SaxManAndy7's Xanga

yawn

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:26:20 GMT

Well it's about time I post again.

Lets see.... OH! I am now 16!! Although you may know that already. :P And, I now have my temporary driver's permit!! Now all I have to do is drive another 49 hours. :P Anyways, I had a good birthday. :D

Then, our EPs have started up again!! We've only had one week so far, though, because bad weather canceled last weeks. :( I am taking a cooking class first period, first EP, which is fun. Second hour I am taking a class called "college study skills", where we learn what the best way to learn is for us... not sure exactly where it's all going, but we took a personality test that described me down to the fine details, so I'm guessing it's going to be good. :P

Second EP is interesting this Spring... we're just doing field trips and fun things. (I kinda wish we were doing another play, but oh well.) We went bowling the first week. Haha, I know, it can hardly be considered a co-op or EP, but hey, I have no complaints. I was, much to my delight (not) put down as "Catman" on the scoreboards once again. ;) It was a lot of fun, even though I didn't bowl very well, lol. This one guy kept hitting his ankle when he bowled... ouch!!

I do believe I forgot to tell you that I finally saw the last Lord of the Rings movie... and the extended edition, too. Whew, I was worn out after that four and a half hour movie. :P It was fantastic, though... my favorite out of the three.

And speaking of movies, on Tuesday we went to see that new Veggietales movie, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything". ;) Lol!! *relient k song gets stuck in head* It was pretty good, and if you like Veggietales, I recommend it. We saw it in the 'cheap' theater with some friends. My friend, Meaghan, who was there, really likes Veggietales so she was excited, lol, and we'd been planning to go for several weeks. You might want to remember that name, too, because I'm sure she'll pop up in some other interesting/funny stories soon... ;) It's quite hilarious; we email a lot, so we have an extreme amount of crazy inside jokes that don't make sense to anybody but us. So suddenly when we're around other people we'll mention one of them and we'll both think it's hilarious when nobody else gets them. :P We can barely say something without including an inside joke.

Michael and I also watched Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for only the second time. It's really awesome!! :D

So, this Friday... yaaaaaay!! Okay, in the morning was our first EP again. Someone gave me potato chip cookies as a late birthday present. (They're better than they sound, really!!) Then we cooked some yummy italian food, and so forth. Overall it was a pretty good session. So then in the afternoon, we had our second EP, which as I mentioned, is all fun stuff. This time we just went to someone's house for a 'game day'. I played some Euchre and Jonathan and I lost horribly... it was quite tragic. We got 2 points. O_o I believe the game was rigged. ;) I also played some "Catch Phrase" (the game I completely owned with my psychic abilities last time) with Meaghan and a bunch of little kids hanging around. ;) It's funny, all the little boys absolutely adore me... I was like "Okay, it's time for me to go, catch ya later!" And instantly I've got little Max clambering all over me, Spencer and Carson yelling goodbye, Parker trying to hug me, and me trying to get out the door. Hehe, it's cute. :P

Yep, that's what I've been up to. This next week will be pretty busy, with getting together with friends, election day here in Ohio, band, EPs, Nathan's birthday, Leah's birthday, Nathan's birthday party, and a friend's birthday party... wowzers. :P

- Andrew

Ho hum.

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:48:28 GMT

Yes, I realize that it has been three weeks. But why post if Ihave nothing to talk about? So I'm back this week with 3 weeks worth ofnews. But before I jump into that, I have another thing for you tolisten to. :P I know Aaron and Christa have already heard it, but forthose of you that haven't, it's a rock/pop song I wrote, played, andrecorded. It's instrumental right now, but may have lyrics to go withit at some point. The weird part is, I came up with this song in mysleep! Like, I woke up a couple weeks ago and it was in my head. Sowhile you read the rest of my post you can listen... (The Xanga audio thing wasn't working, so I shall provide you with a direct link to a very reliable site.) ;)

http://www.bashaws.net/music/untitled.mp3

Okay lets see... well last week we went ice skating. :D It was withone of our EP groups... good to see everyone after a month withoutseeing 'em. The fun thing about this group is that there are only,like, 5 or 6 people over the age of 15, so we're all really close.Here's kind of a funny story (although you may not find it funny...).This one girl and I have been emailing a lot talking about randomthings, and once she said something about her eating a muffin... so Ijokingly said "Save me one for when we go ice skating" and she was like"I would, but it'd be all mushy", so I told her that you can freezemuffins to stay good. :P And she did! She brought me a chocolatemuffin, hahaha. :P Yeah... and I only fell down once during iceskating, and that was because some guy got in my way and I didn't wantto plow him down. :P Heh, and there were all these cute little kidsabout four years old in their complete hockey suits... haha!

Then that night, Michael, Leah, our dad, and I went to see NationalTreasure: Book of Secrets! If you haven't seen it, I heartily recommendthat you do. Fun and entertaining, no matter what the critics say. :)

I'm in a concert band again this year, like the past two Springs.;) This year I have a song that's really fast and I have to play thehighest note possible on a saxophone multiple times. O_O And there'sone really high note that I always hit sharp, and I can't get it tosound right. A challenge, to be sure. ;)

So, this Friday, we signed up for one of our co-op EPs. :) It wasgood to see some people there again that we hadn't seen for a while. Iactually didn't move past the first few feet of the entrance hallwaythe entire hour, lol. I walked in, was greeted, and then we startedtalking right there the whole time, lol. :P

Then that afternoon, we went over to our friend's house to watchThe Lord of the Rings: Return of the King for the first time! It wasthe extended edition, too. It's an awesome film. But it's four and ahalf hours long!! That's a long movie, lol. But it was very good, andan excellent end to the trilogy.

Okay, yesterday (Saturday) night, we went to a 'teen movie night'with some people from our co-op, but there was a concert going on atthe same time, so the turnout was split and there weren't a whole lotof people there. :P Anyways, we watched Muppet Treasure Island, whichis actually a great movie. ;)

So that's it. Hm. I can't wait for the EPs to start up next week. And next week is my birthday. And Valentine's Day. Oooo. :D

- Andrew

Hello Again

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:53:27 GMT

Hey everyone! I know it's been a while. But I'm back, so all is well. ;)

Okay, first I will give you something to listen to while you read my post. :P By request of Aaron, I am posting this here. It is my own instrumental version of The Last Night, by Skillet. I played all guitars and piano, and used samples for bass, strings, and drums. Take a listen...

So have I posted since Christmas? I believe I haven't. Anyways, it was a good Christmas. :) I got some dvds, cds, games, ect, plus video editing software and a greenscreen for movie making. 8)

And it's 2008!! How exciting! :D

Last weekend, we went to an OSU basketball game, which was fun! I'd never been to one before. The Buckeyes won, too! But then the next day they lost in the National Football Championship. :( How sad.

On Saturday, some of us went to a friend's house (Nathan from the play), where we played games and had fun with them and another family from the play. It was pretty cool. Nice to see them after a month of no getting together. ;) I'd tell you everything funny that happened, but this post would be about three miles long. :P

An interesting and possibly excited bit of news... I got an email from a friend yesterday who wants to start a band. :D Like, a high school Christian rock band. I think it would be way cool, so we're figuring out some details. I'll keep you updated.

So this was pretty short. I suppose it's because co-op hasn't started again, lol. (Only a few weeks away...) And tell me how you liked the song, haha.

- Andrew

Christmas Weekend!

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:04:04 GMT

It's almost Christmas!!! O_O YAAAAY!

Okay, so on Monday I went Christmas shopping. Shopping isn't my favorite thing in the world to do, but Christmas shopping is a little different. ;) So now I have everyone's presents. :D I'm ready, Christmas, bring it on!!!

Quiz time: What comes after Monday? You guessed it. Tuesday! And on Tuesday we actually did something. We had our friends over for the afternoon just to hang out. I believe you are familiar with the anticipated Summer 2008 movie titled "Treasure of the Incas"? If you are not.... bashaws.net. Now. ;) Anyways, it's a movie that Bashaw Productions is currently in pre-production all, and I can tell you, it's going to be awesome. Little pieces are starting to fall together. Wait you're probably wondering why I suddenly switched topics? Actually, I didn't. Our friends, the Nelsens, are going to be helping us produce this film. It's like a collaboration effort. So we sit around and brainstorm with them sometimes when their over, and I'm liking how this movie is sounding so far. :D Pre-visualization, is what I guess you could say we're in right now. Drafting a script is next, and revising that script multiple times until April, when we hope to have a final version of the script. We will be writing the script with specific people to cast in mind, so there won't actually be a casting process... we'll already know who we want to be in it, and we'll make sure ahead of time they agree to it. ;) May is when we hope to start filming. Filming may take several months, but by July, we're planning on having filming done. Then we take some of July and August to edit, and hopefully the film will premiere late August. :D

Well you just got a peek at our schedule for TOTI. Time for anticipation to start! :P If any of you are interested in traveling to Ohio for a cameo appearance, give us a call; anyone who wants a part will get a part. ;)

Wednesday was pretty busy. We went to Marysville (about a half hour away) and stayed up there running random errands until about 1:30 when we went to see some people up there in Marysville who were in the play with us. (Two girls that are Leah's friends, and some younger boys.) But I met their 18 year old brother, so that was cool. He likes some of the same stuff that I do, and although he wasn't in the play, he wants to do some of the field trips that we're doing in the Spring. We got home from Marysville at, like, 5:00, so that was a long day, lol. :)

On Thursday I did a little more shopping, and now I'm completely done with Christmas shopping. Yay! Christmas, bring it on!! ;)

Friday was fun. At 11:00 in the morning, my friend Bethany and her mom came over. :) We talked, ate lunch, played a couple games, then talked about movies and a bunch of random topics, and then we danced. Like, Celtic dancing. I think I might have mentioned it before, but every Spring there's a big homeschool dance called the Celtic ball. I've never been to it before, but I would like to go this year. :D So Bethany showed us some of the dances just to give us an idea... sounds like it'll be fun. :D I shall plan to go, lol. I can't wait. It's not like ballroom dancing, it's really Scottish and Irish dances... like jigs and line dancing and stuff like that. :D

National Treasure: Book of Secrets is out now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't to see it. We might see it sometime soon and then Bethany wanted to go with us as well when it comes to the cheapy theater. It looks awesome. :D

Anyone heard of the band Lifehouse? I heard one of their songs on the radio the other day, and right now is one of my favorite songs. The name of the song is "Blind". I recommend checking it out. ;) And while you're doing that, check out "Definitely Maybe" by FM Static and "Over my Head" by The Fray. :P *And that's it for this week on 'My favorite songs that you've probably never heard'* ;)

It's Christmas weekend!! Yay!! I hope everyone has an utterly fantastic Christmas. :D

AND... I have been tagged to tell three--- oh, er, ten things that I like, and ten things that I don't like. So here goes....

10 THINGS THAT ANDREW DOESN'T LIKE
1. Getting up early. (I'm not a morning person.)
2. Going to bed early. (I'm really a night person.)
3. Movies that could be really good films, but they add in some unnecessary crude humor and language just to get it a PG-13 rating. (A movie can do without that stuff.)
4. When people cancel get-togethers at the last moment. (After the anticipation...)
5. How easily my electric guitar goes out of tune. (E-F#-G# A-a-A-a- WHOA WHOA!)
6. Anything slower than a half note. (GIMMIE SOMETHIN' HARDER TO PLAY!!)
7. The moment where you happily wake up in the morning and then remember how much work you have to do today. (Oh, crud.)
8. January. (There's nothing going on...)
9. Rhinos. (You know the kind I mean.)
10. Flash websites that never get updated. (If they're too hard to update, delete all the crazy flash stuff so that it's easier!!)

10 THINGS THAT ANDREW LIKES
1. All my friends!! (Just hangin' out with any one of them is awesome fun.)
2. Dancing! (Oh yeah, I love being light on my feet.)
3. Parties! (You get to hang out with not just one of them, but all of them at once!)
4. Acting! (Always have, always will.)
5. Listening to/writing/playing/singing music! (Yeah I've even tried singing recently.)
6. Summer! (Enough said!)
7. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess! (Best video game ever!!!!)
8. Watching movies in the theaters! (Love the experience!! Especially an intense action movie.)
9. Chatting online! (Stay connected with friends even when you don't see them!)
10. Getting autographed photos in the mail from celebrities!! (Just write a letter to one, see what you get back!)

Heh, well I did the best I could. Have a very, Merry Christmas!!
   *
/ \
/   \
/     \ ndrew

I'm a little late this week.

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:43:59 GMT

I forgot to post this earlier... but here it is.

O_O Um, okay, right now Leah and Nathan are watching High School Musical 2, and this song that's going on is getting on my nerves, lol. Fun in the Sun, or somethin' like that. I watched some of it, and minus the songs, it's not bad. I guess I find musicals odd because suddenly, they'll start singing and it just looks like they're mouthing words (of course they are), but it looks really fake and cheesy... I mean, who suddenly and randomly just starts singing? And how often does a full band join you from nowhere? Yeah.

Lets see.... Monday, nothing. Tuesday, nothing. Wednesday, nothing. Thursday... well, that's when I'm typing this, so Leah and Nathan watched HSM2 on that day. And I talked to one of my friends on the phone... lets just say that my awkward position is still just as awkward. O_O

O_O Wow. My mom just ran in the room and started singing that Fun in the Sun song... along with the dance moves. O_O That was surprising. Okay, moving swiftly along...

We have the blueprints for our new house now. I guess you would think that I'd be more excited about that, but the fact is, I'm not. Although I'd love to get into a new house, the land that we're building on is 25-30 minutes away from where we live now. I really don't want to be that far away from all our friends. It's not THAT far, but some of our friends will be nearly an hour away... I feel like we won't get to see them as often, and when we do, it'll be a big deal because we have to drive an hour or they have to drive an hour... no "Hey, you wanna come over tonight and hang out?" going on.

Well we were supposed to get together with some friends on Friday, too, but they canceled as well. Arrrrgggggg.... I've done, like, nothing ALL week. Sooo boring.

So on Saturday... I don't think anything happened. Oh, that evening our cousins came over to play with Leah and Nathan. ;)

On Sunday, we went out to eat at Outback Steakhouse.... fantastic steak. :D Then our grandparents gave us tickets to go see an OSU basketball game in January! Yeaaah!!

I have returned!!

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:35:07 GMT

I didn't post last week, did I? Well I guess that's okay, because I didn't have much to tell, anyways. Now I can make a decent post combining the past two weeks.

Lets start with last week, shall we?

The only 'big' thing that we did that week was go to a Christmas party on Friday, which we do every year. Our dad usually plays piano for the party, but this time I played, too, and I played for nearly an hour, I think. It was fun. :) Lots of stuff to eat, lol. I actually don't know a whole lot of people there, though, because it's one of our grandparent's friends that hosts it, so it's mainly a lot of elderly people who like to tell me how much I've grown and how much I look like my dad. O_O Haha.

On Saturday, we went to cut down a Christmas tree. It didn't take us long to find a good 'un, although it's not a 10 footer this time... it's only 9 feet. But then later that day Nathan started feeling bad, so we didn't get to decorate it that day. Or the next. But the day after that we got the lights and ornaments on, so that's good. :P It's weird... two or three times a year, Nathan gets sick like that. But he doesn't seem contagious, because none of us have gotten it. He gets a fever one day, then the next day he coughs, and then the day after that he's fine. What in the world...

So now we're back to this week. On Monday, our friends were doing that home-church type thing at their house again, but we couldn't go. Nooooo! And I was looking forward to it. But instead, Leah had signed up to go make Christmas cards at the library, our mom was going to a cookie exchange with some other moms from our homeschool group, Nathan didn't feel well, Michael doesn't usually feel like going to those things, and our dad didn't want to go without our mom. So I was left as the only one who wanted to go, and I was outnumbered. :(

The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End DVD was released on Tuesday! :) Our library is so utterly awesome, we had it in our hands by 1:00, without paying a cent. We've been watching some of our favorite scenes all week.

On Wednesday, we had some friends over. We talked with Jonathan (Around mine and Michael's age) for quite a long time while the other's played Apples to Apples. Interesting conversations going on, I must say... there's a lot of interesting relationships intertwined with our mutual friends, to say the least. Haha.

On Thursday we went to our cousin's house and decorated Christmas cookies. (A tradition.)

And this weekend was quite a bit of fun, because I got to see FRIENDS! YAAAY! We went to two different Christmas parties; one on Friday, one on Saturday.

Friday's party was a lot of fun. It was for all the teenagers in Home on the Rock. We got to the house at a little after 7:00 to find a van unable to make the climb up the snowy and icy driveway to the the road. I jumped out of our van and with the help of several other guy friends, we actually pushed the car up the hill. It's rather hard, especially when you have no traction under your feet because of all the ice. But we finally got it out. And then another got stuck. Frankly, we were pushing cars up the hill here and there throughout the night, lol.

I soon made it to the house, and was warmly greeted by a few friends, and not-so-warmly greeting on the backside with a few snowballs. It was really warm in the house, with a hot fire going and nearly 50 people in it. In the house, not the fire, I mean... yeah, I didn't mean that... uh ok yeah. *clears throat* Where was I.... oh yes, I was greeted warmly by a few friends.

We talked for about 10 or 15 minutes, introduced ourselves to everyone, prayed, and then everyone went off to get some FOOD.... except for me, because I wasn't hungry. :P It was kind of ironic, though... while we were introducing ourselves, they had some things you had to say about yourself, and one was "what are you allergic to?" I'm allergic to dairy (particularly ice cream), and that's what I said. Hold on to that thought for a moment. So just a few minutes later, while everyone is getting food, Bethany (yeah a friend) comes up with this glass of some interesting drink. She takes a sip and says "wow this is really good, have a taste" so I taste it, and it was very good. So she offers to get one for me, which she does. Very good stuff. I'm drinking it and she walks off for a moment. Then this guy walks up to me and says "Hey, are you the one that was allergic to peanuts?" And I kind of laughed and said "No, I'm allergic to dairy." And he says "Oh, okay" and walks off. I smile and lift the cup to my lips when suddenly I realize, after that short conversation, that I am allergic to dairy and this drink I'm drinking tastes rather like it has ice cream in it... I look over to the bowl where the drink was being made, and sure, enough, there they are, pouring milk and raspberry ice cream in it. I had completely forgotten that I was allergic to dairy, and here I was, drinking some dairy drink. So I give it to Jonathan (who can't believe I won't drink it) and wait for Bethany to come back. She does and she's like "did you already drink all your drink?" And I grinned and said "Well, no..." and I told her what happened. Haha, I was like (joking, of course) "That was real smooth, Bethany... oh yes, 'have some of this DAIRY drink, Andrew!'" She was going all panicked like "Oh my gosh I am so sorry! I had no idea... oh my gosh, are you going to be okay?" Hahaha, yeah, it was ironic, and funny. When I have dairy, my chest hurts a little and I have trouble breathing. But thankfully I didn't have that much and it my pains/breathing thing only lasted for about 5 minutes. Haha. Um, okay, yeah that probably actually wasn't very funny to you... why did I just type all that out anyways.... whatever. :D

Then we had a white elephant gift exchange, and I got stuck with some lame fuzzy cat in a basket thing...lol. :P Someone told me that I got a cat because I am, of course, the one and only "Catman". There was a tobyMac CD going around, but, of course, nobody would take my fuzzy kitten, so I didn't get the CD, lol. And then we got a group photo... (try and find me, lol.... if you can correctly guess me, Michael, Leah, Bethany, Hope, Andrew [the other Andrew], and Jonathan, I will give you an entire PLATE of cookies. Lol. Leah is, like, half hidden...)

After that, some of the kids went outside to go sledding, but I didn't bring a sled, so I stayed inside and talked some more, lol. We had a good time... lots of funny conversations and jokes. And boy, my tail bone hurts. Lol. I'll tell you why.

So we're standing in kind of a small group talking. It's me, Bethany, Hope, Jonathan, a crazy guy (another Andrew), Leah, Tori (Jonathan's "girlfriend", Hope's friend, and one of my fellow cast members in the Cheaper by the Dozen play), and Michael dropped in and out of the conversation a few times. To give you a slight basis on relationships in this circle, Andrew (not me, the crazy one) likes Hope, and Hope doesn't like him (more than a friend, that is). Jonathan is Andrew's best friend, and Jonathan is one of my best friends, and Hope is one of my best friends. Just to give you an idea of some of the relationships here. (And that's not the half of it, lol.) So Andrew has told Jonathan he likes Hope, who, in turn, told me, and I told Hope. So Andrew doesn't know that Hope knows he likes her, but, like, everyone else in the circle knows that Andrew likes her and Hope doesn't like her back. Lol, got it?

Annnyyyyywaaaays..... Andrew starts being goofy and throwing chocolate bars in the air and catching them in his mouth. I kind of lean over, grin, and tell him "You aren't impressing anyone, if that's your motive." He stares at me, grabs my shoulders and RHINOS me. If you don't know what that is, it's where you grab someone's shoulders from the back and knee them real hard in the tailbone, lol. Ouch, hahaha. So later, when he's not expecting it, I rhino him. Ha. So there. Then he rhinos me again. And I rhino him again. Soon we're both standing with our backs against walls so we can't rhino each other, lol. So that's kind of forgotten. But not too long afterwards, the conversation shifts to Johnny Depp. Now, 95% of the female population in the world is wild about Johnny Depp, lol. Especially Bethany. Lol. So as we talk about him for a moment, and then suddenly Andrew pretends to faint. He gets up, laughs, and says "See, I'm a good actor." Bethany retorts "Yeah, you can act drunk and crazy." And I smoothly reply "Well then, you can act about as much as I've ever seen Johnny Depp act." Now you have to admit, that was a good crack, and everyone else thought it was hilarious (I got more than one high five on that one, lol). Bethany, however, was insulted, hahaha. She marches up to me and I'm like "you wouldn't..." She grabs me, twirls me around, and gives me the hardest rhino in history! A GIRL! It was absolutely hilarious. :P Maybe you won't find it as funny here, but everyone was cracking up. So as you can see, there was a lot of rhinoing going on. She says later "Boys make great punching bags because they won't hit you back." But although we don't punch back, we certainly can TICKLE back... ;) Guess the rest of the story here... ;)

Ah. Soooo. Yeah we talk for quite a while. The not so good news is we didn't leave on the greatest of notes. Some of you may have heard this, but a while back, Jonathan and I made a brilliant prank call. We connected Hope and Andrew together and they both thought each other had called them, because their phones would ring at the same time and both pick up. (It's an ingenious system.) They seemed to be fine with it until they found out that Jonathan and I were behind it. They'd known it for some time, but this was the first time we'd gotten together with them personally since it happened. The conversation came up pretty late in the night as we were getting ready to leave, but it was soon decided that Andrew would kill Jonathan and Hope would kill me, except that Hope didn't want to kill anyone, so Bethany took her place, except that she didn't want to get my blood on her because I was her friend, so she would kill Jonathan and Andrew would kill me. Hm. Doesn't sound very happy, does it? Of course, it was a joke, but as it were, we left with Hope a little ticked at me. I tried to settle it with some kind of an apology, trying to make up, but Bethany told me "She won't be making up with you for a while... it's too bad you aren't me, because she only stays mad at my for about a minute." So although I tried to get things back to normal with a lighthearted "hope you aren't still made at me" or "sorry that I upset you", none of my apologies were really accepted and the "goodbyes" from her were not extremely warm. Hm... I'm hoping everything is okay, but ya know, sometimes girls can be really sensitive, and I had no idea this prank would be such a big deal. I was thinking at first, what was the harm done? It's not like we embarrassed her in front of someone she really does like. And why should Andrew be mad? He actually had been wanting to call Hope for a while, but couldn't work up the nerve... we did him a favor with that, because now he and Hope have called each other a couple times. Maybe there's something else... whatever it was, Hope just kept saying to me "I can't believe you did that." So who knows how this will all play out... I haven't heard from her since... EDIT: Hey hey, we're all good again, lol. Exchanged emails, and everything's alright. ;) So in other words... she's no longer mad at me. Yay! :P

Well, moving on... Saturday brought us yet another Christmas party (that's 3 in just a little over a week), this time it was a Christmas party for everyone 11 and up in the Ruby Home on the Rock EP. (That's the group that put on the play.) It was quite a bit of fun as well. We stood around and talked for a while about a lot of random topics, from moose, to Nathan Endres' garden that would soon be a forest, to how long the guy in Beowulf walked around naked in the movie. Yep, lots of interesting topics, lol. Nathan Endres came up with a few more "Nathan Endres Masterpieces"... he's going to become a cook, so sometimes he'll just randomly shout "Oh, I just had an idea for the greatest sandwich ever..." or something like that. One of his recent creations was "fruitcake in a bowl". Lol! And he nearly made me choke on my food three or four times... that guy is just too funny. ;) We also had a white elephant gift exchange and I ended up with a squirt gun, lol. Well at least it's more useful than that fuzzy fake kitten I got on Friday... ;)

We had pizza and dessert, and played a game where you each have a candy cane in your mouth with the hook sticking out and you have to pass a candy cane down all the way to the end of your line and back without dropping it and only using your candy canes that are in your mouth. Lol. ;) Then later on we ended up in a room with a piano and I started playing Skillet songs and people would sing along. It was cool. I love playing Skillet on the piano, lol, because the songs have cool piano parts... especially "The Last Night". It was fun to see everyone again. Also, down the street, one of the other families from Ruby was hosting a party for everyone who was under 11. So when we went to pick Nathan up from there, I saw some of my little buddies from the play, lol. ;)

Ha, I know you didn't read all that (and if you did, congratulations), but there it is... my week. More like my weekend with a few paragraphs about other things.

- Andrew

Thanksgiving

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:03:12 GMT

Compared to most weeks, this was a pretty slow one. We didn't do anything on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday we cooked for thanksgiving. :D I like cookin'... maybe I'll grow up to be a chef... lol. I took a cooking class in Emerald last year and it was a lot of fun... and there's going to be another one this spring! Yay! I think I'll take it. It's always a blast. Last year we had food fights, towel fights, water fights (using the spray faucets), ect. We also juggled apples, danced to TobyMac, and all kinds of fun stuff. Haha, it was a lot of fun. ;)

I got off topic, didn't I? Yeah, I did.

Thursday was, obviously, THANKSGIVING! :D The day of the Turkey! We went to our cousin's house at 2:00 and stayed until about 7:30. We ate and relaxed, mainly. ;) That's usually what we do on thanksgiving, lol. And the food was very good.

Yesterday the same cousins came over for the afternoon. ;) Then that night, my younger sister and younger brother both watched movies, and Michael and I didn't do ANYTHING. O_o I wanted to watch "Transformers", but Michael didn't want to. :( So I ended up chatting with Charis and Christa for a while, and Aaron for a little while, too. :P

*pauses to listen to Falling Up: Hotel Aquarium on the radio*

So that was my week. An extremely empty one, it seems... that blog post was my shortest weekly update in months.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:36:46 GMT

Whew. A busy weekend, to be sure. We performed our play twice over the weekend, plus a dress rehearsal... but I'll tell you about that when I get to it, lol.

Monday from 4:00 to 7:30, we had a play rehearsal. It did not go well. I was pretty nervous about the play after that. There were some people that still didn't even know all their lines, and it was 4 days before the performance!

On Thursday, however, it went better. That was our dress rehearsal. We got to the church at 5:30, and our play rehearsal started around 7:15. So we had nearly two hours to chat, lol. We came all in our costume and makeup. Yes, friends, I did, in fact, wear makeup. And, yes yes, I got gray hair. The spray stuff stunk though, lol.

And then, man, there's this one part in the play that always makes me laugh. It's my one scene with this Nathan dude and he cracks me up. We had to sit backstage and practice one line over and over again trying not to laugh. But it didn't help when he started changing the line to make me laugh, lol! See, I'm supposed to be old in this play, so I've got some wrinkles drawn on me. Apparently from the audience, they look like wrinkles, but when you're up close, they're way too clear and I end up looking like a cat with whiskers and stuff, lol. So this line that I crack up at is something like "Don't you trust your own child?", because he gets really really close to my face like it's a showdown or something. And this time, he started saying "Don't you trust your own kitten?" Lol, it was hilarious. I've got a new superhero nickname... "Catman". Lol. ;)

We had a bit of a panic, though, lol. The lead actor (besides me, of course, lol) started losing her voice. She wasn't able to rehearse with us that night, so we were talking to an invisible girl. o_O Everyone was getting nervous, because we thought that we were going to have to get someone else to memorize all her lines before the performance the next night!!

Friday morning, we went to Emerald EP for a potluck/party/class demonstrations. :) It was fun. Volleyball is quickly climbing to the top in my favorite sports. :D We bumped the volleyball around for quite a while, although people kept getting cold and going inside. By the end, it was just me and one other girl, Lill. (Well her real name is Lillian... hey wait, why am I telling you this; you don't even care, lol.)

We were supposed to go practice the play at 1:30 again, but thankfully that was canceled.

So that evening was the performance! We arrived at the church at 5:00, in make-up and costume. I'm not quite sure why we had to be there so early, but we did. The girl who lost her voice had it back again, which was very good. So we all talked for a while, I got my hair sprayed gray again, and at 6:00 they made us go sit in the back hallway for an HOUR. O_O It was really boring, and just got everyone more nervous. Nathan (not my bro again) and I practiced our scene over and over and over again. And guess what? During the performance, I DIDN'T LAUGH AT IT! I DIDN'T EVEN CRACK A SMILE!!! YES!!!!! I DID IT! Lol!

I think the performance went pretty well. I nearly dropped my pocket-watch during my entrance, though, lol! There were several skipped lines during the play, but we just worked around them. There was one part where a sound effect that was supposed to play DIDN'T play, so I had to make up some new lines on the spot to work around the fact that there weren't any records playing upstairs, when in fact, I was yelling at them for playing the records. So I had to just continue on like I knew what I was doing anyways, lol, and I made up some new lines and stuff to work around it. Whew.

I had the last curtain call, and I was very pleased and excited when I came on stage for my curtain call and the applause from the audience doubled and there were lots of whistles and shouts... very encouraging.

I was really surprised at the number of people I knew that came to the play. :) There were 22, If I counted correctly, and that's not counting the siblings/parents of anyone else in the play I knew. These were all just friends or family of mine. It was really cool. I got a lot of people shaking my hand that I'd never met before, and a couple guys told me that I should go into acting for my profession. Apparently, everybody really liked how I played my character. :)

It was funny, I was, of course, in all my old guy makeup, and after the play, Nathan (the other Nathan... I'll tell you if I mean my brother) came up to me while I was talking to a couple friends and said "Some old lady wants to see you", and one of my friends was like "Ohhhh the makeup must have worked!" Haha! It was weird to be there with my friends but have all kinds of odd looking makeup on, lol.

Then on Saturday we had another play performance at 2:00. It went pretty much like the last one, except not quite as well... I flubbed a couple lines, and the play just didn't seem to have as much energy. Too bad we had to miss the Ohio State vs Michigan game!! O_O

Well that was my week. This coming week we have, like, nothing going on, except for Thanksgiving. I'm a little sad, I guess, that EP is over. *sigh* Oh well. Thanks for reading! I'm posting a few pictures for your viewing pleasure. Click on them to view them in large format.

Just look at all that makeup, lol.

Nathan Endres and I. ;)

Jonathan Moore and I.

Me getting my gray hair, lol... you can see how much it stinks by the expressions on all our faces. ;)

There I am during the dress rehearsal. I'm obviously the one on the far right, lol.

That's me again... it looks like I'm doing a Jack Sparrow walk or something, lol. ;)

I'm not in this one, but I just thought I'd share a photo that shows all my lovely children in the play. ;)

- Andrew

Oh hai.

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:49:27 GMT

Well this week has been pretty busy, like last week. Which is good. Quite good. I was a little sick on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but I'm feeling better now. :)

On Monday we had a play rehearsal. Pretty typical, but I can see improvement in the play now. :) I can't wait for it all to come together on the dress rehearsal next Thursday.

That night, we went to what was kind of like the start of a home church. :D I hope it continues... I'm ready to get back into a church like that. And the really good news is, the family who was hosting it is Hope's family, and Bethany (another friend) is also there. It would be awesome if it all came together and we could have a home church with both of their families! Exciting. Anyways, we didn't do anything really connected with a "church" this time. The parents got to know each other, and the teens (plus Nathan, lol) went in the basement and played games. We played Twister and it ended up that neither Bethany or I would fall down, lol. (We're too well balanced, hehe.) It ended up that she pushed me over because it was taking to long for one of us to win, lol. Yeah I could have pushed her over first, but who am I to push over a girl, lol? Then everyone started tickling each other... except nobody tickled me, hehe. I'm afraid I did quite a bit of tickling myself, though. ;) So anyways, that was a fun night.

Tuesday brought yet another rehearsal. ;) It went pretty well, too. Uh yeah that's all I have to say about that rehearsal lol.

Wednesday... nothing on Wednesday, if I remember correctly.

Thursday... nothing on Thursday, if I remember correctly.

Friday... lots of stuff on Friday, if I remember correctly, lol. ;) Friday was our last day of Emerald co-op. :( Except for next week, where we have a potluck and just hang out. But that's just as fun, so yay. :) I think it's about time for Improvisation to end, though, because ideas are running dry, lol. After 9 weeks, we've used up most of our ideas and situations, and it's started to become boring, because no really funny things are happening.

Ruby (the play) went exceptionally well. And I got an awesome costume. :D Pinstripe pants, white shirt, gray vest, gray hat, black shoes, and a gray coat. :D I look like a genuine dad from the '20s, lol. And they mentioned that I AM, in fact, getting gray hair! Yeah!! And I'll tell you something... being in costume really helps your acting, lol. It really makes you feel much more like the character.

Now it's time for me to complain, as I usually do in my blog posts. This time I shall complain about a brat. That's it, he's just a brat. He's at our play rehearsal and he thinks that anything he wants he'll get. I'll be holding my hat or something, and he'll just walk up and try to take it from me. He very nearly ripped a few things. He's 12, but he acts 8. I don't know about you, but I've always had something in my mind called RESPECT. And generally, you respect people who are OLDER than you are. If a 15 year old is telling a 12 year old not to do something, that 12 year old better stop because a 15 year old is telling him not to do it, and he probably knows better than the 12 year old does, right? That's how I remember it. Same with me... if an 18 year old tells me that I probably shouldn't be doing something, I'd stop because, hey, it's an 18 year old! He's been around longer than I have! He probably has a reason for telling me that! Right? Right. Arg. This little brat, though, has no respect... he thinks he must be as old as we are, and yet he acts about five years younger than HE is.

So that was my weekly rant. :D Continuing...

Yesterday (Saturday), I had a birthday party. Yes, my dear friends, ANOTHER one, lol. That's the fifth birthday party since August. (Not counting my brother's, lol.) This one was fun, but not quite as fun as the others... it had a ton of things there, though, like pool tables, air hockey, xboxs, foosball, DDR, ect ect. But ya know, it was kinda like they were trying to hard to make you have fun with all that stuff, that you didn't have quite as much fun... the atmosphere was very busy, and if you weren't doing or playing something at all times, you really stood out as you just hung around, lol. I may not be making sense, but I like the parties better where you can just hang around, talk, do whatever you want. But I still had a good time. :) Only one of my good friends was there, though, but I only knew maybe 2/3s of the people there total. It was pretty cool, though; there was this one guy that I'd been in one class with him for one semester back during our first year of co-op, and then he graduated that year. But we both remembered each other, and I beat him in pool three straight games, hehe.

The church this party was in was huge, though... I mean, like, HUGE HUGE. We got LOST trying to find the room for the party and had to have an escort! Like I can't even begin to describe it... as Hope put it, it was SCARY HUGE. No kidding.

Well that was my week. Next week will be even busier... we have an extended play rehearsal on Monday, Wednesday we are having friends over (maybe on Tuesday, too), Thursday is the play dress rehearsal, Friday is the Emerald potluck/fun day (:D) and our first play performance, and Saturday is our second performance. Ya wanna know what really stinks, though? Our second play rehearsal is during the OSU vs Michigan game. Yeah, like we're gonna get a lot of people coming to our play that day. :P

One more thing!! My friend Bethany had a scary episode on Tuesday... she woke up and wasn't able to breath. She said it was like her skin was shrinking around her ribs, and it's been happening every couple months now. She went to the doctor on Friday and we haven't heard anything about how it went, but I'm sure she could use your prayers. Please pray for Bethany; I'd appreciate it. :) Thanks, and peace out.

Did you remember?

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:26:24 GMT

Did you remember to set your clocks back an hour on Sunday? Good. :D Yay for an extra hour of sleep. ;)

So this week has actually been leaning on the busy side. Three cheers for being busy! Anyways, I have more to talk about this time besides improvisation, lol.

Last Sunday, we went horseback riding! :D Lots of fun. I'd never actually been trail riding before, so I had a lot of fun. The only times I can ever remember riding a horse before would be: When I was really little and I rode on them at the zoo, and at the Colt Center in Tennessee a couple times. But I thought I did rather good for riding so little before hand, lol. :P I got a horse with a really bouncy trot, though, so I was a little sore the day after, haha! The farm also had hogs, cows, rabbits, cats, llamas, sheep, goats, donkeys, ect. And lots of horses, of course (doh!). So that was our Sunday, and I daresay it was a good one.

On both Monday and Tuesday we had play rehearsals. I can't remember exactly what happened on which days, because all the rehearsals are starting to run together, but it was interesting. One of the days, the director arrived an hour late, so we spent the first hour just chatting, lol. I think it's coming together okay. We should be ready for the performance on the 16th and 17th. I daresay, I'm a bit puzzled as to when or how I'm going to get myself a suit. But that will fall into place, I'm sure, lol.

On Wednesday, we had some of our friends over, which was fun. We played basketball, watched Youtube videos (lol), talked, ate, ect. So that was a good time.

Thursday, regrettably, was a day where not much happened. Or at least nothing I can remember. It was a tragic day.

Did anything happen on Friday, you ask? Why, yes, indeed. ;) I am sure you are quite familiar with my co-ops by this time, lol. But this time it had a slight twist. O_O No Ruby group play rehearsal! Oh yes, they had it going on... but we skipped it. O_O Do not shun me yet, it was for a good cause. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Okay, lets rewind the life tape for a moment... alright, now we're back to Friday morning. We arrived and went straight to announcements, so there was no chance of missing them, lol. :P It was weird, both my friend and I had a dream Thursday night about arriving late to announcements, lol! My friend Bethany arrived late, though, because the car lock was frozen and she had to thaw it with a tea candle. o_O Haha-- okay, that's actually not that funny. Yeah I shouldn't be laughing. Ahem, moving on...

We learned all kinds of winter survival stuff in the Worst Case Scenario class, and watched a clip from the movie "A Christmas Story", where this kid (Flick, I believe his name was) got his tongue stuck to a phone pole. :P Very educational.

Improvisation was rather dull, although we played a game called "Big Rudy", lol. I've only played it once before, and it was two years ago on my very first day of Improv in my first class, lol... but I still remembered how to play, and the cheesy little song that went along with it. There you have it! One of life's questions has been answered. Now you know what is using my brain space. "Big Rudy Big Rudy Big Rudy. Oh yeah. Big Rudy." Lol!! "Big Rudy Number One, Number One Number Six, Number Six Number Four, Number Four Number Seven, Number Seven Number Three, Number Three Number Five, Number Five Number Two" ect. A crazy game, to be sure.

Sooo, after that co-op, we usually go to the play rehearsal, but this time, we decided to go to one of the HOTR teen events... ice skating!!! Much more better. I had a good time, and with all the play rehearsals going on in the next couple weeks, I think it's okay to miss one here and there. :P It was fun, and I got a lot of people asking me how long I'd been taking skating lessons or how often I skate... truth is, I haven't been for 9 months, and I've only been a couple other times total in my life.

Saturday was actually a pretty busy day, too. :D We spent the morning cleaning the house and car, and then at 2:30 we picked up a friend and went to a birthday party. We rode a golf cart, talked, played Bunko, and more. It was fun. The party went on until 7:00, but we actually had to leave to go to another party, lol. (You know you're busy when your parties overlap, lol.) But this was not a birthday party. It was, in fact, a Christmas party. ;) It wasn't TOO Christmas-y, though. :P It was at Bethany's house (yeah you should know who she is by now, lol), and her mom loves to get Christmas on as soon as Halloween is over. ;) (Hope's family was there, too.) We had a white elephant gift exchange, but that was really the only Christmas aspect of it. ;) They did have a Christmas tree up, though. But most of the time, the teens (+ Nathan, lol) went downstairs and played games. We even saw me on TV. Well not the REAL me, but the guy on Hannah Montana that they think I look like, lol. :P We played the game Mafia, and everyone loved to kill me or accuse me of being the Mafia. O_O I must not be very liked, lol. Ah, they love me and they know it, haha. Oh snap, I just remembered I was supposed to pick something up while we were there, and I forgot. O_O Haha.

Well that was my week. I certainly had a good time. I hope this coming week will be just as fun!! :D Take luck. (If you're a Brian Regan fan, you should get that, lol.)

- Andrew