Walking Across Your Yard Shouldn't Be a Workout.

    Yes, Walking across your yard shouldn't be a workout. Unless of course you had a yard like this:



 Photo by: Horia Varlan

         Which I don't. I live in Minnesota, where unfortunately in the dead of winter, walking halfway across your yard is a workout. I came in from letting my dog out to go to the bathroom, and I needed to take some breaths. Don't get me wrong, our yard is big, but not enough to leave you breathless. Stupid snow. The snow is up halfway to my waist, and we get more snow at least twice a week. I envy the people in Florida, I hear that they were the only state that didn't get snow this winter.


     On a different note, Becca turned eleven on Thursday. I guess I'll have to change my blog header at some point, or else she'll be mad at me. For her birthday, Becca's going shopping once today with some of her friends, and then having lunch and on Monday, she's spending the whole day at the Mall of America.

 That seems like a whole lot of shopping for a girl who absolutely hates spending money.

Don't Let it Snow...

Don't let it snow, don't let it snow, don't let it snow

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

but inside is even less delightful

But since all the stores are closed,

we go to church, go to church, go to church

                  - Don't Let it Snow, by Hannah

       Wasn't that just the worst best song you've ever heard? I'm sure it'll be a number one hit. That song pretty much sums up my Saturday. Yesterday was probably the worst blizzard I have seen in my young life. If only it could've been today, because then school would've been canceled. But no, the worst snowstorm I have ever seen was on a Saturday. It all started at about four o' clock. ( Cue corny flashback music)

       At four o' clock on a Saturday morning I was doing what most sane people do at that time -sleep. The power then magically decided to go off, then on, then off for about a half hour. So of course the smoke alarm went off each time. After that, I really couldn't go back to sleep. Around eight, when I finally did manage to go back to sleep, my dad wakes me up to go out to breakfast. To my surprise, Perkins was still open (almost all the other restaurants in town were closed) At Perkins, we found out that a lot of the power was out in town. Half way through our breakfast, we get a call that my grandma is stuck in her driveway. Goody. So we finished and helped her up her driveway. Here's the most fun part of my day:

After that, we baked Christmas cookies. I was planning to make, nice pretty cookies, while listening to Christmas music, and while Becca was at gymnastics. Well as we all know, things don't often go as I plan. Of course, Becca's gymnastics was cancelled. Of course when she saw I was baking she wanted to help. Of course she acted crazy when I brought out the camera. Then I told her that the photos would be put on the Internet,  and she calmed down a bit.

Let's see how many cookies I can possibly shove in my mouth at one time!



"Becca, could you at least attempt to appear normal?"

That's Better!

MORE pictures???

Lovely Cookies..

Uhhh...

       After all the trauma fun of baking Christmas cookies, my dad said it was time to go to church. I seriously thought church would be cancelled. It wasn't. I'm thinking, lets just go to church Sunday morning, like everyone else will, instead of during a horrible blizzard in the dark. But we went anyways. It was nearly impossible to see driving there, and the roads haven't been plowed. We get to the parking lot and I count a total of 5 cars. We ran blindly through the parking lot because it was so difficult to see anything. We go into church and there's enough people to fill maybe four rows of pews. The choir wasn't there, only one reader, no gift bearers, and no ushers. It was the fastest mass I had ever been to in my life. It lasted maybe 35 minutes. Then my mom wants to see if our favorite mexican resteraunt is open.Suprisingly, it is. All of the men who were trying to restore power were there eating. We one of they only other families there. We sure got our food fast! Then a man who goes to our church who works at the funeral home came and sat at the table next to us. He said he wasn't going to be able to get home, so he was going to sleep in the funeral home. That sounds like some sort of horror movie to me! Ick. We finally made it home and went to sleep. What an interesting day...

Hey Becca! There's only twelve days left until Christmas!

...gasp...

double gasp...

triple gasp...

                                                                                  

GASP!

                                                                           

Happy Sunday :)





I Think I Have a Justifiable Reason Now...

         Now that I actually have a reason to be so excited for Christmas, I can be without being thought of as weird, (most likely, I'll still be thought of as weird, just not for that reason...) The decorations are put up, we definitely  have snow, and my mom has baked up a storm. Now I sit here waiting patiently for Christmas bug the heck out of my family. There's really not much I can say, other than that, my life this week has been pretty unexciting..

Happy Friday People, TGIF

ELF Yourself!

    Check out this video I made on http://www.elfyouself.com! It's of me and some of my buddies dancing like crazy elves! Try and make your own, and if you get a really good one, email it to me :)

All Because of a Cookie...

        Well on Friday, I got a free day off of school. We had a fundraising event for school, and I raised enough to get that prize. Anyways, asked my mom if I could use it to go up to the Mall of America and go Christmas shopping. Well she said yes. On Thursday, I started watching the weather. The weatherman was saying that we were supposed to get a boatload of snow, and that they don’t advise people to drive on the roads if it isn’t necessary. (In my opinion, going to the Mall of America is necessary)

       So of course I accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to go begged profusely. My dad was convinced that we shouldn't go. My mom on the other hand, said it was fine. We left the house around eight thirty, and got there about nine thirty with my mom and my grandma. We got up there, did a lot of shopping, had lunch etc. About one thirty, we were in Macy's and decided to look out the window, and make sure that it wasn't a complete blizzard. At the time, it looked fine. (Ba da daaaa....) About three, we looked outside. Yeah, it looked really blizzardy. But at this point, my mom remembers the promise that she has made to my sister:

Mom- I'm sorry honey, you can't go too, you have to go to school…

Becca- But I want to!

Mom- Becca, you don't even like shopping!

Becca- SSOOO???

Mom-...

Becca- You better bring me a cookie! Promise??

Mom- Sure, I promise

At this point, I'm thinking, "Let's just pick up a cookie at Hy-Vee, and tell her that it's from the MOA." But alas, we have to look for the cookie place. We never did find it. We spent only about 15 minutes looking for this cookie, but by now the snow is really bad. We started driving at 3:20. We started out going about ten miles per hour. Then we get stuck behind an accident. We are down to a lightning fast speed of two mph. I’m thinking, “If we hadn’t have gone looking for the dumb cookie, we might have just been ahead of this accident!” After we finally get back to a whopping 20 mph, something goes wrong with the windshield wipers. OH GREAT. The ice has stuck to them so bad, that it can barely wipe the snow off. So my mom’s really nervous, because she can’t really see, and I’m past the freaking out stage. We have to stop in the middle of nowhere and try and fix them. We finally get home after seven. The car ride which should have taken an hour, now lasted more than three and a half. All because of a cookie…

The First Snow...

Normally in Minnesota, we have snow by at least October. We finally got some snow, but it was really late this year, and there wasn't very much. I took the chance to go out and take some pictures with my dad's old camera. It works a lot better than mine. I also had my little model Becca, and even though she normally hates getting her picture taken, she actually cooperated for once. At least at first...

Becca started out cooperating...

 And then Becca started a snowman..
(Now keep in mind, there is nowhere near enough snow to make one...)

Becca's finished snowman...



"Hannah! The doggy ate my snowman!"

Now Becca's normally crazy...keep in mind that she gets weirder on camera... 

"Are you serious?? More pictures? I better get hot cocoa after this Hannah..."


All in all, it was a pretty fun snow-day.