Pride and Prejudice love triangles, Clarissa Edition

Clarissa got a little carried away drawing love triangles. I decided to ask her to explain them to me. Try to keep it all straight as she skips around to different people. Can you imagine how confusing the book would be if all this was true?:)

"Mary likes Collins, but Charlotte is married to Collins, so Charlotte and Mary are fighting over Collins. Mary also like Colonel Forster, and Mrs. Forster and Mary are fighting over him. Charlotte and Elizabeth both 'admire' Colonel Forster, so they are fighting over him. Actually, Collins can't decide between Charlotte and Elizabeth. He loves them both. Okay, Elizabeth and Ms. King are fighting over Colonel Forster. He's just the man to be fighting over; it's because he looks so good in his red coat. Alright, now, Darcy and Wickham both love Elizabeth. Ms. King and Georgiana both love Wickham. Wickham can't decide between Lydia and Georgiana. Um, Ms. de Bourge and Elizabeth are fighting over Mr. Darcy. Ms. de Bourge also loves Fitzwilliam. Miss Bingley loves Darcy and Bingley. Georgiana and Jane are fighting over Bingley. Lydia and Georgiana are fighting over Bingley. Now let's go back to Miss Bingley for a second so we can get the random guy at the dance in. Okay, Miss Bingley is in love with Captain Carter and the random guy at the dance. The Random Guy at the dance and Bingley are, like, secretly in loooove with Hill in their hearts because she's just so good at her job. Oh, Bingley and Jane are fighting over Hill because they both want her as their personal servant or something. Collins is secretly in love with Miss de Bourge as well as Elizabeth. Jane and Hill love Bingley's servant. Even though Jane is married to Bingley. She loves his servant too, also. (grammar? must be a homeschooler:) Okay, then, um, Bingley's servant and Hill love Mr. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet and Bingley's servant both love Mr. Bennet. We don't know if Bingley's servant is a man or a woman. Captain Carter and Denny both love Kitty. Denny and the Random Guy at the dance both love Hill. Ok, um.......Wickham and Denny also both love Kitty. All the redcoats love Kitty, Lydia just doesn't know it. (annoying laughter) Um, Denny - no, wait, Lydia can't decide between Wickham and Denny. Oh, Mrs. Bennet loves Denny and Wickham. Elizabeth loves the Random Guy and the dance and Bingley. I'll marry Mr. Darcy!!"

There you have it:)

Round One: various summer pictures:)

Fun at the Follies! We sang Simple Boy and Modern Major General,

both of which brought back a lot of fond memories

We went to a Cardinal game. It was oodles of fun, but I think we lost.

I don't remember for sure. Isn't that awful?

I just love this picture. I don't remember who that is.....oops.

I hope to post more pictures soon!

Week 1: completed!

We are starting our second week of school today, but I thought I'd give you a little summary of our first week. I'll just list my favorite subjects.

Bible - I'm reading these thick books discussing the old law and every possible subject that relates in any to the old law. Somewhat tedious, quite interesting. I read outside on the porch railing so I can block out the sibling noise.

Chem - Difficult, but I really enjoy it. I'm studying atomic structures; it's fascinating!

Gov't - A lot of numbers (years, dollars, percentages...etc.) which makes it hard to read, which in turn makes it hard to comprehend.

Literature - LOVING it; In the middle of The Scarlet Letter.

The Art of Clothes - http://theartofclothes.blogspot.com
Pemberley Couture - http://pemberleycouture.blogspot.com

This girl has done some pretty cool stuff with a sewing machine. If you are remotly interested in sewing/costumes, check it out.

Bit by Bit

I'm going to have to catch you up on my summer later when I have time to sit and post pictures. For now, I'm going to catch you up on the present.

Today we started school. I'm a junior this year and can't wait to go to college ... "it seems so long!" I'm doing some pretty interesting things, along with some not so interesting things, and I'm reading a bunch of good books this year, a bunch of classics that I haven't read before. I'm going to be in homeschool band, which greatly excites me! A few years ago I was thinking seriously about being in band at the high school, but I wouldn't be able to compete because I wasn't a full time student. I've dropped ballet and jazz, but I'm still doing tap because I love it so much:) Rebecca has moved into my class, so our Tuesdays are a little less vexing. I'm still taking flute and piano, and let me rant a little....I'm to the point in my piano playing that I love it so much I wish I could play much, much harder music....the only problem is, I can make my fingers do it sometimes, but my brain is too slow, and so my fingers move too slow and I get frustrated with myself. I'm going to stick it through, however, regretting every minute that I quit lessons when I was young. Auditions for Scrooge are next month, and I can't decide what to sing.

Watch for summer pictures and stories in the near future....or distant future, whenever I get around to it....

Oh, something I forgot!

My youth group and I recently (last weekend) went to a youth rally in Neosho, MO. We had a jolly old time singing, praising God, listening to great speakers and playing many games of Nertz, ERS and Spoons. We had been on the road back to Rolla for about an hour when suddenly it sounded like we hit something. The whole bus shook (even more than usual) and Mr. Bramlett pulled slowly over to the shoulder. A tire popped, and we were a little ways from a exit. We drove slowly on the side of the road until we took the exit and found a truck stop. Mr. Bramlett started the tire removal process and we all walked across the street to a McDonalds. We sat there for about 45 minutes until the tire was fixed, and we continued our journey home. Fifteen minutes down the road, the bus breaks down. Being a girl and not being interested in vehicle mechanics very much, I'm not exactly sure what the problem was, but it happens a lot to the poor bus and Mr. Bramlett quickly fixed it.

By this time, Mr. Bramlett is a huge hero to us.

But wait!! Fifteen minutes down the road, the bus breaks down again and Mr. Bramlett can't get it to start. About the same time we stopped, an accident happened about a third of a mile down the road. Traffic immediately started to pile up, so even if by some miracle the old church bus did start up again, we wouldn't be able to go anywhere because of the long line of traffic building up a few feet away from our stopped bus. It starts to rain. So we sit, we play Catchphrase, we watch the ambulances weave their way past us and to the accident site, we play mafia, Mr. Bramlett calls a tow, we sweat in the now really humid bus, we got outside in the drizzly rain to cool off and watch the sluggish line of traffic drive by a few feet in front of us. Nearly an hour later, the traffic is moving by at a normal speed and the tow guy comes. He tows us inside the bus for about a mile to the nearest gas station. We sat inside an (air conditioned!) Christian coffee house that was neighbors with the gas station, and we waited until my grandpa and Mrs. McKinney arrived in their minivans to tote us back to Rolla. Thirty minutes later, I'm sitting in my grandpa's minivan listening to the rain-delayed Cardinals game, playing many, many rounds of Mafia, and sighing in relief as we finally reached Rolla. We left Neosho at 11:30, and it's a 2 hour trip. We arrived at the church building at 5:30.......I was sooooo glad to be home:)

A Smidgen of an Update

I just got back from being in Colorado for a week, and tomorrow afternoon I leave to go to church camp for a week. As you probably can assume, I'm really busy packing and unpacking and all that jazz, so to tide you over until I get back from camp next week and post a million bajillion pictures, I'll give you a summary of my last week.

Deer Valley Guest Ranch is a guest ranch. It's in the Rockies, right behind (or in front of) Mount Princeton. On this trip, I fell (very unfortunatly) completely in love with Colorado. Crazy, right? I'm completely a Missouri girl.....right?

I have decided that I am going to live in Colorado in the future. I don't care how much real estate is there. I will just have to start saving my newly aquired income now.

So now for the fun part, at least for me...on the 14 hour car ride back, I compiled a list of "firsts" for me that happened at Deer Valley the past week. Without further ramblings....

1. I square danced for the first time. It was oodles of fun:)
2. I ate a bug for the first time. It was a little grasshopper-like thing, and I ate it at the Thursday morning Wranglers Breakfast. I ate it with a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese, so I didn't actually taste it. I was so proud of myself.
3. I was kicked by a horse for the first time. We were on a ride and the horse in front of me was spooked by something, backed up and kicked me. I had a pretty impressive bruise on my ankle for a few days.
4. A bunch of college guys (the wranglers) oohed and ahhed over a pencil sketch I did of the interior of the stable where they work every day. They had me make copies of it so they could hang one up. It made me feel special:) lol.
5. I went whitewater rafting for the first time. It was awesome!
6. I saw a "dip" sign other than the one on the Hike 2. We (the teens in the teen group and the teen leaders) drove over it in a 15 passenger van a couple times every day, depending on what activities the teens were doing that day. Without going into too much detail, I tell you that we did not pay attention to the "Slow" and "Caution" signs right before the "Dip" sign. We floored it. :)
7. I saw 3 baby bighorn sheep. They were the most adorable things EVER.
8. I had chipmunks, prairie dogs and squirrels eat sunflower seeds out of my hand at St. Elmo (a ghost town near Dear Valley).
9. I made up a ballet dance to a Schumann piece a girl was playing; at least, I think she said it was Schumann. She started playing and I started dancing and we both had a jolly time for about 10 minutes.
10. I had an escort of four guys from the Lodge to our cabin....and it was four wranglers. Let me explain.
The wranglers are the tough, awesome guys that take care of the horses, play cards with you and love the Lord. Most of them were about 20 years old, and they were all really awesome. They wanted to see the sketch that I mentioned earlier, and one said "Hey, we're headed that way anyway; let's walk you down to our cabin." All the other girls were jealous...just kidding:)
11. We went to the continental divide and went sledding! There was a ton of snow, and we had an amazing time. The hill we were sledding down was super long and super steep, but I finally convinced my grandpa to go down with me and we both wiped out. It was sooo much fun, especially since I love snow so much:)
12. I fell in love with the area around Buena Vista, Colorado. I mentioned it above, but......yeah. I want to live there someday.

Sorry, I know most of that was really lame and I rambled on for a while and most of it probably made little sense. And there were no pictures, so it automatically was boring:) lol. I promise I will add a billion bajillion million quadrillion when I get back from camp.

Sorry if you've already seen this on Clarissa's blog. This was from the Stanley Sister Sleepover. I love it:)

The only picture I took on The Hike 2

And, technically, I didn't take it. Benjamin did.

I'm going a knit a bag/purse thing for me to use during my upcoming summer adventures. It's going to be awesome.

My New Love!

I've discovered a new passion of mine. It's wonderful. It combines cooking and my inner pyromaniac...or outer pyromaniac. Let's just say it combines cooking and my insane fire-loving side.

Ah...grilling. The sizzling. The smoke. The tasty/yummy/fantastically delicious results. It's like the Fourth of July....fireworks and food...only grilling combines them into one phenomenal experience.

All that said...I love grilling:)

Excitment

Background: When OAT announced auditions for the summer season this year, they didn't want anyone under 16. I was bummed, not because I wanted to be in a specific show (because all the shows have questionable/really questionable/semi-"bad"/what I would consider "bad" content), but because I would miss the people.

So...fast forward to now... the Christmas show this year is "Scrooge". It's basically A Christmas Carol, and it's a musical (yay! Singing! Dancing!). My mother put Scrooge at the top of our Netflix list, and low and behold, Scrooge showed up in our mailbox!

Gotta love those Netflix guys.

I am very excited about this show. It's fun and high energy and there's a bunch of townspeople, which means a lot of friends to work with! Yay for people! I love people:)

Anyway, I'm happy that even if I was disappointed with the summer shows, I'm looking forward to Scrooge...Bah humbug.

Some various pictures that aren't related in any way

I knitted a piece of bread with some butter! It's an inside joke/birthday present for a friend of mine. I highly recommend knitting food... it's quite fun to tell your family, "I've finished knitting the crust!"

Another birthday present for my friend. She likes The Wizard of Oz:)

And, finally, and completely unrelated to the above pictures, swimming has funny effects on my hair. I normally swim with my hair in a ponytail, and if I let my hair dry while still up in the ponytail, all the little short pieces of hair around my face dry in little corkscrew curls. Pictured above is one that I had yesterday...I thought it was lovely. It would be fun if all my hair did that;)

Last Thursday night, my friend Courtney and I went to the movies.

We saw Star Trek.

I had never seen anything remotly related to Star Trek before.

I believe Courtney is regretting it now. She's created a monster.

A short, brunette, Vulcan-nerve-pinching, Trekkie monster.

Courtney is going to lend me Star Trek.

Courtney's mother is a Trekkie, and has some episodes on dvd.

I can't wait.

Live long and Prosper,
Jenna

ps...I've decided that I'm going to marry Spock.

Some recent goings-on concerning the pool

We found a mole in the pool drain! What amazing feet!

Filling the pool...

Meredith enjoys the freezing water.

Great.

I listened to the audio recording of "The Pirates of Penzance." I am SO annoyed with myself for crying like a baby on closing night, because the audio is of the closing night performance, and I sound completely TERRIBLE on the "ah-ah-ah" duet during the finale....It's bad. Really, really bad. Why are girls so emotional? ;)

Forgive me for ruining everyone's audio recording?