C=

I got a volleyball for my birthday. =) I like volleyballs. It's a Wilson beach volleyball, "the official volleyball of the Olympic games" or something like that. I need to re-figure the way I hit it, though, because hitting with my
wrists is causing bruises to form. =/ I'll experiment with higher up the forearm, but I don't remember bumping the ball that high up... Hmm... In the meantime I've played a long game with my garage wall. The score so far is Garage Wall: 125, Kiwi: 5. My five were a few lucky overhand serves that were just out of Garage Wall's reach.

Mom and Dad found me a lovely hope chest off of Craig's List. It's from the 1930's, we think, from a company that has since gone extinct.

Right under the "L" in "Lady" is 1936 penciled in.

It's a little taller than most cedar chests, and it has a drawer at the bottom. Isn't it beautiful? =)

My brothers gave me a little, pink Swiss army knife to replace my flimsy, dull one. Aaand my sister gave me a camera case, so now I don't have to worry about my camera's screen getting scratched.
Aaaand my dear friend Kate gave me a chocolate bar. =) She's now well on her way to my top-friends list with that gift! ;)
Aaaand my other dear friend, Queen Lucy, gave me a hat she crocheted herself! It's so perty! I'd put a photo of that up, too, but I can't go get my camera right now.

Twas a very nice birthday, wot wot?
~Kiwi~

p.s. We watched a bit of "The Madness of King George" the other day, and he was constantly repeating "wot wot?" and "hey hey?" It must have rubbed off on me. =)

the Post-Christmas Post

Howdy folks! Merry Christmas! I'm tempted to sit here and give you an itemised list of all I was given for Christmas, but I'll just cut it short. Mom and Dad gave me art supplies (I love new art supplies!! Give me a sketch book or two, and some pens, and it'll keep me occupied for hours.) and a pretty charm bracelet. Mom made the bracelet herself.
And my Christmas was fun and if you want to know all about it, you can ask me, but I won't sit here and bore the rest of you. Because I know that some people don't like long descriptions.


2009 To-Do List-----The Results
Here's what I got done:

1. Win a big contest. (Michael W. Smith concert! =D)
2. bike down the great-grandaddy of all hills at medium to top speed
3. got lost in a corn maze (That was awesome fun. It's going on my 2010 list, too!!)
4. found someone who wanted to squaredance with me (easy)
5. learned to square dance a bit better (hard)
6. watched all the LotR movies again (love 'em)
7. watched a meteor shower (awesome)
8. got my green bike fixed up nicely (Looks snazzy now!)
9. got a digital camera (Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!)
10. got signatures from 11 famous people 
11. went to two concerts (Two amazing concerts. Thanks Kris)
12. visited friends in Iowa several times (not nearly enough, though!)

Things I didn't get done last year:

1. I didn't earn money to go to Lifest in 2010.
2. I didn't buy lots of cds. (I only bought one: In The Hands of God).
3. I didn't get an Etsy shop set up. (But it will be up and running by next Christmas, by George!!)
4. I didn't have a chance to try bleach-pen designs on tee shirts. 
5. I never did sleep in a tent. (This year!!)
6. I didn't quite get around to an all-day bike trip (This year!!)
7. I didn't get a painting sold this year. (because I didn't do #3)
8. I didn't make any music videos (although I almost did several.)
9. I didn't get two hundred posts on here (but this is my 150th!)
10. I didn't quite get the hang of double-dutch jump roping. (we never got past 10 jumps. =P )
11. I didn't get my picture in the newspaper (to my knowledge)
12. I didn't go to a drive-in theater (not much worth watching!)
13. And I didn't get around to asking a stranger a random question. (even though that should have been the easiest thing on the list!)

So I ended up not doing more than I did do! =P Oh, well, I guess I'll just put a lot of those things on my 2010 list, and get them done then!

What's on your 2010 lists?

~Kiwi~

p.s. I'll give you a 'happy new year' post tomorrow or Sunday. Too tired to do it now.

132 Kleenexes........in 36 Hours

I have a cold. I reeeeaaally don't like colds. I have used up one entire box of Kleenexes in one and a half days.
132 Kleenexes times approximately two nose-blows per Kleenex equals 264 nose-blows, plus numerous uncounted Kleenexes.....times 60 hours of having this cold, minus (a measly) 11 1/2 hours of sleep, plus 6 cups of tea since Sunday evening equals one tired, crabby, unhappy, SICK Kiwi. :(

On to something more of general interest:
um.....I got nothing to say.

"you got something to say
If you're living
If you're breathing
You got something to say
And no one can say it like you do
God is love and love speaks through you
You got it, you got it,
You got something to say"

Sorry, Matthew West, you're wrong. Yes, I'm living, yes, I'm breathing, but I got nothin' to say.

Except.......Three more days until the concert!!!! I'm happeh. *grins ear-to-ear and does a little happeh dance*
Three-ee-ee
Mo-ar
Da-a-ays!

Daddy went and picked up my tickets last week. The people who printed the tickets are wet blankets!! "No cameras/video recorders" AAAARRRGH! No CAMERA?!?!? how unfair. I think that means "no taking pictures during the concert," which could be interpreted as "you can bring your camera as long as you don't take pictures or videos while the dude is singing," and if that is the case, I'm okay with it. Because I have to take my camera! What if I meet somebody? Am I to say "Well, sir, I would ask if I could get a picture of us, but I wasn't allowed to bring a camera, so will you hold still while I sketch the picture really quick? Won't take me more than fifteen minutes...Could you turn your head a little more this way, please?" Riiight.

We'll see. :)

In the mean time, I'll be banging my head against a brick wall, trying to knock myself out so I can get some snooze time!
~Kiwi~
p.s. I gave some of you awards! Check out THIS post.

99th post/AIRSHOW!!!

Hey, y'all! I'm back after two weeks of non-vacation-y-vacation. The only reason it was 'vacation' was because I didn't have school and Dad was off for a week. BUT I'm not going to go into all that. Let's just say that Mr. and Ms. Renter paid...on Friday. And now it's a new month, so we're praying that God provides them with the money they need to pay us and everything else they need to spend money on. Especially the 'money they need to pay us' part. :)

What did I do last weekend? shall I tell them, or shall I not.?.....I think I shall.

We spent last weekend avoiding being hit or scared by Blue Angels. They fly right over our house during the practice and shows. It was awesome! I was sorry that we missed vacation, but at least we got to watch the airshow....three times over, plus practice, plus when ev'ryone left.

Here are some pictures & videos taken from my camera:

This video was taken on Thursday from our driveway. Don't you just love the sound of them?
*waits ten minutes for the video to load...* Why must it take so long to load a video? It isn't that hard to get one off of Youtube onto here!

Five of the Blue Angels.

Three of them. It's true, there are three there.

Three of them...in black & white.

Four of them. In color. STOP looking at me like that! Okay, YOU come up with better captions!

Four, two INVERTED! Can you imagine flying upside-down at 500+ mph?? Cool!

Um. So last weekend was the airshow, and on Sunday we ('Punzel and I) played volleyball again. Man! I love playing that game! It's perfect for me; fairly easy, fast-paced, and doesn't include much running. Perfect! And everyone here is nice. I don't feel (horribly) embarrassed when I miss the ball or do something wrong. They give me tips on what to do next time this happens, or that changes suddenly, or whatever.
And several people have commented on how I've gotten a bit better since we began playing. "The first two weeks, it was a cause to celebrate when you just get it over the net! Now you do that regularly." That's good. I'm glad I'm improving. But I still feel bad next to some of the others! Right now I am desperately hoping that it is dry enough tomorrow to play some. Today is cold and rainy, and tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, too!
"Hey mister weather man
I don't understand
I think I said clearly clear skies should be the forecast tomorrow
I'm lookin' west,
I see cloudy skies at best,
And to the east storm clouds are headed this way...."

And I leave you with this: The next post from me shall be my 100th! There'll be a party, balloons, prizes, and CAKE! You're all invited. See you then!

~Kiwi~

"All About My Birthday" post

Hi.

Here's an "All About My Birthday" post.
Weekend-before-last, my Grandma M. was here for a few days, and she brought my birthday present up with her. She gave me some stationary and a neat activity book with invisible answers. When you fill in the spaces, it tells you 'right' or 'wrong' or whatever. When I first tried it, I was afraid it wasn't working properly, because nothing appeared. Eventually, though, the answers showed themselves, and now it's quick to appear.


Last weekend we went down to my Grandma and Grandpa G.s' house. They had two presents for me. Grandma said I could choose one to open, and they got to keep the other. You guys told me to pick the little one, so I followed your advice and opened that.* Inside was a little, bitty box with a fresh-water pearl bracelet and a shell(?) anklet! The bracelet has larger silvery-white, irregularly-shaped pearls alternating with smaller, purple ones. I like it 'cos the pearls are different, not the same-old round ones that are so often imitated. The anklet is cream-colored string, braided, with three pink dolphin beads alternated with pink cat's-eye beads. They're both very pretty. :-)
And then, Grandma and Grandpa graciously allowed me to open the other box, to see what I "would have gotten."
I carefully unwrapped the box (which, please note, was not covered in paper. They left the bottom unwrapped. *cheapskates!* ;D And please also note that the bow was not even taped on! They didn't even want to use a wee little bit of tape. *cheapskates* ;-P), which contained what I always wanted......a MICROWAVE OVEN!!! But, alas, I was disappointed when I opened that box. No microwave. :( Instead I found a bunch of packing peanuts and two other boxed items I 'always' wanted: a remote control (box) for model airplanes, and a Geek Squad thingy. Whoopedydo.
Digging deeper revealed a wrapped box. As I pulled it out, Grandpa asked Grandma "Do you have the blindfold ready?" Blindfold?!? Inside this box was a gift bag, and before I was allowed to touch that Grandma blindfolded me. You'll never guess what the bag contained.
I'm tempted to let you wait a while, so I can get pictures of it on here. But who knows when that'll happen, because Mom says we have to wait until Fritz is repaired before I can load the software for my new camera on.
Oops, I just gave it away! They let me keep the second present as well as the first. I got a digital camera!! And it's REALLY nice! It does videos with sound, and takes many, many pictures, and has face recognition, and I'm not sure what-all else!! That was really exciting. :-) Now I can take the "save money for a digital camera" off my "do in 2009" list!
That was really cool, and then on Monday we had another celebration at home. Catfreak and Avalon's family was headed up to the Wisconsin Dells for the week, so they stopped by, which was jolly-good fun. We went out to eat at Pizza Hut, which I've never done on my birthday before! When we got home at almost 9:00, we went ahead and had cake and ice cream. Da Boys gave me a bead Thingy-Ma-Jig for making......something. I'm not sure what exactly. You wrap wire around the pegs and make special links and such. Rapunzel gave me an Omnigrid ruler to help out with squaring my paintings. It's 9 1/2" by 9 1/2" with every eighth inch marked out. Mom and Dad gave me a Bible cover--purple corduroy with brown leather trim--and a sheet set. Doesn't it feel nice to slide between two fresh sheets?
So that was my family birthday.

And then right as I was going to bed, Dad called me into the office and showed me three emails I got: an e-card from my friend Miranda, on from her sister, Abbie, and an email from HKSmitty! That was really nice. :)
And then I saw that my Narnian Friend gave me a birthday post, and Guitargirl gave me a Kiwi picture which refuses to transplant itself to my blog. Here's a link to the post, though. And Owan gave me a post and a Pencil Picture. By the end of the day I was feeling quite loved and special. :) :) :)
*EDIT* Somehow, for some strange reason, I mistakenly missed Skittles's post to me!! OOOOOPS! I apologize muchly, Skittles. HERE is a link to the near-missed post. You gotta go way down. I got virtual cake and ice cream and cyberhugs, and music! Thanks, Skittles!!
Thank you, one and all, for making my birthday so special!

No one found my last song, which was "Crashing Down" by Mat Kearney. One more point for me!
Now, I will rise from my seat and go downstairs. 'bye for now!
~Kiwi da Fruit
P.S. Be sure to tune in Wednesday or Thursday for an Important Announcement!

*Quick question: Why did those of you who voted, vote for what you did?