The Trip to Maryland

So for the last week that dad was gone, we got to go visit him in Maryland. His hotel was really nice. Here's a recap of what we did in picture form (FINALLY! A post with pictures!)

Saturday: We went to the Baltimore Aquarium...






When we got back, I went swimming in the pool. There was a little boy there that kept throwing his ball in the water, though he wouldn't go in there himself, and so I'd keep getting it for him, and I started to make him laugh. Ah, don't you just love the little ones? A little later, a couple other kids came, a boy and a girl, and the girl was a couple years younger than me. I had to admit, it was pretty fun.





Sunday: We went to the Olney Ward that all my siblings (and, okay, me for the first five months of my life) went to church at. After that, we went to the temple Visitor's Center, and just kind of drove around our old neighborhood that I can't remember except for when we went four years ago and stayed with the Cobbs. Hehe...the famous shed...three cheers for Daniel!



Monday: Mom and I had gone to the Patterson's (friends from Georgia) house in York, Pennsylvania. Dad didn't come with us because he had to work. Catherine used to be my best friend when we were little before they moved, though I can't really remember it. But she's come to my house recently, and so we went and stayed at theirs. Monday, we went to...HERSHEY! Wherein, we went to...CHOCOLATE WORLD! Ideal place for the sweet-tooth Standages, right?







Oh, these I just HAVE to show!!! Only my friends would get this though, so just bear with me a sec...




Isn't it such a coincidence that they have hearts on the wrappers? Hehehe...STRAWBERRIES!

Tuesday: We went to Gettysburg! At this one area, there were a lot of rocks, and honeysuckles, so that's why all of us are climbing around on all those rocks. Man, Sister Patterson's youngest son, Joseph is so cute! He had this little camera, and it was digital and downloadable and everything! But he just walked around taking pictures! He called me Yoda, after I told him some of my nicknames. And at Gettysburg, he wanted to sit by me at the movie! John is WAY interested in History, and really liked this trip, even though he couldn't read the stuff. They keep the boys entertained in the car by listening to John Bytheway, which is TOTALLY AWESOME! I LOVE John Bytheway!












Wednesday: Mom and I were back in the hotel with Dad. We went and had lunch with one of my mom's old friends, Tamela and her daughter Katie.




Thursday: Annapolis, and the Pennsylvania-Dutch Amish Market. For lunch, we ate lunch at T.G.I. Fridays and I got this thing called the Endless lunch. AHHHH! SO GOOD! First, it was breadsticks, then soup, then salad! SO GOOD! I'm like, on a salad craze!!!!!!!!!!



Friday: Headed home. No pictures for this.

Sorry about the overload of pictures, but hey! I'm making up for all those pictureless, very long boring posts where I babbled on about books or roleplays or something.
While I was there, I read the first four (five are published) books in this series Alien's been raving about. They're awesome! They're called Maximum Ride. Sweetness!
Anyway, last night, with my friend Jessica, I watched Nacho Libre for the first time. Interesting experience...
Well, tomorrow I'm off for Girl's Camp, so I'll have something else interesting to put on the blog. Seeya then! Love ya!

The Last Week of School: A Look Back Through The Days

We had a pretty niftic (yes that's a word, discombobulated one!) last week of school with lots of fun stuff going on, so I thought it would nice to talk about them. I would have some pictures of what we did on Wednesday, because Alien sent me some she took. But...I lost them, and so I couldn't email them to Dad so I could get them from his laptop. Yes, Mom and I came to Maryland yesterday to see Dad for the last week he has to be here. We're still deciding what we'll do today. But anyway, back to school. It was Memorial Day on Monday, so there was no school. But here's what my friends and I did.

Tuesday: This was the day of the Mountain Ridge Got Talent Variety Show, so the classes were shortened. The schedule was a little whack because our A1 teachers needed to give us papers showing if we had any fees, but they had just barely fixed the machine, so I went to my A2 class, chorus. That was just basically a party. And the thing was, if you didn't bring food, you didn't get to eat. There was a LOT of food.
Then, we got to go to A1, which was science (I love my science teacher! I'm being a TA for her next year!) We made ice cream in a bag, which really ended up like creamy, milky soup with chocolate sauce and oreos. By then, I was stuffed and didn't want to eat lunch. Welp, I'm sure you can imagine how well that went.
A3 was boring, that's all I'll say...
A4, one of my favorite classes with one of the best teachers of all time, Creative Writing was last. We played games and had a couple snacks. Then, at the end of the day, we watched the show.

Wednesday: This day, the WHOLE ENTIRE SCHOOL (except for a few people) did a 5k! It was pretty cool because they closed roads for us. We even got sweet t-shirts! But like I said, sorry, no pics. At the end, I sprinted, and think I went faster than I ever had. That day, we had to stay in B1 until 10, and then after the 5k, until lunch. So the other classes were wackified. B2 was a half hour, B3 was an hour, and B4 was normal.

Thursday: This was the day we got our yearbooks, and spent the WHOLE DAY going to our classes and getting them signed. Pretty sweet, right? We went to all our A-Day classes one right after the other (classes were shortened), then I, since I have first lunch, went to lunch. But after that, the schedule was weird. You either have first or second lunch according to your 3rd period teacher, so next I went to B3, then B4, then B1, then B2. Weird, I know.

Friday: Well, this day was only an hour and a half. But we started off watching battle of the bands with the teachers (Man it was so cool to see Mr. Marsh and Mr. Meyers spazzing out!) I won't go into details, but I will say it was crazy...and awesome to see teachers all whack. Students started doing it too after a while, but then we had the choice of going outside. OUTSIDE!
Out there, we ran around, played tether ball, played volleyball, and eventually started throwing frisbees. Max was good, he was doing it with Coach Sheidi (I hope that's how you spell his name, but I actually never met him formally, because girls have Mrs. Bitton). Everyone kind of started coming inside, and the bell was to ring soon. By then, I had started hugging people. Man, I didn't realize that there were so many people who I didn't contact, but talked to at school that I was going to miss! It was all happily sad until Jessica and I realized we missed the bus. Mom had to get us.

So that's what I did on the last day of school. It's so hard when school first gets out, because all year you've wanted it to be over, and when it actually is, it hurts. I cried last year when I left elementary school. The year you have to go to a new school is hardest. I learned that. Mostly because some friends go to different schools. Woah, speaking of school, it's so weird to think that in only four or five years, we'll all be going to college! Man, the time goes by faster every year.
Well, at the end of this, I'll just say how much I am grateful for my friends. When you have a bunch of friends, it's easy to enjoy them, but also take them for granted at the same time. I have no idea what I would do without you guys! You're probably the funnest thing I have, and you always know how to cheer me up! I love you all!
Have a great summer!

"May" I Present Some Updates?

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. School's been extremely crazy, and only now is it starting to slow down. So here's some highlights from the month of May.

1: On May 5,the fifth and final book in the Percy Jackson and The Olympians Series, The Last Olympian came out, and I read it in one day (yes, it's that good!).

2: Kris Allen won American Idol (YES! Now we won't have a creepy David Cook wanna be as the 2009 idol!)

3: School ends on May 29!!!!!!!!!

4: I get my braces off on August 19!

5: I'm finally going to start reading some classical books this summer (I especially want to read Jane Austen books, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. That movie is the best!), since I don't have to rush through my fantasy reading anymore (though I am sure to still do that too, since I am finishing a trilogy and starting two more series at once, and one of those series is actually three seperate series! I'll have plenty of books to read!)

6: I had my piano recital yesterday, and I got two new piano books. One is music from the films based on the books by Jane Austen (such as Emma, Sense and Sensibilty, etc.). The other is songs from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I already had The Fellowship of the Ring, and we're going to get The Return of the King later.

7: I had a great lesson today in Young Womens on Prayer, and I got an awesome new quote: "Life is fragile, and, therefore should be handled with prayer." I will add that to my list of quotes.

8: On Friday, Daniel and Stephanie spent the night, so Michele stayed for dinner. I was being super Auntie by walking Heather outside our house and only holding onto her with one arm, while pushing Shelby on the tricycle. When I was no longer holding Heather, I made the mistake to get on the trike to see if I could still pedal it, being so much bigger. I found I could, but not before Shelby started pushing me. Whenever I tried to get off, she would say, "No, Laura, get on!" I even asked her if she wanted a turn, and she said no. Fun, fun.

9: A boy two of my guyfriends are friends with is moving out of their ward and into ours on Thursday. He came to our ward for church today, though. I already know him and talk to him some, so it should be fun, since he's in my class.

10: I am working on three stories with my friends right now. One is with my friend, Madison, that we started a long time ago. We take turns writing the chapters, and right now she is writing Chapter 14 while I anxiously await her reply. I had to write Chapter 13, so it just made sense for me to do something depressing, you know. It's killing me. Also, I am doing two stories with my friend Alien. One is a roleplay, which I have explained before. The only difference with this one is that we each had two characters. So we did both of our characters in one reply, so we would put stars or the word Meanwhile... to seperate their replies (we almost always do our characters all in first person). That story is getting amazing right now as well. It used to be called The Four Kids, because we couldn't think of a better name, but now it is Everchange Wars. I also started a story like the one I am doing with Madison with the same friend. It's based on a not so old roleplay we did and really liked called Animosity (We called it that, because all the characters were half animals, but banished to Earth. They were in two different groups and they hated each other because their leaders, which happened to be our main characters, were enemies. We were both part falcon, but my person was a Whitewing, and her character was a Blackwing. So the name fits two ways, because it sounds like animals, and the two groups hate each other at first...at first). A few of the characters and the plot are a little different though. I'm not quite done with chapter one yet, though.

Those are some highlights from this month. Have a good Memorial Day everyone!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

IT SNOWED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Say........CHEESE!

Today I went with my sister Michele and the fam to take pictures at the temple and this amphitheatre place close by. Michele only gave me pictures of me, or I'm sure there would be some Shelbys in this post (or maybe the picture where I got Erin spitting up!) But here are a few of my pics. I curled my hair, but Michele didn't get me until about two hours later, so my hair got kind of funky. And because of my braces, I sort of have cheesy smiles. But enjoy anyway!

New Stuff!

As you can see, I have added a quotes column, and a writing prompt column! Just to add some cool stuff. I also have finally changed the Poetry Column to a new poem. I hope it will be good luck to keep the spring weather around. Enjoy!

Spring Break and Stuff

Just to warn you now, sadly I don't have any pictures. Sorry. But there are a few different things I'm going to talk about.

Last Friday, in Creative Writing, we walked to the China Wok and Roxberry to do a restaurant interview. Last semester with my teacher's old class, they went to a nice restaurant and had a bus, but because of the economy, we had to walk to a closer one. China Wok was good, but even though my teacher had called and told them about how around 40 students were coming and when ahead of time, they only had two people working. One cooking, one serving. So while half of us finished our food, the other half hadn't even ordered yet. Oh well...it was still fun, and I got to ride home with a friend who's house I'd never been to before!

Monday-Wednesday this week, my mom and I went to my Aunt Janet's house. Some highlights from that were, playing with Ozzie (their dog) and his dog friend Tess (who apparently comes over to play every day when she gets bored). I also FINALLY started the quilt that mom let me buy fabrics for. While we were there, I finished reading "The Titan's Curse" to my mom (she read to me when I was little, now I read books to her that I have already read and that I love). It is the third book in the Percy Jackson and The Olympians Series. Best books of all time. I have all of them, including the Demigod Files. The last one "The Last Olympian" comes out May 5 if anyone is interested. You can read the first chapter online!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the cover is amazing!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway................I also watched Lord of the Rings while I was there (one of my favorite movies!), got a new shirt, and all that stuff.

Last night, Alien spent the night at our house. I was able to watch the last episodes of this show called Avatar (this series she got me into)that she brought the discs for. We also walked my friend's dog (she's gone right now and I'm taking care of her pets) and made up a new game. After playing truth or dare (but only doing truth) until two-thirty in the morning, we finally went to sleep. In the morning, we watched Robin Hood (it's a BBC tv series. Also one she got me into.........)

And that about sums up what I've done over the Spring Break Holiday. Oh, but I am dying for inspiration. I kind of started a new series. Well, it's not new, but I haven't worked on it. Well, I have but I always kept changing the ideas. But now, it is officially going to be four books instead of one (or seven, like the original plan.............). I was so excited, because the idea was a lot cooler, and I even brought in Keelan, this amazing elf dude who I already had a story for that tied into the series!!!! Keelan is the coolest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But when I started writing it, since it takes place in kind of medieval magical world, you kind of have to write it different. And it sounds cheesy. So I've kind of been struggling with it. So I want to start with some fresh new ideas for something completely original, a brand new story. If you have any inspirational ideas, just say so (not a story line, but maybe some cool objects. I got inspiration for Keelan's amazing original story from a bronze saddle [I didn't actually incorporate this, but it helped me come up with the idea], a silver sword, and golden coins! So stuff like that should do the trick!)

Well, anyway, Mom, Karlie and I are going to watch bedtime stories now. Don't forget to keep Grandma in your prayers! Love ya!