Merry Christmas! (and a happy New Blah...)

Gifts received this year (and I was very spoiled):

An Italian Barbie doll

Several t-shirts from Hot Topic, Wet Seal, and Aeropostale

A gift card

A blue net book (from my dad)

An exercise ball

A stuffed cat

I really wasn't expecting the computer. It's making me guilty; I thought it'd be a small Christmas this year. But I named it Minnie.

I had to stay at my grandparents' house for Christmas Eve. For some reason I find it difficult to sleep in the same house as anyone who isn't in my immediate family, especially if I'm on the floor. Don't ask me why. I maybe got six hours of sleep. And don't you dare laugh; I like to sleep,

so six hours is hardly sufficient. My relatives have the worst sense of humor. They're all a bunch of prejudice, racist bastards. Except for a few of them who rock. At least that's over with and I got to eat part of a cinnamon roll.

When we left we opened our gifts from Mom at our OWN house, thankfully. Man, does my mum rock. Now I have a t-shirt with two tennis balls on it and one is saying to the other, "You got SERVED!" It's adorable! And my dad was beyond generous this year. (With the net book and all. Plus he bought collars for our cats. Mao Chu looks quite handsome in his and Willow is charming.)

But you gotta remember that Christmas is about Jesus, not Santa Claus. (That's another thing that bothered me. I'm thirteen and my grandpa expects me to believe in Santa. He's a freakin' stalker, man! He sneaks into your house at night, and he's all about commercialism, ya know?) I'm thankful for our Savior's birth and his incredible sacrifice for the whole of the human population. It's pretty awesome if you think about it a little.

So, Happy Christmas and New Year, everywhobody, and I hope your year has treated you well. I hope it was as good as mine, if not better. Love you all. <3

More second trimester stuff

It's my birthday tomorrow. I will be turning thirteen. I'm not sure how I'll be celebrating, but I hope that my friends might decorate my locker. That's always the best part.

So today I took the DWA (Direct Writing Assessment) during fourth period. The prompt was to tell your English teacher about something in history that you would change if you could. So naturally I wrote about the Holocaust and tried to show the reader the perspective of a Jew in the 1940s. And then of course, when I finished, I found out that probably half the class had written about the same thing. Crud. I'll probably get a 3 out of 4 at best. I really was hoping for an original prompt, but now I've got a...common one. Phooey.

What I really don't understand about the new trimester is that everyone in my social studies class wants to get out of gym and go study with our Challenge teacher again. I like history, but I love gym. I know that's a little odd, considering the gym teacher is a jerk and he gets mad quite easily, but I enjoy exercising and doing physical activities. I don't want to give up one trimester of gym for three of social studies, you know what I mean? And I want to obtain a six-pack again, like I used to have before I started drinking all that eggnog.

Migraine. Yay.

Unless you want to read a five-page-long post, I won't write everything I've been up to over the past couple months.

But I will update on more recent occurrences.

I entered the second trimester of school today and was doing fine until it was time for second period, art. I'd expected one of my, er, "friends" to be in the class with me, but he ended up taking it during first hour. So, as you can imagine, I was quite disappointed and was quiet throughout the period. I was also feeling self-conscious because I thought there might be a bit of booger peeking out of my nostril, and I wasn't certain if anyone had seen me trying to get it out, not even knowing whether it was there or not.

So, whaddaya know, I started to see a huge blind-spot, and I could barely see out of my right eye. I knew what was coming.

During third period I told my writing teacher about my vision. "Sounds like a migraine," she said. I knew she was right, but I didn't want to leave school because I'm one of those people that gets all worked up over missing one assignment. But she told me to call home, so I did, and got the answering machine. I left a message for my mom and stayed for the whole period. The headache was coming and I was feeling sluggish.

So during lunch I sneaked down the hall from the multi-purpose room to the phone by the office and called my mom again. She answered this time and told me to wait for fifteen minutes in the front office. I sat on the chair with my backpack and coat, relieved that none of the secretaries were asking me why I was there. Every time the door opened I looked up hopefully, raising my aching head and then laying down again on my backpack when it wasn't Mom. Finally she came and I was crying on the way home. Yeah, I'm a wimp. Don't rub it in.

But I'm feeling a million times better now. :)

Unnecessary guilt

I honestly feel guilty that I never blog. I lose more of my viewers every day 'cause there's never anything new here. So I hope you like the picture I just made. I think it's adorable.

For my next post I plan to show you my collection of Participation ribbons I've been awarded over the years.

I have a single first place ribbon.

My Dad calls it entrepreneurism. He says I keep trying and trying until I succeed. But then I told him that I got the first place ribbon several years ago, and after that they started giving me "participant". He said "Never mind."

My Mom is a professional dancer now at TDC (The Dance Collaborative)! Yay!

The kittens are almost all grown up.

I lost to my enemy who doesn't even know she's my enemy in the County Fair. Again. It's very suspicious that everyone in her family wins every year. VERY suspicious.

But I also got to meet my Mom's cousin, Melissa! :D

I am pretty happy right now because I'm going to visit my Dad and my Grandma Maddie all this week. But I will really miss my Mom.

I return with no ideas

I don't write much.

I don't know what to write about.

So I'll tell you things I don't like.

Things I Don't Like

1) Tele-marketers

2) Ignorant people

3) Twilight

4) Bad fanfiction

5) People who purposefully try to scare me

6) Being surrounded by nincompoops

7) Offensive tasteless humor

8) Spinach with butter

9) Jocks

10) Teacher's pets

11) Video games based only on violence

12) Stupid television shows

13) Failing

14) Waking up

15) Barney

16) Today's "favorite" music

There are also things I do like.

Things I Do Like

1) Meaningful movies

2) Oranges

3) Today's good music

4) Good books

5) The computer

6) Good video games

7) Flowers

8) Animals

9) People

10) My pillow

12) My stuffed animals

13) Exotic food

14) Big places

15) Harry Potter

16) My cool decorations

There are also things I love.

Things I Love

1) My Mom

2) My Dad

3) My siblings

4) My family

5) My friends

6) My pets

7) God

8) My Savior

9) The gospel

10) The world

11) You

End of school

Yes, I have perfect knowledge that I haven’t exactly been consistent in my blogging.

Summer began about five days or so ago.  I haven’t done anything exciting so far, excepting Sunday, when Mom drove Leigha, Barrett, and I to Mesa Falls, where we had a nasty encounter with hundreds of pesky little mosquitoes. Despite that, we had a wonderful experience looking at the massive waterfall.

            My yearbook was filled with signatures on Friday, and I’ve been glancing at them now and then. Funny, funny, funny.

            I’m getting too bored to write. G’bye, I’m going to go get ready for the day.

Mommy's Day! Hoorays!

Oh, and guess what? It's Mommy's Day! My Mommy has a headache, and I'm hoping Dad will take us to her house soon...if he'll wake up! 

I love my Mom so much! I just needed to tell her that! Hugs for all the mommies that see this post. :-)

KITTENS! Real live KITTENS!

Yesterday while we were at Ethan's band concert at the park, some people were giving away lots of real. Live. Kittens! And, with some method of convincing Dad that I'm responsible enough to care for them (which I am), we got TWO of them!

One has a really strange coat with spots, stripes, orange, and brown. My mom calls her Gypsy (a good name), but I call her Willow.

Then the other one, a boy, has a sleek black coat. Ethan calls him Ghost, but Dad and I call him Mow or Moe.

I AM SO HAPPY!

They are the most adorable little creatures I have ever seen. Currently, they're cuddling in their soft blue bed. They are absolutely exhausted; they were playing all morning with us!

Hello! Let me introduce myself...

Let me introduce myself. You have probably forgotten who I am, seeing as I've been absent for so long. I am Sunny.
Ever since I discovered SodaHead, I've been neglecting my poor old friend, Blogger.  I apologize, Blogger. Blogger, your name is funny.

I went to a friend's birthday party yesterday, at which I spilled ice cream all over the carpet in the dining room. All I'm confused about is exactly WHY they have carpet in the dining room. 

This friend, Katherine, gave us plentiful artificial leis. I have three, an orange one, a blue one, and a violet one. She also gave us little Chinese fan-thingies, one of which I, of course, broke. I got a new blue one. They just kept blowing my clumsiness off.

I gave her some nice presents, though, and we went on a scavenger hunt with a camera to take photos of random things outside. 

Katherine's baby sister Natalie is scared of me. Every time she saw me, her eyes got huge, her mouth gaped open, and occasionally, she'd start whimpering. It looked a little something like this:

Poor thing! Am I really that frightening?

I've been going on chat websites and been trying to get people to turn off the lights in their houses. So far I got one person! Yay!

Quick Question!

Do you have to turn EVERYTHING using electricity off for Earth Hour? No one ever told me; sorry.

Knowing

We saw that movie yesterday. It was very good. Maybe I would have liked it more if Leigha and Barrett hadn't freaked out halfway through and Mom had to leave with them and I had to stay in the theatre by myself. Then at the end, though I didn't know it was the end, the fire alarm went off because freakin' David Archuleta was there, and I think he's stupid, and I didn't think the movie was stupid, so I was very angry. Then Mom tried to exchange her late-night ticket for a tomorrow one because she had to take care of her kids, but the freakin' bleached-blond fake-tan manager lady was being a retard, so she had to hurry and drop off Ethan, Leigha, and Barrett off at the house, and she brought me with her back to the theatre. The I realized I HAD seen the end of the movie so I'd just watched it twice, and cried at the end of the world twice. But I rally enjoyed watching it with Mom. I loved it. It was scientific and religious-ish at the same time! It was tight, dawg!

Knowing is so freaking cool! The whisper-people were awesome aliens and they were kind  of translucent and the two little kids were cute. I loved the end how the planet they were on

 was all CGI but somehow the animators managed to make it beautiful.  Watch Knowing, okay? It's astounding! Phenomenal! Stupendous! (Somewhat cheesy, but it's okay, because I thought it was funny how Nicolas Cage feel on his knees when the spaceship/crystal thing came.)

I think I may have noticed a guy next to me crying at the subway part too. I was mortified by the idea of all those innocent civilians being plowed down by the train...

The movie implied that it is never the end. There is still a life after this one. You. Me. Together. Forever. 

Piglet

OK! I admit it! I enjoy Spanish. Happy, Mom? I just don't like the fact that I can't ever find anyone to converse with in the language because I have no friends in that particular class. :(

Happenings

I haven't posted recently because I've been having difficulties with this old Mac computer. It isn't doing very well with uploading pictures.

So decided to write about happenings. Today was when the new trimester commenced, and so I have a new schedule and I'm starting a new Encore class. I have Spanish now, and I'm not particularly fond of it, so I assigned myself a point-of-view essay about why I feel Spanish isn't really necessary to learn unless you're going to a country where Spanish is te main language, which I don't premeditate to do anytime soon. Maybe I just wrote it because the class is unbearably boring.

Found it!

I'm going to post new pictures of my drawings as soon as I can; I found my camera today! Yay! :D

The Barn

Well it's not a barn, really. It looks like a barn from the outside and then it's a palace on the inside. Three floors, and the only thing to prevent you from falling to the first floor (and to your death) is a sturdy, reliable, wooden banister.

I went there on Friday with the Young Women. The barn was about twenty minutes from the city, near fields and animals and fences, which were all blanketed in filthy snow. The sky was gray when we left, and a blue-gray when we arrived. It slowly turned a deep navy blue, and Orion appeared brightly in the distance. 

The Young Women all chose bunks to sleep in which were lined up and made neatly on the third floor. I, being afraid of heights, chose a bunk which was as far from the banister as possible. Eventually I grew to trust the banisters, and I leaned on them and looked at the two floors below. 

There were also very nice bedrooms, and also a master bedroom with a loft. The leaders got to sleep in these rooms, along with a few of the older girls. 

There was a hot tub on the back porch, and they warmed it up to 104 degrees. We climbed inside it, and we barely noticed the cold; in fact, I sometimes would go to dance in the snow to relieve myself from the pool.

They wanted to play Truth or Dare, which became Truth or Truth, because no one wanted to risk groveling in the snow. I grew tired of this game and went inside, because I was tired of hearing so much about boys, and I wanted to go play pool.

I was bad at pool. 

Eventually, around 12 AM, I went to bed. The bunks were surprisingly comfortable.

We cleaned the house the next morning and ate breakfast, then we played games, then we drove home.

I was really hoping there would be a big tire swing hanging from the ceiling, because the ceiling was very high. It would be so fun to swing in a house like that! It would make it even more extravagant. 

Detail of a Vase of Roses

I WON! Ha! In your FACE, fellow competitors! My rivals!

Yeah, I won the art contest this year, and I'm considerably excited about it. Once again, I highly recommend you read my Mom's blog, because she is more adept in the writing area, and she can describe how I feel better than I can.

I finished the drawing of roses that I posted prior to now, and it looks a lot better. My art teacher, Jennifer, helped me with it by making the lines and shadows darker. I'll have to show photos later; I haven't taken a picture of it yet.

I've also been trying harder to understand human anatomy by looking in books, and the muscles of the people in my drawings are definitely more defined (ha, don't know if you caught that), but maybe TOO defined, because all of the female characters I draw look really buff. Once again, I shall post photos later. I think my mom has them on her blog. (I have the picture now)

So I'm excited. This is a lot better than the usual fourth place I get. Fourth is shoved at your face and it says, "Ha! You are so inferior, you got ME!" I wonder who got fourth place this year? I hope they're okay with it :)

Tomatoes

- sigh -...

I'm a little discouraged today...

I was on the bus and this kid was in front of me, and he's kinda mean, so I said, "What are you doing here?"...

He was just on the bus for that day. 

He tried to get me mad by telling me that my person-person (the kid I like) dislikes me...

He said my person-person said I was a loser and he hated me...

Phooey... :(

I was sad.

And I really don't care anymore. I decided to not have a person-person. Because people-people bring nothing but grief, I think.

My friend Carson put up with me giving him a big hug, because he's like a little brother and he doesn't care what I do. He was making a rap song about tomatoes... The last verse I heard went:

I went to both managers

to get some tomatoes,

They were there 

And they had more potatoes

I asked for some yummy tomatoes

and they said, "You're out of luck,

So just go...

Home."

It made me laugh. Carson is one of my lifelines. Mommy is my other one...

I feel almost happy that I have no need to care what person-person thinks anymore... because he isn't really a person-person anymore. I had granted him so much power over me... I'm not going to allow him to do that anymore.

I feel too free now. Because when I have a person-person, it's like something to hold on to, and I'm a little empty now.

It's not encouraging to know someone thinks about me like that. Mom said I'm not a loser, but  I think I am, because if he said it, then it's got to be true.

Crap. I've given him another advantage. I've got to let whatever he thinks roll off me.

That was a great tomato rap song. Probably the best I've heard. :)

Coraline

Don't you hate it how you love a book, and you get excited when they go to make it into a movie, but you find yourself disappointed, not with the animation, but the storyline? Henry Selick was great with the stop-motion, but the script seemed wrong. Coraline portrayed more innocence in the book, and here in the movie you have this bratty, snobbish, blue-haired, blue-finger nailed punk teenager. What's with the blue hair? Coraline has brown hair, and her fingernails definitely aren't blue. (I didn't imagine the door so tiny.)

In the book, Coraline had a conscience, and she used it. She knew instantly that something was wrong with the other world, right as she saw the other mother's button eyes. In the movie, on the other hand, Coraline is a gullible, easily-tricked snob, that is disrespectful to her real parents. And come to he subject of her real parents, why were they such jerks? In the book, they were busy with work, yes, but they showed that they really wished they could spend time with their daughter. They were patient. But in the movie, here you have these two drunk-looking adults that don't give a crap what their kid does.

And where did this Whybe kid come from, or however you spell his name? He ruined the end. Coraline was supposed to kill the other mother's hand alone, and in broad daylight. They made a whole other character defeat it! This was one of the first things by which the moral of the story was lost.

Okay, let me start off by telling you the clear moral in the book. Be brave; find out who you really are. They LOST this! They thought the moral was "be careful what you wish for"! Why didn't Coraline and the cat say my two most favorite lines in the book?:

Coraline: That wasn't brave. Something that's brave is something you're scared to do, but you do it anyway.

Cat: Cats don't need names. They already know who they are. 

(I'm glad they launched the kitty at the other mother's face :)

WAAH! Why? WHY?

They didn't even put my favorite song in it! They only put the ice cream one, which was cute, but not enough. My favorite song:

We are small but we are many

We are many we are small

We were here before you rose

We will be here when you fall

I love that song! It's AWESOME!

I was satisfied with the other mother's voice. She made it creepy and AWESOME! And her transformation was cool. But why did the kids in the closet have button eyes? They didn't let the other mother do that. Coraline was supposed to look for their souls, not their eyes.

And I really wish they did the part where Coraline didn't run, she did something else. She pulled off her other father's button eye! It showed how she was brave. Heck, the whole story did. At the beginning she was afraid of a new house, neighborhood, and a new school, but the experience with the other world helped her overcome that.

Why did they make it American!? It took place in England, a whole other continent! It was better British!

What I liked, though, was how she goes into the other Misses Spink and Forcible's theater, and they're in the cocoon. But they weren't in a cocoon in the movie, they were in a candy. But it was cool, because they were as creepy as I had imagined them!

It was really disappointing at the end that they parents were still jerk wads. They acted like they didn't have a clue that anything happened, and the only reason they were celebrating was because of their stupid flower catalogue. In the book,  the parents knew something had happened, and they really tried to spend more time with Coraline.

So I'm really wondering what Neil Gaiman thinks of it. If you haven''t read the book, you'll love it, but if you have, all you'll get is disappointment. Not that I wasn't entertained, it was really fun to watch. Great animation. Coraline and her real parents made me mad. Bratty, snobbish family, they were...

I'm really, REALLY wondering what the author thought. I bet he worked so hard to fit that moral in to such a great story, and here they go and spoil it in this Americanized film. It's not right! Erg, Henry Selick and the script writer!

We have teeth and we have tails

We have tails and we have eyes

We were here before you fell

We will be here when you rise...

Stupid Figner.

On Monday at school I was playing basketball, and I was trying to catch a pass, but it hit my finger funny. It hurt really bad, so I sat out for the rest of recess.

Then it kept hurting throughout Math, so I wrote 'I hurt my figner' on the marker board. Everyone was laughing at it, 'cause they thought my misspelling of the word finger was done accidentally. But it wasn't; I did that purposefully to be funny.

 When my mom picked me up for ballet, my finger had a burning/aching sensation. It hurt really bad. Still. Hours after it had been hit. Mom had to open the car door for me, because I couldn't do it with my bad finger. Worse still, it was on my right hand, and I am right-handed.

After ballet it had started to swell and turn a bluish-purple, sickly color, and Mom finally agreed to take me to the hospital to see if it was broken.

I waited with her for the doctors to come back with the verdict, because they had taken my x-ray. We peered out the window of the door to try to reach a diagnosis. Then the doctor came in, and she informed us that it wasn't broken. But she guessed that the ligaments were badly torn and my finger was bleeding internally, which led to the swelling.

So I'm stuck in this freaking splint for two weeks, not counting the ten minutes I have it off in the morning when I bathe.

I can barely shoot a basketball with the splint on, so I have to use my left hand, which isn't easy at all. It's absolutely humiliating to do such inaccurate shots; usually I make most every one. This sucks, man. Very suckyish. 

I HURT MY FIGNER!!

I'm gonna call him Scrooge!

Hey, lookit! My mom had his picture of the slave owner guy on her blog. He makes me think of Scrooge. But his name is Charles. I'm gonna call him Scrooge, though, because he looks like a Scrooge, and because I like the name Scrooge. It's fun to say. Scrooge, Scrooge, Scrooge...

Writer's Block

My mom expresses our views better than me, so go look at THE WET BUN and you'll be more enlightened. Besides, most of the time I use words wrong and so what I'm trying to say makes no sense, hence my mother is way better than me. She's brilliant. Go read her blog :)

And for the record, I didn't copy her post. I bet she's going to accuse me for pasting her ideas on my blog. NO, I DIDN'T! I wrote mine, then read hers. My writing is very inferior compared and contrasted to my mother's. I thought my post was OK, then I read hers. She knows history better too. So go look at her page :)

I get writer's block when I want to write a post, so I resort to politics, which probably bore people to death because they hear enough of it on the news and I'm not that smart in the politics area. But I do have an opinion, so I guess it works, but then I read my mom's thing, and I want to delete what I wrote.  So I'm writing about writer's block, because that's what I have in my mind, so that's what I have to writ about. But for some reason the politics kick in when writer's block comes to see me. Isn't that weird?

I've used all my story ideas already and when I can't think of anything I try to change another book so that technically it's original, but it has the same plot. Then I get guilty because I don't want to copy someone else's piece, so I erase it all and sit on my bed or in my desk at school brainstorming for hours and yet no ideas come to mind. It reminds me of Orson Scott Card's Memory of Earth because it was like I was reading 1 Nephi again, except in that story God is a computer. He rewrote the Book of Mormon, but added a twist so you couldn't tell it was already a book. Then you remember that most people aren't Mormon, so you can infer that they'll think Card's story line is original. Sneaky little Orson...

So that's my problem with writer's block. I have to use another's idea, then I get an idea, then the idea fades, then I copy again, then I get guilty and erase it all, then I sit with a blank page forever. I hate a blank page. It's so tormenting, like it's staring you down, then it draws out its pistol and starts shooting ideas from other people at you, and you get so frustrated you crumple it up in a ball and hurl it into the trash can. Dumb old writer's block isn't welcome on my loose leaf paper.

200 Years of (almost) Equality

President Obama is often judged by his heritage and past, but why not me? 

My grandma used to tell my mother stories about her great, great, great, great grandfather who was an apostle when he was alive. My mom said that Grandma told her that when he was called to be an apostle that he freed his slaves and went to Utah.

Nope!

He brought his slaves with him to Utah, and he was the one to make it a slave state.

So why is Obama judged and not me? Probably because people can only focus on my great grandfather's good qualities, because he was an apostle, and therefore he's perfect.

NOT true!

I am so thankful that the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, ceased all slavery. I just still don't get why people don't judge me because of my history. In fact, my mom had to do research on this supposed perfect ancestor to finds out that he was a slave owner.

Why is Obama judged? Why do people say that he's bad because he was associated in a group that involved some terrorist guy? That doesn't mean he was involved in terrorism or whatever that guy did. Just because of who his parents and uncles and aunts and grandmas were, it doesn't mean we should be so quick to make unreasonable assumptions.

So why not me?

Celebrating Lincoln's 200th birthday has been quite an experience. So far, 2009 has been an experience. Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln helps us realize tha

t skin color and religion shouldn't separate us. My mom didn't vote for Obama only because she was hoping to make history with the first African American president, but also because she could relate to him, and she knows his plan for America and the Americans' support for him will help us reach a better future.

"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America--they will be met."

Mom is cool.

I DESPERATELY WANT TO BE AS COOL AS MY MOMMY!!!!! HELP!!!!!

According to my button...

I found a button! I put it on my purple backpack. It's a pretty button.

Ethan and Leigha were spending (or maybe wasting) their time at Dad's house Saturday night. I stayed with Mom so I could go to church the next day. We went to Hollywood Videos and got Ghost Town, and you have to see it because I just about peed my pants it was so funny.

BLAH! I have to tell you about my button!

So we left the movie store and pulled over to Broulim's. Barrett said he wanted a "Lightning Cart", because he is something of a Cars fanatic. A red car-shaped cart was there, and we put Barrett on the seat.

Then I spotted my button!

It was a pretty button. No, it is a pretty button. It has a purple swirly design and a picture of a drum and a picture of a star. It's on lined paper. Then, in big black letters, it says, "The Future is a BIG Place"!

I love my button. My button is very wise.

I bet you guessed this post would lead on to some boring life-changing sort of moral thing. You guessed right! Have a cupcake :)

So, yeah, the future is a big place. I'm excited for Barack Obama's inaguration on the 20th, which is also my Gramma Maddie's birthday, which gives me more reason to be excited. I hope we have some sort of, um, let's say agreement with Iraq and Iran and all those places that start with "Ira". I don't like war. It's sad. I don't care what country you're from, people are still dying, and they are people, just like you. It's sad, no matter what your point of view is. Those people dying had lives, children, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives parents... families that loved them, and didn't want them to go.

And I hope the economy gets better. I don't like it when the economy is sick. It's like when my Mom is sick. She's usually the one caring for me, so I have no idea what I need to do. All the grown-ups fret over money and jobs and I don't know what to do because I'm still considered a child, so I curl up in a ball and go to sleep.

I also hope the animals and forests are cared for better, because I really like cats and bunnies and penguins and monkeys. I don't want them to get hurt! I love animals. And trees, because in the fall on the road Second East all of the leaves are orange and rea and gold. And in the spring it's a yellowy-greenish-pink, because everything is blossoming and new... That's how we need 2009 to be! Like sring! We need a new start, a chance to fix things. I hope it's that way. We don't need this year to be like the previous, wintery, dreary one. There needs to be more love this year. The future is a big place, and I hope we take advantage of it!

2009 is spring!

Ethan and Emma's Birthday Bash!

So I haven't really posted much lately (or talked to Hamster, my journal, for that matter). I want to tell you about the much anticipated "Ethan and Emma B-Day Bash"!
Only a few of our 25 invited guests arrived. About eight, I think. One was late, and didn't get to swim. I could see he was disappointed.
Lizzy, Emily, Kenzie and I attempted to play Underwater Leapfrog, but much to Lizzy's disappointment we were confused when she tried to explain how to play. We ended up thrashing our arms around in the water and nearly drowning Kenzie, who is considerably shorter than the rest of us. We laughed.
When we were all dry, we tured on Kung Fu Panda and ate pizza and cake. Carson came then, equipped with a swimsuit, towel, and birthday present (which we told the guests not to bring). I wish he could have swam with us, but he enjoyed trying to say the characters in Kung Fu Panda's lines. He did poorly. He quietly mumbled the lines after the actors finished saying them. This cracked me up.
Then Carson sat on Lizzy, and we were all squished on the couch. Laughing, we used all our strength to push him to the floor. Then he sat on me, and Emily and I had to push him again.
Saying good-bye to my friends was sad, because I'd had a memorable experience with them just then. Still, I gave them all hugs in turn, and reluctantly let them leave.
I still don't get why they brought gifts for us when I specifically stated on the invitation:
No presents, please!
Aww, they love me enough to risk death from bringing presents when they are wanted but not needed.

3...2...1!

I know it's not really January first, but bear with me, okay?