Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Victoria and Dolls

Over Thanksgiving weekend my dad and I (Mom stayed home for a quilting weekend because she wasn't feeling too good) went up to Canada to visit relatives. First we went to Grama's house for a nice Thanksgiving meal of chicken, stuffing, beans, brussel sprouts, and bread, finished off with cheesecake and a pumpkin desert.
The next day we headed over to Victoria (which is on Vancouver Island) by ferry. It was a very, very nice ferry that made hardly any noise! It was very big as well.
My favorite cousin and his family live in Victoria and my dad and I had a BLAST with them! I never laugh as much as I do when I'm with my cousin playing Super Mario Brothers.
On Saturday we went sightseeing around Victoria. We first walked around the outskirts of the capital building which is HUGE and very beautiful. I hope sometime to go inside it and see Parliament in session.
Here is a picture, with a statue Queen Victoria off to the right.



The next stop was the Empress Hotel which had about a million Christmas trees in it all decorated with different themes! It was beautiful. The whole hotel is beautiful. Wouldn't it be fun to stay there?


Next stop was Craigdarrock Castle where my dad used to have "piano lessons". Instead of playing piano like he was supposed to, he hid in the bushes until his mom came to pick him up. The castle is amazing and although we didn't get to take a tour, I hope to next time I am in Victoria.


Our final stop before lunch was a mountain that was more of a hill.
Here is a picture looking at San Juan Island (without the camera zoomed in). Almost EXACTLY across from where I am standing is the Lime Kiln State Park Lighthouse where my family and I, along with some friends, Orca Whale watch yearly.


On Sunday after church we went for a walk along the ocean. There was a whole rooftop of pigeons puffed up, hiding from the windy and cold weather.

My cousin's dog Ruffles was a bit ruffled from the weather to.


And of course we had time to play a few board games!
Defenders of the Realm:


Dominion:
When I got home I found a Star Trek Spock shirt waiting for me! Thanks Mom! =D

Here are all my Star Trek costumes for dolls. From left to right they go, random Original Series dress, Captain Kirk outfit, Spock outfit, Captain Picard outfit, Borg Doll.


Just a few days ago I put all my dolls in their Christmas outfits and gave them fancy hair dos. Today I took a photoshoot with them.
MERRY EARLY CHRISTMAS! =D

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

FINISHED!

I just won NaNoWriMo and am finished with my 50,000 word novel!! Ok.... I'm not actually finished with my novel.... I got to 50,000 words and found out I still have quite a bit of novel left to write! Since NaNoWriMo is finishing tomorrow I am submitting what I have so far which is 50,170 words! =D

I just wanted to let my wonderful follows know the happy news. I am planning to do a very large blog post tomorrow or Thursday with pictures of the trip I took to Victoria on Vancouver Canada.

Monday, November 14, 2011

American Girl and an Inchworm

I went to the American Girl Doll Store on Saturday to meet a girl named Ali. She makes videos of her dolls and puts them on her Youtube account girloftheyearstudios. A lot of people watch her videos and recently she got 10,000 subscribers on Youtube so she decided to come to the AGP to visit people.
I went and met her! She's really nice.
Here is a picture. We are each with our look-a-like dolls.
(And yes, ShiningHisLight, my mom let me put a picture of myself on my blog!)

I also bought the Basketball outfit, as I have been wanting it for awhile so Rena can be a wheelchair basketball player.


No, she's not miraculously healed, she's standing so you can see the outfit better.

Aww... Cute Rosey in the background. The poor dog has a flea that my mom is desperately seeking with a comb.


A number of nights ago I was getting ready for bed when I spied an inchworm in the bathroom! I wonder how that got there...
I took a video because it was so fascinating. It made me think of the song "Inchworm". Too bad I couldn't find anywhere to download it.
Mom and I looked at the worm under a microscope and boy does it look strange! It looks like something you'd see attacking earth in an old alien movie. It was pretty cool...
Then we misjudged where we put the microscope down and accidentally squished the inchworm.. Oops!
Enjoy the video!



An update on NaNoWriMo... I now have 22,000+ words! I'm about 44% done. It's exciting! I've never written this fast before. I've never written this much before either. My first novel was only 16,000 words and that took me all summer to write!
Perhaps the most exciting thing about NaNo is that whoever finishes their 50,000 words before midnight on November 30th gets 5 free copies of their novel self-published from a website! =D My mom had a great idea to have my first novel as "Part 1" and my current novel as "Part 2".
But now I must get to school... Homeschool doesn't mean no-school!

Monday, November 7, 2011

NaNoWriMo

Before I go off and talk about NaNoWriMo I wanted to share with you, my readers, what I am reading right now.
I finished the five books in the "Dairy of a Teenage Girl: Caitlyn" series and I've moved on to the "Chloe" series. These books are amazingly written and have really challenged me to become closer to God. They have definitely made me think about things and become closer to God. I would recommend them to girls age 12+ because there are some mature themes.
As I wait for the third Chloe book to arrive at the library, I will be reading Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I really love Sherlock Holmes mysteries and yesterday at the bookstore found "The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1" for only $7.40!
I was overjoyed and purchased it. This (very!) large book contains three or four of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and about 25ish of his short stories. I am looking very forward to snuggling up with this book! And I LOVE the cover art.

Now on to NaNoWriMo.... What is NaNoWriMo you may be asking? It is NAtional NOvel WRiting MOnth (NaNoWriMo). It is a yearly event where people from all over the world try to write a 50,000 word novel in the course of one month. This year the novel-writing month is November!
Every day you have to get around 1,500 words done, so you will be finished in time.
NaNoWriMo is for all ages and all genre's of novel. You don't even have to write 50,000 words. If you want you can change your goal to 30,000 words or 15,000 words. You can keep track of your progress online on the NaNoWriMo website.
Now that you know a little bit about NaNo, I will tell you a bit about the novel I am writing.
It is the sequel to the novel I wrote over the Summer, which was based of Antonio, a character in Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night. A number of years ago I played the character Antonio in my Shakespeare's class's production of Twelfth Night and I was irked that we never get to find out what happens to my character so I decided to write a story about it.
Then I started to get ideas for a sequel... And then people read my first novel and wanted a continuation. A friend at church said something about NaNoWriMo in Sunday School and I decided to check it out. I had heard about it before but had forgotten about it.
After looking at the site and talking with my parents I decided I would do NaNoWriMo this year. My mom was a bit worried because their site said, "Quality doesn't matter, only quantity." The meaning of this, at least for me, is to get your rough draft of your 50,000 word novel out in a month and THEN go back and edit it and make it (hopefully) much better! So that's what I'm doing.
As of now I have written 9,470 out of 50,000 words. In 7 days! It's quite amazing.
However, I am 2,197 words behind on where I supposed to be by now because I didn't have the energy to write yesterday. I'm actually supposed to be writing right now... Heh heh. I'll consider this blog post my break.
I guess I should get to writing, but before I do I will give you a brief summary of my novel.

Sebastian is bent on finding his father's hidden treasure hoard and Antony won't be left behind. But where Antony goes, Jamie follows. When Jamie's father and his assistant are thrown into the picture, and when Sebastian's wife Olivia won't be left out of the treasure hunt, things get complicated, especially when the treasure hunters run into pirates and are stranded on an uncharted island in the middle of nowhere!

And because I'm feeling hyper and generous here is an exert from the novel!

“Where is everyone?” Antony asked, noticing the empty streets and locked up houses.
“I think I know.” replied Sebastian, stopping the horses and getting down from his seat. He walked over to a large poster hanging on a building and pointed to it.
“It says, ‘Celebration downtown, today. Honoring the detectives Dogberry and Verg-‘“
“Dogberry!” exclaimed Jamie.
“Let me finish.” replied Sebastian. “’Honoring the detectives Dogberry and Verges for uncovering the slanderous tale, and persons involved, that forced Hero to go into hiding.’”
Jamie was staring, wide eyed, at the poster. Underneath the writing was a picture of a sloppy looking overweight man with a mop of messy brown hair. Next to him was an extremely tall and thin man with spectacles on his nose.
“What’s the matter Jamie?” Antony asked.
“Dogberry….” Jamie pointed to the fat man. “He’s my father!”


And now I will get back to writing and listening to Michael Buble Christmas music...

Friday, November 4, 2011

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Halloween Costume

This was my Halloween costume! I went as Tintin...


Here is the picture I based the above pose on:

For Halloween I spent the first part of the evening with my friend who had surgery and the later part of the evening with my youth group at church. I had a fun evening and still walked away with a bag of candy! =D

Here is a video for Grama of me playing Bach's 4th Invention in, I believe, the key of D Minor. Yes... It's not perfect.... Oh well. Evidently I have it practiced up better then Mom ever did ;P Thanks Mom. =)



There might be a lack of posts within the next month because I am taking part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I am writing the sequel to my first novel, written over the Summer.