Nappy-Nap

Another lazy day. I haven't even unpacked yet so I'm currently living out of my suitcase. I'm not totally sure I will unpack during this break anyway though, so I guess it's fine. I feel like my blog posts are just getting longer and longer, but I can't manage to keep them short and sweet like Janelle is so skilled at doing. I console myself with the knowledge that if people didn't want to read my blog, they wouldn't, so I'm not going to stress about my lack of brevity.

When I went to have a shower this morning I found an intriguing-looking book left on the washroom counter so I stole it from who(m)ever left it there (I assumed it was my brother since we share that washroom) and took it back to my room for further inspection. After said inspection, I realized it was an awesome book and started to read it. Then Tyler came into my room to talk to me, saw that I stole the book my mum had just given him, and took it back. I'll have to stage another book-napping at some point in the next few days, but for now I guess I'll just finish "Harriet the Spy."

Later on, in the afternoon, my mum took us to the mall. She dropped Bryn and Ty off in front of Chapters (the Canadian equivalent to Barnes and Noble, but better because you can actually buy books written by Canadian authors) and then she and I went to some other stores in the area. At one store, we were waiting in line behind a lady who was returning something. The computer was being super slow and the saleslady was very apologetic to the lady returning the item. Finally the transaction went through and the lady in front of us left the store. Then she started ringing up my mum's purchase, but the computer was still being slow. The lady apologized to us saying, "I'm SO sorry the computer's being so slow. I guess it decided to take a little nappy-nap." I thought it was hilarious and immediately whipped out my phone to text the quote to Bryn. (I wanted to include a link here to How I Met Your Mother's "Three Days Rule" episode so you could understand the joke, but apparently nobody except for my siblings and I thought the clip I'm referring to was amusing enough to put up on YouTube. In any case, what I was going to link to was a scene where the main character Ted sends a girl he just met a text. In that text he says, "I just wanted to send you a little texty-text," and then sends it. He realizes how dumb "texty-text" sounds a second after he sends the text, but by then it's too late. And now that that's been over-explained, I'll continue my blog.) Then my mum and I left the store and went back to the mall to look around for half an hour before meeting Bryn and Ty.

Back at home, we hid our presents and voted on a place to eat out as a family. I won the vote and we went to Lake Tai, a vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant. I've been there at least three times, but Bryn and Ty had never been for some odd reason. I guess it does make sense though since the three times I've eaten there were during the year I worked at home when they were both away at Southern/UCA. Anyway, my dad told us each to order a dish and then the five of us shared all the food. It was amazing as usual and I surprised myself by not appreciating the dish I ordered because I thought I remembered liking it before and actually enjoying the curry Ty ordered. The radio was playing quietly in the background and near the end of our meal a song that I almost recognized started playing. I tilted my head toward the speakers and wrinkled my nose in thought for a few seconds, but then smelled the food in front of me and bent back down to gobble up more fried rice. Bryn, who had been watching me said, "Ali, don't you recognize this song?" I listened intently again while chewing and then it hit me. It was "À la claire fontaine" a French children's song I had learned in my middle school choir in Gr. 6. I immediately got out my phone and texted my best friend Jodi. Every once in awhile, when we're together, we'll remember the song and start singing it. We can remember a good portion of the song and kind of just quickly gloss over the parts we can't quite recall. I didn't hear back from her until about an hour later and then she told me that she could sing the song perfectly, but didn't remember when we'd learned it or for what. So I refreshed her memory. Then she texted back that another of our classmates, Londell, was hanging out at her house in Alberta and she sang it to him, but he had no clue about the song. I laughed at him for his not-so-impeccable memory, but later on I realized something about choir class in Gr. 6 (read this if you care to learn more) and decided that Londell wasn't to blame since he was probably in a different choir section. In any case, I'm really glad that song came on the radio so I had something to text Jodi about. It was great to communicate with her again.

After filling ourselves we stopped in at my grandparents place for a game. We eventually decided on Rummy-O (I believe it's called Rummikub or something like that in the States). It was a very atypical game with Ty and my grandma not being able to play once until the second-last round of the entire game. I've never seen a game of Rummy-O quite like that. In the end Bryn and my grandpa won (my grandpa almost always wins that game), but I would have gone out if it had got around to my turn first. I was ready to either play around game of Rummy-O or to play the second choice, SkipBo, but other people were ready for bed so we said good-bye and left. I could have stayed up all night playing games, but I guess it's better this way. Now I can try to finish "Harriet" so I can try to re-steal that book back from Ty and make some headway in it before he realizes it's missing.

Winter boating

One of my life-long dreams came true today. Our family finally went winter boating. It was everything I'd always dreamed that it would be, except colder. I used to ask my dad every winter if we could take our boat out. I love boating in the summer, sitting in the bow with the warm wind whipping my hair everywhere and drops of water splashing onto my face as the boat rises and falls through the waves. So I thought that boating in the winter must be equally as fun, just quite a bit more chilly. My dad would also respond that our boat barely even worked in the summer and for sure wouldn't be able to start up in the wintertime. Plus I always begged to go winter boating on Okanagan Lake, the biggest lake in the valley, instead of on Woods Lake or Kalamalka Lake, the smaller lakes to the north that we usually visit in the summer. My dad's second excuse was that our little boat was too small to handle the waves on Okanagan Lake. So every year I would ask once more, knowing the typical response. But this year was different. At the very end of the summer my dad finally decided to upgrade our brown and cream (whoever thought those colours worked well together), starting-to-fall-apart, motor-almost-not-working (even after having a new one put on), little boat. Truthfully, I was kind of sad to realize that the boat I had spent a part of nearly every summer of my life in wouldn't be part of our boating experiences anymore. But then my dad let me come with him to decide on a new boat and my twinge of nostalgia disappeared quite rapidly. The boat I endorsed became the new member of the family just before Bryn and I left for college. We were going to help break it in the Sunday morning that we left for school, but the people at the place we bought the boat couldn't get it ready in time for us to pick up on Friday afternoon. The owner said he'd try to get people to work on it on Saturday, but my dad didn't want that, so we spent that last day at home with our good old Canaventure.

So when I asked my dad before coming home for Christmas if we could take the new boat out for a spin during our break, he finally consented. I mean there were no more excuses to not go winter boating. The new boat definitely wasn't falling apart, the motor worked fine and it was big enough to handle any wave that Okanagan Lake could send our way. The night we got home, I asked my dad when we could take the boat out and we agreed upon Sunday, as long as the weather stayed warmer than -5 C and there was no rain. Today met those qualifications. Ty helped my dad get the boat out of the garage and hooked up to the truck. Our friend Nik dropped by to see us as they were doing that and my dad invited him to join us. Having nothing else planned for the afternoon, he readily agreed. We all piled in to the vehicles and drove down to a public launch on the lake. Bryn got in the boat and we handed our stuff to her and then she arranged it while Ty and Nik, being guys, got right in there to help my dad launch the boat. Meanwhile I had a good chat with some mallard ducks crazy enough to be swimming around on Dec. 20 while my mum snapped pictures. After my dad parked the truck and trailer we all piled into the boat and set off for our adventure. The first obstacle was navigating out from shore. It was super shallow by this time of the year so my dad had to make sure to keep the motor enough out of the water so that it wouldn't hit on stuff at the bottom of the lake, but enough in the water to actually make us go forward. He managed it without too much difficulty and then we were truly off. We headed south for a place I've always wanted to see up close, Rattlesnake Island. (OK, so Kelowna is pretty much right in the middle of the lake and then it goes north to a town called Vernon and south to a town called Penticton. The island is about halfway between Kelowna and Penticton.) We stayed close to the eastern shore of the lake. I was absolutely amazed by the calmness of the lake. In my entire life I have never seen it so peaceful and glassy smooth like it was today. Near the edges it was a perfect mirror reflecting the mist-covered mountains and evergreen trees. Just a few minutes into our trip we were all really glad to be dressed in our ski gear and covered in blankets. Even though the temperature was rather warm (around 3 C), the speed of the boat created a fierce wind that found every place possible to get inside our toques, jackets, pants, and gloves to freeze us. We quickly rearranged to make sure the wind stayed outside our clothes and blankets. Bryn soon found a cozy place to hide out underneath the bow cover, which my dad had attached as soon as we got into deeper water. It was great to keep the wind at bay. Pretty much the whole entire trip my mum was snapping pictures. Finally we got to the island and my dad steered us around it. Ty and I agreed that we should come back in the summer and camp there. (He also decided that he is probably going to ask his future wife to marry him there. We'll see if that happens.) Then we headed across the lake to drive on the western side back to Kelowna. My dad drove slower as we passed Deep Creek, one of our favourite spots to go for Sabbath lunch picnics in the summer. By then we were all getting pretty chilly and so we skimmed past Peachland pretty fast and soon could see through the fog and mist enough to see the floating bridge. Then we knew we were close to Kelowna again. Before we got all the way back to our launch site we stopped the boat and took some pictures of the group wearing Santa hats. Finally I was colder than I get when I go skiing and we were all ready to be done our adventure so we motored back in to shore. Ty and Nik held the boat away from the pier while Bryn and I unloaded it and my dad got the truck. Then my mum took some more pictures of us before we ran to jump in the toasty warm truck. Bryn and I decided that guys are really nice to let girls go sit in warm trucks while they do all the hard/cold work. Once the boat was back on the trailer we headed home and took super warm showers. Even after I got out of the shower my feet were still a bit cold. I put on my warmest clothes and wrapped in a cozy blanket after giving my dad a big hug to thank him for the awesome, spectacular day that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Friends reunite

Today was awesome. First we went to our little church on the hill. It was full, which is something I haven't seen at our church since, well probably last Christmas. For some reason our church has started doing two Christmas programs, one the Sabbath before Christmas and one the Sabbath after. So for this week we weren't involved in the program and just got to sit and watch it. To be perfectly honest, I did a good bunch of people-watching through the almost two-hour program, especially since there were so many visitors and people I didn't recognize. Part of that people-watching was kid-watching. For years our church has been rather devoid of children, but recently we've been having more people with younger children come and it's fun to hear kid sounds and to watch them throughout the service again. One of Bryn's friends, Rachel, was sitting about halfway up the church holding her 14-month-old nephew. He's a really quiet, but very observant baby, so it's always fun to watch him when his parents are in town and come to our church. Anyway, after the service we talked to all the people we haven't seen since August and then went home for a wonderful haystack meal with my family and grandparents. After lunch my mum read more Christmas stories and then she took Bryn, Ty and I to the hospital to visit my great-aunt who got admitted on Wednesday because of asthama/breathing problems. She really, really doesn't want to be in the hospital and apparently kept telling my mum all during her and my grandma's visit yesterday that she just wanted to walk out of the hospital and leave. Today she was a lot calmer and was really happy to see us college students home again. We helped her eat supper and get her comfortable before leaving.

After that we stopped at one of my favourite stores, Art Knapp. It's a plant and florist store with a bunch of lawn and house decorations. That was a really bad description, but unless you go to an Art Knapp store, especially at Christmas time, you can't really understand what it's like. My mum wanted to show us a few things that we could get her for Christmas, but we ended up just wandering through the store looking at all the cool stuff they have. I must be getting old because every time I go into that store I see more and more things that I like. I'm starting to become my mother, ack! After that we went home for a few minutes and then were off again to Julie and Michael's house. We picked up another of Ty's friends, Mark, on the way there and then the them and Michael and another friend, AJ, went to the basement to watch movies. Julie and her parents and Bryn and I played a whole bunch of games and laugh, a lot. It was great to play games again. I didn't do too much of that this semester, but really want to do more of it this coming semester. After we were game-ed out, we found a couple Christmas movies on TV to watch and switched back and forth between them until we decided to watch the less weird one. We were about halfway done that movie when we heard the doorbell ring. Julie's dad went to answer it and as soon as I heard the person outside talk I knew, it was one of my high school classmates, Jonathon. He just got home from Loma Linda yesterday and their family was in town for the day. On Saturday nights here at home our school gym is open and anyone who wants to can go play floor hockey. Jonathon and Stephen and their other brother, Chris who goes to CUC (the Canadian one) were at the school playing hockey and then when they were done they came over to our house which is just around the corner from the school. When my parents said that we were up at Julie's house they came up there to see us. We abandoned the movie and talked with them for awhile. Later on Chris came over too and after more talking, when the boys were done their movies, we decided to make a Tim Horton's run before heading our separate ways. I rode with Jonathon and we had a really great talk, something we haven't had a chance to do for a long time, mostly because he's always in med. school and even during breaks we don't have that much time to see each other. Anyway we all got food and talked some more until finally Jonathon said he had to get to sleep and all the groups of siblings headed back to our respective dwellings. It was awesome to be able to spend so much time with friends we don't get to see all that often. If tonight is any indication, I think this break is going to be pretty great!

Thick and thin

Last night we flew into our airport just before 6 p.m. PT. It was awesome be back on Canadian soil. It didn't take too long to get our bags and go through customs since it's a pretty small airport. Our parents were right there waiting for us outside of customs so we hugged them hello. Then we saw another family from our church there to pick up a couple of their kids from work/school so we greeted all of them before heading home. We were all pretty much beat so we just sat around in the living room listening to my mum read Christmas stories and then went to bed.

Today I slept in for the first time in awhile. Then I was rather lazyish all day. In the middle of Friday night worship our doorbell rang. I instinctively knew it was my friend Julie. Turns out my instincts were right. It was Julie and her brother Michael, who is friends with Ty. They came in and more hugs with traded. We finished worship and then Julie and I talked for a good long time, with my parents occasionally wandering back into the living room to join in. At one point in our conversation I told Julie that I loved her hair. It's so nice and thick and manageable, unlike my own thin, always-doing-its-own-thing hair. Then she told me she would give me her hair. I thought that was a great idea until I imagined Julie without hair. I didn't want to take all her hair away from her nor did I want her to have to go through the annoyance of having my hair. Somehow as we discussed the pros and cons of thin and thick hair Julie came to the conclusion that I have thin hair, but a thick head and she has thick hair, but a thin head. I'm not even sure what that means, but it amused us for quite awhile. I'll leave you to come up with your own ideas for that statement. Happy Sabbath!

Update: I came up with a meaning for the thick and thin thing. Julie's right, I have a thick head. Once I have an idea in my head I usually stick with it. It takes a lot of convincing (and a lot of proof from the convincer) to make me change my mind. It also takes me a long time to make new friends, but once I do they are usually friends for life. Julie, on the other hand, has a pretty open mind when it comes to ideas and friends. I'm not saying she can be easily convinced of stuff, but she is more open to others' opinions and view points. She also is super friendly and easily makes new friends wherever she goes. I sometimes wish I was more like her in that aspect. Oh well, I guess that's just one more thing for me to work on.

Done everything

I'm done. I got done at 1:30 p.m. and went straight to a congratulations party for some of my friends who are graduating from the nursing program. I managed to get there before the end so that was great. Then I went home to get some last minute stuff done. When my sister got home from work we went to the mall again to buy a few more things before heading home. Then we went to grad, said goodbye to Danielle, who was working in Talge East until midnight. We gave her Set Cubed and I'm pretty sure she screamed and schreeched about it for a minute straight so I was glad that made her so happy. She said it made her night, which was nice to hear. Then I went back home to watch a movie and then pack. Wow, what a day

Nursing pinning

I went to the nursing pinning tonight. It was the first time I've been to one. It wasn't the most interesting thing I've ever sat through, but I knew several people being pinned, so I went. Watching the play, which my friend Tim starred in as Jesus, was interesting though. After the pinning I went to the mall with Bryn and Jonathan. It was a quick trip (thankfully!) just to help Bryn find a Christmas present for her boss. We stopped in a Barnes and Noble (and I managed not to buy anything), a game store and Hallmark. Then I made everyone go to the pet store to watch the puppies. It always makes me so sad to see them in those tiny cages. There was a tiny, adorable puppy that looked a bit like my dog when she was small. It was chewing on its lock. I also took some time to pet the rabbits, something I haven't done for awhile. Then Jonathan said, "Hey, look! It's a hamster." I asked where and he pointed to an animal just coming out from under a tunnel thing. It was definitely not a hamster, but a guinea pig. That made me laugh for awhile. Jonathan just said, "how am I supposed to know what a hamster looks like? I've never seen one in my life before." I find that both super amusing and incredibly hard to believe.

Now I'm drained and don't want to write more. So I'm watching "Julie and Julia" with my sister. I have to say that Amy Adams (the actress who plays Julie Powell) has an adorable haircut. I kind of want to get my hair cut like it now. I always do this. Wait until my hair is almost long enough to look normal and then all of a sudden want to cut it really short again. I think I'll try to suppress my hair-cutting wishes, at least for now.

Cave Exploration

Well, I think our special music went OK. Several people told us that they really enjoyed it, so that's always good to hear. When we got to the church for our sound check Robbie told us that Pastor Nixon was still speaking for the second service so we waited in the back until that service was over. Ty had talked to some of the people in charge of the communion and had found out that we weren't playing for a traditional special music, but rather the special music was going to be during the time the deacons handed out the bread and wine. I started worrying that our song would be too raucous for that, but then we decided that since it was Renewal we wouldn't worry about it Then they had to convert the stage from a girls choir and handbells to be ready for a praise team and a string quartet. Finally when they were done that Robbie told us to go on stage and do a quick sound check. Lots of the people were already filling the pews for Renewal so that was a bit weird, but it was fine. We did the sound check and then, after putting our instruments in the back again, we sat down near the front of the sanctuary. We left to go backstage when Nixon started his sermon and as soon as he was done we filed on stage and then started playing as the deacons started receiving the plates of bread and wine. After we were done the deacons still had a few more pews to serve and we were just supposed to stand quietly on the stage until they came back to the front of the church. It was a little awkward, but I tried to make it look like that was the plan, so hopefully that came across. We talked to each other afterward and said that, had we known earlier that it was going to be for that particular time in the service, we could have added another verse. Oh well. Maybe next time, haha. Anyway afterward we heard good comments from people so I'm happy. It was really fun to perform again actually, especially for a church a little bigger than our home church.

In the afternoon Jonathan brought his cousin, Tom, Bryn, Ty and me out to a neat cave north on I-24. Bryn and Ty had to leave early, but Jonathan, Tom and I explored one whole arm of the cave until we came to a place that had caved in or something like that. Jonathan had been to that cave twice before and he remembered it going farther, but every direction we tried to take led to dead-ends so we finally had to give up. It was still a lot of fun, even though we had to walk through a very cold stream, squish through tons of mud and try not to disturb the bats (who were adorable, by the way). When we came out of the cave it was dark and we were frozen until coming back to our respective dwellings for really hot showers. Of course, before we got all showered and clean we took pictures of how dirty we got.

Dr. Seuss

Today was author study presentation day for our Children's Lit. class. A few weeks ago we paired up and chose our favourite (or one of our favourite) children's author. Then we did an author study on him/her and made a presentation board. And today we got to go to Spalding Elementary to show our presentations and tell the kids about our authors. My partner, Ryan, and I decided to do Dr. Seuss and we got assigned to a grade two classroom along with two other groups. Presenting was a lot of fun although the kids were kind of crazy and wild and VERY talkative because we came just before their recess time. In any case, the teacher split her students up into three groups of five and so each of us had five minutes to tell the kids at our display about our author before they rotated to see one of the other presentations. I had found this neat find-the-differences activity sheet online using two pictures of the Cat in the Hat that had five differences between them so I'd printed out a bunch of those and we had each kid do that. When they'd found all five things Ryan gave them each a Tootsie Roll lollipop and then we told them what we'd learned about Dr. Seuss.


I'd forgotten how amusing kids can be. One little girl in the first group that came to our table informed us that she had 55 Dr. Seuss books. I was greatly impressed since Dr. Seuss wrote around 60 books for kids. A little boy in the second group exclaimed loudly, upon the receiving his lollipop, "Wow, this is my FIFTH dessert today!" (we found out later that the first group of kids at the James Marshall display had pretty much eaten a whole plate of cookies by themselves, some of them taking four or five cookies each). Another boy in the second group told me that he and his sister are Thing 1 and Thing 2. When I asked him why he said, "Because there's two of us." (Of course! Why didn't I think of that?) Then he told me his sister is older and that has always made him mad. I, assuming that he and his sister were twins, asked him how much older and he replied that she was in fourth grade. It took me a second to wrap my brain around the fact that they weren't twins and by the time I figured it out he was already off of the Thing 1 and Thing 2 subject and was telling me that the activity sheet was "soooo easy." So the kids were fun to talk to and interact with. I just hope they will actually remember one or two things about Dr. Seuss. Maybe they'll remember that his real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel or that he loved hats and had a huge, diverse collection that he wore as "thinking caps" while he was writing or that he made up another pen name (other than Dr. Seuss, which was both his middle name and his mother's maiden name), Theo LeSieg - his last name backwards. I think maybe at least one of those facts might have stuck with some of the kids we talked to, which makes me happy.

I can't even remember the last time I was in an elementary classroom. Even though I had a lot of fun visiting grade two today, I'm very glad that I'm not an elementary education major. I like kids. I'm even good with kids. But I'm not sure I would be able to think fast enough to keep up to 15 rowdy, rambunctious, rollicking grade two-ers for five days a week, 9ish months a year, much less be able to teach them all they need to learn. I'm pretty thankful I'm a journalism major. Anyway, if you care to see, here's our presentation board.


Ryan gets all the credit for making the hills and the Lorax trees and for designing the middle panel, which would mean that I get the credit for compiling and writing up all the information on the side panels. It guess this group project had a pretty equally-shared work load.

Christmas on the Promenade

Tonight I finally got to see the inside of the Doll House. I've been wanting to since it got moved to its present location and tonight I got my chance. It actually seems a lot bigger inside than it appears to be from the outside. I had read the plaque outside the building before and had also read the story in the Southern Accent about all the uses the Doll House has had since it was built, but it was neat to see the write-ups and pictures that were posted on bulletin boards inside. I also thought it was neat that Santa Claus was set up on the porch of the Doll House. It seemed like a very appropriate place for him to be. Oh and there was also a gingerbread man right near the line for Santa. Jonathan took a picture of Danielle and I posing with him. Other than that Christmas on the Promenade was the usual, although it seemed warmer - at least to me - than the previous two years that I've attended. One thing I was a bit sad about was that it was my last Christmas on the Promenade and my two siblings couldn't enjoy it with me. They were in Film Evaluation class. Oh well, I found others to hang out with and that was fun too.

After the Christmas festivities, I had to go work at the Accent office. It was super nice of our editor to let us take part in the fun before having to work. Work tonight was a lot of fun, although that could be because of the Christmas music, homemade cookies and apple cider waiting for us back in the Accent office. Tonight's issue took an extra long time - half because we started working late because of Christmas on the Promenade and half because I think we all really wanted to make sure that this, our last issue of the semester, was as error-free as we could make it. Also I think we wanted to make sure all the stories about Kirsten were as correct, appropriate and sensitively-written as possible. When I was finally done editing and fixing and changing things around, the copy editor, Adrienne, and I left together. Reading all the information about Kirsten made us want to stick together as we left the student center so I walked with Adrienne to her car and she gave me a ride to mine. I wonder if extra precautions actually keep you safe or just make you a more-easily-scared human being?

Earthquake

I was sitting at my desk editing this week's Accent stories from the News Reporting class. All of a sudden, the whole house started to shake and creak. I looked up to the ceiling, wondering what in the world had happened upstairs to make such a racket, but before I had finished wondering, the shaking and accompanying noise gradually dissipated. The thought, "I wonder if that was a mini-earthquake," ran through my mind for a second, but then I noticed yet another misspelling in the news story that I was currently editing (It's Web site. Not website or even web site. Come on News Reporting class. You SHOULD know that by this point in the semester!) and continued editing. Later on, I signed on to Facebook and saw Danielle's status update that she thought she just felt an earthquake. I thought that was odd that she, living in Southern Village, had felt something close to what I had felt from over here in Ooltewah. I looked around Facebook a little more, finding one of my housemates from last year had a very similar status update to Danielle's. Finally I took matters into my own hands and searched the Internet, finding this Web site that confirmed the earthquake. So I have now survived a minor earthquake. I feel so cool to be able to say that.

Cookies

*In honour of our recently-completed poetry section

On Friday evening we had three friends over to make cookies. While they were in the oven baking (the cookies, not the friends) we were inspired to write cookie poetry. Each of us in turn wrote a line of the poem. Our original plan was to have an AABB rhyme scheme, but the ever-mischievous Tim kind of wrecked that when he wrote the word orange at the end of line three. So the rhyme scheme became AABA. We called the poem complete after writing two stanzas. It's kind of strange (although not as weird as the ones from that poem generator). Here it is:


Cookies by AQ, BQ, CS, JG & TG
Flour, sugar, eggs and salt,
But it won't work without some malt.
Shall we add some peel of orange?
Its bad taste is not your fault.

Make sure the cookies don't get burned
Or else a lesson you'll have learned.
So watch those cookies with a care,
And you will a mighty cook have turned.


It was a fun evening and the cookies tasted great. Oh, and we also defined the newly invented word rickle as a very long, curvy licorice (with each of us contributing one word to the definition). I felt very creative by the end of the night!

Water-soggen

Today was awesome. We had communion at church and then had a bunch of people over for lunch. Our friend, Stephen, made curry, which was nearly too hot for me, but still yummy. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it too (plus our apartment still smells really great from lunch). Then most everyone left and Bryn and I cleaned up. After that was finished, Jonathan, Bryn and I went water-slogging on the Greenway. We almost got swept away a couple times, but we had a blast! After getting totally water-soggened, we went back to our apartment and changed. Then we brought our perogies over to Jonathan's apartment and made the best supper that I've had in a long, long time. And that's why today was such an awesome day.

Fixed

My car is fixed. I'm so happy to be able to use it again. It was an interesting week having to arrange rides from my sister and friends. I'm glad I'll be relatively self-sufficient again. If only I had a bike here I could have done quite nicely without a car. Oh how dependent we have become.

Car Trouble

I went to drive to class today and got halfway down my street before my car died. It was very distressing. My sister had to take her own car today and was leaving just behind me so I pulled my car as far over onto the side of the road as I could and then jumped in Bryn's car. It didn't help that today was The Day of the Nearly-Autumn Flood. So now I have to figure out how to get my car fixed on top of everything else I have to do. Superb...

Soccer

Today I was woken up by Tucker standing beside my head loudly whispering, "The phone is ringing, the phoning is ringing, the phone is ringing..." Finally I realized it wasn't a dream and clambered out of bed. By that time the home phone had stopped ringing and the Unicorn Kid song that's Ty's cell's ring tone started playing. Just as I reached the bedroom door, Ty emerged from the other bedroom and beat me down the hall to get his phone. It was Mark making sure that we had all survived the night OK. I got breakfast for the kids and apologized that they were eating at 8:15, a whole hour and fifteen minutes late. They didn't seem to mind too much. I actually think Coral was rather pleased she got to sleep in. For the rest of the morning, Bryn, Ty and I took turns showering while the other two played with the kids. Bryn played Tucker's Canadian Geography game with him and then I taught him how to play Slaps. After that Ty played Trouble with Tucker while I read some books to Coral (books that I had to read for Survey of Children's Lit. - what a great way to get homework done!). Later Bryn and I taught Tuck Dutch Blitz and then we ended the morning with Bryn, Tuck and I playing Skip-Bo. Mark and Terrie got back sometime during the reading/Trouble-playing time and then we headed back to campus (with most of the leftover pizza!). After taking Ty back to the dorm, Bryn and I stopped at our place to drop off our stuff and then drove over to Tim and Jonathan's apartment. We thoroughly interrupted Jonathan and his classmate who were doing homework and then Tim, Bryn and I went to the soccer field by the Greenway. One of us stood in the net while the other two took shots. Very early on, I was trying to stop a goal and slipped right into a muddy puddle. Even though we were all totally muddy by the time we finished playing, we had tons of fun. Now I'm going to get busy and do some homework. Soon I have to go to the Mac lab to finish my web design up for Tuesday. We'll see how that goes...

Babysitting

Today after church, my sister and brother, Bryn and Tyler, and I changed, packed up some stuff and left for Soddy Daisy. We're currently babysitting our nephew, Tucker, and niece, Coral, for today, tonight and tomorrow morning. We got to their house around 1p.m. and ate a yummy haystack lunch. By that time the kids were telling their parents to leave so they could start having fun with their aunts and uncle. So my older brother, Mark, and my sister-in-law, Terrie, gave us a few directions, said good-bye to the kids and left for a night away for their anniversary.

We spent the afternoon doing awesome aunt-and-uncle-ly things with Tuck and Coral. We taught them how to play that wonderful Adventist Review & Herald game, Animals, and they really enjoyed it. Coral played on Auntie Bryn's team and they tied with me for a winning four sets. Then the kids needed some running around time so we put them in clothes that could handle the rain-softened earth and took them into the backyard. We taught them "What Time is it Mr. Wolf" and played that until the mosquitoes and other assorted Tennessee bugs drove us back inside. Then Tucker showed me his coin collection (and I inwardly drooled over some of his specimen) and Auntie Bryn introduced Coral to her camera. Coral became the family photographer and captured the rest of the afternoon on memory card. Not sure how many of the pictures turned out, but it should be fun to look at them later. Then we had Lupi's pizza for supper and spent the last hour or so before Quiet Time playing more games. We played a couple rounds of Uno and then taught Tucker and Coral some new games including Pit (rather hilarious since Tucker couldn't remember that the point of the game was to get a spoon, not worry so much about his cards) and 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school). Then it was Quiet Time and the kids got their blankets and "buddies" (stuffed animals) and snuggled onto the couches with us while we listened to "The Sheaf of Grain," one of my personal favourite Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan stories. When that was over we made them a camp-out nest of pillows and blankets on the floor in Tucker's room, said prayer with them and shut the door so they could have some sister-brother talking time before falling asleep.

Now Bryn, Ty and I are hanging out in the living room eating leftover pizza and ice cream. It's great babysitting these kids!

Tree Climbing

I went tree climbing tonight. It was really awesome! First, earlier in the afternoon, Bryn and I cleaned our apartment. We cleaned pretty much everywhere except the garage. Then later Jonathan came over and adjusted a set of shelves. Then we organized our garage and now it's super awesome! It's so awesome in fact that Bryn and I think it'd make a great watching movie area. All we'd need would be more couches and something to watch movies on. Probably won't happen. Then the three of us ate a great supper of rice and a stir-fry that Bryn made. After that we decided to do something instead of just hang out in the apartment. So we went tree climbing while the rest of the campus was in vespers. We climbed four trees in an hour and 15 minutes (and talked while we lounged in the trees). Now we're back at our apartment to eat cinnamon-sugar toast. It was a great start to the Sabbath!

Audition

Today I had my orchestra seating audition. I never really get scared for auditions, but I never really do all that well either since I have some eye problems that make reading music really difficult for me. I basically just listen to the pieces lots and memorize most of the music by the time we have our concerts. Anyway, Bryn and I went over to the music building around 11 a.m. and practiced until our auditions, which were just before 1 p.m. I felt like mine went all right at the start because the first few sections were the ones I knew pretty well and could mostly play by memory already. The ones further back in the piece were more difficult for me, but I think they went semi-OK. In any case, auditions are over so now I can relax and not worry about that anymore. Yay, one more thing crossed off my list of things to worry about!

Quarry

Today after church, Bryn and I had friends over for a pasta lunch. Then after cleaning the kitchen up, we called a few more people and got ready to go swimming. Our friend, Jonathan, knew of a quarry to swim in and so we decided to go. In the end three vehicles headed out to Hixson for a short hike and a good swim. There was also cliff jumping available and always the ever exciting game of keep-away-the-scum. Later most of us came back to Jonathan's apartment to make supper and play games after sundown. All in all, it was a good day with great weather and awesome friends.

Family visits

I got acquainted with LibraryThing.com today. It's a pretty neat place to catalog the books you read. For most of the afternoon I was reading kids books and putting them into my LibraryThing catalog. I took a break for a bit when my older brother and his family stopped by for a visit. We haven't seen them since we left Collegedale at the end of the semester last spring. My nephew, Tucker, was really excited to show me all the new coins he got earlier that day from his great-grandma to add to his coin collection. I was impressed with his English farthing. I kind of wish I had it in my collection. When I was six and a half I'm pretty sure I didn't have any foreign coins in my collection. Hmm, maybe I hadn't even started a coin collection at that age. While my brother and I talked, my sister and sister-in-law played hide-and-seek with Tucker and our niece, Coral. I'm pretty sure they discovered every hiding spot possible in our apartment, including the top of our fridge. It wasn't the most productive afternoon, but it was enjoyable and I think that's just as important as doing homework.