JV conference was really great this year. It felt really family-like for some reason, and I guess that's the way it should be! We ate lots of good food and spent a lot of time just talking and hanging out. Here's me and my cousin, Luke! He's a very serious little guy!


Caleb, Hannah and I also led worship on Friday and Saturday night for everyone. It was really fun because we got to sing some of my favorite English songs!



This was also the last conference for the Anderson family. I had a great time with Corey and we'll miss them all!

Another hobby-like activity (which also happens to be Lord of the Rings) is a game called Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. I've played it ever since it was launched in May, and it's really fun! It's a Massively Multiplaying Online Role-Playing Game (or MMORPG) and that means that I'm playing with tons of other people from all over the world. Together we do different quests and save Middle-Earth from evil. I just reached level 33, and I'm very happy!

Yesterday I stumbled upon an Ent (I think)...here's a screenshot!


By the way, my guy's name is Thilios, and he's a dwarf hunter. He's very awesome. Right now he's being followed by some evil creature which I didn't want to fight! =)

This year for the Talent Show here at Thanksgiving JV conference, I did a song called More Than Fine by my favorite band, Switchfoot. Thanks to Aunt Kristi for taping and Alice for getting it all ready for me! Enjoy!

I got sick on Wednesday so I was home for a couple of days...and I got some painting done!


I also stripped the paint off a couple older figures today, they're looking nice and shiny now! I plan to go for a more unified color scheme of my dwarf army now, as you can see from the two dwarves above.

JV Thanksgiving conference starts tomorrow...

I have realized some very interesting things today!

1. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is not as evil as it at first looks. It might even be fun! Once I get past the initial stage of learning code and figuring how it all fits together at least.

2. Some pumpkin carvers are really really really really really really good.


3. Tuesdays seem considerably longer when I don't take a four hour nap.

4. It seems that with every new design project I do, I learn something new. It means that hopefully no design is the same, and I like it like that. I hate redundancy in things like this.

Anyway, I have another customer for blog design. It will be a secret for little while (just cuz!) and once it's done there will be a parade and a big unveiling.

Now I have to go do......something. (Any ideas? Hmmm...)

Oh, and did you notice the new look??

Some highlights from the past few weeks:

Nicholas and Zachary's birthday party in the beginning of October was a sure highlight. We spent most of the day playing the Lord of the Rings figures strategy game. One way to make the games extra interesting is by having a "scenario" or "scenery". About two months ago I decided I wanted to do something special for Nicholas and Zachary, and here is what I and Caleb came up with! We all had fun defeating each other in battles atop Amon Sul (or Weathertop)! And of course I really enjoyed making it! Just in case anyone was wondering, most of it is made with styrofoam and then coated with a sort of plaster substance to give it texture and firmness. Then a black base coat and many drybrushes later, voila!





























another highlight was a few weeks later when Nathan Pitcher invited us over for dinner! We enjoyed his cooking very much - some of the best chicken noodle soup ever and for sure the best chocolate chip cream cheese bars! We plan to return very soon.














On Friday and Saturday 10 people from our youth group went to a thing called PDT (in czech Pracovni Den Tymu) which is basically two days of seminars and opportunities to build and connect with your team. It was a great time. Me, Caleb and our youth group leader, Boza, led worship and it was the most fun I've had in a while. Everyone there was so open to worshipping, it was a great experience.

For those of you who happen to read my blog and haven't heard of the band Angels and Airwaves - they're amazing. Just though i'd let you all know! They just released their second album (I-Empire), and I can't seem to get enough of it. A&A would probably be classified as alternative rock, but they're very artistic with their music, unlike a lot of bands these days who focus on volume. In the words of their first single of the new album - "Everything's magic."

While dad was in the States a couple weeks ago he got to go to a Passion concert, and even pray together with Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio! But anyway, he brought me back a book from there - Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven, But Nobody Wants To Die by David Crowder, and it's probably one of my favorite books of all time. It's very deep, and yet funny and spontaneous. Really well written.

On a different subject, I have a class in HTML at school this year, and so I've been testing my skills by designing blogs! Be sure to visit Nathan's blog at nathanpitcher.blogspot.com to see what I can do (and be entertained by the one and only NP)! Hopefully I'll get around to fixing my own blog up a bit someday...

Thanks for reading! Till next time!