No Rope! Just Me Climbing!

I went rock climbing today a Sticks and Stones, the sports store. I didn't have the rope that you wear; those are for private use, but free climbing gave you more exercise. I saw some people from my school and I climbed with them. My mom kept asking me if I was tired yet because I just climbed and climbed nonstop. It was sort of a relief without the rope, but there were still rules to follow which made climbing very limited. I was only allowed to set my feet on footholds that were in my reach while I was on the ground. (I may have broken the rules a little bit.)
I still went as high as I could. It was a relief because without the rope there were no limits (sort of) to my altitude, I was free to go as high as I wanted (as long as I could reach).
It was better than the rock climbing wall at the festival on Monday, because you had to pay five dollars to go up twice, but the free climb wall was only five dollars to climb for the whole day! (And I lasted about an hour.)

Rodeo on the Street

My mom's company performed in the Street Dance Festival yesterday after all of the other countries' representatives had finished dancing. The girl that got a little disoriented in our recital didn't forget anything. My mom even pulled her aside before we performed and told her that if she forgot anything she should not move to the center of the street and do what she thought was necessary. But she didn't forget the choreography, luckily. 

I saw my old teacher from school and she said that she thought we did really well. My mom thinks that she might just kick out the people who were absent; she said she likes our new version better. 

I wanted to change out of my circle skirt and blouse, but my mom wanted to stay and look at the different stuff for sale. I wanted to go rock climbing, but I couldn't in my skirt and it was too expensive. 

We had to go pick up Ethan from the apartment, though, so I had an excuse to change into jeans. 

We danced by a trailer with big speakers and a guy with his laptop choosing songs. We ate at New York Burrito and it closed while we were eating. It was hilarious how so many people would come to the door to try and go to the bathroom, but it was locked so they had to leave. 

They employees had to let us out, though. 

 

Why does the disaster have to happen now?

Ethan had a concussion at the fairy party. While he was swinging in the backyard he went so high that he fell backwards and hit his head--hard. He got a bad headache behind his eyes and he also hit his toe, which started bleeding. Cora put spray on it to help the pain, but soon Ethan's fingertips went numb. Winston said that perhaps the spray stuff numbed his toe, and then Ethan touched it, causing his fingers to become numb as well. But then Ethan's mouth went numb too. Winston made the same assumption, but I don't think that's what really happened.  Ethan cried because of his hurt head and his fear of what his numb mouth and fingers could mean while the aunts read a child and baby's health care book. My mom said they should have just got him in someone's car and taken him to the hospital instead of frantically trying to do things themselves. They could have turned to the professionals. They read that if he started throwing up he must be takento the hospital immediately. (They should have anyway.)  

They also shouldn't have let him go to sleep. My mom says that whenever a child or baby hits their head they should not go to sleep or they could go into a coma. Aunt Angell suggested him sleeping to get rest. I protested to this idea. (I don't want my little brother to have a coma!) 

Still, the aunts put him

to bed and wouldn't let anyone in his room.

Earlier he had be being repetitive, talking about someone he knows named Morgan. This is also a sign of concussion, and they still let him sleep! 

When we started doing the fairy tribute (sparklers), we saw the light in Ethan's room flicking on and off. I went in there to check on him, and as if threatened, he jumped into his bed as soon as I entered. I asked him if he was okay.

 "Yes." he answered, hiding his face. 

And so I left and went back outside. Soon we saw the light flicking again, and so Angell came with me, who was also concerned. We asked him what he was doing. "I was trying to find the--*mumble*"

"What?"

"Nothing."

So I went back outside with Ethan and Angell to do the sparklers. Ethan did one, and he did awesome swordsman moves--a lot better than a kid with a bad headache should. I don't know how he did it!

 He was a little better when we all woke up, later in the morning. 

At 4:00, when everyone was fi

nally put to bed, Cora and Anna and I shared a bed on the floor, in the room all the girls slept in. The aunts took pictures of us pretending to yawn. 

The three of us giggled over random, silly things, and Uncle Kevin had to come in and shush us five times. When the aunts came in to shush us, we obeyed, but then we heard them giggling out in the hallway. We burst out laughing really loud, but luckily none of the other girls stirred. Eventually Anna got up to see what they were doing.  Cora and I followed her. 

 The three of the aunts were trying to take pictures of themselves yawning, and the pictures were absolutely ridiculous. They had Anna and Cora and I help, and their photos were still silly. But we laughed and they showed us the pictures of us pretending to yawn and we were happy and at 5:00 we went to bed. 

 Ethan was doing better the next morning. Leigha said that when she looked

 out the window at a tree, which had nothing on it, averted her eyes to the trampoline, then looked back at the tree, bags had appeared. Stupid, stupid! When will these children learn that there is no such thing as

 fairies?!? I'm sure it was an illusion, unless the aunts got some sort of expensive machinery that lowered the bags to the branches.  I was NOT fairies. It's fun to pretend that they're real, but let's face it, they're NOT. While all the other girls used their best dresses to dress like different sorts of fairies, I just draped a blanket over my shoulders, stuck  leaf in my hair and called myself the fairy of harvest. Whenever I told anyone what I was pretending to be, they were like, "What?" because they were used to the kids being a daisy fairy or a rose fairy. Or that's what I thought, because then they said, "What does a harvest fairy do?" Oh-my-gosh.

 They didn't even know what harvest is?

And also at the Pioneer Day Parade in Bountiful I broke my camera when I dropped it on the sidewalk. No more pics of things I've actually seen, sorry! But I did get a piece of wood a Geyong Gi Do guy broke with his foot. It was awesome!

There were these retarded kids about my age standing next to us that hugged every guy dressed up as a cookie or Mario etc. When the Utah Jazz float past they shouted, "Lakers rock!"

Apparently the cheerleader people on the float didn't like that. 

Winston, who is a lot more intelligent than those idiots, said, "Lakers suck."

That was probably the most intelligent thing I heard that day. They hugged a cookie and Mario and high-fived Link. It was so retarded. I don't want to call them gay, well, maybe I do, but that would be mean. I would 

never (that word is very emphasized) be mean...

I shouted "Jazz rock" at the float. They are my favorite team. 

There was a float that shot stuffed animals at the crowd and my little cousin Lukie (his real name is Luke) got one. It made up for him not getting any kicked wood. 

We left and ended up driving behind the stuffed animal float. Spiderman was hanging off the back, and Ethan and Winston waited for it to fall so we could pull over and grab it. Aunt Pear drove the van I was in and Angell was ahead, directly behind the float (well, it was mostly a truck). When a black bag fell off the truck we thought it was the black Spiderman, so

 we pulled over behind Angell, who obviously wanted the kids in her car to get it, too. When we saw it was a bag, Winston said, "I bet I could beat them to the Spiderman if they tried to get it, they're so slow, even though they would be closer to it anyway," They are slow, those girlies. And most of them are at least half a decade younger than him. 

We went to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden and saw all the statues and gems and bones. When we were outside having a picnic, Winston noticed a wasps nest in one of the exhibit's mouths. We were just looking at it and Winston randomly said, "There's a wasp's nest in it's mouth." I have a picture of it, too. 

When we went inside the museum we looked at rocks and fossils. There was a white rock on the ground that had no display case and the cousins fought over who got to be in the picture of them touching it. 

There was a display case with a crystal in it as big as my head, and that's pretty big. 

 There were robotic triceratopses and tyrannosauruses in a mock fight, and their movement seemed surprisingly accurate for robots. They didn't actually fight, they sort of stood there roaring at each other. 

There were some rocks that were cut to look like food. :P

We got back to Idaho in Pear's car and we met my mom at their house. 

Stupid Contest

I lost the art contest. You know what, though? There was this really sucky painting titled "Las Vegas" that one three awards! It looked like a bunch of multicolored rectangles over a blue background. 

Of course my arch-enemy artist called Libby one an award this year. She wins every year. The flowers that the painted looked like eggs! 

When I got my participant ribbon, the boss of the competition (an old lady) came up to me and said "This is really beautiful. I want you to keep painting." 

And so that got my hopes up that I would win. And I didn't. So that was why the old person said that, apparently. 

My mom explained something afterwards in the van. "The judges will usually choose artwork that looks like a kid did it to win an award. This is a competition for kids. Your artwork doesn't look like it was done by a kid,--(it does)--so the judges don't think it's fair." 

Then I explained something. "So basically what your saying is that these parents expect that these kids will lose, and the judges know that, so they go and say 'this drawing sucks, therefore it wins.' So maybe I should do a sucky drawing and I'll win?"

She said she doesn't want me to try that and also it probably won't work. 

She said she hates art contests, but she was the one to force me to enter. She said that the reason the old person said that was because she was like, "Oh my gosh, she put so much effort into this painting and she didn't get an award."

Hm.

I don't know if I liked my painting anyway. Bye-bye.

The Venn Diagram (and an unusual tradition)

I think that rehearsal for Rodeo went very well today. My mom recently choreographed a section of Hoe-Down when the girl dancers walk in a circular shape and the boys go in the opposite direction, creating a sort of venn diagram. It's really cool. 

Leigha (little sister) acme to watch today and we walked home together when it was time for us to go home. My class was over but my mom still had to instruct the senior company members. Leigha insisted on playing "I spy" on the way home. She mostly said, "I spy something green" and it would be a tree or grass. Or a green car. Now we're at home watching Ethan play Zelda while I post just because I don't want to ignore my blog. It calls to me! 

I think I'll play Harvest Moon today. It's something to do that my mom doesn't necessarily approve of. In short she hates video games. 

On Pioneer Day my dad's family is having the Fairy Party. It's a sort of awkward "tradition" that they have. What they do is the little kids dress up as fairies and the older kids usually don't want to. I did last year. The party is fun, but that doesn't mean I believe in fairies. Sometimes I've tried to convince myself that they're real, but It's too hard to believe. 

The aunts and uncles (I'm pretty sure it's them) leave gifts for all the kids once they've gone inside after the festivities. They come back in and say "The fairies came!" All the people run outside to find a big box with small bags in it, one for every kid. The bags hold cheap toys and candy which eventually you throw away. That was how it was last year. 

Before the bags came we were all dressed up as fairies. We played games and then the adults lit some sparklers. each of us did an individual dance as a tribute to the fairies. I made pretzel shapes with my sparkler, not knowing what else there was to do. My uncle Ben took pictures and you could see my pretzel. I tried to make my dance look like a martial art other than that, unlike the other girls who tried to do ballet movements. Very incorrect movements.  Anna made spiral shapes with hers. Ben got this awesome picture of her trapped in her own spiral. 

Ethan and Winston did their dace together, but it was very different than a dance. They did a swordfight. Ethan lost his balance while they were pretending to fight and almost got hit with Winston's sparkler. Ahh! After that they did not allow two people at a time with sparklers. 

This year I want to try and choreograph a "fairy dance" for the small girls to do. I think it would be fun. 

Bear Lake

The reading program ended today, so I'm gonna miss my teachers and my friend that was there, too. 

Since my dad lives in this city now, we got to bring the gamecube to my mom's house and I got really far on Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. I was ready to get married in the game, but then I found out that I did something wrong and I wasted 15,000 g! (Whatever g stands for. I think it's gold.) I love that game, though. It's the only version of Harvest Moon I've ever played, so I inevitably think that it's the best game ever! My mom says their a big waste of time, video games, and I agree. That doesn't mean that they're not fun! She might think this post was a waste of time, too, but she was the one that said I should post more often. She thinks I've been neglecting Blogger, apparently. I just can't think of anything to write.

Well, except for one other thing. My family went to Bear Lake on Saturday. My dad and I were very late, so we only got to swim for a short while, but it was still fun. When I got there I threw on my swimsuit in one of my relatives vans that had tinted windows. Right after I had it on I grabbed Cora's (remember, my cousin who grabbed the elastic thing at my aunt's wedding) and pulled her into the water. It was pleasantly warm. 

We swam far into the water as we talked. I had gotten better at swimming since I swam a lot at his house, so we were very far in only a few minutes. Cora is younger than me but much taller, and so she could touch the lake's bottom easily while I stood on my tiptoes. It took longer to swim back than out into the water. We talked and talked and watched the speedboats swerve and splash. When we got back Ethan was of course hanging around with Winston. They were trying to steal an inflatable boat from Didi. He was all like, "Surrender" and stuff. Like always. He's obsessed with World War II and armies and surrendering. 

I was shivering when I got out of the water. They had found a black dog with a red collar that started with five names. :) It was Licorice, Duke, Midnight, Something I Can't Remember, and Maro (don't know how to spell it). Maro stuck. I put a glow-stick around his neck to see him in the dark. We played fetch with him and he sucked at it. He couldn't catch the frisbee. 

When Winston put him in his family's van to try and bring him home, Greg said he would kill him (the one stupid guy who dumped the water on Ethan's head.)

In the attempt to pull Maro out of the van, he bit my hand, and it hurt. I called Maro Sucko. That was his sixth name. 

But Sucko started acting so cute that he was deemed worthy to be called Maro again. I gave him another glow-stick.

When we left the beach I called out, "Maro! Come!" and he followed us. Ethan called me a retard, but eventually he stopped pursuing my dad's trooper.  I sort of miss that stupid dog.

I wonder if he's in dog jail now? 

Walking On Main Street

I did pass out flyers. Tons of them. 

My friend Carson and I ran past the mass of people siting along the sidewalk, practically throwing flyers at them. We shoved them at little kids and said "Give this to your mom, okay?" 

And mostly they weren't difficult little brats, like I thought they would be. They simply nodded and ran to their parents. 

Most of them wanted candy, though. Arms flailing, they screamed, "Gimme some candy!" We didn't want to run out, we wanted to save some for the people at the end. My mom's friend came up with a strategy to conserve. "Tell them to do a dance" was our master plan. 

"Do a little dance and I'll give you some," she said, wiggling her butt to show them. 

Some did it. Some just shrugged and didn't get any. I recall one kid doing the chicken dance for me. I gave him a fistful of taffy. It was harder to get other persistent, bratty children to even move. "Gimme some," they kept saying that. And they didn't get any. Ha ha. 

I saw some of my friends there, too. That was cool. I miss them all during summer break from school. 

The cart that my mom was borrowing was pulled by Barry. He was the most awesome horse dude ever! 

After the parade we waited for some of the kids parents to come an get them from the place where the parade people were. Once they were all picked up, I rode on the carousel with my baby brother Barrett. I forgot to give my grandma (my mom's mom, not my dad's) her change back for paying for the ride.  

Then I went to my dad's house. we swam in the pool and played sometimes violent video games. We went swimming the next two days, too. And played more video games. 

And that was my fourth. Of July. Good-bye, dudes. 

Fourth of July Parade

My mom's company is going to be in the parade on Independence Day. She got some t-shirts for company members that wanted one. Mine is violet colored. 

She's renting a horse and a cart for the senior company members to ride in. Since I'm a junior company member, I have to pass out flyers to the viewers. It's gonna be a really sweaty day. We have to walk from a park on one side of town to another on the other side. All the way down main street. 

I also have to throw candy. That should be fun. Little kids swarming at my feet as I toss the joy of life onto the ground. Kids my age will shove the others aside, leaping for the candy. I laugh at their efforts to reach their beauteous candy. 

I wonder if I'll be brave enough to wave and pass the flyers to the people. I might be too shy. I wish I could ride the horse.

Also we're number seventy-four in the horde of floats and convertible cars. We're in the very back. 

And be sure that y'all have a great holiday!

Wall-E

Have you seen Wall-E? It's so freakishly accurate. If we keep littering like this, our planet will be totally trashed. And plus, the animation is amazing. I love Wall-E's personality he develops over the 700 years he spends on earth.