Christmas

Christmas this year was quite the success! Most of this post will consist of pictures, since I'm a bit too lazy to write a lot. First of all, I looked at the picture of us in the hallway taken last year, and compared it to this year's.

See the resemblance? Our tree was also really nice too! Dad and Katelyn spent quite a while working on it.

Katelyn's big present this Christmas was an electric drum set! She literally can't stop playing it!

This year Mom got a giant stuffed lion from Katelyn for the baby. Obviously she loved it!

Overall, it was a successful holiday. We did have one sad part to it when we found that Katelyn's hamster, Winter, had passed away overnight. We partook in a short but emotional funeral for her, and then proceeded to get back to our festivities. It killed the mood just a bit, but we still had a great day.

Hope you have a happy New Year's!

- The Blogger

Winter Break

Yeah, it's winter break for me now!

In addition to that great news, I can say that nearly all of my Christmas shopping is already done on day one! I'm usually so bad about this kind of thing every year, but I've decided to stay slightly more on top of things! Except for my music choice. I'm still listening to Mannheim Steamroller's Halloween music. I really enjoy it a bit more than the Christmas tunes I should be listening to.

Anyway it's been a fairly dull point in life here which is why I haven't blogged too much recently. Uni recently had it's finals which I studied 5+ hours for. I think I did alright in computer literacy, excellent in math, and horrible in Latin. Just what I think. Our computer literacy project due last Tuesday was an html website that we all were assigned to create. Mine pretty much came in second place, the "winner" sort of cheated his way to the top by using Flash. Mine was still one of the best. Here's the URL:

http://www.uni.illinois.edu/~abarbour

Hope it gets a few clicks! Also hope to make another post when things get more interesting (e.g. Christmas).

- The Blogger

Thanksgiving

Just like I blogged about last year, we headed up to Iowa for Thanksgiving. In case you were wondering (like I'm sure you were) my scar from playing ping pong I got from our last visit is still there. We arrived with a large fruit basket in tow, and the instant we got there, we moved right along to eating it.

The BarbouRoskes showed up not too much longer after that and we had a proper thanksgiving feast!

It was a very successful Thanksgiving, but now it's the weekend and I have to get back to doing my homework and chores.

Real quick, the Poll of the Month:

What is your least favorite season?

Winter-2

Fall-2

Spring-1

Summer-1

Hope to make a new post soon!

- The Blogger

Flashback!

Hey everybody! While Mom was digging through Dad's laptop, she found an old video that was only on his. In the old video, Katelyn just turned three years old and is being her innocent three-year-old self. I put this up because Mom thought it would be a good idea and it earned Katelyn's seal of approval.

Here it is.

Kind of funny, right? She was very cute back then. Just a quick blog post today.

- The Blogger

A Blog Post!

Happy Birthday! But wait, who's birthday is it? Not mine, not Katelyn's, not Dad's, not Mom's . . . not Toby's either. It's the birthday of the Barbour Blog! Technically, it's birthday was six days ago on the 31st, but we're celebrating it anyway.

First order of business: New Poll of the Month . . . Deploying . . . Done.

Now that that's over with, it was actually the Poll of the Month that inspired me to do this blog post. The lack of buzz of my last one means that not very many people come here very often probably because I'm so bad about updating it now. Without further ado, the blog post!

Halloween was a blast for us! For starters, I had a great costume. A mad scientist!

At Uni, all 320 or so students got to participate in the costume contest where we got to wear our costumes to school and have a competition for the best costume by popular vote. I made it past round two. The first place winer was a Prox Card, which is the key each student is given to get into the building. Second place was a beekeeper and third place was a zombie teacher.

This halloween was the first one where I didn't go trick or treating. Instead, I did something I would much rather do. See, the previous day, Dad and I build a radio controlled spider out of an old monster truck we found in the garage. A few hours of work later, it turned out pretty nice!

On halloween night, I put my mad scientist costume on and slipped into the shadows. I would put the spider at the front of the driveway where nobody would see it (after we pulled the car out) and when anybody walked up, I would drive it at full speed to scare them! Most of the people who saw it got a kick out of it, and it was a very fun night for me.

I hope to make another post soon!

- The Blogger

Ahh, Weekends.

Friday night: "Awesome, it's the weekend! Time to goof off, I'll have plenty of time!"

Saturday morning: "I should probably get my homework done today."

Saturday afternoon: "One assignment is good for now. I'll get it done tomorrow."

Sunday morning: "I should probably get to doing my homework soon. Just not now."

Sunday afternoon: "Just a few minutes on the computer, then I promise I'll start."

Sunday night: "Why didn't I get this done before?! So tired . . ."

Then the five school days pass and I repeat. See, I have a bit of a procrastinating issue if you didn't happen to notice. It's about 8:30 right now and I just finished my homework right before I started this post. Granted it was the extra credit I was finishing, my point is still sound.

So far the only homework I'm enjoying is the Computer Literacy homework where we have to practice the html code we're learning. Basically, I'm designing a cool website for myself.

My least favorite homework is Latin. I'm not doing too well having to memorize so much.

Sorry that I'm not making a poll of the month for September. Hope you saw the results on the last one!

- The Blogger

Uni High and Cross Country

Chances are, you're upset that I didn't keep my promise and do a blog post once school started, so to make it up to you, I'm doing a 2 for 1 special. Uni AND cross country.

So first, I've included a picture of the entire eighth grade at Uni High. It's only 69 people this year, but is quite a step from previous years of only around 60. If you count them, you'll come short because some were absent the day of the picture. I'm the guy in the green striped shirt. Go figure.

Monday will be the eighth day of school for us, and boy have we been busy. Assuming I'm out the door by 7:30 AM each morning, I spend 8 hours and 45 minutes at school, and 2 hours and 15 minutes right after that at cross country, I'm away from home for 11 hours a day! By that time, it's 6:30. If I eat dinner until 7:30 and finish getting ready for bed until 8:00, I get an hour and a half a day to get my homework done and maybe get a bit of downtime for myself. Thankfully, it's not quite like that. During school, I get a free period and a study hall each day. Add those up, and I get an hour and 15 minutes to get homework done. Not too bad.

In addition, during my free period (45 minutes long) I could go down the street, stop by Jimmy Johns, get a drink, and just hang out for a few minutes outside before the bell would ring. I'll have to try that. I'm really liking Uni so far.

Every day after school from 4:15 - 6:30 (or so) I have cross country practice. All five grade levels practice together and we usually run an average of 5 - 6 miles a day. However, the subbies have their own meets and all the high school grade levels have their own meets, so it fits in with all the other schools. Well, today the subbies had our first meet. I beat last year's PR by 2 seconds with a time of 15:01 for the 2 mile.

You can pretty much see our school uniform in that picture. Anyway, I think this post is

long enough. It was fun today, but I didn't do any of my homework. Guess what tomorrow will

be like.

Wish me luck.

- The Blogger

Part 4 of 4 of the Most Jam-Packed Summer Ever: Tech Camp

Sorry to leave you at a cliffhanger for such a long time. The fourth and final event of this summer was me going up to Chicago (or an area near it) and doing a sleep away camp for the first time in my life. It took place at Northwestern University and each person got a roommate that they slept with in a dorm. Each day there was pretty routine, but it never quite got old. We played video games for around 3 hours a day and there were a number of camps each person was in. My roommate and I were in the same camp: Java programming. It was a whole lot of fun! The first night was pretty difficult, but after that I just fit myself in the routine and it was all easy.

This is me in my dorm room. Not the greatest picture, but it captures it. I chose top bunk.

This is the final day when parents got to come and check out our work. I made a bunch of friends and despite the fact I'm looking a bit goofy, we all had fun.

This is the room where all thirty of us would spend the majority of the day working and playing games.

That's it. It's nice to be home, and the trip to South Dakota seems so distant now. Would you believe that my mom was actually planning a trip to D.C.?? Fortunately, we didn't carry through with it. Sadly, fun's over and I finally have to start on the book I'm required to read for school this year. I've got 14 days before school starts. There probably won't be another post until then, but you never know.

Oh, and by the way, something is a bit messed up with the Poll of the Month and it just says the question twice. Sorry about that.

- The Blogger

Part 3.5 of 4 of the Most Jam-Packed Summer Ever: Mom and Katelyn's Arrival

This is part three and a half of my summer, the part where Mom and Katelyn come down to Texas with us. Once we finished the treehouse, they caught a plane and joined us in Texas. The next day, we all went down to the property so they could see our handiwork. We spent the rest of the time in Austin. I included a few pictures of our stay with them.

Katelyn got along really well with the dogs.

On the property, we all took a nice hike as the sun was going down.

As we've done every year, we spent the day at Schlitterbahn. This is a picture dad took of me on the first ride we'd done that day.

Katelyn's testing her luck at the rope!

We all had a great time in our stay down there! Amy's was something that I didn't bother to

include but is certainly noteworthy. I wish Champaign had an Amy's ice cream. Anyways, I'm

never home for too long at a time here. After only a few days of relaxation, it's time for me to

pack my bags (for the fourth time) and get ready for my next summer activity.

- The Blogger

Part 3 of 4 of the Most Jam-Packed Summer Ever: Building a Treehouse

Once upon a time, I visited my grandparents' private property in the middle of nowhere. A few days in, I asked my granddad if it would be possible for us to someday build a treehouse there.

***Time Passes***

One year later when I went back to the property, we got started on building our treehouse! We already decided which tree it would be beforehand, so that was a nice start. The very first day was spent planning out the design and buying the equipment we needed to start.

In all of the time we spent focused on the treehouse, here's how I roughly gauged how we spent it:

30% of the time was spent thinking about our next move

20% of the time was spent on productive building

50% of the time was spent running back to the hardware store

I have a few pictures that I selected that I'd like to share with you.

This was the first time I used a power saw.

And this was the first time I had used a power drill.

The completed project!

The whole thing took . . . let me think . . . was it five days? I think so. The routine for every single one was exactly the same. Wake up at 8:00 in the morning, get out of the house at around 9:00, work nonstop until lunch, take a break at the hottest part of the day, work until 8:30 at night. Go inside, eat dinner, go to bed. That was it. That's how we got so much done. Due to lack of more time, we didn't add a roof, but there was no problem with that at all.

Did I mention I slept in it for a night? Quite a long night, but I had fun.

- The Blogger

The Fourth of July

The family here was split up at the fourth of July. My dad and I rode to Texas in a train so we could get there early to build a treehouse. Mom and Katelyn stayed back home so they could catch a plane once we were done. Sadly, Dad and I didn't get to see fireworks because of the drought in Texas. However, Katelyn and Mom didn't have it much better. They were up all night listening to the insane people in our neighborhood blow off illegal fireworks all night. I wish I was there, but they seemed to hate it.

This is Katelyn showing off her patriotism!

And this is Mom showing off her's!

Dad and I spent our fourth of July on a train to Texas. I thought it was a lot of fun because I'd never been on one before! I'll be doing another blog post tonight, so be aware of that as well!

- The Blogger

Colorado Post 2 out of 2: White Water Rafting

I devoted this entire post to something that happened in a matter of minutes. It all started right before my mom, dad, sister, and I hopped into the giant rubber raft to go white water rafting. My mom said to me "You're not going to fall out of the raft, right?" I promised her I wouldn't. Well, I figured that there's a little bit of foreshadow right there. The deal was that you did the exact same stretch of river twice in the raft. The first time we had done it, it was fun. I was a little bummed that there wasn't a little more splashing. I didn't get as wet as I would have hoped. The second time was fun as well. Until the point where the guy in the raft in front of us got the funny idea to cut us off.

We made an abrupt left to avoid collision. Well, with him at any rate. Suddenly our guide started yelling at us to back paddle. I couldn't quite see, but when I looked around a little, there was an elephant sized rock right in front of us! The river was just too powerful for us, and we slammed full speed into the rock despite our frantic pedaling. We went sideways into it and were suddenly at a 60 degree angle and tipping fast. 2 people on my side who were riding with us fell out and I was hanging to the edge by my knees! Fortunately I didn't fall out. We frantically tried to pull them in, but in our haste we didn't quite realize that we had made a huge mistake.

Our guide noticed it first. All of a sudden, he was shouting his head off! We managed to get the two people in (they came here for their anniversary by the way) and only then did we notice that we were sailing right past our exit point. It was there for a reason. Beyond that were the REAL rapids with sharp rocks and just after that, a dam. Every one of us was paddling at full speed, desperate to make it to shore. After a few minutes though, we did, safe and sound. Looks like my foreshadow was wrong.

Everybody got out of the boat and started to lift it up and back to the bus. I put one leg out of the boat. I couldn't quite reach the bottom. Put the other leg out. WOAH!! The current picked me up and I couldn't hang on. I was sailing along the dangerous rapids with the boat stationary behind me directly into the direction of the dam. In that thought, I felt one of my sandals fall off my foot. Great. They started yelling at me, and I tried desperately to grab onto the land. Finally, I did. I hopped on one foot to the raft and we all carried it through the bushes and back to the bus. Everybody seemed happy that we were alright, even though we went into a rock, had three people go overboard, and passed the exit point. I say it was the best rafting trip I will ever have.

I just hope it doesn't happen again.

- The Blogger

Colorado Post 1 out of 2: Hiking the Mountains

We recently got back from the Colorado mountains on a family vacation, and I must say that I would consider it to be a huge success. This first post is concerned about the hikes that we took here. Like usual, whenever I have a lot of pictures, I just let them do the talking.

This was our first real hike up any of the mountains there. It was pretty enjoyable! By the way, that's me in there.

Bre and Katelyn are both wearing matching shirts and pants. They seem happy enough on that rock up there.

While most people have rabbits or gophers eating their grass, we had elk to deal with. Nah, they were just fun to look at.

This is me on the second hike we did. Deer Summit. It's a six mile hike round trip.

Here we all are (except mom) standing at the summit, 10,000 feet above sea level! A good deal greater than the 400 feet I live at down here.

I had a lot of fun here, and we had a great cabin to stay at! I'll be doing another post tomorrow (I think), so keep a look out!

- The Blogger

South Dakota Trip Days Three and Four: Mt. Rushmore,Wind Cave, Sylvan Lake, Crazy Horse

Despite the very long title, they seemed to go by pretty fast. Means I had fun, right? Slightly out of order, we hit Sylvan Lake, Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave, and Crazy Horse among other landmarks we stopped by. Here are the select pictures I chose from those.

Poor McKinley has very slippery hands and we just couldn't hang on tight enough . . .

We slightly abandoned the Nanas to go climb up a bunch of rocks and up here. It was pretty fun.

Mount Rushmore! It's really cool to look at in person. The tons and tons and tons of rock they blew off the mountain are all still there, right under the mountain. Amazing.

Bison jam! Did you know that there really is a difference between Bison and Buffalo? Neither did we until they made me Google it.

This is us in wind cave, a remarkable three layer cave system. Discovered in the late 1800's, nearly 200 miles of known length, this is only 5% explored. I find that to be unfathomable.

60 years of construction and the only thing they have so far of the statue of Crazy Horse is the face. It's remarkable. I've decided that it probably won't be finished in my lifetime. (Click on it to get a larger view if you can't see the face)

Well, we ended up staying 12.5 hours locked in a car, and once we finally got to the Nana's and McKinley's house, I was still 4 hours from home. Lucky me. Anyway, it's nice to be home and blog where's there's actual Wi-fi. I'll be leaving to drive even further west to Colorado on Saturday though, so I might as well enjoy it while I can.

Beat Portal and Portal 2! Just a side note in the world of computer games.

- The Blogger

South Dakota Trip Day Two: Badlands and Wall Drug

Day two of our South Dakota experience was a success. We woke up, got ready for the day, and spent a couple of hours heading down to the Badlands. Mountainous, moon-like, dry structures, yet amazing to look at! It's a little hard to describe the day's adventures, so I decided to put it in picture form.

AHHH!! GET THE VENOM KIT!! HELP ME PLEASE!!! Yeah, you wouldn't believe how many of these signs we saw today, at least five.

Woah, McKinley! Sweet catch!

We finally arrived! Boy my legs were stiff.

It's truly a thing of beauty when you see it, with all the layers of rock exposed.

This was a pretty cool formation.

"Look at the mountain climber, Andy!"

"Where?"

"Don't you see it?"

"No . . ."

"Oh wait, it's just a pile of dirt. Never mind, just keep walking."

We also stopped by Wall Drug where I got some yummy ice cream.

Today was a success. It's kind of late, so I think I'll stop now.

'Til tomorrow

-The Blogger (wishes Nana B a happy birthday!!)

South Dakota Trip Day One: Corn Palace

For a while now we've been planning a trip where me, my cousin, and my two Nanas venture out to South Dakota on a vacation where we see all kinds of exhibits. Today was mostly a travel day. We spent seven and a half hours in the car to get here. From there, we saw the Corn Palace and just swam a little. Here are a few pictures so far.

This is all of us before we left in the car.

I'm about to hit McKinley with a foam ball at the pool. It was a proud day for me.

Do I look dorky or what?? I still don't get why people at school wear these.

This made me feel better.

2 ice cream cones!! Heaven!

McKinley and I are having fun in the back seat.

The corn museum was a blast! I still can't believe they change it every year!

'Til next post

- The Blogger

Six Flags

I am aware this happened four days ago, but the last day of school, everybody in Band and Strings took a trip to Six Flags. It was awesome! We had to be at school at 6:30 AM, and didn't arrive at home until 11:300 PM, so it was an all day thing. There are few places on Earth that make me happier then riding roller coasters with my friends. One of the roller coasters took your picture on the steepest drop, and I bought it for $5. Here it is:

Pardon Evan's dorky face. He insisted on it, and I couldn't quite say no, so whatever. I'm fine with it. The people in front and behind of Evan and I are the people in our group, six total. I still wonder how they got such a great picture since we were going at least 75 miles per hour. I found out that people ride the most famous ride there, the batman, 40% for fun, 60% for bragging rights, because the first time you ride it, it's a thriller, but every time after that, it's kind of drab. There aren't any stomach drops and it's pretty low to the ground. I have to give them credit for those loop de loops though. Those are awesome.

I'm going to try to convince my dad to take me there next year so I can still enjoy it with my friends since Uni doesn't do that type of thing.

- The Blogger (wishes you a happy summer!)

The School Year is Ending

The school year is ending. No school tomorrow, a day of school on Tuesday, our Band Six Flags trip, then it's over. While most of my friends will be back next year, I'll be off to Uni. I'm incredibly excited, but I also want to take this time to reflect upon my past two years at Jefferson Middle School.

Dislikes: My health teacher, the pointless bullying, people who thought they were my friends when really I wanted nothing to do with them, the walk home

Likes: My friends, my video presentations, both my science teachers, the field trips, our cross country team

It's been a pretty good year, and I've decided to compile another list of likes and dislikes about switching schools to Uni. I've taken all of these into consideration way before I made the actual decision to go.

Dislikes: I'll be separated from Evan and many other friends, Uni's overall reputation, late dismissing time, no band program

Likes: Two of my friends will be there with me, less of a walk home (just to my mom's work), people more of my "level", free period, I'll be a "subbie" not an "eighth grader" (exactly the same thing but still), overall better education

I think I'm ready for this change. I don't go until late fall, but i'm ready. I hope to still see people like Evan at X-Country meets and over the summer.

I'm going to see Pirates of the Caribbean #4 later today, so I'm excited about that! Very off topic . . .

- The Blogger (is ready for Summer)

The Katmobile

Right up front, I want to say that I did fix the movie problem! The URL to see it is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mspSV2Ff7eM&feature=channel_video_title

Not too bad. I still see things I could improve on. I have 2 new movies buzzing around in my head, so still be prepared!

Other good news, we recently bought a new vehicle for our long drive to the Rockies! Mom insisted on naming it, so we settled on The Batmobile. I loved the name, until Katelyn stated that she hated the name and officially changed the name to The Katmobile. I am most certainly not a fan of the name, but there's nothing I can do about it.

In my head I call it The Batmobile.

The school recently held it's last band concert of the year! Here's the video of my favorite song that we performed that night.

Until next time,

- The Blogger