I'm Home! 11/25/07

Well I'm finally home from North Carolina. I got back Saturday (yesterday) at 7:30pm exactly. The traffic coming up was great until, you guessed it, the Jersey turnpike.

When I got home I uploaded all of my pictures from this past week and then I edited some. This took longer than expected but it's all good now. My little sisters even got a hold of my camera and took some pictures of me. Abbey (youngest) got all artistic and told me what to do.

And Ashley (middle) just took random shots of me.

I have to say, the trip back to New York was a lot more cheerful than the one going down to North Carolina. We stopped around 12:00 in Virginia at a visitor center and I took a few pictures of a small street. It felt very stranded and it was very quiet. None of the little shops were open yet, and I could run through the streets (which I did) without worrying about getting hit by a car or getting kidnapped.

Another thing we did was go to Burger King in Virginia. Mostly to stop and use the little girls room, well, in my case the men's room (I'll explain):

When we got there, there was a small line to use the bathroom so we, Nana, Abbey, Ashley, and I, waited on the line. (I had to go really badly and apparently the man a few people in front of us heard this.) There was a woman and a man in front of us on the line. After the lady was done, Nana went in after her. Next, a man came out of the men's room (Oh by the way, these were single person bathrooms.) and the man on line went in after him. So my sisters and I are waiting for the bathroom. And Ashley sits in a high chair (this later causes Nana to laugh quite hard). The man came out of the line and stood there with the door open, looking at me. Then he says "Here you go, I heard you." So what else could I do? I went in and said thank you. When I come out, Nana looked at me and asked why I went in there. My response to her was "Well, the man came out and held the door open for me. So I didn't want to feel awkward so I said thanks and went in." This caused her to shake her head and laugh at me and it also caused Abbey to ask, "Did it smell in there?"

During the whole trip, Nana put on To Kill A Mocking Bird, the audio book, and we listened to the lady with a really heavy, almost fake, country accent. And then I fell asleep around 5:30 because it was already pitch black out, and my body seemed to think that it was much later.

And I didn't fall asleep until 2 am.

Cheers!

Shopping Maniacs! 11/23/07

I can now say that I woke up at 5am to go shopping! And that it made me extremely tired and that I will now do it every Black Friday from here on.

Aside from that, I bought a pretty scarf, a brown knit hat, 4 rings, and a pretty sweater. I wanted to buy a pair of brown boots but, I ran out of money.

I never did put ice cubes in my sister's socks, and that's only because she was happy and cheerful for most of the day.

Eric, Ashley, Abbey and I all played football and then Smear the Queer in the back yard from 5:30pm to 6. I must say, I miss running around a grassy back yard playing pointless games to pass time. Although it is quite tiring, but it's the kind of tired that makes you feel healthy. Anyway, my sweat pants have grass stains in them, and my jacket probably still has leaves hidden in the pockets.

Brendan, Cameron, Abbey, and I all played Uno for a little while, I didn't win, but I came in second place most of the games. (We would continue playing after the winner won.)

Tomorrow morning we're getting up and leaving by 7:00-7:30ish. So we'll get to New York by 7pm. And my friend Mike offered to hang out afterwards, if I'm up to it. Mike, Mike, Mike. That should be fun. (I'll get into those thoughts -nothing bad- in another blog.)

Well, it's after Thanksgiving and it's now time to start getting into the Christmas spirit! My dad should be putting up our big, 13 foot, Christmas tree that stands in front of our living room window. (It's a neighborhood attraction.)

Since the last two blogs were quite long, and I don't want to keep posting boring posts, I'll make this one short and sweet. =)

Thanksgiving! 11/22/07

I got to play tennis today! And my middle cousin, Eric, was a drill sergeant. And may I say, it was quite windy today. Next thing I knew, Eric was challenging me to a water drinking contest. And boy, do I love water! And I won, woot woot!

So anyway, tonight I am getting ready for my evil master plan. The ice cube in sock plan. I'm not sure how much trouble I'll get in over this, but hey, it's worth a shot.

Right now, I'm currently playing Mouse Trap with Cameron and I just lost. Great. Now my day is ruined.

Well, there isn't much to write about at the moment so I'll end here and then continue after dinner.

Before we went out to the park, Ashley, Eric, and I were playing ping pong. Near the end, when everyone starts getting bored of playing, Eric started getting hyper. And he decided to "slam" the ball. Well he sure did slam the ball, right into my forehead. This reminded me of the time when my ex-boyfriend, David, who lives in Georgia, pegged me in the chin with a ping pong ball. We were in Mississippi on a mission trip. (Oh by the way, I go to Georgia every summer and most vacations to visit my other grandmother, Judy, -I'll tell you why we call her Judy in another blog entry- and she's very big into church stuff. So I became a member -well, part time member- of the youth group there, and we go on mission trips and do stuff like that. I met David there about 2 and a half years ago, and we went out for a couple months way back then. The end.) So anyway, back to the mission trip, we went to MS to help do mission work...stuff.... for the hurricane victims. And at the place we where we stayed, they had a ping pong table. Well I was like a walking target for the ping pong, and David almost kept hitting me. So I guess I yelled at him for it and he told me that he wouldn't hit me and if he did he'd do 'this'. And then he, as Eric would say, "slammed" the ball on the table and it came up and hit me in the chin. Well for the next few hours, I was walking around the building, with a lot of kids our age also living there from other states, with a big, ping pong ball sized, welt on my chin. Boy do I love ping pong!


Dinner was amazing. Of course, like every other person who enjoys a big Thanksgiving dinner, I am stuffed! I made the sweet potato casserole. I spent about a half hour whipping the egg whites while talking on the phone with Jess. And then I folded the egg whites into the sweet potatoes and the add the 'topping' (flour, oatmeal, pecans, brown sugar and marshmallows) and stuck it in the oven. After about 5 minutes of it cooking, we realized that we forgot to add the butter to the crust. So then my aunt poured the butter on the to of the casserole and stirred it up. It wasn't the most pretty Sweet Potato Casserole, but it was probably the best tasting.

For dessert, my aunt made her Lemon Bars that you bake in the oven. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to par to Brendan's taste and so she stuck it back in the oven and told me to watch it and take it out in a few minutes while she went on a walk. Well, Cameron wanted to play Parcheesi with me, so I sat down and played. And then when everyone got back, I noticed the smell coming from the kitchen. We took the charred Lemon Bars out of the oven and offered them to Brendan and his friends, but they declined. It looked ruined, but apparently I did a good thing because my aunt tried them after they cooled and said that they were extremely good. See? I know what I'm doing!

After dessert, Eric, my middle sister, Ashley, Nana, and I played ping pong. We originally were going to play to 11, but then we changed it to 21, and then 30. And by that time, everyone pretty much had given up.

Around 10:00pm, Brendan and his two friends came down from his room and wanted to play "Meropery" or, in normal English "Monopoly". So we sat down and played, but the Brendan got a headache and quit 5 minutes into the game. He was telling everyone that he had cancer and his hair was falling out because of it. Even though you don't lose your hair from the cancer, but hey, whatever floats his boat.

So now for tomorrow's plans. Nana is waking me up bright and early at 4:00am to go shopping. Holy crap, 4:00am!! That's a whole hour and a half before I get up for school, and this is for shopping, not education. Oh well, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Revenge is Sweet 11/21/07

Well, I must say, my middle sister, Ashley, and our middle cousin, Eric, really like taking my pillow case off my pillow. Apparently it's hilarious and such a fantastic practical joke. Well, if she thinks it's fair to play jokes on people and laugh quietly to yourself about the joke playing, then she won't mind one bit when I stick an ice cube in each of her pairs of socks right?

Anyway, that's only a small fraction of my day, even though I finally crawled out of bed (well, crawled out of mattress is more like it. Seeing as my bed at my cousins house is a mattress on the floor. I mean, it's comfy when you're dead tired, but in the morning, all you can think is "my back...". Anyway, back on topic.) at 12:32 in the afternoon and ate two, yes two, heaping bowls of Life cereal, yummy! And then my aunt and grandmother came back from shopping and picked up my sisters, my cousin, Eric, and me and took us to go horseback riding.

This was fun, except for the part when my horse and my youngest sister, Abbey's, horse wanted to eat, which happened to be the whole time. And then at the end when we tried to trot, my horse decided that it didn't want to exert any energy at all. But at least I got some nice pictures!

So we got back and then decided that we should go to the mall! So I took a shower and then my aunt, oldest cousin, Brendan, and me went to the mall. Brendan took off, got bored and found my aunt and me again. I am proud to say that I bought two shirts, a nice striped sweater and a brown tee shirt. Yay!

As we were making our way out of the mall, my cousin decided that, since my aunt is very petite, she should buy the ugly green jacket and a green skirt and then he'd buy her a pot of gold for Christmas. And then he came up with the idea that his mom is 'bite size' and that kept him laughing, and helped him keep going.

And then you'd think our day was done right? (I would) But no! Nana and my sisters were looking up movie times and decided that we should catch the 8:00pm movie, Enchanted. This movie, I must say, was surprisingly very funny. And it is defiantly not a boy movie, seeing as how my two little cousins got very bored, Eric fell asleep, and Cam was not paying any attention.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I recently found out that Brendan is having his two friends over for the occasion. This should be quite interesting and fun to write about. If I remember correctly, there names are Pat and Justin.

Another thing that is happening tomorrow is our "Uno Tournament". Brendan is obsessed with the game Uno, and so everyone has to enjoy it with him. Oh boy, I just can't wait to stay up all night playing that game over and over, I get so excited just thinking about how boring it should be. I'll try to make something funny happen so it's worth talking about.

Aside from Uno, another game our family tends to enjoy (besides my Nana's favorite game, Scrabble) is monopoly. Last night we (Brendan and I) stayed up until about 12:00 playing this game. I was always throwing doubles with the dice, and he always landed on his own property or on the "Go To Jail" spot and couldn't, even if his life depended on it, throw doubles to get out. And when I would end up in jail, he'd say "Go ahead, see if you throw doubles this time!" Then I'd roll two two's (this happened quite often) and he'd then say "Of course." we had quite a few laughs, but the next say they didn't seem the least bit funny, like always. And of course it ended by me throwing the handful of ones and fives I withered down to having and then gave him all of my properties and said, "You win!"


Since it's now 1:00am, I think I should go ahead and get some sleep!

Trip to North Carolina

"Anywhere below New Jersey you have to ask for no mustard because apparently they like ruining you burgers with it..." -Eric Striffler (that's kind of what he said)

If only I remembered that when we walked into the McDonald's in Virginia today.

I was dressed in sweats and I had just woken up from a nap in the car on our way to North Carolina to visit our cousins and Aunt Lisa. (So I wasn't completely awake.) As we're walking in, my grandmother gave me a 20 dollar bill and said for us to buy lunch and she'll be right back. So I order whatever the number two is (in this particular McDonald's it was a quarter pounder) and a Dr. Pepper. My youngest sister orders a cheeseburger happy meal and my other sister (the vegetarian) orders fries and a drink. And then we waited. And our cups came, and then my grandmother came. And then her food came. And me and my sisters waited some more. Now the lady behind the counter is staring at us awkwardly, so I decided to ask her for our food. Now she's in the back part of the McDonald's talking to a girl who looked about 18 and they're both looking back at my sisters and me. I hear her say, "But I filled out the order." and the other lady say, "Then they wouldn't still be standing there." Next thing we know, the manager, which is a tall, thin haired, lanky, light blue eyed man, bellows, "We're sorry for making you wait and we strongly appreciate your patience!"

So after all of the waiting, we finally get our food, and pack ourselves back into the car. And go next door to the gas station start eating as my grandmother fills up the car. And then I noticed an odd taste, so I pull back the top bun on my burger and, not only was there mustard, the onions were what looked like the center part of an onion. I always thought that McDonald's onions were small and chopped, guess not. And then as I'm examining this weird sight, my little sister yells "Eeewww!" from the back seat. It turns out that she, too, had experienced the mustard and onion combination as I had. So next thing we know, my grandmother has the car flying through the drive-thru and is explaining how we asked for the burgers with no mustard (which we didn't) and she swapped the kids meal burger with a new one.

Now my youngest sister has her new burger and opens it up. My response to the sight of the slice of cheese that is swimming around in the ketchup that's oozing out of her burger was, "Well at least you got your ketchup." and then my other sister says, "You want your ketchup... Here's your KETCHUP!!" And she was satisfied.


Moral of the story, "Think befowa you orda" -Nana (in her deep New York accent)