mish-mosh

Wow, I really pay attention to blogging, don't I.

Our trip to Pennsylvania over the Thanksgiving weekend was great - living in an RV with friends from the area at a campsite. There was a small water park near by with slides, a play area, and a lazy river that went a little to fast to be called lazy. We took our truck, so there was room to bring our bikes along. A, M, and I had fun with the freedom the campsite allowed us: being able to go together and bike on the paths was a blast , especially with the hills that were perfect for whizzing down, and using the momentum it gave us to go up the next one. The leaves were nearly at their peak that weekend, and the hills were speckled with orange, yellow, red, and some green. One day we went to Bushkill Falls. The falls towered over the decks, and the wood was slick the humidity. Me and my sisters had some fun pretending to dance on the wet wood. The stairways were killer on my muscles, though. One part it was wider and more flat, while we went along a side-stream to get to same more whitewater. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings or some kind of story: with the leaves just the right shade, the little creek, and huge boulders with moss, it look like somewhere elves would live. Leaping from one rock to the next was one of my favorite ways to get along, especially right next to the small stream. Needless to say, the falls were a great experience. I really hope we can go there next year, or maybe sooner.

In recent news, bass lessons are going well. I'm working with a metronome now, and getting into the song on the threes and fours. It's hard, but it gives the songs a different feel to them.

School - 'nuff said.

I've been reading sci-fi and fiction recently, with some classical on the side - 'Lioness Rampant" by Tamora Pierce, 'Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox' by Eoin Colfer, and 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens.

I loved the snow we had on Halloween. My sisters and I had been staying at a friend's house while my mom and dad had been away. On the Saturday night, my sister were sleeping over at a different friend's house while I stayed at the... anyway, right before we started to watch the new Alice in Wonderland, it was sleeting outside. You know, the yucky half snow, half rain. After the movie finished, there snow was a couple inches thick and it was so pretty!

It was even better on Halloween. The trees along the highway looked like a postcard, or a painting!

I think I'm up to date now... :)

I'm bad at updating...

It's a known fact.


It's been pouring all day. This is one of the ucky days that makes me want to eat soup with biscuits, curl up in bed with a book, and not leave the house. At all.


But I got bass lessons tonight! This is gonna be my second one so far, and I'm really enjoying it. My teacher taught me how to do some hand exercises and a D major scale, plus the bass riff in "Stand by Me". I'm grateful he gave me an actual song - it makes my feel like I'm doing something useful instead of constantly moving my fingers across steel strings. 


This Friday, I'm going to another youth party - this time it's only a few minutes down the road instead of being several hours away. It's a swim night plus movies and sleepover! Hopefully it won't be too cold, seeing as the guys are sleeping outside.


 Also this weekend, my family is going to a book-signing of my family's amazing friend. The book is Terrific (yes, I used a capital 't'. and bold. with a line under it.) I'm soooo excited for her! I'm not happy for the party afterwards, 'cause it for adults only. Mom said she'd take pics, though.


In my opinion, being an adult is only a state of mind.


I think that means I count.


If not, then scratch that.

Staying up & water

This weekend was spent at Wakefest, a youth event put on by my church. This is the seventh year running of the trip, and my second year. Around four o`clock my sister and I were driven to our meeting spot. We jammed our things into cars, and around 17 kids and 5 adults piled into the vehicles. After a 4 hour drive, we got to the lakeside cottage in Quebec we were staying at. The boys set up their tents, while the girls laid out their things in the house`s screened in porch. Once everything was set up, nearly everyone went swimming off of the floating wharf. The lake water was pretty cold, and I don`t think I would have gone swimming if not for some encouragement and the threat of being thrown in anyway. It wasn't to bad once you had already been in, though. The rest of the evening was spent roasting marshmallows by the fire pit, hanging out, exploring, and (on the girls part at least) trying to brainstorm how to prank the other people. Lights out was planned to be around 11:30, but they weren`t out until 12 and no one was asleep until much later. It wasn`t too cold outside thankfully, but cold enough to sleep in sweaters and snuggle deeply into our sleeping bags.

The next morning, I was jolted awake by a bugle impression from one of our leaders. After stumbling out of my sleeping bag, I joined the other youth (that were awake) for breakfast. When all the kids had been woken up (which included one adult taking a pot and spoon over to one tent) and eaten, we were told the rules of the day; don`t run on the wharf, bring life jackets when your on the paddleboat, listen to what the boat driver tells you. All the usual things. Then we learned that this year, there was a catch to getting our Wakefest shirts - we had to each individually thank the owners of the cottage for letting us come and, in return, they would give us a key word. When we got all three words, it would make a phrase which allowed us to get the shirts.

Then the wake/knee boarding boat left with the first bunch, and the pontoon boat left with the second group. I was left with my load, along with the last team. We hung out, played crokinole and cards, took the paddleboat out, and swam as we waited for the pontoon. Then it came back, dropping off the first group, who were all super excited and telling us how well they did, and laughing at some of the wipe outs they had seen. My bunch climbed into the pontoon and drive to the wake/knee boarding boat. We watched the people currently on the boat do their best at boarding while sitting and swimming. When our turn came my friends all chose wake boarding, and each person got up for at least ten seconds or more before crashing. I went knee boarding instead and wiped out twice. One of those times I lost my watch, because I couldn't find it anywhere afterwards.

After we got back to the cottage, we ate a good lunch of hot dogs and veggies. We waited a bit, then the wake boarding boat was converted into a tubing boat. We used a 3 seater tube - there was lots of room for you, but enough closeness that you could jam your feet in to the front and not fall out. We had almost the same groups for the tubing as the wake boarding - one or two of the groups split up so that the adults could come and ride the tube as well. In my group of three only one person fell out. Apart from when we flipped, anyway. You can't really hold on after that.

Then we had supper; yummy hamburgers (which I thought were very good for store-bought) chips, potato salad, and coleslaw. During this time, i got the full phrase for my shirt; Jesus loves treefrogs. After we were done supper, we had a small lesson from a youth pastor about not having a kids understanding of the Bible. We hung out after that, did a bit of swimming, played with a frisbee, sat around the fire some more, and packed up all of our things. Around 8 we left for home, and I was home in my bed at quarter after 12. I'm tired, sunburned, and sore, but this Wakefest was heaps of fun.