December 24th, 2011

          Alright, I know it's been a long time, but just you wait! I've been busy, I promise!
On December 10th, I took my ACT again and my mom picked up the uhaul. We had a ton of big strong manly helpers to load the truck, and I was taking my test so I didn't really have to do much on that end of things.  By the time my test was done, they were only loading little stuff into the very front of the truck. But since the drive to our new place is so long, we didn't have nearly as many people volunteer to help unload at the other end. My friends Neecee and Sketch both volunteered their services, and one of my parents friends offered to drive the truck so mom and dad could drive their cars. Sketch couldn't come at the last minute so it was the six of us unloading in the dark. And honestly, it took us half as long to unload, in the dark, as it did for the whole crew to load her up! But we got it done at a mostly reasonable hour and went to Taco Bell for dinner.
          I'm afraid our new town is incredibly small. Mom decided the best way to get out and meet people in a town this small would most likely be by going to church. Since mom was raised mostly Catholic, she found a Catholic church nearby. We went to Mass our first Sunday here, and promptly signed up to help decorate the church, because I don't believe in doing things halfway. It wasn't as bad as Leo was groaning about it, but it wasn't easy work, lol! There turned out to be a few girls my age there, so I may have pumped them for info on the town. One of my fears came true when they told me the nearest mall was 90 minutes away. I really want to get out and start meeting more people, because they told me their main form of entertainment is house parties. And you don't get invited to them unless you know people, duh.
          So, my mom's brother is in staying with us for the holidays and it's pretty awesome. Some people might think I'm weird for it, but I genuinely like and enjoy almost all of my extended family! Some of my friends moan and groan about family gatherings, but I love them! I firmly believe that without family, you're nothing! Family is always there for you and loves you. Even if you need some tough love every now and then! lol. Anyways, my uncle is an amazing cook! He makes the best omelets you've never tasted. An he made some delicious pork sirloin that sat in the oven for two hours and he's making ribs on Christmas! I know, not very traditional, but who cares! I love ribs!
          Yesterday was the 23rd, so we all drove back to our old town for my grandparents Christmas party. I was really happy because we got to stop in and see Neecee and the kids. I got to see all the pictures of them on Santa's lap and it was really hard to say good-bye, but it had to be done. We got confused about which grandparents house the party was at, but luckily my grandparents and my great grandparents live pretty near each other. So it no biggie. My gramma got me this gorgeous purple set, it had a scarf with an "M" monogrammed on it, some super soft slipper socks, an extremely snuggly blanket, and it wasn't the teeny kind that you can barely cover your legs with, it was a big one! and an absolutely adorable purple beret! I don't know how she knew about my not so secret love of berets, but she nailed it!
          After the party was all done, presents unwrapped and thank you's proclaimed, mom drove Leo and I back into town to spend the night at our friends houses. I got to see Hope and Doug!! Hope had to work in the morning, so we watched some Grey's Anatomy and worked on her last minute Christmas presents. We went to bed around 11:00pm, but I wasn't tired at all, and I could tell I was really bugging her with my incessant chatter. So I got up to see what Doug was up too. We ended up staying up til 3:00am watching American Dad on his MacBook. I'd never seen it before, and dangggg it is hilarious!! I'm going to have to check Hulu and see if it's available to stream. So after we realized what the time was, I crawled back into bed and didn't even move until the alarm went off. I dragged myself out of bed, but I wasn't really awake yet, so I sat downstairs on the couch with their adorable miniature yorkie until I felt like getting some cereal. By the time I roused myself enough to take a shower, my mom was there to pick me up and it was almost time for Hope to go to work anyways.
          After Hope and I said our goodbye's, it was time for the verrryy long drive home. I mostly just turned on my iPod and zoned out for the whole trip. Nobody was letting me drive, so I didn't have anything better to do. Now we're home again and my uncle is listening to the football game on the radio while my parents work on secret things in their bedroom. Their subtlety may have fooled me when I was eight, but come on guys. lol, it's alright. I just love being able to think "TOMORROWS CHRISTMAS!!!"
          I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and that you find time to count your blessings. You might be surprised at the number ;-)

November 21st 2011

                So I know I haven’t posted in awhile. And I could lie and say I was super busy, but really I got in trouble and I wasn’t allowed any electronics for a few weeks. We finally have a set date for the move. I feel like it’s my execution date or something. I just want time to slow down so I never have to move away from all my friends. But it’s inevitable. I’ve already got my room all packed and we spent Saturday moving a ton of stuff into a storage unit because our new place is tiny.

                On a much happier note, Thanksgiving is right around the corner! I love Thanksgiving, it’s one my favorite holidays.  There is nothing more fun than going to someone’s house and seeing tons of family. Joking around with my grandparents, teasing my uncles and of course, getting to see my cousin from Illinois. Lizzy and I have really only seen each other fewer than 20 times. But spending a couple days hanging out every year is something I always look forward too. One year, she got a hold of my phone and left a message on my friend’s family voice message machine calling him a sexy beast and he said his mom never let him live it down. Last year, mom really wanted a black Friday deal for Leo's Christmas present from Wal-Mart, so we literally spent all night at the store. It was awesome.This year I really want to take her out to see Tulsa now that I live here…even if it’s only for a few more weeks.

                Tomorrow my book club is throwing me a goodbye party! I’m sure I’m going to cry. They’re all chipping in for my movie ticket and Cherry Berry afterwards. We decided to see Tower Heist because it looks funny and the boys will enjoy it too. This whole thing is very sad. I don’t want to say good bye to people! I know we’ll be coming back three times a month, but in the grand scheme of things that’s not very often. And mom is upset because the WoHeLo/Senior and parent meeting for Grand Council Fire is on Leo’s birthday. She refuses to see the good side of it. So we’ll have to spend the morning driving. But then Leo gets to spend the afternoon with his friends and mom. Then mom can give him some money to go off with his friends and have a good time! While her and I do our meeting. But she’s treating him like he’s 9 years old and not listening to what he actually wants to do. I tried to ask him what he wanted to do, but she blew up at me and told me it sounded like I was trying to get his hopes up just to crush them. I know Leo’s my little brother and I dump on him a lot, but I seriously doubt he’s going to want to spend his 14^th birthday sitting in our new place with none of his best friends around.

                I went to the Breaking Dawn midnight premiere with Hope last week, and it was AMAZING! I was also so freaking glad I am homeschooled that night. Because Hope didn’t get home until 3:00am and she had to sleep for four hours, then head to school. And after school, she had to work. Whereas I did not wake up until 12:00pm the next day. But the movie was just fabulous. Better than I expected. I’m so pleased with where they cut it off for part two. The best part was watching the transformation from Bella human to Bella vampire. I’m trying really hard to not do any spoilers. I could probably write a whole separate post summarizing the movie. I used to be this obsessed with Twilight when it first came out. But now I only get this giddy around the new movies. I took down all four twilight posters in my room last year and all my friends and my family thought I was getting sick or something. And just for the record, I’m team Edward all the way. The only thing I don’t like about the whole series, is that when you meticulously go through all four books counting the months, you realize that from the time Bella MEETS Edward to the time that they’re married with a baby and she’s a vampire is only a little over 18 months. That’s including the months in New Moon where Edward leaves. Kind of creepy. But other than that, Edward is pretty awesome. I mean, he does what he thinks is best for Bella throughout the whole series no matter what the personal cost. Jacob, not so much. He’s very selfish and says so himself.

                Anyways, Hope’s mom has got me hooked on puzzles. I was hanging out waiting for Hope to finish her chores so we could watch Grey’s Anatomy (and even then, Netflix was being a pain in the butt) so I worked on this 500 piece button puzzle they had laying out. I got about a 5^th of it done, complaining the whole time that I suck at puzzles. Then Hope came over and she was all like “Dang Razzi…leave some for the rest of us!”. It turns out I kind of dominate puzzles. But the only one we have at home is a 1000 piece photo mosaic wolf that looks really hard for a starter puzzle. I was thinking a 250 or 500 piece might be a good starter. And no photo mosaics for a long time!

                Well, I have to go work on other stuff, so more later!

October 17th 2011

     I had such an awesome weekend! My Dad came home Thursday, to spend the long weekend with us before he had to go to work! Unfortunately, he left this morning, but it was so nice having him home. My little brother conned him into playing a game of Civ 5...he was over the moon.
     Saturday, I went to the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes and finished raising my $100 dollar goal! I met my friend Hope there, and we hung out. My friend Doug(Hope's brother) was there too, but he was helping with the event so we couldn't talk for very long.
     After the walk, my parents wanted to go to some chili-cookoff that Hope and I weren't very excited about, so they dropped us off at the mall. We wandered around and browsed. I had my camera, so we had this idea that if we saw any really cute cashiers, we could just say we were on a scavenger hunt and we needed a picture with them. But this was the ONE day where no cute guys were working. It was crazy. I had to get some shoe inserts for my boots, because I'd never worn them for that long before, so I have blisters the size of quarters on my feet now :(.
     After we got bored at the mall, we walked across the street to the Halloween store and  killed time there until the movie we wanted to see was ready to start. We saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I saw it with my Father when it first came out in August,  but Hope hadn't seen it yet. It was good enough to want to see again! My Mom picked us up after the movie and we went back to Hope's house. Doug was home by then and completely asleep on the couch. So we turned the TV up loud enough to wake him up and still pretend we didn't mean too ;-) I convinced them to watch the first episode of Grey's Anatomy(on Netflix) with me, and now they're as hooked as me! It's such a poignant, funny, cool show! I think we watched five episodes before we decided to go out for dinner and games at Dave & Busters. Doug got some free $10 game cards for working at the JDRF Walk, so all we had to pay for was drinks, food, and the D&B card activation fee! It was so much fun. We had dinner at their house, so all we pitched in $5 and got drinks and an appetizer plate of cheesy fries.
     We pooled our tickets to all get something. Doug got a miniature bat, I got a squishy little monster thing, and Hope got a nerd rope. The funny thing was that we spent most of our game cards at the 6 person trivia game! We ended up playing with three other guys, and we won every time!! I think we each won once, it was so much fun! And they had a giant Fruit Slice screen. That was pretty epic, especially when me and Hope played multi-player!
     After we finished, Doug drove us back to their house and we watched some more Grey's Anatomy before bedtime. I think we finally went to bed around 12:30am because Doug had to go to work at 12:00pm the next day. My phone was dead so my Mom had to call Alyson's phone in the morning to wake us up in time for me to be ready by the time she got there. We had some leftover pizza for breakfast(yumm) and waited around until Mom got there. The rest of Sunday was pretty uneventful.
     Today, we all slept in and then went to IHOP for a late breakfast. I had the most delicious stuffed french toast! It was soo good, except that Mom started having sweats and chills. She woke up feeling sick,and it's just been getting worse all day. After we dropped Daddy off at the airport, I drove us home and Mom curled up on the couch so we could watch Glee. My Mom and I don't have a ton in common, we're pretty much polar opposites...but Glee being awesome is one of the few things we can agree on. We have differing opinions about the characters and plot lines and songs, but it's still awesome!
      Now I'm trying to plan for Camp Fire USA's National Leadership Conference and Youth Summit. My council is sponsoring me to go, they're paying for everything for me and Hope! From the registration fee to the hotel room, including food. It's so exciting! However, we didn't get all the details until this morning because our Program Services Coordinator was away on business! So now Mom and I have to go shopping for nice pants that aren't jeans! I was planning on wearing nice jeans all weekend, because I look great in them, but apparently it's much more formal than that! Not that I mind shopping, but Mom's not feeling well and shopping is on her "hate to do" list. Other than that, I'm set. I even went through some closets and found some jewelry my Mom never wears, so no matter what, I'll be stylin' lol!