Spring Break, Part II

Part II: Maryland
The day after the end of the retreat, we packed our bags and drove up to Maryland. It was very misty outside-so much for looking out the window to kill time! I ended up just listening to my Mp3 for a while. We finally arrived at the house of L, S, blogger for Wii Little Movies, and M, who wasted no time in showing me an "epic" Wii game: Just Dance 2. This is one of the best dance games I have ever played. It has a nice mix of oldies, pop, instrumental, and cultural music to pick from. It's also a good workout- by the 3rd song I was sweating up a storm! So, we ventured upstairs to play S's favorite computer game, Plants vs. Zombies.
TIME OUT!
This is probably the 10th time I've brought up Plants vs. Zombies and haven't explained fully what it is. S, the gaming expert, could probably tell you in a heartbeat. I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to this game, but here goes....

You play a homeowner with a house that is about to face a typical zombie attack. You have no weapons whatsoever to defend your turf with... no weapons, that is, except plants. These are no ordinary plants, though- each one has special powers and defenses. The sunflowers produce sun energy you can buy more plants with, some mushrooms hypnotize zombies into helping the plants, and the walnuts are one of the ultimate defenses thanks to their tough outer shell. You circulate through the different levels (Nightime, Pool, Roof), collecting more plants and discovering more zombies until you defeat the Final Boss (typical) and save your yard. The game doesn't end there, though, because there are also plenty of mini-games based on other games from Pop Cap, and even a Zen Garden.

I kind of like this game, but not with the burning passion and desire S does. (I think that game turns some of us into zombies- we find ourselves playing for hours!)
TIME IN!
S also introduced me to two awesome books: The Field Guide to Monsters/Aliens.  At first, I was thinking, This is going to be WEIRD. But it turned out to be really cool! The guy who wrote them was super creative: he featured the monster/alien's habitat, "sightings" of them, journal entries from those who had seen them, and some very realistic looking field sketches. (I was afraid to go in the bathroom for days thanks to that picture of the "Toilet Snake"!) We would've made a whole video for Cousin Studios about monster hunting, but of course my camera had to run out of batteries.
The next day was pretty much the same as the first- Plants vs. Zombies, field guides, Wii, more Plants vs. Zombies. We did three fun things, though:

A) That Jumpy Place
As it so happens, my cousins also happen to have this good fun exciting epic AWESOME jumpy place by their house called That Jumpy Place. As soon as you walk inside, you see all the inflatables towering over you, and you think, woah! There are huge slides that twist and turn, an inflatable basketball court, 2 huge obstacle courses complete with tunnels, mazes, hurdles, climbing walls, and slides, and so much more! S, L, M, H (another cousin that came from Massachusetts), and I had a great time playing a fun tag game that often gets played at jumpy places: Run From (insert name here).  One person decides to chase everyone (in this case, L) and everybody else has to split up in groups and hide/jump away. S and I often took up residence at the tops of slides and in the heart of the obstacle course, and I secretly spied for L. (I didn't get any major info, though.)
On the car ride back to the house, H and I started our own radio show-The H Show! H reported on a sudden doughnut storm and a monster sighting of his that occurred the night before.
After we ate some lunch and watched a much needed redo of "Friday", it was time for...
B) The Egg Hunt To End All Egg Hunts (fine, maybe not)
Each kid got a basket and was instructed to search for a certain color of egg so we all would get the same amount of candy. I must say, the adults had us beat! They put eggs in the sneakiest of places: under the thick grass beneath the trampoline, wedged in between closely growing branches on a tree, tucked beneath the dirt in the mulch pile. Even though the policy was "No hints!", everyone soon gave in!
Our candy prizes consisted of chocolate eggs, jellybeans, and quarters. Since the adults had banned the computer (where was THAT policy when we needed it?), we started an (not taped, thanks to the state of my camera) episode of Trampoline Gladiators. I think L was the winner, because the rest of us had accidental injuries thanks to a fateful slip of the foot.
After a many more rounds of Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds, my mom announced that there was a contest to enter called....
C) The First Annual Easter Family Coloring Contest
We were all assigned a cheesy picture to color (think smiling bunnies painting 5 foot eggs), and had until dinner to draw our way to a prize. I had to color in some smiling bunnies hanging up colorful lanterns, and I tried to be as neat as possible. After all, it was a contest! My fellow competitors were L,M, and my sister R. (S and H were still playing Plants vs. Zombies- the things that game does!) Before long, it was time for dinner.
It was Easter dinner, so it was about an hour before we could resume our previous activities. Soon, we all found ourselves lying in bed, wondering who would win- or would we all take home a title?

The next day....

Wow! After walking downstairs, we discovered that all of us had gotten a prize. I forget what M got, but L was awarded for "Most Realistic", me for "Neatest" and R for "Most Unique Color Scheme. All the kids also had Easter baskets filled with Lindor chocolate bunnies and carrots, along with a La La Loopsy doll or Lego kit, depending on your gender. After a frenzied flurry of activity regarding packing, we went home to VA to resume our normal lives. That concludes my spring break.

Blog ya later,
CJ

Ketchup Time!

What happened in the last few weeks...

CJ graduated! I'm going to middle school this fall. On the last few days of school, everyone celebrated with a bowling outing, a picnic with pizza, and goody bags stuffed with pencils, goodbye DVDs, gum, candy, and (sigh) advertisements from local sponsors. Then, school was finally over! Done with! Gone!
After that, I took a volleyball camp (OK, I guess) and a water camp where we got to play with sprinklers and slime and bubbles for a few hours (fun fun fun!) After that, my cousins came to go to our annual family reunion at a beach house at the Outer Banks!
We had a great time! We swam in the ocean, which was incredibly freezing for about 5 days in a row. We swam in the pool, forever playing Category and Shark. Later, we'd get in the hot tub. This year, we had color-themed days. Our family had Green Day (not the annoying, bad-word-using band). Mom made Mexican tacos! There were also a lot of games of Beano, Solitaire, Dutch Blitz, Pokemon Monopoly (with powers when you rolled doubles), and Werewolf (a slightly scary\gruesome but fun card game). Add in some "oranges" (parts to a game), a sudden rainstorm, lots of glow sticks, water balloons with smiley faces, a walk on the beach at night, volleyball, homemade board games, and our cousin L's return from a wedding in Wisconsin, and it was a memorable vacation! I'm still trying to cover everything in my sketchbook.
Cousin Studios Update: We recently started shooting our 5th film: Woman versus "Wild." Abby Sunlaw is a typical ten year old girl, but when she spends a night in her backyard, she'll face incredible challenges. Jumping off the bottom step of her front porch, fending off wild mosquitos, and finding some salt for her dinner are just some of the obstacles in her way. Can she do it? Find out-after the commercial break.
After getting home, 4 of our cousins stayed at our house, where we had more adventures. We headed to a baseball game\ fireworks show and were up until 12:00, saw Toy Story 3 (it has a shocking ending, but my lips are sealed), went to Sonic, and had feetball tournaments. I'll have to post the beginner's guide on this blog sometime around. Plus I got my Tdap shot, which didn't hurt as much as I thought it would.
And now that everybody's left- and that I've concluded this post- I'm just sitting around, folding origami dresses ( THANK YOU FOR THE AWESOME KIT GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!!!), reading, sketchbooking, writing letters, and dreaming about our upcoming ultimate 10-day road trip in August....

Water Country Aftermath

We went to Water Country, as I said we would, and it was FUN! I really hope I can go again. My favorite rides were:
*Jet Scream, a really fun flume ride with lots of hills, twists, and turns.
* Surfer's Bay, a huge 8-foot wave pool! They turned the waves on and off every 10 minutes.
* Hubba Hubba Highway, a waterway with fun road signs and sprinkles of water everywhere. This place was cool because there was a current created by some machine that just pulled us along. No swimming required.
* The Nitro Racer. They gave us a mat to lay down on,and we pushed off into this huge racetrack filled with water with lots of hills.
We went on some other rides, too, and saw a dive\acrobatics show called Aquabatics. We rated it 4.5 out of 5 and hope to come again soon!

Water Country USA

Hooray! Today Dad and I are going to Water Country USA. It's our first time going. I'll try to do a follow up post after that. Maybe with some pictures attached.

Video Crazy!

Oh yeah, did I mention that another wonderful part of summer is pulling out a camera and shooting random videos of your yard at 7:30 pm?


Ever since I found my camera in a back corner of my closet with dead batteries, I've been shooting videos of unusual topics, including me chasing my sister, upside down places (created by flipping my camera upside down), and other things. After charging the batteries, that is. And yesterday, my neighbor and I shot 40-something wacky ones involving us playing sports, jumping off swings, and running. Boy, were there a lot of ones 0f us running! I would post one, but I can't for privacy reasons. S0 here's a different one I took on vacation while we drive past "South of The Boarder" on the way to Georgia...


(aka The Tackiest Landmark Of The South...)
Blog ya later!

DI News:

WE WON!
WE'RE GOING TO STATES!
At first, we thought we lost after they finished calling the winners for our problem. But then they announced, "And now, the winners for Group B." GROUP B?!? We didn't know if we were in that group or not. But then they called us for 1ST PLACE! How exciting!
The school we went to this time was called Hermitage High. It was a nice little school that I could navigate very easily. There were also some cool pieces of student art, especially in our areas. Dad got the entire thing on video. I'll only have to see if I can post that...
BLOG YA LATER!

Catch Up (Or Ketchup)

I (if I counted right) have not posted in 9 DAYS! Wow, that's a new record. So, let's play catch up.

Christmas! Our family celebrated both meanings of Christmas. We got- and gave- some cool creative gifts. My favorites? The computer monitor, lettering book, Razor scooter, and all those creative things. Then we packed up and went to NEW JERSEY! I know I said that post would often appear in 3 days, but I was so busy having fun with L, S,M, our youngest cousin H, and our grandparents to post. We shot lots of videos, played Michigan Rummy (AWESOME card game), played Wii, tried some new computer games, and made up some pretty wacky songs.
Here's a poem I made up about my cousin L winning during Michigan Rummy (look it up on Google if you don't understand this poem).

Speechless
I'm speechless, nothing to say
Not going to lay a card today
L rules with her perfect deck
Keeps her poker chips in check
Gleaming stacks of red and white
My coin vanished from the right
At least the little millionaire
Always has a chip to spare.

And do not forget to look up Michigan Rummy!
Also, this is my first post in 2010! WOOOOO!
I didn't stay up till 12 like last year, instead I tried ten.

BLOG YA LATER!

I'm Back!!!!

Finally- back from Maryland! I shall now present to you the top 3 Maryland activities:
1. MOVIE MAKING. While we were in Maryland, we made two new movie series called The Great Webkinz Camp-Out and Classroom Girls. We also shot several little videos including, but not limited to: The Ship Takes Off, The Thing, Cameras, Polly World Fashion Shoot, Mr. Jones.
2. FORT BUILDING. We built 2 tents. The one M slept in had a secret tunnel and plenty of storage, and L and I's had an electronics shelf and a "closet". On the last night, we all got together and had a sleepover in S's room!
3. SPYING. We did a lot of spying in the W house, but it wasn't for revenge, it was just for fun. L and M stayed hidden upstairs in our forts while S and I went downstairs to shoot pictures of evidence. We used walkie-talkies, too!
Some other activities we did were playing in the computer, playing with dolls, reading graphic novels, having sleepovers, going to church, and celebrating L's 11th birthday!
As soon as I get them downloaded, I'll be sharing some videos with you!
What did YOU do this weekend?

An Update

There are so many things to blog about, I think I need to use this post to cover them all!
1. The Playground Olympics. Here are the explanations for our Mystery Games:
Snakepole is a game in which you twist around poles like snakes. Crash into your competitors and you are eliminated!
Hoop Roll is a game where you must roll the hoop to the other team. If they miss it, they earn a miss. Whoever has less misses at the end of the game wins!
Jump Roping was just a simple game of who can go the longest without tripping up on the rope.
Running was a simple race with a few obstacles.
2. This weekend, Mom, my sister and I went to the pumpkin patch and picked out five pumpkins in their enormous field, which had scattered scarecrows and old sheds surrounding it. Then we headed back to their little shop and bought 4 more. We got a good deal on them, too: they were only 20.00 all together! Next we went to Cici's Pizza and had a pizza lunch before driving to our church to set up for Mom's bell choir. I like spending weekends with family.
3. I'm visiting my cousins in Maryland for L's birthday! I made her a neat gift and card (but I won't drop any hints about it in case my aunt is visiting the blog). I also am bringing my video camera so S and I can do some serious shooting. He enjoys making Lego Star Wars movies. Check out his blog, Wii Little Movies! And there is no need to worry about bringing princess dolls for M to play with with the amount they have at their house....

What are YOU doing?

Comfortable Evening

My mom and my sister and I walked around the block. We watched sprinklers and kids and looked at neighborhood landmarks. Then we did our chores and had a nice dinner of spaghetti with homemade sauce. For dessert, we filled the car with blankets and drove to Sonic, where we ordered Sonic Blasts and milkshakes. We peeled off the Limeades for Learning stickers so we could go on their website the next day.
Then we took a little drive around other parts of our neighborhood. We saw teenagers partying at the Lakeview Pool and fancy houses at Stephen's Manor. Then mom showed us some of the houses that she thought were interesting. Then we went home and brushed our teeth. My sister and I ran downstairs, hoping that Mom would let us stay up later.
She did. That night, we talked and talked until out mouths hurt. We laughed at old photos on the digital frame. We waited for Mom to whisk us upstairs, but she was so caught up in the talk that he forgot about the time.
We finally headed up to our bedrooms many minutes later. We fell asleep and dreamed about the comfortable evening.