Tristan Smithee #7

Hi everyone. The last two days have been really busy. No surprising I guess. I have been working with a little girl. She is seven and a half. She is wanting to learn how to barrel race. So I said I would help her as much as I could. She has been making great progress the last two days. She is really getting the hang of it. She is also super sweet. Anyway after I finished riding with her I went home and watched tv for awhile. The first time I had got to sit down in three days. Today I woke up early and started doing my chores. I cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, and made my bed. Not hard, but I also had to go clean stalls at the barn and turn the horses out. I then hooked up to the trailer and headed to a friends house who has a machine that vibrates and helps horses, and people, recover from strained muscles or injuries. I have never seen any think like this one. So it was very interesting to learn about it. It starts all in a suitcase looking box. You plug it in and hook a tube looking rope, made from plastic, onto the box. You turn it on and it sends vibrations through the tube and it transfers onto the horses muscles. It makes them relax and the blood flow through their bodies. Anyway after my horse was done. I had hit my leg pretty hard on a barrel, so she put it on my leg. It felt kinda strange at first until you got use to it. It really helped more then any medicine ever could. After we finished with that, I stayed a little longer and ate lunch with her. She then asked if I would help her clean stalls and do a few things. I agreed to help her, I helped instead of paying her. Fair trade? I really was interested in knowing about the machine and what all it did. Hopefully my mare will be back to running like herself soon. Anyway I hope everyone has had a good couple of days.

Tyler Peaster- Blog #10 - It's Almost Over

Hello, fellow eleventh graders who are also behind on this assignment and panicking to get it done, We are all aware of the fact we are eleventh graders now, but I think it really just now sunk in for me what that means. These last few school years have flown by so quick, and now it's almost over. A lot of people say they are ready for high school to be over, but personally, I am not ready. Life only gets harder from here. After high school, its college. We complain about all of our AP/College classes now, but they are going to be ten times harder in actual college. After years of racking up debt in college, we move on to the workforce where we are truly independent and work, sleep, work, sleep like everyone else. It's wack. That is why you need to find a job you'll like, otherwise life is going to suck. My sleep schedule is absolutely broken. I'm been going to bed very late, which makes me wake up very late. I forgot how good Koolaid is. I have been drinking it while writing these and it is improving my mood 1000%. I am starting to get really sick of my braces, but I probably still have another year. At least my teeth are becoming straight now. I have an orthodontist appointment tomorrow, and I'm hoping they don't tighten my braces the day before I leave for Panama City Beach. That would really suck. I am hoping my braces are off before the end of the eleventh-grade year, but who knows. Rubber bands are not nearly as bad as people make them out to be. They get annoying, but you get used to them after a while. A lot of memes recently have sucked. There have been a few gems, but most of them have been wack. I need to start getting school supplies since Summer is going to be over in like ten seconds. I hope the rest of you all have a great rest of your Summer, even though there is not much left.

Tyler Peaster- Blog #9- It's Time to Grind

Hello, soon to be seen again, classmates. Summer is almost over. We have less than two weeks before school starts once again. Summer is so much shorter than it used to be. Every year it has gotten shorter and shorter. I have to grind out the rest of these posts since I'm leaving for Panama City Beach on Friday and not coming home until a few days before school starts, and I'll be busy on those days. I haven't even started on the bookwork portion yet. I am excited for Panama City Beach though. This is our second time going, we had gone two years ago, we're even renting the same house. I won't be able to write about it since I want to have all of this done before we leave for the beach. How have all of your summer been? I feel like Summer shouldn't be over already. Guess we can't do anything about it. I think when eleventh grade starts I'll be the only fifteen year old. You all are old grandmas/grandpas. I'm mad they make you wait a month after your birthday to drive alone, I won't have an eighth period next year but I won't be able to drive away after seventh unless my Hardship gets approved. I wrote a lot about Choir Camp, I only write so much about it because it was fun and easy to write about. It only lasted five days, two of them being half days, but there is still more to write about. It gets kinda hard to write these blogs. I've done a lot of small stuff, but there isn't really anything to write about. I've started to try to learn how to edit videos with Davinci Resolve, and it is going pretty well. If you're looking for editing software, Davinchi Resolve is free and fairly easy to use. I just remembered I started to talk about the American Revolution in one of my previous blogs. I should probably finish that up in another blog soon. Anyways, I hope you all have a great rest of your Summer!

Courtney Tucker — #7

Hey guys!! Long time, no talk. A couple of days ago I got back from church camp. Church camp was an absolute blast. The ride to Smithville wasn’t absolutely terrible this year. Usually, I get a stomach ache or head ache on the way up there. This year was a lot better. When we got to the camp, we went to registration to see what color team we are on. This year, I was on the color team blue. We were called the Blue Crew. I knew pretty much everyone on my team this year so it felt like a little family. Anyways, throughout the week we competed against other color teams. We played dodgeball, volleyball, and we did some like obstacle course. All of it was fun. I didn’t get as burnt as I thought I would. Everyday before the games, I never really did but everyone else would paint on themselves a little bit to show they were on the blue team. One day, a boy we called West Memphis was completely covered in little sayings and blue. Sadly, the Blue Crew did not get the most points by the end of the week. Our team spirit of painting our selves blue and team work wasn’t enough, haha. I will say this, though, there was a lot of drama at the camp, but what do you expect when you get 213 campers all in the same place. I thought what we had this year was a lot but i was informed that that camp holds 400. I couldn’t imagine 400 at church camp. Over all, in one week 17 were saved and 13 rededicated their lives to Christ. God is so good. Every single worship service there was not a single eye that was dry. We were all worshipping together and the Holy Spirit was moving. Overall, it was such a good week. Can’t wait for next year.

Tristan Smithee- #6

Hello, so this weekend has been pretty packed. It started off on Friday night. I went to go get Jaycee, my little cousin, from her grandmas work. Because instead of spending the night like we had planned, she wanted to go spend the night with her grandma. I was happy she wanted too. Anyway I didn't know why she wanted me to come get her at first. On the way I was running through all the possibilities of what had happened. When I got there it turns out it was none of my thought up reasons. I walked in and everyone was running around getting stuff together. It was literal chaos. I walked over to my aunt and asked what happened. Turns out her son was in the hospital in a lot of pain. I then asked what had happened and she told me. She was heading to the hospital and Jaycee didn't want to go up there. I totally understood that. So we headed off to Andy's, ice-cream makes everything better right? We got our order and went back home. We spent the night watching movies and letting her sing and dance around. I really didn't think she was going to let me sleep. On Saturday morning, we woke up around 10 am. My grandpa had made breakfast. We had eggs, bacon, gravy, biscuits. Really any breakfast food you could think off. After we ate, I went and started to get ready for the barrel race. My grandparents had a wedding to go too. It was just going to be me and Jaycee. After I got ready I helped her. We stopped by the hospital and checked on her dad. Around 2 we headed out to the barn to get the horses. My friend's grandma didn't want me to have to haul alone, since my dad had to work a little late. So we ended up riding with them. Jaycee and the little girl had a blast. After everything was over, we went home and got ready for bed. She was out before I even got back to my room. Sunday we hung around the house still being tired. We did go spend time with her dad. Today, we went to the park and had a good day. Now I am working on my project while she plays. I hope everyone has a good week!

Anna mason #5- church camp

I just got back from church camp last week and it was so amazing. The vibes that you receive from just going and worshiping and the people that you meet is so amazing. I wish it could last longer because when i get home from camp I’m really sad because I’m not there. And this year I was actually on a decent color team and we did pretty good with the sports.  The water sports this year was so much fun. One sport was water soccer where they would put down tarps and put soap and spray it constantly with water while we all had to try and kick this huge rubber ball into the goal. It was so hard because everyone kept falling down and missing the ball. Me and leka met this boy that was named Connor and he talked so ghetto because he was from West Memphis so that’s what everyone called him was West Memphis. We both miss the boy so much. It was amazing to see how much his life changed in the little amount of time that we was there. The preacher that we had come this year was really really good. My favorite part is going to chapel at night and worshiping. Because that is the time that everyone really connects and you can really feels his presence and the feeling is something that you can’t explain how it really feels. I’m already ready for church camp next year because it is so much fun. And coming up soon we are having a lock in at refuge and I encourage everyone to come out and have a blast it’s a lot of fun.

Anna mason #4- World Series

So my summer basically is just softball and more softball. We recently went to World Series down in Panama and it was awesome. The first day that we got to play it rained for two hours and was lightening and we were in a rain delay for four hours and we played in Thebes mud and everyone was falling and getting stuck. But we ended up winning that game anyway. But the next day they had to move us to a all turf fields.  Let me tell you all turf absolutely sucks. The softballs will bounce so high and it makes it even more hot, especially after it rains. Also me and my dad went and rode electric go carts and they went up to 40 miles and hour. And I barely made it out alive I wrecked so many times and bout killed myself. Also I got really bad burnt I guess down at the beach because on my way home my forehead started peeling and my legs but I never got red. My forehead looked like I had the world map on it. It was so bad looking my whole family was making fun of me. Me and this girl on my team named Maddie that I am really good friends with went parasailing. It was the type that you had to ride the banana boat out the boat in the middle of the dang ocean. We were freaking out because they stopped us out in the middle and we all just sat there and i just know that a shark was waiting on us. But once we got on the boat Maddie was being dumb and about fell off of the boat and I was trying to grab her but I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t help her. Once we got up in the air it was so cool. I’ve been parasailing once but we didn’t go up as high as we did this time. The thing that freaks me out the most about it is when they dip you in the water. Once we got back we went down to the store and walked around and shopped and we met the hottest boys. Let me tell you what they were smoking hot. I also ran into Ella when I was shopping and then we met some hot dudes too. I’m just glad I finally got to see Ella even though it took us up until our beach trips to see each other. So yeah that’s how my World Series went. Hope everyone is having fun.

Beth 09 - Progress

It's only been a few days since my surgery, but I'm already becoming more independent and mobile. I've nearly mastered using my crutches to get from place to place, and I'm mostly able to get into my CPM machine by myself. Since I started taking Aleve yesterday, I've had nearly no pain. I successfully traveled up and down the stairs by myself today which was awesome. I hated laying on the couch all day. One thing I have had issues with is carrying stuff. This is mostly because of the crutches taking up all of the room in my hands. I'm trying to get creative and think of ways to work around this problem.

I start physical therapy tomorrow which I'm both nervous and excited for. I'm nervous because I'm sure that they'll have me doing something I'm not 100% comfortable with just yet, but if I don't do whatever they want me to do, I'll never get back to how I was before. I'm excited to further gain my strength back. I'm ready to be off of these stupid crutches. My physical therapist is a pretty cool guy, I guess. He seemed nice when I met him the first time.

Anyhow, I haven't been up to much recently if that isn't obvious. This is exactly what I worried about before having the surgery. I hate being dormant, I have to stay mentally stimulated or I feel like I'm going insane. It's been a struggle sitting around doing nothing which is exactly why I try to do as much as possible.

I feel like I've typed so much, but I have about 100 more words to go. So uhh... I'm actually about to eat dinner. How exciting. We're having grilled chicken I think. It's one of my favorites. Usually, I help make dinner out my house but I'm not exactly able to. Haha. I would like to, I really like cooking. I've just about got my 350 words. Goodness gracious I'm ready to have these blogs done. I only have to write one more comment and, after this post, two more blogs. Alright, I'm gonna go. See y'all.

Tristan Smithee #5

Hi everyone. This week has been really slow. After Tuesday. The photos went well. We got lost once going out there. With the horse trailer that really didn’t go well. After we got out there we unloaded and got ready. She ended up falling at least once. It was a funny day really. Wednesday I took my little cousin to the park. We took the dogs and we both had a good time. She got to play on the swing sets and the slides. I just watched since I had the dogs. After she finished playing we fed the ducks. I think that is illegal? I honestly don’t know. But we didn’t get in trouble so that’s a plus. We then walked around the track and looked at everything. After we did all of that I took her home and then come home. On Thursday we decided we would go out to lake Frierson. Again we took both of the dogs. We let the dogs swim as they loved it. She even caught a fish. She was so excited. We don’t the day fishing and she would play with the dogs in the water. She then just spent the night at the house. Today we are just hanging out here until I have to go out and get the horses ready for tomorrow. She has decided she wants to come out and watch me ride tomorrow. I guess she just decided she wanted to spend the week with us. I wasn’t complaining. We had a good time. Anyway today we plan on just staying around the house. I am working on my summer assignment, since that is coming up. I did find out in two weeks I am going to spend a week with my aunt and uncle that live at the Lake of the Ozarks. I am really excited to go see them. I haven’t in a long time. I have to fly out to St. Louis where then they will pick me up. I am really looking forward to doing that. Anyway I am going to go start writing notes about the book. Bye everyone!

Beth 08 - Surgery

As some of you may already be aware, I had surgery on my knee yesterday. Honestly, the whole ordeal was terrifying. I cried so much when they gave me the anesthetic because that's just how my body responds to it. Anyway, they gave me a dose of versed which made all of my muscles relax and numbed my legs before doing some sort of nerve block on my knee which would prevent me from feeling any sensation in my leg for 12-24 hours. My parents had to leave the room for this part, and I was told I probably wouldn't remember them doing it. Surprise! I remember. I also remember being taken down to the operation room, still crying from the anesthesia. My nurses thought I was scared or in pain one so they started dancing and singing to distract me. The OR was soooo cold and I couldn't stop shaking. They had to strap me down and set up a system of blankets that would trap hot air in with me so I wouldn't shake so badly. The last thing I remember was an oxygen mask being placed over my mouth and nose before I went to sleep.
When I woke up the first time the back of my knee felt like it was on fire. They gave me another dose of versed and I was out again. I woke up for the second and final time and was able to get dressed and they put me on a wheelchair and waited for my dad to bring the truck around. I have never felt so physically weak and powerless in my life. When I got home I mostly just rested on the couch. I went to bed around midnight after taking more medicine.
I woke up this morning with a very sore knee that burned when I stood up. I'm currently using a CPM machine which is supposed to move my leg for me so it doesn't lock up and get stiff. Everyone told me I would enjoy it, but it hurts a lot.
Anyhow, for those who have been keeping up, the surgery apparently went well. I should be all good in about six months. See y'all in the next post.

Ella Servadio — Blog 9

I don’t really know what to talk about in this blog, but I just want to get them done. I don’t want to have to worry about them anymore. So last night, I went to a funeral. A close family friend lost his dad to cancer. The service was good. The preacher said something that really stuck with me. He had written a poem about the guy being a good man. After he said, “If one day your preacher can stand at your funeral and say ‘he was a good man’ or ‘she was a good woman,’ you’ve done something right in your life.” That really struck a cord with me, and it made me start thinking. I started to wonder if I have done anything in my life for someone to say that I am a good person. I try my best to be a good person, but I know I fall short sometimes. We all do. But anyway, after the service everyone went to the race track because that is where he wanted his ashes spread. He loved racing. He raced from 15 until he was in his 40’s. All of his racing friends that still had their cars made a lap in his honor. It was cool, but it was sad at the same time. Enough with the sad though. I’m starting to get really bored sitting at the house all the time, but there is nothing else for me to do. I would go to the pool, but there’s people building a deck and stuff beside it. Also, they are about to pour more concrete, so I can’t really get around to it. It stinks because it feels so good outside. All I want to do is layout and swim. Also, this website will not let me comment on people’s blogs anymore. I can’t figure out why. I tried logging out and logging back in, but that did not work. So I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do about commenting. I haven’t really commented much, so now I’m really stressed that I won’t get that part done. I’ve gotten most of the book work done. I’m in the middle of chapter two. So I’m hoping these comments start working, so I can get it all finished. If any of you know how I can get them to work please let me know!

Austin Cottingham - 11 - Nashville things

After driving to Nashville we had to find a place to park. This was a total nightmare because of the total influx of people and their cars taking up two or more spaces. Most of the people we actually saw were walking to the places they were going. Also they used the public scooters that are laying around on the random street corners. It took a long time to find a good place to park, plus once we parked we had to walk around for about half a mile. Plus the humid weather mixed with the rain made the environment unique and terrible at the same time. There was no guitar stores down on the main street downtown which really surprised me seeing as how music is the foundation of the city. We walked around for about two hours up and down the street watching bands and street performers. We visited a few stores that had some good food and gave us a good time looking down the isles of trinkets. After we got done shopping we went back to the street to start walking to the Jeep because we forgot some stuff and I bumped shoulders with the blues artist walking down the street. I looked up and almost fainted because I just walked into this famous guy walking his model wife down the street. I just said,"hey sorry," and kept walking red faced, while my dad was laughing at me the whole way back to the Jeep. We got the stuff from the Jeep and visited a local coffee shop, getting coffee before we go to the concert. We arrived to the concert an hour early and was halfway in the line. The line moved very quick passing people through security getting them into the concert. The concert was fantastic, the band was also made up of two or three music hall of fame award winners. Once we got done we went to the hotel room, went to sleep, and woke up to go and get more coffee. Then we got to look around some neat guitar stores. Then after that we had to drive another four and a half hours just to get home and do this blog. Anyways hope everyone is doing their projects these things are tough.

Austin Cottingham - 10 - Nashville things

When first thinking of taking a trip to Nashville we wanted to go see something spectacular like a concert or a special event. We found a popular musician that we watch often review guitars and other musical instruments. When starting to book a trip to Nashville and the places that we would eat at we found tons of places. Me and my dad left Monday around noon and I had to drive for around two and a half hours in pouring rain. The storm on the way to Nashville was rough, most people on the road were going under the speed limit by ten miles an hour. There were also many people ran off into ditches waving for emergency response officers. About twenty minutes after me and my dad switched he had to stop at a gas station. When we first pulled in it looked normal, although on second look there was two Humvee's parked into the left most gas pumps. Me and my dad thought they were there for helping people out of ditches and helping the emergency teams with problems. It was military police, so they might be there on official business. Then once the storm cleared driving was not near as bad because of the hydroplaning the Jeep creates. We took the interstate all the way to Nashville and it took around four and a half hours, almost five hours. Entering Nashville was a pain and a half because of the constant traffic and people running across the road without a care in the world of being hit. Plus Nashville is way bigger than Memphis, so that means that the business end of the city should be bigger. This was not the case when going to Nashville and looking around. Although there was no shortage of eating places stacked with places that sell souvenirs and trinkets. There was not a bunch of places we could go because of the foot traffic and the age groups doing things. There was a band in every place we went because of the appeal of the music industry in the  surrounding area. Anyways there is a part two to this so if you want to see the rest of the story.

Ella Servadio — Blog 8

This weekend I went on a road trip. My boyfriend’s brother raced at two different tracks this weekend because he was racing with a series. Friday, we went to Hattiesburg, MS. The drive wasn’t fun because we had to go through Hattiesburg on our way to the beach, and going through there again made me want to go back to the beach. But anyway, once we got to the track, we immediately wanted to leave. It was awful. The people were rude. This was our first time ever going to this particular track, and everyone gave us dirty looks. No one was willing to help us either. The track itself was rough and not very well managed. Logan’s brother didn’t race well at all. The only fun part about Hattiesburg was being able to play with Logan’s niece. She’s three, so she’s super hyper and silly all the time. We stayed in a hotel Friday night, and Saturday morning we left and went to Jackson. We spent the whole day shopping. First, we went to Hobby Town because the boys wanted to get more stuff for their RC cars. Then we went to the mall. Every store was having back to school sales, so your girl racked up on some stuff. At about three, we went to the race track in Jackson. The track was a lot better than Hattiesburg. The only downside is we had to sit around for like five hours waiting on the rain to pass. So for the rest of the night it was muggy and humid. The mosquitoes were AWFUL. It would’ve been worth it had Logan’s brother won, but his car was messed up. So he didn’t do well at all. We were there until like three o’clock in the morning, and we drove back to Indianola that night. We didn’t get home until five o’clock. Needless to say, I slept all day Sunday. I didn’t even eat until supper time Sunday. So that was my weekend, and now this week I’ve done nothing. Oh, I did quit my job, which kind of stinks. It needed to happen though. I only got to work like once a week, and then my manager posted on Facebook looking for a new employee when she has me. So my mom and I decided that it was best if I just quit.

Tristan #4

Hi guys, so interesting week. Last week I found out I was having pictures taken Tuesday of this week. I looked through my closet and had nothing to wear. So I had to go shopping. Which sucks. As of Sunday I finally had what I wanted to wear picked out. Thanks to my grandma and Cj. I had no idea what I wanted to wear. We ended up staying home from Lambert’s since it was going to be so hot. So instead Cj came over for the weekend. We stayed home and played with my dogs and she chased the cat around. We went out and rode the horses. Surprisingly it didn’t end in someone getting bucked off. Today I went and spent some time with my little cousin. Cj and her nephew come along too. Since they are close to the same age. We were going to go out to the park but it started raining. Instead we went to the barn and rode some. I thought I was never getting them to stop taking turns. I guess they liked it a little. We then gave the horses a bath for tomorrow. My mare will probably roll tonight, because she is allergic to being clean. I think we all ended up getting sprayed more then the horses. I had to dry off before I got in the truck. We got to see a peacock that had been loose the last couple weeks and has found a home in our arena. I don’t think it knows we don’t want him. He is a little bit of a weird dude. My dad had a flat so after we finished there, we headed to Brooklyn to help with that. That took a little bit to finish as the tire hadn’t been off in awhile. I watched since my hand was hurt. That is a long story. So long story short I was putting a bag of dog food in the truck and it started falling as I was closing the truck door. I reached for it and the door slammed on my hand. It is ok, just sore. Anyway I have to go doctor my hand again. Have a great day!

Courtney Tucker — #6

I feel the need to inform all of you what time it is when I decide to do my blogs late at night. No need to thank me, but currently the time is 12:50am. Today my mom, my sister, and I took a trip to Memphis for an anniversary party. I have so many things to tell all of you about this trip so I’m going to try to keep my thoughts organized. We’ll see how that goes for me. Any-who, the traffic on the way here was absolute garbage. We got on the Memphis bridge at about 5pm and it just went down hill from there. The traffic was very busy for a Saturday night at 5pm. We followed Google Maps to our destination just fine but literally, Memphis people don’t know how to drive. Not saying I could ever do any better, but it was ridiculous! Not even going to spend any more time talking about that, haha. The next thing I wanna talk about is the party. Ya know, we get there. It’s all good. Nothing too crazy is going on. There’s like maybe 15 people there. It was fine. Everything was fine. The anniversary party started at 6pm, right? So yeah, we get there about 5:45pm expecting to be one of the last to show up, but nope. I kid you not, right when that clock struck 6pm I swear like 20+ people came rolling in. My anxiety instantly went up like 10 notches. It took me about, eh, 30 minutes to get calmed down and stuff. Once I was the party was fine, I guess. I better tell you about the people who threw the anniversary party. That would be useful I would think. My moms friend, Christie, and her husband, Terry, have been married for 25 years. My mom actually introduced the two lovebirds! I’m not gonna go into too much detail with that. Anyways, the party is over. We’re at Christie’s house staying the night, actually. My mom didn’t wanna drive back at night. It’s now 1:04am and I’m tired, so yeah. I’m going to sleep now.

Austin Cottingham 9 - Math and Future Things.

Most people often fall into the certain schedule of the typical summer routine by working and laziness streaks. I personally fall into this schedule often, and I find it difficult to escape these almost colossal boundaries that confine you into your certain schedule. Some symptoms of this for me would include the slowing down of my summer projects, taking to long of breaks when I should be getting back at the task at hand, also the general state of lethargy that hangs around like a smog. I am sure that I'm not the only one that thinks and acts like this. With the upcoming math Accuplacer I really have to kick into gear because I would much rather over prepare for what is unknown than under prepare and get my butt handed to me, and not be able to take the class. I have been cutting out the lazy parts of my work habits to help me in the future. Also a future plan that is gonna be fun is me and my dad are going to Nashville to see a leading blues artist perform in the Ryman, which if you don't know is a historical music theater established in 1892 by leading blues artists. This theater has almost as much historical importance as Nashville itself. Adding to this trip we are going to visit the Gibson guitar factory, maybe getting shirts along with the process. After that we plan on wandering around Nashville for about two or three days visiting guitar places and dinners, because we have nothing else to do. This trip has some promise to be one of my trips I won't forget. If I got to get a picture with the blues artist Joe Bonamassa I would definitely not forget the evening that is for sure. Also you might see me making blog posts about this because of the sheer amount of info that I could give people about the Nashville places we go. That way if one of you went there you could maybe try it for yourself and see if my review was any good. Anyways thank you for reading and hope you guys are getting your summer projects done!

Courtney Tucker — #5

So, as many of you know, the cheerleaders are competing this year. There was a practice last week but I missed dude to the mission work I talked about a couple of days ago. Today being my first competitive cheer practice, today was hard. We did the regular cheer stuff. Stretched, did jumps, the regular. Then we started to work on tumbling. Just to clarify for the ones who don’t know, tumbling is basically just flipping. Anyways, we worked on back handsprings. A back handsprings are very similar to a back flip. If anyone in the basketball game stands noticed, our cheerleading squad as a whole isn’t very good at tumbling. We’re getting there, though! Some of our girls this year can throw their back handsprings after only one tumbling class. I hope good things come of this year’s squad. None of y’all really think cheerleading is a sport. To be honest, it may not be. The cheerleading that we have done in the past, I would not call a sport. Now that we are competing this year, that kinda automatically makes it a sport. According to Google, the definition of a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or a team competes against another or others for entertainment. I think we finally meet the requirements to be called a sport. Anyways, cheerleading might be dangerous but I enjoy cheering for our basketball team. It’s a really cool feeling to be able to see exactly what the basketball players and referees see during the basketball game. I will have to admit, though. It get so scary sometimes. You hear all of the talking, cussing, and stuff the boys and girls say when they’re in the game. It’s quite hilarious. Another scary part is when the ball, or worse, the player comes running at you full speed. I swear my life flashes before my eyes every time. The best part of it all, though, probably getting to see the faces of the players when one of these three things happen; they make a basket, they miss a basket, or a “wrong” play was confirmed. Okay, I met the word count and I’m tired. Goodnight.

Ella Servadio — Blog 7

In my last blog, I talked about the beginning of my beach trip. Nothing exciting really happened at the beginning of it. On Wednesday, we went parasailing. We got the thrill seeker package, so we got to be up in the air at full suspension for 5 miles. We also got to ride the banana bus to and from the parasailing boat. The banana bus was fun, but getting on and off of it in the middle of the ocean was sketchy. I kind of thought a shark or something was going to come up and get me. It was my friend’s first time parasailing, so she was freaking out. She didn’t realize that they had a GoPro set up in front of us, and that it was recording the whole ride. When we went online to get our pictures, she realized they had recorded us and freaked out. She didn’t want to see her reaction to everything. The video is really funny. It’s only 15 seconds of the ride, but they put the funniest part on there. Everyone that goes to the website can see it. That night, we all went out to eat. We went to the Back Porch restaurant. They had the best crab cakes and crab legs, I promise. The only thing that sucked was the two hour wait to get a table. I ate a lot though, so when we got back to the condo I passed out. I got woken up to my friend and her mom shaking me saying “Ella there’s a fire get up!” I jumped out of bed, put on some shoes, grabbed my purse, and ran out. I really don’t know how the fire alarm didn’t wake me up because that thing was LOUD. We stood out in front of the condo for about 30 minutes. I was so confused because there was no smoke or anything. I started thinking well maybe it was just a small one in someone rooms or something. Well, come to find out, some kid had pulled it as a joke. I was so mad. It’s funny thinking about it now, but at the moment I was ticked. Everyone had to get up and evacuate just because some kid thought he was funny. So we finally got to go back up to our rooms and go back to sleep. The next day, we were under a rip current warning and couldn’t get in the water, so we just decided to shop that day. We literally shopped ALL day. I really hate shopping. We did go to The Yard. It’s a milkshake bar that gives you massive milkshakes. I got the salted caramel cheesecake one, and it had a slice of cheesecake on the top. It was really good until I got closer to the bottom. It got way too sweet and made me want to throw up. That pretty much sums up my beach trip, except that we had to leave a day early because of the hurricane.

Beth 07 - I'm Just Bored

Honestly, I just want to get these things done so I don't have to worry about them anymore. I absolutely regret not bringing my glasses with me to this computer because it's a little hard to read what's being typed, but I'm way too lazy to go to my room and get them. Anyway, I'm gonna power through this blog because I'm so close to being finished with them.
I really don't have anything to talk about. I went to the school today to pick Brandon and Lucas up from basketball practice. The seventh grade boys still have a long way to go before the season starts. I need to work with Brandon one-on-one before my surgery and teach him how to widen his stance and be a better defensive player over all. He's the tallest kid on his team -- he's gonna have to learn to use his size to his advantage. One thing that irritates me is the fact that he doesn't even try to improve at home. We have a huge concrete driveway that he could practice on. He's much more into his Xbox, apparently.
Most of my week has consisted of me doing close to nothing. I've been behind on doing the laundry and dishes, but that's mostly because I'm tired of being the only one doing them. I dread what the house is going to look like after a few weeks of me not being able to clean it. I'm pretty obsessive about keeping things clean, so I might just hobble around and do it anyway. Definitely not the smartest move, but it may be necessary for my sanity.
Since I'm running out of things to say, I guess now would be a good time to talk about my... plants? Yeah, I'll talk about my plants. Sounds good to me. I have a big basil plant in my room that I'm really proud of. I need to transplant it soon before it out grows its current pot. I also have an aloe vera plant which is as boring as it sounds. My personal favorite is the venus flytrap. It brings me much joy to see it do its job and catch bugs.
Okay, I have my 350 words. I'm gonna go now. Buenas noches.

Beth 06 - Hold My Apple Juice and Watch This

So this past weekend I went to the river. We ended up floating the Buffalo this year instead of the Current which was a little weird. The water was warmer, but it moved way slower. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking; furthermore, I found a cave which somewhat trumps the natural spring that we found last year. I actually ended up getting strep throat the last day of the trip which was super bummer, but I've been taking antibiotics so I'm all good now. Over all, it was a fantastic trip, but I don't think I want to go again next year.
I went to the gym this morning which was really nice. I needed a good workout. The only bad part about going to the gym in the morning is the sheer number of people who also go. Parking is pretty limited, and I really don't like going there when it's super crowded. Fortunately, it's mostly older people who are there for some kind of physical therapy or even for social interactions. Recently, I've been seeing a bunch of teenagers. My gym offers team exercise classes which probably explains the huddles of teens in the lobby. I've actually been considering switching over to Planet Fitness, but I'm still undecided about it. There's nothing stopping me from doing so -- no one's been going to the gym with me recently.
Come to think of it, I haven't really heard from many people this summer. I haven't been hanging out with anyone these past few weeks and I can't tell if that's my own fault or not. I mean, it doesn't really bother me. I've been super busy. Besides, in eight days I won't be doing much of anything. This surgery is going to inconvenience me in everyway possible.
I think that's how I'm choosing to see the whole thing: one six-month-long inconvenience. I feel like having that mindset will encourage me to push through and work towards getting better. I also feel like it'll be a great excuse for me to not procrastinate, you know? I can't go for a run, so I might as well do my homework. Maybe it's not such a bad thing.
Anyhow, I'm gonna post this and work on something else. Catch y'all in the next one.

Courtney Tucker — #4

All of you should be proud of me. I’m about to post three blogs in one day. This will be the third. I’m not really sure what to talk about this the problem. I was snooping around on YouTube this morning and I found this pretty cool song. It’s called shotgun. The song isn’t pretty catchy. Right now I’m listening to some Katy Perry. California girls up in here. Ahhhhhh. I crack myself up. I’m high key hilarious. Speaking of snooping around on websites, I’ve also been looking at clothes. There are no websites I’m particularly interested in. Online shopping is just cool, haha. I’m trying to buy cute clothes but we all know I have no sense in style. I recently downloaded VSCO. By recently I mean a couple of hours ago. I’ve been looking on there and it’s so tempting to start dressing like a VSCO girl. I doubt I’d ever do that, though. All of my blogs are just everywhere. I just write Ab everything I’m thinking about. It’s honestly probably not the best system, but hey! It’s working for me so far. I was thinking about making a blog that completely just doesn’t make senses. Like those one videos you see on instagram and what not? Example: One day when I was looking for stars I started playing Minecraft on a plane. Just a whole blog like that. That would be such a fun blog to make. I just might do that. So remember how I said I was on YouTube and stuff? Yeah. YouTube is a great thing. You can find anything on there. I enjoy watching The Voice episodes. Those are just so, so good. This one I watched this morning, this girl was singing a song called Strangers. It was better than the original if you ask me. Another thing I like to watch is called The Nanny I think. It’s just about a woman being hired to teach some kids manners and help the parents discipline their kids. It’s a pretty cool show if you ask me. Welp, I’m gonna end this blog here. Bye for now.

Courtney Tucker — #3

Okay, so, it’s like 12:11am. I’m super, duper bored. I was on FaceTime with a couple of people but got bored of that too so I left. Sorry not sorry, haha. I just posted blog #2 so I thought might as well write another. I’m kind of just getting really worked up for church camp. The camp is a week long. We leave on Monday for Smithville, Arkansas. I say that like it’s such a long ways away but, it’s really not. It’s, I think, about an hour away. Google has confirmed that Smithville is 1 hour and 9 minutes away. Can’t wait for that road trip. We ride basically a short bus to camp. Buses and me don’t really go well together on trips that are longer than approximately 4 minutes, haha. Okay, hold the phone. Can we talk about how awkward I actually sound while doing these blogs? I’m so sorry if any of you have made it this far. Anyways, back to the bus thing. I honestly just don’t do well on car rides of any kind. I feel sick and have a head ache the whole time. I try my best to sleep on the way there, though, so usually I’m okay. I’m so excited to actually be at camp, though! Every year this is how church camp goes. We get to the camp ground, get registered, then go set up our bunks in the dorms. The first day is pretty chill. You meet your team for the week on Monday and you all kind of just get to know each other. I’ve been going to the same camp since was eight so I pretty much know everyone that goes to the camp. It’s always fun to meet new people, though. You’re on a schedule the whole time while you’re at camp. Tuesday through Thursday all have the same schedule. Wake up. Small groups/ Devotional. Breakfast. Morning Worship. Recreation. Recreation is basically just you play games against other teams. It’s quite fun. Next is breakout sessions. Those consist of many different things such as a music class, social media class, a craft time, etc. You get to pick where you go everyday. Next is bible study. Swim time. Get ready for worship. Dinner, then worship. After that you just hang out until lights out. Usually games will be played. Every year on Thursday night the senior high campers might swim from like 10pm to whenever. It’s pretty fun! Friday we all get our stuff together and leave. I’m so excited to be at camp next Monday! This year just feels like it’s going to be a good year.  I know God will make my camp experience how he wants it to be and I can’t wait!

Courtney Tucker — #2

At my church, we just did local mission work for the community. We called it Impact Weekend. There is a lady in Lake City who just recently discovered that she has cancer. She has four kids, and their ages range from newborn to eight years old, I believe. Her husband has been out of the city getting different jobs and paying the bills and such. Their yard work had been falling behind, but the Refuge 242 Youth Group came to the rescue and made this families yard look very nice. I don’t know if we’re professional enough to give us an actual business name, but I see Refuge Lawn Care in the making. This was on Thursday. I only was burnt on my neck and arms so, go me! The next day, we went to a nursing home. We had goodie bags that consisted of Kleenexs and a bible verse on a note card. The Kleenexs weren’t our idea. We called the nursing home and they said all of the residents loved Kleenexs.  I think they like them so much because the people can use them a lot. When we have out the goodie bags, you could really tell that everyone who received one was very thankful for the bible verses inside. The people at the nursing home really loved that we were there. We met this one lady there, who I’m not going to name, and she showed us all of her treasures that she had collected from all around the world. One thing I was particularly interested in was a wooden flute from Europe. I’m not sure where in Europe. She didn’t specify. Seeing all of the amazing items the lady had collected was very cool, but the best part about going to the nursing home was that, as a youth group, we got to sing to the residents. We sung about five or six Christian songs to the people who lived in the nursing home in the lobby. The song that had the biggest tug on my heart while singing was Good, Good Father by Chris Tomlin. Seeing all of the smiles and knowing that we are all making a difference really had an impact on me. No pun intended. It was such an amazing day at the nursing home. All in all though, Impact Weekend was a great experience and I hope my church does more local mission trips such as this one. 

Tristan #3

So I mentioned on the fourth I was going to a barrel race. We had a good run, not as fast as what we normally run due to me being a chicken and not wanting to run her, risking her getting hurt. Even after that, we managed to win a little money. After that I took a break since I had to have my back worked on from the chiropractor. It was oddly satisfying. Anyway after a two week break we went to ASU for a horse show. I basically let my horse out in the pasture and grabbed her on Saturday. Which wasn’t smart since during our barrel run she bucked through half of it. Need less to say she will no longer not be rode the week before a barrel race or rodeo. Since then I have been inside mainly due to the rain. It is a big muddy mess. My grandpa has been in trouble because of the mud in the house. It is honestly hilarious. As for the rest of this week I plan on exercising the horses, until Sunday. My grandmas birthday was the 11th so we are planning on going to  Sikeston to eat at Lambert’s. We haven’t been since my birthday. It is her favorite place to eat. Also on Monday I got pulled over because we forgot to get the tags on the new truck. That’s what I had to go do today. It was an adventure. Tomorrow I plan on going to the park with my dog, we will see how that goes. I’m not brave enough to take both of them. Especially the lap, he is a duck dog and I don’t think that would go to well. So the beagle Remmy gets to go to the park. I’m hoping he remembers his manners. Sometimes they go out of his head. He gets excited. My cat on the other hand is not very sociable we have discovered. He attacked my cousin when he walked in the house. Good think he doesn’t have front claws. Well I hope everyone has a good week. Until next time, bye.

Ava - Summer life - 3

     Hey people. So... that whole me not gonna procrastinate really... uh lasted about 2 seconds. I finally started having fun and the last thing on my mind was these blogs. The good thing is I actually have some sort of content to write about. Well, here is how my summer is going. 

      In my previous blog, I had mentioned a trip to see my Grandpa that I haven't seen in a really long time. The trip has now long passed but in all honesty, it was one of the best trips I have been on. My grandfather is so funny and loving. All we did was sit around, eat food, tell stories, watch T.V. and play games. He also loves to make fun of my mother.. so I am all for seeing him. I wish to go on more trips to seem him in the future. 

     Soon after my trip to see my grandpa, I went to Orange Beach.  The salty water, white sand, and sound of seagulls is really something I could get used to. We got a hotel right on the beach; it was so amazing. See, the great thing about getting a hotel on the beach is you know... a short walk. I mean that is great and all but the really cool thing is getting to feed the birds from your balcony. My family was throwing popcorn in the air and watched the birds catch it. We were so amazed. As fun as it was, it was put to an end really quick. While we were throwing the popcorn, the hotel phone rang. I answered the phone and the hotel management asked, "Are you the people feeding the birds?" I started laughing and replied with a "Yes, Sir." The man then said, "Can y'all like please not do that?" So then we went to the beach and started feeding them there. Stupid hotel management. 

       Other than those two trips this summer, I have been at home. My days consist of swimming, tanning, eating watermelon, and filming stupid tiktoks. I'm trying to really make this summer count since this is really the last summer with no responsibility. In August, I'm gonna start working and as you all know school starts. If anyone reads my blog, I want you to really make these last few weeks of summer count. Go have fun. Eat a lot of fruit. Be happy. 

       Well, that's all I got. I'll write soon hopefully. Yeah. Adios. 

Ella Servadio — Blog 6

I left for the beach Saturday. The long drive sucked, but we made it fun. My friend, my sister, and I got to ride in one car, so we were able to control the radio. We listened to a lot of old Justin Bieber, One Direction, and Hannah Montana. We almost wrecked like seven times because traffic was so bad. People really don’t know how to drive. We got to the condo at like 2:30, so we went straight out to the beach and stayed out there until it got dark. We went walking around later on, and I ended up falling into a hole from where people had been shooting fireworks. It didn’t hurt, but I got a mouthful of sand. It was awful. After that, I went inside because I was over it. We spent every day at the beach. We were out there from the moment we woke up until we had to get ready for whatever we were doing that night. Needless to say, I am VERY tan. The second night we were there, we went to Pier Park. It’s like a shopping center thing. We ate some really good food, and then we walked around. We went in to like every store there I think. I spent all my money too. I ended up running into Anna Mason while I was there, so we hung out while we were there. The night mainly consisted of us walking around. We did get Starbucks though, and then Anna had to leave to go eat. So we just left and went back to the condo. Our GPS took us all of the place on the way back. The condo was like ten minutes from where we were, and it took us an hour and a half to get back. At one point, we were somewhere in the woods, literally. I really think I got to see every inch of Panama City that night. Once we finally got back, our parents were so mad because we were out so late. I just went straight into the room because I didn’t feel like telling her the story of what happened, because once my mom is mad, she’s mad. She won’t just let it go even if our reason was valid. I’ll talk about the rest of my trip in my next blog!

Austin Cottingham - 8 - Bass or not to Bass

When you think of guitar players you think of many famous players such as slash, mick, or even Joe Bonamassa (hint hint this is future foresight). Now let me ask you this question, can you name any famous bass players? I will give you a second. Times up could you name any? If  you could you probably could only name a few. These people often get swept under the rug, because of the main lead singer, guitarists, or amazing drum solos. This may not happen some of the time although if you think about it it happens a lot in our modern music industry. Let me ask a question that is long over due, and a simple one at that. Why are bassists not as popular as the lead guitar player? If anyone would let me know in the comments why this is true or not true would be really helpful for me, plus it would give you guys some more stuff to get that comment count up before the school year starts and the grades start flying. I took up the bass because I thought it would be a fun instrument and I like lower sounding instruments, they are always cool. Once I actually started practicing with the bass I realized that you can only do so much in terms of playing and supporting the sound of a band. I wanted to push these boundaries by going to some lessons at our local guitar shop Backbeat. The instructor started by asking me a few questions. He wanted to know my style and what kind of music I wanted to learn. This definitely could lead to a fun experience or hobby of mine. Once I walked into the bass room with the instructor I realized that I had jumped into a pool too deep for me to swim. The bass teacher work with me on chord structure and training my hand to conform to the neck of the bass and how to stretch my fingers out. The music I wanted to start with was mostly 80's with a touch of modern spin. The lessons were a lot better than I thought they would be. I will definitely take more in the future, maybe not when school starts because of the barrage of work and assignments. I am gonna say one thing then leave you guys alone. Lets make bassists popular, why not?

Bryce Despain - 11 - Vacation Part 4

Hello my peeps. Welcome back to part four of my vacation blog. It is currently 9:30 AM on Thursday, July 11th. We left our hotel about 30 minutes ago and we are in the parking lot of what is known as Grant’s Farm. This farm is called Grant’s Farm because the land that it is built on, was owned by Ulysses S. Grant. For those of you who don’t know who Ulysses S. Grant is, he was the Union General during the American Civil War, and he was also the 18th president of the United States of America. Anyways when we got to the farm, it was much bigger then I would have thought. I have already been there before when I was little, but obviously I wouldn’t remember that because of how little I was. First we went to the Clydesdale stables, for those of you who do not know, Clydesdale horses are the big massive horses that are in the Budweiser beer commercials during Christmas time. When we went into the stables we got to pet the horses and everything, the Clydesdale horses are over six feet tall as well. They get up to two thousand pounds and can pull twice their body weight which is pretty impressive, Clydesdale horses are actually work horses. The Clydesdale horses that we got to see were also the ones that are on the Budweiser commercials as well. After we looked at them for a little while, we then went on into the actually farm part where all the other animals were because the Clydesdale horses were actually on the outside of the farm, so I guess they were special or something. When we went into the actual farm part we had to wait in line for over thirty minutes to take a ride on a tour around the whole farm. It was honestly so cool because the animals came right up to us, and we were so close to them as well. After the tour, they dropped us off at an area of the farm where we could walk around by ourselves. Honestly this farm was just like a zoo, but the animals were free to walk around, which meant they would walk right in front of you and you could touch them if you wanted. It was so awesome. After we got done at Grant’s Farm, we went to the City Museum in St. Louis, and honestly don’t go there it is a waste of time. Although, I did get to ride a slide that was ten stories up in the air, which was fun I guess. That is the end of my vacation, and I’m going home tomorrow, so I hope you guys enjoyed reading all four parts. This is my final blog as well, so I will now start commenting on people’s blogs, so if I comment on yours, feel special. Bye bye. 

Bryce Despain - 10 - Vacation Part 3

Welcome back my peeps to part three of my vacation. We are approximately 8 miles away from St. Louis now, but I can already see the massive Arch. I’m still so excited to go on it because I love going up on really high places, and it is gonna be even better because it’s gonna be swaying in the wind, which makes it twice as fun. I still don’t know if my little brother will like it though because like I said, he is afraid of heights. We are now officially in St. Louis and we are fixing to go to the Arch, but first we are trying to find somewhere to park, and this is gonna be difficult because we are in a city and it’s hard to try to find parking, especially here. Maybe we can try to find a parking garage, but I’m ready to see the Arch and I’m also ready to go in it. Update, we found a parking garage, but we are all the way on the top floor, so now we got to walk all the way down the stairs, so yay! Fun fact though, the parking garage is actually right next to the St. Louis Cardinals baseball stadium. We just got to the Arch center and bought the tickets to go to the top of the Arch. We are waiting to go up though because the next available tour is at 12:30 and it is currently 12:17. Update, I just went through a metal detector and had to take off my belt, I feel uncomfortable now. So, I went up to the Arch, it was 630 feet in the air, and honestly it was more cool then I could remember, it might be because I was so young the last time that I saw it. Anyways I looked straight down and we were so high up, just as expected when my little brother looked down, he got really scared. He also got scared because of the ride up to the Arch, but I loved the ride up, it was nice. The only thing is, when we were coming out of the Arch Center it was raining, so we had to walk all the way to the parking garage to get to our vehicle while it was raining, and we got soaking wet. Anyways guys, once again I’m over 350 words here, so I’m gonna end this blog and continue talking about my vacation in my final blog, it will also be part four of my vacation. So, to you peeps who have read the last three and want to read the last one, see you guys in a second. 

Bryce Despain - 9 - Vacation Part 2

What is up my fellow peeps to part two of my vacation blog. For those of you who haven’t read number one of my vacation blog, you should probably go do that or you will be confused to exactly what I am doing. It is currently 9:35 AM on Wednesday, July 10th. We left our hotel about almost forty minutes ago from Indiana and now we are on our way to St. Louis. I’ve seen some pretty cool things on this trip so far, like in Indiana and Kentucky, but I’m also really excited for St. Louis because my little brother has never gotten to go on the Arch there, actually now that I think of it, he has never been to St. Louis at all. I have been to St. Louis a ton in my life and I got to go on the Arch years ago, but I’m still really excited that I get to go on it again because I love being up on high places. I told him that since it is so high up in the air that it sways with the wind, and he got a little scared because he is afraid of heights. I told him that it would be okay though because the Arch is pretty safe and we will be inclosed inside, so he wouldn’t have anything to worry about. I also told him the ride up to the Arch is scary, but it really isn’t, I guess I just like being mean sometimes to my little brother. With that being said, I will be sure to update all of you when something cool or important happens, but we are now in Illinois, and we are almost to St. Louis and I’m getting more excited. Update, this isn’t something cool, nor is it important, but we were in a traffic jam for about twenty minutes because there was a serious bad wreak, the whole front end of a truck was crushed and caved in, and I hope everyone was okay and not seriously injured because it looked pretty bad. We are almost to St. Louis as well, we are about thirty minutes away now, which is good because I’m getting tired of staying in the vehicle driving constantly. I’m over 350 words now, so guess what guys? Time to cheat the system once again and hope Mrs. Larkin doesn’t get heated. If you wanna know what else I’m doing on my vacation or what I’m going to be doing in St. Louis when I arrive there, then stay tuned for part three of my vacation. See you guys soon. 

Bryce Despain - 8 - Vacation Part 1

So, what is up guys. Today is currently Tuesday, July 9th, and I’m finally on vacation for the summer. I have had a pretty busy day so far, I mean I’ve been driving for most of it, but still, it has been a really busy day because we have been driving for so long. This morning I woke up at 6 like usual, and I got ready to help my dad take our four dogs to the vet, so we could go on vacation. It took us about two hours in total to go there and come back from the vet, and then when we finally got home, we left at about 9:30. After that, we drove for over 5 hours to Bowling Green, Kentucky. When we got to Bowling Green, Kentucky, we ate because we didn’t eat all day until then, and then afterwards we went to the National Corvette Museum. We went there because my dad is a huge fan of Corvettes, he has always wanted to go there, and he also has a Corvette as well. We stayed at the Museum until 5 because that is when they close for the day. After that, we got in our car and drove to Evansville, Indiana, because that is where our hotel was, it took us close to three hours to get there. The reason we drove almost three hours to a hotel instead of staying in one that is near, is because tomorrow we are going to St. Louis, so my dad would have rather drove half today and half tomorrow so he wouldn’t have to drive a total of 5-6 hours straight tomorrow. Honestly it makes sense, but I hate driving for most of the day, but it’s okay because I’m on vacation and that’s what a vacation is about, traveling around. Now we are currently eating at Steak N’ Shake in Evansville, Indiana. Honestly I haven’t ate anything from Steak N’ Shake since the hepatitis outbreak in Jonesboro, so hopefully I’m okay here in Indiana. I forgot to mention that I have been in five states today as well, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana. Okay guys, I’m gonna be smart and cheat the system here. I’m gonna split the other half of my vacation up in another 350 word essay, so if you wanna know what else I’m gonna be doing, stay tuned for part two. 

Beth 05 - Oh Wow, More Plans

As you can tell from the title of today's post, I have another trip coming up.
Honestly, I should've spent today packing instead of cleaning; however, I can't bring myself to leave for a few days with the house being all gross. Apparently, I'm the only one who thinks the house gets messy as I'm the only person ever cleaning it. Anyway, I'll pack later tonight or tomorrow morning. It shouldn't take too long -- this is just going to be a weekend trip to the river. The river trip is always really fun, a huge group of people my parents work with all go out and spend the weekend together. It's a really laid back trip, which is why it's one of my favorites.
This past week has been pretty wild. I've been going to the gym nearly everyday to do mostly leg workouts to strengthen my leg for my upcoming surgery. I'm still really nervous about the whole thing, but I've convinced myself that the stronger I am before the surgery, the quicker I'll recover and be cleared to play sports. In doing this, I've completely exhausted myself--I slept for nearly twelve hours last night. I feel pretty good though, and I'll probably go again tomorrow depending on what time we leave for the river.
I don't really have much to talk about other than that, so I guess I'll talk about these summer assignments. I'll be posting blogs more frequently because I know if I don't then I won't get them done in time. I also haven't even started on the other half of the assignment, but that one shouldn't take too long. I have an assignment for another class that needs to be done, and I've been working really hard to finish it. It's not hard, it's just time consuming. I think I'll really start in on these blogs when I get back from the river. I'll have something to talk about then, surely. I might even start writing some short stories as fillers, I don't know.
Anyway, I'll have my 350 words by the end of this closing statement.
See y'all later.

Tyler Peaster- Blog #8- Choir Camp Part 5

Hello, fellow humans who are within the fifteen to seventeen-year-old age that are most likely making their transition into the eleventh grade. For my last few blogs, I have been talking about my time at Choir Camp. In Choir Camp part 1, I discussed Choir Camp overall. In part two, I talked about my first day at Choir Camp (Sunday, June 23rd). In part 3, I began talking about Monday at Choir Camp. In part 4, I continued talking about Monday at Choir Camp. In this blog, I will finish up talking about Monday.

After the main part of our Choir Camp day (two periods of Mixed Chorus, two periods of All Males Chorus, and two periods of Show Choir), we had section rehearsals. Basically, you meet in a room with everyone in your vocal range, and an instructor helps you take full advantage of your range. After that, there was a talent show. I did not audition for it, but one of my friends from the black team did. There were a bunch of good shows, some funny, some sad. Then, we did our activities for the day.

We had a Safari Scavenger Hunt. You and your team had to hunt for specific items throughout the ASU Music building, these locations were hinted at via riddles. It sounds lame, but it was actually really fun! You had to have at least 60% of your team in a photo with the object for it to count. Our solution to this was to just yell "JORGE" and the other half of our team would go sonic speed across the building to meet up. After this game, we had the team lip-sync battle.

The team lip-sync battle was a battle between all teams where you would lip-sync a song of your choice from a predetermined list, the better your team did on the scavenger hunt, the earlier the pick you had on the list. All the teams did great, the black team and I received either second or third place, I can't remember which.

I have finally finished discussing Monday. All that is left is Tuesday (June 25th), Wednesday (June 26th), and Thursday (June 27th). Thursday was concert day, so it was short, like Sunday. Next blog I will tackle Tuesday. Have a great rest of your summers!   

Courtney Tucker — #1

Alright so it’s like what, five weeks until school starts? I still haven’t started these blogs. It’s about time. So what’s up everyone?! I’ve been reading the blogs that have been posted and y’all are kind of boring. Not gonna lie. I’m not that not boring myself so don’t worry. But guys, guess what?! So Robert, remember those fish we won at the fair in like 5th grade? THEY DIED. Okay, story time for the rest of you. Me and Robert went to the fair together back in 2014 and we won some fish. One of the fish was quite big and the other was a pip-squeak. I named the big fish Albert and the other I didn’t really like. So, his name was #2. Yep. That’s the story. Please come back when my next blog is posted for another story time. Anyways, they were five years old. Well, would have been. Sad, sad days. I was caring for them just fine then I don’t know. I walked in to the kitchen (which is where I keep the fish tank, you know) and there our fish were. They were on their sides just kind of just laying there on the top of the water. RIP to Albert and #2. I didn’t ever tell Robert that the fish died. So hey Robert. The fish died. We flushed them. That was it.
I just checked a word count thing it turns out I only have 244 words. So let me just waste your time. I saw Beth and Jessica at the mall yesterday. I’m pretty sure the first thing we talked about was this and how we weren’t finished. But hey, we’re gonna get there before summer is up. Then we started talking about the sale at Victoria’s Secret. That conversation didn’t last long, though. It went right back to the summer assignment. I should have probably started doing the comments a long time ago. I mean the comments should be pretty easy to do I would think. Let’s hope I guess. I really thought I’d have a lot to say about my fish and stuff but I really didn’t. That’s aye-okay, though. Bye for now.

Austin Cottingham 7 My House Flooded.

When you wake up on a Saturday you don't expect to wake up and get a call from your mother telling you that your house has flooded and you should head home to clean it up. When my mother first called me I thought it wasn't real because to start I was loopy and was half asleep accepting a phone call. Then second I had to get up get dressed and get my brother out of bed that way he could come with me and help. third I had to get out of the house and get blasted by the sun and the summer heat. Then fourth I had to drive to my house and take an evaluation of the situation that had just unfolded and probably ruined my Saturday to be completely honest. When I walked into the front door the water in the whole house was standing about two or three inches throughout the rugs and whole house. I thought when I first entered the house that the water had been left standing for about two to three days so I went around the house with my family picking anything up off of the floor that could be damaged by the water, which was pretty much anything imaginable. When you clean up tons of water from a house you have only a few options and they are all time consuming, you can Shopvac the water out and dump it outside, or you could also mop up all of the water although that would take days compared to the Shopvac method. With around  five to six people working on the house it took around six to seven hours total from eleven A.M. to around five or six P.M., this cleaning was very hard and time consuming seeing how fifty five gallons of water was leaked throughout the house. What caused the lead was a faulty water heater that shouldn't of busted or leaked because our house is only around ten years old. Even my grandma's house doesn't do these kind of things and her house is around fifty years old. With our house flooding it was a hit to morale but we got it cleaned and have to do some more work on it.

Tyler Peaster- Blog #7- Choir Camp Part 4

Hello my fellow teenagers who I believe to be eleventh graders, but some who could have possibly failed tenth grade. In my last few blogs, I've focused on Choir Camp. In Choir Camp part 1, I talked about an overview of Choir Camp. In part 2, I talked about my first day (Sunday, June 23rd) of Choir Camp. In part 3, I talked about a part of my second day (Monday, June 24th) of Choir Camp. In this blog, I will tackle some more of Monday in Choir Camp.

I already talked about Mixed and Show Choir in Choir Camp part 3, but I have not talked about All Males Choir. To be in All Males Choir, you had to be, you guessed it, a male. In All Males Choir, we sang Trashin' the Camp, Who Are the Brave, and Tshotsholoza. My two favorites from All Males Chorus were Tshotsholoza and Who are the Brave. Trashin the Camp had a cool tenor part, but our bass part was kinda lame. Story of my life. All Males Choir was fun, though my seat got changed a lot. Occasionally in songs parts split into different notes. Each part already has a 1&2 (for example, Bass 1, Bass 2). The lower number sings lower. Though sometimes there's a further split in select notes. I sang Bass 2 for All Males Chorus songs, but there was a lack of people singing the high Bass 1 split in Trashin' the Camp, so I did it. At first, it did not matter, but once choreography started there was an issue. In Trashin the Camp, I would split into a high Baritone part, so I was moved beside Bass 1 students. This was fine since I knew my part, but in Tshotsholoza the Bass 2 part had a different dance than everyone else. So I got moved a thousand times before I had my final place towards the back. It was annoying, but it all got settled.

Wow, I have not even finished Monday yet between two blogs. Next blog I should actually finish Monday and will most likely start talking about Tuesday, but who knows, I said the same thing last blog. Have a great summer!                 

Tyler Peaster- Blog #6- Choir Camp Part 3

Hello, my fellow teenagers who I think are also technically eleventh graders at this point. I have never been able to get a concrete answer on if you are still in your previous grade or in the next grade during Summer Vacation. Maybe you are in neither? Who knows. For all I know some of you failed tenth grade. If so, rest in peace. I am going to dig into Choir Camp once again in this blog. In part 1, I talked about an overview of Choir Camp, in part 2, I went into detail on one of the shortest days of Choir Camp, Sunday. In this blog, I will talk about my first full day of Choir Camp, Monday (June 24th).

We started out the day by hearing a guy yell out in the hallway telling us to get up. He then comes inside our dorm to confirm we are awake. We then get ready and meet with our team in the lobby. The first period of the day is Mixed Choir. The first day we began sightreading and learning some of the beginning parts of our Mixed Choir songs. Our mixed choir songs were Ndikhokhele Bawd, San' Bonani Namhla Kudibene, and Akekho nfana nolesu. Everyone is in Mixed Choir. My favorite songs from Mixed Choir were Ndikhokhele Bawd and Akekho nfana nolesu. Later that day we had breakout sessions, short lessons teaching you about what you signed up to learn. I took the vocal jazz breakout session. I had fun, but I do not think my voice fits vocal jazz very well lol. we had a sort of competition where people would move on to the final round, I only made it that far because I was funny. Then, we had Show Choir. Most people are in Show Choir except for a few people who are in Chamber Choir or Jazz Choir. We began learning Eye of the Tiger and I Just Can't Wait to be King. Now, if you were a Soprano or Tenor, it was basically just a melody. However, if you were an Alto or Bass, you had to learn the lame part. I'm a bass. For people who haven't had Choir, sopranos are the girls who sing high, tenors are the boys who sing high. Altos are the girls who sing low, bass are the boys who sing low. So our version of the song was different, but was not hard to learn.

I'll finish up Monday and possibly began talking about Tuesday of Choir Camp in my next blog! Have a great summer!

Tyler Peaster- Blog #5- Choir Camp Part 2, and some random stuff

Hello, my fellow eleventh graders. (I think we are technically eleventh graders now). On my last blog, I talked about an overview of Choir Camp, but I'm going to go into more detail on this blog. I'm going to go day by day explaining what I did.

I arrived towards the end of Sunday (June 23rd), the first thing you do is collect your bag and keys, then you go to your dorm and unpack. We were in quads. Lucky for me, there are a lot fewer boys than girls in Choir Camp, which means I only had one roommate. The poor girls had four to a room. Our theme was "Safari". This means all of our songs are safari themed. Though, on Sunday we did not learn any songs. Our teams went into competitions, ranging from flipping cups to making towers from marshmallows and spaghetti noodles. We had a piece of our tower saved that we called Jorge. Jorge lived a short life as one of our members dropped him into a trashcan. After that, he became our mascot. Well, our official mascot was a panther. We were the black panthers. No, not the questionable political organization. (Good job on that name guys). After activities, we went to dinner. From what I hear, food is usually good at Choir Camp. However, the kitchen was being remodeled within ASU so we ate in an air-conditioned tent. They had hardly any selection, but it is still better than school lunch lol. Anyways, food isn't what's important about camp. I will talk more about Choir Camp in future blogs.

I play video games in spikes. I sometimes barely ever play, while other times I'm always playing. Recently Super Mario Maker 2 came out. All I have to say about that is, good luck getting me to do anything for a bit.

The other day I was playing Basketball and the basketball ricocheted and hit me in the face. I have braces, so it wasn't very pleasant. My face hurts.

I hope the rest of you all have a great summer and rest in peace to all of you who haven't started yet lol.

Tyler Peaster- Blog #4- Choir Camp Part 1 and Skating

You know, I'm not far from being a month behind on my blogs yet I'm still farther than the majority of students in our class. All you who haven't started, good luck because you finna have to put in some work. Anyways, what's up my dudes and dudettes, I hope you all are doing great. From June 23rd to the 27th, I was at Choir Camp. It was really cool, all based around, you guessed it, boxing! Obviously, I am kidding, it was a camp designed around choir. I was in Show choir, Mixed choir, and all males choir. We had to learn eight songs in three days along with various dances, which was difficult but fun. We were split into teams for team activities, and I was on the black team. Everyone except one of us was first-year campers. Even 2/3 of our team counselors were first-years. Yet, we still managed to get second place. We would've been first, but the orange team got more tickets, which you got tickets by being nice to other team's counselors. While it is sad I lost to a team directed by Ms.Wells, I am still very proud that us first years got second place. I will talk about more specific parts of Choir Camp in later blogs.

The day before Choir camp, I went to the skating rink for a friend's birthday party, I didn't know how to skate but some of my friends helped me (shoutouts to Austin). I got absolutely destroyed in air hockey and I lost whatever bit of pride remained in my sad, sad self. Also, the cheese sticks are not half bad at the skating rink.

To all of you that have not even started blogging yet, you need to start soon. It is not very hard, it is just time-consuming and gets boring if you are writing multiple blogs at once. Don't forget you have to write posts, write comments, and do the bookwork! I hope you all have a great summer that is already almost over. We are getting cheated, Summer vacation used to be longer.

Bryce Despain - 7 - Even More Nonsense

What is up my fellow peeps. I’m gonna be completely honest with all of you who read my blogs, if you’re tired of hearing about me working and stuff then don’t even read this. For one, all I do during the summer is work, so that is really all I have to talk about. I mean I know that since I talk about it every single blog it gets really repetitive, but hey, who cares because I’m still getting the blog done. I’m glad that I’m almost done with these blogs, it isn’t hard to do them at all, but it just takes some time. I haven’t made any comments yet on anyone’s blogs because they only have to be 100 words, which is easy to do so I’m saving them for last. I also haven’t started on the first part of the summer assignment, for one I don’t really know how to do it and two the pdf for that book is completely stupid, but that is what I’m gonna be using to complete it, so it’ll take some time for me to do. I think I might actually start on the comments and that soon, like maybe tomorrow, or I might put it off longer, because I’m a teenager and that’s what we do best. We teenagers love to procrastinate and wait to the last minute to do things because it is the best thing to do. Also, to the people who haven’t started on their summer assignments, you might wanna start soon because school is just a little over a month away and you’re running out of time fast, I mean today is already July 4th, so happy 4th everyone. 

Anyways let’s talk about how work has been going for me. So, I worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and let me tell you, it was so hot out all three days. I got sunburned pretty bad on my shoulders, but it has already tanned so that is good I guess. That is pretty much all that has happened this week for me, so see everyone of you in my next blog. :) 

Beth 04 - I Hate My Knees

I'm back with another late post. I've accepted that I can't stay on schedule because life has been throwing me through all kinds of twists and turns.
In my last post, I mentioned that I dislocated my knee. No big deal, right? Wrong. I had an MRI done and it turns out that one of the ligaments or tendons that holds my knee in place is too weak to do that anymore. My orthopedist called and gave me the option to let him operate or to continue on living in fear that my knee isn't going to hold when I do any sort of physical activity. That might not seem like tough decision, but for someone, like me, who relies on physical activity to maintain good mental health, it is. Getting this surgery done would literally be five to six months of not getting to be active other than at my physical therapy sessions.
On top of that, I won't be able to participate in any sports this year at school... Well, maybe archery. But not bowling. As dumb as it probably sounds, I love bowling. I love the girls on my team, and I love how we always have each others' backs. It's Tiffany's senior year, too, so this was going to be the last season I was going to get with her. I also won't be able to run cross country this year, but that isn't a big loss to the team. I always came in close to last place at every meet anyway.
I chose to go ahead and get the surgery, and everyone keeps telling me that I made the right choice. I'm not so sure though. I've cried at least seven times over the thought of the next half of my year being spent dormant. I know I need this surgery, but I also need the distraction of physical activity. If any of you so choose to comment on this blog, let me know if you think I made the right decision. Give me tips on how to cope with not being able to participate in activities if you've been in a similar situation. Anything helps, really.
See ya later, dudes.

Tristan #2

So this week we decided that instead of going back out on the road this summer we are going to just stay close to home. This seemed to be the best decision due to the fact that the traveling has been hard on my grandparents. I also kinda wanted to be home for a while. It is fun to be in different states and meeting new people, but it is always nice to be home. On the forth we are gonna go to barrel race in Imboden. This will be the first race I have ran my own horse at in over two weeks. I’m kinda nervous due to the fact she is a lot different to control. Hopefully everything goes well. So we have two horse trailers. One is a big living quarters trailer while the other is just a two horse bumper pull. The bumper pull is a lot easier to pull. But the jack on it had stopped working and we have been just using the big trailer for small trips to the vet and stuff. Well after having to back up and continue to try to get out of the small get parking lot. I decided I wanted the bumper pull back. So we had the fixed this weekend, along with new wheel bearings, new floor, and new mats in it. I’m happy to have it back since I can actually pull it with my truck. Instead of the bigger truck. Anyway my time at home has been pretty boring. I’ve went to eat with a couple friends from different schools and stuff, but nothing big. Honestly I’m kinda glad it has been boring. Normally we have something to do everyday. It gets kinda old. My grandpa being the way he is he is making me get back on my school schedule. Well sleeping schedule. Little does he know when he leaves I go back to bed. Today I am riding with a little girl and helping her with her devil pony. She is all attitude. After all that her mom asked me to watch her for a little while so we are gonna go to the park and walk the dog for a little while. Anyway, have a great day!

Elle Servadio — Blog 5

This past weekend I went back to Jonesboro to watch my little sister’s tournament. Well, little did I know that my dad basically tricked me into coming, so I could help him coach. He was on call and had to leave twice, and the other coach wasn’t there at all until like six o’clock. I’ve helped my dad coach before, so I didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal. But coaching a travel ball team versus coaching a league ball team is a lot different, and I didn’t realize it. So much more goes into it. I guess I should’ve known because I played travel ball until last summer, but I didn’t. Coaching the girls was fun though. I expected them to be brats and not listen to me, but they weren’t like that at all. They cut up with me and listened to everything I said to them. Coaching this weekend made me realize that I want to be a softball coach. There was one point this weekend when the girls had a really bad inning. They had two runners on third and had no clue! I was yelling, dad was yelling, and all of the parents were yelling. The other team ended up scoring 9 runs off of errors because the girls just gave up. The game ended up being put on a lightening delay for an hour, so we sat in the dugout and talked. Dad said what he needed to say, and then he looked at me and said “you got anything to add Ella?’ I was kind of shocked because I didn’t expect to have to speak up, but I did. When I did, all of the girls really listened. Seeing them actually absorbing everything I said felt good, but it also made me feel old. I remember being their age, starting my first real travel team, and hearing those exact same words I was telling them. I can remember how much those same words impacted me and how I viewed playing. I changed the way I played, and I changed the way I practiced. I went from working at home maybe one day a week to every day. I just hope those words stick with at least one of those girls.