New Background

Today I changed my background (as you can obviously see).  Hopefully you all like it!  My sister Jessica really wanted me to have this background she said "It really fits your personality."  So I'm at least keeping it for a while.  That's really all for now, but I do want to say that I have a synchronized skating competition in only 3 days!  I am so excited and we are actually going to be competing at a HUGE rink in Michigan!  This will be our first out of state competition!  I'll probably post about how the competition went!

Thanks
Alyssa :)

Greenbrier Hotel

Me, my sister, my brother and my mom in front of the Greenbrier!

Just a couple days ago we got back from an awesome vacation at the Greenbrier hotel.  For those of you  who don't know what it is, the Greenbrier is a huge resort where there are a whole bunch of activities!  It's also really cool because this place is so fancy that it actually has a dress code!  It was really fun dressing up in all of are fancy clothes and doing fun things around the hotel.  We did so many awesome activities at the hotel, we played laser tag, we went swimming, we went to this awesome outdoor ice rink (we skated once when it was morning, and we skated once when it was dark.  It was so cool they had a whole bunch of Christmas lights outside at night while we were skating!  We had such a fun time but sadly we were only there for four days.  To be honest I would of liked to stay there for another whole week!!  We had such an awesome time I'm already looking forward to going back!

Thanks
Alyssa :)

Christmas!

Our Christmas Tree!

Christmas, my very favorite holiday ever, is in only nineteen days!  Hopefully it will snow when Christmas arrives!  Sadly outside it's all rainy, gray and muddy. :( Just a couple days ago we put up our Christmas tree, we all had a lot of fun putting up the ornaments and wrapping the lights around the tree.  We've actually had this same tree for fifteen years!!  Yeah, It's really old but it doesn't give us any problems and it surprisingly still looks very good!  Yesterday my little brother Ryan and I had an awesome time making gingerbread cookies and cutting them out into a whole bunch of different shapes, we had an awesome time and the cookies tasted amazing!!  Soon we will start to put up our gingerbread house, YAY!  Sorry for the super short post, but I have to get started on my school work!  Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

Gingerbread cookies!

P.S. What's your favorite holiday? And, how was your Thanksgiving? :)

Cooking :)

I remember when I was little, I didn't like cooking that much.  I thought it was boring combining a whole bunch of ingredients knowing exactly what it was going to turn out as.  But now, all of a sudden, I just can't stop thinking about all of the different kinds of recipes just waiting to be made!!  OK, I should clear some things up a bit first.  So remember when I said we were moving to Seattle?  Well, my dad's job didn't work out so he decided we would all be better off back in Ohio!  I still can't believe it! I thought I was saying goodbye to all of my friends for the last time!! ;(  I am actually really glad to be back home now, I was excited to be in Seattle, but I think my family and I have built up a strong relationship to all of our friends who live here.  We've also been missing our house, thankfully it wasn't sold in the time we were gone.  (about 1 month.)  But back on topic when we were in Seattle, I decided I would watch some of the cooking shows on Food Network.  I watched for quite a while and got really interested in the whole business of cooking.  I started making my own food practicing in the little kitchen that we got in our apartment.  I started off by making my own recipes, like some simple fruit salads, and some pecans toasted with some brown sugar (this is really good) and some dried cranberries on top.  But now, I've watched so many different shows and learned a whole bunch of cool techniques, I'm cooking full dinners for my family!  About a week ago I cooked some spicy chicken thighs with a peach/raspberry sauce and some chopped avocados and parsley for the topping.  And for the dessert I made my own peach puff pastry.  Which you can see in the picture above:)  I have another blog called http://kidzinthekitchen.blogspot.com/ which will have a bunch of recipes posted on it.  I'm thinking about maybe combining that blog to this blog here.  I currently have four blogs in total, and it's kind of hard to keep up with every one.  So if I do I'll be talking about cooking a lot!

P.S. Do you think I should combine my cooking blog with this one or not??  please tell me what you think! :)

Thanks
Alyssa :)

Artist's Eye

Hey everyone!  I am not an actual campaigner over at Rachael Harrie's Rach Writes blog but, I thought this would be a fun challenge anyway!  OK, here it is:

The bright sun shines down on the ripply water making it look like diamonds are just beneath the surface.  The orange/brown sand looks scorched from the burning, hot sun.  I see people sitting in hammocks enjoying the latest magazines, I see surfers, attempting to stay upright on their surfboards,  I can see the gulls crying out desperately for the food they can almost taste in their white throats, I can almost hear the sapphire waves crashing in a rhythmic pattern.  I can even almost see the palm trees swaying back and forth to the tacise breeze.  I look at the synbatec beach and smile.  It's breathtaking.  All of a sudden I start to smell something like wastopaneer.  I snap out of it and think... Fresh paint.  I stare at my work of art in front of me and sigh. 

Hope you liked it!  Here are the rules if you want to do this challenge as well:

 Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

• that it’s morning, 

• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach

• that the MC (main character) is bored

• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting

• that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: "synbatec," "wastopaneer," and "tacise."   (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).

Check it Out!

                                                                        

   Hey everyone go over to David Powers King's blog for an awesome book giveaway!! He has four cool books that you can win if you just follow four simple steps :)  Sorry everyone this is a super short post but just a quick heads up my birthday was on the 9th and I didn't post about it!!  But I had an awesome birthday exploring Seattle, and I got a delicious lemon cake! Yum! :D

Seattle

Hey everyone!  Sorry I haven't posted for a while.  My family and I have been taking an eight day trip out to Seattle,Washington.  We are actually going to be moving out to Seattle really soon.  I'm talking about a couple days soon.  We used to live in Ohio, but since we've already lived there for five years (the longest we've ever lived anywhere) we decided to move to someplace new.  The only problem is with moving now, is that I've made so many friends over these last five years in Ohio, so it's really hard to say goodbye.  ;(  Right now it's already our sixth day of driving out to Washington, we only have two days left until the long driving ends!! And then finally, it's SEATTLE!!  Now since all that's said, I have to tell you guys what I got for the figure skating Regionals competition.  I competed against eighteen girls in total including me, and I got sixth place.  I think my main problem was that I was going pretty slow, I sped up my jumps this time but my overall skating was yes, SLOW. But overall I had a really awesome time, and I think I did really good! Just thinking about it, I smile at the fact that I actually went and competed at Regionals!! :)


Thanks
Alyssa :)