We’ve Moved!

So I wasn't very happy with the performance of Blogger lately. I decided to move our blog-and mine-to Wordpress instead. So our new address is www.secretturtlepapa.wordpress.com. You can also visit my personal book blog Nothin Better to Do at www.nbtdmleanne14.wordpress.com.

 

Visiting Old Town

During the first weekend of summer our family visited Old Town Carrolton and Old Town Grapevine. We love visiting the little shops and walking around the squares.

We found a cool candy & soda shop called Blooms and Jenn and I got to try some of the Jelly Belly Gourmet Sodas pictured here.

One More Thing...

I've just about caught ya'll up, but I thought I'd throw in an interesting little tidbit of info.


I've been top secretly studying to be a food photographer, and by "top secretly studying" I mean ppulling my phone out during class and taking pictures of food. (Important Note: Phones are not allowed out during school. If seen, they will be taken up and a Wednesday school will be issued.) Naturally I would break that rule repeatedly. So anywho, here's some of my latest work:

**Note, these pictures were of much better quality on my phone.

Stupid computer messing up my pictures....**

Catching Up

Soooo sorry I died for a bit there. I forgot I'm "manager of the blog." Here's what we've been doing since I last posted in February!

In April Jenn had her first horse show in Athens, TX. She competed in Showmanship, Western & English Pattern & Western Trail. She did great and left with one first place ribbon, three third place, three fourth place, and one fifth place ribbon.

Later in April, we had our Easter festivities. As usual, we dyed eggs!

Except, Beth decided to be a freak and balance a spoon on her nose....so naturally, being the photgrapher I am, I took a picture of it. Weird face and all.

Jenn couldn't have been happier when May 13th rolled around. She dressed up all pretty for school that day and got presents that evening. We ended up going to the Stockyards and watching a rodeo that night and we had her birthday dinner at Giovanni's Italian Restaurant on Saturday.

On the 22nd I attended my Color Guard Banquet. The picture below is my best buddy Meg McDonald and I. It was an exciting night filled with mistakenly eaten horse radish, green sky storms and a hilarious senior video.

16 at Last!

After turning 16 on the 13th I was ready to take my driver's test. I got processed after school on Wednesday and we decided to come back Thursday to take the test. We found out that the appointments for the week were booked so we decided to try and be a walk-in. I made my mom wake up at 5 and we got ready and left so we could be in front of the DPS by 6. Turns out, we were first. Goal completed. My mom literally thought I was crazy because we sat in the car due to a chilly breeze and I kept turning and looking at both ways of entering the DPS parking lot, making sure no one would take my place in line. (You don't understand how badly I wanted my license.) But we stayed first in line even when newcomers came, we just sat in front of the door and waited until 8 when it opened. (Now you're probably thinking "YOU GOT THERE 2 HOURS BEFORE?!" Why yes, yes we did.) It paid off though. I was the first walk-in test at 9:45.

Remind me never to take a driver's test again, thanks.

I passed though, and I'm very excited. On Friday, I drove myself to school and parked in the band parking lot. My friends, Austin, Dani, & Cody all accompanied me to one of our assistant principals' offices and I bought a parking permit. Now I'm all set to go! Boy, it feels good to be 16(:

Michele in Wonderland

Last Saturday, the 12th, We celebrated my 16th birthday! The theme was Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and we had some really awesome movie ticket style invites made. (See Left) As my dad kept telling us, we redecorated the house for 3 hours. We ended up moving the furniture in the living room into the garage so we had a huge space to just mingle and stuff. In our foyer we put one of our tall tables and placed some "fake old" books, a cool looking bottle with a "Drink Me" tag, a key, and a heart-shaped cake with a "Eat Me" tag stuck on with a toothpick. Remind you of anything?

We decorated our dining room to resemble the Red Queen's court. We flipped the tapestry and placed red felt hearts in the corners, made playing card mobiles and attached them to the hanging light, and my favorite, the rose bushes. We found Styrofoam balls and placed fake red roses into it. We also put some white ones sparsely around, the ones that hadn't been "painted red". Then we stuck a large branch into the bottom and placed the whole thing into a pot. Next to one of them we even went as far as to add a paint bucket with dripping red paint coming off the side and a red-dipped paint brush.

The living room resembled the garden. Our own moss green carpet was placed in the middle of the open space and a long table was positioned on the right wall, next to the windows. We had multiple mismatched pots lining the table and mixed up chairs for others to sit in. We covered the walls with a "Stone Wall Scene Setter" just to get the feel of a creepy garden. My sister and I made paper mache mushrooms and decorated them to place around the "garden". My mom made a cool draping effect with streamers and paper lanterns on the fan and we added a wall clock in the form of a pocket watch above the table. My mom ordered wings from Wing Stop & chicken nuggets from Chik-Fil-A and we made other tiny treats and randomly stuck "Eat Me" tags in them. Lastly, I made a playlist from my iPod and had it playing while the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland played on the TV on mute.

We played a funny game call the "Drink Me Game". I handed out random numbers to everyone and they took their place at the table according to them. Everyone had a cup and a small bottle similar to the one in the foyer. In that bottle was a mystery beverage, everyone on each side of the table had different drinks. The goal of the game was either side of the table had to drink some of their drink, then pass the remaining on to the next person. At the end of the game, the last person on either side ends up with 12 different drinks and they have to put them all in their cup and drink every last drop. The first side of the table to do it, wins. It was a really amusing game, some people would spill and others hated the taste so they made funny faces. It was hilarious.

It was a great party with a couple shenanigans here and there. You only turn 16 once and this definitely was a Sweet 16.

My sister and I decorated these cakes to resemble the Red & White Queens.

It was a fun sisterly activity(:

Merry Christmas...

...and a very Merry Christmas it was. This year was the "useful gifts" Christmas. We mostly recieved accessories and other useful things. "Fashionable" gifts we would call them for Jenn(;

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year(: