• Jun. 26, 2008
Boredom strikes - that's why I'm writing here :P!

1. What's on your mind right now: About 10 different things. :P

2. Who's your best guy friend: I don't even have a best friend out of all my friends, let alone just my guy friends.

3. Where is your biological mother right now: Who knows? :P  She's probably on her computer. In Dad's office.

4. Have you ever made out in a basement: Uh, no.

5. Do you have any piercings: No. >.<

6. Do you have any tattoos: No, despite what my dad might have told you...no no.

7. Is your driveway steep: Not really. It's kind of on a tilt. :P

8. Name 3 things you did today: Slept, ate and did schoolwork. :)  And some other stuff, but you said name three. :P

9. Last person you texted: n/a

10. What have you eaten today: Ummmmm.....for breakfast I had a muffin and strawberries...for lunch I had tuna...and for supper I had soup. :)

11. What shoe do you put on first: Whichever one I find first.

12. What do you get complimented on most: Ummm....mostly my drawings/writing. Or "older" people always comment on my long hair or my being "so tall and slim".

13.What'd the last text you received say: n/a

14. What is the last thing you do before you go to bed: Have a drink of water...

15. Have you ever kissed somebody named Sean: No.

16. If you had to choose to not wash either your sheets or hand towels which would you choose: Hand towels, I guess? I don't know. Random. :P

17. What would you change about you life right now: Nothing. ^.^

18. How do you feel about public displays of affection: I don't care. lol.

19. Have you ever bitten your nails: Yes. >.<  I stopped once I got my braces, then started up again. I think I'm beyond hope.

20. Do you live alone: Hahaaa. No.

21. Do you like someone right now: No. Why do you want to know? :P

22. Can you keep a secret: Yeah.

23. What has been the best year of your life: Hmmm. 2006 is the year I always look back on as my "favourite year". But I don't think I really have one - every year has it's ups and downs.

24. Do you have any strange phobias: No.

25. What is your favorite Romantic movie: Can I say the Princess Bride? :)  If not then Hitch or 13 Going On 30.

26. Are you happy with your living arrangement: Sure, lol.

27. Have you ever played twister: Yep.

28. Have you ever been drunk at school: I've never been drunk, period. :P

29. Last thing you received in the mail: Brio magazine. :)

30. Have you ever kissed someone whose name begins with D: Dad? :P

31: Ever had a sleepover with the opposite sex: Not since I was like, 8.

32. Do you have trust issues: Not really, lol.

33. Do you tend to rip the label off of water bottles: Yeah, XD

34. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone: Ummmm. A lady from the retirement home, where I volunteer.

35: Are you a cuddler: Not really.

36: When was the last time you gave advice to somebody: I don't know. I'm always giving advice to people.

37. What was going through your mind during your last kiss: n/a. :P

38. Have you ever hurt somebody when you were mad: Probably.

39. Is it easier to forgive or forget: Forgive - I've been blessed or cursed? with a good memory. lol.

40. Do you give second chances to easily: Usually. But maybe not third or fourth chances.

41. Kiss with your eyes open or closed: No opinion.

42. Do you have a best friend: No.

43. Are you friends with your last ex: What's with all these dating kissing questions? :P

44. Would you live with someone without marrying them: No.

45. Ever had plans but broke them: I don't think it's possible to go through 15 years of life without having broken plans...if you have, you seriously need to relax a bit. :P

46. Do you think your ex is a player: n/a

47. Do you have a friend of the opposite/same sex that you talk to 24/7: It's impossible to talk to anyone 24/7. x)  Well, I guess it's possible but one can only go so long without sleep...sooo... the answer is no.

48. Do you remember what you were like a year ago: Yeah. I was mostly the same as I am now, though I'm probably more easy-going now. I was really excited to start highschool. :P

49. Have you ever had a dream about a person you love dying: Probably. Not that I remember. I do remember dreams of someone I love like, getting tortured or something though. :P

50. Who is the last person you cried in front of: God?

51. Have you ever shaved in the kitchen sink: ...no.

52. Is it ackward when you run into you ex: n/a. >.>

53: Who is the last person you've had a sleepover with: Ummm. I guess at camp Alana and Jessie slept over at our cabin...I wouldn't exactly call it a sleepover though... I don't know.

Well. There you go. Check out this website, it's pretty cool: www.wherethehellismatt.com. Ignore the H-word in there, this site is completely appropriate. :P

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• Jun. 5, 2008
Good books

Hey guys. I need the names of your favourites books!!!

Me and my brother Gerrit are making a list of good books to read - just for fun. Also, with summer nearing we both need some good books. I have a bunch that I'm planning on reading, and a couple that I'm planning on reading for the second or third time, BUT me and Gerrit both consume books like they're going out of style so we did more!! lol.

I don't know who still reads this blog, BUT whether or not you know me I'd love it if you'd drop a comment with some good titles. :)

Thanks!!!

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• Jun. 3, 2008
Wow

When was the last time I wrote? Caleb's Gotcha Day? Wow. I know I should write more often, but with schoolwork and all that stuff - I just keep forgetting I have a blog. lol.

BUT the school year is almost over, and summer nears. In fact we finished our last read-aloud Sonlight book this year, today. I forget which core we're doing *cough*. But the book was The Shakespeare Stealer.

It was good. If you haven't read it, then I'll suggest it to you. :P  But I love historical fiction...well, I love books in general...and I like almost every book I get my hands on. :) And Sonlight uses the BEST books. Seriously. I fall in love which each and every one of them. Fantasy and historical fiction are my favourite genres though!

Best book this year? I don't know - they were all so good. Me, Meg and Gerrit think that probably Master Cornhill and this one, The Shakespeare Stealer are probably the best. The worst one...probably the Trojan War. It was still good though. Just got kind of boring in some parts. XD  My mom skipped a couple though. Otto of the Silver Hand - or something like that - was one, I don't know the others. That's why we're done all the books so early.

So what's new in my life? I really don't know what to tell you. :P  My brother Caleb's birthday is in 5 days. He's turning 5. He's super excited about it - like any little kid, heh. I'm almost 15 and a half. That means 6 months and my parents will be bugging me to get my driver's license so I can drive my siblings to all their lessons and do grocery shopping!!! :)  Well, Dad at least. (direct quote: "Only one more year! Then she can drive and I can sleep in the back.")

Weather's getting warmer. In fact, it's getting really humid and rainy. Mom planted sunflowers, and a bunch of other nice flowers. Some rabbit came and ate her sunflower bulbs, though. XD

We came back from Camp Crossroads about two days ago. We didn't want to get stuck in rush hour traffic in Toronto - obviously from West Lincoln to Muskoka is a long drive - and we couldn't actually arrive at camp until 7 o'clock, so we had to stop in a nearby town (name classified...heh) for a couple of hours. It was there Mom looked at me and said "I think you have pinkeye." It turns out I did, but we went to the drugstore and got some eyedrops so it's fine.

We went to Boston Pizza for supper, and found out it's the Boston Pizza they use in their commericals - LOL! It's really nice, on the water front and everything. :P  My brother liked it because they had a Sidney Crosby jersey on the wall. I think I want to live on one of the cottages on that lake - then I can go sit out on the porch and gaze at Boston Pizza in the morning!!!

Anyway, there you go. Who knows the next time I'll update? Three months, maybe? Hopefully sooner! All for now. :P

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• Mar. 15, 2008
GOTCHA!

Yesterday was Caleb's 2nd "Gotcha Day" (the 2nd anniversary from when he came home from Haiti). So I'm making this post in his honor.

We have tons of pictures somewhere, of us seeing him for the first time in the airport, his first pictures at home etc., but they aren't on this computer so I'm not going to bother putting them on now. It will make things easier for those of you with dial-up connection anyway (if there are any).

I don't know how long the whole adoption process was, I just know it was a really long time. I think it started when I was 9 or 10, and Caleb came home when I was 13, so at least 3 years. It was huge... I remember first my parents trying to figure out which country to adopt from, which orphanage, a boy or a girl (they decided on a girl) meeting with the lawyer, adoption practitioner, having a home study done, having to do tests to see if we were doing well in school (since we're homeschooled they had to check)... etc, etc... We went to Haiti in October '03, and we met Caleb there when he was only 4 months old. He was my favourite baby in the entire orphanage. He was so cute and fat, we nicknamed him "Chunk". Of course we didn't know we were adopting him. We asked for pictures of Caleb later on, and I think someone mistook that for meaning that we wanted to adopt him... but anyway, whatever went on he was proposed to us. Of course, I was thrilled (I remember asking my parents to ask for either a boy or a girl, because I loved all the little boys in the orphanage so much).

So we waited a whole year and a half for him to come home... IBESR took forever, a whole year, passports... but in the end we recieved word we could go pick him up on February 27th, 2006.

This is a poem I wrote the day after they called us,

For my Brother

Step by step, year by year,

I want so bad for you to be here.

Smile by smile, frown by frown,

We climb up one way and then we fall down.

It's so hard to sit here, it's so hard to wait,

But we'll do it for your sake.

It takes so long, it's so hard to cope,

But we'll just pray... we'll just have to hope.

Then they call! There's no more pain.

We know after all our prayers weren't in vain.

So you'll be here with all of your kin,

We've been fighting so long... it's not time to win!

I guess that captures how we felt best of all. Now I look back on that time impassively - as terrible as it sounds, he's been here long enough that it doesn't really bring back any emotion at all. But at least when I read that poem and journal entries from back then, I can tell and I remember horribly long it took and how impatient I was... me being an impatient person as it is.

Mom went down to Haiti by herself for a week to pick Caleb up. She went with her friend "Pam" (I'm not going to put real names of people here without their permission) and Pam's dad, because they got word they could pick up their daughter "Lily" at the same time.

Here's something I wrote about that week, the day after Caleb came home.

What an exciting week! Aunty "K" came over with [her kids] until Thursday. On Wednesday, she invited her friend over with her two little girls, annnd Aunty "L" came over with her boys! It was very busy! Aunty "K" left Thursday night... but her engine stopped so Dad had to follow her half way back to her house and Uncle "P" took her the rest of the way, in case it would do that again. Meagan and I went with him (Dad). Grandma came for the rest of the week. On Monday (the day before Caleb's arrival) we went to the mall for the day... Meagan and I pitched in to buy Caleb a gift (a tractor puzzle). We went for lunch at Boston Pizza, and Grandma gave us each 10 dollars to get something with.

I wrote this the same day about when we went to pick him up.

Mom and Caleb's flight was going to land at eleven thirty. We left the house at 9:55 - so excited we left 5 minutes early. Grandma, Dad, Meagan, Gerrit and I piled into the car and left for the Toronto airport. We were so excited we did anything to pass the time - including bothering each other and getting on our father's nerves. We sang every single song we knew. It was only an hour to the airport, but it seemed like days! Finally, we arrived just before 11 o'clock.

But we weren't finished waiting. Waiting in the terminal, we got more and more anxious and excited. We played word games, walked back and forth and rode up and down the escalators. Soon Pam's mom, her sister, her brother and friend arrived, and we found out we weren't the only ones who couldn't sit still.

The flight was delayed by twenty minutes. I bit my fingernails. So, the day was finally here and I had been waiting for half an hour in the airport and then... why did they have to delay to flight? Dad told me it would take another 15 minutes for them to collect their luggage and stuff so they could come to the terminal. I walked around, trying to think about something else. But I couldn't.

I bet Dad that we would see them at exactly 12:02. Dad said after midnight. He said that I owed him five dollars if I were wrong, and he had three clocks to choose from - the one on his cell phone, my watch and the clock that was on the wall. He said that he would always be right no matter what, because it was always midnight somewhere. He told Grandma that I was learning my lesson never to bet with him. He grinned, convinced that he had outsmarted me again.

Pam's mother, her sister, her friend and Gerrit were leaning over, looking through the door that was leading to the baggage place. I knew they were there when I heard "oooooh!!" and saw Gerrit jumping up and down. We rushed to the door, and looked through. Sure enough, Mom and Pam were standing there, their little ones in their arms. They were pretty far away so we couldn't see them that well, but we could tell it was them.

Pam's friend told us to go through. She said, "Don't worry, if they don't like it they'll just tell you to turn around." And so we charged in. Caleb was asleep, but Lily, Pam's daughter, was wide awake. And hence my first meeting with Caleb.

Soooooo much has happened between then and today, there's no way I can tell you everything. When he first came home, Caleb stayed very close to Mom and didn't get too close to the rest of us. He cried whenever Mom wasn't in sight. That day Mom went to take and shower, and she put Caleb outside the shower with a car and closed the door. And he cried, even though he could see through the shower, just because she wasn't right there "with" him. He wanted to be held constantly.

After about a week, I guess, he let Mom out of his sight. He still was wary of us kids and Dad, but he would play with us sometimes. He didn't like us to get or get too close to him, though. He started talking a lot more, even though he only spoke Haitian Creole. He only liked to eat yogurt, bananas, bread with peanut butter, eggs, cream of wheat and of course, candy. He wouldn't touch rice, and I don't blame him - that's all he ever ate at the orphanage... rice and beans, sometimes an egg, and I kind of porridge... I don't know how to spell it, but it sounds like "laboyee".

And... little by little, he became louder, healthier, more extraverted (is he EVER extraverted now!!! And he was so shy when he came home!), played with us more, became more daring and would go for longer without seeing Mom. Now it's almost like a completely different kid... he's so happy and extraverted. There's some things that are still the same... he's still a bossy little bugger and likes to keep Mom to himself. But he only still uses two words in Creole, and speaks fluent 4 1/2-year old English. Even some more than that...

Today he said to me, "Let's have a pillow fight." I said, "Not right now, Caleb," and he said, "Ok, maybe we can tomoyo (this is how to pronounces 'tomorrow')." Just teasing him, I asked "What does 'tomoyo' mean?" and without skipping a beat, he replied, "It's a quantity." What kind of 4-year old uses words like "quantity"? Not that he knows what it means, but still.

Anyway... I wrote a lot! I have to go now, and spend my time with Caleb (yes, we have scheduled times with him every day... he loves that fact that we *have* to play with him).

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• Mar. 7, 2008
Tagged

The rules are:
(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) Post the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

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• Feb. 8, 2008
^.^

Oh, my goodness. These songs on my profile are all weird. Like, you can hardly here the singing...just the music. Especially the Cheeseburger song...LOL. Is it just me or can everyone hear it?

Anyway, our bathtub is all fixed up, so that's good. :P  I'm happy because there's no school tomorrow. XD  I have this super annoying essay to write, ugh. I'm doing my English and Latin with Tree of Life, and the rest with Sonlight. I'm glad I'm not doing English with Sonlight, because apparently there's like, 12 books you have to study!? O.o  Tree of Life only has three. Heh. And I've done one of them already...Call of the Wild. I love the book, but not the essays I have to do on them. :)  And for final exams, I only have to do English and Latin because Sonlight doesn't have that...so...that should be ok. English will be anyway. :P  Latin is ugh.

What else is there to say? I'm doing two songs for my piano, Minuet in A Minor and Spooks!. Yup, I'm still doing Spooks!. XD  It's getting on my family's nerves...and mine too. :P  But I need to perfect it. Minuet in A Minor is really pretty.

I don't have anything else to say, so I'll just post a Blogthings. :)

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

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• Feb. 6, 2008
Username: KJo101 Nickname: Jinx User ID: 12720 Price of Waja: 1 mil

Well, I do officially have a cold now. :P  At least my throat and my ear aren't killing me anymore, LOL. But now I can't talk or breath through my nose which is kind of annoying. Well, at least it's just a cold. It will be over in a few days.

Ah, Wajas. What I need is for this Waja to sell. She's been up for sale for almost three weeks. I know I should lower the price...but I need to sell her for the amount I put her up for. :P  Maybe I'll send her to Meagan to sell, then she can send me the money. According to Meagan, anyway, she's more "popular" than I am on Wajas. Which is probably true, because she has like a billion friends on there, and is into all the RPGs and stuff, and I just...buy and sell Wajas. What can I say? I'm not a virtual pet site person. Meagan spends almost all her time on that and Webkinz, but I don't have nearly that attention span. :P

A plummer is coming today, LOL. Our bathtub is upstairs, and it seems whenever someone showers in it or even takes a bath it pours down water in the basement below...which happens to directly over my bed. I used to get soaked all the time, then people stopped taking showers up there and it was fine. XD  But now it's happening when people are taking a bath too, so because my bed is right under there and we kind of have to use the bathtub, and because we're selling the house, they decided to get a plummer in. :P  So I have to go clean my room.

Actually, I should probably do that now. XD  Latas!

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• Feb. 3, 2008
Lots of rambling

I just realized how evil I look in that picture of me with Caleb in the hot tub at Great Wolf Lodge...:P  My eyes are all red. Heh.

And I'd like to point out that people who don't have an account on Homeschoolblogger *can* comment on entries. Instead of like, sending me emails. :)  I love getting emails, it's just easier for you. Just put in your name, because anonymous comments are...annoying. Most people who read this blog are people who don't have an account here...LOL. Actually, it's kinda sad how almost none of my friends post on their blogs anymore. They've all left, or just forgotten or something. Well, I can't say much, because I didn't write here for the longest time before (I'm not talking about that 1-month stretch...I'm talking about that time I didn't write for like, 6 months. :P)  Anyway, it WOULD be nice if *I* had something to read. Cuz I'm so interested your all of your lifes...*hintHINThint*  Anyway, you're probably getting tired of me nagging you. (Flablo)

What else is there to say? Last night I watched Dead Poet's Society. WHICH I got from Grandma, and need to remember to return it to her...:P  It's a good movie. It's very...thought-provoking. And it's very heavy, so it's not like you can watch it every night or something. It's kind of like Lord of the Rings in that way. And it has the same kind of sad-ish ending. The difference is, LOTR ties up all the loose ends. :P  Dead Poet's Society kinda just hints what happens, but you don't know what's REALLY going to happen after the movie ends.

But it's ok, because that's a different kind of ending. And it's a more realistic ending, too, I think. Because in real life, you never know what's really going to happen next. So while LOTR leaves you more or less satisfied when it ends, Dead Poet's Society leaves you wondering. So it's a different kind of effect. And they're both good. I like the ending of The Princess Bride. The BOOK, not the movie. The endings are completely different in the book and the movie. :P

Well, if you haven't seen this movie, I definitely suggest it. It's a little boring at first, but it gets better, LOL.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/plotsummary

Ow. My ear hurts. We all have colds, according to my mom, but I know I don't have a cold. My nose isn't stuffy or runny, I'm not sneezing and coughing, or anything like that. It's just my right tonsil is swollen, which makes my right ear hurt, a lot. >.<  And Mom says that we picked up this cold from Aunty Lisa's kids, but I had a soar throat since my birthday. So I must have picked it up at Great Wolf Lodge. Oh well, at least it's not strep throat. I've had strep throat toooo many times. In 2006, I had it 6 times in one year. :P  I'm serious, LOL. I have a history of soar tonsils. >.<  I wish they would just hurry up and take them OUT.

Well, I wrote a lot more then I intended!!! And I thought I didn't have anything to write, LOL. I just start and it all comes out of nowhere. xD  Anyway. I made a blog for my writing: www.homeschoolblogger.com/KJoStories. Unfortunatly, only people on my friends list can see it. Seriously, right? It's kind of stupid, since, as I said, mostly people who *don't* have a HSB account read this stuff... :P  But I don't want anyone to steal the ideas or anything. Just to be safe. So, I'll figure something out.

Well, all for now.

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• Feb. 2, 2008
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

We had a snowstorm last night. And boy, is there a lot of snow this morning! You know what that means...shoveling the driveway. I just hope that the snow is sticky, so we can make snowforts and snowmen, and the shoveling the driveway will be worth it.

Those snowflakes were huge, though. Last night, when Mom and I went out to see Aunty Lisa and baby Michael, the snow flakes were soooo big. I saw one as big as an Oreo...seriously. I should have taken some pictures, but I forgot. :P

Speaking of pictures, I'm going to put some bday pictures up now.

There you go. I wish I could put up good pics of all my cousins, but I don't think I should without their parents' permission, LOL.

And, according to Phil the Groundhog, we're up for six more weeks of winter. Which is believable, with all the snow outside.

www.groundhog.org

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• Feb. 1, 2008
Whoa...

My goodness, it's been over a month since I last updated! Well, this past month has been super busy. I don't even know where to get started. New Year's, I suppose. Man, that seems so long ago!

Well, we had our cousins - Igor's family - over on New Year's Eve. We had Indonesian food for supper, made oliebolin, the kids played soccer outside, played hockey on Caleb's little hockey table, played Wii, we watched Hitch and toasted the New Year: the kids had this weird grape-flavoured diet sparkling soda, I donno. It's Meagan's stuff. We stayed up till 2 AM and then passed out on our beds. :P

What else? I completely forget what we did on Orthodox Christmas. Seriously. I don't think we did anything, and if we did, it obviously wasn't important enough to remember, heh. I'll skip ahead to my 15th birthday. (January 30th)

We went to Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls on the 29th. It was fun! I put a ton of pictures on Facebook, I might put them on here now. You should see the water slides they have there. Man! I took Mom down one, and she freaked. :P  Gerrit would have freaked too. And Caleb is too short, so just me and Meagan went down them over and over again. XD  We slept over until the 30th, and spent basically my whole birthday there. We were going to stay an extra night until the 31st, but it turned out we had to look after Aunty Lisa's kids, because she had to go to the hospital to have her baby. They're still here now, and the baby was born this afternoon, but that was only two hours ago so I don't know if I'm *allowed* to say anything about it yet...anyway, we're going to visit it after supper, I'm excited. :)  Once everyone knows what it is and what it's name is, etc, I guess I can say more about this subject. :P

Anyway, right now I'm totally pooped. Since we had 9 hours between getting back from Great Wolf Lodge and the kids arriving, and those hours were spent sleeping, and the business hasn't stopped yet. In fact, we're all about to have supper - everyone besides Aunty Lisa and the baby, who are still at the hospital.

AGHHHAHFLABGSH. I can't figure out how to use Project Playlist. So darn annoying. XD

Anyway, all for now. Hopefully I can update again soon, LOL.

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