Hey Mr. Park Ranger

So, I’ve been up at the camper all day. It’s been fun, and one of Mitchell’s friends and his family came over a little earlier for a kind of spur-of-the-moment boat outing. We went out on the boats, tubed, enjoyed the sunshine and just had fun. Well, when we came back to put the boat back on the trailer, the Park Ranger was out writing people tickets for their unattended boat trailers (they didn’t have cars attached.) He also wrote a ticket for a boat that was left tied up on the floating pier. Well, we kind of have to tie up our boat so dad can pull the trailer down, get back into the boat, and pull it up onto the trailer. That pontoon boat was blocking the entire thing, so we just kind of had to idle around until we could figure something out. I’m very happy that there was a delay because I got tosee the funniest thing that I have seen in a very long time. Just as the Park Ranger was writing the last ticket, his 4WD Dodge Ram drove uphill, then downhill into the woods by its self. He was chasing it and yelling. It was so, so, so funny! He then turned around, realized we were watching, and said, “Yall didn’t see that, did you?” we all said, “NO…” It was incredibly hilarious. I wish I had a picture. We offered to tow him out, but he didn’t have a strap. 4WD does not work in pine straw, so he was pretty much stuck. It was so great! I felt bad for him. He said he had just forgotten to put it in park. Oops…

To Do:

Before I leave for IMPACT on Monday, I have a boatload of stuff to take care of. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot when it’s all written down, but all jumbled up in my head, there is a whole bunch of stuff to do. Here’s the short of it:

- do about 15 loads of laundry

-clean my room from top to bottom

-go to a graduation and 2 graduation parties

- get ready for campground company

- make a horse costume as well as a costume for myself

-pack

-make cookies (so, this isn’t exactly necessary, but it WILL get done…it’s really a great stress reliever)

-catch up with the pen pals (I’ve neglected them for about 3 months now)

Like I said…that’s the short of it. I should probably be accomplishing some of those tasks right now instead of blogging. haha.

Camping Fun

I actually never got to tell my last barn story yesterday, so I’ll start with that. I was helping Ms.Cathy get Domino ready for a lesson yesterday and I was drinking a bottle water. Domino was giving me her typical blank stare when she suddenly reached out and nudged the water bottle. I was like, “What do you want Domino.” She then proceeded to grab the bottle with her teeth. I tried to tip it up and give her a drink, but she couldn’t hold onto it, so I poured some water into my hand so she could lick it all off. I tried to get her to drink out of the bottle, and on about the twentieth try, we got it. It was so funny. Now we all know that Domino can drink bottled water.

After I came home from the barn, we started loading up the camper and trailer to head over to McKinney. It started raining on us while we were loading up, and everyone was in a bad mood. We were all getting pretty short with each other. We eventually got everything loaded up, and we drove over to the campground to unload everything. Halfway through unloading, it started absolutely POURING down rain. I got very, very wet. I dried off a bit, and Mom and I went to Ingles on Glade Road to get some groceries. IT continued to rain, and we went back to the camper and watched a movie. Rather uneventful evening for us. Our vacations are always like the Griswold family vacations, if you know what I mean. It’s always comical.

On a totally different note, I have had this question plaguing my mind for the past several weeks. You know how all the people running for public office in your city or county place their signs along the side of the road? Well, the other day I was driving down the road and spotted a sign that read “Hicks for coroner.” Since when is coroner an elected position? I was very confused. Who would want to run for that position?

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was quite fun. I was a lazy bum almost the entire time, but it was really needed. Saturday, I cleaned the kitchen extremely well. I smelled like bleach and Comet, and so did everything else in the kitchen. I cleaned other random parts of the house. Mom was gone all day, and Dad and Mitchell were gone too, so I had the whole house to myself. Later that afternoon, Mom came home with a little straggler by the name of Kathryn. Mom and Dad went on a date that night, so Kathryn and I watched 27 Dresses, made tacos, and made dinosaur cookies. We had fun. Sunday was quite amazing. The amount of people that joined in on the baptisms at the last minute was phenomenal. I remember being so incredibly nervous when I got baptized. There I was, 9 year old Madi, in the hugenourmous church of First Baptist Woodstock, being baptized in front of Lord knows how many people. I was such a shy kid then. haha.

Sunday afternoon, we left for Alabama. Kathryn and I entertained Hannah for a while and we went on a boat ride. I have a funny story about something that happened after the boat ride. Well, we got off the boat, and everyone was really quiet. (The people that had stayed behind) One of them finally said, “There was a snake” We thought they just saw it and let it go on its merry way. No, they then proceeded to say, “But it’s dead now because Tanner attached a kitchen knife to a stick and stabbed it to death.” How funny is that? They had the snake in the bucket, and it had to be the height of my brother. Monday, we were bums again. We went to this adorable store in Pell City, we went out to eat Mexican for lunch, and we visited Nana’s adorable new little house.

Today, I went to the barn. It was a fairly quiet day today with only two lessons. It was just me, Syd, Darby, and Ansley. Ms. Cathy had a dentist appt. so she wasn’t back until lunch. I rode Sky. She kind of freaked because we’re extending the arena and the panels were not up. It was a big dirt square, and she didn’t know what to do. We ended up just going for a little walk around the barn in the grass. She liked that. I cleaned out my tack box and switched to the plastic one because the wooden boxes have the potential of being ruined at summer camp. The word is that we’re doing tie-dye shirts as the craft for the week. This means that the conselors will be all the colors of the rainbow when everything is said and done. I find that funny.

Finished it With a Bang

The seniors most definitely went out with a bang this year. They played their prank on the last day possible. It was great, and outdid any other I have ever seen! I died laughing when we pulled up to the school. I probably wouldn’t find it as funny if I didn’t know this group of kids as well as I do. We were all honestly fearing that we would come to school and it would be accidentally (I mean it when I say that) burned to the ground or permanently damaged in some way. Here’s a brief list of what they did (It’s long, but not everything):

- Covered the circular sanctuary roof with TP and bungee corded a larger-than-life wooden Santa and Frosty the Snowman to the steeple.

- Blocked the entryway with an impressive cinder-block wall

-The lobby was Christmas. You basically walked in through a forest of artificial Christmas trees and light-up deer. I almost killed myself tripping over all the Christmas light cords

-The Eagle Cafe was Halloween. Plastic pumpkins, scarecrows, and spiderwebs adorned the walls, tables, and chairs.

- The main hall downstairs was Easter…complete with a live bunny hopping on it’s merry way and carrots dangling from the ceiling.

- The letters spelling “Dr.Joe E. Edwards Library/ Media” center were arranged to spell something else which I found hysterical. If you want to know what that was, go search out the pictures on facebook, because I’m not typing it here. (It’s not inappropriate, I promise) All of the papier mache book characters were taken off the shelves and arranged in a beautiful circle.

- At the top of the staircase leading to the rest of the classrooms were like 200 little plastic cups filled with water. You absolutely could not get through without knocking them all over.

- The main hall upstairs had this great Spiderman theme on one end. Complete with a pinata. There was also a Dora pinata. If you know these seniors, you would guess that they would put something in them that’s not candy. They were filled with cough drops.

-In Mr.Miller’s room, we found a Valentine’s Day theme, a rooster (a real one…running around), and zebra cakes. He had an awful experience with zebra cakes as a child, and will not get near them now. They also covered his smartboard in post-its.

-Mr.Harvey’s room was 4th of July themed. All of his desks were placed in random piles throughout the school. Those were fun to put back, I’m sure.

-Mrs. Mroczko’s room was the absolute worst. The had put Krystals, other burgers, bean burritos, and sardines in inconspicuous as well as conspicuous places in the room, and stuck a space heater in there for 3 hours the night before. When I walked in for homeroom, I pretty much threw up a little in my mouth. haha. We had to move homeroom elsewhere. They had it hidden in the ceiling tiles, the bookcase, her files. It was absolutely NASTY!

-The American flag was replaced with a flag that read “Seniors ‘08″ and they had about a billion photocopied pictures of their class all over the walls. There were also streamers everywhere. You couldn’t even walk down the hall without getting them wrapped around your body.

This was BY FAR the best prank ever! I will never forget it. Our class is already devising plans to top it, but I do not know if that is possible. haha.

On another note, I made it through awards day without falling asleep. I was so proud of Bree! She received a 48,000 dollar scholarship to Salem. She didn’t even tell me. That is quite unbelievable. Yay Bree!

Quips From Madi’s Day

Today was crazy…

- Went to 5th grade graduation, and it was very sad. Mitchell’s coming up to middle school

- Had to make up my Spanish Quiz in the library all by my lonely self…had no idea what I was doing

- Talked to Katt, Erin, and Kaitlyn for the remaining 15 minutes of Bible

- Still waaay behind in art with only less than 24 hours to make it all up

- Coach Adcock went through my ipod in psychology…I got to hear him sing “Fins” and “Love Song”

- Coach asked me to take a trashbag out to the dumpster…I got halfway there before realizing that it was filled with dissected frog. Intestines were everywhere…

- Came home, played guitar hero, cleaned the house

- Writing graduation cards for all those people she got invitations from. Here’s a list of the schools just to show you how many there are: North Cobb Christian, Excel, Etowah, Woodland, East Paulding, Woodward Academy, etc. etc. There were a whole bunch this year. I meant it literally when I said that I just realized I’m not graduating even though the majority of the people I’ve grown up with are. How sad. I’ll be lonely.

- Going with my family and Kathryn to Alabama after church on Sunday. Coming home Monday. We will have a whole lotta fun.

That Time of Year

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when school is almost over, and I begin to look back over years past. I do it every year. Pull out the baby pictures, the old yearbooks, home videos, and even old journals to see how much I’ve changed. This year, while looking back through yearbooks from ‘97 to ‘00, I realized something peculiar. I currently look way more like my first grade self than my sixth or seventh grade self. Weird how that works. My personality is more like my first grade self also…with a little more extroversion. In upper elementary and middle school, I was an interesting person. I was very introverted, and I never did anything adventurous or worth telling anyone about. I guess that stage is kind of awkward for everyone. I actually remember telling my mother while we were shopping one day that I had no personality. I had zero confidence in myself. I also pretty much didn’t do what I was told half the time. Whereas in kindergarten through second grade I was the kid that sat in mydesk with her Lisa Frank folders (of course) and wanted to answer all the questions in class, but I never raised my hand because I wanted to give others a chance. I thought I was depriving them of something by answering it myself. I had a very laid-back personality, and I was always the go-between for friends who were “never talking to each other again.” Yep…that was little Madi. I actually had a boy as my best friend for those three years. He was so sweet, but not many of my other friends wanted to be around him. We were quite inseparable.

All that looking back made me begin to wonder where everyone is today. I wonder how many have changed as much as I have, or how many are the person that I always imagined them to be when they got older…

…3 and 1/2 more days!

Almost finished with my sophomore year. Only 2 more to go…did you detect that hint of sarcasm? Well, today I took y Bible exam which required me to know a brief overview of all 66 books of the Bible. I also took the suprise Psychology exam. That was fun! He let us use the books that we never use in class. They were a bit helpful, but not extremely helpful. We had our Beta Club end of the year party which basically consisted of all of us getting together to play Guitar Hero in Mr.Harvey’s classroom while he made quesadillas on this cool little travel “griddle” I guess you would call it. Bree totally rocked Kaitlyn’s socks off…and Bree is colorblind. I did not play because Kathryn would not play with me. She’s not into making a fool of herself like I am. Kaitlyn and I thought that we should finally have our Science Olympiad cookout sometime at Dellinger. We seriously considered cooking like 4 pounds of beef, stuffing it in a pinata, and not telling anyone what we put in there. Electric vehicle team should totally have that privelege because we got our team a second place in the competition. haha. I have come to the resignation that I am, in fact, a dork. Here I am blogging about Beta Club and Science Olympiad. Pretty great, but probably not all that intriguing for my readers. I’m very sad that some of these great seniors are going to be graduating in four days. I think I’ll cry…only I won’t get to watch them actually graduate because I have to be at Woodland’s graduation at 8. So, I’ll get about 45 minutes of ours. Tears will probably be involved in those 45 minutes of program handing-outting and running here and there. I wish all of my buds the best as they go on to college. Those guys will do some great things in this world. I’m still waiting on a senior prank. I’ll be sad if there isn’t one because I expected something good out of this group.

 

27 Dresses

So…I pretty much feel like Jane off of “27 Dresses” because I have been running all over the state of Georgia, and a little of Alabama lately. All of my trips have required some sort of unique outfit. It’s been a good kind of crazy, but kind of stressful. I’m very ready for school to be over. My Psychology exam is tomorrow as of yesterday. We thought it was on Wednesday, so I really don’t even know what’s going to be on it. I talked to coach tonight at Baccalaureate and he told me not to worry, and that I’d be fine. I guess I have to trust him on this one.

Freedom was absolutely wonderful this morning. We had some people get saved (Praise the Lord! : ) and I got a lot out of the message. I only had 2 kids in elementary at 11. We had fun. We watched the video, played the Jesus freeze tag game and did a puzzle. Eventually they got bored of the puzzle and wanted to make up a game. This is what they told me:

Kid: Madi! Madi! We made up a game

Me: What kind of game

Kid: Well, it’s called “Flash Me”

Me: would you like to explain this?

Kid: okay, so you count, one of us will hide, and when you are finished counting, the other one of us will flash the lights and go look for the one that’s hiding. get it? flash me?

Me: okay…

So, when they told me the name of their game I was a little bit concerned until they explained it. It they go home and tell their parents that they played “Flash Me” at church, the parents should probably know that I had no part in that. I was teaching them about Jesus, I promise. haha.

Well, I only have 5 more days of running around. Today was kind of rough because I forgot that we live almost 45 minutes from Liberty Square. After church, we went out to lunch and got home around 3. I was then informed that we were leaving at 4:30. I actually kept drifting off to sleep while trying to get ready. This happened once with my head on top of my laptop, once while standing up (from my waist up, I was lying on the bed face first, but I was standing on the floor), and once in the middle of my bedroom floor. Oh, how I missed my tradition of a 4 hour Sunday afternoon nap. haha.

Caspian

That movie was quite AMAZING! It did not seem like two and a half hours long. Courtney and I were so into it. We bought a large popcorn, and we didn’t even eat more than 20 pieces. It was funny. I was kind of disappointed that Caspian was such a pansy. Peter was the chivalrous heroic one. Wisely put in the words of Maggie and Kaitlyn while playing a game.

Maggie: Never have I ever had a celebrity crush.

Kaitlyn: Gerard is not a crush, he’s my soul mate!

Yes. That is wonderful.