Family Fun Festival

Last night, I had a really good time at my old elementary school, St. Timothy's. (It's a very small Lutheran school, and my mom is the principal, so almost everyone knows me, either because I went there, or because my sister did, or because of my mom now.)  We had the Family Fun Festival.  This used to be the highlight of my year when I still went there, and now it's just fun to mess with the kids.  It's on the field, and there is are a couple things that go on.  There are carnival-type games, and you can win prizes, and a raffle, where you can win a bunch of different things that were donated to the school, and, the best part, there is also an inflatable slide (you know what I mean? The slides that are made out of the same stuff as jumpy houses?), an obstacle course (also an inflatable thing), and usually a jumpy house, but there wasn't one this year.  

For most of the night, me and one of my friends from elementary school, Jennifer, were helping with the obstacle course.  She'd help the kids climb up to the slide part, and I stood on the other side, to make sure the kids kept going through.  One of the highlights of my night was helping this one ADORABLE kid, Josh.  He had the most awesome imagination!  Unlike most of the kids, he talked to us the whole time.  He had to get up "laser mountain" (the slide) and go through the "laser tunnels" (tunnels right after the slide) and then go through the lasers themselves (some bars the kids climbed through), all without having the lasers turn on!  It was all very exciting!  ;) 

After the raffle, most of the kids left, and it was mostly me and my little sister, Rachel, my old best friend from elementary school, Jonathan, and his friend, Kenny, hanging out, and we all messing around on the slide.  It was so fun!  We'd pull each other down, try and run up it, slide down and try to hit each other, all that good stuff.  It was just a really good night, and I also had a good day at school and stuff (A few of you will get that).  I'm also pretty excited because I'm going to get to see Sheila today, and I haven't seen her in 4 months.

The Host

A quote that kept running through my head today:

"So, when he touched me, it was deeper and slower than the wildfire, like the flow of molten lava far beneath the surface of the earth.  Too deep to feel the heat of it, but it moved inexorably, changing the very foundations of the world with its advance." (The Host, page 575)

Make of that what you will, I don't have much analysis for it (without giving away some main parts of the book, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might still read it), I just couldn't stop thinking about it today, so I decided to put it on my blog.

Family Traditions

Well, my family has traditions, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you. No, just kidding, but that's kind of an inside joke with my family...  Every year, over the summer, we have a family reunion thing.  It's not really a family reunion, because most of us aren't related, but we might as well be.  It's a longish story, but, basically, my mom grew up with these people, it is three families that lived together in Taiwan.  We are all basically family.  Now there are three generations of us, and we have so many crazy traditions at our retreats, which we call Chevanurch (I'm not sure where that name came from.).  Some of them are volleyball with water balloons, playing hearts (and the loser gets Lou), making , and singing our song, which has like 200 verses. And I'm not exaggrating.  Every year, at least 1, but usually about 3 verses are added to the song.  It's cheesy, I suppose, but that's how we remember what has happened before.  I have a verse about me.  When I was 5, I lost my first tooth at Chevanurch, and someone wrote a verse about it.  I forget how it goes though.  One of my other favorite traditions is playing hearts.  Every time, on the Sat. night, we play hearts until like 2 in the morning.  One year, maybe even before I was born, Lou was created.  Lou is a sytrofoam cup, full of sourball pits.  It's pretty nasty-looking.  Anyway, Lou is the trophy for when we play hearts, and is given to the loser.  I have never won Lou, a fact I am very proud of.  That might have something to do with the fact that I've only played once, but regardless, I haven't lost so far.  My mom has won Lou twice, and my dad... Well, my dad avoids Chevanurch.  It's all my mom's side of the family, and it's just weird for him, I think.  It's weird for everyone who isn't born into it, but for those of us who are, it's just fun.

I lost the game.

Alex made me.  I wanted to spread the love.  This post really had no point except to annoy you.  You're welcome.