Tyler Peaster- Blog #11 - The Final Blog

Hello, my fellow eleventh graders. How have your Summers been? Mine has been pretty good. Today is the day I leave for Panama City Beach. I am typing up this blog a few hours before we leave. This will be my second time going to Panama City Beach, I had gone two years ago as well. There was a pool a friend and I went to last time, but apparently, there was a second pool area that had a hot tub the entire time, and we no idea! I am definitely going to that hot tub this time. I still have a bottle of sand from the beach, which is actually illegal, but everyone tends to do it.

There remains less than one and a half weeks left of Summer Vacation. Rest in peace the people who have not started there blogs yet, this last week will be pure agony for them. I still need to start the bookwork, but it does not seem too hard. I am going to work on it during the nights at the beach. I still need to order my book, now that I think about it. This Summer flew by, in fact, the entirety of last school year seemed to fly by. I remember back in elementary school, Summer Vacation felt like it lasted years. It is weird the disparity in a young child's perception of time and ours. I remember in elementary, a school day felt like it lasted eons. You know what's wack? Our lack of a "fun day." Fun day was the best in elementary school. We would not need bouncy houses or something similar to them for a highschool fun day, but it would be nice to watch a movie o something. It is sad seeing all the kids outside having fun while your working on stuff. #WheresHighSchoolFunDay?!

That is the end for my eleventh and final blog, I hope this last week and a half of Summer is amazing for all of you! Try not to think about the fact you have to go back to school so soon.

Courtney Tucker — #8

What’s up guys?! It’s Courtney, back with another blog. I know you were all just counting down the minutes until I would write one. <3 Alright, so quite honestly I don’t know what to write about. I’m about to look up some topics to write about on the interweb. Yes. I just called it the interweb. Don’t judge me. Okay one of the topics I have discovered is to tell about a dream you have recently had. Y’all I kid you not, my dreams are absolutely crazy. I’m going to share about two of my dreams. So I think about, eh, maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago I had this dream where like my house was a one room house. And it was only my bedroom. Like, there was no toilet, no food, no water  nothing like that. We all know that at some time or another, we all need one if not all of those things. Anyways. In the dream I was looking out my window and I see Meagan, a girl from my church, Ava, we all know who Ava is, and Mr. Connor running to my house as if they were trying to run away from something. For some odd reason, I wouldn’t let them in. I also need to mention they weren’t even trying to come in the door they were trying to come in through my window. This is how the dream ended. Mr. Connor turned like hostile and started trying to bite me so I just started like hitting his nose like you would a dog and boom. They dream was over. I woke up and I was extremely confused. Okay, next dream. So this dream was last night actually. I’ve recently watched Meet the Robinsons on Netflix so I’m assuming this is where my brain got this from. My house situation was the same as my other dream. I guess I’m just not meant to have a big house, but anyways, a box with a baby in it showed up at my door. I picked the baby up and there was a note in the box saying “You left your baby at the hospital.” It was a pretty short dream because, well, after reading the note is when I woke up. I wonder if there is a meaning to my dreams. Oh well. I’m done with this blog now. Bye:)

Beth 10 - PT, Memphis, and IKEA Shenanigans

If I'm being completely honest, aside from yesterday's trip and the two evenings that Chandler has been over, most of this week has sucked. I've gone to physical therapy twice (and I'm going again today), and my therapist told me that since I'm a week out of surgery, there's really not much I can do in terms of rehab just yet. I spend most of my sessions doing ankle pumps, heel slides, and leg lifts. Wednesday, they actually had me hooked up to a machine that uses electrical pulses to stimulate muscle contractions since I still can't contract my left quad. It's really frustrating not having control of your own body. Furthermore, I read up on the timeline for recovery from patellar tendon reconstruction, and I probably wont be out of this stupid brace until twelve plus weeks from surgery. Yesterday marked the end of one week; I can't imagine having to wear this thing for another eleven.

Speaking of yesterday, I actually got out of the house for a few hours to go to the cardiologist and then to Memphis. I'm happy to say that I no longer have to go to the cardiologist for my tachycardia. The trip to Memphis was really awesome. We went to Texas de Brazil which is a really nice restaurant where they come around and offer you a variety of meat that they carry on skewers. I really recommend anyone who likes meat go there, especially during lunchtime because it's like half-price. Just after that, we went to IKEA. It was my first time there, and since the store is so large my parents had me get in a wheelchair so I wouldn't have to crutch around the whole place. My dad had a lot of fun pushing me around; he tried to run over my siblings and see how fast the chair could go. By the end of the day, we were all super tired and ready to go home.

All-in-all, it hasn't been the best week, but I shouldn't complain. Recovery isn't easy for anybody, and there are millions of people who have it much worse right now. Anyhow, I'll see y'all soon. School starts back in just a few short weeks ;)

#4 Lake ---Cailey Qualls

A couple Friday mornings ago we packed the car up and headed to the lake. In one car it was Heather and my mom. In the other car it was Carson, Jenny, Ashlynn, and me. It takes a couple hours to get to Henderson where Carsons place is, and we made every minute of that ride count. We turned on some Jams that we all knew and all sung together. Yes of course it was very very bad, but who cares. We stopped by a Burger King on the way because we were all starving. At one point I tried to take a nap, but Carson was riding the bumps on the side of the road that are supposed to wake you up. Long story short I did not get to take that nap. When we got to the trailer we unloaded all of our things and waited on a girl named Hannah to get there. When she arrived we put on our swimsuits and went to the dock to get on the boat. It was already kind of late so we didn’t stay on the water long. We just went a couple minutes from the dock, and hung out for a little bit. It was a lot of fun. All of us girls talked about girl stuff, and gave each other advice. There’s nothing better than that. I love just hanging out and talking to everyone. When we finally decided to go back we dried off and headed to the dock. When we got back to the trailer we were all starving, so I put two pizzas in the oven. One was pepperoni and the other was supreme which is my favorite. We ate our pizza and played some card games, and we decided to call it a night. The next morning we all woke up fairly early and Heather had made us pancakes which were delicious. We all ate and gathered our things, and headed to the boat. We stayed on the water for a good while. We ate, tubed, and relaxed. Around 7:00pm we decided to go back because we were all burnt from being out all day. When we got back everyone wanted to go get ice cream, it was really good. After we all ate out ice cream we went to bed. We woke up the next morning gathered our things and headed home. The trip was a lot of fun, and much needed.

#3 tennis ---Cailey Qualls

If you want to know what I have been doing all summer well just read this. We have had tennis practice since like July 8th. It started out just two days a week (Monday and Tuesday) at 1:00. Then here recently it has turned to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 2:00. Don’t get me wrong I love tennis, but the practices are in the middle of the day and they last a really long time, so when it is over I don’t have time to do much of anything. Plus it has been so hot! We are practicing in practically the hottest part of the day, which sucks. I make sure to drink a bunch of water though just to stay hydrated. Anyways it will all be worth it when we have a really good team. Me and briley are doubles partners, and last year we went to the second round of state. Hopefully this year we will go further. You can tell just from practicing this summer that we have gotten a lot better and have gotten better at reading each other. Which is a big part of playing with another person. I am so ready for matches to start. That is my absolute favorite part, it is so much fun. I know I talked about not loving tennis practice right now, but it has had its ups. We get breaks and we all go into the shade and talk for a little bit. We talk about literally everything. It is honestly great. I mean I guess I have not done a lot this summer so tennis does keep me busy. Which is good because if it wasn’t for tennis I would probably sleep all day. The first couple days of tennis my body got sore because I wasn’t used to doing the motions. I ended up getting a big blister on my thumb because my thumb was rubbing against my racket. Let me tell you it definitely didn’t feel very good, especially because it was on my hitting hand. But I am so ready for season to start, and hopefully kick some butt.

#2 4th of July ---Cailey Qualls

My fourth of July was a blast. We normally go to the lake for the fourth, but this year we decided to stay home. We invited over my aunt, uncle, two close family friends, my brothers girlfriend, and my little cousin was there. Plus me, my mom, my dad, and brother. Our plans were to go over to my grandmas house and eat. We had fish, french fries, some hush puppies, and coleslaw. Everything was so good, but I did not eat the coleslaw because that is one food I hate. After we got done eating we cleaned up our mess, and headed to my house. We got to my house, and we all changed into our swimsuits. It was about 1:30pm when we started swimming, we ended up not getting out till around 8:30pm. My mom had bought us a volleyball net to go over the pool. Playing volleyball in the pool was so much fun, except when someone hits the ball out of the pool and you have to chase it down. That part sucked. After awhile of swimming we all got hungry again, so my brothers girlfriend cooked us a pizza in the oven. I’m not the biggest fan of frozen pizza, but when you have been swimming all day in the hot sun it sure did taste good. After we got out of the pool and ate the pizza we decided to go inside. Once we got inside my mom brought out the cards. So we all started playing and we just talked, and laughed together. It was a lot of fun just being with family. Everyone just stayed the night because by the time we got tired it was really late, and my mom didn’t want them on the roads. So finally at about 2:00am we all went to bed. Let me tell you I slept so good. I was so worn out. I slept in so late. This was what I did for the fourth. It was such a blast, hopefully we can do it again sometime. What did you do for the fourth?

#1 baby Amelia ---Cailey Qualls

June 11th the day my precious baby cousin entered the world. I got a call about 6:16pm from my grandma saying baby Amelia was about to come. I was so excited. I threw my clothes on and me and my mom headed to NEA hospital. I barely sat still on the ride to the hospital. Yes other people in my family have had babies, but we are super close to Madison so it made it more  exciting. Finally at like 7:24pm she arrived. Let me tell you the waiting was awful for all the family. We were so anxious. Amelia was 21 inches long and 7lbs 11ounces. The best part about the whole thing is a couple weeks before she arrived Madison texted me asking if she could name Amelia after me, so she gave her the middle name Grace. Which Grace is also my middle name. I was so honored that she would want to name her after me. Who would have thought that such a little human would bring so much joy. Amelia is such a good baby. She sleeps 24\7,but most all babies do at first. She is kind of getting to the point where she is more awake now, but barely. The only bad thing about her is she hates to be laid down. She only likes to be held. Which will wear you out. They do not like taking her out around people yet, so when they want to go out they give me a call to come watch her. Which I do not mind at all. I enjoy it. I want to try to spend all the time I can with her before I go back to school. Because when I start back I will not get to see her as much, because I will be so busy and tired. I seriously can not wait for Amelia to get old enough to talk, because when she starts crying you never know what is wrong. Well that day will come faster than we even know. Has anyone in your family had a baby over summer break?