Oh wow! I'm doing a blog post twice in a week's time! What's wrong with me?!?!?!? :0)
OK, so I've been running like crazy this entire week. Forgive me if this is a little disjointed!
OK, last week's wildness started Tuesday. Josh had soccer practice. Now, most kids could just go to soccer practice and it wouldn't be a big deal. But homeschool families turn EVERYTHING into a social gathering. So the entire family goes to soccer practice, except for Dad, who's working. I like going to soccer practice, don't get me wrong. It's a good place to hang out or just write or read. So anyway, we went to soccer practice and also picked up my cousin Joseph. And went shopping. I have a bedframe now, yay!
Wednesday, Josh and Joseph set up my bedframe and we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more! And listened to Christmas music! It was great; my family normally refuses to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, whereas I listen to it year round. But I managed to talk my mom into letting me play Christmas music all day on our living room stereo. Yes! She couldn't believe she was letting me do it. Wednesday night, some more family showed up: Uncle Jamie and Aunt Kristin; Uncle Daniel, Aunt Michelle, Laura, Jenna, Bekka, and John. I chatted with them a little bit. I wasn't in the best mood by that time because Wednesday afternoon, I go a letter from the Christian Writers' Guild that my novel that I submitted for their contest, The Second Crown I: The Quest, hadn't been accepted into the semifinalist round. So I was kinda bummed. But Monica gave me a good kick out of feeling sorry for myself. Now I see the positive side of it. I can put The Second Crown back into one novel, clean it up a bit, and send it in elsewhere. And I know some of you have been asking for statistics, so there were 132 entries in the contest and only 4 made it to the finalist round.
Ennyhoo....where was I? Oh yeah. We didn't get to bed until 12:30 or so Wednesday night. Thursday morning, the rest of Joseph's family (Uncle David, Aunt Karen, Sarah, Emily, Ruth, Lydia, and Luke) came. Thursday was a long day of food and feeling extremely tired because I ate way too much turkey and Frog's Eye Salad (which isn't as gross as it sounds). :0) If it was possible to OD on Frog's Eye Salad I probably did because I hadn't had it in forever. And pumpkin pie. I've been craving pumpkin since October!
I went to bed around 10:30 Thursday night because I wanted to get up early and shop. Which I did. 4:30. That's A.M., for those of you who don't believe that I can even pronounce those words! Mom drove me to Willard, and Rachel C picked me up and took me to Bass Pro Shop where we met Kristin S, Anna, Mrs H, Mrs B, Ashton, Joanna, Jerusha, Liz, and Joy. We shopped there for a bit, then headed over to the mall. I got two pairs of jeans at JC Penny's. Mom, Hannah, Kristin, Jamie, and Ruth joined us, then we went to Sears and found a Snoopy t-shirt I didn't get because I couldn't find it in my size. We went to Mardels after that. Hannah found a really cool long sleeved shirt that says "prayer warrior" on it. I like it! And then to Kohls, where I found a cute plaid long sleeved shirt.
After getting up early, shopping, and eating lunch, we went to play Frisbee!!! Yes, I know we're so weird! We actually had a lot of people there, so we divided into two teams, then divided each team into two and switched out every point. Actually one of our teams was down a girl so Joy, Anna, the S's cousin Abby, and I took turns subbing in. I had a few good plays. I got the Frisbee away from Justin, which made him a little irritated since I'm a bit shorter than he is, and I hit the ground and turned a beautiful backflip, I scored a couple of points, I helped score a couple of points, and I made a beautiful diving catch, my first ever!
After playing Frisbee, as if that wasn't strenuous enough, we went to the T's (Justin, Sarah, and Jake's family) and hung out there all evening. Their house is crazy! The guy who built it had way too much time on his hands. The sidewalk had lots of old coins cemented in it, the wellhouse had bullets and all this weird stuff in it, and the fireplace had coral, shells, and a couple of small statues and stuff cemented in it! I love their house! The living room is this beautiful paneled wood and the house kinda of rambles. I love rambly houses!
After eating pizza, we gathered all the kids (quite a task...there were a LOT of people there!) and went outside to play Capture the Flag with glowsticks. This game was better than the last time I used glowsticks for Capture the Flag (that's when we played at the M's after small group and Josh fell on a rock and had to have four stitches in his knee). I spent most of my time behind the house, holed up behind a tree or in the shadows, watching for my opportunity to catch some of the other team. I never personally tagged anyone, but I did help prevent a few attacks. Jake B and I spent about 15-20 minutes stalling each other, staying on our respective sides of the territory line, but making fakes and trying to get past each other.
We quit Capture the Flag after a while, since quite a few people left, then we tied to play one round of Werewolf, which didn't work so well. So we went inside and played Signs. Mom, Dad, Aunt Karen, and the two younger kids left about 10:00, but the teens stayed until 11 or so. Since it was our first time at the T's, Justin loaned Josh his GPS so we could get back home. Josh discovered he hates GPSs. The biggest thing that annoyed him was one time, we were taking this long right curve, and the GPS kept saying, "bear right." Josh was like, "If I went any more right we'd be in a hay field!"
Saturday, as if the past few days hadn't ben enough, we went bowling with pretty much the same group that had been at the T's. I don't remember what I bowled, because I did horrible, and I don't know what Josh or Hannah did because they were on different lanes than me. Had A good time laughing and talking with Liz, Joy, Mary, and Sarah, though. Afterwards, the Ts, Joy, and the H kids came over to our house to hang out. We played Apples to Apples, which was hilariously funny. I played a really good joke on everyone. All the older kids (Josh, Siah, Justin, Sarah, Joy, and I) sat together at a table downstairs. They all went upstairs at one point to get more food.
I switched everyone's cups around. I was good in the way I did it. I switched mine and Josh's, Siah's and Joy's cause they'e observant, and Justin and Sarah's. Well, Justin comes galloping down the stairs, sits down, and takes a big gulp of "his" drink without even looking. I just busted up, laughing so hard I couldn't sit up straight. He was like, what's your problem? Well, then everyone else got down and discovered the switched cups. Sarah held Justin's cup up and said, "Uh, Justin?"
"Eww! I drank after my sister! Disgusting!" Justin switched their cups back.
"This is going to come back on you, Thea," Joy said as she switched her's and Siah's cups.
"I know. What's the matter, Sarah, you don't like drinking after your brother?" I teased.
"I don't mind drinking after any of my siblings, except Justin. He leaves floaties."
:0) I was rolling! Sarah kinda got me back. While we were all sitting up in the living room, talking to mom and dad, I was sitting on the arm of our couch one minute and the floor the next. She pushed me off the couch! I think that's why I was so sore the next morning....
Yeah! We're nuts! Sunday, we decorated the house for Christmas! Whoo-hoo!!! Mom went crazy, though, this is the first Christmas she'll have room enough to have all of her snowman collection out. I counted she has around 90 snowman (give or take a few, most likely give). We also had small group for the first time in several weeks, which was nice to see everyone and do our Bible study again. I'm missing it this Sunday to go to Silver Dollar City with the graduate group, so it was kinda nice to have it last Sunday.
Monday we did nothing! Except for school, more decorating, and my writing assignment. :0)
Yesterday we went to a Casting Crowns Christmas concert in the evening. They had several other groups with them too, Pure NRG, Avalon, and Denver and the Mile High Orchestra. Pure NRG was a techno-pop group and I kinda liked them. Avalon's OK, and Denver and the Mile High Orchestra was kinda fun. It was definitely one of the quieter concerts I've been too. We even sat most of the time!! Afterward (we're getting into this bad habit) we went out with the Ts, Luke S, Joy, Siah, and the Ms. At first we were going to go to Braums. So my family, the Ts, Siah, and Joy get to the closest Braums, the same one we've been to several times after other concerts. And as we start walking toward it...zzzzzip...the lights go out.
"Oh great. They recognized us and said, we don't want them back!" Mom said.
Actually it was 10:30, which is when they shut down. So we went to Steak n' Shake instead. I'm actually happy, because I got a huge Turtle Caramel Chocolate milkshake...mmmmm! So yummy! Luke and Jake T named me Turtle, it seems like I'm acquiring nicknames right and left! Oh yeah, Galen was there too. Hehehe, wild. Mom and Hannah were both hyper...Justin kept making Hannah laugh and fall into giggle fits, and Mom just about did once. But he and I were laughing about something one time, and I was like, "You know what, if we don't stop, we're gonna go into a giggle fit ourselves and then we're gonna b teased like crazy." So we stopped. Galen made some comment about snow being in the forecast, then threw a handful of shredded paper all over our table. :0) I sat with Joy, Siah, Jake, and Luke, and I don't remember what we talked about....not much, I think we were all so tired we were silly. I remember something about some medical stuff, which Joy and I cut in the bud b/c we didn't want to get sick over our milkshakes. Oh, something about Jake, yes....but I won't be cruel enough to display his wonderful nickname for all to see. :0) Oh yes, and Sarah joined our table onc her dad showed up, cause Mr T sat with Justin, Mom, and Lisa M.
Then today, we went over to S's and helped get H2O invitations ready. Sound like a full week? It's not stopping yet! Here's the schedule for the next week or so.
Thursday (tomorrow): soccer practice
Friday: orchestra, Winterfest recital
Saturday: End of the year Christmas concert/company
Sunday: company/Silver Dollar City (me)/Small group (rest of family)
Monday: nothing as of yet
Tuesday: soccer/orchestra performance
Wednesday: nothing as of yet
Thursday: soccer
Friday: nothing as of yet
Saturday: H2O!!!!
Then after that, the next Thursday we have Jessi H's graduation! (Jessi's blog is www.anurse'slife-jessi.blogpot.com). And that Friday is our huge Amahl and the Night Visitors performance! At some point I'll try to post about all of our wonderful events, though I'm making no promises until after the holidays.
Ohhhh, the lovely madness of the holidays! Peace on earth?...bah, humbug! :0)
