My Promotion Pics

Me and Becca

Noelle and I

Me with some of my friends

Me--domewher in the crowd

Me showing off my awards--

My Summer So Far (and what's to come)

We left for my grandma's house in Oregon once traffic was over the very day school got out. It's a five hour drive here, and would cost a boatload of cash to drive in either of the Dodges, and my mom decided to take the puny forgeign peice of junk (I hate any car that not American made-- don't ask me why) the Jetta. My dad bought it off Craigslist for 5,000 or something wrecked where it might cost our family 20,000 new. My dad remodeled the thing and its road-worthy now. The interior isn't done, though.

Anyways, the trip here is a pain. Neal, Eliza and Annelise were killing each other in the backseats while Mom an I had the easy ride up front. The minute I heard we were taking the Jetta I immediately called dibs on the front seat Being stuck back in the back with two sniveling brats (I know that sounds harsh, but spend a vacation with them and by the end of the roadtrip, you'll wanna whack off their heads, trust me.) is a headache, and an ear-splitting one at that.

We got here and Neal kissed the solid ground, and then found his GameCube console and made himself at home. The best part of the trip has either been the swimming pool in the neighborhood, or watching the Fox News with my grandma and talking about many of the idiot politicians in our Senate who think steriods in baseball is more important than Pelosi and torture and the CIA.

Anyways we'll be visiting Uncle Joe's kids an hour north of here on Monday before we leave. His two oldest, me, Neal and jeremiah like to play World War on their magnificent HUGE (I think its about ten acres) property in the woods. We use pinecones in the woods as grenades. THey have plenty of toy squirt guns to use. I pretended mine was an M16 last time, but I think I'll pick a Mark12 sniper rifle. I'm trying to fathom what we could use as an RPG, but the only thing I can come up with is a homemade slingshot to launch pinecones with.


After we get home we'll leave for our property in Montana. We'll have to find someone to feed my babies, daniel and cuddles while we're gone. Last summer Neal and I chased turkeys around with our bare hands and I nearly got him but he dove into the bushes. This time I'm bringing weaponry, like a stick to club him with. Maybe dad'll let me use the shotgun. I doubt Dad will let me kill it since I don't have the guts to look at the turkey's organs as I de-feather him, and he doesn't want to get stuck with the dirty job.

We'll head to the Kunz reunion which is on my mom's side, but it's my great-grandma's side, so I won't know anybody. The reuinion is on my relatives' vast acreage in Southern Idaho.
From there we'll drive to Montana and build the house for nearly two weeks. We might get a YMCA membership there and shower there and work out or swim and then go back home (I mean the other home-- our property) We'll put up the frame this summer and plant a small garden there.
Then we'll head to the Wood reunion @ Yellowstone National Park. This is the most fun because my uncles and aunts are so cool. I don't know my cousins on this side very well, but its fun to listen to my relatives tell stories around the campfire. My relatives are crazy, in a fun, cool way, and BOY! have they got stories to tell. The eight siblings grew up on a ten-acre farm with cows, rabbits, and a barrage of other farm animals. They got into a trunk-load of trouble, from burning down the barn, and peeing on electric fences, to jumping on dead cow carcasses and hiding in a cranky neighbors' corn fields.
At Yellowstone our family will camp in our lame tents while our cousins get their fancy RVs and are safe from the Grizzly Bears that the eco-freaks have introduced to the area while they are not hugging trees. Our family will end up as bear bait, but since I can outrun everybody I'll be the last to be eaten.

Sometime between July 20th and 30th we'll spend a few days in Twisp, WA and riverraft. Aunt Erin and Uncle Joe will be there with their kids and we'll have an awesome time there. Twisp is a remote cowboy town in Eastern Washington (thankfully!!! I love the weather there. I swear I'm either gonna move here or the southwest).

Then I'll be at our church's Girl's Camp for the first week in August.

Then on August 19th is my surgery. Dang, I'm so scared. I can't believe some doctor is gonna cut me open, clean me out and then tear me open in another spot and tear out a tendon to sow in where my ACL should be and then I'll be out of sports for six-nine months. Then he'll sow me back up and I'll be in a half-body cast for a week. The cast will go from hip to ankle. After that week I'll use crutches for about a month and have to wear a smaller metal brace. I might have to hobble around high school in crutches, and it'll be a lot easier for the seniors to can me (JK- let them try. I could still beat them in a foot race with my cast and all!)

After that is soccer tryouts, which I will lament over because I won't even be able to try out. Doc's orders is NO exercize for the lower half of the body for two complete months. Just seeing a soccer ball might make me break into tears.

Then High school starts and the summer ends. I hoped I picked some good classes.

Promotion. (Every girl in my school only saw the "Prom" part.

We left the day school officially got out. Neal didn't even bother to show because it was promotion day where the eight grade gets all sorts of awards. I wore the CUTEST outfit. It was this blue-brown flowery bohemian-style top with slacks. (My mom and I had to stay up all night hemming them because they were much too long on me. For how wide my legs are, they are REAlly short because we had to cut off about 3 inches. )

Mom curled my hair and it looked fabulous. I'll have to upload the pics we took with me and some of my friends. They all wore dresses, but I didn't want to blend in so I wore pants. They laughed at me when I told them I would wear a suit or something like that (was half-joking but when they challenged me I had to take them up. I'm a woman of my word. LOL) All my friends were all gussied up and thouhgt it was some sort of prom. Takes the "prom" out of promotion, doesn't it?

The blue really brought out my eyes and the brown brought out my new tan (from the birch bay field trip) and my blonde (almost white) hair. I had an awesome time.

Afterwards my parents took me to Clay Oven, an Indian Cuisine restaurant. It had really good food, a lot like Thai but minus the insane exotic spices. Thai is still the best food out there but Indian is pretty good.

The end of 8th grade

Our school had its 8th grade promotion ceremony today. It totally rocked. I got several awards throughout this year.

The Official Certificate of Promotion

The Most Inspirational (for middle school in general)

I Rock Totally Award (for nearly aceing every test in science)

A in both Language Arts and American Studies

Coaches Award (for Varsity soccer, in which the coach nominates someone from the team)

and my two favorite would have to be

4.0 GPA

and

The Lifetime Acheivement Award for 2009 (this was really cool; it was for PE and only three kids got it. Pretty gnarly, huh?)


Neal got Athlete of the Year for 6th grade. I remember getting that in 7th grade. I was a Teacher Assistant for gym, so I helped set up the gym for PE and also played with some of the kids. I made a lot buudies in the 6th grade class. Overall, this and my soccer season were the highlight of this year. Soccer was INSANE fun. I broke the curse of never winning and actually won two games out of ten. The team that kicked our butts last year was the one we whooped twice.


Overall I had the BEST year of my life in 2008-09. Besides some of the worst things (my knee and surgery) I had some of the best times. I made a variety of friends instead of just a few. I've been a "floater" all year and hung out with all the different groups, so I made a lot of cool friends. I don't really have a group of BFFs, but its still cool.


Bryan Adams wrote a song called Summer of '69. I think it applies to my life, since this year really has been the best year of my life, and I think I'll call these next three months the SUMMER OF '09.
After that I've got a bright future ahead of me in high school and hopefully I picked the right classes, because I've got some big dreams (wink, wink <3)

Hilarious Vids On Youtube-- Subscribe

http://www.youtube.com/user/StevenCrowder

This is one of the funniest comedians on youtube. The humor he uses mocks the idiots of today's administration and the rest of the world. One of his funniest videos is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WKLXCHgOiA&feature=related

Early Motherhood-- Just Kidding!!!

I have one of those electronic imitation babies for school right now. SOoo obnoxious. He (Jack is his name) kept me up til midnight, until I fell asleep, and he woke me up at 3. He probably screamed his head off and I probably didn't wake up the rest of the night, since I'm a heavy sleeper.
Speaking of heavy sleeping, once I was babysitting my sisters late, and Neal and My parents went out. I locked all the doors like a good babysitter, but my parents forgot the key. They arrived home with no way to get insideand it was 1 o'clock, and I was fast asleep. They rang the door bell, and even threw rocks at my window, but I still didn't wake up. They were outside for about half an hour when I finally woke up when my name was called. It took me five minutes to figure out what was making the noise and I finally let them in. They were really angry with me.

I'm rocking him right now, and he's calming down. Dang it . Now he's crying.