Easter and More - Rachel

I'm back in Berea for the remaining three and a half weeks I have left of this school year. Although it's quite dreary out today, I'm happy to be back and get some work done. This weekend, however, was bomb. Highlights include dyeing eggs, eating peeps, reading a lot, watching Kristen play softball, taking Wesley on a date, and visiting with Nicole. To keep things interesting, I'm going to list the 5 of the funniest moments of my weekend.

1. Wesley, the slowest walker in the world, trying to keep up with Katie, the fastest walker in the world.
2. Discovering the security tag still on my Easter dress Sunday morning.
3. Wesley singing "Hell" in the hymn on Sunday.
4. Finding 6 cans of ReddiWhip in Grandma's fridge.
5. Dad's love of Wesley's Easter wind-up toy and the subsequent breaking of said toy by Wesley.

And because I don't particuarly feel like writing much else, here are a few choice pictures from the weekend.

Kristen being awesome at softball as always.

Kristen and Wes having a push-up off.

My favorite Easter egg.

The life of a 14 year old boy - Wesley

As life just goes by with out many events, I'm doing quiet well. This 9 weeks I did better then normal on my report card not getting any C's and doing most of my work. Although I should have done better still for me I'm taking a big step forward but not getting below a 88 on my report card. Also there are other things that are going quiet well. My love life naturally is fine, and I have recently went on a date to the outlets. It was very fun as we just walked around talking, and even when we strangely walked straight into a Steelers fan store I just laughed off all the disgusting apparel. Now the last 9 weeks of school has started and I am looking forward to this summer. Also Katie is bringing some friends to camp this year. Tax season is almost over so dad will soon start to make me clean the house again, but I'll still live. Also with Easter approaching I'm looking forward to all the yummy chocolate bunnies. Also I hope Charity has a good time in the outback and am definitely awaiting what she says about her very adventurous trip. so that's what's happening from up and over.

Ridiculously long update -Kristen

It seems that I have been failing miserably at holding up my end of the blog. I just checked and it has been right around 5 weeks since my last post. Although there has been much to blog about it that time frame, there has also been so little time to do so. Luckily I have a sister in Australia that wants to keep up on my boring life. With a reminder on facebook to please write a post for the blog, I finally got the motivation and time to sit down and do my Transfer update.

I'll start with softball. I did start practice for this lovely sport 5 weeks ago, but I can't say I've been having as much fun as I would like to. As much as I like the sport of softball, I forgot how slow the game moves and how much drama can occur when there is that much time for talking. I already had a musical for that... But anyways, this year, instead of second base, I have been playing shortstop. I do like this development because instead of having to worry about taking off the first baseman's head, I get to throw as hard as I like, which is a nice feeling. I've also been consistently batting 2nd in the lineup, but I can't say I like this as much. I'm not all that hot at hitting, but oh well. I also was picked as a co-captain this year along with 2 other girls. I was a little afraid at first that this would cause some tension on the team, but luckily all seems to have smoothed out fairly well. I can't say that I do anything too exciting as a captain either, though. Listening to the PIAA rules before every game gets more than a little boring, and I have only had 4 games. Oh, another good thing about softball is that the face mask rumor that I heard before the season was false, so I only have to put up with an annoying mouth guard instead, which is just my coach's personal rule. I feel quite sorry for anybody that has to listen to me yell out the play all the time because it has to sound like a jumbled mess of garbage, but I haven't gotten any complaints yet, so it can't be all that bad. The other good thing about softball would be that in practice I get to wear my favorite orange hat! That aspect of the sport never fails to make me happy. I guess softball isn't all that bad now that I look for the good parts. Oh yeah, just for you Charity, to keep you updated, we're 3-1, not that I care though.

On to the musical. I participated in the production of Guys and Dolls this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. At first, I thought that because of the lack of effort and time to work with, the entire show would be a huge embarrassment, but against all odds, our small cast pulled through to put on a presentable musical. I've been told that my dancing was actually fairly decent, but that doesn't change the fact that I hated almost every second of it. Actually, that's a lie. After I learned not to worry about how dumb I looked, I loosened up some and let myself have fun with the other actors. I have been told by my family that my shimmying could still use a lot of work, but all I have to say to that one is that I'm a McDonald and not much else can be expected. The costumes for the dances are a whole different story though. The dresses and one rather revealing skirt were just a little too much for me to feel comfortable in, but I dealt with it reasonably well in my opinion. It's probably not good that one of my favorite parts was on Saturday night when Chelsea actually slapped Ike instead of fake slapping him, but that's just because he made fun of me so much for the costumes. I took two main things out of the musical, which both scare me, but for good or bad, I can now walk/run/dance in heels and put on my own lipstick. Oh dear, I'll be a girl before I know it.

Speaking of being a girl, I'm scaring myself more and more every day. I'm genuinely excited to wear my new dress for Easter on Sunday... It's a nice white cotton dress with blue flowers and green stems that I got on Saturday when I went shopping with Mom, Aunt Jayne, Rachel, and my twin for the day, Roberta. After Michelle's bridal shower at which I won a vase of beautiful pink flowers (and yes I just called something pink beautiful), we all went shopping at the mall. Both Ro and I got new dresses while all Roberta got was a creeper picture with a cardboard cutout of Edward Cullen. She was my twin for the day wearing the other half of my favorite green jacket though, so I gladly took that creeper picture even if Rachel wouldn't. I almost forgot! Before we went to the mall, we had to stop at Red Lobster (aka Easter Bunny Lane) to make sure Roberta was given the full tour of exciting things to do around Transfer. There were many odd un-Eastery rooms, but the almost to the door line was well worth the wait.

I feel like I'm forgetting some of my many activities to report on... Oh, ensemble of course. First, a funny story from last week. So you would think that playing all the sports I do, I would get injured at some point in time. I received a pretty nice scratch down my chin and a fat lip, but of course I don't get it at a sports something or other. No, I get cut with a giant piece of cardboard at ensemble. I am more than a little stupid sometimes and way too obsessed with frisbee, so when I see a giant circle piece of cardboard, what do I think? Frisbee! Sadly, Dan was not very good at aiming such a monstrosity, and instead of into my outstretched hands, the wonderful piece of scenery flew right at my mouth. I had a terribly lame story to tell anybody that asked about my cut, but at least the ensemble people got a kick out of it. Good news on the topic of ensemble though! I have been demoted to the second row instead of the front row! Yay! I would like to think that it's because my terrible dancing has finally been noticed, but really I'm just too tall to be in the front row and too short to be in the back row.

Oh, there's church stuff too. Youth group is interesting as always with all of the Jr. High boys. This past week was especially fun when Mom and Laurie were in charge. We all got to help bake chocolate chip cookies, which was amazing of course since we got to eat some of the cookie dough. While the cookies were baking, we also got to run around and play sardines, which I thought helped considerably to expend some of the boys' energy. To finish off the night, we had an Easter bible quiz with the warm cookies as prizes. Also this Sunday for Easter, I am going to be "Kristen, the world's oldest caterpillar" for the Sunday School skit. Added to my piano playing duties, Sunday should be fun. I'm really excited too, though, because I have been told that I get to eat Easter dinner/lunch at Grandma's house this year! I love Grandma's cooking!

Well, I feel like this post is ridiculously long enough, and I can't think of anything else at the moment anyways. Hopefully, it won't take me another 5 weeks to write a new post, and I'll try to write another one sooner!

: )

Sunday Afternoon - Rachel

There haven't been a whole lot of blog posts on my end lately, because frankly my life has been pretty uneventful. Case point: the most exciting point of my day today was wrestling with the printer here at work. A boy in the lab came up and asked for my assistance, which basically meant I spent the great part of 10 minutes pulling sheets of paper out of the printer that had been jammed in the most ridiculous of spots. I'm sure I looked ridiculous as well, partially owing to the fact that my hair is somewhere in the mad scientist range and also due to the fact that I didn't really know what I was doing. Also, I couldn't help but feel a little triumphant each time I yanked a piece of paper out, and I'm pretty sure I held each sheet of paper up like some sort of prize. Oh dear.

Well, we can't all go to Melbourne.

However, I did go to Strongsville on Friday, which is barely worth mentioning, but I will anyways. Roberta and I went on a mall trip, which ended up being sensory overload for me. While at college, I work hard to forget the tempting allure of bright clothes in stores with pleasant music piping from the ceilings. Eventually, I start deranging myself into thinking that $30 is a sale, and I do love that pair of black and orange plaid pants! It gets absurd. Luckily, I had the restraint to channel these urges into only buying a 99cent hot dog and a C. S. Lewis book from Borders, both of extreme quality.

Stars - Rachel

As of right now, I have exactly two classes, and two assignments due before spring break. Knowing that is a wonderful feeling, especially since I'll have plenty of time to finish them this afternoon during the time I normally have choir.

I just realized, I have to pack too. Oh dear.

Last night was the first night in astronomy where the skies were clear enough to observe. When we were finally out observing I remembered why I was taking astronomy in the first place. It's unbelievably cool to look at the surface of the moon, or at a cluster of forming stars. We got the chance to look at a "trapezium" of stars inside of a gas cloud. You can't help but marvel looking at these beautiful creations, minuscule and unimportant from our standpoint yet remarkable in their power and distance away from us. I was even getting into trying to identify as many constellations as I can. Quick astronomy fact for the day: the bottom right star in Orion is called Rigel and the one on the top left is Betelguese (pronounced beetlejuice actually). Although I'm pretty sure Orion isn't a constellation you can see in Australia.

An assortment of events -Kristen

I am currently in the car on the way home from Berea where I had the unparalleled honor of observing Nicole Scelsi's "sparkling personality" in action. But before I get to that experience I'll think as far back as I can from where I left off.

Basketball is finally over. It's a good thing that my family is so supportive of the team's loss yesterday because it will probably be quite a bit worse tomorrow at school. My family definitely qualifies as some of the only people I know that congratulate me and are genuinely excited that I lost because they were ready for me to be done. Before we lost our game to Greenville yesterday though, we had lost to Girard in the second round of the playoffs on Wednesday; however, we had won our first game against North East last Saturday, which was fun no matter what my family thinks. Also on last Saturday I dyed a little piece of hair in the back hot pink with the rest of the basketball team. Luckily I can hide it fairly well if I want to because after dying it, I remembered that I hate the color pink.

Last Sunday afternoon was quite fun as well. The youth group went on our annual ice skating trip in New Castle. I was extremely proud of the fact that I did not fall once despite the fact that many people tried to take me down with them when they would fall. One such offender is none other than Ike because he had never been ice skating before. My family does give him credit for subjecting himself to the laughter of the Jr. High boys just because I invited him, but it still has not stopped the adoption of the new family motto of "take a hike Ike." I'll have to remember not to let Ike know of this development because I'm afraid he could easily take it the wrong way and hold it against my family. The good news for him is that my family also just enjoys teasing a lot.

Also this past week, I have learned that I get to start mandatory practices for softball tomorrow. I'm kind of sad that I don't even get a week off in between seasons, but I guess that that is the result of making the playoffs. I've heard that there will actually be enough players to have a JV team this year unlike last year, but I still can't decide if I like this idea or not because that means much later nights on game days but a lot of my friends playing as well. The only other piece of information that I've heard concerning this particular sport is that I'm going to have to wear a facemask if I play infield due to a new PIAA rule which has led me to consider volunteering to play outfield or catcher, but hopefully they won't be that bad.

Now back to my "unparalleled honor" of this weekend. After my basketball team's loss yesterday, I had to head straight to Berea along with my parents and Nicole to watch Rachel in a choir concert. After a detour for me to take a shower to the hotel where my parents were staying, we proceeded to the concert. The music was extremely refreshing after the day in and day out experience of listening to the Reynolds High School Mixed Chorus. After the concert, Mom and Dad went back to the hotel, while Rachel, Nicole, and I went on a freezing cold tour and other stops before returning to Rachel's dorm. At approximately 12:30 we decided to go on a 4th meal run to Taco Bell, but this involved finding somebody with a car. This took a little bit, but we still managed to get back at about 1. This was already much later than my normal night, but I stayed up for another half hour eating my nachos and taco while visiting with Rachel and her friends. At 1:30, I finally called it a night and headed to the floor of Rachel's room to sleep. This morning was much more uneventful with church and eating at Panera for the first time. I'm going to be done with my blogging for a couple weeks again because I'm almost home, but hopefully my Transfer news was a little exciting. : )

Jesse McCartney? - Rachel

When I had been talking to my friend Catie earlier this week she mentioned to me that she might have 2 free tickets to Jesse McCartney concert for Tuesday night and she was looking for someone to go with. I told her at the time that I'd go with her, not because I particularly enjoy his music, but because I thought it would be a lot of fun. As it turns out, Catie was able to borrow a friends car and I was the only one to take her up on the offer to go see the show. This is why last night I found myself in the midst of quite a lot of preteen girls all shrieking as loud as humanely possible. It was especially fun for me because the show was at the House of Blues in Cleveland where I've seen a few shows before, but none ever like this. Every time Jesse would do something as small as taking off his sunglasses, the crowd would erupt in screams. I have to admit, just to get it out of my system, I let out at least one obnoxious shriek.

The most strenuous part of the evening was the driving. Catie and I have always bonded over the fact that we both view driving the same way, we hate it. Merging sometimes felt stressful, and we did miss a few roads, although never with any drastic consequences. I'm afraid sometimes I added to the problem as many of the Cleveland street names are now familiar to me. I did usefully know that Chester ran parallel to Euclid, for which I was very proud of. And despite any of our mishaps, I was back on campus before 10:30.