August 15, 2007

TAYLOR SWIFT: TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR

have recently discovered the singer Taylor Swift. She is played on the country station, but she doesn’t sound like country to me…maybe the instruments. Kind of a Faith Hill confusion thing going on. (Faith Hill is considered country, but has some songs that edge out of it…)

This doesn’t usually happen, but I fell in love with her most popular song. Usually I just want to hear the rest of their music, but I love this song too. It is actually a pretty depressing song, and the video is just more depressing, but I like it, in all of its depressingness.

Just Hanging On August 15, 2007

There are less than 3 weeks until school starts. I know. Depressing thought. Don’t get me wrong, I love school (weird kid) but I love the sunshine and I am just hanging on to my last few days of summer.

 

I hooked up YouTube so that I can post videos. Make blogging a little more interesting…

WOW! August 2, 2007

Today I spent the majority of the day playing WOW-World of Warcraft. Another one of my ‘quirks,’ I do enjoy playing it, though it does get somewhat monotonous after a while. I suppose I won’t be one of those that sells their house and divorces their spouses in order to play some more…I am a level 46 Paladin (called a “Pally” by savvy players…) which says something about my personality. Pallys’ are the healers, they don’t have as many fighting skills, like warriors, but they heal and I like to think of them as the nicer ones…There are 70 levels, so 46 is getting up there…there used to be 60, but we got the update. Basically, you go around gathering quests (different ideas for excuses to kill things) and then fulfilling those quests. Along the way you get experience points (XP) and reputation points. XP goes towards leveling up, and reputation points make you a more honored citizen or whatnot of the cities you have a good rep with. I like playing WOW, because you can play with other people, and there isn’t a set sequence. You can go wherever you want, unlike some computer games where you have to follow a set path, and there really isn’t an ‘end.’ Even when you hit level 70, you can still go around and get better armor and weapons and stuff. It’s fun, but it’s better when you play it, rather than listen about it.

 

Eclipse comes out in 5 DAYS!! I am so excited, but I won’t give anything away, don’t worry. I also expect ALL of you to read it, and read Twilight and New Moon if you haven’t already.

 

Happy Summer!

Martial Arts Princess August 1, 2007

HAPPY AUGUST

Today I returned to Martial Arts for the first time in over a month. It is so good to be back, I forgot how much I enjoy it. We did kicks today for most of class, I love showing off my front snap kick…hehe. I used to be terrible at them, you have to have this foot position, like standing on your toes, but I used to always point my toes. Great way to break them off. Anyways, I had to work and work to train myself to get them to do the right thing (don’t always like to cooperate…) and now (according to my instructor) I have the best foot position in the class. HA. So now I love doing them, especially half-time front snap kicks, which are jumping kicks. I can’t jump very high, it’s just something I have never really figured out how to do, but I love doing this kick. It’s also a great way to vent, pretending you are kicking that…special…somebody…Well, I know you are all VERY excited to hear me ramble about kicking.

WARNING: Lots of Disney Princess Alert

A while ago I splurged and bought some Disney Princess plates. ($8! I’m normally broke…) They have 2 sections, so I can divide my food (cool.) and I like to use them to get different types of food for my meal. So for my breakfast today, I had a peach (one section), 2 jumbo tofu dogs (cut in half, in another section), a handful of Rainer cherries (YUM! in another section) and a handful of edamame. Fun fun.

Ah yes. My Disney Princess obsession/collection. I have recently acquired a princess water bottle, which I am absolutely in love with. I also have 2 flashlights, a backpack, complete with lunchbox, purse, 2 pillows and more that I can’t think of right now…There is actually somewhat of a science surrounding the Disney Princesses. There are 6 true princesses, Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), Jasmine (Aladdin), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), and Cinderella (Cinderella..duh.). Then, there are 2 additional “princesses” that don’t really count, but are the leading women in Disney, Pocahontas and Mulan.

 My favorite princess is Belle, because she definitely deserves her title. Ariel ran off with a guy when she was 16, and she abandoned her family, and the whole, “wanting legs” is just rubbish. I would rather be a mermaid, although Prince Eric is probably my favorite prince… Aurora has really pretty hair, but she doesn’t do much, just follows a green light and stabs her finger. Snow White is cool because she can mesmerize/hypnotize (poor and innocent) little animals, but she has this horrible, high-pitched voice that throws all of her songs in the garbage. Jasmine takes a close second to Belle, because she has a very cool pet, who wouldn’t want a pet tiger? (Raja) And she also scores Aladdin who isn’t too bad, very real. Cinderella also deserved to be a princess, because of the hard life she lived, but for some unknown reason I never liked her much. Maybe it’s because she is the most well-known, and I am being rebellious…Belle showed true compassion and befriended one that would normally have been ignored friendship. She is also very intelligent, after reading all of those books…I was Belle for Halloween actually…

Sorry I don’t have many pictures…:)

AQUARIUM! and some catching up… July 3, 2007

To start things off, everyone who lives in Seattle MUST visit the Seattle Aquarium, for a couple of reasons.
One: Well, you should obviously go because I am there, and who wouldn’t want to see me rambling off the “right” answers to questions? (of course they are the right answers…)
Two: It is amazing, especially since the new part was added (as of June 22!)
Three: Because there is a really cute little red octopus, and a crescent wrasse (my favorite fishy) and harbor seals and cuttlefish and…

So…you must visit.

For those of you that don’t already know, I am volunteering at the Seattle Aquarium 3 times a week, and today was my second day. It is a blast, and so fun to see all of the tourists from all around the world. The little kids are especially fun, with their glowing faces and cute comments.

Yesterday, I was volunteering in the Pacific Coral Reef exhibit with two Blacktip Reef Sharks. This little boy comes up to me and says, “Is that a shark?” I said, “Yup, that is a Blacktip Reef Shark,” (very enthusiastically, I might add) then the little boy said, “Cool, I’m gonna shoot it!” and he held up his little hands like a hand gun, pointing at the poor, innocent, little shark. I was speechless, but his parents said something along the lines of, “We don’t shoot sharks,” or whatnot.

I hope to have more cute little kid stories, because I am expecting more…

I also have recently started a little vegetable garden, with my grandpa, that is doing surprisingly well considering my gardening skills…I will put pictures of it up eventually…

Here I am! June 17, 2007

Hey guys, I’m back! It has been a long school year, but school ends on Friday. I wanted to give everyone a heads up that I will start to blog again, as time permits. For these first couple of days, I might post a couple a day, to catch up

Palm Tree Sightings August 9, 2006

I have a fascination with palm trees. I was born in California, and we moved when I was five, so I guess it is just me wishing to go back to
California. My mom loves it in
Washington because of the mild weather and all of the green, but I love the hot weather and palm trees. The brown doesn’t bother me, if there are palm trees scattered throughout it. (I also like eucalyptus trees, but they come second). At first, before we left for the trip, my mom and sister wanted to fly to California so they wouldn’t have tot endure the driving portion, but I desperately wanted to drive, so that I could say where the first natural palm trees were.

 

When we pulled off in
Redding, (we were looking for a grocery store) we saw a bunch of palm trees, but they were all in front of stores, there weren’t any lonely ones. We decided that those must have been planted and we didn’t count
Redding as the first palm tree bearing city.

 

We were driving for about another hour or so, and just before Orland, we saw a couple of lonely palm trees, but not a large amount. We are a few miles past Orland now, and there haven’t been any more palms. They must have been planted too….

 

I have just spotted a few more palm trees in Willows.

 

There haven’t really been any more palm trees until
Los Angeles, and then from there on they have been really abundant.

 

We have finally arrived here, at my Grandparent’s RV, at about 2:30 AM. It was long, but worth it!

Day One (Driving) On Our Trip to California August 8, 2006

Today was our first day on the road. We left the house at around 12:30 (pm), and then we had to run a few errands. We went to the library, returned and bought some stuff at Target, and returned some more stuff at Sears. Then we went to Joann’s and bought Mimi a lap desk for the car (bright pink I might add). To top it off and fill up our tummies we went to Taco Time and all got kids meals (along with the ‘watch water games’ toys). Then, at about 1:30, I pulled out the GPS device and we figured out how to find I-405.

We just made it to
Oregon and I had to hold my arms out (at request of my sister) and it is 5:48. Just beyond the border there is…..a Hooter’s! What a lovely border marker. So, we have found different ways of keeping ourselves occupied and among them are:

• Coloring little strips of paper to make Mimi’s window pretty. (But Mimi got tired of it after about 10 minutes, so there are only about 5 strips on the window.)
• Playing with states flashcards and playing for (Dark Chocolate, my favorite!) Raisinets. I especially enjoy this game, because it is really funny listening to all of the capitols that they come up with, like how Mom said
  Butte for practically every state until I told her that that wasn’t even a capitol. My favorite one is
  Annapolis, Maryland. Mimi has a friend named Anna, so my hint was that it had Mimi’s friend’s name in it. So my mom and I would just sit here, laughing at what she came up with, it went sort of like this…

“Maryland!”

“Annaplalpolis!”

“Annanapolis!”

“Annanaplapolis!”

“Annapolis!”

• Laughing at Mimi and her silly things…such as being excited to having her own hotel coupon book.
• Listening to Mimi sing along to her MP3 player. We tell her to quiet down a bit, and she belts it out, so if you are trying to sleep, you have to imagine that she either isn’t there, or is politely singing you a lullaby.

I have set up a states excel page, so I can keep track of who wins (and who to award the Rasinets to.) I am getting Mimi ready for 8^th grade if she gets Harris. Mrs. Harris said that nobody in her class has ever aced the beginning states and capitols test (it is a pop quiz) so I am hoping that she will get Harris, and show her that it is possible…..heehee.

We are going to do another round of States, so I’ll blog again later. As soon as I get to the hotel, I will post this.

We made it to
Medford, Oregon and I will be posting at night, because that is when we have internet access.