A Weekend With Gracie...

So a year ago my mom's best friend and her family (husband and two daughters) had to move to Singapore. We hadn't seen them since.

Well...

They're here!!!

They came to the USA to visit friends from Ohio and us :) and to get food that they can't get in Singapore and other items that aren't in Singapore.

They came Saturday :) and they're leaving Tuesday :(

Any-who I took a LOT of photos during the weekend so here they are:

They brought us gifts. Everyone got their own little gift. Except me ... mine got left that their house in Ohio. Oh well, I'll get it some time. Anyway, the dragon fly looking things are balance toys. They balance on your finger (or your lip if you are talented like Gracie) by standing on their nose . I did get one of these :) Mines the yellow one. Beth got a green one, Clay got a blue one, and William got a red one.

We also got these things called "Water Babies" and they come in a little glass jar (and when I say little I mean LITTLE!!) and they are VERY small little colored balls. What you do is you place them in the water and they grow! To about the size of a small marble. They're quiet interesting!They are squishy, and jelly like, and just plain weird! Yet cool at the same time! William seams to enjoy them :)





Gracie and Emma both LOVE all the animals in the house, especially the guinea pigs. Gracie talked to her dad on the phone and said "This name is kinda silly, but cute...So it's silly, but still cute ... They have a guinea pig named Bed Head..." and after she handed the phone to her mom Gail said "She was talking about one of their guinea pigs, it has hair that sticks up all over the place; it's suppose to; so they call it Bed Head..." Anyway, I'm getting off track. Gracie wants to get the guinea pigs out all.the.time and I keep having to tell he that they are too hot and tired. She doesn't want to listen though. So when she can't get a guinea pig out she likes to play with the gerbils. Which (despite Gracie's wishes) also get hot and tired. Sooooo when we aren't playing with guinea pigs or gerbils we're playing with ...... that's right - chickens. Don't ask what is soooooo cool about chickens, but she really likes them. She loves feeding them too, which I have to admit is fun. When we were out feeding chickens for about the third time she tried to feed them dandelions (that have gone to seed) which, I have to say, they didn't enjoy. they just kind of looked at her as if to say "What? That's all you got??" It was funny. So when she was trying to feed the chickens the dandelions I said "They don't like that (she takes it away from them) Why don't you make a wish??" So she did ...








and I thought it was too cute to pass up. I forget what she wished for, but she said it out loud. It was cute either way :) speaking of too cute to pass up, here is my edited version of the same photo:
so here is a before and after right nest to each other:
I honestly think it turned out really cute. What do you think?

Anyway, there's probably a lot more that I could say, but I just don't have time! (It's been a week since this actually happened so if I ever want to get it posted I better do it now)

Overall we had a GREAT time with the Dixons :) <3 YOU ALL!!

~*~Kate~*~

Do Hard Things

I finished a book today. A really good book. It's called "Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations" written by Alex and Brett Harris.

the back cover reads:

Most people don't expect you to understand what we're going to tell you in this book.
And even if you understand, they don't expect you to care.
And even if you care they don't expect you to do anything about it
And even if you do something about it, they don't expect it to last.
WE DO.

It's about how the world expects little from teenagers, and teenagers expect the same from themselves, when really teenagers can do hard things. There are a lot of stories from real teens and how they did hard things.

I definitely recommend this book to every tween/teen, it's a great read.

Dance!

I remember the day my mom asked if I wanted to take ballet lessons. I was nine, almost ten, and I said "Sure, couldn't hurt. If I didn't like it, I didn't haven't to do it next year." Not do it next year? What was I thinking?! Dance is now one of the biggest things in my life! It's helped me in so many way, not to mention I made one of my very best friends at dance. I have to say that I am probably a lot less shy than I used to be, though I am still shy. I used to look down all the time, but now I hold my head high, saying "I am a dancer, and dancers don't look down."

I am now learning four different styles of dance: ballet, tap, pointe, and lyrical jazz. This year is my 5th year in ballet, 4th year in tap, and 1st in pointe and lyrical jazz. Pointe is hard work, but it's so worth it. Jazz is becoming one of my new favorites, but pointe and ballet will always be on the top of my list.


I actually wrote this post a while back, so I updated it to say that I have made it to pointe :) I just thought I'd post it.

Easter Photos (taken on easter)

Here are the photos taken yesterday right after church.

My poor little foot

My food hurts and I don't know why :( A muscle in my arch. I tried massaging it last night, and woke up to find that that didn't help at all. So my ballet teacher suggested I ice it, so that is what I'll do next. It hurts to walk on it, and this makes me very sad :( Poor little foot ...

Easter Picture

New Friends!

I got three more gerbils yesterday! They are all males and they are very, very friendly. I put my hand in the cage and they crawl up my arm! They don't have names, so I made a poll over there --> so you can vote on names. PLEASE vote. OK, here are the pictures: