Looooong Night.

The other night I went on a trip for my friend, Jalen's, church. We had a blast! We went to a hockey game (they lost 4-5  in over time), had a guest speaker, played games, went to an athletic center, where we played badmitten and had a bouncy house!:), went roller skating, and last but not least, bowling. We left at 5pm on Friday, and got back at 7am on Saturday!! Talk about being exhausted! I took a 5 hour nap when I got home! But it was worth it:) I loved it.

Seventeen.17.

Yes, I know what everyone is thinking...another birthday letter? But whoever for? Well, it's true all my siblings have already celebrated their birthdays, but this blog is called FRIENDS.Family.Everything. But the person I'm writing the letter to today, is more than a friend. She's like my sister. In fact, I tell people she's my sister if they ask:) Well....here goes!
Dearest Mary Kate,
Well, by request, here is your birthday letter! I love you sooooo much! I can't believe you're already 17! Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday, you were 12 and I was 8 and you were babysitting us for the first time and Brady cried the WHOLE time and Breanna kept saying that a squirrel peed on her head:). You're an amazing dancer. I know people probably tell you that all the time, but it's really true. You're one of the best dancers I've ever seen.
You're so crazy! I love it! You always think of the most random things and you always put a smile on my face. I love it when you ride the bus; making up songs and making videos about all the things you can do in a bathtub(:.
I hope you teach showstoppers this year again. I'm not sure if I'll do it without you.
You're my role model. I've always wanted to be just like you. You're so great at everything, and so crazy, and absolutely gorgeous! I love you so much big sister<3 and I'm going to cry when you go to college. You better come visit me or write me letters everyday; yes, snail mail.
You can't forget all the advice you give me. Yes everyone, she tells me so many helpful tips that I have a list on my iPod. It's actually a very amusing list. Some of my favorites are, "use big words, it gives the illusion of intelligence", "you can't just walk into strange barns", and "don't wipe ear wax on other people."
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Love,
Your Baby Sister:)

Down on the Farm...

So last weekend, was our town farm festival. My dance studio had a booth their. We had a bake sale and did face painting. We really had a great time. It was a really rainy day, but I was really surprised at how many people were there.
I met up with Grandmother, Aunt Sara, Blake, and Ava and walked around with them for a little while. But, I had to get back to working. Blake came over to get his face painted and got a cow on his cheek(: Ava didn't want anything. Mary Kate and I were dancing on the hay bails and got our pictures in one of those little things where you cut out the head and it looks like you have the body of a cow or something. And next door, there was a day old baby calf! It was really cute!

A Few Bruises But...

For us, it's the last week of summer. Last week of freedom. Last week to do whatever. We've gotta make it last, right? So yesterday, we got together with friends and had a little before-school fun. My dad took Ashley and her friend Briana, and Brady and my cousin Wyatt to go see "The Smurfs". So while Dad did that with the younger kids, Mom took my friends Rachel, Michelle, Casey, and I, and Breanna and her friend Maggie to the skating rink. We had a blast! We had tons a few falls, and I have to say that Casey took the hardest fall. But no one broke anything! So I call that a successful skating trip. My camera died part way through, so I only got a few pictures. The only really annoying thing about going skating during the summer, is you have to go on a Friday night. Not a nice, calm Sunday afternoon, because of course, no one's open! But instead you have to go with all the wild teenagers. Some of them were very annoyingly speeding past us and making us loose our balance, but let's put that behind us. Enjoy the pictures!

 It's hard to get a good picture when you can't see the screen(:

 It's also hard to get a good picture when you have 4 wheels under your feet(:

But it's easy to get a good picture when you have a good friend taking it(:

Best of Summer: Camp!

I'm sure all of my readers have been suspensfully awaiting my anticipated return to my blog. Well, here I am! I have returned from Young Writers Camp and may I just say, that I had a blast!
If you don't know the story, then you may be confused. Well I entered a writing contest at my school, just for fun, not expecting at all to win anything. But, the day before my birthday, I got a call saying that I recieve second place in the contest and that my piece was actually really good and creepy (creepy is a compliment because the theme was "A Dark and Stormy Summer"). One of my prizes were 50% off camp, which was still extremely expensive, even with the 50% off. But my wonderful grandparents pitched in to help me and I just want to say THANKS YOU SO MUCH!

So I went to camp at the Academy and had a blast there were tons of activitis for us! And I made lots of new friends. The two week camp was very tiring though, getting up at 7:30 and going to bed at 11:00 every night. But camp activitis consisted of:

FIREWORKS! The 2nd day of camp was the 4th of July.

Eating at CiC's with my friends Rosie and Amelia!

Going to Baltimore to see the Egar Allan Poe Museum.



Shopping in Inner Harbor(:

Left to Right: Sarah, Audrey, Me, Amelia, and Rosie.

Climbing rock walls (:

Braiding Matt' hair. (Matt was our counselor)

Dressing up in crazy costums(:

We gave the kids a ghost tour of the campus(:

I'd just like to end this by saying THANKS! to all the people who let me come to camp this summer!

It was a blast.

Best of Summer: Friends and Parties!

So today and yesterday I had my 13th birthday party. Even though my birthday was in May, we had no time with soccer games, dance practices, and baseball to do it until today. I had so much fun! All my friends came! (Rachel, Michelle, Cheyenne, Kayla, and Teresa). They got here at about 5pm and then we ate a fabulous supper of spaghetti and beer bread (I LOVE BEER BREAD!).
Later, we made t-shirts. This was one of my favorite things of the whole night! Our t-shirts turned out amazing! We got all the supplies at A.C. Moore. If you're ever looking for t-shirt supplies, look there!

We decided to do a crazy picture with the t-shirts
After making shirts, we played "Scaventure". "Scaveture" is a game where you have to gather/do random things in a certain time limit. It was lots of fun!
We didn't sleep until 4:30 am, and believe me, I regret it now....but it was still tons of fun, playing a little old-fashioned game of truth or dare, looking up youtube videos, and crawling around in the dark with our eyes closed.

The next day, we all took a trip to the local lake to swim. And while we were there, may I point out, that some people just aren't meant to wear certain bathing suits, and if they choose to wear them, need to keep themselves covered! We were very fascinated by taking action photos. We jumped off this wall about 100 times before we got the perfect shots!

 This is one of our failed tries.

 And this is our very best picture!!

 Single pictures of me and Rachel.

 Breanna

 Ashley

 Michelle, this is my favorite pose(:

 Kayla.

 And Cheyenne.

 Breanna wanted me to take a picture of her doing a cartwheel, turned out okay, huh?

 Best friends for life!

Hershey's Milk Chocolate World!

So I know it seems like forever, since I've blogged, but here I am! Such a relief, I know!
So a few days ago, I went to Hershey Park with the middle school chrous, band , and orchestra. We had such a great time and made so many memories! It was first time in like 6 years I had been there!
The first thing we did, ("we" meaning my friends, Mary Kate, Megan, Payton, and Luke) was go to Chocolate World! Yum! It smelled great and had such a catchy song!  After many of the big roller coasters, (yes, I LOVE roller coasters!) and getting Mary Kate and I's picture with a York Pattie:

And we can't forget the ducks!

we had such a great time!

Skipping School(:

So today we decided to skip school!! (Just kidding, I would get killed if i ever skipped school!) But my music teacher, Mr. Eshleman, took the Showstoppers (or show choir) on our "tour" of our school district schools to perform. On the way there I sat with one of my good friends, Emily and sang random songs the whole way there!

When I got to the FCLC, I was touched by the kids there. They have so much to be upset about, but they're all so happy(:. It's truly amazing. I hope to go back there soon.
We stopped at McDonald' for lunch, where Kayla, ( my good friend) and I "stole" a milkshake. We asked for one milkshake for us both to share, but recieved two. So being the crazy girls that we are, we didn't do the "right" thing and give back our other milkshake. We're such outlaws(:.

Also while at McDonald's, Luke ( another friend) and I managed to almost get ourselves run over by an impatient, drive-thru guy. WARNING: don't step out in front of people in cars who are hungary!

Also while on our way to McDonald's, we saw a shirtless, 40 year old man who was painting the roof of Starbucks Coffee and not thinking twice, yelled out the window saying, "HEY! HOW ARE YOU?!"
After McDonalds, Mr. Eshleman decided to take us to the park, to get our enery out and let us "be able to speak at full volume". While there, Kayla, Payton (yet another friend), Emily, Luke, and I managed to fall down the slide, and get stuck in play equipment. We also realzied how small everything is compared to when we were 5 and only about 3ft high.
So, I figured that our whole life shouldn't be spent acting like teenagers but for now, let's enjoy it(:

 

Note: most of the photos were taken at the park.