Friday, August 26, 2011

Vacation Time - Muskegon, West Michigan

Every year my family takes a vacation somewhere, last year it was Florida (amazing!) and the year before it was the Sliver Lake Sand Dunes (Very Sand-Duney). This year we took a week vacation to Muskegon, which is in West Michigan. It's a very big city because our cottage (which was WAY more like a house) was about twenty minutes away from everything. 

Monday - Monday was the day of driving to Muskegon. I wasn't packed until the night before (we had a slow and busy week) so we tried packing everything in to our minivan, and of course it didn't all fit perfectly. My dad suggested taking to big van, but if you have six people in the big van for three hours and it's very hot out, then the van will not give you air conditioning, which stinks, but is true. So we crammed in the regular car and drove off.

Drew and Nick playing in the backyard
Once we arrived in Muskegon, we tried to find the house we were renting for the week. We passed by a restaurant, but it was torn down and ripped up looking called the 'Red Dragon BBQ'. Of course, this was weird, but we found our house around the corner of the restaurant and unpacked our bags from the car. The house had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a garage, a sun room with fold our beds, and a campfire in the backyard. 

Anyway, we were out after that for about an hour just looking for dinner and firewood. The man who owned the house said that  you could fine camp firewood at 'most gas stations', well we went to 'most gas stations' alright and turns out 'most gas stations' DON'T have firewood. We drove in circles forever, finally got some and got some pizza to go back to the house and eat. (by the way, the outskirts of Muskegon are a little bit scary, haha)

Tuesday - Tuesday was our beach day. By that I mean we found a beach about twenty minutes from the house (like everything else) and relaxed there all day. I took a book to read and so did my mom, while my brothers and dad played in the sand and made a really cool looking sad castle. (I wish I had a picture to show you) After they finished it, or took a break I don't know, they went to play on the playground. These two brats came up and started stepping through it and stealing out sand toys, so we made them stop and they went to go bother someone else and their sand toys and castle.

After a little while longer, we took a walk and put everything in the car and got some ice cream from the stand on the beach (I got cookie dough, Yum!). My dad really wanted to see this lighthouse so we started to walk on it. I was worried from the moment I read the very first sign that said 'Dangerous...blah...blah...blah'. I was scared. So it was no doubt we didn't make it to the lighthouse when we read yet another sign thanking those who gave their lives do to falling off the path to the lighthouse and blah, blah, blah. That was the end of that.

We went to the grocery store later to get some things my mom needed for dinner that night. The kids got some candy because we thought about going to the movies that night, but didn't because we decided to stay home and watch a movie instead. 

Nick, Noah, Drew, and Emily
Wednesday - was my favorite day and probably the most exciting. First we went bowling and and that was SUPER fun. We divided into two teams. Nick, Noah, and Drew played together and Nick won both games on that team. My mom, my dad, and I played on the other team and my dad won both games because I'm not very good at bowling, sorry!

After eating lunch there and bowling we went home and took some naps for a few hours. My dad decided we should play UNO, so we went outside while Drew slept and played a game of UNO that lasted about two hours and didn't end up ever ending because we had to eat dinner and then leave to go to the Whitecaps Game. The Whitecaps are a single-a-baseball team. That's where some of the Tigers players come from after they go to the Mud hens, which is the triple-a-baseball team for the Tigers.
Us at the Whitecaps Game


We had dinner at home and bought these tickets that were on a lawn and it could either be by right field, or left field. We sat by left field and lots of foul balls came our way. Before the game, a guy from the other team, The Dragons, which I think were from Ohio, gave Nick a baseball. We hung on to it as a memory. We also got to make our own baseball cards and get something from the gift shop. Since, I didn't have any Tigers wear, I got a baseball hat, that was pink. We got little treats and then went back to watch the game.
Me at the Game

The Whitecaps ended up losing, but it was still very fun! We went home and everyone kind of fell right asleep we were so tired, especially since the stupid GPS took like an hour to get us home. 

Thursday - was our last day of doing things since we would be leaving on Friday. We decided to spend this day at Michigan's Adventure, which I thought was called 'Michigan Adevnture', but I guess it's Michigan's. For those of you who don't know what Michigan's Adventure is, it's an amusement park and a water park. It's fun, but if you're short it's not very fun, haha.

We did some things for Drew, and then went on a paddle boat ride, which was a workout! And then we did a few more other things before deciding we should go back to the car and eat lunch. After that, we went and changed into our bathing suits (which were only under our real clothes) and went to the water park.

The water park rides weren't much different from regular rides in which your height had to be 48 tall or you couldn't ride. Meaning I was (barely) the only kid who could ride the rides that I didn't want to ride. I even cut my lip on one of the rides it was so fast. They also had pools you could go in and every few minutes they turned on the waves and that was really fun. 

Before living we went to the gift shop, which was Peanut's Themed, and met the stuffed people Lucy, Snoopy, and Charlie Brown. Drew was so exciting to meet everyone it was so cute. "The Best Day Ever!" He said to us when he was meeting them. Which, it kind of was.

Thursday night we packed and watched a movie and had our final campfire and s'more's, which tasted funny because Daddy put his mints in the same bag as the marshmallows, which made them taste minty and funny. I didn't eat mine because of this, I think only Drew did, because he will eat anything.

Friday - was the day we went home. We packed and and then unpacked and it felt so good to finally be home again. I missed home so much. We spent the weekend at Breast Cancer Walk for my dad's cousin Tiffany and editing my video for Grimridge.

By the way - My Aunt Sarah has a blog crazy-random-happenstance-sarah.blogspot.com and it has been nominated for 'Detroit's Most Valuable Blogger' you need to vote for her's or at least read her blog! Voting goes through September 9th!


Sunday, August 14, 2011

The Story of Saving Grimridge

 On Saturday August 6th, my theater summer theater group, 'Shining Stars Theater', put on    a great performance of an original play called 'The Story of Saving Grimridge'. The play had a cast of kids that aged 8 - 12. It was a great play.
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Shining Stars Theater

The play followed a little girl named Lily (Bethany Stoddart) and her journey after she meets a gypsy (Alyssa Griglio) after not believing in any 'Happily Ever After'. She soon finds herself in the kingdom of Grimridge, where she discovers that it has been taken over by Lady Minerva (Emily Proctor) and that Prince Dylan (Dominic Tomasi) is captured. Minerva and her bodyguards (Ali Kindred and Meghann Butchart) have taken over Grimridge to make it awful. After meeting some people like Glow the Firefly (Kennedy Klauza), Aqua the Mermaid (Riley Klauza), and Kayla the Elf (Arianna Sawyer) Lily decides to take down Lady Minerva and so she does making Grimridge happy again, with Lady Minerva good again.

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Lady Minerva, Bunny, & Spinz
The play took a lot of hard work, it all started when we all met on an overcast day in the park with about thirteen children. After what seemed like ten people quitting, crazy casting, and insane dancing in the hallway everything was find and it was official. We were Shining Stars Theater. If it was hard for a bunch of kids to go on stage you couldn't tell. We all had the talent and hard work pays off, there's no doubt about that.

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Glow - "Like a Princess?"
 To begin with, we had about twelve people in our theater group, each with their own special talent, after a few weeks of July went by we had someone call it a quits and we were left with a main role sitting alone. After everything was sorted out and that part was someone else's we had another quitter, who left us hanging. Because of this we had to take out a scene and give away yet two more parts to make this play work. It was amazing how this show actually got done, but it was amazing in every single way. I only wish so many people could love theater like I do, because it's just so fun. I would never actually want to be an actress that does real movies, but I will always have theater.
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"They all lived Happily Ever After!"

The tracks for this play were super fun.  Starting and opening with Mrs. Cobblestone (Meghann Butchart), Granny (Riley Klauza), Betsy (Kennedy Klauza),  and Lily (Bethany Stoddart) singing "Happily Ever After" from 'Once Upon a Mattress' was super fun as Bethany sighed her way through the song angry at her family members. It showed you where the play began and it was a great beginning and ending with 'Imagine' by John Lennon was a great ending. 

Happily Ever After, Do You Believe in Magic?, Under The Sea, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Bad, When You're Alone, Fireflies, Breaking Free, Imagine, Firework. Shining Stars Theater is amazing. I hopefully being doing this again next year!

Go Shining Stars!