Superstorm Sandy

Post Tropical Cyclone Sandy? Come on, isn't that pretty much the same thing as a hurricane? I mean, personally, I think she is still big enough, strong enough, and crazy enough, to still be considered a hurricane. But far be it from me to question the weather guys' professional opinion:) I'm just still in shock at the size of her. She's all the way up north, flooding parks and shutting down bridges, and 600 miles always her tailwinds are howling around our house. Craziness. But (much to my dismay) winds and clouds are all we have. Not hardly as exciting as my friends and family back in PA. No close roads, interstates, flooding, power outages, not even rain. Call me weird, but besides the fact that they are dangerous, I like these storms. I'm sure if I lived on the Jersey shore, I wouldn't be saying this, but living in the mountains these storms aren't normally as detrimental. Life just isn't as exciting without times like these. I mean, really people, we could be making history here!:) And just think of all the stories you can tell your kids and grandkids. It's not that often that NYC gets practically shut down.
     So to end, I'll just say that I'm praying for all my friends and family in Bear Creek, Philly, New Jersey, and PA in general. Even though I am jealous you're having all the excitement without me:)

what tebow's going to be when he gets old...

You know how all little boys go through phases? Like Tristan went through a huge Bob the Builder phase, then Thomas the Tank Engine, then Lighting McQueen, and now Sarah says he's always pretending to be a pirate. Ah, I miss that kid. But anyway, recently Nathan has been really into football. He will just come up to me and randomly do like this shoulder shove thing, and then say "Ah, I love ramming people." Sometimes I don't understand his thought process. But yesterday after I decided that he had been playing football for long enough by himself,  I took him outside to toss the ball around. He can spiral that ball better then I can, but his catching skills are another story. So, in attempt to help him catch better,  I was telling him that if he sees the ball coming way over his head, he needs to try to back up, instead of just reaching his hands up hoping that somehow ball will magically come to him. Well, right after I told him that, I did the same exact thing. But in my defense, he wayy over threw the ball, and the ball went into the woods, so even if I backed up I still would've missed. But anyway after I didn't catch it, Nate said (totally mocking me), "You need to back uuuuuppppp."

"Nathan, I'm the coach and I tell you what to do, you don't tell me."

He states matter a factly, "A coach would've been able to catch it."

I so didn't expect him to say that, I just started laughing, "Yeah, how do you know?"

"Because normally coaches used to be football players."

"How do you know that?"

"Because when Tim Tebow gets old....."

"He's going to become a football coach?"

"Uh huh" and then we both started laughing.

why I love minions....

So I was on my sisters facebook today (I use her's because I don't have one) and I came across this stinkin' hilarious video. I laughed til my stomach hurt the first time I saw it....and the time after that, and the time after that, but it never gets old. Why do I find them so funny? It must just be a minion fan thing.

props to singles mom and oldest siblings with multiple younger siblings

After trying to get my sisters into bed tonight, I'm reminded how much I respect and admire single moms and oldest siblings.
    Tonight we are staying at a beautifully elegant bed and breakfast. We just spent eight hours today at a Landry Academy(our online school) Lab Intensive. An intensive is pretty much a year's worth of high school labs and experiments in two days. Today we took our blood type ( I'm O+ in case you're curious), we dissected a frog and an earthworm, we looked at healthy lungs and smoker's lungs, we looked at the stomata of a leaf, we extracted some of our DNA (which I learned stands for deoxyribose nucleic acid... ahhh, I feel so smart when I say that) we learned about genetics and lots of other stuff. But I'll write more about that later, because I've gotten way off topic.
     So, back to my original point. Like I said, we are spending the night at a B&B, and Dad and Nate have a room and the girls and I have a room. Which means I'm the oldest and have to make sure everyone gets their homework finished, teeth brushed, and into bed without breaking or damaging any body parts, objects, ect. Which you would think, with a 12 and 14 year, wouldn't be that much of a challenge. Think again. As part of our homework we had to complete a lab report about blood typing. Kate whipped hers out like a lab report factory. Mariah on the hand layed in bed moaning and lamenting, saying how she hated this stuff and how she didn't even understand it and she didn't care if she got an F and she was never going to do this stuff in college. I felt bad for her, but she's just so funny, I couldn't help but laugh at some of her comments. I will say this is pretty advanced stuff though, especially if biology isn't your forte. It's easier for me because I did a lot of this last year, but still, I was in 10th grade and she's only in 8th. So I understand her confusion. She pulled through and managed to finish her report. She had me proof read it, and when I was finished and they were in bed, I thought I could finally get to my own work. I don't think I ever been more wrong in my life...

Scene begins with me sitting in the little living room in the back of the room and Mariah and Kate in bed in the other room.

Mariah asks Katie, "Did you even understand the diffusion and osmosis stuff today?"
Katie, "Kinda."
Mariah calls to me, "Abby, did you?"
"Yeah, but I learned it last year too, so it was easy for me. What didn't you get?"
"I don't know..."
I then to proceed to quickly explain diffusion, osmosis, semipermeable cell membranes, equilibrium, homeostasis, and how glucose can go through the membrane but starch can't because it's too big, and all that stuff. I also talked about the experiment we did about that.
Afterwards I asked, "Does that make sense now?"
Kate, "Oh, yeah."
Mariah, "Bless whoever gets thats." And she sounded so lost and confused when she said it, it made me die laughing.

Then I have Mariah come to me for a second so I can show her how to correct a pie chart she had made, and make sure she understands what she did wrong.
  "No, I'm scared."
  "Mariah, come here!"
  "No!"
  "Mariah, I'm serious, get in here!"
She sheepishly pokes her head in the door.
"Let's go."
She walks in hugging her pillow, and stands halfway across the room from me.
"I'm scared." I think she was joking at this point.
 "Come sit next to me" She does and then I show how to fix the chart.
Well, if Mariah's out of bed, why would Kate stay in bed? And Mariah said she wouldn't stay unless Kate stayed too. Am I really that scary?  So despite my objections, Kate joined us and began reading about the labs for tomorrow. When I finish with Mariah, she goes back to bed but Kate stays and keeps reading. Mariah then comes back in and says Katie needs to come to bed too. But she walked in liked a zombie and the pillow she had on her head just made it funnier. So of course Katie and I start laughing. Then Mariah starts laughing. And it went downhill from there. I think my biggest problem is that I can't not laugh. They can just be so funny! Especially Mariah. So while they're in full blown second wind mode, I'm trying to use my big mean sister voice to get them settled down. Which I found out doesn't work when you're laughing. There was kinda a pattern to the night. They get in bed for a few minutes, then come busting back in the room, laughing and laughing about something one of them said, then I manage to get them back in bed, but only to have the cycle repeat itself a few moments later. I can't even remember all that went on or all that was said, but I know for a fact that things are 100 times funnier when you have your second wind. For example, Katie comes to me laughing hysterically. Why? Mariah called her a minion. Yes, I love minions and they are hilarious. But that funny? She definitely had a bad case of second winded-ness...if that's even a thing. Or she was extremely loopy as my friends would say. Then mariah comes stumbling in declaring she had heat stroke. It's an inside joke, so of course I started laughing. And as hard as I tired not to laugh, I pretty much laughed at everything. At one point Katie was rushing to jump into bed, but as she was jumping onto the bed she knocked (quite hard) the side table with her knee and knock the lamp over. She was then laying in bed holding her scraped knee and doing this laugh-cry thing that I think most girls can do pretty well. But when Mariah got so out of control that she broke the door knob... that's when I drew the line. I still laughed and had trouble stopping, but eventually I was able to pull myself together and make then get into bed once and for all.
     But I guess even as much as I wanted a normal night; life just wouldn't be as fun or memorable unless there were some nights like tonight every once in a while, right?

So to end I'll just say that as hilarious as tonight was, I'm glad that I don't always have to be the oldest sibling and I certainly pray I'll have to do the whole single parenting thing.


Side note: So I thought I had gotten them in bed? No. They just got really quiet, but the scheming went on. When I finally went to bed, I opened the door to a mountain of pillows. Remember, it's dark because I just had turned the lights out. They had taken pretty much all the pillows (which was a ton. There was seriously like a bazillion through pillows on the beds) and barricaded the door way. And what the first thing Katie says to the next morning? "Did you run into our booby-trap?!"

sunny with a high of 75...

 Yesterday was yet another beautiful day here in North Carolina. Nate, Kate, and I went on a walk. It was so nice to actually be able to wear shorts and a t-shirt and not feel cold...something that I probably wouldn't be able to do right now in PA. And while on the walk, we practiced  the art of whistling with acorns. I'm getting pretty good if I do say so myself:)
     Since the weather was so nice, I didn't want to go back inside after the walk. So, I took Nate for a wave runner ride. Or, maybe I should say he took me haha:) One of his favorite things to do is have me drive in circles until there are a bunch of wave in the middle and then we cut through the circle go through the waves. We decided that we were the sheepdog and we were herding sheep. When we drove through the waves I yelled 'charge the sheep!' And Nathan would just laugh and make me do it again.

trip to tennessee

Day 1 in the Smokies-
     Today we went for a drive through Cade's Cove. It was so pretty with mountains all dressed up in their fancy fall colors. It was also a great history lesson learning all about how people lived back then. And I just gotta say, I love being a girl but if I had to live back then I don't think I'd feel the same way. Floor length, long sleeved, turtle neck dresses, cooking three meals a day, from scratch over an open fire in a small kitchen on a hot July day is not exactly a life I long to live. Let's just say I'm glad I'm born when I was:)
     Later that afternoon we went to a awesome aquarium and saw Nemo, Dory, Bubble, Gurgle, and all their other tank buddies:)

Day 2:
     We went to Dollywood and The Dixie Stampede. I've been to both many times, but they never get old and I always have a blast!

birthday dinner on the porch:)

Mariah had her first horse show this past Saturday. She and Red did really well and came home home with a blue ribbon:) It was pretty bad weather and rained the whole time. By the afternoon it started thundering so they had to end the show early. I guess she'll never forget her first show when she had to ride in the pouring rain! The weather forecast said just a 40 percent  chance of rain... well so much for that:)