YA Highway: Good For a Laugh!

I've been wanting to do a lot of blogfests lately and I'm doing another one today!

So, today I'm participating in the YA Highway question of the week!

This week's question is:

Who is your favorite comedian or funny book and/or movie?

I am going to share by favorite funny book because, I just recently finished a really cute, humor-filled read!

The book is called:

Anna and The French Kiss

This book was soooo funny and it was just a very fun read.  I loved that this book took place in France. I also loved how the author explained the different and awesome places there.  It felt like I was really in France!!  And I absolutely loved all of the characters.  They were all very well developed, and they didn't feel one dimensional.  Here's a summary of the book that I found on Goodreads.

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming,beautiful, Étienne has it all...including a serious girlfriend. 

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

It was such a great book and I highly recommend you read this, if you want a fun, cute and romantic read!! 

If you want to sign up, click the link at the top of my post!

Thanks  for reading!

-Alyssa :)

Express Yourself Blogfest!

Today I am participating in the Express Yourself Blogfest hosted by Dani and Jackie!

This week's topic is:

Are there any books, movies or music you are anticipating this year?

Yes there is!  Here are some of my answers!!

BOOKS:

Splintered, by A.G. HOWARD.

Here's the summary I got from Goodreads:

This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

This book looks really awesome!  I am totally intrigued by the cover too, the first time I saw it I was like, I need to read this! It's also cool that her name is Alyssa, just like me! :)

MOVIES:

Oz the Great and Powerful, Catching Fire and Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.

I'm anticipating all of these movies very much!!  They all look so exciting and totally action-packed!  I can't wait to see some of these movies in the theaters!

Music:

One Directions new album, Take Me Home.

This album isn't coming out, it already came out a little bit ago, but it is really new and I love almost all of their songs!

Hope you enjoyed my answers!  If you want to do this Blogfest, go over to the link at the top of my post! :)

Thanks for reading!

-Alyssa :)

YA Highway: Fantasy Bookstore!

Hey guys!

It's been hard for me to blog on a regular schedule, and once I skip blogging for a week or two I just feel like I'm letting all my followers down!  So then I don't blog for even longer!  Which in the end, just makes it worse...

Anyway, first,
I wanna give a big shout out to my sister Jessica McKendry from Write.Skate.Dream for finishing her novel called From The Ashes!! :) :)  Great job Jessica!!

 Today I'm participating in the YA Highway question of the week.  This week's topic is:

Imagine you get to open your own bookstore.  What would it look like?  What kinds of books would you sell?

I would want my fantasy bookstore to look really cutesy and almost look like it's in a fairy-tale!  Since I'm fourteen years old, right now, I would like to have my bookstore be pink and just look super cute! I would have cute decorations all over the bookstore to make it look even better! In my bookstore I would sell all kinds of books!  Of any genre as well, so it would bring in all kinds of people, little kids to adults!  And of course I would have my sisters book in my bookstore too!! In my bookstore I would also have a little bakery inside, selling cupcakes, cakes, muffins and more, so you can read and enjoy a yummy dessert! This is what I think my bookstore would look like!

 Hope you enjoyed reading!  

-Alyssa :)

December Already!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S ALREADY DECEMBER?!?

I can't!  It feels like the year has gone by waaay to fast.  I say that every year, but I feel like I haven't gotten enough done yet!  Do some of you guys feel like that?

Anyway let me start by talking about some things we did over Thanksgiving.
Every Thanksgiving pretty much our whole family comes over to our house.  That's 17 people!  That's a lot of laughter a lot of fun and a lot of mess.  I do admit I am a very organized person, so when one thing is out of place it really bothers me! And I absolutely hate clutter!!
And do take into consideration that there aren't only adults over at out house  we have three 8 year olds (my cousins and my little brother)  and one 5 year old.  That's a lot of mess!!  But I controlled myself and tried to stay out of the messiest rooms so I wouldn't just start cleaning everything!

Over Thanksgiving we went ice skating, we baked yummy croissant rolls (Pillsbury, those are the best!!) we planned on making gingerbread houses but we didn't have the time.  We also played the fun word game Apples to Apples a lot, and we went to a hockey game and our dad got us a suite to stay in!! The room was awesome! :)

Here are some pics!

My cousin Isabella :)

Me and Jessica with little cousin Matt at the suite!

Suite at Monsters Game!

Also real quick!  I have an ice show that's on Saturday and I'm doing a program with one of my friends.  We are skating to a song called Palladio by the band Escala.  They area a group of 4 girls and they play on electric cellos and violins!  They are so awesome! Wish me luck! :)

Thanks for reading!
-Alyssa :)

Cooking Class!

       Yesterday my mom, dad and I went to a really awesome cooking class at the Loretta Paganini Culinary School of Cooking.  We went to a really cool pasta making class where you get to make your own homemade pasta in the flavors of, original, spinach pasta, tomato pasta and even...

.............

Chocolate pasta!

With a delicious raspberry sauce! 

I know it sounds weird!  I even thought it sounded really weird at first too!  But once we made it in class and tried it, I thought it was one of the best pastas that I had ever eaten, like in my whole life!  The pasta making process was really fun too!  You have to roll out the dough, (it's only made with flour, one egg and salt.) and then you flatten it out with a really cool machine, and then finally, the coolest step, you put the now thin pasta in a different part of the machine, and the pasta gets cut into perfect noodle strips! It's so cool!

******

Anyway I did tell you (in my last post) that if the lemon ice cream that I made turned out good, I would share the recipe with you!  And the lemon ice cream was amazing!!  Here's the recipe!

• 1 lemon, juiced and zested
• 
  
• Another lemon, juiced
• 
  
• 2 cups of white sugar (If you aren't a person who likes things pretty sweet, cut it down to 1 cup.)
• 
  
• 4 cups of milk

• 
  

Here are the directions!! :)

In a medium bowl, stir together lemon juice and zest with sugar until smooth. Stir in milk.  Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturers' directions.

Lemon Ice Recipe

Enjoy!!

Thanks

-Alyssa :)

Happy Halloween!

  First of all, HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!! :)   

Second, I have really good news, just on Monday I passed my intermediate moves in figure skating! I am so excited because now I get to start working on the next level called novice moves.  I am really excited to start working on these, they sound so fun!! :)

I am also going to make lemon ice cream this afternoon!  After I'm done with all of my schoolwork for today...By the way I have a test in every subject today!  Ugh..  I'll tell you if the ice cream is good though, and if it's really good I'll share the recipe!

This Halloween I will not be trick-or-treating mainly because I'm too lazy to figure out what I should wear for a costume and secondly I just kind of want to have a nice relaxing Halloween eating Almond Joys, Kit Kat's an of course Reese's.  One of the best candies ever invented if you ask me!

What are you being for Halloween?  Or are you not dressing up?

Have a Spectacularly SPOOKY Halloween!

Thanks
-Alyssa :)

Regionals and my Birthday!

                 I know I keep making excuses to why I haven't been blogging for a while, but I really have been super busy! Just on Saturday I was competing in qualifying regionals in Ann Arbor Michigan at the Ice Cube arena.  I love this arena because first, I competed there earlier in the year (so I was used to the rink and not as scared) and second I just love the name The Ice Cube!  It's so cute!! :)
Anyway, it was a great  experience that many people don't get to do, so I thought I might as well take this opportunity.  I skated really well while I was in my program.  I landed all of my jumps cleanly and I went in to them a lot faster than I did in my previous competitions.  I just wanted to go for all of the jumps no matter what happened.

Me and my mom (my coach) posing for a pic! :)

So I ended up taking 12th out of 18th, which isn't bad especially considering that I was doing the less complicated jumps than everyone else.  But I improved my previous score by three points!!  So I was happy because when you're competing, the only one you're really  competing against is yourself.  So I'm very happy with my placement!

Anyway yesterday was my 14th birthday and I had an awesome time!  My grandparents were over (they actually were watching me compete at regionals too!) we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, my mom made an amazing coconut, pineapple cheesecake, and I got some really awesome gifts!  I got some awesome cookbooks, I got the movie The Avengers, (I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!) I got some clothes + cute pink legwarmers for skating, and an amazon gift card!  This week was so much fun!! :D



Thanks for reading! :)

-Alyssa :)