Update

    Hey everyone! I haven't blogged in a while, I know, but I have been super busy with the Nutcracker. The performance was amazing! It all felt so surreal! It is so magical to be up on a stage like that with everyone watching.  Below are some pictures. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any pictures during the show, but I have a couple of costume rehearsal pictures.

Final bow with the Sugar Plum Fairy, her partner, and the Nutcracker (aka Harrison)

Me as Clara in my party dress with the other party girls

Me in my nightgown as Clara

End of pictures.

  Ok, so I have a BIG problem. I don't know what I want for Christmas! I don't want any toys, I don't really need money. My mom said that I could donate to a charity. I think that is the best option so far. Does anyone have any suggestions which charity? I'll have to consider that. :-)

Just something random: My new favorite song to dance to is "Home" by Phillip Phillips. Give it a try on the Itunes store sometime!

Till next time! 

   - Cate

 

Nutcracker and Other Stuff

So, I think you've all heard by now that I am Clara in Sewanee's Nutcracker this year. On Friday I rehearsed from 4:15 to 9:00.  I brought a sandwich, veggies and fruit for dinner on the go. It was partly so long because of costume fittings, though. For the party scene I am wearing bloomers, a slip and a flowy white dress with a skinny, empire waist, dark red sash. It is very pretty, in a sort of old-timey way. For the rest of the show, I am wearing a light pink night gown, hemmed with white lace. Both dresses fall to a little bit above my ankles. For the entire show I will be wearing a nude leotard, pink tights and, of course, pink ballet shoes. I am learning basically the entire show, because when I'm not Clara, I'm a mouse. Clara also dances with the Gingerbreads, so I have to learn that dance, too. That is all the scoop I have about the Nutcracker, though.

Nothing very exciting is happening in school. We are learning about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I chose one of the less known signers, Charles Carroll of Carrrollton. To learn more about him, click the link below.
                                                               Charles Carroll of Carollton

So, other than that, I don't really have anything else to say. 

Random Facts

1. I found my Crayola crayon-maker!!!

2. My new favorite song is "Glad You Came" by The Wanted

3. Till next time!

- Cate

Untitled

Back in school! My teachers are awesome! My class could have better though. My best friend is in the other homeroom.

This year things are a little bit different because we are doing swaps like in middle school. So I have my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Foster for homeroom, of course,and then science and math. I have the other teacher, Mrs. Felts for reading/language arts and social studies. 

Speaking of social studies, my whole class is doing a report on a state of their choice and I chose Texas. It turns out Texas has  a really cool history! I have to write two paragraphs on a famous person from there. Any suggestions????

The lunch menu has also really improved. It's actually edible. Wow.

The new girl in fifth grade came over last night and she is very nice. And she likes the things that I like!

Well, my last order of business is to write about my mom. It is her first day of class tomorrow and I personally think she will do an AMAZING  job! GO MOM!!!!!!

Till later!  
-Cate

PS Die, flies, die!

Back to School

Wow! Summer vacation is already over....seems like just yesterday that I got out of school. Only today and tomorrow left.  Today we are going to Nashville to visit friends and go to a Train concert. We already have school supplies. I need very little this year. I would like to thank my Grammy, Mary Lou Kelso. Because of her I will be the belle of the ball this year! I LOVE fashion!!!!! Anyhoo, we have to leave soon so I better go. Till next time!!


PS We now have a fly swatter that electrocutes the flies. It looks like a tennis racket. So much fun! 

Running!

This year in gym class we had a running unit. We trained for about 6 weeks. The first time we ran for 5 minutes, then 10, then 15, ok you get the idea. On 5.30.12 we had our test. The scale of grades:  15 min = C   30 min = B  45 min = A. 
The scale of the medals: 15 min = Bronze  35 min = Silver  60 min = Gold

Guess what? I got an A and a gold medal!!!!! Everyone in my class got a gold and an A, except for one boy. He got a B and a silver medal.    Frau Odermatt has ordered the medals already. I am really proud because that is half the time my parents ran in the marathon ( see www.bachmansabroad.blogpot.com or facebook for further info on that ) in May. YIPEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think any gym teacher would do that in America!

To the old castle we go....Day 3

Well, time to say goodbye! We got up and went through the normal morning routine and went down to breakfast. After breakfast we all packed our stuff, stripped the beds and had room inspection. Our room was the best cleaned. Then we had room time until 8:45 and then we had to go downstairs for a picture and to get in the bus. What we didn't know was that Frau Odermatt had ice cream waiting for us! The picture turned out great!

My class

We boarded the bus and drove back to Mainz. I have to say, that was a once in a lifetime expierence for me.

Till next time!!!!! 

To the old castle we go.....Day 2

In the mornings we all had to be up by 6:30 am.  Frau Odermatt had a master key, so she was our alarm. We all got up, put on our clothes, and headed down to to breakfast at 7 on the dot. Here are some of the pictures my teacher got of breakfast:

Cereal bar!

Traditional German breakfast! (Brotzeit)

Our class's table from the front

After breakfast we went up to the top (3rd) floor and felted. (Felted is the literal translation. We can't find any other translation.)  There were two groups : One of the groups felted and the other group made medieval paper dolls. Both of these activities were very fun.  Little history lesson: Girls, if you were married in that time you weren't allowed to show your hair or your ankles. Boys, you had to wear tights and tunic tops.  And long hair was super fashion.  More pictures!

At 12 it was lunchtime.  I don't remember what was for lunch that day..... humph. From 12:45 to 1 we had room time, and our room invited one of the other rooms to our room. We hung out until 1 and then went out to the playground for our class picture. It was a failure most of of the time but, we did get a good picture! 

Argh!!!!!!!!!

Whoops!

Finally!!!!!!!!

I think it turned out pretty good!  When we were done at the playground, we all went back inside and made princess and knight costumes. These are pictures of making them:

Ok, you get the idea. Well, Frau Odermatt also took pictures of all the rooms together. This is my room:

This is one of the boys' rooms:

  

This is our whole class, along with Frau Odermatt and Herr Sourdeau: 

That was really fun! After that we all took of our costumes off and got ready for our knight games. There were two teams, red and yellow. I was on the red team. First game: One person from each team gets on a balance beam. They are handed a pillow case full of newspaper and a shield. The winner is the person who knocks the other person off the balance beam. Two of my favorite pictures:

Second game: One person on each team has a stick. Another person from each team has a hoop. The point of the game is to get the hoop on the stick of your team. I do not have any pictures of that, so I'll just go on to the Third and Last game. Third and Last game: everyone has a balloon tied to their leg. The point of the game is to stomp on the other teams' balloons until there are no balloons left on a team. I do have a video of this game!

By then it was already 7, and everyone was very hungry. Our class came in to see a big surprise. A true medieval dinner!!!!!! WOW!!!!! They brought us a whole cooked chicken!  I have many pictures. 

We were allowed to burp, slurp, smack our food, talk with our mouths full and eat with our hands. Thankfully, we had cloth napkins! Dinner was a blast, and afterwards we were all full. When we were all done with dinner, our class got to have a party! Without the teacher! And with music and sweets from the vending machines. I also have pictures and a video of that!

That was SUPER AWESOME!!!!!!! We had Sean Paul's "She Doesn't Mind" on repeat the whole time, but it was good anyway. We didn't have to be in our rooms until 10:15! We got to have lights out at 11:00! Our party rocked!


This was Day 2. Day 3 will follow soon. I know it!!!!!!! 

To the old castle we go....Day 1

So, here is the story of my class trip.

On 5.9.12 at 8:32 my class and I were standing outside waiting for the bus, even though we knew it was coming at 8:45. This is the picture my teacher got from across the street.

Well, it turned out that the bus didn't come until 9:00. The trip was an hour and bit. We at least had entertainment. I had my iPod, my friend had a video camera, and another friend had books. I had a book in English, but I didn't really feel like reading it. At one part we drove along really steep hill. And this wasn't in a school bus, but in a huge tour bus. Fun, right? But we were all very antsy, and it didn't help that three of the soccer nerds started singing soccer cheers and the whole bus, except Frau Odermatt and the bus driver, started singing along. Headache mania!!!!!! At around 10 we arrived and ate our second breakfast outside. Stiff legs!

As soon as we came in the lobby we were greeted by these sweet little rescued fox babies. AWWWWW!

They're so FLUFFY!!!!!

We were showed around the youth hostel a little bit and then led to our group room to do shields to hang on the door of our rooms. Oh, I forgot the room system. There were three rooms of four girls. I was in a room with Linda, Natasha and Hatice ( Ha - tee - cha. Turkish) There were only two boys' rooms, one with four boys and one with three. Frau Odermatt and Herr Sourdeau had their own rooms. So, back to the shields. We made the shields on cloth with crayons. The rule was, each of the rooms had its own symbol. Other than that, you do whatever you wanted. The symbol didn't have to be in the same place or in the same color or the same style. It was really cool, and I am sad I have no pictures. After that it was lunchtime. That day at lunch we had Wiener Schnitzel and french fries with ketchup. We also had a salad bar, water and iced punch. YUM!

After lunch we went outside and played on a playground about a 2 minute walk from the youth hostel. Our student teacher/French exchange student Herr Sourdeau ( sue - doh ) came with. He had just arrived because he had come with his car. I have many pictures and one video. Enjoy!

After that we made arrows and shot bow and arrows. I had some experience at summer camp last year, so I know pretty much how it goes.



 I would add more bow & arrow pictures, but I have a picture of everyone in my class and I can't decide. I will just put up my room then.

Hatice

Natasha

Linda

When bow and arrows was over it was already 3:00 so, Frau Odermatt said we could have free time till 6:00 and then meet up to eat dinner.  Natasha, Linda and I decided to go outside together. You have to always go in a group of three people. Why three?  Imagine: One person gets injured. One person goes to get help and the other person stay with the injured person. Logical, right?

We played outside until 5:00 ish and then went inside. Everyone just sort of chilled until dinner in their rooms. At six all the kids rushed downstairs ( we were on the second floor since then weren't any rooms on the first floor ). For dinner we had German ravioli, salad and for dessert, choco pudding! YUM!  After dinner we had free time till 9:00 ( pm ) .

At nine we went on a forest wandering and saw many bats. We stopped in the middle of our walk to read a ghost story, that, in my opinion, wasn't scary at all. We wandered some more and got back to the youth hostel at around ten.

Here is the night plan:  At 10:10 everyone has to be in their rooms. At 10:30 everyone shall be in bed and reading or talking. At 10:45 is lights out. Good night!

This is the first day. The second day will follow soon. I hope........

New and Better

I have to admit, the smoothie blog is forgotten. But with the pushing and ideas from my Grammy, Mary Lou Kelso, this blog will now become my school blog. My first post will follow soon after this one. I hope you enjoy!