Kindle!

I just got a Kindle!

Cruise!!!!

I just got back from the cruise about 1 hour ago. For those of you who don't know, my grandparents 50th anniversary was this year, and to celebrate they took us all on a cruise to the Bahamas. We were on the ship Carnival Pride. It was awesome!!!!!

There was a teen club called O2. It was for teens 15-17 years old. It was fun, even if the music wasn't all that great. We did fun stuff like photography scavenger hunts, and 'Dress the Contestant'. That was especially hilarious. There were teams of 4 and we each got a list of stuff we needed to dress the team captain in. I was the team captain for our team. I was with my sis, cousin, and this other guy named Chris. I don't remember everything we had to get, but here is what I do remember -
~Left sneaker
~Right flip-flop
~mis-matching socks
~Checkered Shirt
~skirt
~belt
~had
~tie
~neclace
~hair tie
~another hair accesory
~red lipstick
~red nail polish
~purple eyeshadow
~beauty spot
~sunglasses 
~backpack
~sarong

On second thought, I do remember everything! We had 20 minutes to go down 10 floors to our cabins, get all the stuff we needed, put it all on, then get back up to the 10 floor where the club was. Our team and another team tied! The other team had one more thing that we didn't have time to get, but Wally (he's the leader of O2) liked the way I put mine together, so we both won! It was pretty awesome, and I looked pretty ridiculous!

I regret that I will not be able to write every single thing that was awesome, (as that would be one long blog post,) But I will try and highlight some of the more awesome stuff. (This next thing doesn't sound likes it's awesome, but read it through). So on Friday I wasn't feeling well. I also hadn't gotten much sleep the night before (not getting back to your cabin till 1:30 a.m. could slightly inhibit on your sleeping schedule.) So I was exhausted. I woke up Saturday, and realized every body else had left. I looked at my watch. 1:35 p.m I slept till 1:35!!!!!!! It was awesome!!!!

I also really really liked the room service. Our steward would come in the morning to make our bed, and then in the evening to turn down the bed, make a towel animal, and leave a couple of chocolates!! So that was pretty fun!

There was also 24/7 soft serve ice cream!! And 24/7 pizza!

We stopped at three ports on the cruise. At each port we could do one shore excursion. However, at the first stop, which was Grand Turk, I really wanted to do two things, so I didn't do anything at the third port. So at Grand Turk I went horseback riding. We rode for a little under an hour, then in groups of 6 we rode the horses into the water about 3 or 4 feet deep, and we galloped. It was awesome!!! The other excursion I did that day was power snorkeling. It was pretty cool! We had these little thingys with propellers that pulled us along. I don't really know how else to explain them!

The second stop was at Half Moon Cay, which is a privately owed island by the Carnival Cruise lines. I really wanted to go jet-skiing, but I was to young. So instead I went parasailing!! It was awesome! I was about 600 ft. up in the air!! I could see the bottom of the ocean from 600 feet up in the air, that's how clear it was!

Freeport was the last stop. I actually didn't get off the boat, because I wasn't doing a shore excursion, it was 5 dollars each way to get a taxi to take you to the beach, and all I would have done was lay out in the sun and get even more sunburn. So I opted to stay on board and hang out.

There was so much more cool stuff, but I really don't want to make this post any longer!

~Erin

My last post was July 29th

Since then, I have:
~Participated in a CYMA leaders debrief meeting
~Gone to a Celtic Crossroad Concert
~Went to Hannah's birthday party (<3 you deary!)
~Went to one day of the Beginner/Intermediate Mime Workshop
~Went to the Intermediate/Advanced Mime Workshop Monday-Wednesday
~There was an LIT meeting Monday
~A CYMA videopalooza thing Tuesday
~Went to the pool and slept over at a friends house Wednesday
~Went to the orthodontists on Thursday (I despise my new retainer)
~Had a piano lesson Thursday evening

And today I am going to the mime workshop and rehearsal, tomorrow I am packing, (probably) scrubbing the boat, and (hopefully) going to see The Wizard of Oz play that Danielle is in. Then on Sunday, I am leaving for the cruise! So basically I won't be online till  Monday the 23rd.

TTFN!

Tuck Everlasting

I dislike the ending of the movie very much.
I like the rest of the movie, just not the ending.

Philadelphia!!

I am going to Philadelphia for the weekend with my mom. I am very excited! I will be coming back Monday afternoon. YAY!!

CYMA is officially...

over. :(

So. It's been a while. More than a week. So I shall give you a rundown of what happened last week. Monday, after we got home, we went to a summer solstice party. That was a lot of fun! Then Tuesday night, I had TNMSGT (Tuesday Night Mime Small Group Thingy). Wednesday was haging around the house, watching Veggie Tales! Thursday was small group planning with Katie, then LIT meeting (yes, I really do know how to make jello!). Then I had music practice. Friday was another music practice, working on the Irish Dance for CYMA with Kristina, then mime. Saturday we (Our Church music group) went up to Altoona P.A. and we played at a mass in a baseball field. It was fun, except for the fact that it was very very hot. We got back at 11:30. Then Sunday, we (the same church group) played at Mass at our church. Then my mom and I went to a friends graduation, and from there we went to my grandparents house. We spent the night, and then on Monday it was decided that I would stay up at my grandparents so I could go birthday shopping. (my grandmother takes us clothes shopping for our birthdays). So that is where I am now, and where I will be until Thursday morning.

Thats all for now!

We're home!!

Yesterday was a long day. We left at 8-ish, and didn't get to Still Pond till 7-ish. We motor-sailed for part of the day. As soon as we anchored, we went swimming off our boat. We left Still Pond 9:30 this morning, and got back at 11:30! Our boat is at a mooring ball at Tidewater Marina, and she will stay there until we leave for our big trip. We can use our dinghy to get out to her if we want to go on any trips this summer.

Sailing!

This post is for Saturday - I was getting ready to hit the 'post' button when the internet crashed, so I'm posting it today!


We actually sailed today! Well, technically, motor sailing. But we still had the jib out for about 4 hours today. While it didn't help our speed to much, it did keep us steady in the 3 foot swells. It was fun! We went from Kilmarnock to Solomon's Island. I was able to drive for a long time. When we got here, we got the dinghy off the davots, and used it to get to the shore. Since we have a mooring ball, we were able to use the marina facilities, which include a pool! They also have bikes you can borrow, so we biked to the grocery store to pick up a few things my dad and I forgot last night.

Funny story - my mom was making Thousand Island dressing for us to dip cauliflower in. But she realized that we didn't have Cat

Chesapeake Boat Basin

Tonight we are staying at Chesapeake Boat Basin, in the marina. We were going to anchor out, but we went into a slip instead because our refrigeration isn't working. I'm not quite sure how going into a slip helped the refrigeration, but, oh well! We needed to get some stuff from Walmart, so my dad and I took the trolley into town so we could get what we needed. However, the Walmart is like the third stop out of twelve, so it was really nice on the way there, because it was a fairly short trip. But on the way back, we had to ride the rest of the route which was an hour. So that took a bit of time, but at least we were able to get to the Walmart! We attempted sailing today. I say attempted, because it didn't really work. We were getting winds of 15 kts, so we decided to sail. So we put up the mizzen and the jib sails. But as soon as we did that, the winds dropped down to 5 kts. So we decided to put up the main sail as well, in order to go a little faster. But in order to do that, we had to furl in the mizzen. So we furled in the mizzen, and started to raise the main. When the main got about halfway up, it got stuck. We worked on it for about 15 minutes, then decided to furl both the main and the mizzen, and go back to driving. When we got to the marina, we were able to fix the sails! I think we are anchoring out tomorrow night, so I might not be able to post!

Bluewater Yacht Club...

...is where we are staying tonight. It has a pool! (major bonus points) We had a relatively short day today, docking at 1:30, after leaving at 9:30. The first day we were on the boat, my mom was so hot that she said that every time we stopped at a marina, we would get ice cream. She was thinking we would only be staying at a marina once or twice, but we have stayed at a marina every night so far! I didn't get ice cream last night, because I wasn't feeling to well. But today, we went looking for ice cream, and found it in an unexpected place. We went to the dollar store, and found ice cream there! So that was fun! Our Aunt and Uncle are going to be visiting this evening, because they live about 30 minutes from here!

6/16/10 - Our third day on the boat

We went 72 statute miles today, which is approximately 65 nautical miles. We left at 6:20 this morning, and the first thing we had to do was cross the Albermarle Sound. We have heard horror stories about the sound being really rough, and I remembered that last time we went across the sound (6 years ago) I got seasick because of all of the waves (That was the only time on our last boat trip that I got seasick). But, this time, we got started early enough so the wind/ waves weren't to bad. I drove part of the way across it. It rained just as we were leaving the sound. After that we went into the Currituck sound, then into the North Landing river. The North Landing River was really stressful to drive through, because it was a very very narrow passage that was deep enough; the rest was 4ish feet. We had to go through a couple of bridges, and since some of them only open at certain times, we were doing some circles waiting for them to open. We docked at Great Bridge. It started hailing just as soon as we got our boat tied up! Tomorrow we are going through the lock! (changing topic) I don't think that our depth sounder is very accurate, because at one point, it showed that we were going through 3'2" of water. You have to add 1' to the depth shown on the sounder, so that meant we were supposedly going through 4'2" of water. We draw 5'6". How we managed to do that is beyond me. We think either our depth sounder isn't working quite right, or we just slid right through some mud on the bottom. We don't know!

Our boat trip so far...

...has been hot, fun, and relaxing! We went 40 miles yesterday, and 40 miles today. Yesterday was very hot, up in the 90's. Today was cooler, with winds up to 26 kts! I got a little sunburn yesterday on the tops of my legs, a little on my arms, and a little on my face. We are hoping to do a long day tomorrow, 70 miles. We will have to stop halfway through, because we need to let the dog off the boat, and get fuel. We are leaving (hopefully) at 6a.m., so we should get there between 6 and 7(ish). I am not sure if we will have internet access or not. We shall see! We haven't done any sailing yet, for a number of reasons. But, I have been able to drive the boat quite a bit! I drove for a total of about 5 hours, between the two days.

Klutz

I am a klutz. Background: we have a lid type thing that goes over the piano keys on our piano. (end background) So I was shutting the lid thingy with one hand, and my other hand was on the edge of the keys. Somehow, the lid slipped out of my hand and landed on my other hand. Fortunately, I didn't permanently injure myself, just managed to bruise one of the fingers. Then, later, I was going down my brothers zip line, and I was putting my feet down to slow me down. Not Smart. I hit my toes on a rock, and cut open my second to littlest toe on my left foot. It was gushing blood. bleh. So there are two (among) many incidents that prove I am a klutz.

City of Ember

My mom and I watched City of Ember last night. It was pretty good. However, I didn't like the ending. But other than that it was a great movie!

Bike Riding......ugggg

I went on a bike ride this morning with my mom. Not your typical couple miles around town....but all the way down to the Susquehanna Dam. That's 23 miles! And a good bit on the way back is steep uphill. It took us 3 hours! It was ...fun... I think.... :)

Biking

I went biking around town today, for about an hour. I was only planning on biking to the library, but when I got there, I realized that the library didn't open for another 1/2 hour, so that was kinda annoying. So I just biked around 'till it opened. But it was really hot...

It's hot. Today's temperature is the highest its been since 1957. Ug. I do not like the heat.

Crazy

Ok, so a rundown (in a word) of my life this past month - CRAZY

I was really busy with my final paper for my science class (ended up 13 pages long), my final test for science, Macbeth, and all of my other regular schoolwork. On some of the worse days, I was working for over 12 hours straight. I'd get up at 5, and work 'till at least 5, sometimes longer. And that was just school. That didn't include music practice, or babysitting (most of which I just asked my sister to do), or anything like that. It was really really hard. About a week before my science paper was due and our first Macbeth performance, I would wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I don't know why. I just did. So, even though it gave me extra time to work, it made me physically exhausted, enough so that I was literately falling asleep working in the evenings. I would have to go to bed at 9, cuz I was falling asleep. Then I would wake up at 4, and the whole day would be repeated. Not Fun.

But now school is (almost) over, Macbeth is over (I am actually sad about that), science is over, and my life is returning back to normal. I am up at my grandparents house this week, and they spoil me, which is a nice change over the busy-ness of the past month.

So I will really try to be more faithful in blogging. I really will.

Toodles!
  Erin

I know I haven't posted in forever, and I'm sorry. I've just been insanely busy. I'll start posting again once my life calms down (a.k.a. after confirmation, Macbeth, and Science)

Discovery and Sleep

So. I figured out why I was sick last night. Apparently, one of the side effects of one of my pills is nausea and vomiting. It is common during the first couple of days while the body adjusts to the medication. So that's why I was sick last night, and wasn't feeling well this morning. I am hoping that I don't get sick again tonight.

I also can't seem to sleep. I was falling asleep in the car ride home from the potluck dinner, but now that I am trying to sleep my brain is whirring at 100mph. Which is not good because I need sleep. However, I am starting to learn how to function on less sleep than I am used to, seeing as the past four nights average amount of sleep has been five and one half hours, which is about half of what I used to need. I know this sounds weird, but I am hoping that by doing something, my brain will start to shut down and I will be able to sleep. I have to be able to function extremely well tomorrow, because I have an extra long Macbeth rehearsal.

I was sick last night. I don't know why. I ate hardly anything yesterday...but anyway, Andee spent the night last night, and that got a little crazy, if you want detail go here. We went to Mt. Zion in the morning. I did the projection for Bible Force. Then, went to church, then to the LIT info. meeting. That was fun! I'm getting ready to head to a potluck dinner, and I'll probably go to bed soon after we get back...

I just got back from Bardfest a few minute ago....

Bardfest is a competition. There were four other schools there, and we all performed scenes from Shakespeare's plays. We did four scenes from Macbeth. The awards they gave out weren't like 1st place 2nd place, and so on, but everybody said that we were the best group there!

Only a couple of minor mishaps...one of them was that 2 other people and I are supposed to enter from stage center, so we were planning on going around the outside of the building to get there. However, the door we were supposed to use to get into the building was locked, so we weren't able to enter from center stage. Which is ok, it was just a little confusing. Also, one girls costume was accidentally put back in the car, so she just put my brother's cloak over her dress (in the first scene she was a Lady in Waiting, but in the second she was playing a mans part of a messenger)

AND AND AND....my back doesn't hurt!! It hasn't hurt at all today, except for one time, but that was because we were sitting still for a long time.

Orthopaedic Appointment

So I went to the Orthopaedic's today for an appointment for my back. I am supposed to rest it, no physical activity, for at least 6 weeks. (I have another appointment then to re-assess the pain) I am on steroids for 6 days, muscle relaxant for 2 weeks, and (after the steroids) an anti-inflammatory for 30 days. Also, I am supposed to use the heating pad on it 3-4 times a day for 1/2 hour each time, and I am supposed to take two hot showers, 20 minutes each, per day, with the water right on my back. So hopefully that will make my back heal!

sooo...ive had two crazy but awesome days!

Tuesday was:
Playing in church
Piano lesson
Science class
Creative Worship at Small Group

Today was:
Orthopaedic appointment (see forthcoming post for details)
Macbeth rehearsal!!!
took my brother to fencing
and planning out my life for the next couple of days because my dad is going for the weekend so my mom has to do all of the driving and she wants her life planned out....

Crazy Week ahead...

It's looking like I'm going to have a crazy week. For example, tomorrow, between the time of 7:30am and 8:30pm, I will only be home for 3 hours. Yes, in a 13 hour time span, I will only be home for 3 of those hours...however, the rest of the week isn't going to be that bad, but I probably won't be posting 'till like Saturday! Actually, I am considering grounding myself from the internet for the week...

My day went something like this:

7:15 - wake up, get ready to go to church
8:00 - realize that the zipper on the skirt I wanted to wear is busted. So I came up with an ingenious idea: sew myself into the skirt!
8:30 - Go to church at St. Joan of Arc
9:30 - Go to Youth Group at St. Joans
10:15 - leave Youth group early
10:30 go to Mt. Zion service!!
12:15 - walk up to Sactuary
12:20 - hang out in one of the Sunday school rooms with Mark, Colin, and Andee
12:40 - CYMA meeting
2:00 - leave the meeting, and head home, with some detours
3:00 - play pinochle
4:00 - took a walk
5:00 - picked my brother up from the Skaggs house
5:10 - went to visit Maggie, one of the puppies that sold
6:05 - blogged this entry!

So that was my day...in a nutshell...

So I just got back from the MACHE book fair. I got 4 books. 2 of them are in the A Life of Faith: Millie Kieth, one is Phantom of the Opera, and I don't remember the name of the other one. But I've almost finish the two Millie Kieth ones!

Mime last night...got some progress on God of the Promise ...finally! My back was really painful though...So today I am going to a MACHE homeschool book fair...it should be fun! I'll let y'all know how it goes when I get back

sooo

Since I have trouble keeping my Optimsim Intitaitive optimistic, I decided to make another blog. so here it is!

I went dress shopping today...I kinda found something....but not really sure yet...it was fun, but it took FOREVER!!!!!! And then I went to a mime rehearsal...it was fun, and we managed to get a lot done! But now I am thoroughly exhausted....so why I am up writing a blog post instead of sleeping, i have no idea...