Honors Band
This week, I had the opportunity to participate in a subsection honors band. To get into this band, you must be nominated and accepted to participate and I was!! It was awesome to be there, I learned so much and was able to participate in a band with some of the finest musicians in Southern Minnesota at the high school level. We had two practices, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday with a concert that night. The concert was held in St. James lasted for quite a while with their band playing and some soloistsand then the honors band. We performed five selections and did an awesome job. I was just happy to be able to participate in such an event, it was very helpful to me as a musician. By the way, I played the bass clarinet at it and that is why I have a pic of one with this blog...
Part 2 of my vacation: Wisconsin
Well, after I arrived back in the continental US, I was headed towards Madison where, surprise surprise, I was met by the Munyons. After we waited for my lovely luggage which suprisingly came out quite quickly, we were able to finally depart from the wretched airport around 1 pm. By this time, after being in airports and planes for nearly 24 hrs, I was ready to leave if you know what I mean...anyways, Mrs. Munyon had a hair appointment so Steven and I went to the Johnson's Creek outlet mall while she was at that, so we went into a couple of stores and whatnot and froze while doing it. Sometime during the middle of this excursion, we ate at the Pine Cone because I hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hrs and we were both famished so, naturally we ate. After that we found a hallway and played chess with the game we bought...might I say, I am not the chess player I think I am..anyways, after that I finally ended up in Watertown. A sight for sore eyes, not really, but ya know what, I was glad to be somewhere I at least recognized, so I was happy. Steve and I just hung out that night and played video games and made pumpkin bars for his mommy. Yay, that was fun and we rented Mario Party 6 and I lost that to him, like normal. After that, it was, oh around 10:30 when one of my roommates for the weekend stopped by and picked me up. Her name was Cindy and she had graduated from MBBC last year. She was such a sweetie, I love her. The next morning, I woke up late, ahh, how relaxing compared to my previous night of getting an hour of sleep on the plane and being up since 3:30 am, anyways, I went back to the Steve's house and played Mario Party, which I won for the first time in history!! How many times that kid has beat me at it, I do not know, anyways, we all played card games like Phase 10 and whatnot and it was so much fun! That was the first time I had ever played Phase 10 and won by sheer luck, I don't know how, but ok and then later, his grandma came over and played with us. That was loads of fun, she is such a nice lady. After that, we watched a movie called Red Eye. It was so good!! The next morning, I went to Calvary with Steven and the Munyon's and went back to their place and waited for my daddy to come and pick me up. He got their late so I missed church that night, but oh well. My daddy met the Munyon's and Steven, which was great. It all went over smoothly and then I left and came home, finally!! I only have one pic from here and I don't know if I should put it up, but I don't know, I'll think about it and I will find my other ones and put them up here soon!
Hawaii!!!!
Well, as most of you know, I recently had the opportunity to go to Hawaii. It was so much fun just thinking that I get to go there soon, but it was even better just to get there. I left my house around 4:15 am Friday the 17th to catch my first ever flight to Hawaii. As we (my dad and I) wandered around the Cities for an hour trying to find the airport, I finally discovered that I had faulty directions (from Mapquest...never again). To top things off after finding the airport, we ended up at the Humphrey terminal, the wrong terminal for American Airlines, we had to go to the Lindberg terminal. I was so worried because by this time I had maybe, oh 45 mins to an hour to get checked in and find my gate and whatnot, but praise the Lord, I found my gate and stuff on time. I actually ended up in Vegas instead of Chicago and then on to L.A. as planned. I hate the L.A. airport, too many terminals, nearly missed my flight to Hawaii, but it was all good. I finally got into Hawaii at ohh, around 9:30 pm their time, which is equivalent to 1:30 am our time. I was so glad just to be there and the best part of all, I got to see my Bonnie!!! 9 long months is too long!!! Ya, so I get to Bonnie's house and we stay up and talk for a while and by the time we were done, I was so dead tired that I was out like a rock when I went to bed. The next day we spent with Bonnie's youth group which was really fun. We went to McDonald's, had a Bible study, and helped cleaned up a beach. That was so much fun. I saw the whales in the water and I think, the sharks too.:(. After that we we got Subway and went home. Sunday, Bonnie's family treated me and we went to a Baptist church, which I was really thankful for because they were thinking of me. After that we went back to Bonnie's house and then we went to the mall. It was a blast because they have some stores I had never even heard of and it was fun to walk around in them and explore. Naturally I brought a few things..bad Sasha. No, they we went home and hung out once again. Monday, it sunshined for the first time since I had got there!!!!!!! I was so excited and therefore, I spent all day outside and got a little bit of a tan, but not without burning. First time I had burnt in years. Ya, so pretty much, I looked like a lobster for a few days. I got to go to a Hawaiian music festival thing that night since Bonnie had to work amd that was fun. I got to make a real Hawaiian lei out of real flowers there. That was interesting. Tuesday, it rained some more and then some more again and so on. So pretty much Bonnie and I were cooped up inside. Not good for two growing teens...Anyways, that night we got to go to Duke's, a really expensive sit down restaurant, which was very nice. You could sit down at your table and see the whole ocean. I even got to watch the sun set. It was gorgeous. I had a great time there. Wednesday was my beach day!! It was cloudy, but nice out and not rainy for a change. The beach was beautiful and located outside of the Marriott Hotel in Popoui (I think that's how you spell it). Ok, so I go and jump in with Bonnie and Monica (Bonnie's friend) and the taste of the saltwater hits me....yuck, eww, it was disgusting. Eventually, you get used to it...anyways, I got to go boogieboarding and wakeboarding. Fun, just don't land wrong, it hurts really bad. We all swam out to this little island thing not that far off the coast and you could see the tide pools and everything. It was so much fun to look at the little sea creatures. After we got back to shore, I discovered that we weren't supposed to go out there because in some places in the sand it was literally sinking sand or worse and you could die. Yippy skippy, not really, so after that, we had picnic lunch and we played tennis. Later that night we went to a different Baptist church and came home. Thursday, I packed and left Hawaii. I had an overnight flight to Dallas Fort Worth airport and then on to Madison where the Munyon's picked me up......anyways, I will get my pics on here soon, I have to find a scanner and get them on here.