Back to Brown

Well, I got tired of having my hair dyed red. I loved the red color and how it looked on me, I just got tired of the upkeep. So I went back to brown this weekend. It's MUCH darker than it is naturally, but I'm sure it will fade. Here's what it looks like now:

Good God. High School.

So . . . Steve took Carissa to get her new ID for high school. She feels she looks "fake tan." Whatever. The next day I took her back to pick up her schedule and get her locker. Lockers aren't available to kids around here until they are in high school. They are a little different than the ones we had in school:



We had three rows of small lockers, of which I'd never have been able to reach the top. Ours were brown, too. Both at Tuskawilla Middle AND Lake Howell. Carissa's school has two rows of lockers that are a little larger. I think she could probably crawl into it. They are tan. They look like this (they don't even have writing or scratched paint like the ones I had):




Anyway . . . we picked up her schedule on Friday. This took all of about 30 seconds. I handed it to her and she ran off to compare with friends before I even got a chance to look at it. So I meandered over to the seemingly endless line for lockers. With no exaggeration, there were easily 1000 people in there waiting for lockers. Everyone brought their whole fam damily to pick up a schedule and get a locker! It wasn't "Meet the Teacher" or anything. Just pick up a piece of paper, get a locker, leave. Well, an HOUR later she got her locker. It's on the bottom (all freshman have lockers on the bottom) and right next to her good friend Allison. She got to pick which hall her locker was in so that it's close to her classes, etc. I thought that was a smart idea. We have also bought stuff to decorate the inside of her locker.

Her classes this year are: Honors English, Band, Honors World History, Honors Geometry, Spanish, and Honors Biology. She'll be a busy kid with marching band and all-star cheer! =)

She's still excited and a little less nervous. Meet the Teacher is on Thursday, school starts on the 18th. It all brings back a lot of memories and is quite surreal. At least she isn't going to Lake Howell. That would be WAY too bizarre!

More summer stuff and . . . BAND CAMP!

Well, it's been a busy month! Carissa had a cheer camp and band camp over the past two weeks. Okay, go ahead and say it, "One time . . . in band camp . . ." Now we can move on:

Last week was pre-camp for band. She went to the high school each day for a few hours and learned all of the basics of marching. Two of those days, she went to cheer choreography instead. She is very happy with her new cheer routine. It's fun and she gets to be front and center for the dance.

Then this week she went away to Leesburg for band camp. She left on Monday at 6 am and we had to go pick her up Friday. It was the first time she'd been away that long without one of us. Unlike cheer trips, the band was pretty diligent about keeping the kids safe and out of trouble. Boys and girls were on separate floors, they did bed checks, taped doors, etc. She learned a lot this week. She had been sick with allergies all week, which affected how much fun she had. They were outside all morning and she said it was incredibly hot. They had indoor music practice all afternoon, then fun activities at night. She made many new friends and says now that it's over she realizes it was fun.

The most surreal moment was watching/hearing the band practicing and knowing it wasn't part of my activities, but part of my daughter's. Ugh. They did well and learned a lot. They have almost their whole show!

So, loyal blog readers, you'll have something new to read about other than cheer and new pictures to see this year! Yay!

Bye, Spalding!

You may or may not know that Steve has owned snakes in the past. It all started when I working at Rollins' summer camp and my friend Bill purchased a ball python for the class he was teaching. Our principal wouldn't let him keep it, so Steve took it. He named him Spalding (he IS a ball python after all) and then purchased two more snakes after that. Those other two snakes have since slinked off to the big snake pit in the sky, but Spalding has hung on. Recently Spalding decided a meal was a bit too large - but he didn't decide this until after he had already eaten it. Since he had already eaten it, we thought all was fine . . . until the once eaten meal suddenly started to stink up the garage. It was horrible. Horrible. Steve declared he was done with reptiles. He found a veterinarian that wanted to take him and this week Spalding went to a new home. I'm actually a little sad, but not too sad.

Video Contest Runner-Up!

Well, the exciting news for the summer is that Carissa and her friends entered an amazing video in a video contest! They submitted the video for Breakfast Breaks (kind of like Lunchables, but for breakfast) to win a chance to be in a video with the Jonas Brothers. Well, they didn't win, but they got one of 4 runner-up places! They get tickets to any concert and some other miscellaneous stuff. They will be going to a concert in Tampa on Sept 4 and get a meet-and-greet with the Jonas Brothers! They are VERY excited! Here is a link to the video, if you haven't seen it already . . .

Click here

Summer Update

I realized today that I haven't blogged anything in a while. Not much is going on, actually. Summer has come, along with the oppressive heat, and I'm slightly irritated and grumpy about the whole thing. Steve and Carissa are both off this summer. Steve usually travels over the summer which makes me feel better about having to work over the summer. When I was teaching, I still didn't take the summers off. I worked at Rollins College Summer Camp. It always seemed okay because he was working, too. Last year he only traveled (what he did for his summer job) twice, I think. Well, this year the lady he worked for decided not to do the summer institutes, so he isn't doing anything. It's killing me. Well, he IS working for a writing camp for two weeks. It's a half day program. While I'm glad it's something, it does not help me in the slightest get out of bed in the mornings. Plus, we always used his summer money as our "extra" money. Considering that we'll be buying a house soon, this would be a good year to have that extra money. Oh, well.

Carissa is busy staying up late and waking up late. What every teenager needs to do over the summer. She will have some babysitting opportunities in July and will be attending band camp and cheer camp in July, too. She is doing some summer reading. She will also be my maid on weeks that she doesn't have stuff going on and that we don't have company. She has a few random band practices in June and regular cheer practices on Mondays and Wednesdays. She's busy obsessing about the Jonas Brothers, too. She won a contest. I'll blog about that, too.

That's it from here.

8th Grade Dance

This past Friday was Carissa's 8th grade dance. This is a bit more of a spectacle than my 8th grade dance was. Nowadays, people treat the 8th grade dance as though it were prom. Limos, hairdos, etc. We didn't allow all of that to happen. No limo. She chose NOT to get her hair done, but I did let her get a mani/pedi. We found the dress on sale, but the shoes weren't. =) She looked great and had a good time. All of the girls met at Kelsey's house and Kelsey's mom took them to the dance at The Doubletree Hotel by Universal. Then they went to Citywalk afterwards for a little while. Here are the pics (you can click on them to make them larger):

What a BUSY time!

The end of a school year is always busy and crazy. This year seems more so! Carissa is getting ready for high school! I can't believe it. Lots of things are going on right now:

1. Orange County Public Schools has been faced with major budget cuts this year because the people of Florida voted for a property tax amendment that would save them, on average, $200 per year. These dolts that voted for it wouldn't listen to the people who were warning of education and public safety cuts because our "fabulous" governor, Charlie Crist, promised he wouldn't cut funds from these areas. Well, guess what? He did. So Orange County Schools had to cut $70 million this year. One of the ways they are saving money is to switch middle school and high school start times. The busing issues this switch will eliminate will save an estimated $6 million dollars. It is hotly contested in the community and there have been student walkouts from class at various high schools and parent protests. The next school board meeting is Tuesday the 27th. Hopefully it will come to the table for discussion again and will be either postponed for further study or eliminated altogether.

2. Carissa had to register for high school classes! She chose all honors classes for her core classes, and band and Spanish. It will be a rigorous schedule for her, considering that she'll also have marching band practice and all-star cheer.

3. Awards ceremonies and band performances galore! She had her end of the year concert last week, and will perform at the 8th grade awards ceremony on Tues. Since she is also an honoree at the awards ceremony, we'll see how that works. She made it through middle school with only 1 B on a report card. That was the first time she'd EVER gotten a B on a report card, and it didn't happen until this past report card. She was very disappointed because she was trying to get straight As throughout this year so she'd get honored as such at the awards ceremony.

4. Her 8th grade dance will be this coming Friday, the 30th. She is going with Wesley to the dance, but just as friends. There are several other friends going, too. We have the dress and shoes (I'll post pictures) and will be making an appt for her hair. The theme is "Hollywood." I'm not sure she'll look very Hollywood, but she's happy with her choices.

5. Field Day - Field Day for the 8th graders was an all-day outdoor event. Her team won. I'm not sure what that means or how it was determined. All she participated in was a very poorly organized Three Legged Race in which she didn't win. She said they ran out of rope and had to tie her shoelaces to her partner's shoelaces. She had fun, which is what is important I guess.

So the last day of school is June 4, I think. She'll be babysitting over the summer, attending cheer practices, band practices, band camp, cheer camp, and then hanging around. Steve isn't traveling this summer, so he'll be there to shuttle her around, I guess. I'll keep you posted!

New Season, New Team, Same Gym

The 2007-08 cheer season came to a close and tryouts for the new 2008-09 season took place the first two weeks of May. Carissa did amazingly well! She landed her standing tuck (like a back flip from a standing position) and is doing well working on her full. I'll try to post video soon. The coaches asked her if she'd rather be on a level 5 team (the highest level) and be able to throw her advanced tumbling by NOT be a flyer, or if she'd rather be on a level 3 team and maybe fly, but not be able to throw her advanced tumbling. She thought about it for a while and decided that since they said "maybe fly" on a level 3 team, that she might end up on level 3 and not be able to fly AND not be able to throw advanced tumbling. So she chose the level 5 team. She is actually enjoying not being a flyer. She said all of her stress over the past two years has been from flying. So this year she'll be a side base on a junior 5 team. Her team name this year? The Devil Rays. Yes, I know. There is no such thing as the Devil Rays anymore. The gym did it on purpose to link them to the co-ed team, The Diamondbacks, the only other level 5 team in the gym. The link is because they call the co-ed team the D-Backs, and they'll call this team the D-Rays. They will still use all of the current gear for the Tampa Bay Rays, though.

Her team is going to be focusing on tumbling this year and we're excited about the improvements Carissa will make in her tumbling. I'm proud of her for making this hard choice. I think she made the right one!

You'd Better Run!

Friday night at about 2:30 am our doorbell rang repeatedly like 5 times. It only woke up me, not Steve or Carissa. But it scared me, and I woke up Steve. We went and looked out the front door, but of course no one was there. We waited a few minutes, then returned to bed. At about 2:45 or so, they did it again. It was just as we were dozing off again. Steve jumped up out of bed, ran to the front door, yanked it open, and saw 4 kids standing in the cul-de-sac. He yelled, "You'd better run mother f'rs! (He said the real word) You'd better run!" and he CHASED them up the street! They ran straight to their house on the lit road (they live in that big huge white house at the end of the street). Steve had run in the shadows along the houses and reached the end of the street before they did. He said he chose not to go catch any of them ---- because he was in his boxers! hahahaha! Anyway, the boys crawled into a bedroom window in the house. So Steve came home and got dressed, then went back and rang the doorbell of the house. No one came, so he went home. He went back the next day and ended up talking to the mom. He said it was a waste of time to talk to her, though. Steve did this once before at our old house. He ran after some kid who was ringing our doorbell and running. This kid, however, he caught. He grabbed the kid and dragged him back to the kid's house and told his father. It's really funny. So I recommend that you NEVER ring our doorbell and run. Steve WILL chase you down the street.

All Things Good and Exciting

Not much has been going on lately. Cheer season has ended (with a bang!) and the banquet was awesome. I was very impressed with the whole thing. Our old gym didn't do that. We got a preview of the new uniforms for next year, the kids were all recognized for another year of cheering with a "Veteran" t-shirt with their years of experience printed on the back. There were a few fun awards given, and I gave pause when they announced the "cry baby" award. I thought for sure it was going to Carissa. hahaha! So did she. However, it was given to a few of the coaches instead.

This weekend I am very much looking forward to going to see Wicked at the Bob Carr. I am going with my very dear friends Joan and NiCole and our daughters. We are having brunch first.

Tryouts for next season of cheer will be the first two weeks of May. I'll let you know what happens. In the meantime, know that I'm enjoying my few weeks of relaxation! =)

Happy Earth Day!

I hate to admit that I didn't do much that was "Earthy" today. I was informed this morning as I was getting ready that I wasn't even wearing anything "Earthy." I was wearing black and white. Those are colors that occur in nature, right? Oh, well. At work we were given a little flower to plant. It's cute, but it's probably a waste of money and also against the Earth Day philosophy as the little flower pot is made of plastic that isn't recyclable.

However, the highlight of my day was seeing the pictures Carissa took today and posted on her myspace. The reason? It was of her hugging a tree. Why, you are probably asking, is that the highlight? Because it made for the perfect opportunity for me to embarrass my child. Yes, that's right. It's not too often that I take the opportunity to do so. I remember when she was about 1 and 1/2 or 2 and we were at Anne Cobb's house in downtown Orlando. We told Carissa that trees were her friend. We laughed quite hard when we told her to hug and kiss the tree and she did. Thankfully, I had my camera! So now, so you can also be amused, are pictures of my kid in a then and now type of format. Click to make larger:

Then:



Now:

BANG! That was Carissa's cheer team ending the season!

Well, another year of cheer is over! Yay! The last competition was at Daytona Beach - outside. Let me remind you that I HATE the beach. The competition mat was at the bandshell. There were two sets of stands on either side which blocked the breeze. It was brutally hot! I thought I was going to melt! I slathered myself with sunscreen and just figured I'd be hot all day. I discovered upon looking for shade that the shopping/restaurant complex attached to the bandshell was quite breezy, cool, and shady on the 2nd and 3rd floors. So I parked myself there instead and was comfortable all day! It was awesome.

By the time Carissa's team came out at 2:30, the sun had baked the dark blue spring floor mats for around 6 hours. She said it was burning hot to the touch. They have to put their hands on it to tumble and they roll around on it during parts of the routine. It was also radiating heat. To make the whole thing even better, the sun was in the bases' eyes when they were looking up to hold up a flyer. They couldn't see anything! This had been going on all day and I suspected was the reason so many teams were dropping girls or the reason for flyers bobbling (shaking) in their stunts (also a deduction).

Well, Carissa's team nailed their routine. They had one person put hands down on tumbling, but that was it. There were 14 teams in their division. At awards, they had all 14 teams on the mat. As their name was called, they got their trophy and left the stage. So the number of teams on the mat dwindled as the awards ceremony went on. I knew they were in contention for at least top 5. So as it got to 6th I started to get nervous. Then they called 5th . . . then 4th . . . then 3rd . . . then I was REALLY nervous! They were one of two teams left on the mat. Second place went to some team we'd never heard of. So Carissa's team WON! Another national competition and a great way to end the season. First out of 14 is quite a feat! So her team ended the season with a bang. It was awesome and made the icky day at the beach a little less annoying. =)


So what now? Three weeks of tryout clinics where they work on specific skills. Carissa will be going for working her tumbling full and her standing tuck. Then there are two weeks of tryouts. Then . . . the new season starts! Yay! sigh.

Spring Break '08

Spring break this year has been exciting. We went to Myrtle Beach for the first part, and then Carissa went to New Smyrna Beach with Kelsey for the second part. We were in Myrtle Beach for a cheer competition where Carissa performed with two teams. She was filling in on a 2nd team for someone who couldn't go. That team took 4th out of 13, and Carissa's regular team took 2nd out of 11. It was quite exciting! They gym organized a huge stunt group picture on the beach. Carissa is in a light blue shirt near the middle. Here are some Myrtle Beach pics. Remember, you can click on them to make them bigger.






We got home from Myrtle Beach on Monday and then Carissa went to New Smyrna on Tuesday through Sat. She just got home today and she's really brown! Here are some New Smyrna pics. Click on them to make them bigger!


And just because even Carissa's vacations contain a little cheerleading, a heel stretch on the beach:

Hmmm. National Champs? Yep!

This past weekend - yes, Easter weekend - we spent at a cheer competition. After endless whining about having to pull my kid out of school on Friday to compete - yes, they had school on Good Friday - all of our gym's teams did amazing! All teams got either first or second place! Carissa's team had to learn practically an entire new routine because they dropped from 30 kids down to 20. They cut a few kids and a few dropped out because of conflicts with other sports. Therefore, they had to redo their routine. This happened about 2 weeks ago and it's been a rough couple of weeks with them trying to learn everything in time. The coaches told them that they'd be happy with a top 5 placing out of 7 teams, but that top 3 would be great. After day one, they were in first place. They held that lead on day 2, too. So they are national champs again. The coolest part - real leather jackets! They are sooo nice! Next stop: Myrtle Beach, SC next weekend.

New pics - remember, you can click on them to make them bigger.

Carissa with trophy and cool jacket:




Keisha, Ashley, Carissa

Oooh. Creepy.

You've probably heard that the downtown Atlanta area was hit by tornadoes recently. I got a little creeped out when I was looking at the pictures because the places in the pictures were places where we'd been just a few weeks ago and Cheersport Nationals. The Westin hotel where we rode the elevator was reported to have lost many windows AND TO HAVE SHIFTED SEVERAL FEET! Now, you might be asking why I'm so bothered by it. While we were there, there was a large weather system that moved through and we were under a tornado warning (not just a watch). We were inside the convention center, which is largely underground, but there are several windows around. It could have been very bad. It just makes me feel lucky.

It also reminds me of when I was a junior in high school and went on a trip to Mexico City with my Spanish class. A few months after we were there, a huge earthquake struck the area and the hotel in which I had stayed was leveled. It was also an unsettling feeling and a feeling of having escaped something horrible.

Just kind of freaked me out a little, is all. =)

Cheersport Nationals, Atlanta

This past weekend was nationals in Atlanta for Carissa's cheer gym. Overall the teams did VERY well - better than we have ever done before in Atlanta. Many of the teams "cheer down" to hopefully walk away with a trophy. Since this form of cheating is unregulated, it happens regularly. Our gym has better morals than to allow our teams to do this, so we usually walk away with placements somewhere in the middle.

This year, however, most of our teams did a little better than 1/2. One of our youth teams took 2nd place out of about 16 teams. Several of our teams took 5th place out of anywhere from 15 to 20 teams. That is commendable at such a large competition. Carissa's team had several problems on Saturday which placed them lower going into Sunday than they would have liked. They were in 10th. Their performance on Sunday was much cleaner, but the still weren't able to move up. So they scored 10th out of 12. That was disappointing and the kids were sad, especially since just two weeks prior they had a flawless routine at a competition.

The excitement for the weekend could best be described as "girl drama." One of the girls on our higher-leveled youth team made a mistake in her tumbling and put her hand on the floor (a deduction). She threw a tantrum on the stage. She immediately started crying, sobbing, and stomping around the stage. She refused to throw some of her tumbling and to stunt. It was quite the spectacle and caused her team many points in deductions. They came in last place.

The other cheer drama story was on the oldest squad of kids. On Saturday, one of the flyers was dropped and she decided to slap - yes, slap! - her base. This slap was followed up by the words, "Put me back up, b!*@$!" The base, obviously, was not happy. So she retaliated. Here is what she did: On Sunday, in the middle of the performance on stage, she was holding that flyer up. She said, "I don't feel like doing this anymore" and dropped her hands to her sides, making the flyer fall FLAT on her face on the stage (a deduction). She then refused to put the flyer back up into the stunt to finish that part of the routine. Another girl that was nearby tried to step in to put the stunt up and the girl who dropped her hands pushed her out of the way so she couldn't help. Basically, to get back at this flyer, she sabotaged the routine! Instead of dealing with this flyer who slapped her one-on-one, she decided to make the rest of the 34 kids on the team suffer. It could have cost them an invitation to the World's competition that they were hoping to get. Thankfully it didn't, they still got the invitation (called a bid), but it did cause them to drop a place in the standings. Wow! Needless to say, no one is very happy with these girls right now!

So that's my Atlanta story. The only other thing to note is that I no longer feel as though I ever need to stay at a Ritz Carlton. We stayed at the Atlanta Ritz. It was just another hotel and was overpriced. We were required to stay there, though.



Oh, one more thing - we rode the elevator at the Westin hotel across the street from the Ritz up to the 73rd floor! They have a restaurant up there and the elevator is an express. It is a glass bubble on the outside of the hotel and at night time it's beautiful! I loved it! =)

Birthday Pictures

Here are the promised birthday pictures. You can click on them to make them bigger.

First, here is the cake. I LOVE this cake! We saw something similar on a Publix flyer about a year ago and Carissa said that was what she wanted her next cake to look like. So I called a bakery and had it made. It was small, but it was plenty for the number of people we had. It was yummy, too!



Here are some pictures of Carissa and her friends.



The kids were playing "Sardines," a funny version of hide-and-go-seek. They were all in our pool bath.



It was a great day and I think everyone had a lot of fun!

Happy 13th Birthday, Carissa!

Well, my baby is a teenager. She turned 13 today at 10:27 am. This morning she had to listen as I recounted the experience 13 years ago today for her. I told her about how we were nervous, Grandma was there (but not in the delivery room), and how we felt the first time we heard her cry. Did I hear a collective "awwww!" ? I thought so. She has been counting the days until teenage-dom for quite some time. Her party is tomorrow. We're having several kids over and have rented a jumpy thing and will have the volleyball net and some yard games set up outside, and Wii inside. I think it will be fun. For her birthday she got a desk for her room, and lots of little stuff. Tonight for her birthday dinner she chose to go to Olive Garden for dinner and The Melting Pot for dessert. We took her friend, Kelsey. Kelsey had never eaten at Olive Garden (WHAT?!!) or had fondue. She was quite excited, too, so it made the evening even more fun. I'll post pictures from her party when I get some.

National Champions, Baby!

This weekend was a big competition for our gym. Several of our teams were against the local rival, the gym that divided up our old gym. Well, all of our teams did amazingly well. Carissa's team and the co-ed team both took 1st place! Carissa's team was in 1st place going into today, but today they nailed their routine. It was the best performance they've had all season. It was a well-deserved win, and the kids were all very happy. I'll post pictures soon!