a blizzard ball

my first church dance


and it was amazing.

thanks for all the amazing guys that danced with me and the great conversations. i had the oppurtunity to dance with several of the young men from my ward: tyler, trey, and conner; as well as some that aren't: trey and rand/y. we had a lot of fun and got to talk alot about themselves and whats going on... :)

all in all im soo excited for the next one and am still in a la-la land over it.

the only sad thing is that kelsey was sick and was unable to attend which means that the bet didnt go through. but we are all holding through until the next one. hopefully........

christmas

the christmas loot this year was light but for good purposes. we did a "12 days of christmas"/secret santa to a family that is soo much more in need then we are. i ended up getting a sporting bag, a vest, a new purse, new shirt, candy and some gift money, a new book. the family got some new movies and a NEW LAPTOP! soo excited for it.

i am more grateful for the oppurtunity to celebrate the birth of our Savior and spend such great time to family and friends. some of our friends came over for dinner and we watched one of our new movies: "harry potter and the half-blood prince"!! :)

happy new years and a merry christmas!

one day until christmas

one day until Christmas means that its my dad's birthday!!

yeah!! which also means the agony of waiting for Christmas is almost over. thank goodness.

my parents having been feeling well so I'm glad that he was feeling better for his birthday. who wants to be sick on their birthday? NO ONE!!

my dad got some underwear (apparently "its some times better to get what you need instead of what you want for your birthday". that what they think...), a shirt, a tie, and a new pair of sketchers. not a bad birthday, minus the underwear... lol

I'm excited for the holidays to finally be here because it means my first church dance. and obviously its going to be fun... :)

how did you spend your dash?

ok so this doesnt have anything to do with christmas, but i was looking through my inbox on my email, and this was still there: "the dash means everything". so i looked at it, and it was very touching to read through it again. doesn't hurt anyone to read something touching...

http://www.dashpoemmovie.com/

read it, it doesnt take more than a two minutes

2 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!! :)

YES!!! :)

4 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

christmas spirit

last winter, our young women's leader gave us an empty quart size jar and a book titled a christmas jar. she told us that throughout the year we needed to fill the jar with spare change and at christmas this year, we would go and buy something for a needy family with the money within. so thats exactly what we did. every girl filled a quart size jar at least half full of change and then one of our leaders collected them and took the heavy bag to the bank to be cashed. over $500 in change and small bills was collected. (fyi, thats a lot of money to spend on clothes and little girl toys).



two weeks ago on Wednesday, we went as a young women group to spend all this money on a less-fortunate family in our ward. a 17 year old boy, a 7 year old girl, a 4 year old girl, and an 18 month old girl, and a mother. we split up and bought gifts for them all. a cute little sweater and shirt dress combo for the little 7 year old with a polly pocket's set; three adorable outfits w/ another polly pocket set for the 4 year old; diapers (a mother's necessity), baby keys, and two cute outfits for the baby; a very modest and slimming sweater dress for the mother, and a huge, heavy jacket for the 17 year old. we had a lot of fun hunting for the perfect gifts within our price range. lots and lots of fun. so much fun, that it is now a tradition within our young women's group... :)

the really cool thing is that we donated the gifts to the family anonymously through our bishop. soo cool. the family was so grateful and i cant wait to hear about the excitement.

the break has begun!! YES!! :)

the break has begun! finally!!!!! i thought it would never come... but now it has. the great thing about christmas break, is no one cares what you look like until like noon. so frankly, i am sitting here in my pjs frankly out of boredom and laziness. thank goodness for holiday breaks.

update

snow has fallen since my last post and i'm rather sad i didnt get to play in it. i was too busy delivering fruit that came in to do anything about it. but the snowman that my dad and siblings built was quite impressive. but we had lots of fun sorting the mixed boxes of fruit out and particapating in the organized chaos.

the school term is almost over (one more "half day" of finals) and then i am free for a couple of weeks! which also means CHRISTMAS IS A WEEK AND TWO DAYS AWAY!!! :) hallielujgh! if it weren't so soon, i think i might hav killed myself. i made cookies for all my friends and there ended up being nine cookies left of four dozen. ten went to two teachers (five each) and the others i handed out to my multitude of friends: like 14 at the final count. and those are just the people at my school. not including my church friends. those come later....

yes i'll miss talking to cameron in the morning with anna and garrett, and yes ill miss mrs. everett and business principles, but i wont miss mrs. ensley and the devil teacher mrs. johnson... >:( but i cant wait to get new classes and hang out with my other friends. :) yeah!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! O:)

Washington, D.C. Here We Come! :)

So for Thanksgiving we rode up to Alexandria, Virginia, a half hour Metro ride into The Mall of DC. Lots of things happened over Thanksgiving break:

I got signed out school early on Tuesday so we could spend all but two hours left in the day, on the interstate driving north to Alexandria. We got lunch at McDonald's, stopped at Wal-Mart for a bathroom break and a splitter for the cigarette lighter, and then hit the road. A half hour stop at Bristol for bathroom breaks and the installment of the movie player and a forty-five minute dinner break at Taco Bell were the only stops we made that entire trip! That was quite the accomplishment for all of us. We got on to the base around 10:30 pm and i felt like a stalker as i crept into the house. Because they have small kids, our cousins were fast asleep when we got there.

Next morning, i was woken up around five am by my brother saying "i hear them! I hear them!" in my ear. I tried to convince him to roll over and go back to sleep and i think he finally did. Everyone was up and running by seven am though. The Maloney's had a half day of school, so we went literally down the street to Mount Vernon:


The family in front of statues of the Washington family

The family in front of Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon

We had a couple of kids fall asleep out of exhaustion and boredom.

The family in front of the Potomac River

Thanksgiving was spent with the cousins and Bob's father, Bob, Sr. we had lots of good food like turkey, stuffing, bean casserole, jello salad, yogurt salad, rolls, and yams (yuk!). We had lots of fun though and we grew a lot closer together through conversation.

Friday and Saturday we went to Washington D.C. and saw all the tourist traps.

Korean War Memorial

Russell sitting on the Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

President Abraham Lincoln

The family outside of the Capital building

I can't believe I got dragged into this….

Robby Russell Christian

The engineer inside of him is definitely present and totally into this visit

The natural history museum

The freezing family in front of the Vietnam Wall

The military man and one of his exhausted sons

The family in front of the monument

Quick tourist fact: The line in the middle of the Washington Monument is present because that is where the construction was halted during the Civil War. When the War was over, they went back to the same mine to resume building and when they went back, the stone had cured more, hence making the darker color. And that is why there is a line about a third of the way up the Washington Monument.

The tourists are happy… ;)

I wonder if we can push it over…?

The family in front of the Declaration of Independence Memorial Pool and the Washington Monument

Holy toleetoe! That's really high!

These are pretty self explanatory

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Metro Rides were a lot of fun, and they were perfect opportunities for a short cat nap, that is if you were facing the way that the train was going.

Sunday was the day we drove home. Sad day… :( I look forward to seeing them again, but you never know with military families where they will be next year…

winning streak brought to abrupt halt

an abrupt halt it was, thats for sure. maryville brought thier game yesterday and won. 35-15 rebels was the final score. sad, sad day. after half time, idk if farragut got sloppy, or if the refs just started calling things to allow maryville to win, but there were several flags thrown over our plays. now i know how it feels to be cheering for a losing team... :( no fun. maryville's first touchdown of the fourth quarter was made through an interception, from none other than reese browning, on our 25, all the way to their in zone. the guy slipped through like four guys' tackles and got the touchdown. so they kicked the ball off, we missed it, we set it up on thier 20 yard line. we start the play and make it to our in zone, but one of the refs had thrown a flag and made the touchdown invalid. stinkin' refs. after that, at least four more flags were thrown on our plays. but none on ANY of maryville's. me and some friends counted at least four plays that should have been flagged, but b/c the refs were biased, they left maryville to themselves.

i did well as far as work and the show goes. we did another stand still performance, and i think we all did very well, band and guard and majorettes. during the first quarter, the drum majors handed us tickets to redeem a drink later on. i chose to get hot chocolate just b/c i was a little cold. the hot chocolate definitely held to its name. my tongue is now burnt in several places and it hurts to play clarinet, eat, or even to swipe across my teeth. it going to be a long healing process...

football as of late

so i havent had the time to blog a whole lot lately. school, band, and all that jazz we have to call life.

the overview of the season has gone as so:
maryville: took pep band b/c of costs score: 35-32 maryville
lenior city: theres a story with this one:

the visitor stands at lenior city are weird. they go up several more rows on one side and then the other only has like 5 rows or so. because of this odd arrangement, some of the lower brass and woodwinds ended up closer to the guard then to the band. i was in the back corner, so i had turned around to talk to some of the band members and socialize. during a song, i always turned forward and participated in the school spirit. so later on in the game, after half time, i was turned around talking to the band members and when i turned back around, i got yelled at for being outside my section. needless to say i was not happy with this because these less than uplifting words were not coming from a captain's, band director's, or instructor's mouth; they were coming from a sophomore that is very much a control freak. me and her are not the best of friends and often find faults in each others lives. other than that little miss-fit i did very well and didn't forget any work or drop to my memory. the football team dominated and one of my friends actually score the final extra point to make the grand score 42-7 admirals

william-blount was the next opponent. we dominated and ended up winning 45-0.

oh then the play offs started!! woo hoo!

ooltewah was the first rounds opponent. when we arrived we were "welcomed" with a sign below the score board that read "HEY ADMIRALS, THE COWBOYS WANT THEIR UNIFORMS BACK!" (we actually didn't steal the star from them, we have the rights to use it unlike another school in this county *cough*carter*cough*). then the football team decided to run through a banner with the scores from last years games. both of which ooltewah had won. but heres the catch, ooltewah lost their star running back because of injuries i do believe, and we had beat them in the scrimmage WITH him. so i was pretty confident in our winning ability. the band was not performing at all, and so the guard was allowed to wear whatever! woo hoo!!! of course it was cold so we all layered like three times over. we of course whooped their butts: 24-7 admirals.

then of course the bearden game.
and the maryville game is yet to come.

bearden vs. farragut= huge rivalry...

so the football team has quite the rivalry going with bearden. two days before the big game, three idiots decided to vandalize the bearden football field and facilities. those three nincompoops got their fat butts landed in jail. two of them were eighteen so guess where they got to go: real grown up boy jail. the third was put in juvenile b/c of his age. one of the guys, i dont remember who, had to spend a couple of days in jail/juvenile because his parents were in europe and refused to pay his bail. they pretty much said, "you got yourself in this mess, you can suffer the consequences". haha sucker! then all three had to be escorted into bearden and had to publically apologize to the entire student body! woo hoo, you talk about punishment!! then much to my horror, our sga president had to get up and speak as well. poor kid. it wasn't even his doing and he got pulled into it.

do you want to know how the three guys were found out:
a) they left a spray can there
b)they left a receipt in the bag in a trash can
c)one of them was stupid enough to write his number somewhere
d) they were reckless and stupid in their acts and BOASTED about it!!
(the complete idiots, i dont know what happened to them, but im pretty sure it wasn't pretty...)

the band went to the game on friday, but because of rainy weather they postponed it until saturday. unfortunately that was the day we had our first competition in greenville. so we didnt go to see the end of the football game.

and of course we dominated the field and pulled away in the lead! 48-17 was the final score. DOMINATION!! GO FARRAGUT!


well then this past week we played them again. we beat them by one touchdown: 10-3. we played very well i thought and now we go on to play maryville in the next round this friday!!! WOO HOO! GO FARRAGUT!!

clean out your medicine cabinets!

this morning, my mom decided that she needed to clean the cabinets next to and over the fridge out. i was assigned to help her and as we were cleaning out the medicine cabinet, i started looking at expiration dates and pitching the ones that had expired in a plastic bad to pour down the toilet. turns out that 7/8 of the cabinet was expired prescription and over-the-counter drugs. the oldest one i found was from 8-1999. ten years ago! we've moved twice in those ten years and never once has my mother even thought to throw them out.

i looked at her and said "mom, you realize that this expired like ten years ago, right?"
she responded with "just throw it out." and an eye roll.

i guess old habits die hard.

Farragut and UT Football

first things first: the ut/gator game was a pitiful excuse for a game. come on: 18-8. for all the times we were near the end zone, we should have made a touchdown. and if we had done that, we would have beat the gators. boo gator boo!

next thing: farragut football!! farragut vs. west at west. we beat west by ten points 26-6. because of a thunderstorm that was rolling in, they delayed the game at least an hour. they started the game, but after a couple of plays, lightning was spotted, so they had to pause the game. the band ended up in the auditorium (nice auditorium, not so hot bathrooms). but i have to tell you a story about our uniforms:

when we left the high school shortly before six, it was sprinkling, so mr. rogers said that we would be going in summer band uniforms (t-shirt and khakis) and we would bring our normal uniforms just in case. guard decided that we would keep our leotards on and wear the uniform over top the leotard. so when we GOT to west, we were informed by our captains that we were going to have to take our leotards OFF! and just wear the band uniform. but here's the catch: we weren't allowed to leave the bus. we were to change, with guys on the bus, into just the summer uniform. needless to say, there weren't to many girls happy about that fact, so we ended up wearing the leotard and the summer uniform.

again, we failed to do our entire show, but we didn't even march the show because half time was so short. we stood in concert set and performed our first and last song. pretty much none of our work with the last song was together because not everyone knew the correct counts. needless to say, it looked pretty terrible. the third song at least.

FOOTBALL!!

OK, so in the past three days, there have been two major football games, that i have attended: the Farragut vs. catholic game, and the university of Tennessee vs. western Kentucky university. both huge games. the Farragut game was on Thursday and let me just say that we left those Irish men in the dust. 20-12 was the final score with some really good plays. (for the entire details, Farragut has a really good article on it: http://www.farragutpress.com/articles/2009/09/11161.html) we didn't do all of our show again, partially because we don't know all of our charts. but we are working on it.

the UT/ western Kentucky game was a piece of cake. western Kentucky is ranked right now, 120 out of 120. that's pretty sad. but we beat them, so no problems. 63-7 was the final score UT. i was serving the mini-melts and they didn't sell too well for us. i don't know what it was about them, they just didn't sell.

both games were awesome, but the Farragut game was more fun.

another football game

this football game was an away game at oak ridge. the bus ride was fun because we played band shoes and then slaps. we sang along to a couple of songs until Mrs. Lewis came and repremended us for interrupting a conversation. she pretty much told us if she heard us again that we would have a silent bus.

it was different not being the home team and not knowing where to go, but i had a good time. we mingled a little with the oak ridge band and i got to know a couple of band members better. both oak ridge and we performed our half time shows but i did not have the pleasure of seeing it very well. i didnt drop my flag and was in the right spot all of the time. we learned some new work this past week and i was a little late on some of the work, but not all of it. farragut beat oak ridge 32-7.

the bus ride back was quieter, but we still got yelled at for being very loud: the guys were playing various versions of the game slaps. some of the many hand positions were facing up and down, facing sideways, two fingers agianst the inside of your wrist right on top of the vein, and 6 inches away from your bicep. all versions were quite painful and made your palms red and stinging. it was 11:30 before i crawled into bed last night and i was exhausted too.

FARRAGUT FOOTBALL IS FINALLY HERE!

its football time in FARRAGUT! woo hoo! our first football game was last week and it was a lot of fun! we, the band, had to be at the high school an hour and a half before kick off. in that hour and a half, the band performed the show standing still in the Garden (a special memorial garden for a student that passed away in a car accident), marched down to the field, and polished all brass instruments. its rather interesting when you walk into the band room after the brass has been polished; it smells funky, and the corner by the closet has a dusty haze to it. but we have good times in that room. the guard had time to set a couple of flag situations straight and continue a couple of traditions: a promise, a prayer, a couple of warm-ups, and a home game tradition: boom chicka boom. good times, good times. then because we are the home team, we had the honor of playing the National Anthem, and performing the huge "F" that the football players run through. we played a couple of stand tunes during the first and fourth quarter. some of my favorites are: the dance of 1000 waters ("...why are you so blue? is it because your number 2? because we're number 1! woo!); everybody dance now; go, fight, win; and another one that i cant remember the name. the guard and majorettes have a dance to each of the stand tunes that the band will play and they all are hilarious. during half time, we performed our show. it was a lot of fun and i remembered all of my spots and work. DB didn't bring a marching band, just a prep band. their band program is HUGE (easily over 500 students total) and their pep band was as big as our marching band. farragut ended up winning against dobyn-bennett high school 29-7.

not the s-c-h-o-o-l word again!

the summer is finally coming to an end and it didn't help knowing that i just had a back to school party last night. we watched the pink panther 2, it wasn't as good as the first one, but it was still funny. once we finished with the movie we played the lap game and would you rather. after one of the girls got asked a rather "personal question" (would you rather kiss said boy or another said boy?), we were all shocked by her answer, so the game fell into more of a gossip time... my favorite! jk! we had a lot of fun, and my parents said we could have one every month as long as we kept our grades up and we weren't interfering with any of their plans. we have fun with our little get-together/gossip times. we had to make a rule not to use phones unless they were for contacting your parents. if you were caught, your inbox was to be read by everyone. a very useful rule that we really didn't enforce too well.

back to school means back to sitting in a desk and using lockers, and back to hearing about other people's boyfriend/girl friend drama. not always the most uplifting things. but I'm kind of known as the therapist for that kind of stuff and i am better at it than some other alternatives. I'll be attending the local high school and i really can't wait. i enjoy color guard and the band's half time show looks good for only worked 56 hours on it. my first football game is a week from tomorrow and I'm kind of nervous. i know the routines, just not up to the extreme tempo.

school starts in 4 days and i haven't finished reading my summer reading books and i don't have any school supplies ready. i feel so unprepared. freshman orientation is tomorrow, so hopefully I'll feel more prepared after that.

band camp! :(

band camp is officially the worst part of summer. apart from the great tan i have (minus the sock tan), it was brutal. i now have a bunch more upperclassmen friends and have a greater understanding of the advice "never eat dairy before going out and spending all day outside in the sun". (believe you me, it is not a good idea to eat dairy and then spend 6 hours outside in the 97 degree heat. you WILL see that meal again.) i had fun and have learned a lot. i hopefully won't forget that all at the performance in less than 2 hours. eek! but i can sort of breathe, its for the parents only and its in the junior parking lot, not the football stadium.

mr. rogers decided to allow us to have a dance last night. we danced nonstop for three hours right in front of the DJ, aka the speaker. when i got home and laid in bed, i heard a distinct ringing in my ears and could hardly hear my own normal voice. sad, i know. but that is what happens when you are having so much fun dancing right up front with the speakers.

i now have a golden tan with the exception of my feet, and look like i went to the beach for two weeks this summer (which is a total lie... sshh). next week is the only other down week before summer ends and school begins *tear*. that also means that i have 7 days to finish the rest of Lord of the Flies and the entire book of How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Fun and Lively Guide to Reading In Between the Lines. ugh!

girl's camp and the final swim meet

first things first again. the final swim meet. *tear* not really. it was against West Side YMCA this time. They don't have as many boys as we do but they definitely have more tiny kids than we do. i enjoyed swimming only three things because the meet got cut short. See the thing is that WSY doesn't have lights that work at their pool, so once the lifeguards can't see the bottom the pool anymore, the meet gets called. the funny thing is that Hannah b., one of my friends, Sharon, and i all said that as soon as we got out of the water or up to the block that the meet was going to be called. guess what happened... as soon as we got onto the block, the announcer said, last event! so so so not fair! but get this: we were talking before we lined up about swimming butterfly and i jokingly said that i was going to drowned. the funny thing is, that Hannah b. jokingly said back: "who would you like to be your saving mouth?" i said seriously, "your man's brother." she gave me a funny look for a second, then understood. then the look got even weirder because she was thinking about it. see, Hannah g. has a crush on her man's brother. and Hannah b.'s man's brother has a crush on Hannah g. awkward for me! guess i got to find a new man... fast! the other events i swam that night were free, back, and i would have swam the 15-18 relay, but they called it before the meet was over. we ended up losing by 107 points! but they had a bunch of little kids and all of our eight and under boys were getting DQ'ed because they would flip onto their stomachs and finish their back there, instead of their backs. like they were supposed to. most of the team went to the Sonic right down the road from the pool, but seeing how me and Rachel had to be at the church at 6:45 AM the next day, Mom and Dad figured it not a good idea to push the time restraints.



so, moving on:





girls camp, ah! the fun time of the summer! the only time that i have to myself WITHOUT too many men around. this year it was stake, which means there were several girls there from our area, but just go to a different church building. we had to be at our church at 6:45 that morning because we needed to be at camp by 10 AM. its about a 2 hour drive to Pickett State Park where we stayed. so, by 9:30ish, we were at camp and checked in. So, this was Wednesday. That day we sang Little Sally Walker a ba-gillion times and then proceeded to sing other camp songs like Mormon Boy, Mormon Girl, Sippin' Cider, Three Starving Buzzards, and many more. Around 10:30 PM, we loaded up into cars to on a hike to see glow worm larvae. as we started our descent into the cave, one of the girls (Leslie) slipped, fell and ended up breaking her ankle. the amazing thing is, is that her twin sister, Leah, was in the front while Leslie was in the back. right before Leslie screamed in pain, Leah yelled her name and ran back to catch her, I guess. the leaders helped her up and took her back to camp. the rest of us continued on our hike to see these fluorescent insects. the funny thing was that you couldn't look straight at the larvae, you kind of had to use your peripheral vision. it was around 2 am before our cabin fell asleep that night, partially because we were all freaked out about Leslie and because it was the first night of camp, who isn't excited?

the rest of girls camp wasn't as exciting as that. allie got glow stick glass and glowy stuff in her eye, brooke twisted her ankle on the swing, and me and hannah b. practically cried our eyes out during testimony meeting. we had fun teaching the younger girls about gawking and staying up late with our YCL's talking in our cabin.



the next day continued, I guess, and 7:30 am when the leaders came into our cabin and declared that we needed to be in the mess hall in a half hour for breakfast.

4th of July!!

Wooo Hoo! The 4th of July! Bring on the fireworks, food, and fun!!



The day started out quite early at 7 o'clock. I need to be at the high school at 8:15 am for a quick warm-up and to line-up. I ended up in the second to last row, but I had fun. The worst part of the entire parade was the lag time between each cadence and Anchors Aweigh. I saw several families on the way to the old Ingles and on the walk back to my parents. Let's see: Cruz's, Hick's, my family, Keinzl's, Miller's, William's, Walter's, and a whole lot more! Thanks so much for coming or noticing that I was there!

After we got back to the house, we grabbed a few things, took a quick power nap and headed over to a friends, the Giacalone's. Rhere were several families there at one point: Giacalone's, Graves's, Bass's, Christiansen's, Phillips's, Vaughn's, Ebbert's, and Ebbert's. (Yes, there were to families there with the same last name. The men are brothers.) We had a huge barbecue, slipping slide, and quite the display of fireworks. One of the fireworks we did exploded out of the bottom and most of them did NOT end up in the sky. The Giacalone's home and their three neighbors' make kind of a square. We were located at the bottom right hand corner of that square, with the fireworks shooting out from the middle of that square. I was scared that one of the fireworks was going to go through the window and set something inside on fire. Luckily nothing of that sort happened.

All in all, the day was quite tiring, but I had oodles of fun, and can't wait for the next 4th!

swim meet #4

this swim meet was not as impressive as the others. although i was not late to the meet, only 3 of my 5 events counted for points. for the first time this season, i was in the freestyle. i got 2 of 3 people swimming. then i swam in the A Medley Relay team. hannah, lauren, gabby, and me were the lucky girlies swimming it. Lauren swam backstroke, I swam breast, Hannah swam butterfly, and Gabby of course swam free. We would have gotten first, but the girl swimming against Hannah had a really professional stroke. I swam the backstroke against Lauren. She got first in that event as well, but it was close. Breast stroke was a disaster. I was so close to getting second, but it didn't end up happening. I was past up during my flip turn. I was supposed to be done after that, but right before the relays, my coach asked me what heat i was in for my free. I told him second and he surprised me: "Do the 15-18 relay." I was not impressed, but i didn't really have a choice. We weren't supposed to have competition, but it ended up that they moved two girls up and had them swim with their 15-18 girls. Again we got second. In case of time, our 15-18 boys swam with us, and our coach was not happy with them. two of them did breast and Kristyn was not impressed with that.

but one of the funny things about the meet, was that one of the 15-18 boys is a total ball of fun, and asked me to cheer for him as princess, not by his name. so i called him princess, and i felt funny to be calling him a princess, but he got a kick out of it, and he would cheer for me as princess, so our little joke now is princess.... ahh!

Sony Walkman's 30th Birthday

Sony Walkman celebrated its 30th birthday on July 1st, 2009. It was first released in Japan on July 1st, 1979. Seeing how I am a happy owner of the updated Walkman, I thought I would give Sony its well deserved way to go! It is the only music player that I could tolerate. I had a small 2 GB San Disk, but it was tiny and on more than one occasion, I had lost it! But last Christmas, Santa treated me to my Walkman. The only problems I have had with is the earphones blew out on one side. But other than that, I love it!!!!!



To read an article about what one 13-year old did, press the link below:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BU2618GKE7.DTL&nopu=1

babysitting

okay, because of the sad shape the economy is in, i find that i have had no source of income for over 3 months now. quite sad. but last night a miracle happened: sister richman called me and asked for a babysitter. i almost cried i was so excited. miles is their oldest son and seeing how their younger son is barely a month old, they took him to a company dinner. during the 3 and a half hours i was at their home, miles had a bowl of cereal for dinner (you should have seen the look on his face when his mom said if he was hungry he could have a bowl), i read an hour and a half worth of books to him, and picked up the almost spotless home. miles is barely 4 and he is a sweetheart. he looks just like his daddy and because of his love for children's movies, his favorite thing to do right now is dance. more specifically, break dance. "happy feet" has been his latest find, and it was funny to see some of the moves he has created. such a talented young boy, but i must warn you. proceed with caution when he is dancing. it could be fatal. :)

another swim meet down

OK, let us start where we left off...

color guard is once a week, Thursday evenings. because our latest meet was yesterday (a Thursday, for those of us who don't keep track of the days), i missed the first part of the meet. i barely missed the 13-14 medley relay. i would have made it, had my dad picked me up on time. he was supposed to pick me up at 7:30, but i guess it spaced his mind, because i called him at 8 and asked him to kindly come pick me up. i swam in the breaststroke again, but unfortunately, i did not get first. i got second to a foreign exchange student from Thailand, very cool. I then proceeded to swim the butterfly. ugh... the worst stroke invented by far. although there are those who look amazing swimming that stroke, i am not one of those blessed few. i got third to fellow swimmer Hannah Becker and "Thailand", as she will be now be known as. I also got the chance to swim in the free relay. Our team was B again, but we improved our time tremendously. Kelsey Kah, Lauren Meek, Elisa Carrasco, and I swam an 2:23.81 . not quite as impressive as the 15-18 boys relay, but still well swam. I was first leg again, and got us in a pretty good spot, but unfortunately the other teams had some pretty fast swimmers. we placed 3rd, but that wasn't last! our team ended up winning the meet by 36 points: Beaver Brook Country Club: 338, View Harbour: 374. our coach was very impressed by our win, because apparently in the first half of the meet, there were careless DQ's made. all together though, i think we did quite well.



Just as an FYI: Farragut High School is marching in the Independence Day Parade on July 4th on Kingston Pike.

swim meets

swim meets are always fun. the screaming for your teammates. seeing friends swim their hearts out, and of course... the competition. we had a swim meet on the 9th: first one of the swimming season and we whooped the team's can. the final score was some 376 to 304. i swam the 200 medley relay with Lauren, Kelsey, and Elisa... i ended up swimming the butterfly not the breast :[ our relay placed 2nd to our "sisters" Relay A. then the 50 backstroke, 1st to my "sister" Kelsey... she's like almost 6 feet tall, so this was a major accomplishment! i swam the 50 breaststroke after back, and the amazing thing is, i didn't place last! i got 1st to someone else... i think it was Allie ??? then i swam in the free relay. 1st leg!! relay b, though. we placed 2nd though! yeah!! AJCC was such a small team and it was super easy to kick that can behind us.

now, last night we had a swim meet again against Northside YMCA. they are a little bit heavier in the older kid department, so they won by 71 points. i was supposed to swim the medley relay, back, breast, and the free relay. but one of our 13-14 girls (*cough* *Kelsey* *cough*) didn't show up, so we had to scratch our second 13-14 relay. so i only swam 2 events: back and breast. my breast i know was terrible and Allie's mom said it was hard to see who touched first... me or Allie? i guess we will see tomorrow. my backstroke wasn't the best, but i wasn't dead last!! more later about what ribbons i got!! :)

summer, summer, aah! summer!

summer is so amazing! no school, no homework, and you can do anything, anytime, anywhere all with a simple question: please? right?? well, my mother and father have taken the liberty this year of installing a chores list. and it is so laborious. i hate it! cleaning up a room until its spotless, vacuuming that room three times a week, playing the piano for 30 minutes a day, and then helping with meals. and if you don't do those chores, you get punishment jobs! ugh!! :( not really fair, but that is what my parents decided best for us to do this summer.

but i didn't write this post to complain. i wrote it to describe the relaxed life my summer is after i take care of my chores: swim team at a bright and early 9:45 am! then swim for an hour and 15 minutes. in that hour and 15 minutes, get yelled at to do a perfect stroke, then work at that stroke forever, trying to get to LOOK perfect. then climb the huge hill to our house and get dressed for the day. this is where i usually do my chores and have lunch. then i either veg in front of the TV, play on the computer, or go down to the pool and hangout with some friends from the neighborhood. then around 5, i help with dinner and get it in the oven. then i eat dinner, clean up the house, get the younger siblings ready for bed, send them to bed, then hangout with my parents until they kick me upstairs into my room. around this time, its like 8:45 at the earliest and i have recovered my sleepy self.

i just got burned!

for memorial day, my family went out on the boat with some friends the Langfords. i usually don't sunburn, i USUALLY tan. so i decided, no i won't put any sunscreen on, we'll only be out for a couple of hours anyway. so here i was, no sunscreen, and laying out in the sun holding a child while in Tennessee. what a dunce i was. needless to say, i am now sunburned from my shoulders all the way down my arms, and all the way from my hips to my ankles on my legs. i can hardly move my shoulders it hurts that much. i guess i got what i deserve.

aah! the great outdoors

we had the privilege of going to the mountains this past weekend with some friends and had a lot of fun. Friday we drove over to north Carolina and set up camp in a campsite in one of the many campgrounds there just outside of Asheville. dinner was dutch oven chicken and baked potatoes! um, um gud!! i wasn't feeling so hot, so i turned in for bed around 9.

the next day was an early riser, because i woke up with my sister's knee in my back and my face pressed up against the tent. definitely not the most comfortable spot in the world. breakfast was baggie omelets (not to terrible, but they take forever! to cook). then we dispersed to dress and get ready for the day. Saturday afternoon we went up to sliding rock. sliding rock is a small portion of the river bed that has been eroded away and its so smooth, that u can actually slide down it. the water in that part of the water is like 45 degrees and it was not sunny when we did it, so it felt cooler than that.

we played some card games when we got back to camp and helped make dinner: hobo dinners! (aka knight's in shining armor, tin foil dinners, etc.) they were really good actually and cooked really fast, like 15 minutes (which for those inexperienced mountaineers- that is the fasted i have ever had mine done in. i have had to wait 45 minutes to an hour for mine to cook sometimes). we played some more card games after dinner was cleaned up and stayed up to watch the bugs that just happened to come across the propane lights. i have now seen a giant mosquito, an albino moth, a giant flying beetle, and some other very interestingly HUGE bugs.

Sunday was another early rise, but not from the uncomfortable position. it was from the rain and my sister's screaming for it to stop. i finally had to yell over her and tell her to stop because mother nature doesn't listen to screamers! it got that old, that fast. it was raining cats and dogs and there was no sign of slowing or stopping anytime soon. we ended up having breakfast underneath a pavilion. i wasn't feeling well, so called it a morning and went a stole a couple of hours of shut eye. Dad had me get up and help tear down the rest of camp, and then we left.

the people we were camping with, the Branson's, were going to stay up until memorial day, but they decided that if it was going to continue raining, it wasn't worth staying. they came down with us and we had dinner with them that night.

the last time

*tear*

eighth grade is officially over and done with.


it feels like only yesterday that i was walking into the school as a sixth grader. what a sad sad thing. as i walked down the hallway on Friday i realized that that was the last time i would ever be doing that. I'm on the news team at school, and as we did the pledge of allegiance, me and some friends started crying. the last time for every little thing.
the last time to slam a half locker shut
the last time to say the pledge over the school
the last time to anchor in front of the school
the last time to hit the enter button to change the slides of a PowerPoint
the last time to eat lunch in the cafeteria at fms
the last time to change classes
the last time to go to special areas
the last time for everything at fms


*tear*

I'm going to miss the world of eighth grade and middle school as i move on to bigger and "better" things. I'm going to miss all of my hva friends and wish them the best at life.

new to this

my friends have been blogging for a little while, and my mom just recently got a blog. I've been signed in as a blogger for quite sometime, but have never found the time to blog. so here it goes, i guess!!