Happy 19th Anniversary!

New Mexico. I always say that I love it in Nisky, I really feel at home when I'm there but New Mexico is another place I feel perfectly at home. It's not because I go very often, I've only been here three or four times! I don't know why I love it here. Maybe it's because of the mountains or the cacti. Maybe it's the family that live here. Maybe it's the adobe houses or the history. Most likely, it's because you can really see the sky. You can see everything for miles and miles here! Two nights ago, I could see the lightning from a storm on the other side of Santa Fe. Everynight, the sunset totally lights up the sky. I feel like I can breathe here! Everywhere you look here, there is something interesting or exciting or just purely beautiful.
Today, we're going to Bandelier. If anyone can remember last March, dad and I went there together. I'm thinking that today, it will be rather different, if only because it will be much hotter and because I will be there with some of my extended family.
By the way, I'd like to wish Mernie and Doug Happy (Belated) Anniversary. It was on the 26th and they forgot all about it until a relative called! I don't understand how you could forget something like that! It's like forgetting your birthday. ¡Adiós!

p.s. I've written two journal entries (both including drawings by moi), eight postcards, and many e-mails since my last update. I plan to write some more today.
EDIT: Yeah, we didn't go to Bandelier. We went to a yarn store, a jewelry store, and Forever 21. But I'm not complaining! I got earrings, yarn for knitting a house scarf (Gryffindor of course) and a shirt.

The Placitas Mountain Band

I am in Placitas, New Mexico at Mernie and Doug's house. I have been since about 10 MST (there is a two hour time difference from EST to MST so it would've been about midnight at home) on Friday. Yesterday, I:

• Slept very late ( was tired, we had been traveling for 13 hours the day before)
  
• Got ready for the day
  
• Took Petl and Aggie (their dogs) for a short walk along with Noah
  
• Took a longer walk up the mountain with mom
  
• Wrote in my journal
  
• Went to Sonic for lunch and cherry limeade slushies (yes!)
  
• Went to the West Wildlife Park to see Doug's bluegrass band (The Placitas Mountain Band) play
  
• Went to Sonic again for ice-cream
  
• Went back to the house
  
• Read some of Hamlet outside with Petl and Aggie
  
• Checked my e-mail
  
• Looked up information on the National Middle School Science Bowl (the team from VA is there and Nick and Jacky are on the team)
  
• Drew a little in my journal
  
• Ate dinner
  
• Slept

We're heading out again. Adiós!

p.s. I can't upload pictures here, lo siento. I might add pictures when I get back to New York though.

Goin' Away

For the summer, I've decided to keep a journal (run over the image to see the back of the journal) so that I can keep track of everything I'm doing. As of now, the only thing I've written is a bunch of addresses for post cards! Hopefully it will fill up a little in New Mexico. Adiós!

Remembering?

For my end of eighth grade post, I started several different posts. A huge list? But of what, everything I'll miss? My favorite moments? There's just too much to say!
But it got me thinking, why is it now that we feel we have to start remembering? At the end of every day, a day is ending. Why don't we think about what we are leaving behind then? Or at the end of each week? I know at the end of each quarter, or whenever something changes, I miss it then. Why are we expected to miss everything from the past three years right now?
Lets look ahead to what's coming next. High school!
Or even better, lets live in the present. Rejoice in what is happening right now! It's summer! The weather is nice, I have awesome friends, and great plans! Let's live a little this summer!
By the way, I'm leaving for New Mexico tomorrow. I'll be gone until the second so don't expect a lot of posting. Adiós for now!

EDIT:

In the back: Will, Chris, Dylan, Niki, Jason, Talib, Gill, LinFeng, Michael H., Me, and Paul. In the Front: John, Michael W. (in the chair), Melinda, Denise, Kate, Faye, Gabby, Trisha, Bridget, Katie, Caileigh, Jill, Bri, Jaclyn, and Amy.

The Trio

Blue Skies

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see

Bluebirds
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long


Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things going so right
Noticing the days hurrying by
When youre in love, my how they fly


Blue days
All of them gone
Nothing but blue skies
From now on

"Blue Skies" was written by Irving Berlin in 1926

I tried to tie in this weekend and what we're doing today. The pictures are from our trip to Cape Cod this weekend and a select group (including Clare, Chets, Kate and I) are singing this song (along with a few musicians including Emily) tonight at our graduation ceremony. Wish us luck! Adiós!

Hardware

Medals, aren't they awesome? It always feels so good to win and a medal is just a reminder on that. It sounds so good to hear them clinking together when you have more than one on. They're also really shiny and nice (which comes in handy if you need to blind someone in order to save the day).
So, what mod sports get medals?
Baseball? No. Football? No. Soccer? No. Basketball? No. Bowling? Definitely not! Field Hockey? No. Lacrosse? Not a chance! Not that there’s anything wrong with those sports, but there’s only one sport that I know of that does get medals…
Crew. That sport you always make fun of us for. The sport that is so much more than pulling oars through the water. That sport that you know takes strength and discipline but you are too afraid to play.
You back out, opting for a sport with a ball, a stick, and padding. You can't handle it, so you try to bring us down. It's too bad for you it doesn't work. We just keep rowing and winning medals. We work that much harder to prove to you that rowing is a truly noble sport.
So what if I personally didn't win a medal (my boat was the only one on our team that didn't place, it was a little discouraging but I won't get in to that), I don't care! My team did. They went out, represented our school, and totally pwned. The doubles had never raced in doubles before, they placed second and third by a close margin! Our novice boys A quad won with a faster time than the boat that won the experienced boys race! Some people on my team won two medals! Isn't that worth commending?
So, when our team walks in to school wearing our medals on Monday, you guys are going to regret that they don't announce crew results over the loudspeakers. Adiós.

I think I'm goin' to Boston!

(I have no idea how many times I said that on Friday. It may have been really obvious and annoyingly punny but all of the oppurtunities to sing that song were too good to resist! (to all those who don't know what I mean, go on to YouTube and look up the music video for "Boston" by Augustana) I mena, you would've said that if you were hanging your head out of a Duck Tour car/boat and ion Boston, right? Well, I did...)
On Friday, my "team" went to Boston on a field-trip. Our day started at five forty in the morning (when we had to be at school to catch our buses). The destinations: TOMB, a Duck Tour, Fenway Park, an IMAX at the Boston Aquarium, and finally, dinner at Quincy market.
Our bus got split in to two groups at TOMB, Clare and Faye went in the first and Eric, Joey, Jordan, Kate, Michael, and I were in the next (along with others of course). Yes, Michael was still on his crutches for that (he switched between crutches and his wheel-chair depending on where we were during the day). TOMB is this fun puzzle thing. You go in to this tent thing and you learn that there is this tomb (yes, I know, in the middle of Boston) and that ten years ago, a professor figured out the secret way in and never came out. Now, your group has to figure out how to get us inside, to discover the fate of the professor, and to find the pharoh's burial chamber. Once you get in (which took us a surprisingly long time), you see a skeleton by the door and the pharoh senses your prescence. Then you have to complete tasks to move on and to show your worthiness to get in to the burial chamber. It was pretty fun and a little scary at first. Once we got out of there, we ate lunch and headed over to the Duck Tours.
That was pretty awesome as well but we were separated from Clare and Faye again! They got on this boat and we got on this boat That was awesome. I had a lot of fun seeing a lot of Boston and quacking. If mom had been there, she would have made fun of me for being a "puppy."
Then, we went on a tour of Fenway Park. Most people were really excited for this, Red Sox and Yankees fans alike. We got to sit in seeral sections of the stadium and hear a lot of history about the park. We even got to sit in the historic Green Monster!

Our tour guide was very... spirited. He started nearly every scentence with a scream of "HEY KIDS!" or just "HEY!" and he made a lot of really bad jokes. (The picture at the top of the post captures him pretty well) I thought he was funny.
Then we went to see an IMAX. We showed up to it ten minutes late but I didn't really mind. The show was called Sharks 3D so I expected a whole lot of footage of sharks eating fish and killing stuff. I was so wrong! Out of the entire thing, I only saw abot a minute of "sharks killing fish" footage. The worst part, we didn't even get to go to the aquarium!
Our last stop was Quincy Market. Eric, Kate and I got together and went to get our dinner. We decided on a hamburger place. We ate our food and then got some ice cream (I got "jimmmies" on mine!). Then we browsed some of the shops. Kate bought some baseball cards for Miles and a stuffed lobster, Eric bought a model of a ship and I bought a pair of earrings (which I lost on the bus, of course). We finally got home at abot ten o'clock, an insanely long day. Adiós!

p.s. A champs post later.

Storm

I always say there are only a few things I don't like about crew. That makes since because I love crew but there really are a few bad things about it, the blisters, getting really wet, carrying boats). I've got one more, awful, horrible, incredibly scary thing to add to this list. I can't just say what it is, I have to describe it.
We're out on the water today. We had to wait a little while to get out because it thundered a bit at the beginning of practice but once we got out, it was sunny and beautiful, I even commented on how perfect it looked outside! I was in a boat with Kate M., Gabby, Elle and Clare coxing. We're just turning a bend in the river (which is fairly close to the dock, from there it's only a minute or two to get back to the docks) when the weather changes drastically. A wind begins to blow really hard. Then, the water gets really choppy and awful. We start to try and pull really hard. We pulled ahead of the other two boats (which were both all novices) and I thought we were pretty much golden. As we rowed, we saw Kara's boat (who had Emily O, Christina, Julia, and Julie) struggle to not crash in to the side of the river and we watched Maddie's boat (who had Kate, Amy, and Cora rowing and Jenny was basically just sitting because one of her oars was broken) fade away. Then, the current took us. This was when it got really scary. We were being pulled to the side. We tried to control it put the current pulled us in to the side of the bridge. We couldn't row for that bit because our oars were locked against the side of the dock. I'm not really sure how we got out of that but we turned around again (so war were going the wrong way) rowed up a bit to get us room to turn and spun back in the right direction (with lots of direction from Coach Matt because at this point, Clare was, understandably, a wreck).
Meanwhile, Kara had already docked.
Then, we continued to drift towards the bridge but we docked successfully. Then, the boys helped us get our boats up. They, being the lucky ones, got in just before the weather turned bad. Once we got in, we began to worry about Maddie's boat. They were still out there, way far out and with only three rowers. We waited for them for a long time and by this point, even the adult rowers from Aqueduct (they share a boathouse with us) were concerned as well. They ended up getting out at the Sectionals dock and having their boat towed back by Matt's launch. I helped bring it up, even though I was so tired (I must have been tired because I didn't even get mad when I was carrying it).
And of course, after they get back on land (thankfully safe and sound) the weather calms down again.
I guess it makes you thankful that we took a swim test, and for those days when the weather is good.


It was so scary.

KATE AND EM'S JOINT POST ABOUT CAPE COD

Em: Welcome to another post by both Kate and Emily! We're doing this a little differently this time. Instead of just one consecutive post, were laying it out like a conversation (a comical banter if you will) so both of us can say what we want to say.

Kate: So, we (that is, my family and our family friends from NH) have been planning a trip to Cape Cod for a long time, and it was originally going to be a few months ago, but there was a death in my family so we were unable to then, but we found out last week that we were going for Memorial Day weekend and I got to bring Em. YAY!!

Em: We left for the Cape this past Friday around five. We didn't get to the house until pretty late (about ten PM) and by the time we unloaded and got settled at the house, it was 11 PM. About that time, Kate's family friends from NH arrived. Their names were Ethan (12), Aidan (9), Rebecca and Shawn (their parents). Kate and I talked for a while then went to bed.

Kate: On our first full day in Cape Cod, we didn't actually intend to do much. We planned to take a short bike ride to a lake to have a picnic lunch.

But when we got to the lake, about 10 miles from the house, after a long ride with too many stops and a good talk about classic literature, my dad asked if any of us would like to ride an additional 10 miles (it actually ended up being like 12) to the National Seashore. It turned out to be Dad, Ethan, Em and I, and the ride was great.

We talked a lot, made less stops and even came up with a fantastic business idea: Em and I making a lemonade/Popsicle stand on the Nisky bike trail. Once we got to the Visitor's Center, after 10 miles of riding, we rode a very short, but pretty hilly extra two miles to the seashore. That was totally awesome. We waded into the water, which was extremely cold, and then we rode back to the Visitor's Center and got picked up. WE RODE 27 MILES!!

Em: (Nice job Kate. What about the several sentences only rule? You've left me hardly anything to say about that day. You day hog! I won't be a day hog though, because I'm nice.) Anyway, Kate forgot to mention some of our ideas for the name of our business venture. We liked: Tep and Son, Tep and Wilks, Tepperson, and finally, Old Rancid Popsicles. We will probably not act on this but imagine if we did! Ethan thinks we could become a major sponsor of the Tour de France. The National Seashore was beautiful by the way, it always is.

Moving on, Sunday was Hank's birthday (see, I'm not a day hog)).

Kate: Oops!! I'm very sorry. Yeah, Sunday was my daddy's birthday and we started off the day by giving him his presents: new clogs and a new robe, a $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble, a gift card to a massage, a toaster, a new pasta spoon/back scratcher (don't ask) and…I think that's it. (HA! That was basically nothing at all)

Em: Since all of the gifts had a rather metro sexual theme (collared robe, clogs, a toaster, a massage), Shawn actually gave Hank the pasta spoon in a Talbot's bag! He managed to convince Hank that the gift was a pink shirt! That would've been the most metro of all! After the gifts, we all went to the beach.

We chilled there for along time not doing all that much. Although, I saw the endangered Piping Plover and we all saw a dead seal washed up on the beach.


Kate: Then Em, Rebecca and I got ice cream/sherbet at the Schoolhouse, a Tep family favorite ice-cream place, and after, we went to a baseball field and had a friendly, if not a little Alzheimer's-infected, wiffle ball game while the moms went to get some graduation gifts for my cousins. Dinner was delivered pizza, and then the majority of us, minus Rebecca, Shawn and Aidan, went to see Shrek the Third, which lived up to basically no expectations.

Em: As I understand it, Schoolhouse is to Kate's family as Four Seas is to mine. The ice cream was good, I got death by chocolate, and Kate got sherbet! Wiffle ball was fun too but Hank kept forgetting what team he was on (hence the Alzheimer's). Shrek the Third was ok, the best part of it was that I was able to knit in the dark. I wasn't even just knitting straight. I was working on the toe of my first sock! Since this is going on Kate's blog too, I won't write much more about knitting but I have just one more thing to share. When Eric texted Kate and asked what I was doing, she told him I was knitting. Then he texted back "Has Emily turned u in2 a knitting freak?" (I haven't)

Kate: Yes, that was pretty funny. I am not, though, a knitting freak now and most likely will never be. One thing I haven't mentioned until now has been Em and my devotion to our schoolwork. We have been working on and off, sharing my computer, to work on our rough drafts for our English research papers (she's doing Watergate, I'm doing AIDS), and we have actually done pretty well. So, Monday. What did we do on Monday…

Em: We went on a little bike ride to the beach. (we seem to be going to the beach a lot) Actually, Ethan, Jane, Kate, Rebecca, Shawn, and I biked, Hank drove Aidan and Miles there. Today, most of us didn't even go on a walk (Hank went on a long one), we just chilled out on the beach.


Kate: Em and I ended up having a *MASSIVE* sand fight. It was quite funny, even if my mom didn't think so, because we both required a shower after getting sand all over our hair, in our clothes, etc. I also, with my helpers, Miles and Aidan, buried Em completely up to her neck, in sand. That was fun.


Em: It was fun four a while but Aidan kept getting sand in to my mouth/nose! Before I took my shower, sand was falling off me like crazy! After Kate and I showered, we basically packed-up and went home. The drive back felt like it took forever but it was a really fun weekend. Adiós!

Kate: Well, we definitely had a great weekend together and it was totally clear that Em was like an honorary family member to us and our family friends. All in all, we had a lot of fun!

Summer Layout

A new layout for the summer based on this photo that I took in Cpae Cod a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

Racing Boats

Today, we had a race against against Burnt Hills... and Poughkeepsie... and 'Toga... and Schenectady. Basically, you could've added Shen and it would've been championships. To tell you the truth, I'm glad it wasn't! My boat came in third, out of three. That's the nice way to phrase it (and how Coach Krista phrased it), my way of phrasing it? We lost. By a lot. We were the "Experienced A" boat again and we were in a small race, only against Burnt Hills and the Schenectady boat we had already raced. We just got really behind, I'm not totally sure what happened. On top of that, we had to wait on the water for two and a half hours so we ended up getting really tight and sweaty.
I got pretty teen-angtsy after that but after my guitar lesson, I got in to a better mood. Then I worked on homework for a while until Kate called and we went biking. After biking for a while, we went over to her house and worked on homework a little more. Now I'm home. I'm tired but all in all, it was a pretty good day.
Sorry for the lack of pictures but there was nothing all that exciting to take a picture of today. (BTW, Kate and I really will get our Cape Cod post up soon. I promise.) Adios!