The Time Has Come

Last morning, last post from the United States.

It is Friday, June 27. The day I've been trying not to think about for the past half year. I woke up at about 6.30 this morning. Nobody else is up yet, but I still got up because I don't want to waste another second in bed. My last days were amazing, and sad, and a little odd altogether.
Last Friday was the concert. It was sweet. But reaaaally long. After I had been helping Sheila with the cleaning for my party mostly all morning, Gary, Jimmy, and Chad picked me up around 2, and then we picked up Autumn and went out to Detroit. Like the All That Remains concert in February, this one was at the Majestic Theatre. Standing in line before they opened the doors at 3.30, we met the others: Justin, Ross, Eric, Ashlynn, Kyle, Matt, Doug, Chris, ... The first band started pretty much right at 4, and the last one finished their show at 11.30. It was a really good concert, but I have to admit that by that time, I was incredibly hungry and tired, and my feet hurt somewhat. I had a lot of fun that night.
On Saturday, we started the cooking and more cleaning for my Goodbye Party. We got as much as possible done before 4 pm, when we went to mass at St. Thecla. My last mass at St. Thecla for a while. Right after, we went to the graduation party of the kids' cousin Laura. It was nice.
On Sunday, we spent the morning finishing the cooking and setting stuff up in the garage for the party. It was a lot of work, but we finally got it all done when the first guests, Keith, Brittney, and Katie, arrived. I had put out my yearbook and a book for contact information out for the people to sign, so that I could keep in touch. Mostly everyone signed it. Shortly after Keith, Brittney, and Katie, Ross arrived, followed closely by Justin, Eric, Ashlynn, Doug, Chris, and Randy. Sheila's friends started arriving (the Evola's, the Curry's, and the DeCook's), Mr Curtis got here, Heather, Aimee, Matt, Courtney, Autumn, Gary, Jimmy, Adam, Kyle, .... I was very happy that they all came. It was a nice party. With an awesome cake :)
Monday around noon, I went to Coney Island one last time for lunch with Heather, Aimee, Kyle, and Adam. Later, around 3, Gary picked me up and we went to Autumn's house - her parents had invited us to go to the Detroit fireworks with them. The fireworks are for both the US and the Canadian independence days. We got our stuff together, stopped at a couple stores on our way for food etc., and finally got to Detroit. Although most spots by the water - where the fireworks take place - were already packed, but we still got a perfect spot. We had to wait a couple hours until the fireworks finally started at ten, so we walked around, played Mario on a Nintendo DS, and had fun buying ridiculous souvenier stuff. The fireworks were pretty awesome. They were huuuuge. And they had pretty cool shapes, too. They had hearts, and Saturns.
I stayed at Autumn's over night, where she and I stayed up until about 5 am, trying to think of the word "prosecution".
On Tuesday, Autumn, Gary, Jimmy, Matt, Courtney, Doug, and I went to Ross' house at night. Fun times. Autumn and I attempted to go swimming in Ross' pool, but it was freezing. I had so much fun that night, Jimmy is just hilarious. I actually didn't really get to meet him until just now... that's kind of sad. Doug's bike got stolen that night, and we went out to look for it, but it was too late. Oh well. It didn't seem to bother him too much. I had a great night.
Wednesday, I was home all day, spending time with my family. I went to Grayson's last T-Ball game with the entire family at night, and after that, we went to Eddie's drive-in for some ice-cream. Back home, Courtney and I had a photo session so that we have some photos together for myspace etc. It was hilarious :)
Yesterday, Sheila and I finished my packing (we ended up getting to get a bigger second suitcase, because the one I had was too small, luckily, there was a garage sale right across the street, and they had a perfect size suitcase for only a dollar). I got to choose my last dinner here - ribs with maccaroni and cheese - and after that, we just sat and talked for a while until a few of my friends came over (Gary, Autumn, Justin, Ashlynn, and Eric). It was good to see everyone one last time, and I managed not to cry until they were all gone.
Although today is the day that I leave, it still doesn't go in my head. What? I'm not leaving!
It feels like I'm going to call Autumn or Gary later on, and we're going to hang out tonight. Although I know that we're not going to be. Jake just came in a few minutes ago, and said "You can't leave!!!" and had tears in his eyes, and gave me a big hug. And I still can't realize it. I don't think it's going to hit me until I get to the airport. Or until the plane takes off. And then, it's going to be bad.
Wow, I remember posting my last post from Germany the night before I left there...

This sucks.

Quick Note

So, if anyone feels like making me happy when I'm back in Germany, here's some things you can do:

1. Mom, make me pancakes.
2. Mom, make me strawberries with milk.
3. Dad, make me Tortellini with cheese sauce.
4. Get some Beck's, some Asti champagne, some Amaretto, and some cherry juice.
5. Get some German chocolate for me.
6. Get a flute for me (flute im Sinne von QUERfloete).
7. Buy me a ticket back to the USA! (Haha.)
8. Take me shoe shopping (not with my money, of course).
9. Listen to me when I get lost in about a million stories about how amazing my exchange year was. I know it's going to get annoying, but do me the favor and try to understand.
10. Oliver/Jannis: Make sure The Sims 2 and all the add ons we have are installed on Oliver's computer and on the island when I get back so I can play it for an entire day.
11. Take me to bars, clubs, and parties in general... well, as soon as I'm over the jet lag.
12. This one's especially for my mom: NO COMMENTS ABOUT MY WEIGHT. I gained some, yes, and I'm going to lose it again as soon as I get back, automatically.
13. Get me the Guitar Hero game plus controller for Play Station 2.
14. Mom, dad: Let's go visit relatives over the summer, I haven't seen them in a year. Especially my grandma's.
15. Relatives: Come visit me.
16. Freddy: Help me fix my computer some time. I'll make a cake for you! :)
17. Buy some paint and give it to me. I feel like I might want to redo my room over the summer. Not 100% sure yet.

Well, if I think about anything else, I'll update this list. That's it for now.

How 10 Months Become 10 Days

Ten days. WHAT? Where did the 10 MONTHS go???

I hate my short term memory... I don't remember what I did the Thursday after minigolfing. I don't think I did anything special, actually. On Friday, Gary picked me up in the afternoon and we went to the mall to get my ticket for a concert this upcoming Friday and a Father's Day present for my dad. I got him a Red Wings Stanley Cup Champions shirt. Then we picked Autumn up because she and Gary were going to go to Gary's house for his sister Claudia's birthday party while I went back home. I helped my family with the weeding, and later Sheila with making dinner.
Saturday was the day of Gary's graduation party. I got a ride with Ross around 4, and we were pretty much the first people from our group there. So we hung out with Gary and his family for a while, and then his family started leaving, while his friends arrived. Autumn came, then Eric and Ashlynn, Justin and Kyle, ... It was nice. Ross and I made an amazing plan to put water and blue food dye in a water gun and attack Gary with it. It was hilarious. Later on, we went swimming for a while, and I got drowned by both Ross and Gary. Gah. Hate you guys. Chlorine in my nose. Just kidding, you know I love you.
Eric and Ashlynn gave me a ride home when they went on to Jarrett's grad party around 11.30 pm.
Sunday was Father's Day. We went to church for 10 o'clock mass, and back home, dad opened his presents. He liked the shirt :) Around 2, we went to Uncle Steve's house to celebrate with the family. It was nice. I hadn't been to their house before. They have a huuuuge pool... I didn't go swimming though, I was too busy talking to people. Amanda is home from college at the moment, so she, mom, and Aunt Bridget started telling lots of fun college stories. That made me even more excited to come back here for college soon.
Talking about colleges... I've been getting a lot of little brochures from colleges lately. Even colleges that I never sent my scores to. I guess they found my ACT scores in the database and liked them :) Well, so far I got something from a technological college in Illinois (Chicago!), Michigan Tech, Eastern Michigan, Milwaukee School of Engineering, something in Ohio, Grand Valley (Michigan), ... I might have forgotten something. I'm so excited. And then today, I got a call from Michigan Tech! They have their students call potential future students and talk to them. So I talked to Stefanie, student of Michigan Tech, and she asked me a couple questions about myself, and I explained the entire exchange student situation, and she encouraged me to apply at Michigan Tech when I start planning my college career. It was really nice, I like how personal Michigan Tech seems to be. Their brochure was also the most informative of all. When I start applying for colleges, Michigan Tech is definitely going to be a consideration.
Yesterday was a fun day. I was bored, so I called Gary, Autumn, and Ross to set up something, and we ended up going to Ross' house later in the afternoon, then to Taco Bell for some food, then to Justin's house until he went to bed (he's working this summer), then Seven Eleven for slurpees, and then to Autumn's for a couple minutes before I had to go home. Fun times, fun times. Love these people.
Today was rather depressing. I had been going through my stuff the last couple days to figure out what I'm taking, leaving for somebody, or throwing away, and then today, I had to make a packing try to see how much I can fit in my suitcases and how much is left to be shipped. Mom helped me a lot, and I was very happy about that. Not only was she able to fit about 4 times as much stuff in a suitcase than I could, it was also nice to not have to do it alone. That would be even more depressing. We did a pretty good job and were able to fit a lot in the suitcases while still being perfectly within the weight limits. With the left-over stuff, mainly winterstuff, we could fill one box that I will have to ship. It weighs 20 pounds, so it's not going to be cheap I guess. I am also going to get a rolling carry-on as big as possible for some little stuff, and Sheila found out that I can additionally take a purse of any size. So I'm just going to take my biggest purse and stuff it full as well.
Airport person: Excuse me, Miss... why is your purse so stuffed?
Me: Tampons.
Yea. That's what's going to happen.
Anyways, I suppose this is going to be one of the very last posts in this blog posted from the amazing United States of America. I might write one more about my Goodbye Party on Sunday, but that's probably pretty much going to be it.

The end of the most amazing year of my life is near. I don't think I'm taking this very well.

Minigolfing with Mr Curtis

We had a blast.

Yea, as I told you, we went minigolfing with Mr Curtis yesterday. It was lots of fun, of course. Mr Curtis, the only pro golfer among us, won to nobody's surprise. I actually came in 2nd - yay! After we had completed the course, we went to Dairy Queen for some ice-cream, still with Mr Curtis. We talked for a while, but then he had to leave :(
Fortunately, we got the opportunity to shoot some myspace pictures first ;)

When Gary, Autumn, and I left Dairy Queen, we went to the dollar store to get some supplies for Autumn's graduation party - which I won't be able to go to :'((( - and then to the bank to cash in our senior checks. Bored as we were, we then decided to go get on Ross' nerves for a while. Ross is always fun to hang out with. He has a pool, too.

Too bad we didn't have our bathing suits.

Summer

Times running...

The day after my last post, which was a Tuesday, I went to Dairy Queen - an ice-cream place - with Gary, Autumn, and Autumn's brother Ronnie after dinner. When we were done eating our ice-cream, we went to the dollar store, bought some ridiculous presents for Justin, and then we went to Justin's house (he was not happy because he had been working all day, but when he saw Ronnie - whom he loves - he was okay with us showing up I guess). We stayed there for a little bit, and then we went to Autumn's house. I had bought a treat for Rosie at the dollar store, so she didn't try to eat me, or my flip flops :)
I don't think anything exciting happened on Wednesday...
I am not sure about Thursday, but I think I went over to Autumn's in the evening. Actually, I'm pretty sure I went over to Autumn's, because that was when we made the plan to go visit Mr Curtis before 1st hour the next morning. Oh, and Rosie demolished another pair of my flip flops ;) Yea... gotta love that puppy.
So then on Friday, I got up early and went to the school with Autumn, Gary, and Courtney. We dropped off Courtney and went to Mr Curtis' room - and he wasn't there. Huuuuge disappointment. He didn't get there until like, 4 minutes before the bell rang. Anyways, at least we got to talk to him for a little bit. And we made plans to go minigolfing with him :)
After that short visit, I had to go back home to watch Grayson for a little bit. But later, Gary picked me up and we went to Autumn's again for a while. Zelda time. On the way there, we stopped at Kroger for ice-cream (it was a RIDICULOUSLY hot day... like, 90 degrees) and a dog treat (to protect my next pair of flip flops). It was a good day.
On Saturday, I had to get up early again, this time for the SAT test. I was a little nervous, but it all went pretty good. The test site was Grosse Pointe North High School, Doug drove me there in the morning. I guess I struggled a little on the reading part, like I did in the practise tests I did at home, and didn't get to finish the last sentence of my essay, but I still think I did pretty well.
In the afternoon, Gary, Autumn, and I went to Eric's graduation party. I really liked it a lot, because I got to talked to people who I haven't hung out with in a while. It was good. Pretty much everybody was there, plus Eric's relatives. "Scenetology" was invented, and Eric got a cake shower. Haha. Funny nonsense, like always. That's why I love these guys so much.
Sunday was a busy day. Mass at 10, then to Gino's. I invited my family for brunch there, as a thank you present for being such an amazing host family throughout this year :) I am going to miss them soooooo much!!! After brunch, we went to Grandma's to celebrate GG's 91st birthday. It was nice :) We had brownies and ice-cream... yummmm.
Yesterday, I was pretty much being bored all day, until finally Gary called me after dinner. He, Autumn, and I went to Dan's house to play like a million video games (I'm almost positive that Dan has every good game system every created, plus a ton of games). Mike was there also. It was fun... it was thunderstorming outside, too :)
It's actually been thunderstorming a lot lately. One big one with possible tornados (that didn't happen -.-) came by on Sunday night. And there've been several power outs in the area... luckily, none of them hit us yet.
Today I did nothing special. I went to Jake's baseball game after dinner though, with mom. They lost... poor guy. But it was nice to watch, and the weather was pretty good today. It wasn't too hot to be outsite, for once.

Minigolfing with Mr Curtis tomorrow :) Can't wait!!

Graduation(s), Extreme Shopping, and Other Exciting Events

Oopsi. That was a looong time without a post again.

The weekend after prom was Memorial Day weekend. So everybody had Friday and Monday off - looong weekend. On Friday, the entire family went to Metro Park by bike for a lunch picknick. It was a lot of fun. The spot we chose for our picknick was at the very end of the park, close to the water, with a great view of the lake. The weather was perfect. After we had eaten, we played baseball on a nearby old baseball field for a while. It's a fun sport, it was actually the first time I ever actually played baseball. I'm definitely not the best batter, and here's one advice: Don't ever attempt a homerun being barefoot. It hurts.
Later, Courtney and I wandered off and found a pretty little tree full of flowers to lie under and talk. All in all, it was a really nice day.
I am not sure if we did anything important on Saturday... I forgot.
On Sunday, we went to church like usually. Later that day, after dinner, I went to Walmart with Gary and Autumn to get birthday presents for Justin, whose birthday was the next day. I got him a reaaaaally cool Speedracer toy car (it does a barrell roll) and a notebook to write down ideas for the book we make him write ("Justin's Logic."). After that, we stopped for ice-cream at Dairy Queen, and then we went to Autumn's for a while. Rosie liked it. Especially the fact that I brought my flip flops - she liked them so much that she ate one of them :D well, partially. I love that puppy. She's so funny.
Monday was Grayson's actual birthday, and, of course, Justin's birthday. So during the day, I was home and we celebrated Grayson's birthday a little bit more and made little cookies that he could share with his classmates the next day. Later, Gary picked me, Ross, and then Autumn and Ronnie up and we went to Justin's for his birthday party. Eric, Alex, and Garrett were there also, and later, Roo, Kyle, and a couple other people joined us. It was fun. We had a barbeque, and the cake Autumn made for Justin later, Justin really liked his presents, and there was also a bonfire. Unfortunately, when Gary was going to take me home around midnight, his car wouldn't shift out of park. So he had to borrow Mrs Hanigan's car, and then his car was broken for a week.
I don't remember doing anything important on Tuesday. I did get a call that day though, from the school - my cap and gown were finally there.
On Wednesday, Gary went to the school with Justin in the morning. Justin had to stay there and finish a painting, and in the meantime, Gary borrowed Justin's car to come and get me so we could pick up our gowns (his had finally arrived, too). After that, we went to McDonald's (coffee for me and breakfast for Gary). Then we basically just drove around wasting Justin's gas for a while (I bought new flip flops at Family Dollar) and ended up at Autumn's. We then went to Taco Bell, where Gary got a call from Justin who wanted him to come pick him up. When Gary came back, Autumn and I were so disappointed that he hadn't brought Justin with him ("He didn't want to!") that we decided to go to Justin's house for a while, where we only stayed for a little bit because Justin had to go buy fancy pants for graduation and Autumn and I kind of wanted to go home.
The graduation ceremony was on Thursday at the huge Bethesda Church. It reminds me more of an opera house than of a church. I was supposed to be there at 6 p.m., but didn't get there until 6.30 because of traffic, and on top of that, I had lost my tassel somewhere. I wasn't the only one being late, but unfortunately they had already run out of extra tassels. I found Autumn and my name card (the purpose of those cards will be explained later), and when we were asked to line up and stand with the people we would like to sit next with, we found the guys in a corner. Standing there waiting, I noticed one of the teachers walking by with an extra tassel in her hand, so I hurried over there and asked her for it before anyone else could. A little bit later, we started walking through the back hallways to the auditorium where they had reserved the front rows for the graduates. Unfortunately, Gary got separated from us, and I got put in the row next to Autumn and the others, although I was supposed to sit with them. But it was okay I guess. There were a couple speeches of some graduates and other important people, and then they started sending row by row up to the stage. Before going up the steps, everybody posed for a picture with a diploma folder in front of a USA and a Michigan flag. Then we had to line up by the left of the stage behind Mr Miller, whom we had to give our name card before we walked over the stage. We told him how to pronounce our name right, he announced it, and then we walked over the stage to our principal Mr Mulcahy, while another picture was taken of us walking. Mr Mulcahy gave us a diploma folder (we didn't get our actual diplomas, or, in my case, a Certificate of Attendance, until later). Then we had to shake his hand and keep walking past all those important school officials, shaking everybody's hands, receiving a "Congratulations!" from every single one and constantly mumbling "Thank you!". It was pretty cool. But with one person walking across the stage at a time, and about 400 graduates, it took a looong time.
After the ceremony, we stood and symbolically put our tassel from the left side of our cap to the right (that's a sign that we successfully graduated). Then we left the auditorium and went back to the room where we had met before to receive our diplomas. Outside of the building, I found Courtney, Grandma, and Michaela. Sheila and Grayson had gone to the car because Grayson was tired. Because I wanted a picture with Autumn and couldn't find her right away, I asked Justin for a ride so my family wouldn't have to wait so long. Lots of pictures were taken with lots of people, I will have to try and get all of them. When we finally left the place, Justin, Gary, Autumn, and I went to Taco Bell (I had been so nervous before the ceremony that I hadn't eaten much of my dinner before at home). There, we met Kyle, and Steve dropped by later. After that, Justin dropped me off at home.
Grayson's graduation from kindergarten was on Friday morning. I went to the school with Sheila when she dropped off Michaela and Jacob, we attended 9 o'clock mass, and then the graduation started at 10.30. Doug, who worked at home that day, came to see Grayson, and Jake and Michaela were also excused from class so they could watch their little brother graduate. It was a cute ceremony :) The kindergarteners sang, presented pictures that they had painted, and then got their diploma.
On Saturday, I went to Kyle Manikas' (my play co-actor ;) ) graduation party with Keith from about 2.30 to 3.30. It was a very nice day, and it was good to meet a few of the play people again. When I came home, my family had just left for church, but they picked me up after and we went to Ms Amber's house for dinner. It was a lot of fun, I played with Baby Vito and the other kids outside and got to talk to Daniella, their Korean exchange student. I think she's going back home this week.
Sunday was a lazy day. I spent most of it reading.
Yesterday was a GREAT day :)
I got up with the kids in the morning, and Grayson and I went with Sheila when she dropped off the other two kids at the school in the morning. The three of us then went to Grandma's workplace to switch cars with her because we were driving out to an outlet mall which is about 65 miles away - and it would take a lot of expensive gas to drive the huge van up there, which is why we took Grandma's little Ford. The outlet mall is amazing. It has some really cool stores and they had the GREATEST sales.
We first went into the GAP store, where I found some white shorts. At Big Dog, I found some really cute and cheap pj's. I bought underwear in the next store - for unbelievable prices, like $4 for a bra! - and then we got to Rue 21. I love this store so much. I tried on about a million pieces of clothing, and ended up getting a yellow and a blue tank top, a striped black and white top, a white top with yellow flower print, a white top that is almost like a mini dress, my very super favourite black/grey/white skirt with POCKETS, 2 pair of striped shorts - one brown and white, one green and white -, and a pair of brown shorts. Everything was on sale, most of the things were between $3 and $6. At Old Navy, I got a red top for 5 bucks. The last store where I bought something was Aeropostale, and they probably had the best deals of all: Everything was on sale already, and you got an additional 30% off of the sales prices. I got a pair of dark blue, long pants there, a really nice, grey summer jacket, yellow, short sweat pants, a dark red 3/4 sleeve top, a grey mini dress, grey shorts, and a striped green and white top. I know, that is a lot. I got like 24 pieces of clothing overall, but I only paid about $6.50 per piece on average. Sooo cheap! I'm done with my shopping for this entire summer, and probably for most of the next summer, too. That means I won't have to buy ridiculously expensive clothes in Germany for a while.
Okay, I'm sick of typing now. Here's some pictures.

Talk to you soon.

Prom...

... was fun :)

So on Saturday, I went to the hair place with Courtney so she could get her hair cut. Other then that, I didn't really do anything exciting until after dinner, when I went to Walmart with Gary to get a birthday present for Grayson (they have some really cool Speedracer toy cars there ;) we had fun pressing buttons...). Later that night, Sheila and I figured out my hair for prom.
On Sunday, we went to church and cleaned the house after. Around 3, guests for Grayson's birthday party came. Grandma was here, aunt and uncle, cousins Tony, Cassy, and Amanda, and Melinda's family (Melinda is Sheila's friend who lived in Germany for like, 3 years. Now they've been back for a year, but this summer they go there again for a year.). Melinda had called me in advance, because she wanted me to help her play a joke on her son Christopher whom I hadn't met yet. She told him that I didn't speak English very well, so he talked German to me for quite a while until we told him the truth ;) It was funny. But I'm pretty sure his German is better than mine is at the moment.
On Monday, I went with Gary in the morning when he brought Courtney to school (although he's out of school now, he still has to take his sisters in the morning, so he takes Courtney, too), because I had some little presents (German candy) for some of my teachers. After that, we went somewhere to have breakfast, and then we came back to the school for 3rd hour so I could take my Precalc final. After that, he picked me up again and we went to get Autumn. Until 6th hour, I explained the Precalc stuff to them at McDonald's, and then they had to go to take their final.
Tuesday was the day of our graduation practise. Again, I had to get up early, because it started at 7.30. We took our Senior picture, and then they explained to us what we have to do on graduation day. I still don't have my cap and gown... that kind of starts to bother me. Gary doesn't have his either, neither do Randy or Adam.
After that, we got our yearbooks and tickets for graduation. Then, Gary, Autumn, and I went to my house to look through the yearbooks until 4th hour, when we went back to the school to hang out with Mr Curtis during his prep hour. He signed our yearbooks :) AND he's coming to my goodbye party!!
And then, yesterday, was the day of our prom! I slept in, did some chores, and prepared for prom as much as I could so far... there wasn't really anything to start yet, though. When Sheila got home (she had to sub) she started doing my hair. We weren't even done with that yet when Eric, Ashlynn, and Kyle got to my house. Oh well, they were early, I was in time ;)
While I was doing my make-up and getting my dress on - with Courtney's help - Gary and Gina got here as well. Finally ready, I came downstairs, and Kyle gave me my cresage and flowers :) We waited for Matt, Courtney, Garrett, Autumn, and a couple parents, and then we started a looong photo session. Around 6.40 pm, we all left for Villa Penna, where the prom took place. It was a pretty cool place, and the dinner they served was good. As expected, the music consisted mainly of hip hop... oh well, it was alright. Autumn improvised with some epic hand-dances :) (she's still on crutches). The night ended too soon, and then Kyle, Gary, Gina, Matt, Courtney and I went with Autumn to Autumn's house. I stayed overnight. Rosie finally starts putting less effort into chewing me and more into chewing dog toys. Yay! I love that puppy. But she CAN get annoying. I've been back home since 2 pm. It felt amazing to take a shower and brush my teeth when I got home ^^

Prom's over, graduation's coming closer... and after that? Nooooo... :'(

Last Concert, Last Tests, Last Day of School

I am really starting to hate the word "last".

Our concert was good. It made me a little sad that it was our last one. Later, it made me really sad. After the concert, when we were in the lobby, Mr Hilton walked up to me, shook my hand, thanked me for playing with them, and told me that it was an honor to have me in the band. That was sooo awesome :) I was speechless for a moment.
Gary brought me home, and we got food on the way.
Sunday was Mother's Day. We went to church and then to Grandma's, where we celebrated with her, GG, Sheila's brother and his wife. We had a really yummy late breakfast and after that, some chocolate cake and some coconut cake which I had made the night before (my Mother's Day present :) ).
Then, my last week of school started.
On Tuesday, I went to Lowe's with Gary after school to get spray paint for Justin, which we then dropped off at his house (he was sleeping, so we woke him up). When we were going to leave, Gary's car didn't turn on - parked in a tactically perfect spot right in front of Justin's driveway ;) Justin's dad fixed it, the battery connection was lose. Unfortunately, Gary's car refuses to shift into park since then. So he has to shift it manually everytime.
On Wednesday, I had my U.S. history final. Haha. Fun. Again, it was the exact same questions as on the study guide, and he put the three Seniors together out in the hallway...
Yesterday, I had my Real Life Literature final. Wasn't too hard either. After school, we had a little cast reunion party with the entire play cast in Mrs Ethridge's room :) It was sooo nice to meet all the cast members again. We watched the play DVD, ate, and talked. Kyle gave me an invitation to his graduation party :)
Then, at 7 pm, was the Senior Night in the small gym. Food, partially okay live music, and announcements of the winners of the mock elections. Justin won best male artist. Surprise, surprise. Justin's the most creative person I know, who else could have won it?? Unfortunately, they didn't show the Senior Slide Show because of technical difficulties. After Senior Night, we went to Little Caesars, where we met Eric, Matt, and Garrett, and then it was time to go home.
Then, the day had come...
The last day of school.
It was somewhat awkward, because during the whole school day, it didn't feel like the last day to me. It didn't really get through to me until I got home.
Seniors were supposed to wear their gowns today. Unfortunately, I don't have mine yet. I really hope I get in on Monday, because I will really need it on Tuesday for graduation practise and the senior picture. Anyways. I took a couple pictures throughout the day, took my composition final, and in sixth hour, all the Seniors walked through the hallways in a little parade.

I will miss these people so much.

I made invitations for my goodbye party, too.

I don't want to go back :(

I'm not ready!

Broken Legs and Other Fun Stuff

A lot of stuff happens, and I'm getting lazy with my blog again...

So, the Monday after my last entry Gary, Autumn and I went to Dan's house after school. Dan's a friend of them, in my first hour, and pretty awesome. I love his house. It's right by the lake - the lake is basically behind his backyard. I also love his dog.
I had brought our two Wii controllers, so we had enough controllers for everybody to play Mario Kart on Dan's Wii. In between, Gary and I left to get pizza. It was pretty much the perfect gaming day because it was raining. A lot.
I don't think I did anything exciting on Tuesday because I don't remember what I did. Studying for Chemistry, maybe.
On Wednesday, I hung out with Gary and Autumn... and we had a lot of fun. Like always. I love these people. So much.
Thursday must have been unexciting too. What did I even do??
Friday, I hung out with Kyle and his friends Steve and Angela. They're pretty awesome :) Angela's in college already, Steve is a Senior at L'Anse Creuse. He plays drums. Both of them have an amazing taste in music.
We went to the movies and watched "21", a movie about these MIT students who go to Vegas every weekend to count cards and make a bunch of money. It was pretty good. But reaaaally long.
On Saturday, Courtney and I walked up to Fantastic Sam's next to Rite Aid so I could get a hair cut. My hair really started to bug me. I got about an inch off in general, against the spliss, and then I got the front a little shorter for more structure and a face frame. I like it. I also bought a highlights kit at Rite Aid on our way back, Courtney helped me putting that in back home. At night, the entire family watched "Alvin and the Chipmunks". It's an ok movie I guess. The little ones like it a lot. Later that night, when I was on the computer and talking to Gary, I found out that Autumn had just broken her leg. She went to a concert with some of the guys (Justin, Eric, Garrett, Matt, Kyle, ...) at DTE, and some black 300 pound guy accidently fell on her, and her leg broke. The guys went to the hospital with her, and it turned out that she would need surgery on Sunday. The ironic part - she wasn't even moshing, because there was this hill and she was afraid to fall. So, she was just standing there. She says that probably nothing would have happened if she WOULD have moshed. Poor Autumn.
On Sunday, we went to church and after that, we all did some outside work together. Courtney and I did the weeds. In the afternoon, we went back to church for a project called GIFT - Gathering In Faith Together. That meant that we had dinner with a bunch of other Catholic families in the St. Thecla gym, and later, we were divided into age groups (Courtney and I were in the high school group which wasn't much different from what we did at the Youth Group meetings - when the Youth Group still existed). In the groups, we talked about Mary and how she's a role model.
Monday, Gary and I went to the dollar store in the afternoon to get some presents and balloons for Autumn, and then we came to visit her (she was back at her house by then). I felt so sorry for her, the painkillers were giving her some serious troubles. She was feeling sick and sleepy all the time. After a while, we left so she could take a nap, and we went to Justin's house to give him a "Sugar Babies" pillow that we found at the dollar store ("Sugar Babies" are a kind of candy, and Justin loves it). He was working with his dad in the backyard, cutting down trees. They were almost done, so we stayed, played soccer with his dog Izzy, and then Justin's dad invited us to stay for dinner. Justin's dad is pretty funny. I can see now where Justin got his awesome sense of dry humor.
Tuesday, I didn't do anything interesting... I walked up to Rite Aid and did homework. That's pretty much it.
On Wednesday, I hung out with Gary after school, and we went to Autumn's again. She was a lot better by then. We played Guitar Hero, and Autumn and I got really tired and sleepy.
Yesterday, Autumn was in school again on crutches. When I came home from school, I got my chores done, started my homework, and made dinner. After dinner, Gary picked me up and we went to Autumn's again, where I spent the night (today was the 2nd, and the actual official, Senior Skip Day). Justin came over and spray-painted Autumn's crutches, a baseball, and Autumn's family's "Welcome" sign gold. Now that's cool. Golden crutches. You know you're jealous. I am.
The rest of the night, we basically just hung out watching TV or playing the Wii. Fun. :)

Today, Gary brought me to the school for 5th and 6th hour (combined band rehearsal for our concert tomorrow, so although I was skipping the rest of the day, I had to be there for that). It actually went by pretty fast. Now, I'm babysitting Michaela and Grayson. Jake and Courtney are at Jake's baseball game, and mom and dad are out for dinner.
I can't believe my last concert's tomorrow.
I can't believe I got only 5 days of American high school left.
I can't believe I will have to give back my flute next Friday.
I can't believe I will have to plan some kind of goodbye party this weekend because I have to distribute the invitations during the upcoming week.

7 weeks left. What am I gonna do??

Painting Gary's Door

One good advice for life: NEVER prank-call Justin.

So, Friday night, I was at Gary's house. Why? THE EVENT OF THE MONTH: Justin painted his door. That plan was made a couple weeks ago, and within the last week, Justin had been working on a design in Precalc. It is a big whale that is getting molested by an octopus. Epic, really. Hanging out at Gary's was a lot of fun, like always. Of course, Justin was there, and besides him, Autumn, Eric, and Matt came over. Plus Gary's sisters were around. Claudia made a wristband for me. And other people. I know you're jealous.
The guys had to help clean the pool first for a while (Autumn and I didn't have to, so we stayed inside and ate tacos and twizzlers, and then we went outside to watch them work :P). Then, Justin started painting. They got pizza a little later. Watching Justin paint is hilarious, because of the random comments he throws out into the room ("You know what would be cool? If one of us died, and then we could spread really cool rumors about how that person died in school...").
Later that night, Justin got a prank call. Lesson for life: NEVER PRANK CALL JUSTIN. He's gonna turn it around against you ^^ it was so funny. He probably scared whoever called him. But then they talked for quite a long while, and then one of the person's friends talked to us girls on Autumn's phone (I talked to them in German, which was pretty funny. Eric says it sounds scary when I swear in German.).
I can't really describe these nights I guess because if you haven't been there, you can't even nearly imagine how awesome it is.

Yesterday, I had my YFU re-entry meeting. It was pretty pointless. I didn't like talking about going back, and I don't think any of us did. And most of the time, we didn't really "work", but simply talked about random stuff. I don't need to spend a day with YFU people to do that. Oh well. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though. And I guess they have to try and prepare us for going back. Though I don't think that's even possible. I'm so not gonna be prepared.

I don't even know HOW to prepare...

I Love Senior Skip Day!

I'm tired. But that's nothing new.

So, the closing night went even better than the opening night of our play. I wasn't nervous this time :) but unfortunately, it was all kind of sad, too. Before we went on stage, we met backstage and held hands in a huge circle, and then everybody dedicated the play to someone or something, and then we jumped one time. It was a very moving moment. When it was my turn, and I dedicated the play to the cast because they belong to the people who made my exchange year the best year of my life, and everybody went "Ohhh", I was really close to start crying. How can play be over! It was so much fun :(
I guess the fact that it was our last time on stage together motivated us to make it an amazing performance. I can't even describe it. It was just - even better than the first night.
After the show, we went to the lobby again to talk to the audience, and I met Gary, Kyle, Heather, Kenny and Amy. Gary gave me flowers.
A little later, we had to go change and get all our stuff together and out of the building. It was sad to see them take down the stage stuff :(
Then, we went to the cast party. Courtney and I got a ride with Katie who also gave Keith a ride. The cast party was at Ean's house. It was fun. We ate, danced ridiculously, watched an old play on tape... we basically just had a lot of fun. Katie drove us home around midnight, she wanted to make sure she didn't miss her driving curfew.

On Sunday, Courtney and I overslept, so we didn't go to church with the rest of the family. We went grocery shopping with Mom, and later that day, after dinner, Gary picked me up to go to Autumn's house, where I spent the night - Monday was Senior Skip Day. Senior Skip Day is, in my opinion, a great invention. Basically, the Seniors choose a day that they're all going to skip on. Of course, not EVERYBODY really does it, but the vast majority does. Although at that time I was still a Junior (I'll explain that later), I decided that I have the right to do Senior Skip Day, too, since it is somewhat my last year in American high school, too.
So, Gary, Justin, Eric, Ashlynn, Garrett, Alex, Kyle, Zack, and I hung out at Autumn's house Sunday night. After a while of being outside in Autumn's front yard with basketball and breakdancing, somebody (Alex?) decided it was time for an "adventure". So all of us except for Justin and Garrett, who thought the idea was ridiculous (aren't all our ideas ridiculous?? What did they expect?), took off to walk to Seven Eleven. It was a rather long walk, but it was fine, and it was nice and warm out. When we got there, everybody except for me got Slurpees, and Gary bought me a variety of Pop Tarts (because he thought it's not right that I had never eaten a Pop Tart before) and Trail Mix (which I'm addicted to). After messing around at Seven Eleven for a while, we called Ross and told him to meet us at McDonald's, so we walked on to McDonald's. We basically did an entire tour that night.
So we met Ross and he walked back to Autumn's house with us where we watched Fight Club. Eric, Ashlynn, Justin, Garrett, Kyle, Gary, and me spent the night. Monday "morning", meaning around 10.30, Jodie and Roo came over. They went to school for first our to take an AP Chemistry AP practise test. I was supposed to do that too, but I retook it today. They were hungry, so they made us all get up and get ready. While Eric and Ashlynn went to Ashlynn's house to take showers, I took a shower at Autumn's house after she was done with hers. Gary wasn't there anymore, he left early in the morning to take his sisters and Courtney to school. When he came back, and Eric and Ashlynn came back, we took off to go to the Pancake House for breakfast. Almost all of us ordered crepes. It was soooo good. I had crepes with fresh strawberries :)
After breakfast, we went back to Autumn's house, Roo, Jodie and Garrett left, and after hanging out in her sunny front yard again for a while, Gary took me home.
I got my chores and my homework done, and for dinner, I went to Paco's with Gary, Kyle, Justin, and Autumn. It was such an amazing day. I LOVE Senior Skip Day! :)
Tuesday was rather unexciting. On Wednesday after school, Courtney and I were home alone (Dad was at work, Mom was subbing and the little ones were still in school) and suddenly, it knocked on the front door and Autumn and Gary were standing outside. They were bored, and so was I, so they came in for a while (Autumn examined the office, and then we watched TV with Courtney and talked), and a little later, we went to Ashlynn's house for another hour. They dropped me off at home around dinner time after that.
Today, I found out that obviously, Ms Glynn (our associate principal who is actually from Germany!) switched me from Junior class into Senior class. The whole thing started when Finja asked the school whether she could walk for graduation. They told her she could, and then offered me to do that too, and now that I said yes, they must have made me a Senior. So now, I'll get out of school early (on May 16th) which is partially awesome because it gives me more time to hang out with Autumn and the guys, and partially a little sad because I'm not really gonna see my non-Senior friends anymore (most of the people I hang out with are Seniors). I still like it though.
The weather is getting so nice already. From being cold and snowy, it almost suddenly jumped to being summer-like. I can wear shorts and shirts all the time, and it gets almost hot outside. I really like that because, I have to admit, the winter really got on my nerves by now. On the other hand, I don't want it to be summer. Summer means going back.

And I am NOT ready. :(

What an Amazing Week

"Featherbowling is throwing feathers at pins." (Eric)

Okay, this was one of my best weeks ever.
So, on Saturday was Doug's birthday, so we had cake after dinner and he got some presents (a really cool card, German chocolate and a coupon for "A Day in Peace and Quiet" from Courtney and me). Later, Gary, Eric and Ashlynn came to pick me up for Autumn's birthday party. We stopped at right aid to get some specific kind of candy for Justin and pop, and Gary also spontaneously bought a miniature universal remote that he can bring into Mr Dakmak's class and drive him crazy by constantly switching the channels (Mr Dakmak already took Gary's other universal remote). Then we went to Autumn's house.
Besides us four, there were Justin, Garrett, of course Autumn, Liz, Ross, Alex, Zack, Dan, Matt and his girlfriend Courtney, Joe, .... I probably forgot someone. It was such a fun night. I talked to Ashlynn a lot, which was awesome because I never really got to talk to her much before and she's such a nice person :)
The next day, Gary drove Alex, Ross, Matt and me home around noon.
When I came home, Sheila welcomed me with the most amazing surprise - I got my ACT scores, and I got a 33! That is so much better than I thought they would be, and Sheila, Doug, my teachers and my class mates all tell me that with such a good score, I can definitely get a full scholarship at a college! You have no idea how happy I am :))) I MIGHT GET TO COME BACK!! I already signed up to take the SAT as well, so that I can hopefully improve my chances even more. I can't wait to hear from the colleges that got my ACT score!
After I had taken a shower and done my chores, Sheila, Grandma Tina and I went prom dress shopping :) First, we went to JC Penneys where I tried on a lot of dresses and finally narrowed it down to two dresses that I really liked. One was black and white, strapless and really puffy. The other one was light green, very shiny and silky, and the back looked amazing because it was tied so cool.
We went on to DEB at the mall where I tried on even more dresses, and finally, I found the one :) It is dark blue, almost black and shimmering blue, strapless, puffy, and just soooooo pretty... I love it so much.
Monday through Wednesday, I had play rehearsal until late everyday and never got home before 6 pm. We had dress rehearsals now, and Wednesday we had our first hair and make-up rehearsal and even a little audience consisting of about 4 teachers. I can't believe I managed how to do those fast changes in between the first couple scenes. But I actually made it, with Katie's help.
On Thursday, I relaxed and got some rest, and last night was opening night. I was excited all day, but when we finally got to JAPAC at 6 to get ready, I was really nervous. The nervosity increased until the curtain opened - but from then on, it just went so well and I had sooo much fun on stage.
When the play was over, we headed to the lobby to receive the audience that was coming out of the hall. Autumn, Eric and Ashlynn were there to watch me, and a lot of band kids and my mom, Grandma Tina and Michaela. Mary wanted me to sign her shirt :) and Eric, Ashlynn and Autumn asked me whether I wanted to come with them and go to a movie. Sheila was fine with that, so after a while, I changed and we left JAPAC to go to Taco Bell. There, we got some food and met Justin, Kyle, and two of Kyle's friends whom I don't know. After we were done eating, we went to the theatre to watch "The Forbidden Kingdom". It was a pretty good movie. I got home around 1 am.
Overall, I had an amazing night. Tonight is our closing show... I'll be so sad when it's over. Afterwards, we'll have our cast party at Ean's house. That's gonna be fun :)

Alright, I'm done with this little update on my life.
And, just for the record - I don't wanna go back. I'm definitely not ready.

Friday, Finally.

This was an exhausting week.

Today, when I got to school, I went to my locker first as usually, then I went to room 107 as usually to drop off my AP Chem stuff, and then I wanted to go to the cafeteria to get some caffeine (so either diet coke or diet Dr. Pepper). But on the way there I found Kyle sitting in the hallway and he had brought me a mug of coffee :) So I had my caffeine. It was probably the best coffee that I have had in a while... it actually kept me awake all day!
So, my day started pretty awesome. It went on with an easy US History test, a really cool Precalc hour (the stuff was easy, exponential functions... so I was done early and got to talk to Randy and Roo for a while)., and an easy vocab quiz in Composition.
After school, we had play rehearsal at JAPAC again. It was alright today, and we're always having a lot of fun. A couple days ago, we started working on the dance at the end of the play... It's a pretty simple dance, most of the time, we're just a line of girls in front of a line of boys and do different moves, but in the end there's one part where the girls have to fall back and the guys behind them catch them and push them back up. My "partner" is Grant, and I know I can trust him because he's a good friend of Gary's, but still... I don't like just falling back and having people catch me ^^ So I struggled with that for a little while. But he's always caught me. So I guess I need to relax a little. Awww.
Next week we'll have dress rehearsals. That's pretty scary because I'm gonna have some reaaaally quick changes - and the fastest of all is from a long dress into black shirt and overall in only seconds. Not sure how that's gonna work out yet.
Tonight, I'm babysitting the little ones. Sheila and Doug are out for dinner with friends, and Courtney is babysitting at one of those friends' houses. Of course there had to be tornado warnings on the night that I'm home alone with the kids, and around 8.30, the sirenes went of, the sky turned green for the second time since I've come here, and lightning and thunders started. So we went down in the basement - it took a while to get down there because Jake wouldn't leave the cats upstairs despite my attempts to persuade him that they'll know when to get into the basement, so it took us about 10 minutes to find the cats and catch them - and watched the Weather Channel to wait for the thunderstorms to pass. It didn't become a tornado, and they cancelled the warning shortly before 9.
Tomorrow night is Autumn's birthday party. It's a sleepover. I'm excited. It's gonna be sooo much fun.

And then dress-shopping on Sunday! :)

Life Goes On

Once again, I'm very tired.

So, our one week of break was pretty cool. I mean, Courtney and I both had a lot of make-up work to do from the days that we missed in school while we were in Florida, but there was still enough time for some relaxing, and Pilates. Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything else going on - Heather didn't have her car because it needed new license plates, so I didn't go out with her, Kyle and Amy, and Gary went to Ohio from Wednesday to Friday with Justin and Autumn and family members. But on Friday night, we went to Autumn's house - to watch the Degrassi movie - and so I got to see Gary, Autumn, Eric, Alex and Justin. It was pretty awesome. It always is. Autumn showed me her dress for prom - it is soooo beautiful. I like it a lot. Autumn says she's gonna marry it because she loves it so much.
Another thing that happened over break - I am definitely going to prom now :) Kyle will be my date (in a friendship kinda way) and I am reaaaaally excited now because I get to buy a pretty DRESS :) We're going dress shopping on Sunday, Sheila, Courtney, Grandma Tina and I. Grandma needs a dress for a wedding, I need one for prom.
This week has been pretty crazy so far. We've had play rehearsals every day until at least 4, so we get home late, do our homework and chores, eat dinner, finish our homework, and then we basically go to bed. Luckily, I got most of my homework done in school today, which is why I'm able to write in my blog again finally.
Today's Autumn's birthday. I got her a card and 2 pounds of Twizzlers (she loves them) and had Gary give it to her during lunch because I never see her during the day. According to him, she liked them. Her birthday party's going to be on Saturday, sleep-over... And the chances are really good that I will be able to go.
Another pretty awesome thing that happened today is that Mr Curtis got me coffee :) I come into 3rd hour today, totally tired, and as I sit down in my seat right in front of his desk, I can smell that he just got fresh coffee. So I say "That is really mean Mr Curtis... I'm very tired and I really really want a coffee right now... and I can smell yours." and he says "Yes I actually just got new coffee." Typical-Mr-Curtis-grin. Then he asks "Cream and sugar?" "No, black." "That must be a European thing. Isn't it? I heard they all drink their coffee black over there." "Umm... I don't know." "I know the Italians do..." well, and that's how our little coffee conversation pretty much came to an end.Then, 1.5 hours later, I'm sitting in B-lunch and at the end of B-lunch, Mr Curtis walks into the cafeteria, comes up to our table, sets a cup of coffee down in front of me and walks away with his Mr-Curtis-grin. You have no idea how happy I was.
So now, I officially love him. Veeery much.
In a week from tomorrow will be the opening night of our play. Scary. Rehearsals are a lot of fun though. They're at JAPAC now, the entire time. And I got some of my costumes now.

Silence is golden. Duct tape is silver.
(An amazing statement that I read on Adam's shirt today.)

Florida

"PALM TREEEEE!"

I am back from Florida! And I had a really amazing time.
On Tuesday, March 18, Courtney and I did not go to play practise (did I tell you that she's now in the play, too?) but went right home on the bus. At home, we had five minutes to clean up some left stuff in our rooms and change into comfy clothes for the 17-hour-ride. Then we got in the car with Sheila and Doug and headed out to St. Thecla to pick up the little ones from school. Sitting in the car for 17 hours was fine in the beginning but late in the night, when I just couldn't fall asleep because I couldn't find a position to get comfortable in the very backseat anymore, it did get pretty hard. When I finally switched with Courtney a little while before dawn and sat in the middle seat, I finally got a little sleep for about 2 hours.
I woke up around seven and the first thing I saw was a group of palm trees by the roadside going past my window. I felt like jumping, dancing and screaming "PALM TREEEEE!" (a feeling that occured every time I saw a palm tree during the entire vacation). After two more hours we arrived in Daytona at our hotel for the first night. It was a Holiday Inn right at the beach. After checking in, we put our bathing suits on and went down to the outside pool area that was connected to the beach by a set of stairs. It was so cool. I hadn't realized before how much I had missed the beach and the sea. I didn't swim in the ocean because they have sharks and nasty stuff like that down there, but I walked in the water which felt really nice. Later, I went in the pool for a little while and then we just lay in the sun on our chairs and I finally got some sleep. I got sunburned - I didn't think about putting sunscreen on.
The entire day was very calm and relaxing. In the afternoon, the college kids that were still on Spring Break started coming out of the hotels and filled the pool areas and the beach... Uuuuh there were some hotties out there! ^^ We had dinner in the hotel's restaurant and as we were sitting outside next to the pool area, eating, I see these three guys sitting down by the pool (mid-twenties, I'd say) and they have Jaegermeister towels and German stuff written on them and I felt like I heard them talk German although I wasn't sure. I told Sheila, and, open as she is, she got up and asked them whether they were German ^^ So I talked with one of the guys for a while - in German - and found out that they came from southern Germany and Austria and were on a vacation trip around the South of the US and Mexico. It was pretty funny.
The next day, we got up early and checked out to go to Disneyworld in Daytona. We planned to be there by 9, but the traffic was unexpectedly bad so it took us longer to get down there. We went to Epcot, which is one part of the humongous park. Although it was raining on our way there, it became a beautiful day - it was sunny and actually pretty hot. Unfortunately, the waiting lines for the two biggest attractions - the test track and "Soarin'" were always around 2 hours long, so we didn't do those, but we did do a lot of other fun stuff. The coolest thing was that they had a world showcase around a little lake - several countries were represented in miniature-villages, and Germany was there too! It looked very Southern, and everything was in German, even the employees in that area were German! They had a shop with German chocolate and candy, and we bought a lot there...
After a fun day in the park, we went back up to St. Augustine, where we stayed in another Holiday Inn for one night because we couldn't check in to our condo until the next day. When we had breakfast in the hotel in the morning, I thought I heard the people on the table next to ours speak German (I swear that one girl said "Wo sind die grossen Teller?") but I thought I was paranoid by now, so I didn't tell Sheila about it.
Our condo was very close to the beach (5-minute walk) and from the backdoor, you could see the pool area in the middle of the apartment buildings. It was furnitured in light colors - really pretty - and had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. One bedroom and bathroom for Sheila and Doug, the other set for us kids. Courtney and I got the two beds - hehe - and the little ones shared a big air mattress. From pretty much every window, you could see palm trees somewhere - PALM TREEEEEEEEEES!!
The first day after checking into our condo we spent unpacking and getting settled and while Sheila and Doug went grocery shopping a little later, Courtney and I took the kids to the pool.
On the second day, we went to two humongous outlet malls - one was an inside mall, the other one, which was also the bigger one, an outside mall. We didn't get to finish our way through the outside mall, but I still made a lot of really good deals and spent a lot of the money I got from my mom a while ago. I got some underwear, a pair of plaid shorts, a pair of short grey sweats that say "Lucky" on them, a green top, a Pirates of the Carribbean shirt at the Disney store, two pairs of Vans slippers (sorry Oliver, I didn't know your size so I didn't get you a pair - just let me know your size and I'll get you a pair of Vans or Chuck Taylors somewhere before I come back in June), finally THE perfect purse (it's ORGANIZED! I can find stuff in it!), and an outfit for Easter Sunday (a very cute white dress with light green and light purple stripes and white, matching flip flops). And everything was pretty cheap.
On Easter Sunday, we went to 7 am mass (because 9 am mass is way too packed) and afterwards, the little ones went on their Easter egg hunt around the condo. We had breakfast, and then all of us kids had a silly string fight (because everybody got a can of silly string in their Easter baggies). It was a lot of fun, we emptied it all and got it all over each other. The rest of the day we kind of just relaxed out by the pool in the sun.
On Monday, we finished our tour through the outlet mall, and I got another pair of shorts (brown) and a new bikini (brown with white dots, the top is reversible and has brown and white stripes on the other side) at Aeropostale, again, pretty good deals.
One day, I don't exactly remember which, we went downtown to visit the old Spanish fort of St. Augustine (it was a military base centuries ago). Later, we had lunch downtown. I had some reaaaally good shrimp. I also bought a shell ring in one of the little stores downtown.
On Wednesday, a couple that is friends with my parents and has two adorable little twin girls arrived in St. Augustine and visited us. We spent the day at the pool and had dinner together in the condo later.
On Thursday, they joined us again for a boat ride in the bay by St. Augustine (or was it a river?? I don't even know but it opened to the ocean). We even saw dolphins in the water! In the afternoon, we went to the beach for a while and at night, we went out to dinner at a seafood place. Again, I got shrimp - I just love shrimp. It was sooooo good.
On Friday, we had to leave again -unfortunately. The ride was hard, again, and again, I couldn't really sleep.
We got back home around 2.30 in the morning and the first thing we saw when stepping out of the car was snow - awwww.
Yesterday, we unpacked and re-adjusted a little bit to Michigan, all in all a calm day. We went to Grandma Tina's for dinner with her and GG, it was yummmmmy. Today, we went to church for noon mass and afterwards, we went to Gino's for brunch. Their buffett is really good.
Later, Sheila, Courtney and I went grocery shopping, and back home, Courtney and I spent about one hour doing Pilates with the help of Sheila's Pilates DVD. It was a really good workout, and we have plans to do that every day from now on.
Oh, by the way, the ACT stuff went pretty good. It was kinda cool with only the Juniors in the school too, I spent the time between tests with Heather and sometimes Amy. It's gonna take a while until I get the testing results. I think I did good though.

Pilates rocks!

Festival, the Last Snow Day, and Maunz's Visit

Ooops, no post in a long time again. I'm sorry. I'm busy.

So on Friday, February 29th, I went home after school to change and then get back to school for the band festival thing. At home, I realized that nobody was there to give me a ride back to the school, so I made Gary drive me (again). At the school, we had to wait a while and then we boarded the buses and went to some Junior High School about an hour away I think. There, we were introduced to "our" room (the workshop). After a little more waiting and vocal run-throughs, we finally went to the warm-up room, warmed up, and went out on the stage afterwards to perform our 3 pieces. Right after that, we went to the sightreading room. Sightreading means that we get 2 pieces of music that we've never seen before, Mr Hilton has a few minutes to explain them to us very fast, we have to remember everything he tells us, and then we play. Sounds hard, isn't actually that bad.
We got an overall 1, which is the best score. It was really a fun night.
Gary picked Claudia and me up from the school later with his friend Matt (a hottie :D) and on our way to my house, we stopped at McDonald's and got fries and delicious greenshakes.
Saturday night, I babysitted Jake and Grayson while Courtney babysitted somewhere else. On Sunday, I didn't really do anything.
The following week was rather unexciting. Wednesday, we had another snow day. Technically, this one was the last one because L'Anse Creuse only gets 4 per school year. So, if there has to be another one, we'll have to go to school one more day in summer. That'd really suck. So the snow better stops now.
On Thursday, I went bowling with Kyle, Heather, and Aimee again. This time, Adam, who turned out to be one of my Precalc classmates, went too. It was, again, a looooot of fun.
Friday was a very awesome day. We only had a half day, and when we got home, Courtney and mom had to go to Courtney's eye doctor appointment right away. So I was home alone, and I decided to clean the house while they were gone to make mom happy and to thank her for everything she's always doing for me :) It worked, she was very happy.
Around 5, Maunz and her family got here! Her parents and brother are in Michigan right now, visiting her, so they came on Friday to visit me. We went out for dinner and then, Maunz's family went to their hotel while she stayed here. We watched a movie with my family and later, we went to Taco Bell with Gary which was hilarious. The two of them had to meet, they're 2 of my very best friends! It was very awesome.
Maunz and I spent the rest of the night watching TV in the basement until we fell asleep.
The next day, the Hullmanns picked us up and we went to Detroit to visit the Detroit Science Center. It was kinda cool. In the afternoon, we came back to Harrison Township and had dinner at the Old Country Buffet - very yummy. Then, unfortunately, they had to leave and go back to Jackson again.
Sunday was rather unexciting again, and so was today. Tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday I will have to take the ACT.

I'm kinda nervous about that.

What Happend During the Past Week

Yea I'm getting a little lazy about my blog... I apologize... again...

So, what happened within the last 7 days?
I don't even remember what I did on Friday. On Saturday, I had a band rehearsal from... I think 4 pm to 6.30. It was the rehearsal with Dr Holsinger who is the composer of one of the pieces we're playing. He's so awesome! He kinda looks like a little Santa Clause and is soooo energetic and nice and kind and funny... We thought he'd be scary since he's so famous in the band world but he never yelled at us and really gave us some awesome tips on how to improve certain passages in the song. The entire flute section loves him. He's so cute.
After rehearsal, Gary gave me a ride home and mentioned that he was going to Autumn's house. I had to check with my parents whether I could go first so I went home first, had dinner, and then Gary picked me up again. Since he and Autumn were hungry, we went to Taco Bell first where we had a lot of fun watching a really weird candy-selling guy who kept talking to himself or his candy or who knows what imaginary person. Twizzlers were also involved, bought from the candy man, and real life pacman. Too hard to explain, you'd have to have been there. After a while we got the amazing idea to go to a dollar store and called a bunch of people to get them come with us but nobody understood why a dollar store is so amazing. Come on, what can be MORE amazing than a dollar store??? So we went to one and bought very ridiculous presents for several people (bunny ears for Eric - that is related to a story -, fish nets for Ross, glow-in-the-dark footprint stickers for Justin, a ladybug I don't even know what it was thingy for Mr Curtis, ...). It was hilarious. We dropped the bunny ears off at Eric's house (he wasn't there because he was at his dad's over the weekend) and then we went to Autumn's house. A couple minutes later Justin, Ross and Eric got there too, they had been at the movie theatre before. Justin and Ross received their presents and Ross managed to rip the fish nets right away when he put them on... yea you can probably tell that we had a LOT of fun.
On Saturday, I had to be at JAPAC (John Armstrong Performing Arts Center, where the stage of our school is and where we have all kinds of school performances) at 4 pm and we rehearsed again and got ready for the concert. It went okay and was a lot of fun with Dr Holsinger. He actually wrote an entire new song for our Wind Symphony and Sunday was the premier night. "The Maelstrom" is an amazing piece. We were all very impressed.
I don't think anything too exciting happened on Monday or Tuesday.
Then yesterday, we had flute sectionals for the last time. I got home afterwards around 5.30, had dinner with my family and grandma, who was there, and then around 7.30 I left again when Kyle, Heather and Aimee picked me up to go bowling. It was such a fun night. I also had my first Coney Hot Dog ;)
There's another new development recently. I might have mentioned that the ACT, a standardized test that every Junior at my school has to take, is coming up in the second week of March. I didn't really plan on doing extra practice stuff for that but then Sheila told me that you can actually put four colleges on the test form and then your score is sent to those colleges, and if it is really good, they might even offer you a scholarship. That definitely gave me huge motivation to practise for the test and I'll have an appointment with my counselor soon where I'll ask her about the SAT, another test that you can take and that the colleges look at even more. This week the Juniors had gridding which means filling out the information sheets for the test (name, birth date, adress, interests, future plans, ... so many questions and hundreds of bubbles to fill in). On there, we also had to put 4 colleges that we want to get our scores sent to. I put 4 colleges with very good engineering on there. My 1st and 3rd choice are in California, which is where all the good engineering schools are, my 2nd choice is Michigan Tech, and my 4th choice is in Chicago I believe, another Technology institute. I'm not planning or relaying on this in any way yet, don't worry... but it might be a chance and you know me - I take the chances I get.

Who knows what's gonna happen, you can always try...

My Day Off

It was pretty cool. And funny.

So Wednesday, I got up pretty early (considering I didn't have school). I was done with showering and everything around 10 am, cleaned my room, practised my flute and all that...
Around... 11, I think, I called Gary to see whether he wanted to hang out. So we ended up with the plan that he would pick me up and we'd go to Eric's house as soon as Eric had gone out and got Dynasty Warrior 6, a Play Station 3 game that just came out yesterday and that, according to Gary, the two of them had been waiting for for several years. A couple doubts about the plan appeared about an hour later when Eric locked himself out of his own house. Fortunately, he found his window to be unlocked after 30 minutes and got in.
I waited until Sheila got home shortly after 1 pm (she had asked me to not leave while she was gone because Courtney's boyfriend Jake was going to come over and she didn't want she two of them to be home alone) and then I called Gary who had just arrived at Eric's house and now turned around again to come and get me. Yea, he drives me around way too much. But he hates it when I say that. He says it doesn't matter. Gary's awesome.
So we hung out at Eric's house for a while with Eric and Justin, playing Dynasty Warrior 6 (I did one attempt after being persuaded by the guys that even if I sucked as much at video games as I said, I couldn't do anything wrong if I just permanently pressed the square button. I actually survived through almost the entire level I think, which was not bad).
We left around 3.30 or 4 and after driving around aimlessly for a little while, Gary and I ended up at McDonald's to get some food for Gary and a diet coke for me. A little later we went to my house to play some Wii which was a lot of fun because little 5-year-old Grayson beat the very video game experienced Gary in Wii bowling. Then after dinner, Gary regained his self confidence by beating Jake in PS2 Need For Speed. Hehe.
Overall, a fun day.
Starting today, Gary's driving Courtney and me to school. Awesome - we can actually sleep a little bit longer and we don't have to endure the long, annoying bus ride with about a million stops.

Concert weekend coming up. Lots of rehearsals. And I don't think we're ready yet.

Marquette

"Maria the coldest she's ever been!"

Oops, I made you wait a week again. I apologize. Got a lot to do.
Last week started pretty awesome. Courtney and I got up on Monday, got ready for school and were almost about to go out and wait for the bus when Courtney asked Sheila, rather joking than being serious "Mom, would they cancel school if it's too cold outside?" So Sheila said "Well, you know what, actually..." and turned the TV on. And, oh glory, there it was - pretty much every school around here was canceled! Well, it was understandable, because it WAS freezingly cold outside. Including the wind shield, there were temperatures below zero. Fahrenheit. I don't even want to convert that into degrees Celcius.
Wednesday probably contained the highlights of the entire week. When 4th Hour started, Mr Dakmak told us that we'd have to go down to the Media Center for some ACT preparation stuff online. He also apologized because since that preparation stuff was timed, we wouldn't be able to go to B-Lunch but would have to go to C-Lunch instead. I was SO happy, I almost jumped out of my seat screaming :D So we did that stupid preparation stuff (practising the ACT essay part, and a computer scores it... how can a computer score an essay?? I got a stupid 3, so if it was the realy ACT, I would have just failed the essay part. Oh well. Stupid computer.) and then, we went off to C-Lunch. I found Gary, Autumn, Randy and Eric right away and we were soon joined by Ashlynn and Garrett (whose seat I had stolen). Kyle sat close to them, too. It was the most fun lunch period I ever had. I can't even say why. It just was.
Then, after school, I stayed because I had flute sectionals at 4. Unfortunately, I hadn't eaten much at lunch because I wasn't hungry (and so I gave my lunch to Randy who was desperately hungry) so by now, I was veeery hungry. So I decided to call Gary who turned out to be hanging out at his grandma's house with Autumn and they came to pick me up and go to some place to eat. Well, they didn't really eat much. I did. Sooo hungry.
We ended up at some McDonald's and it was fun. Just like it is always fun and totally amazing to hang out with them.
Courtney and I had Friday off, I don't exactly know why. Maybe because it was President's Day on... Monday? Oh well. So Sheila took the little ones out of school on Friday and we left early for our trip up to Marquette on the Upper Peninsula (UP) to where Doug works every now and then in winter and had been working during the last week, so he was already up there. After a 7-hour drive through more and more snow the further north we got and after passing the Mackinaw bridge over the partially frozen Lake Michigan somewhere in between, we arrived up there at Doug's working place. Over the weekend, we stayed at a vacation apartment. It was a two story apartment with 3 bedrooms. I shared one with Michaela and Grayson, Courtney shared with Jake. Friday night, we went to a place where we watched the start of a dog sled race, that was pretty cool but really cold as well. Sheila took a picture of me with the comment "This is Maria the coldest she's ever been!" That was probably true. Later, we went to a very nice and cosy place to have dinner.
On Saturday, we went back to Doug's working place and he showed us the building, the garage and even the test track. He drove us around on it in one of the test cars. It was fun to ride around on a huge ice field and through the snow :) (Mom, you wouldn't have liked it). After that, we went to the Northern Michigan University where they had some event going on in the stadium with lots of activities for the little ones to do. That was nice. And WARM ^^. The last thing we did that day was to go out to a place where we walked about a mile through a forest to some ice caves. It seriously looked like a frozen waterfall. That was so cool. And the walking kept us all very warm.
On Sunday, we went tubing - God, that was awesome. The Germans probably all know it from the American movies we get over there... you know, when they sled down hills in those big black ring thingies? It is sooooo much fun. And the guy at the bottom of the hill who hooked the tubes up to the lift when we went back up was pretty hot :P

On Monday, which was yesterday, we left the apartment and went back to the Lower Peninsula but stayed pretty far up North at the cottage of friends. Actually, I wouldn't call it a cottage. It was huge. It had a huge basement, 2 stories and biiig rooms. It is such a beautiful house. We stayed there overnight, Courtney and I sleeping on a very comfy sleeping couch in the basement, and today we left to do the last part of the journey.
So now, I'm back home again, and I still got one more day off tomorrow.

And in only a month, I will be in nice, HOT Florida!

ALL THAT REMAINS!

Friday night was EPIC.

Wow, I haven't posted anything in a week... I'm sorry, time flies I guess!
So, nothing really interesting happened during the week. I had sectionals on Wednesday, we had our first AP Chemistry quiz that I got a 100% on - yay - and we also had a Precalc quiz that I did rather bad on ^^ (I got like, an 80 or something) but, oh well. It's still a B, and not that it matters anyways.
On Thursday, we had a snowday. So while Doug and the little ones went sledding, Sheila took Courtney and me to Macomb Mall. It was like heaven, everywhere they had so much on sale! I got a plaid blazer (mainly black, grey and brown with a little pink) at DEB for about $7, a reversible zip-up hoodie at Pac Sun for $30, two shirts at Max Rave for $10 each and two more shirts and two... well kinda French looking mini-jacket thingies for each $3 at Max Rave as well. Yay. The hoodie is white with black flower-print on one side and black with white print on the other. I got one black shirt that's kinda wide and flowing, one black, shiny satin blouse, one brown shirt and another brown and beige striped shirt. One of the Frenchy jackets has short sleeves, is rather short itself, has these two amazing big buttons and is dark grey. The other one is beige, has four of those big buttons and its sleeves go down to my ellbows.
The most amazing day of the week was definitely Friday. Right after school, I went to Gary's house with him and Chad. While Chad and I were waiting inside, he did something about the oil in his car. A little later, we took off to drop off Chad's and my school stuff at our houses and then we picked up Gary's friend Nick who, as I realized, is in my AP Chem and Precalc classes. Next, we went to Autumn's house where we also met her cousin Elizabeth, Eric and his girlfriend Ashlynn, a kid who's name was Chris I think and who knows who else was there. Later Justin got there and brought pizza and crazy bread so we ate and when Julian finally arrived, we got in the cars to go to the Majestic Theatre in Detroit. When we got there, the doors weren't open yet, so we had to stand outside in the cold for a little while. It was freezing but then they finally let us in.
The opening band was okay and Autumn started the first mosh pit :D but the really good time started when All That Remains came on stage. Those guys are just awesome. I had an amazing night, got a water shower and two beer showers and a couple bruises. EPIC. The singer was really hot... he took his shirt off which delighted us girls :D
The concert was over way too fast I think although it was actually pretty long. I think we left there somewhen around midnight. Again, I was in Gary's car with him, Nick, Chad and Julian. When we got to Harrison Township, we first dropped Julian off, then Chad, and then Gary took me home. It felt good to get out of those beer soaked clothes ;)
Yesterday wasn't as eventful but cool, too. Gary picked me up around 5.45pm and we went to Autumn's house for Garrett's birthday party. Eric, Ross, Elizabeth and Justin were there, too. We ate the cake Autumn made (it was really good), hung out doing random stuff, and around 9.30 or so we decided to go to Paco's for some Mexican food (Eric had left and when he passed Paco's and saw that it was still open, he called us to let us know.). Unfortunately they closed by the time we got there so we ended up going to Taco Bell where Ross ordered like a ton of food for all of us. We still almost finished it.
I had to leave around 10 so Gary took me home. I thought we'd go to chruch at 10am today but we ended up going to noon mass and afterwards, Sheila, Courtney, Michaela and I went to Grayson's basketball practise while Doug took Jake to his basketball game. Back at home, I talked to Chrissi on the phone :) The rest of the day was rather unexciting. Homework, dinner... you know how that works.
It's frickin cold outside. 5 degrees Fahrenheit, -20 if you add the wind. Tomorrow it's supposed to be -10, so I don't even want to think about wind.

Well, I gotta go to bed. Good night!