Chickens

I am now officially off from school so I can sleep in and catch up on my orders. I was behind because I don't have time during a school day. I now have a clean slate and am ready for more orders to come. It is nice because for the first time in three months I can actually sleep in every day and not worry about having to get up at 5am the next day. During these first few days off I have done a few things. My aunt who just bought a house had a house warming party. It was fun and lasted a lot longer than I thought. We went over at 6:00 and before I knew it I looked at the clock and it was 11:00. It was fun, and there were snacks then they ordered food for dinner. There was a deli down the street so they ordered chicken from there. That is not why the title is chickens, just to clear that up. I of course did not have that, I had a rice dish that was made by my neighbor across the street that came to the party.
I also started to decorate the outside of the house. I decorated my room and did probably about 20% of the decorating on the inside of the house. My mom finished the rest of the inside. I started to decorate the outside yesterday, but I only got about half way done before it got dark and I had to stop. I plan to finish the rest of it today.
The last pictures of my room that I put on are now out of date because I bought something new for my room. My mom hates them, but they were on sale and I thought they were just hilarious. I bought light up chickens. Not just one but three. There is an adult rooster and two baby chicks. I put a picture of them below. They match my room because they light up like the parrot in the corner by my bed, so They match pretty good. I like them a lot and am very happy with my purchase.

Summer and Fall of 2010

I haven't done a blog post in a long time, so this one will cover basically all of summer. I have been very busy with all the things I was and am doing, then once school started it almost became impossible. When it comes down to it a blog is not top priority. Today was my last day of the trimester for school and I am off for the whole month of December. This will give me more time to do posts and I can update during the holiday season.
The first thing I am going to cover is the Boy Scout Jamboree in Virginia that I went to. At first I didn't want to go to this one because it was the national one and I wanted to go to the international one, which I will get into later. They only hold this event every four or five years. In the end I am glad I went. It was a very good experience. The event is about 45,000 scouts from all over the country that come and do a whole bunch of things in one place. You can do things like scuba diving, helicopter rides, or a ton of other interesting things like that. They send you out at 7:00am and don't expect to see you again until 6:00pm. They let you do whatever you want to and you don't have a schedule. The only down side was that it was blazing hot. The only shelter was tents so there was no escaping it and when it rained it was extreme thunderstorms. An average day could go to 115 degrees by 3pm. It only rained twice, but when it did they had to get everyone under shelter because the only kind of rain they get are extreme thunderstorms. The entire ten day trip was fun and I am glad I went.
In August I did several things. I did a fundraiser for the Light the Night walk that benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The fundraiser donated several hundred dollars for the society and I had fun doing it. While people were selling for this I went to an arts festival and bought another vase to put in my room. I had just bought a couple new pieces of furniture for my room and I wanted something to put on the small table. It is a small red and orange glass vase that is made by folding a sheet of glass over itself. I looks really cool and I am very glad I bought it. Also during this month my family had an album party. I didn't even know that these existed, but people bring over old records and they play them as they eat snacks and talk. It wasn't that interesting to me so I just sort of went off and did my own thing.
On the last day of August I started school. It was my first day at City High because I had chosen to transfer. I had to ride the city bus down and back everyday to downtown. I liked it much better than my old school and am very glad I switched. The schedule and grading is a little different than a traditional school. Also the way it's run is different. Every student receives a free laptop because most assignments are done on the computer. The way they teach is also different. They done use traditional textbooks with notes. It is all interactive learning and there are no lectures or textbooks. In science you do an experiment almost every other day. Their grading system doesn't use points. You get a letter grade and then it all averages out at the end of the trimester. Doing this makes every assignment equally as important whether it was large or not. The school is located in an office building as well. This gets us used to working in a office environment so when we do start working we are used to the style. The last major thing that is different about this school is that we don't have the traditional three months in a row off. We go for three trimesters a year and at the end of each trimester, which is a grading period, you get about a month off. This month is the first month of of the ninth grade cycle so I get a nice break.
After school started my sister had her baby. Her new baby is a boy and they name him Aiden Larry Smith. He was born on 9-9-10. It was kind of a good date because they got married on 8-8-09 so the dates matched up. When he was born he was 20 inches long and weighed 7lbs 5ozs. He was born at 11:32 and I was in school so I only got an update on my phone. A picture of him is below.
My aunt who has been staying with us for a while bought a house. It is nice little house that is only about 10 or 15 minutes away so we still see her often. I really like it and it has a big yard so her dog can run around and she can garden. She is very happy with it, but I was kind of sad that she was leaving.
Since we are back into Steeler season my family started holding the weekly Steeler parties. Every Sunday we invite over people and have lunch and snacks while we watch the game. It is always a fun way to unwind at the end of the week.
My whole family including the new member (Aiden) went to the pumpkin patch at Shramm's like we always do each year. We always go to the pumpkin patch to get pumpkins to carve and gourds and Indian corn to decorate with. Their farmers market always has fresh grapes and fruit that you can buy. This year we got a bag of jumbo world grapes and they were really good. I have never seen grapes that were that big before and they were so fresh. I will definitely buy that kind again next year.
After going to the pumpkin patch naturally the next big thing is Halloween. I went over to my friends house and we had some people over. We stayed the night and played poker and other random games. I had to leave early in the morning though because I had to get orders done. Whe you don't get home from school until 5:00 you don't really have time to make things on weekdays.
My cousin Leah came up from Florida for Thanksgiving to stay with my aunt for a while. She will be here until the 5th or 6th. I like having her around because she likes to do a lot of the things I like to do, that my mom doesn't. We might do something before she leaves because I am off now.
For Thanksgiving we had every one over and we had a nice meal. I had everything except for the turkey of course, but it was really good. We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, blueberry muffins, corn, and homemade apple sauce. It was nice because after dinner we got to sit and talk with everyone there. Thanksgiving is my second favorite meal of the year, after Christmas because we have twice baked potatoes.
As I mentioned in the beginning of the post I want to go to the World Jamboree. Each time they hold it, which is every four or five years, it is in a new country. Groups of kids and adults from all around the world and every country come to it and they do everything you can think of. Games and different things from every country. You can learn other people's cultures and even help each other learn some of the language you each speak. It is supposed to be very interesting. Going to the event is expensive though so I have signed up for many craft shows so I can make the money to pay for the trip. So far I have done three craft shows and covered about half of it. I am going to sign up for a few more in December so I can cover as much as I can before the Holiday rush ends. This one that I am saving for is in Sweden. It is next summer so I am excited. As new things come up I will update it on the blog.
Since it is getting to be holiday time I decorated my room. I always do a ridiculous amount of decorating in my room because the holidays are my favorite time of the year. I put before and after pictures of my room below. I am very happy with it. I put a new winter plate on my fountain and hooked up all my lights to a remote so I don't have to climb over to the outlet to plug them in. It is really cool because then even if I am going to be in my room for like 10 minutes I can still turn on the lights to enjoy them. It took me 13 hours straight of hard work to get it from where it was to where it is now.