mittens

today was halloween, so i of course went trick or treating. i went with some friends and my siblings. we got a lot of "what are you seniors doing trick or treating?" but we had fun anyways. and we got a lot of candy:) im actually eating a kit kat as i write this. our group consisted of a witch, lumberjack, thomas the train, ironman/pirate, a lady bug and a lion (me) we all got our costumes about 2 minutes before we walked out the door, complete with makeup. it actually wasnt that cold this year, but i was smart enough to wear mittens. now comes the hard part--not eating all of my candy at one time. in about two days i wont want any of it, so i better eat it while my brain still wants it:)

in two days it will be my little sister's birthday. she will be 10 years old. just so you know:)

beauty

beauty. there are a lot of different definitions of it. some people think beauty only matters on the outside of people. if you're pretty, then yay!! but other people think that it only matters on the inside. if you're a good person with good intentions, it doesnt matter what you look like on the outside. i really have no idea where im going with this. you can find beauty in things too. like a painting or a work of art. or in nature, like a sunset or when your parents make you stop at a overlook on a trip somewhere so you can see what the mountains look like. or in a memory or emotion. like when i think of christmas and cookies and presents and seeing my whole family. thats all i really have to say on the subject.

mea

so during our long-awaited 4-day break, i went to something called TEC. its Teens Encounter Christ and it is truly amazing. i got 3 of my friends to come to it, but let me start from the beginning. i went through TEC in april and after you go through you have the oppurtunity to work them. i worked the one this weekend and when i went through i thought it was amazing, but working one, being behind the scenes, showed me a totally different kind of amazing. there are so many people there who dont judge you. and i loved being there, and being there for the weekenders (the kids going through) im really glad i got the chance to go. i worked in the kitchen so everyone on my team got to cook for everybody else! and while i served food, i would get to know the weekenders and i think that was a blessing in itself. right now i really need to go to sleep cuz i think i got maybe 17 hours of sleep all weekend.

the next TEC is january 27th - 30th in mankato. i really encourage anyone who thought it might be even a little interesting becasue i gauruntee you will be closer to God by the end of it.

southerntec.org

lock in

so last night at my church we had a lock in. i had a lot of fun at it. at the beginning it was really sad becuase we watched this movie, to save a life, about a kid who commits suicide and how his ex-best friend dealt with it. but then we did some happy things. we played a game called the amazing race. we were in teams and we had to do different things. the first one was have a three legged race. then it was cleaning out a pumpkin as fast as you could. then we had to bounce ping pong balls into containers and then one person from your team (my sister) had to eat a huge scoop of peanut butter, some gummy worms, a cup of jello, a couple marshmallows and a banana. while she was doing it, she had so much food in her mouth and she was laughing so the jello came out her nose. then we had to solve some riddles and then i had to drag my entire team of 5 people on 3 little scooters through a line of cones. but we did it and we got 2nd place:) and then we stayed up until 6 when we could go home.

freedom

i am thankful that american citizens have freedom. if we didnt, there would still be slavery and bad things. i, and every other american citizen has the freedom of speech, the freedom of press, the freedom of petition, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of religion. if we didnt have these freedoms, our lives would be a lot different. they could have potentially made a uniform for the entire country. imagine 310,497,000 people all wearing the exact same outfit. i think that would be really sad. and i think some people would have a really hard time with that becuase some people need to be different but if we didnt have freedom, then people who wanted to be different first of all wouldnt have experieced freedom, so they wouldnt know what they're missing out on but they still might want it. if we didnt have freedom of the press, our government would be able to do all sorts of things without anyone finding out. i dont really know where im going with this so i'll just stop.

fairness is not justice

yesterday, pablo spent the whole day picking acacia leaves and putting them in a pile to eat later. after he was almost done, his best friend in the whole wide world, enrique, said he wanted some. pablo didnt want to share so he said no. enrique went and complained to his mom about pablo not sharing his leaves. enrique's mom told them they each got half of the pile of leaves. in the end, the result was fair becuase pablo got half and enrique got half. but justice was not served because pablo spent his entire day picking those leaves and he only got half of them, while enrique was playing with the other baby giraffes because he didnt want to strain his neck, even though palbo asked him to pick leaves with him. so in the end, enrique got luckier than pablo becuase he didnt even have to work to get a snack. unless you count going and tattling to his mom. which i dont.

weather rock

weather rocks:

a dry rock means fair weather
a wet rock means it's raining
a dusty rock means a dust storm
a swaying rock means it's windy
a shadow under the rock means it's sunny
a white rock means it's snowing
if the rock is jumping up and down, an earthquake is upon us
if the bottom of the rock is under water, it's a flood
if the rock is flashing, it's lightning
if you can't see the rock, it's night
if the rock is gone, there's a tornado

i saw these at the rendezvous and i was going to post about them last week but i forgot. i thouth they were pretty cool until i thought about it and realized what the sign actually meant. then i felt kinda stupid, but i got over it. my favorite line is "if the rock is jumping up and down, and earthquake is upon us" because i just picture a little rock happily jumping around while everything around it crumbles to little bitty pieces.

rendezvous

today i went to the rendezvous. after chilling with my mom and my sister for about 3 hours i was really wishing one of my friends would show up. and they did:) chrissy and kelli rescued me and we looked around. we found these hats that were huge and had obnoxious bows on them. we watched a magic show where this contortionist lady was in a box and her husband stuck 11 metal blades in the box but she was still alive and unharmed. and stuart and i watched a spider dangle on its web from a tree and land on this guy's coat, but he didnt notice. we went to stuart's sister, emma's hut thing where she was staying to experience some real rendezvous living. then i got a necklace to replace the one my exchange student from france, azi, sent me for christmas that i broke. im sending my sister back tomorrow to get another one. once licorice, root beer, and more jewelry was purchased, we left.

noise vs silence

VS.

noise to me can mean different things. sometimes its annoying like the static of the radio or someone talking when you're trying to do your homework. or when your trying to watch tv and sister decides now is the perfect time to practice the piano, which just happens to be in the same room as the tv.

it can also be relaxing. when i have a bad day or im mad i listen to music and i calm down. silence on the other hand, i dont really like. i think too much and i dont like doing that. so, every oppurtunity i have, i try and have music playing or someone to talk to. my mom thinks im crazy when i turn the radio on when im doing my homework. but i think it helps me not freak out about how much stuff i have to do. my sister needs quiet time to do her homework so when we're both studying at the same time, we tend to have some problems. so i like certain kinds of noises better than silence.

[pictures courtesy of google]