Dandelion Days

Dandelion season is pretty much over now, but I still haven’t posted these photos. I am WAY behind with all the things I want to post. XD But too many ideas is better than no ideas, right? Right.

Anyway, I took these pictures when we went on a nature walk with our friends. It was such a beautiful spring day. Look at all the sunshine!

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The bee was feasting on these vetch blossom. Looks yummy! XD

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And now we get to the dandelion part. LOOK at all those dandelions! One corner of the field was absolutely covered in them! I’ve never seen so many dandelions in one place. O.o

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Megan kindly obliged and blew some dandelions for a mini photoshoot.

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I love this one! ↓

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Heh heh, it looks like she’s going to eat it.

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XD XD XD

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Ahh, I think dandelions are so pretty, don’t you?

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The kids decided to have a dandelion contest: whoever found the dandelion with the longest stalk won. It was super fun to pick out the tall ones – some of the dandelions growing in the fields were two feet tall!

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The little girls are so cute together. ♥

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This is the lane that leads to my grandparent’s house. (They live just up the road from us.) Isn’t it so pretty with that huge old oak in the front?

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Ahhh I love this maple in our front yard. It’s enormous and beautiful:)

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Well, that’s about it for today! Which picture was your favorite? Does a dandelion contest sound fun?

I hope you enjoyed the post and thanks for reading, my dears. ♥

***Allison***

Of Mother’s Day, Green Truck Rides, and Stampeding Cows

Hello, dearest readers, and HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! I hope you let your mom know how much you appreciate her hard work. I certainly do appreciate my mom’s hard work! She’s does so much for us – cooking food for seven people three times a day, cleaning the house, homeschooling five kids… so much work, with so much love and patience. ♥ Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! 😀

After supper today we went on a Green Truck Ride with the whole family for fun and kind of also to celebrate Mother’s Day. (In case you’re wondering, a “Green Truck Ride” is when the kids hop on the back of Dad’s old, restored, mint-green truck and Mom and Dad drive us around the farm. 🙂 It’s always quite fun.)

Of COURSE I brought my camera, and even got some neat pictures to show you guys. What a surprise, huh? XD (Note: I did edit most but not all of these pictures a bit, in case you were wondering.)

Oooooh isn’t this pretty with the mountain in the background? This isn’t the main part of our farm – it’s the back section which has its own barns and silos and such.

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This picture is of a neighboring farm:

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And now we’re back to ours. I thought the fields looked lovely in the golden sun!

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Maggie loves to ride on the truck bed with us. 🙂

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Isn’t this picture neat? You can see my Dad through the window and in both of the mirrors.

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We stopped to visit the cows and they all came running up to us. XD Hmm, this looks like a good opportunity for another “Rather Puzzled Cows” story… (See the first one here.)

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“Lookout to chief, over. It seems we have some strangers on the premises, do you copy?”

“Chief to lookout, over. Visitors you said? Hmm, we haven’t had any in a while. I’ll sound the alert. ALERT, ALERT, EVERYONE. VISITORS ARE APPROACHING. STAMPEDE AT WILL.”

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*Pant, pant*

*Snort, snort*

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“Eww, they’re only the strange looking two-legged things again.”

“*Gasp* Well! I’m shocked at your language, Bertha. How could you be so cruel? I think they’re kind of cute.”

“Hmph. They look suspicious to me. I shall give them my hard stare and see if that drives them off.”

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“Well that didn’t work – look.”

“WHOA STAND BACK! THEY’RE COMING FOR US!”

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“What d’ya think, girls? Don’t they look suspicious to you? Especially that one holding out the stick.”

“Hmm, I see what you mean.”

“Yeah… let’s take it slow here, ladies. You never know what could happen with these creatures. Just stand back and watch carefully. Close scrutiny is always the best choice in cases like these.”

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“OOH, OOH! Hey Bertha, should I run them through with my great and mighty horns? Huh, huh? Just let me at ’em, and I’ll-”

“Oh puh-leez. You’re horns aren’t big enough to butcher a groundhog.”

“B-but… *Sniff* Okay then.”

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“Wait. Guys. They’re moving again. HEEELP!”

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“Sheesh. What a bunch of scaredy-cows. Why did I get stuck with this herd? I mean, really!”

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XD Hee hee! That was fun.

So anyway, after the cows we went to the grain bins with Mom and Dad. It was so much fun! We took the speaker in to see if it would sound all echo-y like our voices did, but it didn’t echo as much as I thought it would. It just got dusty. 😛 The kids played catch with a sock filled with corn, everyone jumped from the ladder a few times, and we listened to music and sat amidst the corn kernels. 🙂

Here’s a couple of pretty cloud pictures to end on…

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So yep, there’s our Mother’s Day adventure of sorts. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed the pictures and my rather rambling commentary. Thanks for reading, my friends!

***Allison***

P. S. The next post will hopefully be the birthday haul post. 😀 Except I thought of a much better title. XD Hee hee!

Sisters Photoshoot #2

A little while ago Megan and I decided to do another sister’s photoshoot! (See the first one here. Oh yeah, she’s gotten contacts since then!) I don’t take pictures of people very often, so I thought it would give me good practice, and not to mention Sisters Photoshoots are really fun. 😀 They are certainly not the best portraits ever, but I had fun experimenting and I thought I’d show you guys the results. 🙂

Megan wanted me to get some pictures of her in a tree with the golden sun shining through the leaves, so I did… but they didn’t turn out quite as golden as it seemed like it should. XD

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This is a random photo I took of Megan for a co-op thing. :

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 I really like this picture! I took it when we were on a nature walk when I also got a lot more pictures, so I’ll hopefully post those soon. Dandelions are so fun!
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Ha ha, I *think* I caught Megan when she wasn’t looking. 😉

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She was certainly looking here! No, I just scared her and she jumped. XD I love taking jumping pictures! Apparently Megan does too. XD

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After that, Megan took some pictures of me. I was inspired by Loren’s gorgeous post to make a crimson clover flower crown. 😀 Heh heh, it was a bit too sunny so I’m squinting a bit and my smile looks kind of pained, but otherwise I like these pictures. XD XD XD I’ll keep trying… 😛

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After that I took some pictures of myself with the timer on my camera, since I don’t have a remote. I kept running back and forth until I wore a path in the triticale field (and got my capris rather green). XD

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I did get one that I liked enough to be my profile picture, as you might have noticed.

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There we are! I hope you enjoyed these photos. 🙂 Do you like taking pictures of people?

***Allison***

P. S. Well, I am officially 17. I feel old. XD And I had a wonderful birthday, thanks so much for asking! 😀 Would you guys like to see a “haul” post? (Ugh, I really don’t like that name for some reason, so I shall change the title if I do it. 😛 ) This feels like an awkward ending now so… um, thanks for reading. XD

{Field and Flower}

Last Sunday we had a lovely afternoon.

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After church we had a belated but absolutely delicious Easter lunch at my grandparent’s house with our cousins.

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Afterwards the kids went down to play with Marigold, a sweet, tame cat who lives in the barn.

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We got distracted from the cat by a game of “Who Can Find the Tallest Dandelion.” If you have never played that game, I highly recommend it. 🙂 Sometimes the simplest, happy things are the best things.

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We have hundreds and thousands of dandelions around our farm, and some of them grow over two feet tall in the fields. Seriously.

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 I won the contest that day, but today my brother found what could be the record breaker: a whopping 27 inch tall dandelion.

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We graciously fed our dear rabbits some of the losing dandelions. Lily sat there contentedly, not moving except for her mouth and nose, slurping up dandelion stems like spaghetti. We tried not to let the dandelions run out, but eventually they did. Until they stopped she just nibbled away one after another, looking mildly disinterested and rather sleepy.

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Then we gathered eggs – a not very lovely part of the afternoon, because they were extremely dirty and it took forever. The good thing is, it didn’t actually take forever, because we finished eventually.

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When we were doing the dandelion contest earlier, I had noticed the beautiful crimson clover and vetch blooms in the fields. After eggs, I ran down to the house and grabbed my camera straight away.

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And so here are the photos. I love the peaceful, beautiful, serene atmosphere of them. ♥

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And I love that little things like dew drops and triticale and even weeds like dandelions can be so pretty and graceful.

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*Happy sigh* I really enjoyed this photoshoot and I hope you did too! Thank you for persevering through allllll of those pictures. 🙂 Do you have a favorite or favorites?

Have a wonderful day! ♥

***Allison***

Beautiful Things {Part 1}

Oh my goodness, spring is such a beautiful, wonderful thing. ♥ I have taken SO many pictures lately, like I always do in spring and fall; too many to fit in one post, even though you guys said you didn’t mind long posts. It would be a VERY long post. XD Heh heh.

Anyway, today I’m going to post some landscape photos of our farm. I hope you enjoy!

Sometimes we take a little walk/run up this hill before school to get some exercise. 🙂 It’s a beautiful spot!

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Our house and surroundings. 🙂 Several of the trees are green(ish) by now.

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I love how fluffy and soft alfalfa looks.

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Triticale doesn’t look the same, but it’s still really pretty!

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AHH I LOVE THESE PICTURES SO MUCH! I DIDN’T EDIT THEM! *Ahem* It’s just the lighting was absolutely perfect, and the scenery, and… ahh. It’s easy to take these views for granted when I see them every day, but sometimes it’s impossible to ignore their beauty. I’m so glad God gave me all this to enjoy! ♥

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I kind of like the effect of the sun through dust. 🙂

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Can you see why I love spring so much? AHH IT’S SO GORGEOUS! Do you love spring too? Do you have a favorite of these photos?

Thank you so much for reading, my friends!

***Allison***

Twilight Photoshoot

Hello, my friends and readers! How are you all today? Good, I hope!

Since I just posted some wintry photos, I wanted to post some springy photos today. 🙂 March is so flighty…

I actually got a several photos in the afternoon, not just at twilight… but hey, I had to name this post something! XD

I love how emerald green the triticale fields look in the sun! ♥ It makes me happy. 😀

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This is an alfalfa field… just in case you were wondering. 😉

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Maggie explored happily beside me while I took pictures. 😀

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Hee hee, Maggie looks so noble. XD

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And NOW we get to the twilight pictures. 😉

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Ahh…♥ Probably my favorite picture in this post!

Megan and I did a little mini Sister’s Photoshoot, but I didn’t get very many good pictures because it was a bit too dark. 😦

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Megan and I also had fun taking forced perspective photos of the moon. 😀

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I love this one!

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See you later, my friends! I hope you enjoyed this post!

***Allison***

P. S. Eeee! Guess what my next post (hopefully) will be about? The last chapter of WordCrafters 2! YAAAAAY! I’m so excited to show it to you guys!

Random Farm Photography

 

Hola, mis amigos! 😀

I hope you are having a lovely weekend. Tonight is family movie night for us, yippee! And we didn’t have to gather eggs today… yippee again! XD Anyway, today I wanted to show you a collection of photos from around our farm. It’s so beautiful here, even in winter. ♥ 😀 Enjoy!

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We call this the Island because it’s an island of trees in the middle of the field. XD

 

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Golden hour. ♥

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Mini nature study/farm lesson: all the green stuff in these fields is triticale (pronounced trit-ih-KAY-lee).
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So pretty! ♥

 

 

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There’s a cute little picturesque white church just over the hill from us. I wish it was our church – we could just walk right over on Sundays! 😀 But sadly, it isn’t.
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The rest of these pictures are from a hidden, rather muddy pond in one of the fields. 😀
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It is quite hard to get into because it’s surrounded by brush and thorns and cedar trees. But it’s so secluded and neat once you get in.

 

 

 

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I have no idea what these are, but they’re so cute!

 

 

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I also found this weird gall on a cedar tree. Mini nature study lesson again: galls are made by certain insects that secrete a sort of chemical or irritant that makes the branch or leaf puff up into a gall. This protects the larva or insect inside. Doesn’t this one look kind of like a brain? XD

 

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Ahhh, I love moss so much!

 

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The boys were throwing rocks in the pond, and I had fun getting pictures of the splashes. XD

 

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And thus we come to the end. 🙂 Which picture was your favorite? I hope you enjoyed them! 😀
***Allison***

P. S. The girls and I over at The Art Lab decided to put on a little contest for you guys. 🙂 Your goal is to create an imaginary creature named the “Wuzzing,” and whoever’s Wuzzing gets the most votes becomes Art Lab’s official mascot! 😀 Click here for more details. I can’t wait to see all your wonderful Wuzzings, and show you mine too. XD

Sisters Photoshoot

The other day Megan and I packed up our cameras and my bunny Lily and drove up to an alfalfa field to do a little photoshoot of each other. It was so much fun – but rather chilly. XD I hope you enjoy the pictures! (And you can see Megan’s pictures of me here.)

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I ♥ this one! Megan decided to use it for her blog profile picture. 🙂 I might use one of hers for my profile picture eventually.

 

Megan experimented with no glasses… she couldn’t see me so it’s a good thing I could see her. XD

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I had fun playing around with the next two pictures. 🙂

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LILIPUTIAN! 😀

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I love this picture too!

HA HA HA! Lily looks rather taken aback at Megan’s wild shrieks. XD XD Poor, poor bunny.

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And now for a few bonus bunny pictures…

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Lily is trying to camouflage herself. Sorry Lily, your fur doesn’t really match the alfalfa. XD

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Aww, Lily dear!
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Lily is not impressed with photoshoots.

 

Which picture was your favorite? Thanks for reading, my friends! 🙂

***Allison***

P. S. Thank you all for your sweet comments and prayers, and I’m happy to say I passed the driver’s test! HIP HIP HOORAY! 😀 😀 😀

P. P. S. The Story of Why I Didn’t Post This Sooner: I dropped my camera’s memory card and it pretty much vanished only it didn’t because it got wedged under the computer desk for a long time and  I was bewildered and sad and frightened (not really) and then Dad lifted up the desk and at long last I found my beloved memory card and… The End. (Note: That was NOT a good example of a grammatically correct sentence. Just in case you were wondering.)

Life on the Farm + BIBPC

I thought I’d do a little post about what’s been going on around the farm lately. Heh heh, it kind of turned out to be a big post, but anyway…

The main thing that Dad has been doing is harvesting corn. Some of the corn grew almost 15 feet tall this year! That’s really tall, even for corn.

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Ahh, so peaceful.
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Dad uses a GPS system to plant his corn in nice straight rows.

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The corn harvester (or chopper, as we call it) is on the left.

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For Nature Study this week we learned about corn. Even though I already knew a lot about how it looked, it was neat to learn the reasons behind corn’s appearance. Here are a few fun facts:

  • If you break a corncob in half, supposedly there will always be an even number of kernels around the circumference!
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    Corn stalks look kind of like bamboo, with little “joints” at intervals. These joints are called “nodes” and they help strengthen the stalk while still keeping it elastic enough to survive strong winds.

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    Corn has the parts of a flower, even though you can’t see any pretty blossoms. The tassels are the stamen, and the silk is actually the pistil. Pollen falls from the tassels through the silk (yes, each piece of silk is actually a tiny tube!) to pollinate the seeds (corn kernels).

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    There is one piece of silk for each kernel! If a corncob isn’t fully filled out, it’s because the kernel wasn’t pollinated correctly.

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    When it’s really dry, the leaves of the corn roll up to preserve moisture.

Here are the two corn pages in my nature notebook:

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Wow. How amazing is the attention to detail God has shown in this seemingly simple plant?!

So there’s your mini nature study for today. 😉

Now for BIBPC. This is the poster I made to get extra points. 😉

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And this is my entry! The category was “Shiny.”

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Story Behind the Photo: I took this picture of Violet, a barn cat, several months ago. She has super pretty green eyes! They’re also shiny (well, obviously), so you can see the reflection of me and my siblings on the other side of the wire.

These are some edits I made just for fun:

The original picture edited:

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The cropped picture edited:

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I LOVE THIS PICTURE!

 

 

I enjoyed BIBPC, Megan! Thanks for hosting it. 🙂

My my, this was quite a long post. XD Thanks for reading!

Did you learn anything new about corn or how we harvest it? Do you do Nature Study in your school/homeschool?

***Allison***

P. S. I’m sure you all know that today is the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11/01. Please take time to remember the heroes of that terrible day and to pray for those who lost loved ones . ♥♥♥