So a while ago, me and my mom went hiking (which is more like a trail with a steady incline) with some friends of ours….and we loved it! I’m not much of an outdoors person, but this really made your heart pump (or maybe because I’m out of shape ).  Yesterday, we were finally able to drag my sister along for a trip to the mountain…..and guess what….she loved it too! I really feel amazing, like it is hard to describe, but I feel good after exercising. I don’t like just walking on the treadmill, because it seems like work. However, doing something like hiking, biking, or swimming with people is a whole different story. Anyway took some pics with my phone and thought I’d share them.

Me and Ash sitting on a huge rock on the trail

Ash has conquered the rock! Lol

So my family needed some way to get my grandfather’s car out to him in California so we decided to turn it into a family vacation. We traveled from Massachusetts to California.

Day one: We left Massachusetts and headed to Ohio. This was a 10 hour drive

Day two: Left Ohio and headed to Onalaska, WI. This would be one of the longest drives totaling about 11 hours.

Day three: Left Onalaska, WI and headed to Rapid City, SD. This day started out the same, but when we hit South Dakota we hit serious storms (and I mean serious storms!!!). As we are driving we see the sky just goes dark with storm clouds and once we actually hit the storm we cant see anything. Then the hail started coming down too which made it scarier, plus we are in a tornado watch area. So needless to say I had a mental break down….We did however make it to our hotel but we all agreed we were probably not going back to South Dakota.

Day four: We spent the day exploring Rapid City. We went to Bear Country USA which is like a wild animal park that you could drive through with the animals walking around free. It was really crazy when it came to the bears! After that we saw Mt. Rushmore, which to be honest was a bit smaller than I thought it would be. Mt. Rushmore is however something I would suggest to see because it represents something amazing and our nation’s founding fathers.

Day five: Left Rapid City, SD and headed to Cody, CO. This was a beautiful drive going through the Rocky Mountains.

Day six: Left Cody, CO and headed to Tusayan, AZ.

Day seven: We spent that day at the Grand Canyon which was sooooooooo beautiful!!! This was probably my favorite part of the trip. I absolutely loved seeing the sunset and watching it change the rocks different colors.

Day eight: Our last day of driving. We left Tusayan, Az and made it safely to Poway, CA. We then spent a week in California with family and visiting old places. While in California we went to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, La Jolla Shores, and spent a lot of time in my unlce and aunt’s pool!

So that was our trip!!! It was so fun and something I think everyone should try to do sometime in their life. And now for some pics…

This is a pic from one of the storms we hit while driving in South Dakota

This was Bear Country USA…The bears were just roaming around

Mt. Rushmore from below

This was soo beautiful! This was the sunset at the Grand Canyon!

From left to right: Jason, me, duckie, and Ashleigh at the Grand Canyon

So the last blog that I created was…well…about 7 months ago…wow! That is definetly not what I had planned especially with the fact that I had hoped to keep updating my blog daily, but as you see that hasn’t really happened. So what has happened in my life in the last 7 months….well let’s see…

Over the summer I had my best friend, Sarah, visit us for a month which was awesome! Sarah’s older sister, Amanda (also a best friend), got married to her long time boyfriend…about time too . It was sooo crazy seeing one of my friends get married! I really realized how old I’m getting. And yes I got a little teary-eyed during the ceremony.

Here is a pic of the wedding party…doesn’t the bride and groom look adorable!

After the summer I went back to school. It was my third semester at the local community college and almost my last semester. I think this one was one of the harder semesters just because I was trying to adjust to getting up earlier and having a job while going to school. It was a big change but defintely a good change. I still need to work on my time management skills, but having to juggle school and work has given me more of a “hey this is the real world” thinking. With only one more semester left till I get my Associate’s Degree Im a little nervous about moving out and to a university (which I still don’t know where I’m going to go). I have applied to two different universities but I’m still not sure which one I’m going to yet. It is harder than I thought to not only pick a school but decide on what you want to do.

So that’s that I guess for now. I hope that you have all had a great year! Happy New Year everyone!! <3

So it has been a while since I have blogged, but I have been quite busy! With school and other activities it has been kinda of crazy this month. But this week I am on my Spring Break! YAY! I love the break but I am going to hate having to go back to school next week. Anyway my family had a whole bunch of activities going on this week so I was lucky enough to be on break to join them.

First up is Monday. Monday was not very exciting because it was grading period for my brother and sister. So that means helping my mom put together all of their work, making sure that it is graded, and putting the grades into the progress report. After that is all done then we copy the work as a back-up and then send it in (we haven’t done that yet).

Next we have Tuesday. For Tuesday we went to a Culinary Museum in Providence with a bunch of other homeschoolers. That was interesting and I definitely had fun. After that we went and got some lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in the Providence Place Mall. The food there is amazing!!! I had a Double B.B.Q. Bacon Cheesburger with fries, and I only ate half of that burger!

The last one we have is Wednesday. Yesterday we went bowling with other homeschoolers (this time homeschoolers from our church). Now this wasn’t the normal bowling but candlepin bowling with the smaller bowl and pins. I had so much fun going bowling! I always loved going bowling!

So that is this week so far but we still have the rest of today and Friday. On Friday we have a homeschool gathering between 2-4 pm. I normaly go to every Friday (although I am usually late because my last class ends at 2:50ish pm). In the evening on Friday me, my sister, and my mom are going to a purity event at our church. So that is it for now…

So we just took our dog, Shadow, to the vet and the vet told us that she had gained 12 lbs. since her last visit. To make sure that Shadow lives a long, happy life without diabetes we are supposed to get her to exercise. The vet suggested putting Shadow on the treadmill during the winter months, so….

So it has been a crazy week so I haven’t had much time to update. I started school on Wednesday (will be posting about my first day and classes later) and then haven been hanging out with friends and playing crazy games! So Wednesday after school me and my family went to a friends house and watched Tuesdays with Morrie, which by the way made me cry. After that we had the Givens and the McGraths over for dinner and to play some games. We played both Amish Yahtzee and Spoons, both games are fast paced and kinda aggressive. We played until probably around 10 to 11 p.m. when everybody went home. Fast forward to Friday, this time we went to the McGrath’s for dinner and games. Again we played Amish Yahtzee, Spoons (although we used forks), and we also played Pictionary. But one of the times that we played Amish Yahtzee we wrote 100 to 1 instead of 1 to 100. It was definitely more difficult writing backwards then forwards! Again we stayed up playing until about 10 to 11 p.m. So that was my crazy week so far plus school, but I had an enormous amount of fun staying up and screaming “SIX!!!!!” ;D

So most people will have an all-nighter, party, or something of that sort to bring in the new year, but I spent the night watching a Disney Channel marathon that included:

• Hannah Montana
• Wizards of Waverly Place
• Suite Life on Deck
• Phineas and Ferb

Not that I don’t mind watching Disney Channel but after about three hours it gets kinda old and tiring.  And I think that I have seen every Hannah Montana and Suite Life episodes!  But my New Year’s was pretty good, spent time with the family and at 11:59 pm watched the ball drop in Times Square on t.v.  So I wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year and hope you had a great time!!

So probably sometime this year, maybe late last year, while our dishwasher was running a plastic lid fell to the bottom of it and melted a hole in the bottom of the dishwasher.  At first it didn’t seem that it actually had done any damage and that it hadn’t melted all the way through.

Inside the dishwasher

Bottom of the dishwasher

Well on Christmas Eve we went downstairs and found out that it was leaking through to our basement.  At first we thought the leak was from the storms that came through the past couple of weeks.  So we had to order a new dishwasher and it was delivered today! Yeah, no more washing dishes by hand!

So last year was the first year we sent out a family picture with our Christmas newsletter thingie and it turned out pretty good.  We had found a Christmas card kit, which is a piece of Christmas themed paper that you write or type your letter on. Then when you fold it in half it becomes a card with a space on the front for a picture and your letter is on the inside. Pretty cool!  So anyway we decided to do it again this year, but first we needed a family picture.  That was an interesting and slightly stressful situation because we tried at first to included both our dog, Shadow, and our cat, Sabbath.  Well that didn’t work because Sabbath didn’t want to be held and he would not sit still long enough for the photo to be taken.  And for some reason when we take a photo of Shadow she looks like a demon dog and we have to edit that before we can print the photos.  So after several tries in two different rooms, we decided not to have the pets and to take it in the front living room because it had better lighting.  So after probably almost two hours of getting ready and actually taking the photos we came up with this:

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!