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Sunday, July 19, 2015

More Outings

We went to the 6th park Sunday. I actually used to go to this park when I was younger. They had a nice trail, about 1.5 miles, so we walked on it. But we took several detours, so my mom said we probably walked longer than 1.5 miles. Anyway, it was long, and I got tired. But I really enjoyed looking at all the stuff they had there. Tennis courts, volleyball court, baseball field, lots of stuff for recreational sports.

Since I didn't finish The Nine Lives of Chloe King (preferred the book), I donated it to the library and went to pick up two other books. I hoped that Four: A Collection (a companion novel in the Divergent series from Tobias "Four" Eaton's POV) would still be there, but, alas, it was gone :( But I saw Hex Hall, which I wanted to read, so I picked it up. And I saw this book called Chimed that I read was good from some reviews, so I checked it out as well. What's funny is that both of the books I checked out are about witches. But the same thing happened when, after reading Wicked Lovely (which is about faeries) I looked up the third book in a series I had previously read about faeries.

Oh, and the library has this summer reading program (I may have mentioned this before) for kids, teens, and adults. Since I'm technically still a teen, I did the teen thing. One of the ladies working there (I asked her about the program) gave me this bag full of cool coupons and such. For some you have to read, but for others you just can use it. Like I can get a free lemonade at Chick-Fil-A :D

We were going to go to the park Monday but it rained :( But we did eventually go, just later than we planned to. So before then, we went to the smallest library in our county. It's pretty small, especially compared to the biggest one we have (which is HUGE, but I'll get to that later ;) I didn't find any books there but some of my siblings did, so we checked that out.

Afterwards, we headed to the park, which marks as our 7th one. Unfortunately, the park had no trails, but the younger ones still had fun on the playground. I decided to read some of the Hex Hall book in the meantime. So that was nice, especially since I have a gazillion books I wanna read xD

Then we went downtown. One of my brother's previous community college teachers asked him a while ago if he could help her with some summer camp thingy classes she was doing, so he was going to be downtown (that's where the main campus is) to do that. And me and some of the younger ones had a coupon in the summer reading program we had from the library to get a free kid's ice cream. Hey, I may be 18, but I can suffice with a kid's treat if it's free xD It was good, too, and I didn't feel cheated out of anything. It's probably more around a serving size, anyway. Man, it was good :D

After we all did that, mind you, in pouring rain (it was awful), we went to the biggest library. Like I mentioned earlier, it was HUGE. Like, twice the size of the library I used to volunteer at, and that's the second biggest one we have! So anyway, we looked around, and I fell in love with the giant YA section. And guess what? I FOUND THE HEIR!!! It's the fourth book in The Selection series that I've been DYING to get my hands on.

Tuesday was Cow Day, where Chick-Fil-A would give a FREE meal to those dressed up like a cow from head-to-toe!!! So of course we HAD to go, scrambling to find cow costumes, mind you. We only got ears and one of those (misspelled) "Eat More Chicken" signs, but the person there gave us a WHOLE free meal!!! Plus, I had a thing from the library for a coupon for a frosted lemonade! Free food, anyone? We went again for dinner, but this time we only got the entree :/ (entrees are for those partially dressed like cows). Still, two days of Chick-Fil-A FREE food in a row? And my mom brought fries from the grocery store, so we did end up eating that :D It was SO good. Next year we will come more prepared so that we'll get the whole free meal, no matter what. But this time was great, too! There was even a person there (don't think he was an employee) dressed a a cow Darth Vader :D I got a picture with them :)

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Parks And Recreation

We went to this lovely, spacious park Monday. We've been before, but that was like years ago. It's so nice to walk on, a great way for someone to get their daily exercise in. Plus there's this beautiful lake with turtles and even alligators! I took some pictures, though I'm not sure how good they are.

Then we went to the library. They have this really cool superhero event going on, as well as summer reading things for kids, teens, AND adults. And you can win cool prizes and stuff. It's so cool. Gosh, I love the library<3

Tuesday we went to another park. It was so HOT outside, like it's been the past few days, but since we got out earlier it wasn't that bad. Plus, we found some nice shade :) Since we kind of lost track of our regular workout routine (since we moved and don't have a lot of space, which I may have already mentioned, so I'm sorry for repeating myself xP), I tried to get some exercise outside. But my mom pointed out that we're getting more natural exercise in - the kind our ancestors got before we started living a more sedentary life. So I'm glad we're getting our exercise in. I really love the park and being outside :)

Later on, we went to a Goodwill in another smaller city (not too far from us, though - about an hour) - since we discovered awesome stuff there at a GREAT price, we've been stopping at the Goodwills in our city and close to it. I found an Avril Lavinge album, "Let Go", for like 49 cents!!! So of course we went to buy it and now I have it in my iTunes. One thing I prefer about buying CDs/MP3s is that you can give it to non-Apple people, since Apple's so exclusive. Not complaining too much, though - I love my Apple products :D

Then we went to Once Upon A Child (not a thrift shop, but a secondhand shop with good deals, of course :D) because my sister wanted a Barbie (actually, two of them did). And I still love Barbies, so I went in, too. I found this pretty redhead, but she came in a lot and I had to buy the whole thing for $15 - it was a good deal, but I didn't want all the others. However, one of the ladies there said they could sell the doll separately for $2.50 :D So of course I bought it and my sisters got their dolls. I was so happy; it was like the universe wanted me to have it :D hehe!

We've been traveling around the parks lately - my mom wants to visit all the parks in the city. So we went to another one Wednesday. There were some girl scouts out there doing some nature stuff. Eventually, we decided to walk a mile and and half on this trail they had. And it was LONG. But I'm happy and proud to say that I walked at least 1 mile :D I enjoyed it.

Thursday we went to another park. I wished they had more room but they did have a nice trail to walk on. And it was only half a mile, not even half of the length Wednesday, haha. They had nice bathrooms, too, like the one we went to Wednesday. My mom found out that we have 30 parks in the city! We planned to go to all of them, and so far we've been to about 5. So we're only 1/6, or 17%, done with all the parks xD But I sure look forward to it!

We went to the library afterwards. I promised myself I would NOT check out another book until I finish the one I have checked out AND the one I bought from Goodwill. Which was really hard, because there are SO many books I wanna check out! I really enjoyed Wicked Lovely so I want to read the rest in the series, I may finish another series where I read the first two books and not the other two (one of them wasn't there, as far as I could tell, but of course things change).

The book I'm reading right now is a book I tried reading before - The Girl of Fire And Thorns by Rae Carson. The reason I stopped reading it was because it got confusing, and perhaps because it was so long (about 423 pages!), but I really enjoyed it. And I am enjoying it now. It's getting SO good! I hate how they killed off one character, though - not that they haven't killed off others, but I liked this one character! (no spoilers)

After I finish with that, I plan on reading the book I got from Goodwill. It's called The Fall, and it's the first book in The Nine Lives of Chloe King series by Liz Braswell (writing under the pseudonym  of Ceila Thomson. It was the basis of the TV show of the same name that I enjoyed, though I heard the series is drastically different from the book. The premise is basically the same, though:Chloe King thinks she's a normal teenager girl - until she falls off the Coit Tower and dies. But then she's reborn, whereupon she discovers that she's a Mai, catlike species that have descended from the Egyptian goddess Bastet. She had nine lives, and is now down to eight. Which comes in handy, because there are people out there that want her dead. If the book turns out anything like the series, I think I'll like it :D

On Friday we went to the beach since we got out later and it was WAY too hot to go to the park. It was so much fun! Even at the beach it was warm, just showing how hot it really was outside xD The sand was BURNING hot, so I was greatly relieved when we reached the water :) I also collected some seashells and rocks - it was great to find them this day; a bunch washed up on the beach so I got a plenty fold. I had a lot of fun at the beach, which I always do, of course :)

So that's that! We had a lot going on this week, pretty much getting out of the house everyday. We might go to the park today, but we do have to get out early since it's going to be REALLY hot outside today, too. Or maybe we'll get to go the beach again... ;) See you later!

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Happy Fourth of July!


Happy Fourth of July, everyone! My brother and I were planning on watching National Treasure today since it's a patriotic sort of film xD, but we're probably going to see Age of Ultron today, but I've been wanting to see it anyway so that's cool! I know my brother has been dying to see it.

I suppose I should write what's been going on in my week, huh? Well, we're still at my grandmother's house, but we're looking at houses and have narrowed it down to two - more like one, actually. It's a nice house, too. We didn't think we'd find one bigger than our previous house, but this one is and it's cheaper, too! We'd also be closer to our grandmother, not too far away from where I'm going to school in the fall (I think), and a dance studio I enjoyed but distance made me consider going there or not before :D

I really want to get back to my exercise :P We don't have as much space to workout, but I still want to get it in. We did go to the park the other day, though, and I got some exercise in. And it was a nice park, too. Next to the river. I really love living near the water :)

We went to Cookout (which has some delicious food!) yesterday. My brother and I wanted to go to Goodwill so we went there later on. I was looking for T-shirts there for crafts and there were TONS of them! I thought it would be cheaper to buy it at the thrift shop than at the craft store, and I was right - my mom said it was like half the price there! I bought about 3, and I also got myself a cute jean skirt :)

I checked out waaay way too many books at the library! I have FOUR novels - yes, you read that right - NOVELS. I'm glad I have plenty to read, but I may have to return some of them soon if I don't read them all in time! xD Though it usually doesn't take me THAT long to read a novel - heck, I once read one in a week! I'm slowing down from that now, but if I can renew a novel and the total time is about nine weeks, I think I have plenty of time. It doesn't take me 2 months to read a novel. Anyway, here's a picture of the books I checked out:

Right now I'm reading Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. It's about a girl named Aislinn who's a pretty normal teenager - except for the fact that she can see faeries. And these aren't your cute little faeries - they're dangerous. Aislinn's grandmother set her rules, most importantly to not let them know that she could see them, which has worked for Aislinn in the past. But now the faeries are stalking her, and one particular one - a king - wants to make Aislinn his queen no matter the cost. It's pretty interesting -I'm almost halfway through the book already! I'm glad I picked it up first because I'm really enjoying it :)

So that's that! Not much happening right now. School's still a month (actually more than that) away, but you can start paying for classes on the 8th. I'm probably going to get my student ID taken then, too. I'm so excited for college :D And moving. See you guys later!