from his mouth. So I looked at him and asked if that was supposed to scare me (if it was, he was doing a good job), then I started growling and ran towards him and he ran off with his tail between his legs. Bull doesn’t bother me anymore. Okay, enough of the dog.
Last night was our Christmas party at Riverwalk church (our apartment ministry), lots of kids and a few moms came. It was pretty fun. Dan and Andy played Christmas songs almost the whole time. Luke came to “help out”, I think he came more for Lana though. After it was over Luke and I cleaned up the leftover M and Ms.
I have all my Christmas shopping done, WHOOHOOO!! FIVE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!! Okay, I think that’s all.
Btw, I went to the orthodontist this morning and he said I get my braces off in mid Feb!!