Pictures from my Birthday

Hi there all, this is Kathryn - and, if you haven't heard, I am now sixteen...and just to clarify so I don't have to answer a bunch of questions, no, I am not driving yet, though for my birthday I did receive the booklet "The Rules of the Road" so I can study up. :-)
I had a great birthday and day-after-my-birthday. On my birthday we went to the retirement home as usual and then afterward went out to lunch with our dear friends the Chidlow ladies (thanks for the lovely rose-petal angel food cakes, Em!). Then we all came back to our house and walked the path in our back meadow, went for a row on the pond and did some more one-stroke painting. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the orange cheesecake and flourless chocolate cake infused with hazelnut tea (it was really more like a big slab of RICH fudge) that we brought back from the restaurant...
Then on Friday Opa & Oma came up for the afternoon, and then out for Dad's and my combined birthday dinner at a yummy French restaurant!

Me with Tina & Larry, a sweet, sweet couple at the retirement home

Emily & Me

At lunch (Mom's taking the picture)

Me reading the giant card that Sokea made!

Tara one-stroking grapes

Me one-stroking roses

Now, I won't bore you with a pictorial account of all the lovely gifts I received from family and friends...but here are a couple of very fun ones:

Mom & Dad gave me my OWN camera...my own REALLY NICE camera!!! (It's similar to Mom's, just a newer version - she keeps trying to convince me that MINE is the silver one and HER'S is the black one... it didn't work)

And Opa & Oma gave me their old typewriter which still works!

Oma, Tara, Opa & Me at the French restaurant

Thanks everyone for a great birthday! :-)

Happy Birthday to...

Today we celebrate Kathryn's 16th birthday! She has been a true blessing in the lives of the Yen family! She's such a wonderful daughter, sister, friend...the list goes on! When Kathryn was in the womb, dad was certain that she was going to be a boy, but instead he got a beautiful maiden, who is not in the least bit boyish! We are so thankful that she was born 16 years ago and we look forward to many more years together!
Kathryn, may the Lord bless you and keep you throughout this next year of you life! We love you tons!
Love,
Your family

Below are a few photos of Kathryn through the years!

Awww....how cute!

In Williamsburg, VA

At the Father Daughter Retreat 2006

Kathryn and Wendy

Please wish Kathryn a happy birthday!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today marks the birthday of our very favorite man in the whole world! We are so blessed to have him as our dad (and husband in Mom's case). He's our leader, provider, protector...so many things!











We love you, Dad! Happy Birthday!

Catchup Time! Part 2

The last post would have been waaaayyyy too long if I had included this post with it! On April 7th we had our friends, the Chidlows, to celebrate Sokea's 10th birthday. Wait a minute...has it really been 8 years since they adopted her from Cambodia? I can still remember her teaching me "The Look"! I will have to find a picture of that for you all to see sometime! Anyhow...she turned ten today, but we had a "early" celebration. We all had a TON of fun...that is, except two of us while doing one of the activities, and it lasted until pretty late at night! Here are some pictures of our fun day!

Happy Birthday Sokea! We love you!

Here we are painting flower pots.

We taught Sokea and Emily how to do one stroke painting and they promptly went to the craft store and got some supplies!

Lookin' good!

Monopoly!

I think you can see how this game turned out!
(Note: Emily and Kathryn really don't like Monopoly, while Sokea and I really do!)

Time for PRESENTS!!!
(She got a journal, a homemade patchwork pillow, a homemade doll dress, and an embroidered handkerchief).

We ended the night with a pizza/movie dinner and, of course, cake. Sadly, the homemade pizza kind of fell apart in the oven, so we had to quickly order Rosati's instead. The cake, however, with the movie turned out perfect as her movie of choice was National Velvet - which is a horse movie!

Thanks so much for spending the day with us, Chidlows! We had a great time!

Please wish Sokea a happy birthday!

Catchup Time!

Well...seems like this blog needs an update on what's been going on at the Yen household! Dad's been pretty crazy at work and we are not sure how long the busy time will last. Mom stays on her heels with Noah's Ark stuff...there is always something going on with that! Kathryn continues to run Maidens of Virtue, which, I might add, is having a poetry contest, and recently opened The Purrkins & Pit-Pat Website, where she sells her book and tells about how it came about, etc. She is also looking into entering a Family Fun Story Contest that she found on Robyn's blog. I am busy with my music and sewing and stuff. I am currently experimenting with the mandolin and flute for music as well as piano, and I might be doing my first performance as an accompanist with my friend, Emily, who is a singer!
We had the privilege of attending the Liberty Day conference and celebration back in March which was hosted by the Erber family. All I can say is that whoever missed it this year missed a great day! You better come next year! We only got a few pictures from the evening, but enjoy what we did get!

Zach Lautenschlager

The Fiddlers' Three

Our army men showing us their drills

Dancing!

Friends!
(Kathryn and Emily have known each other ever since they were 3 and 4)

From left to right: Sokea, Tara, Kathryn and Emily in our "matching" costumes!

It was a wonderful evening!

Signs of Spring

• The ducks are back

• The forecast predicts 47 to 57 degrees all week

• The twitter of birds is heard all day

• The tulips are coming up

• Everything is budding

• We had our first thunderstorm the other day

• We have the option to row on the pond once again

• And last but CERTAINLY not least, there was a golfer ON FOOT playing golf today!!!

It MUST be Spring!

Garden Plans!

Through the years we have always talked about planting a garden and never really got serious about it. This year I decided that, with prices going up and such, our grocery bill was something that we could cut down on by taking our garden seriously. So I set about working on garden plans. I began collecting and drying seeds and then drew out our gardens on paper and wrote in where all the veggies/fruits would go in the garden.





Just a few days ago we started our seeds and today we saw some sprouts!





It's amazing what can grow from a little seed! Praise the Lord for His wonderful creations!