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....

Don't Touch It!

I was swimming at the pool yesterday with Mom and my little sister. Actually, I think I better rephrase that. I was swimming at the pool with Mom and my little sister, and we were the only ones at the pool!
Even though there was nobody to play with, there was still a lot of room to practice my backstroke (yea!) and my sidestroke (boo!). We took snack breaks whenever the only lifeguard watching over us blew the whistle for adult swim. One time, when the lifeguard blew the whistle for free swim, I was about to get in the pool, but I stopped myself. The water looked so pretty and calm that I didn't want to get in!
But I wanted to swim, so I guess I had to step in and spoil it. I watched as the pretty, calm, water turned into waves.

Sigh....

Mom and I talked about it while practicing the sidestroke together. She said she felt the same way when she was a kid. It's the same thing as stepping in a fresh batch of snow: It looks so pretty that you don't want to ruin it, but you really want to play in it. Then when you start having fun, your yard begins to look messy and you start wondering why you ever stepped in the snow.
There are lots of things in life that involve the same scenario. Make a list with me:
pencils
food
journals (I have had big experience in THAT department!)
new shoes
art supplies
a book of tear - out coupons

While we continued to talk,Mom told me, "I think you have a blogpost coming on."

She was right.