And so Autumn begins...

Sorry Sorry - it's been a busy couple of weeks. With school, work, and family, I barely have time to breath, let alone blog! However, I managed to breath a little bit on Labor day, and I have a fw pictures from it:

To celebrate Thomas's birthday, his family and I went to an apple orchard, and then the beach! The apple orchard is the one just down the mountain from my house, on Carter's Mountain. (think the Walton's - this is 'their' mountain.)

Thomas was really excited when we started finding big green apples. Mrs. Vance said something about apple dumplings, and he went ballistic. ;)

Yummy apples!

Victoria is the sweetest 10 year old I know.

She got into the apple picking spirit too.

After we got 3 full bags of apples, we headed to the beach! It was too cold to go swimming, so everyone pitched in and built a sandcastle. (the other guy is Trevor, Thomas's 25yo brother)

I destroyed every sand brick I touched, so I stepped back and was allowed to draw the flag.

Ta-da!

Thomas had a cheesecake for his birthday - and his family insisted on putting all 22 sparkler candles on the cake. It was quite spectacular.

School has been going pretty well. I'm taking my first 400-level class with Bio, and it's hard! My ASL class is almost 400-level (but the school doesn't have the accreditation to make a 400-level ASL class) and it's really hard. History is fun - the teacher like me and knows my name, which is good! Math is math. :)

I'm off to Bio lecture now, but I hope you'll forgive my lack of updates for the past few weeks. Hopefully I'll get better!!

No update friday...

And not much of one today, because School starts today! Today is Math and Biology, Tomorrow is History, and Wednesday I have aBio Lab and American Sign Language. I'm also working Mon/Tue/Thur/Fri. Wish me luck!

An Eventful Week

This week has been one of excitement and a little scary. On Monday, Thomas and I had grand plans to go to Kings Dominion - he had gotten of work especially, and we were going to have one day to ourselves before the hecticness of the semester.

However, those plans were changed a little when we got into an accident. We were both ok, rather shaken up, but no injuries. Thomas was driving, and had been spooked by a car honking loudly and coming up fast on his right. He jerked the wheel, lost control, and we spun around and went backwards down a ditch and hit a tree. The car wasn't ok, and we had a bit of a rough morning sorting everything out. Everyone is ok though, and now Thomas is on the market for a new car! We ended up going to King's Dominion anyway (much to the chagrin of both mothers) and had a fun time. Here are some pictures:

Being a typical guy, Thomas likes to eat and eat and eat. He started the day off with a loaded hot dog and ended with frozen lemonade, and lots of little things in the middle. I told him to enjoy this metabolism while it lasts!

Peanut characters are all over the place in King's Dominion, and I couldn't resist giving Snoopy a little kiss as we passed him. :)

One of our little things (that *I* had too) were strawberry milkshakes at the little diner.

I told Thomas he should consider something like this for his next car. I didn't get taken seriously.

At the end of the day, we were just happy that neither of us were hurt. Cars can be replaced - people cannot. I think we're both going to have slight twinges in our backs and necks, but that can be dealt with. I'm already got appointments with the Chiropractor set up!

Rachel's friend Caitlin is here! I took them to the waterpark wednesday, and managed to get a few pictures of them crossing the pool!
I think they had a good time going down the slide, and there's a lazy river!

Plus they get to attempt to walk across these fake wooden things while getting rope burns...

I'm told it's great fun.

I tried this once, and then decided I was better behind the camera!

That's about it for this week. I start my job next tuesday - 3 full days of nannying, and then I start the after-school work the 23rd, which is the same day school starts for me! Wish me luck!

Weekend in CT

So, I'm trying this new thing, where I update the blog every Friday with little posts and pictures of my week. We'll see how this goes - I predict I'll do well for about a month before I need reminding. :)

Last weekend, Mom, Rachel and I hopped in the car at 3am, and headed up north! We only stopped for gas and Wegmans (which is the most amazing grocery store ever, and there happens to be a big on in the middle of Pennsylvania, which is the halfway point for this trip) and were at Rachel's best friend's house by lunch! We all chatted with Celina (who has grown QUITE a bit!) and her mom and the kitties, and then Mom and I headed to the Benitez house. It was just as hectic as ever, with little Davy running all over the place, and Sarah running late for things as usual (I love you Sarah, I really do!!) One of the very very very different things about this trip was that I could actually drive myself around, and I did quite a bit. Mom didn't want to see the play, and Sarah was working backstage, so she had to be there extra early - so I found myself driving to Windsor quite a few times. It was very odd to be driving myself on those roads that I knew so very well, but had never driven before.

I saw all the old faces - Spencer, Cayla, Aaron, and others that I had gotten to know pretty well. the show was Tale of Two Cities, and while the play itself leaves something to be desired, the cast is absolutely amazing! We all went out to Friendly's afterwards, and I managed to get in a few pictures:

Here's Spencer and myself... we both look so old in this! It's hard to believe we're both Sophomores this year!

Sarah and one of the not-so-close friends, Stephanie. She's in Cirillo theater every year, but not as an actor - she plays in the band. I believe this year she played sax and clarinet and oboe.

Cayla and I both look really tired in this picture - by the time it was taken it was past 12:30!!

The weekend went by so quickly, but it was lots of fun. We were all really tired by the time we got home, and had to recooporate for a few days.

One of the things I got to do when we came home was go to court to get my official license. Some of the really weird laws of Virginia require minors to go to court to receive their little plastic license. I'm not really sure why I had to go, seeing as how I'm not a minor, but the judge handed me my ugly little license:I'm not sure why it has to look like this, but peach, grey and green seem to be our new colors. I'm also not sure what exactly happened to the picture, they took at least 3 of them. I guess they picked the worst out of the 3?

That's it for this week. Next week will be rather busy - Thomas and I are going to King's Dominion (which used to be Six Flags) and Rebekah is going down to florida, and Caitlin is coming up to visit with Rachel! And we're all getting ready for school - I start in 3 weeks, and Rachel and Rebekah start up at the beginning of the month.

Never going to summer school again...

...Because it's too fast. There's so much information to process in such a short amount of time! I took two classes over the summer, voice and advanced algebra. Voice would have been nice, had I not been coming straight from camp every day. My voice was practically shot - but I have learned some lovely classical songs that are nice to add to my list of songs I can perform upon command. My voice teacher loves me (coincidentally, she is in choir with mom at 1st Pres.) and is bugging me to take lessons with her throughout the next year. I told her that once I find the money, I'll do my best. We'll see.

Math has been hard. I haven't been able to concentrate fully, because by the time I would get to my math class at 6pm (the class was about 3 hours, twice a week) I'd be exhausted from a full 7 hours at camp, and I could only eat dinner on the nights Thomas's mother took pity on me and would send me a dinner. (DISCLAIMER: I usually packed myself a big lunch on those days which normally was enough, but you know mothers.) It's also a subject that just doesn't come naturally to me. The teacher, while nice, was not able to help me "see" the problems, as my last couple of teachers have. However, I've been managing to keep my grade right above passing, so now I just have to worry about the final on Thursday.

Life is moving much too fast sometimes, and much too slow at others. I'm dreading the start of school again, but at the same time I'm looking forward to it. School means a more steady schedule! I've also gotten myself a job babysitting/nannying 4 afternoons a week for two adorable children. The little girl was actually in my group at camp (she's the dark-haired girl in braids in my post about camp) she's 7, and her brother is 4. I'll be caring for them through the school semester, and then I might also be looking for another morning job, if I can get one that a) I can get up for, and b) Will let me off in time for a 10am class. We'll see. It's going to be a very very busy semester, that's for sure!

4th of July - and other beach adventures!

The first beach day - We got an unexpected day off of work when a micro-burst storm shut off all the electricity downtown. So Rebekah, Thomas and I headed on over to the beach, where Rebekah sunned, and Thomas and I played in the lake. Sadly, there are no pictures of me, as I was the one taking them. I need to remedy this fact sometime.

Our 4th celebrations were celebrated on the 3rd - here's the start of the sand sculpture contest we found when we arrived at the beach that morning.

The turtle from Finding Nemo

A sand snowman!!

I thought this was cool how they used colors in the sand!

Thomas and his family came for dinner and fireworks - and here is a picture with me IN it, courtesy of Mr. Vance.
The spread! Chicken, mixed veggies, frog-eye-salad, potato salad, a huge fruit bowl, and cookies and no-one ended up touching. :)

Rebekahhh.

Mrs. Vance and Mr. Vance - they are some of the sweetest people I know.

Victoria, Thomas's little sister. She's 10 today, and such a cutie!!

Rebekah managed to get me in one more picture before the fireworks. :)

Camp pictures!

One of my little campers, Gaby!

On pool days we end with popsicles, which is a favorite. :)

Claire, one of Thomas's cutest campers. We had a color war, and she was on my team, which was Green.

Thomas was on the Blue team.

Maya, one of *my* campers!!

Watching the relay race.

The Blue and Green teams tied, which was good for everyone! :)