changes

"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become." ~Unknown

This is the year of changes for me and my families. My sister is going to High School. I'm going to Middle School. My step-mom, sister, dad, and I are opening a bakery (see http://www.sallyssweetstuff.blogspot.com). I'm going to make new friends. I'm going to have more homework. I'm going to be in track and cross country. There's more, too, I just dont want to go on and on. My life isn't being turned upside down, it's not like I'm moving, or anything. Yes, I'm going to a new school. Yes, I'm only 12 and have a job. Yes, when school starts, my schedule will be HUGE! But, my life isn't being turned upside down, just kinda moving around the board of new stuff. Please comment and tell me what changes you're going through- I'm sure everyone can name at least one :)

<3 Caroline

Cooking Class

Recently I went to a 2 day cooking class at Lake Geneva School of Cooking. My teacher was Chef John Brogan, and he was an excellent chef who taught us great little pieces of info and we cooked wonderful gourmet dishes.

On the first day, we cooked 5 Cheese Macaroni with Smoked Bacon (DA-LISH!), Chicken Teriyaki with Vegetable Fried Rice (WON-der-FULLL), Peanut Butter Truffles (Ick, I don't like peanut butter), and Berry Nachos (Baked tortillas covered in cinnamon and sugar, topped with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, berries, and shaved white chocolate...AWWWWW-some!). Day two we made Steak and Mushroom Kabobs with Grilled Pineapple (REEEALLY good), Potato Crusted Sea Scallops (Ick, I don't like seafood), and Grilled Pound Cake with Balsamic Berries and Vanilla Ice Cream (To DIE for!!!!). We made all of the dishes and then sat down at a nice table and enjoyed them.

It was really fun, and it helped me too. I love to cook, so this was AWWWWSOMEEEEEEE! Blog ya soon! BYE!

Crivitz, WI

On Friday, June 11, My cousins (Carolyn 13, Grant 15, Isaac 8), Isaac's friend (Nathan 8), Grant's fiend (Sam 15), My Grandparents (Papa Hohe, Gramma Sara), My Aunt and Uncle (Auntie Tam, Uncle Al), My Mom and Dad (Ma, Buddy), and I (Caroline) left for Crivitz, WI, which is about 3 hours "Up North" from where we all live. Crivitz is another one of my favorite places...we have campfires, go boating, play volleyball, stay up late, ride our paddle boat to the sand bar, have water balloon fights, go whitewater rafting, play outside night games (like Capture the Flag, Headless Horseman, and Ghosts in the Graveyard), swim in the lake, play on the raft, and go cliff-jumping!
Yes, you read me correctly, we go cliff jumping. First we drive about 15 minutes to the Peshtigo River and walk to the beach. Then we hike uphill to the cliffs. We count to three and...JUMP! We splash into the cold yet refreshing water and swim over to a rock where we dry off, climb back up the hill, and do it all again! Here's a video of me jumping in...

Also, I mentioned campfires. Now, these aren't your everyday, eating s'mores, family bonding campfires. These are your "Let's see what we can blow up in the fire!" campfires. Grant and Sam were the "blower-uppers" and usually are. (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS!) What they did was fill a glass bottle with bug spray, hair spray, bug fogger, sun screen, and pretty much anything else they could find that was flammable and came in a sprayable can. Then, they lit a sparkler and dropped it in the bottle which started a flame. They would let the bottle get really hot, then they picked up the bottle with a marshmallow fork and ran it to the lake and drop it in. The bottle would first explode with steam, then crack and shatter. The video below displays the two boys spraying the fire with OFF! and creating a huge flame. (Again...Don't try this at home :)

Skittles

Hey! What's that? It's a 2 inch long crested gecko named Skittles! My new friend! :o)

At my cousin, Carolyn's school auction, they had a bunch of stuff. As my step-mom and I were browsing, I saw a tank with a spray bottle, fake leaves, a fake log, and a little gecko in a container. I wrote my name down and bid $30, and guarded "my" gecko throughout the bidding time. After a couple of hours, the announcer said that the bidding time was over and to gather in the dining room for dinner. I squealed with excitement because I had just won a gecko for 30 bucks! Yay!

Skittles is a very energetic little guy, he always hops when I hold him. He's really cute and small, but he's not gonna be small for long. When I went to the reptile shop to buy supplies, there was an almost full-grown one. He was about as long as my hand (wrist to fingertip) and was fatter too. So Skittles is going to more than double in size in the next couple of months. I've had him for about three months.

I'll keep you posted on new pics I get of him 'cause he is going to get colorful along with his growth. Yay, Skittles!

The BOOK Project

As you may have read in one of my prior blogs (and if not, please scroll down to the post titled "my girl scout project"), I am doing my Junior GS Bronze Award community project. My service project is called The BOOK Project - Books Offer Opportunities to Kids!

If you would like to donate your previously enjoyed CHILDREN's books (or money for us to buy more books) you can comment on this post with your contact info.

The BOOK drive will continue through June 1st(ish) when I/we will give all of the donated BOOKs to a low-income school(s) in the Waukesha and/or Racine area. One of the schools we will be helping is Whittier Elementary School, in Waukesha, and is the school my Grandma Sara taught at for many, many years. This is not the only school we will donate to, but will be the first to receive your donations.

one of my favorite places

Colorado. Last summer, I went there with my family for vacation. It was absolutely spectacular. As I was looking back at pictures from our trip to put in this post, I realized how much fun it was. How amazing it was. The following pictures capture my vacation in a nutshell. I hope you enjoy them.


We went to an outdoor "concert" in Estes Park (the town we were staying in) and afterwards got ice cream.


This is my new friend, the moose. He's awesome.


We went off-road horseback riding up a small mountain. Woo hoo! Livin' on the edge!

Again at that "concert." Don't I look awesome with a cowboy hat?!


We went to a park to have lunch and, well, climb a mountain. There we are at the top.



There's the view you've been waiting for. Colorado's beauty.


While walking through the streets of Estes Park, we had a delicious pizza. Tony's statue inspired us to look like him.

While driving to a park, we spotted two elk in the meadow. Meet our friends, Bo and Shelly.
My cousin, Ryan, and I take in the view one afternoon.

After a long hike up a mountain, I relaxed and enjoyed the view.

This stream was our relief after that hike, everyone cooled off and got soaked.

Yeah, Colorado was awesome. It was breath-taking. Life-changing. Beautiful. Absolutely amazing. The worst part about it was having to get on a plane and leave.

my thoughts

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. -Buddha

I have been thinking lately. I have been trying to discover myself in the midst of people that surround me. I'm sure a lot of people have wondered about themselves before, wondered who they are. It helps to do something you love to do every day. For me, that's baking, playing with my friends, running around outside playing kickball, and being the crazy, lovable me.

I have also been thinking about other people. Everyone hides from something, and I can tell. I have been trying to uncover people, take them out of their shell. I have a lot of family and friends, so this is a big task.

I have thought about friendship and loyalty. One of my friend's friends was not loyal and hurt her feelings. I try to be the happy red balloon that keeps her smiling.

Almost every day I run to my friend's house that lives down the road and we play and talk for hours. It's great to know that there is someone that I can share my thoughts with.

It's hard, sometimes, to understand somebody's thoughts. Many times I can't understand my own. I wish, though, that I could go into somebody's head and know and understand what they are thinking. Each thought is not just a string of words, but a hope, a dream, a feeling, and with that we can change the world.

here comes spring!

Spring is nature's way of saying "Let's party!" -Robin Williams

So, spring is here. The snow has melted, mostly; the grass is green, mostly; and my flannel bed sheets have been packed away. Now that spring has started, though, there's no stopping it. Although, who cares? Spring is when the weather is warmer and my birthday is inching closer, only 17 more weeks :)

The most interesting thing is that grown-ups just think "Oh, great. Spring's here. Time to pick up the dog poo, carry an umbrella everywhere, and start the endless task of Spring Cleaning.". While Kids are thinking "Yay! More rain equals more inside recess which equals gym during recess! I might even get away with a sweatshirt instead of a coat!". Trust me, that's what every boy is thinking...

I think we are safe to say that spring has it's ups and it's downs. But, while spring leads us into endless Spring Cleaning, it also leads us into the endless fun of summer.

the color green

"Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises." -Pedro Calderon de la Barca


Today for my very very random blog (just look in the blog description) I will talk about the color green. This color can bring up very interesting conversation. When I'm with my friends, we would all gasp and say how much we LOVE that color. Boring adults would jazz up the night in a debate about global warming and their new "globally green" car. I'm sure walruses and fish have some things to say about the color green, too, but I don't communicate with them often.


On a picture my best friend drew for me, she wrote "The grass is always greener where the people you love stand." And I know that she probably got that from some old British book (she is totally not deep enough to pull that out of her mind) but it is a great quote about family/friends and the color green.


Now, you are probably wondering why I am talking about this random topic. Well, I could lie and say that I was attacked by psychotic ailens and am in serious-care in the hospital, suffering from brain damage. But really, the truth is that my step-mom said to me "Hey, C, why dont you write in your blog. Write all about the color green."so I did.
Go Green!

my girl scout project

The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all. ~Leo Rosten

For my Girl Scout Bronze Award (a "helping others" project that you do as a Junior G.S.), I chose to do a book drive to raise children's books for a local low-income school. I would love any of your ideas as to how I can market this project. Please email me your ideas at thesummerscoop@yahoo.com as this is part of my brainstorming resource.

Any ideas that you have that will benefit my marketing plan (where to market it, how to market it, who to do it for) would be greatly appreciated. I am looking for a low-income school in the Milwaukee area and any ideas as to how to raise books/money.

To the Girl Scouts of troop 5726, you gan go tro the G.S. website and reply to the "Caroline's Bronze Award Project" discussion.

To my family and friends, I would love any donations (money or books) that you can save or collect for me (I'll give you more details later about when/how to get them to me). Thanks for your help!

my nutty family

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts. ~Author Unknown

Lately I've been thinking about my family. And you've got it, Author Unknown, my family is nuts. But, so am I, so who cares? I love my family more than life itself, and life is pretty awesome. Because, family will love you no matter what. Family will stay home from work to care for you when you're home sick. How sweet is that?!

I'm telling you now, I have a lot of family. Four parents worth, to put it in perspective. Some live five minutes away, and some live across the country, but family is family, and I love them.

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. ~Erma Bombeck

You got it, Erma. Family is the only thing that will make you wonder, "How am I related to these people?!". They will make you laugh even without saying anything, make you love them even when they made you mad, and will share their cupcake with you, even when they bought it. Man, they're awesome.

I remember too many times to count that my family made me proud to have them. There's that one time when we surprised Steffi when she came home from the State Tennis Tournament. Or the time when Annie, Steffi, and I got tangled up in a hammock. Or the time when we were sledding at my cousin's house and Grant said "Oh, sure. It's safe." and I tumbled in a somersault all the way down the hill. Or that time when we were up north and practically blew up the cabin with a bombardment of tipped over fireworks. Oh, yeah. Good times.

i luv my friends

"A friend is one who knows everything about you, but loves you anyway." - Fr. Jerome Cummings

Making friends and keeping them. Loving and caring for them. Making a total fool of yourself, for them. These are all things I do very well. I show that I luv my friends by the what I do for them.

One of my friends, Kayla, had a birthday 3 days ago. In the morning, everyone in the 6th grade was taking off their coats and getting ready for the morning. I brought her a big fruity candy cane, some chocolates, and a huge hug. I had everyone in 6th grade sing "Happy Birthday" to her, and I conducted the Best Friends hallway birthday ceremony.

Way back in Fall, another one of my friends, Laura, had her birthday. I planned on bringing her a Twinkie with colored toothpicks smushed in the top for her "cake" and all of my friends (which is a lot) would sing to her. It turned out that we were out of Twinkies, so I made do with circular fruit snacks (of various colors), a blue post-it note, and the same colored toothpicks. I made a fruit snack birthday cake, and all of my friends sang to her. Then she "cut" the cake and we each got two fruit snacks. We sat on the bottom of the hill at recess time and danced, making complete fools of ourselves, but not caring.

It means a lot to a friend when something is done for them, even if it is just a bunch of fruit snacks on a post-it note. I know, for a fact, that simple things are just as special as the big ones to them (except, maybe, risking your life. That's a little bit more important.)
Luv your friends, and they'll luv you.

playing "small"

There is no passion to be found in playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. -Nelson Mandela

Playing "small", living life to the fullest, expressing yourself. What does it mean? Why do we settle for something, just to be praised? Why don't we be a stand for what we want?

Three years ago, I was eligible to participate in a contest to be published into a book. I had always had a passion for writing, so I wrote an outstanding poem and made it all the way to Whitewater, where they do the judging. I never made it into the book. The next two years started and ended with the same results.

This year, 2010, I worked harder than I had ever worked. At least 20 different people edited my fictional story, and on the announcements one morning my name was announced. My whole class erupted in applause, as I asked the person sitting in front of me what had happened. See, I don't usually listen to my Principal ramble on and on about dumb bunny things, so I hadn't a clue. It turns out, I was published! Finally! My lifelong dream was to be published and here I was, Miss 11 and 2/3rds -year-old Author.

I mean, I could have given up in 3rd grade, when I "failed". But, some of my favorite people in life (Mr. Kossow, my T.A.G. teacher, my parents, my siblings, and my best friend , Laura) knew that I didn't fail. They didn't let me give up. They didn't let me play "small" when they, and I, knew I had so much more to offer.