For Bekah

I promised Rebekah Clark that I would blog about two weeks ago (?) and so here goes. I don't know what to say, really. Yes, lots has happened, but I don't know what to BLOG. What would be interesting to the public, of course. hmmmm. I suppose I should talk about the trip to Idaho..........but you probably read all that from Mom and Grandma. The Assembly was good; my goodness, this is the most rattled post I have ever published on this website. Good grief. I did make up a new word. To add to my list of hundreds of other words I have made up and only I know what they mean. There are some really great words in the world that no one knows about. But this new word is randofisis. It is a diagnosed mental disorder where the victim talks, walks, posts pictures or words, or lives all factors of life in positively random patterns. Great word. I happen to be the first victim of the randofisis disorder. I feel so special in saying that. Really.
Ok, how about Rufus? I don't know if mom has given an update on Rufus. He is the greatest fraud that ever walked the planet. He loves the great outdoors, and one Horne child must be outside at all times with the wandering puppy. And he loves to play. I mean, they sky falls if someone isn't playing with him. He is obsessed with squeaky toys. It is like the squeak does something in his little mind that makes him go crazy. Like most dogs are with a laser, Rufus is with a squeak. Often times he will bring the toy and drop it on a foot belonging to someone in the room. If we do not throw the toy, he will start biting our skirts/pants. If we still do not give in to the poodle and throw the toy, he will start biting it incessantly, millions of squeaks resulting. It gets really annoying. Finally, someone will get tired of the noise, walk across the room, and throw the stupid toy, which he promptly brings back for another round. Love that dog.  :-)
This weekend is revival in Bessemer with none other than Lyndon B. Johnson. Just kidding. But Dennis Johnson, pastor in Bayou la Batre, AL is coming with his family. Expecting a blessing there. I am pretty miffed at my pastor though. I have been planning for WEEKS to go to a Collingsworth Family concert in Hartselle. They finally came to a place that I could go see them, and Brian O'Dell schedules something for this weekend. >:-( Yeah. So I won't really get into that. :-)
Um.....oh yeah! Next weekend is Ladies Retreat in TN, my first retreat. But the day before that, a bunch of church families are getting together and going to WonderWorks in Pigeon Forge. Including us. :-) Yay. I have been like three times already, but I am REALLY excited. It is the Coxes, the Pimentels, the Lewises, Claudia and Austin (:-)) us and Grandma Vicki. I am praying we will be able to go to Johnny Carinos and get Italian Cream Sodas before we leave town. :-) Yum.

Alrighty, I blogged. I am so proud of myself in all my randofisis. I will try to blog about WonderWorks and Retreat later. Probably in about eight months. :-) Just kidding, I will try to do better with being faithful to y'all. :-)

~Katie~

Rufus! Panhandin fo Jesus, a lockin, and a super awesome prank! :-)

We got a new puppy! As many of you know from my mom. I was so excited to get a blog a couple years ago, and then I never blog. I guess that's the way it works. But anyway here we go. I guess I might start with pictures. Mom posted this one already but it is so cute I can't NOT post it. 

See what I mean? Absolutely adorable. And this dog is spoiled. Oh yes, spoiled rotten. He has more toys than you can imagine, and he loves all of them. And anything else that he can get his crooked little teeth on. Like right now he is chewing on one of my winter scarves. Charlie used to do the same thing, so no problemo there. 

Since we got Rufus, Michael has been looking for a Husky puppy. He got one last year and named it Dakota, but it got sick and so Michael had to take him back; on his birthday a week later. :-( Well, Michael found one and is getting it in a couple of days. He is sooooooooooooooo excited and that dog is all he can talk about. 

I love Rufus so much. He is the greatest dog ever, and he is my friend. :-)

So we do this thing that Alabama people call a "Road block;" which I don't get at all. Especially because what it really is is panhandling. So that is why I call it Panhandlin' fo' Jesus. We stand out on the side of the road and beg for money. And some people actually give to us. Really, a lot of people give. And we do that every year to raise money to send people to Family Camp. So here are the pictures of our "Road block" (aka Panhandlin' fo' Jesus:)

This is the makings of Terah's sign:

 Finished......

 Everybody tried her sign; it was the greatest!

Wow, Terah. Funny how that sign got a ton of money. :-)

 Sister O'Dell and Jayden covered the SE corner of the intersection. A lot of the time they were yelling: "We want money!" to the passing cars. Teehee! :-)

 Me and Katie got the SW corner.

 Michael and Joe got the NW corner. Michael refused to look at the camera in every picture. Eventually Brother O'Dell got a guitar out of his truck and gave it to Joe, so Joe played the guitar while Michael and Trevor worked the sign and bucket jobs. 

 And......Brother Ridlespurge, Jacob, Sam, and Zack got the NE corner. 

 Sister O'Dell, Zack, and Jayden:

So that was out Roadblock. It started raining about two hours after we started so we had to close up shop at about 10:00 something. 

Well, the night before our Panhandling, we had a lock in. It was pretty fun. But the best part was when we did a prank on Kody. You see, Tarin and Joshua had to go home early because of work in the morning, and Kody wanted to go home and call his fiance. So at about 2:30 a.m. Me, Michael, Joe, Terah, Katie, and Mom loaded up, went to Kody's house, and rolled and wrapped his new SUV. It was so much fun! :-)Here are the pictures: (sorry about the quality:)

Tee Hee it was so much fun! :-)

Well, I guess that is it. Bye!

~Katie~ <3

Christmas time life plus O'dell funny farm.

Ok, lots to remember. When we first found out that mom and dad were going to Israel, I was happy and really excited for them. Then came the decision on who the kids were going to stay with. The O'Dells offered. My parents agreed. Without giving a thought to what the kids might want or need,the matter was settled. Of course, at the time, I was excited about staying there, but I thought about stuff that might happen and things we might have to do, and by the time they got around to leaving, I was scared out of my wits. For one, things hadn't been going well with me and Terah, and I knew that I was going to miss Mom and Dad. I am not one of those kids who has to be with their parents all the time, in fact, Joe and Sam are the ones like that. I am always Ok with them going somewhere or something like that. But, I have never been that far away from them, nor have they ever gone across seas. I am always a get-er done kind of person. I am not a worrier. Period. Unless my parents go to Israel. That raised some questions. "What if they never come back? What if the plane crashes in the ocean and they cannot be saved? Not only Grandma and Granddaddy, but MY PARENTS are on the stupid plane and here I am with nothing to keep me comfort that they will come back? What if I die while they are gone? What if the O'Dell's house blows up because the boys and Trevor made a bomb and lit it?" Stuff like that kept me worrying before they left and the whole time they were gone. When mama dropped us kids and the last of our stuff of at the house and left to head to Atlanta, me and Joe both cried and got all tore up. That, of course got Sis. O'Dell and Terah into their "Comforting O'Dell Hug maneuver," in which they surround you with a hug that swallows you up completely and I am standing here trying to breath, and I can't because the O'Dell hug last what seems like forever and ever. When they finally let go, Katie Farr is standing there staring at us with wide eyes. I ran off to Joe's room, and he was pacing with the tears streaming down his face, which made me cry more. (I don't know how he does that.) In the end, he was the giving ME the comforting words that I came in to give him. HOW DOES HE ALWAYS DO THAT? I really think that he is the wisest person in the Horne household, no matter how stupid he may act. Well, after church that night some of the guys came over and hung out at the house for a while. When they supposedly left, me and Terah walked out with them. Well, on the way out to their cars, Chris pushed Michael into a MASSIVE pile of leaves that Sam had raked up that afternoon. Well, we ended up having a Youth Group -Katie Farr leaf party. In the midst of that, Joshua heaved Kody into the middle of the pile, (where I was at the moment), and he landed square on my ribs. Oh, you talk about hurt. When eventually we all crawled out of the leaves, I was name the scarecrow of the evening. I mean it. I look at my hair and it has been taken over by about 100 leaves that decided to make my hair their residence. I decided that it wasn't going to be a permanent housing, so after the guys left, I went to the task of getting my poor hair free from the bondage of the leaves. I don't think that my hair had ever looked that bad. And oh, the tangles. Man, there were some tangles. Oh, well. It was well worth it. It was so much fun.
Monday morning we got up and ate Cinnamon rolls, then me, Terah, and her mom all loaded up and did some shopping before going to pick up Katie Farr. Sister O'dell was kind enough to remember that I would be bored at the doctor's office, so she got me a companion. And what a companion. We sat there without hardly saying a word. And Sis O'Dell was right, I was bored out of my senses! There were some things that kept us entertained. before Terah went back to see the doctor, this one old lady stared at us non-stop. We later found out that her name was Carla. After Terah went back to see the Doctor, Carla got mad and was chewing out the receptionist because she was there first. It got pretty hilarious. Other odds and ends happened there that I will NOT go into. They were pretty funny though.
Throughout the 10 days we had the privilege of personal bags of popcorn, Our own 2-liters of soda (out of which we were allowed to drink straight out of, something that we had NEVER done before), and several other things that I am failing to remember at the present moment. One night we were watching a movie during which Sam ate four bags of popcorn and 8 Popsicles. He was found out and could not eat any more, so he chugged out of his 2 liter. I think that Sam enjoyed the O'Dell eating habits more than any of us. Eventually though, I got tired of drinking out of two-liters and switched back to glasses. It was amazing how different the feeling of being a "decent human-being" was.
We did many other memorable things while there, some of which I am not remembering. Others of which are too weird to mention.
Trevor and Cassie came and that got scary. Sam was a troublemaker, and he got beat in all the fights he picked, even by Cassie. Terah had an easy fix to everything he did. Sit on him. It immobilized him. It was a little harder for Cassandra, but she gotter' done. Sam was kind of amazed. Of course, all the O'Dells LOVED Sam for numerous reasons. Terah thought him fun to have pillow fights with. Brother O'Dell enjoyed spending time with him and Joe both. And They ALL loved sam for his stupid comments right at the climax of EVERY movie we watched. They would start to laugh so hard that they almost fell out of their recliners and the movie had to be paused over and over and over, thanks to the little favorite. Of course, their laughing encouraged him, and here he would go and say another thing that wasn't even that funny, but the O'Dell's thought that it was hilarious enough to pause the movie again so that they would have more time allowance for their continuing laughing sessions.
Also we watched Ernest a lot. It was probably our favorite thing to watch. They had never seen Joe laugh so hard, and I had only seen on a few other occasions. It really is a stupid show, but Ernest is so funny that we kept on.
A lot more happened, but there is too much to go into. Now we have to plan for ANOTHER trip, this time to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with Dad's folks. So we have that to look forward to. I probably ought to go now, cause this post is maybe the longest I have ever done and I am tired, and mom is loudly requesting my services in the kitchen. So I will stop now. :-)

~Katie~ <3

Oh, I forgot to mention that Joe's newest description of mom is the "Flaming tornado!" "She sends up a Whirlwind of angry comments! Stay away!" Ha! Of course he does it in his squeaky voice, which makes it all the more funny. :)

Colorado Pictures

I think that I will just post pictures this time. Even though they do not do it justice, I feel that you will enjoy them! Enjoy! :-)

Hope you liked it! :-)

~Katie~