Blog #9

My ideal vacation just occurred this past September.  My parent's for their 40th Wedding Anniversary took my family and my sister's families to Walt Disney World!  The last time I was there was 1988, I was so excited, and this was my daughter's first time.  It was great to be with my sister's, brother-in-laws, parent's and of course my husband and daughter, it's not often that you have the opportunity anymore to go on a family vacation together.  The best part was my daughter turned 9 when we were there, so every where we went, the characters would wish her a Happy Birthday, it was so special.  We had awesome weather, and because it was September the water parks were still open, Typhoon Lagoon, and Blizzard Beach were fantastic, of course, I would be fine laying out by the pool at the resort as well.  We got to trick or treat at the Magic Kingdom -it was the most amazing light show I have ever seen, as you lined the street's for the parade, music comes on and then there before your eyes is the Headless Horseman on Horseback appearing out of nowhere and riding down main street!  It was incredible, my husband and I just looked at each other with our jaws dropped, we couldn't even speak we were so awestruck.  The crazy thing was just as quickly as he appeared he disappeared again.  I also finally got to go in Cinderella's Castle and have dinner with the princess's, I have always wanted to see the inside of the Castle and I got to share that with my daughter the night of her birthday!  It was worth everything, the service was incredible, and my daughter was so in awe at the beautiful princess's that came to talk to her and wish her Happy Birthday, I actually teared up at dinner and my husband looked at me across the table and said "You gave our baby a memory that she will never forget." What more can I say, nobody does it like Disney, from the fireworks, to the amazing parks, the friendliest staff it truly is the Greatest Place on Earth.

Blog #8

This semester has been full of papers, or small essays; when it started it was difficult for me to come up with ideas.  I was afraid I lost my creativity, I would just stare at the computer screen with a terrible sense of writer's block.  I then started to rely on writing things I knew, and before long thoughts were coming to me. Granted it wasn't make up things or being creative but it worked.  I realized that when you get to a certain age make believe is no more, because you have enough life experience to alter how you used to think.  You think what's possible more than what can be.  I think that's why it has been such a struggle, when I was younger, high school age, I was a terrrific writer and was not afraid to write papers that's why when no ideas would come I started to panic. This has been good for me, it has made me push myself and get my thoughts out.  This has been a great outlet, and I think will help as I continue on in college.  I am much more aware of comma's now, grammer has always been a strugle.  I really try to focus on flowing from one subject to the other and making sure the order of things makes sense to the reader.  The feedback that I,ve received from my peers so far has been good. I think if you want to grow, you have to continue to write, even if it's not for school.  I wish I would have done that when I graduated from high school, it would have really benefited me.

Blog #7

It was quite difficult to pick a research topic, it took weeks, then finally my husband said "pick a topic your interested in, the idea's will flow".  I hate to admit it but he was right, I like archery it's something I started because of my husband, and about a week before he gave me this idea, we were at my daughter's school talking to her gym teacher about starting an archery program.  He said he was working on it but getting alot of negativity from the school board, I then decided to do some research on it and if I found good things about it, we could present it to them. It wasn't difficult to find, many schools around the country are doing it and the testimonials we really encouraging.  It's a sport that as a society has been forgotten.  Most people think of robin hood when they hear bow and arrow, but it's really much more than that.  There's a concentration and a technique to it and like golf you compete with yourself.  If you don't follow through the same way every time you won't do well.  We also noticed that some of our prestige's colleges still had archery teams, and awarded scholarships.  I don't know anyone who doesn't want the help of a scholarship.  My next thing was to find out if kids would like it and be enthusiastic if it was offered, because that's the real reason for offering it in the first place.  Again the testimonials were out of this world!  The kids not only liked it they embraced it they were excited, also the best thing was you didn't have to be the typical "jock" to be good at it anyone could do it even children with handicaps.  It was an exciting topic to research, and I hope by the time I'm able to get my teaching degree it will be offered in our school.

Blog #6

The Christmas Holiday fly's by for my family.  As soon as Christmas Eve hits were off and running literally.  Christmas Eve morning were up at the crack of dawn, getting cleaned up, grabbing what's needed for the day (because we won't return until about 10pm that night) and heading to visit my in-laws.  We visit, play games, and cook and cook all morning, around 2pm we eat!  Usually we could feed any army with the amount of food that we make, so lunch the next day is all the left-overs.  By 4pm were out the door and heading to my dad's side of the family.  We have the party by taking turns,  every 8yrs it's my turn, 20 people in all. We eat and laugh. We then exchange presents, each person is to bring one gift wrapped with no name on it, we then draw numbers and pick from the pile by the number you were given. You can pick an un-wrapped present by the pile or take someone else's. The last person to pick has the best advantage because they can take any of the gifts.  The fun part is we usually fight over the most ridiculous gift, and it's a riot when
everyone opens them to see what they were fighting for. Then we head for home because Santa has to come sometime that night.  We have to wait for our daughter to go through her rituals of setting out cookies and milk, writing a letter to Santa, and going out to the front yard to put "special" reindeer food in the front lawn.
Christmas Day unfortunately is not any slower than the day before, we get up open our presents, by 10:30 my in-laws come over to exchange and have brunch(the left-overs) Then by 3pm we say good-bye and leave to go to my parents home for dinner and to exchange as well.  When it's all said and done we usually get back home around midnight. WHEW!