Taste of Fame

Today was day 2 of our Grandparents being here! They arrived last night and we all opened presents and ate dinner. Today we had a day 10 times better! I got to spend a ton of time today on Minecraft, so that made me happy! But the biggest highlight of the day was when we went sledding and a reporter for ABC interviewed us! It showed on the 5:00 news! It was so awesome that even Toby got to be on TV! (Nice thumbnail by the way. :-P)

That was cool! Anyways, a little later, we are going to go swimming in Grandad and Grandma's hotel pool. Not too often you get to sled AND swim on the same day!

Also, don't forget to comment! It's just a little button at the bottom. I really like to hear the thoughts of my audience!

- The (thrilled) Blogger

Christmas

Well, the greatest time of the year has passed. Christmas. As usual, we took a slew of photos and I smiled my cheeks off. It was worth it, though. The day before Christmas, we went over to Grandpa and Jackie's house to receive the first gifts of Christmas. A book on C++ programming!

After church that night, we went to bed at about 9:00. So many traditions here. First, I always get a present in my room as an introduction to Christmas. It was the Guinness Book of World Records 2011! Second, I always wake up at around 1:30 AM and go sleep in the hallway. Katelyn usually joins me. I'm going to see if I can get the pictures to explain the rest.

The thing under the hat is me. I almost wore it for a full 24 hours straight!

It actually snowed for once on Christmas! Amazing!

Here are all the presents under the tree.

Toby was happy today!

Here's me taking a picture of my main Christmas present!

In the end I got everything I wanted . . .

And Katelyn got everything she wanted

In complete reality, this was one of the best Christmases ever! Grandma came over later that day and I got even more presents! I ran out of space to put it all, so I piled it up in my room. I can't wait to go to Iowa to see even more of my Grandparents!

Merry (day after) Christmas!

-The satisfied Blogger

Winter Break

Saturday was the first day of Winter Break! Yay! I've already made $35 babysitting Katelyn! Of course, most of break has been stress for me. I am the world's biggest procrastinator. I put stuff off until I feel like doing it to the extreme level. Take blogging for example. It's been almost a week since I last blogged. Not including the one I made earlier today.

On Friday, the 7th grade took an incentive to Skateland! Roller skates, that is. They got new skates that I really hate. They disobey you! It was still fun there! Me and 5 friends got two 16" pizzas and ate all but one slice. For fun, we practically went out into the mass of middle schoolers and shouted "Free pizza slice!" They almost killed Grant.

For the past few days, I have been feeling more and more stressed about Christmas. I was about half way done with presents and still am not!!! Three days left! Stupid Minecraft obsession!

Anyways, I'll pick up the pace a bit. I hope.

- The (terrified) Blogger.

The Concerts

Six days ago, Katelyn and I both had concerts on the same day. Hers ended at 7:00 while mine began at 7:00. It was close. I've been busy and haven't had time to blog recently. I'm back though!

What happened was first my parents dropped me off at Jefferson so I could get ready for the band concert, then took Katelyn to Robeson so she could prepare for hers. It all worked out fine with our parents just missing the beginning of my band concert.

During our performances, Katelyn got to play the bells and I got to take another whack at my solo. It turned out much better even though you can't hear it as well because of out camera. Sorry about that.

To make up for all of my other misses of blogging, at 6:00 tonight I'm going to post ANOTHER post about the previous week.

- The Blogger.

Pizza Party

Today I had a pizza party! It was for members of the student council only. Since I am third in command (secretary), I could absolutely go! There was a Wii and an XBox. It was a blast! I killed everyone that dared challenge me in everything Wii Sports Resort. It felt great!

The funny thing with the games was that this one girl named Emily didn't want to bring Rockband because she thought it might not have been school appropriate, but another kid brought Nazi Zombies AND Halo! They were allowed to play them right there in the school library too! The irony! I myself brought about five games, but we didn't play any of them.

Two days of school left!

-The Blogger

Christmas Shopping

I am back at school. I just have to say, yesterday's snow day pretty much saved me. I started and finished nearly all of my Christmas shopping in only four hours!!! Not too bad, huh? I still have a lot left to do with wrapping and all of that, but I got most of my buying done! Four different stores, about 80% of my Christmas fund spent, and still just over half way done.

Amazing.

I did manage to get some wrapping done and I must say, it makes a fine addition to the tree.

I do realize that this is kind of a bad photo taken on my cell phone at night, but I try to

always include a picture or movie in my posts. It helps catch the eye better. Not necessarily this

picture, but you know what I mean.

Three more days left of school before break! Can't wait!

- The Blogger

School Free!

Hello!

It has been 11 days since I made my last blog post! If you ever E-mail me, you know that I complain a lot about me being late to respond, so this is not a first for me. However, this is a first for the blog, and for that, I am very sorry. The reason I haven't been keeping up, you ask? Computer games, Wi - Fi, and sickness.

First off, we have been having some minor Wi - Fi problems for the past week. All of which got fixed, but still caused a problem for people like me who love to blog. It was a problem in parts of Chicago as well, but it's all better now. Secondly, I caught the bug that my mom had, got sick and missed a couple days of school. The perfect blogging time, right? Wrong! I had to either sit and watch TV or fall asleep. No computer time. I guess I could have blogged if I had wanted to, but I just wasn't up for it.

Lastly, Friday night (when I was planning on making a post here), I discovered a new computer game called Minecraft. For me, it may just be the most addicting game ever. I played the trial for only an hour before I decided to buy the whole thing! You are put on a randomly generated setting and have to mine underground for resources that you can use to make things. It is the ultimate game of creativity! I was so hooked on it that every chance I had to use my computer, I spent on Minecraft.

We had a very busy weekend. The fist thing that happened was it snowed about half a foot! We got to play in it and I would bet that I threw at least 20 snowballs at Katelyn!

Katelyn got pounded in the forehead with a snowball.

Look out!

Even in this picture I'm still holding a snowball.

What a fun day that was! We also saw the Nutcracker ballet for the fourth year in a row! I knew it so well that I even caught the fact that the orchestra skipped a song! Dance of the sugarplum fairies! How do you skip that?! We also bought a tree and Katelyn and Dad decorated it. I put the first ornament up.

Like it? Love it!

They decorated the tree very nicely! (I don't know why this is underlined)

Katelyn is proud of her work.

I almost forgot why I titled this post "School Free". Today is a snow day! This would mean that this is the fifth day in a row that I will have missed school! Yeah!

I made a goal last night: I won't play Minecraft until I finish my homework, update the blog, and finish Christmas shopping. I miss it so much. I sure hope I haven't lost any viewers because of this delay in posting! Until next post, good bye!

Wii Fit

Today my mom told me that I wasn't getting enough exercise because it was winter and Cross Country season was over. Usually I do wrestling during the winter, but because I decided this year that I wasn't going to do it by replacing it with cross country, this creates a problem. Of course, I still do tennis once a week, but she doesn't think that that counts. Then I came up with the best idea ever! (I've actually had several great ideas, but I'm not going to go into those at the moment.)

I decided to make a compromise. To combine my love and need for the Wii and the fact that Mom wanted me to get some exercise, I told her that for two hours a week, I would do some aerobic exercise on it like Wii Sports and Wii fit, and for two hours a week, I would do some yoga on Wii Fit (Wii Fit Plus).

She seemed happy with this, until I factored in homework, school, video games, and eating, and realized that would mean that I would have almost no down time after school. No big deal. I could do this on the weekends!

By the way, here are a couple of my cross country pictures:

By the way, in the locker room today, someone saw my scar that I had on my chest. I told

them how I got it and they apparently had one too! I guess I was right and ping pong really

could be considered dangerous! See you later!

School

Today I decided to pay more attention to the people around me at school. When I did that, I realized that some of the most enforced rules at the school are also the most broken! For example, the three major rules at JMS is that you aren't allowed to have gum, no cell phones on during class, and laser pointers are confiscated on sight. Every one was broken at least once today.

In third hour, I saw a kid with a laser pointer! On! How much stupider can you get?! In fourth and sixth hour, I saw a total of four kids with their cell phones under their desks. A kid in front of me was playing pac - man, so I got to watch. During sixth hour, a kid in the back was offering his friend some gum and eating it right then and there. Oh! In seventh hour today, we had a substitute and this one kid had a pink camera right out in plain sight and was taking pictures for the last ten minutes!

And everybody knows that people do this. The only reason that people don't tell is that it's so common that it would be like telling on someone for eating! Plus, it would bump your rank to "tattletale", and that's not too fun.

Well, sorry that I don't have any pictures of this for the blog, but I don't break the rules at all at school and bring stuff like that in class. It's just wrong.

Oh, and by the way, the poll results are in:

Blowing up national monuments - 3 votes

Average day for a middle schooler - 4 votes

Breaking a world record - 4 votes

Building a cloning machine -3 votes

Real helpful guys. Don't forget to check back in for the next Poll of the Month!

Katelyn's Drawing

I'm going to make this blog post quick because I'll be late for school if I make it too long! We leave for school at 7:20 AM, but I always get up at 6:15 AM because I like free time to do things like this.

Back on topic, Katelyn recently drew a picture that she wanted on the blog! It's a little hard to see because she didn't use too much color, but it's still a good one.

"Me and my cousin Bre sliding down the stairs on a mat!!"

I'm surprised that the house is still intact after that sleepover with Bre that she had!

Don't forget: If I'm posting too fast for you and you want to see posts from the past, don't hesitate to visit the archive to the right! Just wanted to put that out there.

Thanksgiving in Iowa Part 2

Well, we're home. But we had a ton of fun in Iowa and Andy Barbour is here to save those memories by blogging about it! On that first night that we were there, I blogged, and I was right! That night, I did get to play Ping Pong against my dad and Nana B. Sadly, both of them beat me, but both also said that my skills were improving. When they left, I was going to try to play against myself by hitting the ball and then running to the other side to hit it back. Quite the exercise I had planned. Well, I hadn't hit the ball two times before I ran to the other side too quickly and nearly cut my chest open on the corner of the table.

This is what I get for playing Ping Pong.

Bre handled it well. The instant I get to the room where she was playing with Katelyn, I tell them about it and make them promise not to tell anyone if I show them. They promise, I show them, and then she goes bolting upstairs to tell my parents. Wow. All I can say. Wow. I guess it was better that way.

I also took some other pictures too! Check it out!

Here's Katelyn roasting a marshmallow.

Katelyn and Bre are going to have a sleepover! That was the best night I ever had!

Katelyn and Bre are playing a game with a monkey. I was never a fan of it. Wouldn't stay quiet.

We had to lock the door to get some quiet from the little ones.

I would rate this vacation an A++ on the successfulness of it! We did nothing but hang around all day and since Katelyn got a sleepover with cousin Bre, it was only fair that I got one with cousin McKinley. It worked out so perfectly! Katelyn gets a cousin exactly her age, I get one exactly my age!

I love this family so much!

Thanksgiving in Iowa Part 1

Happy Turkey Day!

Well, like many people here in the U.S., the first thing we did today was finish packing our stuff leave town, and in our case, go to Iowa. I spent the entire trip listing to music. As we always do when we drive to Iowa, we stopped by the Iowa 80, a.k.a. the world's largest truckstop! We hung around for about an hour and took some pictures.

Here I am with Katelyn's snake, Cornella, admiring the area.

Katelyn's a truck driver!

If you click on this picture and zoom in, you can see that the shirt that she is wearing is an Iowa 80 shirt!

Katelyn has found her happy place!

Well, it was fun to stop by, but we still had to get to Nana B and Nana C's house to see our cousins, Bre and McKinley and our Aunts, Jen and Dawn! The funny thing was, they live about 15 minutes away. We live about four hours away. Guess who got there first. (Hint, hint: There is irony involved here!)

We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pumpkin pie, peach jell-O, green jell-o, cucumbers, celery, carrots, rolls, stuffing, and a bunch of other stuff. Afterward, I killed Bre and Katelyn at Ping Pong and so they locked us in a closet. Subtle. We also played hide and seek and McKinley and I almost caught frostbite because they decided to go inside. I might perform a little for everyone tonight on my saxophone!

On the serious note, I just want to attempt everything that I am thankful for. I am certain I will miss many things, but here goes:

I am thankful for my cousins, Bryan, Michael, Julie, McKinley, and Bre. I am thankful for my parents and sister, Katelyn. I am thankful for my grandparents, Grandpa, Jakcie, Grandma, Grandad, Grandma Paula, Nana B, and Nana C. I am thankful for my Aunt Jen, Aunt Dawn, Uncle Dave, and Aunt Billie Jo. I am thankful for my dog, Toby, my sister's hamster, Winter, and every other family pet.

I am thankful for the technology I have, my computer, iPods, iPad, video games, and video cameras. I am thankful for the house above me and the food I receive every day. I am thankful for my education and many friends that I have. I am thankful for my protection and love.

And I am thankful for cheese. Definitely cheese.

Turkey Bowling

Hello, everybody!

Today we went Turkey Bowling at school! And when I say that, I mean that every student in the whole school got to watch the teachers bowl using turkeys for the last half hour of the day. It was every grade level for themselves. The seventh grade sure had the most spirit, though! A couple of days ago, nine of us got together and made signs that spelled GOBBLE!!! - each person got a letter! I got to hold up exclamation point number two! Yay! Sadly, nobody knew who won because nobody bothered to keep score. But then again, it's a middle school. It's laziness all around.

Basically the moral here is happy day before Thanksgiving!

Our Weekend of Sickness, Boredom, and Harry Potter

Well, the title basically summed up the entire post. Yesterday, Katelyn said she wasn't feeling very well. I beg to differ. She attacked me and made me play a game of charades with her! In the end, we did realize she WAS sick. Call me crazy, but there is nothing better than being sick on a Saturday. It gives a perfect excuse to sit around and play Wii all day! I would rather be sick on a weekend because in middle school, if you miss one day, you come back to school with everybody talking about projects and major grades, and other stuff you missed, and it takes you about a week to get all caught up!

This has also been a weekend of boredom. All we did today was sit around and watch TV. So lucky Katelyn's sick. My mom got so fed up with me doing nothing, that she ASKED me to play Wii! That once in a lifetime chance, and I turn it down! Crazy me!

Even after all of this, the highlight of our weekend was probably that I got to see Harry Potter. Twice. We were going to have Katelyn stay at Grandma's while I went to see Harry Potter with Mom and Dad, but since she was sick, we had to take turns and I ended up seeing it twice, once with each parent.

I also took in my saxophone to the Music Shoppe and got it repaired. It was having trouble playing softly and couldn't get down to the really low notes. It sounds great, now! Just wanted to put that out there.

Lastly, this weekend has felt a little weird because this is the first weekend for a really long time that I haven't video chatted with Evan. We barely communicated once! Sorry that this post didn't have any pictures, but what would I have put up? Katelyn sneezing in slow motion? That actually sounds pretty cool . . . anyways, please don't forget to comment on these things! I love comments! Until next post, good night!

Dum - Dum Crane

Today in math, we had to do our Benchmark Test. They are always a pain in the neck. Sitting motionless in a chair, filling in bubbles and forbidden to do the one thing that we humans have spent so many millions of years evolving to do: talking. It's just cruel.

Fortunately for us, our math teacher decided to give us all Dum - Dum suckers while we tested. That was awesome! I realized too late that I didn't have a book to read for after I finished the test! If we weren't doing something, then she'd assign us extra credit or make us read a math book or something! I looked down at the trash on my desk from my sucker. I threw away the stick and folded the wrapper into a crane! I had to make it slowly so that it looked like I was working for the whole rest of the period.

I held up a quarter to it when I took the picture so that you can get a good scale of it. Pretty small, huh? Speaking of quarters, when I made it, somebody bought it for a full 25 cents! About one period later, they realized that it was a total waste of their money and demanded a full refund. Bummer. Anyways, I'm glad tomorrow's the weekend and I will see the new Harry Potter!

Maybe A World Record Trailer

Yesterday I looked at the poll and noticed that "Me breaking a world record" was ahead by one vote! Since I was kind of low on movies, I decided it was best right now to just make it! Now, I won't show the actual movie for a while. What I have done though is made a trailer!

Now, it isn't much, but it covered today's post.

I hope you enjoyed it! The actual movie, which is already done, won't be released to the blog or anywhere else for at least a couple of months. I can assure you, however, that it will be shown on the blog before it is released anywhere else, so keep checking back in! Until next time, happy blogging!

Jazz Concert Uh-Oh

Well, tonight was our first Jazz concert. To get you up to speed, I play the alto saxophone. As well as being in normal band at school, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I show up before school with a bunch of other guys for Jazz band. We do some new songs and then perform them at cabaret night, which was tonight. The order of the night was first some african drummers came and performed first, then drama club performed, then choir did their thing, and lastly, Jazz band.

Now, the deal is, for the past few months, we've been working on the same three songs over and over and over. Each day, I felt like I was progressing a little bit, but it wasn't until about half way through that I was assigned a written solo. Personally, I think that improvisation is easier than a written solo because you can fake a mistake better, so I was pretty nervous. This morning, I swear I played all three pieces perfectly, and was ready for tonight.

Unfortunately, as a superstitious person would say, don't play too good before a concert otherwise you will use it all up! Apparently, he was right. Come the big night, there were two reeds in my case. One beautiful one that I had been using for the past month and was in perfect condition and one that was not even close to broken in yet and sounded horrible. Guess which one I picked.

Yeah, I probably squeaked once every five notes. I was furious. Now, I am up to play my solo and my parents are videotaping. When I look back, I am so angry with how I played that I went into Garageband on my computer and rewrote the whole thing. This movie is completely edited, but this is pretty much how I played that morning.

I am sorry for putting so much text in this post, but thankfully, I am almost done.

I am also kind of happy that nobody really noticed too much even though I sure did. Anyways, I promise to do better at my next concert and I severely punished the reed. Until next post, good night.

Fall and the Tradition of Leaf Jumping

Well, it isn't fall until you make your first leaf pile. Oh, by the way, happy veterans day! Anyways, we made ours today, and it is probably the biggest one we have ever made! We took several pictures!

Here's me doing all the hard work.

Here's Katelyn standing on my back after I jumped in. Such a nice way to repay me.

Good thing I took that allergy pill this morning. You wouldn't believe where I found leaves.

This didn't end too well for her. I was laughing so hard I fell down though!

Her body is halfway across town by now.

Dad couldn't resist the urge to jump, er, skip into the pile!

We had a great time today! Much progress was made, and we helped to put them into the bags too! Fall rocks!

Poll of the month

From now on, every month, I will put a new poll up on the site. Sometimes it will be useful, sometimes it will have no point but just to know what kind of things you guys are thinking out there. This month's poll is "What should my next Andy Productions 3000 movie be about?" and is located at the very top of the right hand column next to the posts. Please, if you haven't, feel free to vote! The more I get, the more accurate it will be! Oh, by the way, the picture to the left of this post is just a picture. Clicking on it won't do anything. Thanks!

St. Louis - Six Flags!!!

Okay, totally kidding. Six Flags is closed. All we did today was ride in a car for a few hours. That's it. I wish we could have gone though. This post was utterly useless.

St. Louis - Day of the Arch

Day three of being in St. Louis was a success! Pretty much the entire day was dedicated to the gateway arch! We first walked right over to the arch and into the secret museum! Dad, Katelyn and I all went up in the tiny capsule and to the top of the arch! Mom stayed down on solid ground. It's not that dangerous! It only sways about 18 inches during strong wind! That's safe, right?

Speaking of which, we all took some pictures! Enjoy:

Katelyn is happily frolicking through the grasses.

She also bought a new shirt in the gift shop!

Katelyn and I are standing in front of the massive structure.

Mom is taking a picture of dad taking a picture of me taking a picture of the arch.

Dad sure seems happy to be here!

Why not?! Why can't I bungee jump from there?!

All we need is a supersize hamster wheel and she could power our house!

Dad, Katelyn, and Mom had fun on the riverboat. I took a nap.

Katelyn likes to take pictures on the arch.

We are atop the arch and looking down below.

Awesome shadow that can only be seen from sky level!

Still can't see Six Flags . . .

Well, it's pretty obvious what we did today. That' s about all we did today! We did go swimming though, and almost missed dinner! Katelyn and I had the pool all to ourselves! Oh, and another thing! Since from the arch windows, you can clearly see our window, we all decided to put the giant box of Cheese Balls in our window to know which one was ours! Up in the arch, we could see them using the binoculars! All my idea. Not Mom's.

Well, I'm dreading tomorrow because tomorrow's our last day. Even so, it will be nice to get back to school. Not.

St. Louis - Zoos, Shoe Shopping, Pools, and More!

Well, this has been day two of our St. Louis trip. Quite the crazy time. We woke up and were almost late for breakfast! After breakfast, we decided to explore the pool deck thinking maybe we should go down there later.

Anyways, the first actual thing we did today was go shopping. The highlight of my vacation: Shoe shopping. Not really. Dad broke his shoe and mom wanted new ones as well. As I was browsing, I realized that they made my exact shoes in a size two and in in dad's size. Talk about awkward.

As well as shoe shopping, we decided to go buy one toy for the pool. It turned out that pool season was over, so we got a tiny basketball. Then we decided to look around for something to get for our room. We got a packet of sour patches. Then a box of Oreos. Then another box of Oreos. Then a six pack of Orange Crush. Then an industrial size box of Cheese Balls. Before long, we realized that we were buying a party.

We also got a good look at our room for the first time. Not too bad huh?

The view is priceless!

Once we bought our treats and had breakfast, we headed out to the zoo. If there are two things I despise, it's zoos, and cold. Lucky me.

Sweatshirts sure helped!

Katelyn and the puffin tank taking a picture with her camera.

Nice picture, dad!

Katelyn takes a liking to taking pictures with her camera.

Those are actually hippos behind her!

Even though we lost Katelyn's camera and had to retrace our steps four times before we realized that it was in lost and found, missed our ride that we paid $40 for, and paid $8 for a cheeseburger that you could get at McDonalds for $1, it was all worth it when we got to the pool - and couldn't use the pool toy.

I guess the point is that even though almost every up had a down today, it was still a pretty awesome one!