So I know it's been a while since I last posted but really, nothing terribly exciting has happened till yesterday.

Yesterday was Mom's birthday! So Happy birthday Mom!

Also yesterday, Mom and jc picked up jc's friend who is visiting for a few days (she lives in Texas).

Monday jc is leaving for camp.

Other then that and besides school, nothing exciting has happened for a while. It seems like everything has slowed down for the summer. Even our youth program is taking a break!

Well, I need to get off now, so, good day!

-Ellentia

I was going to post some statistics like jc did but it took to much time, concentration and effort to look all of it up so I abandoned the idea.

I have had a very long week, even though not much has happened. Tuesday I had some friends spend the night and it was a lot of fun. We swam on Tuesday and we watched 3 movies. It was nice to have them over.

Wednesday evening wasn't so great. The kids at youth were in general just a bit mean and rough and it wasn't much fun. Tonight we have youth and I'm hoping it will turn out better.

It rained this morning. Even though it isn't raining everyday anymore the water still doesn't have anywhere to soak in so it just forms puddles in the grass.

Last night while mom and dad were out to dinner with some friends we watched Alfred Hitchcock's re-make of his movie (yes he re-made his own movie) The Man Who Knew To Much. It was really good and much easier to understand then the original movie.

Well, since I can't think of anything else to say I will close this post by saying thanks to all who still read my blog. I really appreciate it.

-Ellentia

Indian Tacos

I think I will start out by saying Happy 4th of July, even though it is a little late. Yesterday we went to a parade. We had to get up early to get a good spot to watch but it was worth it. I enjoyed the parade but I would've enjoyed it more if half of it wasn't advertisement. They weren't even very good floats sometimes. There were some, however that I really enjoyed, such as the boy scouts at the beginning of the parade:



And the firetrucks:


And the Star Wars people:

And the lovely horse-drawn carriages:

All in all it was a good parade!

At about 4:00 (after a nice swim) jc, my brother and I all worked an Indian taco stand at a 4th of July festival. Why would we do that you ask? To earn money to go on a choir tour at the end of the year.

It was SO hot inside because the taco shell was what they called "Indian fry bread" and you cook it the same way you cook a funnel cake. Then, the beans were on a big stove so they would stay hot and the heat emitted by the grease and the stove was enormous. However, the tacos were really good!
-Ellentia

RAIN!!!!!!

So you'll never guess what has happened every day for 17 days! It has rained every day for 17 days! The record used to be 14 days in a row from way back in 1937, ending the dust bowl. We broke that record Wednesday.

Thankfully there has been no tornado danger, just flooding problems. On Wednesday Sam Champion from Good Morning America was here to talk about the flooding. You can read the story they featured here.

I am ready for it to stop raining! It has rained almost all day and it's still going strong. I took these pictures about 20 minutes ago.

As you can see it's been raining really hard here.
That, <-- is our street :O








This is a video that jc found the other day and it made me laugh so I thought I'd post it. Don't worry though, I'm not going to start posting a video every time like jc does!

-Ellentia

**edit** I'm posting this pic so I can put it on my profile, that is all.

Guitar, Blackberrys and Rain

Well hello everyone, that is, everyone left. No one is really around these days. Except for Specter and jc (even though jc ''forgets'' to read my blog) and I.

Last Saturday was the most exciting day--the good kind of exciting that is-- I've had in about a week. I got to sleep in about an hour without getting in trouble and the I also got clean up after breakfast. yay. After we finished cleaning up I was sitting at the computer doing nothing productive when I noticed that it had gotten strangely quiet and sort of deserted looking in the main parts of the house.

Then, a voice from the distance calling to me. It was mom. So I go see what she needs and everyone is in there just looking at me. And Nathaniel has a video camera. Their all just staring at me. After a few seconds of akward silence Dad tells me to look behind the door.

THEY GOT ME A GUITAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have wanted to learn to how play for several years but since we didn't have a guitar I had to learn how to play the piano instead. I doubt they'll let me stop playing the piano but hey, I can finally learn how to play the guitar! I'm very excited (as if you can't tell). I have been trying to play some chords on the guitar and I have managed to play some but it is harder then I expected. It hurts to play some of the chords. Oh well, I am determined to learn how to play, no matter how much it hurts at first.

We also went blackberry picking Saturday. It was very prickally. But it was worth it. I have never seen such big blackberries! I picked one that had to be at least 2 inches long! We picked for about 2 ta 3 hours and we picked a lot. I must admit though, I like the taste of dewberries better.

And, you'll never guess, it rained Saturday and Sunday, even though on Saturday the sun never stopped shining, which is to say that the clouds didn't block out the sun at all so it was bright and sunny outside, all the while it was pouring rain!

-Ellentia

VBS

I guess it's been awhile hasn't it. I have had a busy week although nothing terribly noteworthy has happened i a while besides the fact that we saw some friends the other day that I haven't seen in a really long time. Aso, our grandparents were here last week from fLORIDA.

sO THIS WEEK was VBS at our church and if you cant tell from my typing , I'm worn out. Wednesday I had a ffirend over for the day and she is the second friend that I'v had over to our house. Wait, no, she is the third friend i've had over.

I should get off now, i have some school to do and then we might go to the sstor so I need to end this post.

Ellentia

Rain...

So as you can see, I decided not to post about the luau because I didn't feel like it. It was rainy at the party but we swam anyways. We also had a reverse limbo contest. Instead of going under the rope we jumped off the diving board and went over the rope. Of course I was the first one to get out : (

They also had a distance contest to see who could jump the farthest (they had a rope to jump over) but I didn't enter that contest. They played old music the whole time and I surprised myself by knowing a lot of the songs they played. At the end of the party, when it was just about dark, there were hundreds of fireflys all twinkling in the yard. I haven't seen that many fireflys ever, it was really pretty : )

It has been hot and icky here lately but today it cooled off and has been raining again. And I thought it wouldn't rain here... Well, I should probably get off now.

-Ellentia

Just a little longer

So I'm finally back (again) and I am posting. However, there is going to be a luau for the high schoolers tonight so I will probably add on to this post tomorrow. So...what has happened since my last post...oh yes! Camp! Last Saturday I went to church camp! It was SO fun! I had the best time I've ever had at a camp.

Since I am now considered a freshman (yes! I'm finally in high school!)I got to go on the "float trip" at camp. Monday all the freshman went down to a river and we got rafts (big enough for 6 people) and we "floated" down the river for about an hour. It was fun except it was really short and some crazy boys kept trying to flip our raft and they made me really mad.

At the camp there was a ropes course and each day we did an "element" every day (an element is one part of the course). I think our small group got the hardest elements. We had to climb the "Jacobs Ladder" and it was really hard. If you were standing on a wrung, the next one was at eye level and the ladder was only attached at the top so it was swinging the whole time. Not a good combination for me. To say it nicely, I am not very athletic and I only made it up to the second wrung.

Our other high ropes element (there was also a little ropes course that was much easier) was the rock climbing. It wasn't real rocks, just a really tall wooden platform (just a little shorter then a two story house) attached to a really tall tree with blocks of wood and plastic handhold thingys. Well, since I didn't compleat the Jacobs Ladder I was determined to climb all the way up the "rocks". So the first time I tried I made it halfway up. I couldn't get a hand hold though so I came down. Then, after everyone else had gone I went again and got about 2/3 of the way up and again, I couldn't get a handhold. I was stuck for probably 5 or 6 min. trying to get up. I kept slipping and falling off (I was attached to a rope, don't worry) and finally I just had to come down.

Unfortunately While trying to climb up I pulled the skin off my left hand and boy it hurt! It still hasn't healed. I also got really soar because the camp had so many huge steep hills that I had to climb up and down all day long. Well, I need to get off so I'll end this post.

-ellentia

Home!

So we're finally home! I am so tired from our trips that I didn't even dream last night! You'll never guess what happened yesterday so I'll tell you what happened.

My grandparents had brought a motor home and a pop-up trailer camping with them. So, on the way home my grandma drove their van in front while my grandpa drove the motor home with the trailer hooked to the back. Well, they were driving along and suddenly my grandpa heard a loud boom and so he pulled over to see what had happened. He saw flames in the engine and when he couldn't put them out he let their dog, Miky out and they took off running because they had just put gas in the motor home and plus there were two bottles of propane in the motor home.

Everything burned up. The motor home, the pop-up, all their clothes were burned, camping stoves and lanterns, 4 fishing poles, brand new tools, everything is gone. The car behind them called the police and then my grandpa called my grandma because she didn't know what had happened.

In about 20 min. the fire fighters were there and put out the fire which had also caught the grass on fire. Thankfully no one was hurt as far as I know. The Albuquerque news crew and helicopter came and the crash was on the news. If you want to see the story and watch the video, click here, the link will take you to the news website. I will try to post pictures if I can get some.

Well, besides the fact that that there was a huge fire, the camping trip was really fun. We went fishing in the Pecos river everyday but I never caught anything. However, by the end of the trip we had five rainbow trout so we grilled them for breakfast yesterday and they were SO good.

When we got home yesterday we had all sorts of surprises waiting for us. Dad got our pool ready to swim in and we are going to finally get to use it today. Yay! Also, he got his new tablet computer that he ordered for work and it is really neat. And, he is finally making my bed! I had wanted a loft bed since my room is pretty small and he is going to make it after he finishes my little sisters bed.

Whew! So much to tell and so little time to tell it! Oh yes, one more thing. Tuesday is jc's sweet sixteen so y'all wish her a happy birthday! We love you jc!

-ellentia

Home at last!

Ahhhhhh! It feels so good to be out of the car again! We got back from putting the yearbook together a while ago and am I ever glad to be out of that car! In case you don't know, our family went back to nac to put together the yearbook and see friends. We stayed with the Reeses although I spent every night with someone different. We amazingly finished the yearbook Tuesday and so Wednesday we swam most of the afternoon. I really enjoyed swimming, it was a lot of fun! At first we were having what jc called "combat swimming" and then we just sat around and talked. What is combat swimming, you ask? It is where you try to push other people into the pool and not get pushed in yourself. It was mostly Nick and Nathanael against jc and I and Courtney, Kelsey and Gabby. It was quite fun, especially when Nick tried to push you in and you pushed him in instead (although that was a rare occurance for me;) Elizabeth and I got to put together the pages for the medival ball and I must say, as far as I could tell it turned out really good. There were plenty of pictures from the ball but unfortunately there were a lot of pictures of the same people and there were several dark pictures that we couldn't use. And you'll never guess what we found out when we got home! Due to a mix-up, my suitcase got left at the Reeses! Oh, well, I can get along without it because nothing essential was in the suitcase. Well, I really need to get off and finish packing for our camping trip to New Mexico that we are going on tomorrow. Boy, won't that be a fun car trip! -Ellentia

Watermelons and eggshells ;)

So I guess I'll post more pictures since I found some really cool ones that my grandma sent us.
-Ellentia

Flowers

So I couldn't think of anything to post so I will post some pictures that I took that I think are kinda okay ;) So with out further ado, the pictures:
-Ellentia

CATS! and Seussical Jr. and rain...

So Saturday we went to go see CATS! It was AWESOME! I absolutely LOVED it! I have wanted to see CATS! live for a long time so it was sooooo cool to see it live! Jc had heard that the Broadway CATS! was very different from the West End Theater's movie (the one that I have) but they were incredibly similar. Both the choreography and the costumes were very similar. Unfortunately one of my favorite scenes from the movie was not in the show but there was a scene in the show that wasn't in the movie.

Yesterday we went to see the Seussical Jr. performed by a local children's theater. It was great! It was so funny watching another theater perform it because jc and I were in it last summer at a different theater. After the first number I thought oh no, this is going to be a disaster, but it was actually quite good! I think that my favorite characters were the Wickersham brothers, Mayzie and the Cat-in-the-Hat. They were all very good at their parts.

In other news not much is going on around here

besides
a
whole
lot
of
rain.

We were or are (I'm not sure which) under a flood watch. And I thought it wasn't going to rain as much up here. The only problem is that with rain comes severe weather and with severe weather comes tornadoes. In Nac a lot of rain in the spring meant it would be reeeally humid. Up here a lot of rain in the spring means a possibility of tornadoes. Fun.

Well I need to get off now but before I close: when jc posts a quiz, everybody takes it! When I posted a quiz, nobody took it! Whats up? ;)
-Ellentia

Frisbee golf (and other happenings) (and now Cats and Seussical Jr.)

Ahhh! The end of a long week! Last Tuesday our grandparents came up for a choir concert. The concert went well although I almost lost a most beloved (and valuable) mirror. Thursday we went to the Cowboy Museum and played some frisbee golf. Saturday we went to the arts festival and I saw some absolutely gorgeous jewelry! To read more about the festival, jc posted about it so you can read her post.

Sunday we went to church and watched Americas Funniest Home Videos.

Monday we played More frisbee golf and had a few adventures on this one particular hole. It was a tricky hole to play because it went over a small creek and had one small path cut through a big group of trees. So my grandpa went to throw but right as he let go he slipped and fell! It was like something you'd see on Americas Funniest home Videos! Then, my grandpa saw something on the bank on the creek (it turned out to be a frisbee) and then when he went to get it he couldn't get back up! I almost died laughing! But unfortunately my laughter was silenced.

As we were going towards the next hole I decided to try a different path then everyone else that ran parallel with the one they were on. Then I made the mistake of trying to cut across to the other path. Big mistake. As I was about halfway over I looked down just as I was taking a step and came within a 1/4 of an inch of stepping on this snake that was bout the biggest snake I've seen outside of a zoo! I screamed louder then I have screamed in a long time. But d'ya know what really got me? Afterwards my grandpa asked me what the head of the snake looked like and was surprised that I forgot to look! Anyways.

I found this cool test that is really funny! To take it click on this link. I am 86% Dixie! Haha!

-ellentia

**edit**
WE ARE GOING TO SEE CATS! Mom got jc and I tickets to go see Broadways traveling Cats production this Saturday! I have the movie but I haven't ever seen the play! But wait! Theres more! Sunday we are going to see a local theater perform the Seussical Jr.! Ordinarily that wouldn't be so exciting but this last summer jc and I were in the Seussical! It will be interesting to see how they do it differently!

Branson, MO!

Well, I know I didn't post about this as soon as I should have but anyways, here it is.

Last Thursday we (my brother and I) went to Branson, MO for a choir tour. Thursday we sang and got critiqued by the judge. Our choir director didn't like the judge because during his critique he helped her direct and she said he was lucky he didn't get a punch in the nose!

After we sang we went to the Dixie Stampede and had a blast! The dinner they served each person was huge! they gave us each a whole rotisserie chicken, a slice of pork, a bowl of soup, a biscuit, corn on the cob and a huge apple turnover type dessert! If I had eaten all that I wouldn't have needed a meal for the next week! It was, however, very good and the show was even better!

At the beginning we were divided up into the North and the South. Then they did a lot of really neat tricks during the first half. In the second half they had a series of races and contests between the North and the South (I forgot to say, we were on the Southern side).

Some of the contests were between audience members, like the stick-horse race and the chicken chase. Others were between members of the cast, like the Ostrich race. Still others were between animals representing each side, like the pig race (I know, some of these were pretty crazy!). Our side, the South, was winning but because it goes against history for the South to win the contestants from the show made sure that the North won. Phooey! Oh well, it was all for fun!

Friday we went to Silver Dollar City (in case you don't know, Silver Dollar City is an amusement park). I had a blast! I love roller coasters and I'll ride anything! We rode a new ride that they have called The Great Swing (click on the picture to see a video of what the ride is like!) It was really fun! I have to get off now so I will end this post although I might add on to it later!

-ellentia

**Edit**
FYI, Specter, the changes made since this was first posted are template changes, nothing exciting! (except that I figured out how to change the colors and font of my template so it is a one-of-a-kind template!)