Spontaneous Summer

WELL.
I SUCK AT BLOGGING DON'T I??

Sorry. I didn't mean to go this long without blogging, but I've spent a long time kinda thinking about all the stuff I have to blog about and just let it wither away because it's just SO MUCH.

So this will be my recap post. Now that it's summer and my super-stressful time is pretty much FINISHED, here you go blogosphere, I'm back. :)  I'll cover everything from my last post which was *CRINGES* for May 4th. O_O Aack!!

So what have I done? Super speed with pictures.

I had my dance dress rehearsal during May, sometime after May 4th. I was stressed as HECK because I had to get from dance to an orchestra end of the year banquet/concert and AAHH. I made it though, and it all worked out. :) I was so happy!!

The following week we went to Orlando for our annual Homeschool Convention and Disney's Star Wars Weekends!!! I had a BLAST. I got to visit with friends, see Ashley Eckstein again, go to Homeschool seminars that were FANTASTIC (and that I should probably still post about) etc. :)

My family is adorbs

I'm super fabulous. Glo and I had a photoshoot at the homeschool Con.

Reunited!! 

My sisters. Spent the whole weekend with Stephanie and Savanna. :)

Glory and I met Rex and Ahsoka!!!! FLAILING ENSUED. :D

The highlight of SWW for me was getting to see Ashley Eckstein again...I love her so much!! She's the sweetest person you will ever meet. :)

we took a selfie! XD

SWW was a fantastic experience. I am so glad I got to go!! :D  I'm already anticipating next year!! So glad I got to see friends and just have a fun time. :) I rode Star Tours 7 times during our trip, and it was a blast each time. Riding Star Tours with a group of friends is the best experience in the galaxy. ;)

Upon returning home from Disney, I fought off a cold. Savanna wasn't feeling well that weekend, and she probably gave her sickness to me (thanks Vannie).  I fought it for a week though, and refused to get sick due to having a dance recital and end of the year stuff going on. I got through my dance recital with minor distress, almost missed my tap dance due to too much running around and doing buns for a bunch of 12 year olds, but I made it. The recital went GREAT and everyone danced beautifully. :) Good news is that I'll be dancing even more next year with our studio's Dance Company!! Woohoo!! I love to perform!

That same weekend we also went strawberry picking, and I NEVER KNEW HOW MUCH FUN THAT WAS. This summer so far has been "Spontaneous Summer". We've been doing all sorts of random things and just enjoying life. :)

taking a selfie with a dinosaur was one of the best things I've ever done

I'm trying to make sure I have everything straight in my head as far as catching up on my summer goes....thank God for Instagram or I would get this all wrong. XD

I read The Fault In Our Stars by John Green (and I should probably do a review on it, yeah?) and bawled my eyes out for several days. OH MAN. THAT BOOK HURT. I read it in 2 days.

even my tweet made me cry

I did a lot of babysitting that week, which was very good. Oh I forgot to mention, straight after the Dance Recital, I got sick. Really sick. I had an awful sinus infection with a cough attached to it and it lasted more than a week. I finally got rid of it in time for us to go to Sanibel Island for the weekend!! :D

We love to Road Trip in our family. Especially Spur-Of-The-Moment trips. We grab Embie, throw our stuff in the car, and take off down the road. :D Hilarity usually ensues whenever we're on roadtrips, and thus I blog about it on my Tumblr Blog. :)  This is the tag for it. XD On The Road Again Blog Tag

That was an awesome trip. We drove to Sanibel for the day to escape the gloom of our very stormy South Florida weather. We had an AMAZING time. We got to swim and see dolphins and a baby octopus and collected shells and everything and just WOW NATURE.

The following Monday I started Orchestra Camp. :) Oh man, best two weeks spent with music EVER.

I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of my lovely Viola during those 2 weeks. 

This is the song our quartet perfected and played during camp.

 My quartet consisted of me (on Viola) my friend Matthew on Cello (we sat together in orchestra all year so we were excited to be together again) my new friend Stephano (he's a Whovian!!!!) on Second Violin and Ashley on First Violin. She's a Supernatural/Doctor Who fangirl, and we exchanged Tumblr URLs. ;)  So we had a rather obnoxious quartet with a lot of laughter, inside jokes, and hilarity. We're going to stay together as a quartet during the year too, and our first mission is to play fandom music (from Doctor Who, Star Wars, Sherlock, and various Video Games!!) ;) 

After week one of camp, our family took ANOTHER weekend getaway to go to Orlando. We attended Hurricane Who Summer Nights and Spontaneous Summer returned with another blast of fun for the whole family.  We got to road trip again! 

Embie taught me about her favorite music interests, and I shared mine. 

That was a really ridiculously early trip. We got to Orlando by 10:30. O_O

Keep in mind it takes us about 3 1/2 hours to get there. 

I am not a morning person.

We had lunch at the T-Rex Cafe in Downtown Disney. *score*

Since we were going to a Doctor Who event, we all dressed in our Her Universe and Doctor Who gear. ;) 

That evening we went to the little mini-convention, and it was super cool!! I got to meet some new fandom friends, and we all exchanged Tumblr URLs and everything. We spent the evening talking about Cosplay, Doctor Who, Conventions and every other fandom we're parts of!! ;) My mother got many compliments on her hair.

See? New friends!! I've kept in touch with all of them via Tumblr. ;) 

We met Dan Starkey, who plays Commander Strax on Doctor Who!!! He was really nice and hilarious!! It was super cool getting to meet him and listen to his panel. :) 

We came back home and I returned to camp, having a great great great time and enjoying myself and learning a TON. I hurt my shoulder from playing viola so much, and callused my fingers on my left hand from so much practice. I was incredibly proud because I got my first "viola hickey", and still have a little mark on my jawline and shoulder from playing so much. WOOHOO PROFESSIONAL INJURIES AND STUFF YEAH!

Our concert went flawlessly. Our group went from Obnoxious to Most Improved and the top quartet, as judged by the coaches. ;) I am so proud of us. We sounded great, and I accomplished more in less than 30 hours of practice than I ever thought I would. 

After our concert (which my whole family attended and my parents both cried with pride *YEESSSS*) we had a lovely celebration, including food, shopping and movie night. :) My parents went to a Brad Paisely concert while Glory, Embie and I had a sleepover and watched Wreck-It-Ralph and Monsters Inc. Such a great night!!

But, my good fortune didn't last. I fell ill that night with vertigo so bad I was pretty sure I was going to either throw up or pass out (or both!) The vertigo lasted 2 days, and by Sunday morning when it wasn't gone, I had to go to the doctor and get some medicine. I had a really messy sinus infection which forwent giving me a stuffed nose and instead decided to unwillingly put me on a carousel spinning at superspeed and slow motion at the same time.  :P BLEEH. 

On Sunday, despite me still feeling like crap, we went to see Monsters University. I'm glad I sucked it up, because I REALLY wanted to see that movie, and I enjoyed it immensely! I highly recommend it!!

  

Now that I'm almost 100% better (occasional dizzy spells and still on a crap ton of medicine...) I'm starting to finish up some summer school work. We're doing Marine Biology and I'm working on Literature. I'm actually off to work on that now! 

So thanks for catching up on my rather Spontaneous Summer thus far, I hope to keep you up to date with the rest of our goings on. I know we'll be heading to the Keys soon, and I'm sure I'll be blogging about the beauty and hilarity that always ensues when we go down there. ;) 

Thanks everyone! Have a great summer, and sorry I'm so bad at blogging!! I need to keep tabs on this!! Geez!

Xoxo,

Grace ;)

May the Fourth be with You!

Happy Star Wars day everyone!!!!! :D Today is the 4th of May...ironic Star Wars pun....May the Fourth be with you!!

Today's been a kind of crazy day for me...I woke up really early (OK, not THAT early but for homeschooler-me it was incredibly early and I was not pleased.) and went to take my SAT tests.  They went really well, the Force (and Fourth) was with me!!! :D

After that my family went to go celebrate Free Comic book day today by hitting up all the comic stores nearby and getting some (you guessed it) free comics!!!! I got to see some friends and had a great time! :)

I'm really excited this May the Fourth because I'm feeling pretty excited about some Star Wars related things. I realized a few weeks back how much I REAAAAAAAALLLLLYYYYY love Star Wars. I rewatched A New Hope and realized that WOW. I have dedicated my life to a movie series!! It's a beautiful, crazy, obsessive series and there's nothing that makes me happier. ;)

I've met my friends because of Star Wars.  And it hit me the other day how big of an impact I've made in the lives of others. It made me cry. A lot. In public. Because look at this....

We're in the Star Wars Insider.

About December of last year, sometime after Christmas I believe, my dear friend Lillian Skye emailed me and asked if I wanted to help her submit an article to the Star Wars Insider's Bantah Tracks about The Lakehouse Forum Sisters at Celebration VI.  I immediately said yes, and we got to writing up an article and picking pictures.  We sent it in and got an email back from Mary Franklin saying how much she liked our story and she'd be publishing it soon!!  Soon in the Magazine world ended up being about five months later, but that's okay. We're featured in the May/June issue of the international magazine, Star Wars Insider. This is like a HUGE honor. Our pictures and my name (as well as Amaranthine's) is in the magazine!!!!! I'm amazed and so excited!!! I saw it in the middle of the comic book store and shrieked and started blubbering because MY FRIENDS!!!!! :D The article is lovely, and it honestly made me feel amazing that I helped bring these girls together!!! Ashley Eckstein's Her Universe was the starting point and I helped bridge the friendships together. :) My own included! It's incredible what God can do with a lonely teenager obsessed with a movie series. ;) 

So happy Star Wars day. Happy Movie Series That Made My Life The Way It Is day. Hope it's a great one. ;)

Love,

Grace/Jedi~Chick/Fallon ;)

Hai Gracie o3o

So since you gave me author permissions because blog makeover reasons and you're away at dance I thought I'd take the time to hack you. ^-^ BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. ヽ(^o^)丿 I just wanted to tell you that I LOVE YOUUUU so much. You're amazing and gorgeous and a geniussss. :* I can wait until we get to hang out again even if it's when we're old like next year or something. (hopefully sooner) Kay, I'll be hangin' out til tonight when you get home and can tell me about your dayyyyy. LOVE YOU BEST FRIEND SISTER MOM TWINNIE TINY CUTE PERSON. o3o

Love, AUDY :3

ヽ(^o^)丿
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Currently

Currently Listening:  I've been listening to two different bands lately. Imagine Dragons is one, and Fun. is the other. I really love these two songs particularly, as I've been singing them OBSESSIVELY lately.

Currently Reading:  Not enough. :P I've been rereading the X-Wing series because I LOVE IT SO MUCH and I haven't gotten past Krytos Trap so I'm kinda being a loser there.  Other than that, I just finished reading the update of my good friend Pink's Ahsoka and Anakin FRIENDSHIP story that made me freak out and I highly recommend it: Once a Jedi

Currently Drinking:  Water? I lost my water bottle...I had one that I bought at dance last week and I've been reusing it.  Know what my favorite beverage is right now? Watermelon Juice Cocktail. Don't scoff, it's delicious.

Currently Missing:  Just about all my friends :(  Especially Autumn. It's hitting me that it's been almost a year since I've seen her and I really really really hope that we get to see each other this summer. I miss Savanna too, but I'm really counting down the days until Star Wars Weekends where I'll spend the weekend with her and Stephanie. I miss everyone!!! D:

me and audy D:

Currently Watching:  Doctor Who. Or rather, reruns of Doctor Who. Glory's watching it in the family room while I sit in my room and become a hermit.  I also watched the premiere of Warehouse 13 last night and CAN I JUST SAY THAT I REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVE THAT SHOW AND I WANT EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE THE AMAZINGNESS THAT IS WAREHOUSE 13 BECAUSE I LOVE IT AND REALLY CANNOT EVEN.

Currently Feeling:  I feel kinda flighty. I've been doing geometry all day long and it's been rainy and blah outside and I JUST WANT TO RUN AROUND OUTSIDE OR SOMETHING OR GO TO A STORE OR DO SOMETHING I CAN'T FOCUS ON ANYTHING RAAWWRR. I'm going crazy!! I've been slap-happy like three times today just from being stir crazy I guess. XD

Currently Writing:  An AU fanfic for my Star Wars AU: ORPAS (Of Rebel Pilots And Starfighters).  I published a very squealy girly cute oneshot I wrote on our ORPAS website if you'd like to see it. The AU story I"m writing is slightly (*COUGH way) more feelsy. XDD Everything goes pretty much downhill for the Klivians after that story. I gave them their one happy moment at least. ORPAS site

Currently Loving:  My red converse, dance, Doctor Who, Avengers, the Star Wars Insider that TLF was featured in (Bantha Tracks!!! EEEEPPP) being a grown up, my cousin Embie, being finished with Math, Lindsey Stirling, Imagine Dragons, the new Her Universe merchandise, and The Clone Wars.

me and Embie over the weekend. No, I'm not driving, just sitting up front XD

Currently Wishing:  That Star Wars Weekends would hurry up and get here!!!! Also that I could see Autumn this summer and possibly get a new cell phone, depending on how much money I save up.  In that case, I wish for more babysitting jobs too!!

Currently Excited:  For Star Wars Weekends. Repetitive much? I'm also REALLY REALLY REALLY excited for Iron Man 3 which comes out this Friday but I'll be seeing it on Sunday!! I'M SO EXCITED MY PEPPERONY FEELS AHHHHH

Currently Stressing:  About the SAT test I'm taking on Saturday (though I think I'll be okay, plus I can repeat the test up to 4 times), my orchestra audition results (won't find out until the end of May! :O) my end of the year orchestra concert that conflicts with my dance dress rehearsal and a bunch of other things that I need to make decisions on. :/

Currently Completed:  This blog post, and also Geometry for the year. Well, I will have (but I haven't yet! Haha River Song quote BOOYAH).  Tomorrow I'll be finishing the last two units of math and take the final, making me officially FINISHED with Geometry for this year!!!!!! THANK GOD.  GOOD RIDDANCE.

Thanks for reading, I have like 5 or 6 blog posts in drafts that I just haven't been pushing myself to finish. :P I'm sorry!!! Will do SOON. Until then, go look at my Tumblr. http://authoressviolist.tumblr.com/

Love,
Grace

Happy Birthday Mom!!

*last birthday post for a while XD*

Hello Sweetie!  Today is my mom's birthday.  Happy birthday, Mom!!

Many of you might know my mom as River Song or Princess Leia from past posts...she is most definitely both.  Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey.

Today we plan on spending time together as a family, we went to work out at the gym (one of her favorite places) and eat lunch at one of Mom's favorite restaurants and tomorrow she and my dad are walking a 5k marathon together and after that we settle in for some Doctor Who! ;) 

LOL Christmas

My mom means everything to me.  Though we /occasionally/ fight or disagree, I love her more than anyone and her opinion is the only one that really matters to me.  I don't necessarily mind what others think of me, or say about me, but my mom's opinion is like crucial to my existence. xD

She's more than just my Mommy, Mom/River is my life-coach, teacher, encourager (even when it feels like nagging) and fellow fangirl.  Though she claims that I don't understand her "feels" (oh the sweet irony) I in fact very much do, and love to talk with her about Doctor Who and Star Wars and everything else that makes our family so uniquely geeky. 

Happy Birthday Mommy!! You already received your gift of my school work, completed ahead of time and my renewed love and inspiration for viola.  I hope that you have a great birthday, I know our Doctor Who premiere night will be fun, and (even though you're scared) I know we'll love it. :)

Hello Benjamin

Mom, you're always there for me, even when I don't want you to be.  This is random, but when you were calming me down when I was panicking over school and SAT tests and geometry last week, you made me feel so amazing, and helped me realize that I'm only learning and that you really are flexible and willing to work with me and not against me.  Not sure why that hit me then, I think I just really needed to hear that from /you/ (since Autumn already told me "chill out it's just school" like seven times the previous night, haha).  So thank you.  Thank you for dedicating your life to teaching me and my sister, thank you for putting yourself on hold for us.  I hope that someday I can become a mom just like you (with slightly less yelling….maybe.)

Here's to celebrating another trip around the sun, Mom. :)  Love you!!! 

Love,

Gracie

P.S. Spoilers!

Happy Birthday Autumn

(sorry for all the birthday posts, but March is apparently a very busy month for birthdays!! Two of my best friends and my mom have a birthday this month, and both of my grandparents!! LOL)

So today is my bestie/bby Autumn's birthday. :) She's (OLD) 17 AND ALL GROWN UP *SOBS*

Autumn, I think it's clear that it'd be hard to say how much I really really really love you and how close our relationship is.

*ow feels*

Even though I've only known you for like 2 years, you and I talk literally every day and we're closer than friends (WE'RE SOULMATES LOLOL).

So I can't really talk about how much you mean to me, because I'll get all teary eyed and start getting all sappy and crying and I'll just save that for Skype. XD  Instead I'll put some videos. >:D

T.T 

THESE VIDEOS ARE GIVING ME MAJOR FEELINGS. :'D I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AUDYYYY. *HUGGLES*

Seeing those songs pretty much sum up our friendship....I'll end that there and rant about how much I love you on Skype. ;)  Happy Birthday bby, hope it's a great one. Here's to many more together!! :D

Love,

Gracie