Writing Contest!

Okay, if you know anything about me, I LOVE to write! So I'm about to enter in a story contest! And guess what? The winner will get...an IPad!!! How cool is that!
So I need to follow the contest's rules. My first sentence HAS to be, "Mother and Father have not been right lately."
I'm soooooo going to enter! I hope I win! :) :) :)
My idea is a little weird, so I'm trying to think of something better, as of now.

The Happiness Project (And Something About Mother's Day)

Today I was looking around my mom's room when I picked up a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It's really for grown-ups but I find it really cool. It's about the author, who suddenly realizes that she's wasting her life away and needs to find a way to become happier. So she researches happiness and begins a happiness project for one year. The first part of the book is about "Boosting Your Energy" and how the author does it. Surprisingly, the first thing she did was go to sleep earlier! In a few weeks, the author actually felt the effects of sleeping earlier. She turned off all the lights when she went to bed, and spent the hour before going to bed cooling down and doing relaxing, calming things. If there were beeping, glowing things in the room, like alarm clocks and Blackberries and cellphones, she would hide them from view so that the room was very dark. These are some good tips if you want to get a happiness project started. Thanks, Gretchen Rubin!
Oh, and also...
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!

The First Spring Flower

At last! Spring is FINALLY here after a LOOOOOOONG winter. And how can I tell? The first spring crocus came into flower to make the grand announcement through it's blooming petals- spring is here at last!
Take a look at the first little crocus in my garden:

Rainy Sunday

Yesterday, it was my mom's birthday, so I went with my mom to the knitting store to pick out some nice yarns. The store was closed, so we walked to the "paper store" which is basically a crafter's dream store. It has crafting books, paper of all shapes and sizes, wrapping paper, cute erasers, cardboard letters, notebooks, you name it. That's one place that I love shopping at. We bought a small notebook for me and some small drawing things for my mom, and then we went back to the knitting store. By that time, it was open, so I picked out a beautiful orange yarn for her. Then we went back home.
Later on, we went to Juniors, and waited 45 minutes to take a seat. Although it took us a long time to be seated, the food came really fast. We brought a cheesecake home and ate it with a birthday candle for Mom's birthday. Mom was really happy.
Today is Mom and Dad's anniversary, so we gave out nice cards. I gave my card yesterday, so Dad gave Mom her card today. She was so happy with it!
I'm having a great, rainy weekend!

Smuggler's Notch Day #6

Today I went to a place called Arbortrek Canopy Adventures, where I went on 9 wickedly awesome zip lines and two rope things and a rickty rocety bridge that swung from side to side until I was dizzy. Although I had tons of fun, my fingers and toes were VERY cold. But I felt very satisfied when we had to go home. I really recomend Arbortrek for any thrill seeker!

Smuggler's Notch Day #5

Today I finally got better from my sore throat! I'm VERY happy about that. I can actually eat without the food hurting my throat, and I've had a great day besides.
 I didn't go to all-day ski group lessons, but I went to an hour-and-a-half ski camp with Alexander. I liked the new teacher a lot- she was defiantly very funny. I fell down only once, but that's because it snowed SOOOOOOO much today. It snowed so much that there was no ice and all the snow was very thick. There were bumps and lumps and mumps of snow everywhere, and it was so uneven that it was hard to stay up on my feet/skis, so it was okay.
 My parents picked Alexander and I up nearly 30 minutes late, and I was so mad at them. It was because my mom had fallen on the mountain and, "Lay sprawled there like a frog" said Dad. It took 10 minutes for Dad to get Mom back on her feet with both skis on, and Mom couldn't go very fast, so Alexander and I were stuck at the bottom of the hill waiting for them. LAME.
When they did pick us up (at last!) my dad, Alexander, and I went up for another run on Madonna, and I thought that I was going to freeze to death. Oh, my poor thumbs hurt so much! And it took us such a long time to get down. I guess Alexander and I complained A LITTLE, because Dad sad, "Your'e such wusses that you can't even keep your mouth shut." But I knew he was just kidding, because he gave me hand warmers and hugged my fingers. I was so thankful when I finally reached the condo and I could just plop onto the sofa. Now, I'm just happy that I'm going to go to the pool soon and that I'm going to have some cheesecake.

Smuggler's Notch Day #2

Today, I had a really annoying sore throat. I think I'm starting to get sick. It's actually kind of hard to swallow anything, and my mom is giving me these really terrible pills. They did NOT help.
Even though I started to get sick, (maybe) I still went to ski school, and the most terrible thing happened. We were going on the trail LOG JAM when one of our classmates, Ben, fell down. I thought he would just get up, but he didn't. Our teacher told the rest of our class to go down the hill. We waited at the base of the hill for nearly 20 minutes. I was really worried. Finally, a couple of people came skiing down the hill, and one of them was pulling a stretcher. And on that stretcher, with his eyes closed, was Ben. I felt really sad for Ben. Later I heard my teacher say that Ben might have had a concussion and that he might have broken his leg. I hope Ben is okay.
Later on, Dad, Alexander, and I went to the Fun Zone, and we were totally ripped off. We played a video game where we had to spin a wheel and try to win the, "Big 1,000 Ticket Bonus" Most of the time, the best we could do was 75 tickets, the worst thing we could get was 4 tickets, and they were charging a dollar a pop. And we were totally ripped off when we cashed in our tickets to win a prize. I got a teeny tiny rubber ducky. A RUBBER DUCKY!!! Alexander was luckier. He got a mini skateboard with aliens on it. LUCKY DUCKY.

Smuggler's Notch Day #1

For midwinter break, I'm going to a ski resort in Vermont called Smuggler's Notch. I'm going with my parents and with Alexander.

We got to the resort in record time- it only took us 6 hours to get to the resort! Most of the time, it takes us more like 8 or 9 hours to get there. The car ride was great! Alexander brought this huge bag of cheese puffy things, and my parents got the white dust of the cheese puffy things all over the car. We listened to an audio book for a while. Then, Alexander attached his ITouch to the radio thing in the front of the car, and we listened to some Green Day songs.

I also had gotten a Flip the day before, so I taped a couple of videos. One video showed Alexander's parents saying good bye- they were not coming on the trip. They sang a song that went like this:

"Bye, bye, Zander, bye, bye, Zander, bye, bye, Zander, we hate to see you go- BYE!!!!" It was really funny. Then, Alexander got all mad and said, "You guys are sooooo mean!" That just made the grown-ups laugh even harder. Even now, Alexander keeps on saying, "That was COLD!"

Another video shows one of our breaks for gas. My mom got out to, "Stretch her legs!" and started doing jumping jacks! I thought I was going to die. That is real, live proof that my family is a comedy show.

The next day, Alexander and I had a TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD VERY BAD DAY!

First, the weather was SUPER DUPER LUPER KUPER cold, and my fingers got so cold that I cried. CRIED! Alexander was the gentleman and gave me his hand warmer, but I realized that hand warmers are too big to touch the fingers, unless your'e wearing mittens, which I wasn't. Then he said "so I froze my butt off for nothing?!" (Also, if you pulled your fingers out of the fingers of the glove and wrapped your fingers around the hand warmer, your hand could keep warm. BUT.... the group had ski poles, so if I took my fingers out of the gloves' fingers, the ski poles fell down. So I told my teacher that I needed to put my ski poles somewhere, because I wasn't going to use them. Luckily, the teacher found a spot for my poles. Lesson- Never ski with ski poles.)



This is where I skied on the first day



Smile for the Camera!

I'm certainly smiling!

Hi, Lisa! Hope you think that this picture is okay.

A big one- no need to say, "CHEESE!"

That is one special smile! Hope that the picture came out good.

CHEESE! That's a grrrr- 8 smile.

This blogpost certainly has plenty of smiles! I see that you
are defiantly in your top smile gear.

Let's see the whites! Dad must be VERY happy. 

Last, but not least, Mom's smile!

SNOW DAY

Yay! A snow day! Today was really fun. I helped my Dad shovel snow, and I got to play in it. It snowed so much that I have a mini hill in my backyard and I sledded on it!

This is what I saw when I woke up this morning and opened my front door!

Here I am plowing snow in my back yard.
My dad showed me how to do it.

Here I am sliding down my back yard hill -

WHE-E-E-E!

OH NO -- got snow in my boots :(