the latest

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Well, here's the latest...

I regret to inform you that my sweet, beautiful fishie Squeak has passed away.  My lovely fish was unfortunately caught in the filter of the pond he was spending the summer in when a horrible raccoon disassembled the filter.  Little Squeak was stuck and he could not breathe.  He was a wonderful, nice, fat fishie and he is and will always be greatly missed.  He lived a long and glorious life and he died peacefully before he really knew what was up.  I hope the other fish in the pond aren't too sad.  I'm sure they will help my other fish, Bubbles, through this tough time.  We all love you, Squeak.  Rest in peace.

Also, my doggie Jack pulled a muscle in his neck :( poor pup!  He can hardly move and just petting him hurts... the vet says if he doesn't get better with the pills and muscle relaxants, they'll get him to a CT scan in Great Falls.  Poor puppy!  Today he chased a chipmunk and I think that made him feel a bit better.  At least he doesn't have to have the lampshade of shame on his neck, like another dog I saw today. :( On a brighter note, here's some good things:

seeing the decemberists in missoula(!)... more on this later, i promise • discovering what delicious works of evil i can do with a blender (banana, peach, oj, greek yogurt & lot of ice... mmm) • having lots of friends out for a 2 day sleepover • swimming in the river for hours and developing the first stages of hypothermia • having an awesome aunt/cousins who sent me the dress i have been wanting forever • watching "tangled" three times in two days • the very cute cat at the vet's office • successfully climbing up onto the roof via nearby tree and doing karate up there • nutella • learning how to make flowers out of buttons • staying with my dad's step dad's wonderful niece peggy while in missoula.  she loves crafts and taught me how to hook wool and make really cool flowers out of buttons! her house is HUGE. • having that urge to look at pictures of vintage bikes (?) • new sunglasses • teaching myself guitar • typewriters • rocky road ice cream in the freezer calling my name...brb • ramen nooodles.  "oriental" flavor. • i realize most of this is about food.  now that's what a good blog post should look like ;) • mr. timn • an utterly on-the-spot ad-lib filming of mr. timn with my awesome friends (i'll post it below... it's not quite complete, though.) 

And here's some links for ya:

This website is loaded with pictures of goats and puppies.  Two of my favorite things.

Zombie feet sandals

(via miss cellania)

Ten Reasons Hurricane Season is Like Christmas

And last but definitely not least, that video:

 

Sorry about the horrible quality... as I said, it was completely spur-of-the-moment and we only had one camera, my dad's, which was out of batteries and doesn't have the best film quality.  I just did my best with what I had.  My next vid will be better I hope!

PS my Rocky Road was disgusting.

web jetsam

just some happy old ladies.

Shark population has gone down 99% due to shark finning.... this is sick.

The LDF.  Goes along with that last one...

Doom Cakes—LOL

eHarmony Video Bio.  Heeheeeeeeeeee

My mom showed me this.  Haha, I don't know what it is and I can't read it, but the pictures make me laugh!

Avatar 2 Trailer... Found this today while eagerly awaiting the release of Avatar 2.

castles

I have a new obsession with castles.  I'm reading I Capture the Castle for the second time.  And, I remembered that there's actually a family castle in Scotland!  So cool!  But I feel like it should be a ruins on an island, with overcast skies and such surrounding it, haha.  Our wonderful friend Sylvia, who just recently moved to Wisconsin, (we miss you Sylvia!) also has a castle related to her family, Castle Stalker.  Pretty cool, right?  Now I just want to go to England/Scotland/Ireland even more!

castle stalker

guthrie castle

castle stalker... sorry, i can't give you sources on these, i don't remember where i got them

i don't know what this is.  google images. :3

i done clumb a mountain.

And I done clumb a mountain gooood.

thom is the king of the worldddd!

beth is the queen of the worldddd!

 ^...........see that speck? it's my cousin, sander.

................................................................^

picnic spot

sander behind the mountain we done clumb

the abyss of doom... i was standing on scree. 

Well then—pictures first!  I'm fancy!

As I said, I done clumb a mountain.  On Saturday the 9th, my family and I climbed Ear Mountain.  We set out early and piled in the Subaru and drove as close as we could to the base.  Our party consisted of my uncle Erik, uncle Thom, aunt Beth, cousin Sander, cousin Emily and myself.

It took forever to get to the base of it.  We scrambled over ridge after ridge until we reached its roots, and began to work our way up the steep, rocky slope.  If you suffer from vertigo, this is not the hike for you!  I was doing okay until I realized how terrified my cousin was— she's very afraid of heights, and that part was hard for all of us!  I was doing fine, as I said, until I got tired and sat down.   Then all of a sudden it felt like all that empty space in front of us was pressing me against the mountain.  From then on, I would take about ten steps and have to rest.  When we reached the top, we ran into the most unexpected thing to find on top of a mountain— a fence?!  Up there at 8500 feet? Pretty weird.

We then scrambled over a hill and scouted the landscape to find a good picnic spot.  We hiked to the said picnic spot, a nice, tiny little valley under the caves on the south end of the mountain.  We had our lunch there and then Erik, Sander and I braved the scree so we could have a look around the mountain.  It was then we discovered that there was no way to get to the chimney without going back down the other side of the mountain, and up a steep, scree mountain goat trail— that's a problem, because this "chimney" is the only way you can get up the steep cliffs to the top of the mountain.  So sadly, and against many protests (mostly from me) (actually, all from me) we had to turn around and hike back to the picnic spot.

We headed down after a while, and promptly got lost.  We were on the last bit, and we could see the road... so near but yet so far! Haha.  We were all tired and dehydrated and low on water (although we did have a few melted chocolate bars.)  I had swallowed the last bit of my water for lunch— all that was packed for beverages was a bottle of wine, and Sander brought some beers :P  So there wasn't anything but water for me.  Which meant I was veryyy thirsty on the way down... but then, by some stroke of luck, we passed a mountain spring and I refilled my bottle.  Too high for giardia, I hope!  :)
After a couple hours of "Here, it's just over this ridge.... *another ridge comes into sight* NOOO" we finally got to the car, thirsty, hot, and tired.  We drove home, showered, and had some dinner (raclette!  Best meal ever!) and concluded our day with some music-playing with friends Mary and Rich.
All in all, it was a really great day! :D

hitchhiking, emu burgers, and the fourth of july

Hellooooo, worldddd!  Hope each and every one of y'all had a great Fourth!  Happy birthday America!

     I spent the evening of the third making Fourth of July fascinators with my family.  Yep, you're jealous.  Hahaha!  They weren't quite Princess Beatrice's, but they sure were a hit!
     I woke up early in the morning on the Fourth so I could go into town to be in the musical's float in the parade.  We all woke up bright and early (crack of 7:45!), donned our fascinators, and headed out in the van.
     We were about 10 miles on our way when my mom heard a hissing noise.  She pointed it out to us, and declared that she hoped it wasn't a tire.  A second later, the hissing had reached an awful screeching and clattering, and with a scrape we broke down at the side of the road.
     Before I go on, I must point out that we were 10 long, hot miles from home, and 20 longer, hotter miles to town.  I was supposed to be at the courthouse at 9:15 to queue up for the parade—it was 9:20 already.  So with a groan we tumbled out of our crippled vehicle, and began the hunt for the spare tire. 
     I realized that it was not humanly possible for us to make it in town on time, if at all, so my mom and I walked up the road a ways and held out our thumbs.  An RV drove by, paused, stared at us, and drove on.  A pickup drove by—no room.  Another pickup drove by: third time's the charm, they say—the charm being a big red truck full of dogs and magazines.  The man introduced himself as Gary, and sadly I forget the name of his wife.  Gary wanted to know if by any chance we could find a John Deere hat store in PA, and his wife discussed blood vessels and brain surgery with my mom.  
     Finally, we got to town and I surprised my fellow thespians with my astonishing tale of dedication, hahaha.  Mrs. Dawn Gunderson, our director, was laughing and wanted to know if we actually stuck out our thumbs to get a ride.  The parade was great, and we performed our first number from "A Little Bit of Showbiz", Top Hat and Classy Cane, for the crowds.  After the parade we hung out on the float a while and talked to and thanked Dawn for everything.  Then my family showed up to pick me up and we headed back home on our spare tire. 
     Later we went back into town without further trouble, and the rodeo was great until a bull began to gore a cowboy, and the clown stepped in and saved his life.  The clowns really are the bravest, most admirable people in the rodeo (especially dancing with Beth!  KIDDING!  Haha, more on this story later.).  Then, at the end, there was the wild cow milking event.  LOL!  It's hilarious... whoever wants to can sign up to do it.  During the rodeo, anyone who feels inclined can sign up.  Then, the teams of three to ten or so people are given a beer bottle and a cow.  At the whistle, one team member pulls open the gate and releases the wild cow.  The cow is not tame and hasn't been milked before.  They then have to wait until the second whistle to go to their cow, who at this time is rampaging through the arena causing chaos everywhere.  They have to get enough milk out of the cow to pour out the bottle—the first team to do so wins.  Only this time, a man got knocked unconscious and had to be bagged and taken away in an ambulance... I hope he's okay!
     Aha.  So I mentioned earlier about Beth dancing with a clown—HAHAHA! He singled her out of the audience an made her dance.  It was hilarious!  But Beth says he was wet...? :P
     Today we went to Glacier Park.  It was a lot of fun!  I saw mountain goats and a ground squirrel.  And ducks.  And mountains.  We rode the little ferryboats around the lakes, and a few people saw a moose.... we had a snowball fight, too, and I had some realllllyyy good cherry coke.  Anyway, below are some pics from the rodeo, Glacier, and some sneak peeks at my photoshoot with Beth's dog, Cinoc.
     Oh.  I almost forgot to add:
     Today I ate a piece of charred emu.

rodeo

bull riding

cinco being cute

cinco's sleeeepy

cinco misses iowa

emily has been hit with a snowball.

....but we'll never find out who.

   

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What's really in Chicken McNuggets?  Now this is just gross.  Really, McDonald's?

Chemical anagrams... So cool!  But honestly, someone has wayyy too much time on their hands.  Haha!

Bog Butter... I would so eat that.

Will someone please make me these?

a bit of the biz every day

Actually, four hours of the biz every day! ☺
So the musical we've been practicing all week at camp was last night.  It was a lot of fun, and overall it went pretty smoothly!  One girl forgot her lines, but she was saved by Hannah's little sister Maggie.  I was actually able to sing my solo high, and my voice came back just in time!  It was a lot of fun... everyone did great!  Here's some pics:

the cast

"wait!  crazy picture!"

taking pics with the props after the show

hahaha

love this one

...this one too

ad-lib post-show belting out of my heart will go on

After the musical, we ate in town and I had a well-earned dinner of curly fries, a salad and a root beer float. (For lunch I had fries and root beer.  Coincidence?  I think not.)  We then ran into cousin Alexander at the gas station—he's coming up for the weekend from Missoula.  Yay!