with all further ado: snowcones, suitcases and sacred fish rituals

'Ello.
Well, I haven't gotten on here in a while, because I have been unfairly busy for the past few days. On Monday, I went to Cedar Point, a huge ginormous awesome amusement park in Ohio. It was a class trip, and all the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders attended. For someone like myself who has never before been to an amusement park or ridden a roller coaster, it was a fantastic experience! I only rode one roller coaster, but I rode it twice—it's called the Maverick and it's AMAZING. It has the sheerest drop in the park, at a shriek-inducing 95-degree steeper-than-vertical drop, and a terrifying 400-foot dark tunnel with a speed launch of 75 mph. The two minutes and thirty seconds of sharp turns and plunges was definitely worth the one-hour and fifteen minute wait. As soon as the thing started moving, I squeezed my eyes shut.... and then, unfortunately, I had the pleasure of opening my eyes at just the wrong moment... around 0:19 in the video below. It was so much fun! After my friend and I had lunch (huge snowcone... very yummy!) and I had devoured half of a colossal Sweets n Treats elephant ear (also very yummy) we rendezvous'd with our chaperones at Gemini. Then a few of my friends and I headed back up to give the Maverick another spin around the lot. The line was considerably shorter in the heat and when we got up there, one girl in our company got sick and had to go back down—that meant I had to ride by myself, as she was my riding buddy. Anyway, the coaster was awesome and afterwards we all headed back down to go to the waterpark. Two of my friends had rented lockers, though, which are located on the opposite side of the park from the Maverick. We walked down to the lockers, which took foreeeever, and then headed back up to the waterpark, which also took foreeever, as it's on the same side as the roller coasters. Finally we got there and the water was so nice on our hot sore feet! I acually rode a water slide (I KNOW!), after chickening out halfway up the steps on my first attempt. It was fun, and I rode three or four times... It was really high up! Then we floated down the Lazy River thing (I don't know if that's actually what it's called, so please don't tell the Cedar Point people. They might think I'm falsely advertising them. Which I'm not.) and then spent some time in the wave pool. After that we returned to the thing previously mentioned which I'm just not going to name so I don't have to type all that parenthese'ed info again, and retired from the waterpark. We waited while Keilani got a henna tattoo and then promptly lost her after she asked us to go buy her a pizza—this wouldn't have been that much of a problem if there hadn't been a chaperone-inforced rule that if you are caught alone in the park without a buddy from school, you have to "spend some time with Mrs. Johnson", and that, with all due respect to Mrs. Johnson (she's awesome), leaves much to be desired while in the middle of an amusement park, surrounded by roller coasters and thrill rides with your name all over them. Eventually we found her, just in time for the evening roundup and check-in at seven o'clock. We raced to the carousel and barely made it there in time. We all boarded our COACH BUS and found out that someone had indeed gone missing.... I won't mention names, but Chase always goes missing, so this was no surprise. We were almost an hour late heading home, and at 11:30 or so we arrived at the school, tired and half asleep. I got a ride home from my friend Marissa—a more unfortunate friend, as she had left her phone, iPod, and someone else's camera in her bag with the spray-on sunscreen, which exploded all over from the pressure on one of the rides. (The phone lived.... but that was it.)
source

I've been packing all week for vacation. Every year my parents and I head out to our family home in Montana, where we spend the summer with lots of relatives and buffalo burgers and Fourth of July celebrations and hikes. Anyway, I've been packing like crazy in between teaching myself how to play Titanic on the piano, karate practices, cross country workouts, piano lessons, and recitals of sorts... I can't wait to start the trip! We leave on Sunday. Oh, and I got my report card. Frabjous day! >_<

Yesterday we went to Pizza Pub with my AWESOME aunt and uncle/godparents, Judy and Glenn. It's really not every day that one gets to carry a covered cloth bag full of live and swimming fish into a restaurant and then whisper guardedly to a random person chatting with your parents, "Pssst... you'll never guess what I have in my bag. Heh heh heh heh heh. FISH." We took the fish out to Judy and Glenn's beautiful house and released them in the pond. Good-bye fishies. Have a good summer at fishie camp. See you in August.