Silver Dollar City Adventure...Part 3

Now on to the second day of our Branson trip. Mom and dad decided to drop me off at Silver Dollar City and then go into town to do some shopping. Dad walked me in (I was using a free ticket so a season pass holder had to go in with me). On the way in we stopped at the GAC bus. (GAC is some channel on cable and they sponsor the night time show now.) I got to make a request for a music video, so if you get that channel then watch it sometime and you may see me!















Once I was in the park I went to the Saloon Show. I was a little disappointed in it because it was the same show as last year except like two jokes was changed :(


After that I hit the rides hard and heavy. The plan was to start at the back of the park and work my way back to the front. So I began with the roller coaster Powder Keg. There's one thing I really love about Silver Dollar City; it's like a big family. I think it's because it's such a laid back place. The workers are nice and people visiting are cool because they're just glad to not be at work. Starting at Powder Keg I began making friends, chatting with people in line and with the workers. By my third time through one of the worker's was joking with me saying "See ya' in a little bit" because he knew I'd be back through the line soon. There are also people who I happen to stand in line with a couple of different times and we chat while waiting to get on a ride. It was the same way with the giant barn swing; I made friends the entire way. I think Wildfire was the most fun though. It has been my favorite ride for a long time. (I'm kind of a lightweight and I don't latch the shoulder bar down quite as far as it should go so when I go down the first hill I actually life out of my set. Don't worry, the pressure clicks the shoulder bar down then.) Every time I got off the ride I would run back around to get back on. I felt like a kid again :) Anyway, there was a guy named Robert working there who I would talk to each time I got back on. I guess my whole point is that going to SDC is like going to a family reunion, only better! I can never stop smiling while I'm there :)

My last time on Wildfire I took my camera with me even thought it's not allowed. And I filmed the entire ride to share with everyone on here. WARNING: If you are prone to motion sickness then you might not want to watch it :)

Ok, last photo...I wanted to show the church where I want to get married. It was built in 1849 near Bear Creek in Branson and in the 1960s it was carefully taken apart and rebuilt in its current location at Silver Dollar City.

After I got all my roller coster riding done my parents picked me up and we headed back home.


To Do After Graduation:
Get a job at SDC!

Silver Dollar City Adventure...Part 2

Ok, so it was ready for the night time show. I almost always manage to get a front row seat, my family jokes that it's because I take people out with my backpack...that may be true :) So really, no one has ever been injured in my efforts for the front and center seat. I always go for that spot because sometimes the singers will pick someone out of the audience to sing to or for some silly skit or something. I've been wanting to be picked for 10 years and the one time we were late (dad got pulled over for speeding) we sat on the fourth row and I got to sing in the mic on a blues brothers song. Then last year I was the one! Clint (a fellow okie) sat down next to me and sang to me! So this time I sat in my usual spot and during intermission went up and talked to Clint. He was really nice and we were talking about Oklahoma and different things and had a really great conversation.

The show was really good. There are 12 singers/dancers, the mc, and the Time Machine Band. Every time I go to SDC I still get that desire to want to be on the stage with the rest of the performers...even though I know it will never happen. I've pretty much settled now for just working there as a technician when I graduate, then I would get to see the show like every night!

After the show my dad managed to find a ton of people who live within 15 miles from us and someone who knows his sister-in-law. He always manages to find people like that. One person will say they're from Oklahoma and someone else says "where abots?" and it all snowballs. When we finally got away we headed into Branson to look at the Branson city lights (every time I say that the tune Kansas City Lights runs through my head). We made it to Ripley's and hit traffic, so we turned around. (Remember that these photos were taken from a moving vehicle at night).

Continued in part 3.

Silver Dollar City Adventure...Part 1

It took a little longer to get out of town on Thursday then we thought it would. The builders came by and were marking to lay the foundation for the new house! After getting everything on track we got on the road...then stopped to get dad a new drivers license. Then we were really on the road.

We always get to go through mine and mom's favorite towns, Crane and Aurora. They're just the perfect looking little towns (you can't really beat a town whose school says "Aurora Middle School Home of the Houn Dawgs").

Here's dad on the phone on the way to Branson.
















We got to Silver Dollar City and as we were walking in mom and I were talking about how many people were there, etc. and I said "but the ultimate question is are the Duggars' here?" (The Duggars are a family from Arkansas with 17 children and 1 more on the way. They're been on the news and TV alot and were interviewed by the news anchor at KOTV that I know. They were at SDC the last time we were there.) Not even 2 minutes after I had said that to my mom we rounded a corner and there they were! Mom said I must by psychic :)

Since we're building a house my mom wanted me to take pictures of some of the landscaping type things for ideas for our yard. Here's a couple of cool things.





















We rode a few rides. My parents stopped to listen to the Cajun Connection and I kept riding rides. Since most of the local schools are almost out there were a lot of kids there on school trips and they were rowdy! I started talking to the guy next to me in line more or less about how crazy all the kids were acting. He was really nice and come to find out he thought I was his age...14. That happened many more times over the course of the trip; some kids thought I was as young as 12. Do I really look THaT young?!?

Then it was time for the night time show; my favorite part! Continued in part 2.

Branson Here I Come

My parents and I are headed out of town today. We will be spending Thursday and Friday in Branson taking advantage of some free tickets and my last week off before work starts. I'm so excited! I've been having Silver Dollar City withdraws :)

So...I spent all day yesterday on etsy, paypal, etc. and I'm even more pumped up about opening an etsy shop. There are still a few things I'm a little confused about though. If any of you guys have any advice about having an etsy shop then PLEASE share it with me. Thanks.

Refreshing Tea

A few years ago my mom planted some lemon balm plants...and now they are all over the yard. My dad actually had to mow a path through the lemon balm to get to the storage building. I really like the plants because they do in fact smell like lemons. The other day I had the idea of making lemon balm tea, so mom and I tried it. We boiled 4 cups of water and added about 2/3 of a cup of lemon balm leaves to steep, then put it in the fridge to chill. I made some little ice cubes with a lemon balm leaf in each one (they were super cute). The next day we strained it and added a little sugar and tried the tea...it was ok. Not really that great, but it looked cute with the ice cubes :)

So I guess the moral is that tea can be cute and is not always that great, but we had fun making it. We felt like we were drinking something healthy...it actually tasted green :)

The World Really is that Small

I've always heard about 6 degrees of separation and wondered about it. A few years ago one of the prime time shows (20/20 or something like that) tried it out and found it to be true. They connected someone in America with someone in Europe who had nothing in common.

Just a few minutes ago I was on MySpace. One of my friends on there is a guy who sang to me during a show at Silver Dollar City. From his friend list I went to a guy's profile who I thought looked familiar as another Branson performer, and in his friend list is a girl I went to collage with last year. I've had this happen before with a guy that I went to college with. It never ceases to amaze me at how easy it is to build a few bridges and connect myself with just about anyone else in the world.



BTW my parents and I are going to Branson/Silver Dollar City later this week! I can't wait and I hope to return with a lot of great pictures to share with you guys.

You Give Me Wings Baby

Trip to Dallas

"It was a lovely day at Love Field."


Seriously, every video we watched over the last two weeks in my JFK class has started with that sentence. To end the class we loaded up in a bus and headed down to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. It wasn't as cool as we thought it would be. Most of us skipped all the exhibits and went straight to the sixth floor window. The closest you can stand is two windows away and while standing there we had quite the conversation about if the shot was possible or not.

The more fun part of the trip was hanging out in Dealey Plaza. We stood on the street in the exact spots where JFK was when he was hit and a couple of us "refilmed" the Zapruder film.

Now to the important question...who really shot JFK and who was involved?? Did Oswald act alone, was he working with the mafia, the CIA, the military, or all three?? If there was another shooter was he in the grassy knoll or on the triple overpass?? Was the KGB or Cuba in on it?? Or was Oswald set up?? Did Jack Ruby really just happen onto Oswald at the police station or was the mafia using him and finally giving him his "chance"?? There is some evidence that can be used to make every one of these claims. Who do I think did it...I'm not sure yet, but I have to decide and write a paper over it by June 16.

Taken while standing in the spot where JFK got hit by the fatal shot.

Some think shot(s) came from right where I was standing in the grassy knoll when I took this.

Or maybe from the overpass...

The whole group in Dealey Plaza. I'm in the front row in the black shirt and our teacher Dr. Cowger is sitting to my left.

Flashback Friday...21

Have you seen the movie Elizabethtown?? ...me neither. However apparently there is a bridge in the movie that I cross every time my family goes from my grandma's house to Branson. Back in 2004 I had my dad stop the car so I could later say that I've been somewhere where a movie was filmed. So here it is "I've been somewhere where a movie was filmed." :) I know, I'm kind of a nerd.

Two Whole Years

Today is my two year anniversary with Kevin! Sometimes I can't believe that it's been that long, and other times I can't believe it's only been that long :)

Kevin and I meet almost four years ago when I was a senior in high school. I went to visit my sis at college and she introduced me to a lot of the people in band. One of the people was Kevin. I went back a few months later and we were reintroduced. We actually ended up watching a movie with some other people in Kevin and his roommate's room. At that time we were both dating other people, but he told me later that he thought I was cute! I ended up going to that same university and we were in band together. I had a kind of yucky freshman year, but the last three weeks saved it. One day in band Kevin's reed broke and he threw it down on the ground. It bounced and almost hit my leg. I looked at him and jokingly said "you almost hit me. I could have been hurt." He thought I was serious and apologized. Then we just kind of stared at each other...then realized we were still in band.

We then began to message each other on facebook, then moved up to AIM messaging. A few days later he popped the question, "do you want to come over and watch a movie?" Of course I did! We watched movies together every night for the next week and a half (finals week). I was totally falling for him, but suddenly the semester was over. I was packing up everything to move home, with Kevin's help (he even cleaned my bathtub for me). For the next week, and the whole summer, we stayed up until all hours of the night chatting on AIM. Then on May 18, 2006, Kevin typed "good night my lady". We were in that crazy time where you don't really know if you're dating or not, so I asked "I'm your lady?" By the end of the night it was settled and we were dating!

I love you Kevin and thanks for a great two years!

Also, happy 21st birthday Danielle! You're the best friend a girl can ever ask for!

My New Baby

Yesterday my parents got me out of bed early to head to the four family yard sale down the road. We looked around and bought a hedge clipper for dad, some cute storage tins for the kitchen for mom, and an amazing Singer sewing machine that dates to the early 1950s for me! Not only does the machine work, but it's in really good condition (I'm going to sand the table though and give it a coat of paint). Warning: the following pictures are straight from the camera and kinda crappy.

The machine has an adorable little booklet with fun sketches. The booklet details everything! Fun fact: there are 52 spots where the machine can be oiled and all are marked in the diagrams.

There are a lot of feet that came with the machine that do all sorts of things such as ruffling and all sorts of different types of hems. There were also about 30 bobbins, 18 spools of thread, the hook & eye from every bra the owner ever had, a lot of cool old buttons, and tons of needles in the table drawers. The drawers were removed before the pictures were taken.

When we got the machine/table home we put it on the porch for a little while. My mom and I ended up oiling it and testing it out while it was still on the porch. There was a bit of squealing and jumping up and down that went on :) The machine totally has a knee peddle! I didn't even know they existed last week. I think my *new* $5 machine is actually a better machine then the $85 one I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. My only dislike is that the machine seems to only have one speed...fAST!

Crafting...finally

There's something I have to explain...for the last few years I've been behind on gift giving. I always manage to get Christmas gifts on time for everyone, but birthdays, mother's day, etc. are guaranteed to be late. I think it has something to do with the fact that I rarely go home. So needless to say I'm behind on sis' birthday, mother's day, and dad's birthday. However, last night I made part of my mom's mother's day gift!

I got the idea a while back for fabric covered thumbtacks and just happened to have the supplies on hand. I made mom five fabric covered button thumbtacks and gave her a coupon for a zipper bag of her fabric and zipper choices. I put the pins on a scrap piece of foam board covered with wrap paper that Dollar Tree uses to wrap glassware, wrote on recycled paper, packaged in a recycled envelope, and made the label from Dollar Tree paper as well (I was kinda in a save the Earth mode). I gave it to her today and she really like the pins!

Flashback Friday...20

Here is the second part of the Sea World Flashback Friday as promised. To recap: I went to Sea World my junior year of high school on a band trip...wow, that didn't take long. About the same time the trip happened I was going through a stained glass phase. I love stained glass and I wanted to make it (another one of my crazy job ideas). So I took a picture of a beautiful piece of stained glass art that I saw at Sea World.















During my senior year I decided to draw the stained glass for my art class. It took some time and close attention, but I'm proud of the result. Tell me what you think.

Only in Oklahoma

I can't remember if I've mentioned before, but I'm taking a two week intersession class over JFK and the assassination. One week of the class is over and today I made the trek back home for the weekend.

I stopped at the usual place and noticed a chicken hanging out by a SUV. I didn't think much of it except that I wanted to take a picture to show my mom. So I did then went inside. When I came back the folks who owned the SUV were just standing there not knowing what to do. One of the ladies told me she thought the chicken was hurt so I took a step closer to check it out. It just stood up and sauntered off. The family couldn't believe that a chicken was just hanging out at a gas station and even followed it to the other side of the car to watch it some more. They were pretty easily amused...I wouldn't expect so much interest in a chicken from Arkansasans (I can talk about Arkansas since that's where all my folks came from :)


















Happy Birthday Dad!

Straight A's!

Yep!

Giveaway

There's an awesome giveaway going on over at the BloggedIn Network for $100 worth of bounty in the form of a Target gift card. Go check it out and enter for your chance to win!

Flashback Friday...19

This week was finals week. I only had two finals and they were yesterday and today. I knew there was no way I could get all my stuff back into my CR-V to get home, so my mom was nice enough to come last night and spend the night, help me pack my stuff, and haul a load home! Thanks mom! So I finally made it home and I am officially a senior now. WooHoo!

This weeks Flashback Friday starts out in my junior year of high school and next week (yep it's a two-parter) will go into my senior year of high school.

In high school I was in the marching band, and every two or three years we would go on a band trip. My senior year we went to San Antonio, TX. We played in a contest and won first in our class. Then we got to hang out at Sea World the next day! My parents were on the trip as sponsors and they saw some of the animal shows while I was riding some rides and they said the shows were really good. They told me that I should watch some of them, but the bus was about to leave...luckily my parents had driven to Texas even though I rode the bus. We worked it out with the band directors and I got to stay and see the animals! I got to see the dolphins, sea otters, and...orcas! They were so beautiful and I got that crazy urge to be an orca trainer again. (And in fact spent the entire following summer reading all the books about orcas that I could find at the library.) My favorite part was when the orcas did a "routine" to the song You Raised Me Up by Josh Groban. In my opinion you can't beat Josh Groban and orcas at the same time. The other day I was on youtube...listening to Hanson messin' around and found a video of the orcas. However the orcas weren't playing right that day and in the video the tricks are at the wrong times :) The lift at 2:50 was supposed to happen at 1:56, but it is still a neat show! Hope you enjoy the video and check back in next Friday for another part of the Sea World flashbacks...

Showing my age

Hanson was popular when I was in elementary and middle school. That was back when I didn't listen to music, so I didn't know much about them except they sang Mmm Bop and were from an Oklahoma town near mine and there was a "Got Milk" poster in the cafeteria with their picture. By the time I began to like Mmm Bop it was considered nerdy to like Hanson. I haven't really thought about them in the last 10 or so years until today. I happened on to a blog that had video clips of the blogger doing a segment on KOTV so I hit youtube looking for other KOTV clips to share. Somehow I found this video of Hanson on the morning show from 1995, two years before they really made it big time. Even though the quality totally stinks it's so cute!

After a little more searching I found out that the brothers are 23, 25, and 27 now. All are married and the latest thing I could find said the middle brother has 3 kids...that's crazy! They seem to be pretty cool guys nowadays. And gosh darn it, they're kind of cute now. For some reason I was thinking that at least the youngest Hanson boy was younger then me, but I guess not. So I have a new favorite song off Hanson's tenth year album This Time 'Round called If Only.



(I wanted to post the actual music video, but the embedding was disabled, but it can be found here.) And why is it that spell check recognizes Hanson, but not other things like internship?!? My email speak check refuses to say that internship is a word.

The Grand Tour

I mentioned about a month ago that I got an internship with KOTV and today I got went up there to get some paperwork done and was taken around on the "grand tour" of the place. I got to meet some of the anchors, reporters, photojournalists, producers, and a ton of other people! I saw Craig Day; he's the guy I job shadowed for a day 3 years ago. He actually put in a good word for me that basically guaranteed me the internship.

While I'm interning I will go to the morning meeting where the assignments are given. Then I get to choose who I want to go on assignment with. I will also be working with the editors and by the end of the internship will have made a few packages from start to finish to put on a resume' tape. Some days I will be working at the assignment desk or the teleprompter or whatever else they want to put me at :) Most of the time during the noon show I will be sitting in the control room at the director's spot (during the morning and noon show there is one guy doing tech. director and director, instead of having two people like during the evening news casts).

It was a lot of fun going around the news station. Everyone I met was really nice. I can't wait for June so I can get started!





<-Craig Day





<- Me and Craig



<- Photo I found of a morning show crafting segment from a few years ago

Stampin'

A couple of weeks ago on the Thredbanger forum a girl did some lino stamps on fabric to make patches. It reminded me of the lino cut I made in art class in high school (a scaled down version of Starry Night). So yesterday I set out on a mission to find my old stamp. It took awhile, and actually ended up being in the first place I looked. Somehow I missed it the first time I looked there. After finding my lino cut I realized that one of the corners was cracked and about to fall off. I decided to mount it on a block of wood. My dad was nice enough to break out the saw and cut a piece to my specifications. It turned out pretty nice and I plan out putting a copy of the stamp on the back of the block as a label.

I did some practicing today to see if my sponge roller would work since I don't have a ink roller thing (a bryer??).

Here's a print I made today on a grocery sack. It's not perfect, but I still like it. I'm going to try it on fabric some other time...and probably use blue or green paint.

Break before Finals

Somehow I got lucky and get a five day weekend! It's finals week for everyone else, but the only two finals I have are on Thursday and Friday! So I came home to relax a while.

Every time I come home there is a pile of mail waiting...that's what happens when you don't go home for two months :) In the mail was: two pairs of underwear, a notice from the credit card company, a bank statement, something from my sis, and a locks of love newsletter.

1) You may be wondering why I got underwear in the mail. Well...every Wednesday Hanes has a giveaway of 500 pairs of underwear and I've won twice! (I entered the second time before I knew I had won.) You can go here to enter.

2) I've mentioned before that I don't have a credit card, which is why I don't have an Etsy store, so you can imagine my surprise when I open a letter and read that my interest rates are changing. I frantically called my mom because I thought someone had gotten a hold of my info and was scamming me. Come to find out it was from when I signed up for something at school it was actually a credit card application, but it wasn't clearly stated...yea, I got taken :( But look at the upside, I might end up using that card to open a shop. I will have to be very careful and not miss a payment though because the late fees and interest rates are crazy high.

3) Bank statement...I need to balance my checkbook...

4) When sis gets mail she doesn't want then I get it! (It was something cool, not junk mail.)

5) I'm going to cut my hair and give it to locks of love as soon as it's long enough. I'm almost there!




So after posting the video last week on 40s hair I tried it out. The bad thing is that I never found sponge rollers and it was really late when I did it. Since I didn't have the rollers I only did the bangs part. So excuse how bad I look and remember that it was only the first try :)





*Edit* I just noticed how off-centered it is.

Flashback Friday...18

I'm totally slacking on today's Flashback Friday due to a long week of paper writing. So here it is, me and my two best friends ever! The photo is from a sleepover is from February of 2003 when we were 16. I'm the nerd on the left :)

Things are changin'

Yesterday my Broadcast class got to take a hard hat tour of the fine arts building being built on campus! It was so amazing! The new building is for art, music, theatre, and...mass communication. We got to see the new theater, and it is amazing. There is an area for an orchestra pit that is going to be on hydraulics and a cat walk that runs around the enter top of the room. The building also has a TV studio that is gigantic and even has a garage door so we can easily load/unload equipment and even drive in a car to do a car commercial or something. There are three radio studios and like a million other cool things. We totally wanted to cry for joy when we saw everything :) We were hoping to be moved in by August, but it's looking like January now, which means that I'll only have one semester in the new building :( Unless I decide to stick around for an extra year or two and just take random classes....hmm.

Then today we got to meet one of the candidates for the new mass comm position. We're getting a new professor...without losing one first! Next Wednesday we get to meet the other candidate. We all really liked the guy that came today, especially after we found out he plays the bass. Mainly rock music. On a fender. We were sold...JK, no really we grilled him pretty hard to find out if he was qualified (because we have a professor right now who who's classes we've had to take over teaching most of the time because he doesn't know anything about the software or equipment) and the new guy that came in totally knows his stuff. In addition to the new staff member we are replacing a musical theatre teacher and an acting teacher, so there will be all sorts of new people next year.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the good news....I am the new costumer in the theatre department!!