Merry Christmas

Mom opening presents

Dever with R2-D2

Dever with a ginormous Lego set.

Lizzy got a framed picture of Dever.

Grandma Roese and Grandma Joe waiting their turn.

Juju got lots of Elephant themed presents this year!

Merry Christmas and a Happy new year. We had a very green Christmas this. It rained on Christmas day. Christmas started this year on Christmas Eve. Dever preformed at the mass with his choir. My mom helped by directing the choir. Then papa and I went to the St. Paul service to linten to some more beautiful singing. With us were Jenny, Lizzy Grandma, and Grandma Roese. Wonderful singing always inproves the Christmas spiritDever got a R2-D2 from Santa, but I think that Juju has enjoyed this new toy more than Dever himself. Dever loves his new Lego books, he's even stopped attacking me for a while just to read. As you can probably see in the pictures most of his day is spent on the couch with his head in a book. (Sounds a bit like me, come to think of it!) Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Nash for the great pesent.

From our Kemme Grandparents Juju recived a fire truck,m which he instanly loved! The rest of us recieved ski passes to Winter Park Ski Resort. I can almost feel the mobles beneath my feet! From the Valdes family we all got stickers which were put into good use when we decorated gift bags. Dever got a buliding set which he has made headway on.

From Santa I got another keyboard which can (and will) be used to creat music on garage band. I hope that I'll find a way to post some of that music on this blog. Thanks to everyone for making this a great Christmas. I hope you had a great christmas with your family, and have a Happy New Year.

By: goldbats

Childhood Inocence

That probably wasn't the name that I could have thought of, seeing as I'm under 18 myself I'm still pretty much considered a kid, or child. The story that I'm about to tell you is one that happened this morning.

Dever was having a piano lesson with mom, and I had just finished calling the neighbors to see if they wanted to play. Juju got a hold of the phone, and was randomly punching in numbers, as if he was making a "very" important call. As you might imagine he got the recording of the woman saying, "We're sorry but you have reached a number that has been disconnected, or is no longer in service..............". Juju however was completely unaware that he was listen to a recorded message, and he began holding a conversation with the robot. It began with a series of "HI!" and ended about twenty minutes later with him finally hanging up on nobody!

I'm sure that I did that a few dozen times, when I was addicted to the telephone. Well back to my real life of running around and sledding!

By:"goldbats"

Computer Fun!

As most of you probably know there are MANY types of computers that you can purchase. My Dad was fortunate enough to buy a Mac, and we make full use of all of its properties.

We, my dad and I, just finished conquering iDVD. I know that doesn't appear very impressive, but it is no small feat creating 3 DVD's for Christmas presents! Well this has been quite an experience writing about our feat.

One of the other applications that Mac offers is iTunes. I'm greatly in debt to this astounding creation. I use it quite frequently to listen to my favorite "tunes" while typing! I hope this little insight of electronics has helped confirm, that you need to buy a Mac!

Tinglish

Here I am at Maria's house (see her blog at nimbus1997.blogspot.com) blogging about nothing really important, and we had the brilliant idea that we should do a blog post on Tinglish.

A few years ago the boys were waging a war on us two innocent bystanders! So to prevent them from interpreting our top secret plans we developed a extremely complex language, that we called Tinglish. We are now going to give you a sample of this language written down. If you would like to learn how on earth to speak Tinglish please comment, and tell me so! If I get enough comments I will do a follow up post on how to speak Tinglish.

Tear tall Tinko tlub tembers,

Te tare telighted that tou tare teading this tlog tost. Tonsider tourself tonored that tou tan tead this. Tany teople tin the torld till toon tant to tearn tow to tpeak this taunguage. Temember, tou tust tever tell the tenemy, "the toys" that tou're tpeaking Tinglish.

Tincerely,
Taria tand Tydney



By: Sydney and Maria

Thanksgiving

Well thanksgiving has come and gone with lots of fun and games. Might I add that I didn't win any of them. Luckily I'm not a sore loser. Grandpa peeled about 5 pounds of potatoes so there were no shortages. However since Lizzy was in England the potatoes weren't as good as usual witch is saying something seeing as I made them. (note: this blog post is being done for Lizzy and I thank her and Papa for making me do it!)We had a new game to add to the roster this year, Orthelo. Some of you might of heard of it. Grandma was trying to dig out their old version so that we could have 2 games going at once. As you can see we were instantly HUGE fans. I played the piano music before dinner and Dever played after. Desert was 3 kinds of pie. Pie one was cinnamon strudel, pie two was key lime pie, and pie three was pumpkin pecan. May I note that the last two were made by my mom. Who knew she was such a pie maker? I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with as much laughter as ours, and enjoy the left over turkey!!

by: goldbats

Halloween Trading Market

Juju enjoying SOME candy.

Hannah displaying her wares.

Hannah trading with Dever. For what? CANDY!!

Honalies going crazy for candy. Calm down!

Hannah, Honalies, Dever, and I have a trading market for Halloween candy every year. This is a chance for you trade candy you don't like for candy that you did. By the end of the night Honalies owned every single Reese's but 3. Hannah doubled her candy. Dever owned several collectible candies (candy that no one else had). I doubled my candy and owned a few collectibles. It involves lots of shouting, but is lots of fun. I took some pictures so you can see how it looks, and hopefully get ideas for your own!

By: Sydney

Halloween

Who is this mysterious black panther waiting to strike!?

Before some of us had changed into our costumes.

Everyone in costume.

Hannah the ferocious ninja murderer

Like all other Halloweens this one has come, and gone with much excitement. Our friend Hannah and Honalies came over to trick-or-treat with us! Jenny was the main person to take us, and we hit more houses than ever before. Dever went as a panther, Hannah as a ninja, Honalies as a barbie princess, and I went as the Blue Witch of the North. At one house I got a special treat because I was a witch. It was a hand painted witches shoe filled with candle wax, and a wick. I am going to do 3 separate blog posts just for Halloween so I can post all of the pictures. Enjoy!

By: Sydney

Halloween Pumpkins

Juju's, and My pumpkin.

Our pumpkin before dark. You can see the tongue better!

Dever's ferocious bat, in the DARK!

Every good Halloween is completed with good pumpkins, and this Halloween was no different. Dever had his good friend Jonas over to carve pumpkins. Juju, and I shared one but even so it turned out all right. The pumpkins were taken over to Grandma, and Grandpa's for display. Thank you Papa for taking these nice pictures while we were our trick-or-treating!

By: Sydeney

Cross Country

Weisser Park has an awesome cross country team that I joined this year. Our coach is Mr. Long who also doubles as the gym teacher. We have many fast kids, and lots of them run in cross country. I placed 6th out of 27 fifth grade girls. I think I did well. The weather out side was exceedingly frightful, and muddy. The wind chill was about -30 c. I'm only exaggerating a little mind you. That's what it felt like no doubt, you ask my dad if you don't believe me. Sadly no picture were taken of the victorious day. After that I was allowed to have a frappichino! I probably spelled that wrong, but so what. If you must know I placed 38th in city which was in the top half! Good luck to all of those poor people who have to run today.

By: Sydney

Jabuti the Trickster of the Rain Forest

Recently I was in a school play. It was called Jabuti the Trickster of the Rain forest. This was a school production, the music, and lines were written by last years forth graders. I assisted in making all of the costumes. As our director put it, "These costumes were made up of spit, hot glue, and LOTS of burnt finger. I was also part of the wonderful river!!!!! Our musical was about a trickster turtle who tricked many of the rain forest animals to teach them valuable lessons. When Thunder bird needed a new song bird for heaven turtle flies up on the cruel vultures back to play for the Queen. Vulture tricks Thunderbird into believing that he is playing the music, and when turtle tries to reveal stand up Vulture flicks him off of his back to the ground. To hear the rest of the story you'll have to get the book from the library. Thanks to our musical we did barely and school work last week, and avoided a spelling test. Pictures and coming as soon as I can get them.

By: Sydney

Fat Lip

Before

Trying to smile, it's harder than you think to smile with a fat lip.

After

I went and got three teeth pulled today. My mouth felt fine, but when i went over to Maria's Mary noticed that my top lip was bigger that usual. Over the course of the evening my lip just kept getting bigger. When mom picked me up around seven i looked disgusting. At Grandma and Grandpa's we iced it and it seemed to go down a bit. Then when i woke up this morning it was as big and before. I'm going to the dentist soon. Wish me luck.

p.s. As you might have noticed I'm staying home from school. drat!

Juju's Birthday

We celebrated as a family on October 6th. Juju's real birthday. Fiona came over and we all enjoyed brownies and whipped cream. The brownie cake was in the shape of a dog Juju's favorite animal. No presents but that came the next day when we had the big party. Our small party was a blast though.

Ann Arbor Trip (live blog)

Fresh bread and jelly, both homemade. Yum!

Mom and Katie in the kitchen.

Mom, Katie, and Diana cooking in the kitchen.

Katie the cook.

Diana the chef.

We arrived in Ann Arbor last night after visit with my pen pall Leah who I met at my dad's reunion 16 months ago. We arrived here at 10:06 pm, and after eating some freshly baked muffins we fell into bed. Waking the next morning Dever, and I played air hockey until Waldy, and Loey woke up around 7:40. We proceeded to trash the living room with a combination of Lego's, and playmobile. Right now behind me Waldy and Dever are having a race to see who will finish first the playmobiles, OR the Legos??? Anyway Juju woke up, and went on a walk with Cody the dog, and Diana. Just in Playmobile a.k.a. Dever!!!!!!!!! While Dever practiced violin the rest of us enjoyed cheerios and homemade bread. Then us Kemme Nash's went to shars. Papa dropped Mom, and I off and the boys went to the children's museum while mom and I shopped for violins. Around 2 o'clock we returned home and ate some delicious pot stickers for lunch. Then Juju, mom, and papa slept while Diana took Dever, Waldy, Loey, and I to the park where we climbed trees and made fairy houses. Returning home Loey and I helped Diana can the home made plum jelly. We moseyed around the house eating dinner, and then watching "Fly Away Home" Which is what we are doing now. Enjoy the pictures!

By: Sydney
With thanks to Katie and Diana for lending me they're camera and computer!!!

Alaska has the Best Tee shirts

The BEST shirt EVER!

Juju, modeling his new shirt

Grandma and Grandpa got back back from Alaska on Saturday so after going to the Johnny Appleseed festival we biked over to their house. Naturally, we were all very excited to see them again and before we played a game they gave us presents. Sydney got the BEST tee shirt ever. Dever and Juju were happy with theirs to. Grandpa was the winner of payday. Dever came in second, I came in third and Papa, Papa came in last with bills reaching $1,000 and a loan to pay back for $1,000. He was debt for most of the game! After dinner we rode home happy and ready for Sunday. Thanks for the shirts Grandma and Grandpa!!!

By: Sydney

A Fun Zoo Trip

Two of the most adorable river otters EVER.

Protect that shoe papa, we need you to drive us home!

Juju, Mom, and Dever petting the laziest goat ever!

Juju cooling off in the sprinklers after an exhausting day.

Dever stole Papa's sunglasses so that he could hand them back soaking wet!

We had an awesome day at the zoo. It was completed by our cousin Jordan calling to say that he got to college safely and that he wanted to talk to Dever about the new apple ipods coming out! Fort Wayne has an awesome Zoo that I suggest you check out.

by: Sydney

Sorry

Dear Blog Readers,

Sorry for not posting for sooooo long. Maria, you can hold back comments on that thank you! To make up i am going to try to stay up to date. I am also going to attempt to do a mainly pictures blog. Sorry!

Goldbats

Colorado

Grandpa reading our blog

We recently returned from a trip to Colorado and decided to blog about it. So here's the first day of Journal writing turned into blogging.

Day 1 Wednesday, August 5, 2009

We left the house at about 9:oo for a three hour drive to Chicago. We arrived in Chicago around 12:00 Chicago time and one Fort Wayne time. Forgetting the time change we arrived three hours early instead of the planned two. After going through security we boarded the plane at 3:00 ct and settled down for a two and a half hour long plane ride. Note: we will be using abbreviations for time, cot means Colorado time, ft means Fort Wayne, and ct means Chicago time!) When we arrived at Colorado it was about 4:30 cot and we met grandpa at the air port. Stopping at McDonald's on the way to grandma and grandpa's we got ice cream and went to the bathroom. We arrived at their house around 6:30 cot. Grandma made a dinner menu and I was the waitress. After eating a scrumptious meal we went to bed. Exhausting day!

Journal part by: Sydney

Fun with Family and Friends

We started swimming at 2:00 pm on Saturday and basically didn't stop until 6:00 pm Sunday night. After swimming on Saturday at Julia's Jenny took Dever and Juju home while I Stayed at her house to spend the night with Jenny's friends kids, Martha Ann and Eleanor. We were up around seven and ready to go over if the adults would let us when Mom showed up with Dever, around nine o'clock. After a long breakfest of toast and cereal on the back porch we hit the pool at about ten. Then for the next few hours we followed this basic pattern. Swim, Bead, Swim, Bead........and so on. We followed that pattern until about one when we finally took a break and ate lunch which was hot wings. After about five more hours of swimming Papa showed up with Juju around six and we went home. About twenty minutes later everyone else showed up, Chiara, Jenny, And the Langdons, and we all ate dinner followed by a performance of the three bears done by the kids. After all of that was done we took pictures and Dever finished the night of by asking Chiara if she wanted to spend the night. Such FUN!

By: Sydney

Family Picnic

Since today was not to hot nor was it to cold we decided to have a picnic. Jacob was over at our house and we invited the neighbors over so we had quite a crowd. We took about a half hour packing 15 tons of food we loaded all into the wagon and then finally we headed over to the park. After wolfing down food we we scattered in all directions to enjoy summer. Dever and Fiona went and built a Fairy tree, the younger children went off to get in trouble, and i went and to scope out some climbing trees. I could spend all day talking about how much fun it is to have a picnic, but instead I'm just gonna suggest that you look at the pictures and go out and have a picnic yourself!

By: Sydney

Wildcat Champs

This year was the first year that Dever had played Wildcat, and guess what? His team was the second half champs. LUCKY! They were a really good team that rarely lost. You have to have a good team to become a champ! I should know. I have been playing wildcat for at least three year and my team was NEVER the champions of either half. This year though my luck changed and my team the Bruins was not only the FIRST half champs but we were also the SECOND half champs. We lost only one game all season. After years of always being one of the last team I finally learned how it felt to be a champion. I would like to say thank you to all of the coaches for being the BEST wildcat coaches! Thank you VERY much!

By:Sydney

Summer Activities

During the summer, the Speckhards and Kemme Nashes enjoy doing fun activities such as bike riding and going to Summer Sno! Seeing that both of our houses are within a mile of Summer Sno, these things can easily be combined. Today seemed like a good day to go since Maria was over for the entire afternoon. At four o'clock Dever, Mom, Maria, and I biked to Summer Sno. Dever and I had not been there for a while but Maria who goes there at least once a month knew exactly what she wanted, Orange and Grape. I decided upon Blue Mountain Raspberry and Strawberry. I know they both sound really gross. But in reality they taste awesome! Dever and Mom arrived a little bit later and Dever got Root Beer and Pinacolada. Sound gross? Dever decided that it also tasted a little (all right lot) disgusting! He then left Mom to finish the old mixture and went and got just plain Root Beer! Trust me it tasted a whole lot better! And although we didn't take any pictures I hope you can imagine all of the fun we had!!

By: Sydney and Maria

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Yesterday, my Dad, a family friend named Kiara, Maria, and myself went to a one o'clock showing of the newest Harry Potter movie. For this blog post we decided to do something a little different!

Pros

1. It was very funny
2. The acting was better than it was in the first 5 movies
3. Fred and George's shop was good
4. The scenes where the Death Eaters were terrorizing Muggles were really realistic.

Cons

1. They skipped the Quidditch Cup
2. Harry and Ginny kiss in the wrong room at the wrong time. It was extremely cheesy.
3. Harry gets away with using a really bad curse. In the book he gets detention.
4. They burn down the Burrow! That was uncalled for.
5. They only show two memories
6. They completely skip Apparition! What the heck!
7. Dumbledore gives Harry no ideas about where the next five Horcruxes are. How will he know that something is a Horcrux!
8. They SKIP Dumbledore's funeral! That is a really important part.
9. They didn't have the Hogwarts fight scene! Bellatrix just smashed up the Great Hall and that was it.
10. Neville did absolutely NOTHING!
11. The ending left you clueless. How will the Trio know where the Horcruxes are and what they are! Are they just gonna wander around England, guessing that random things are Horcruxes? The ending was the worst part.
12. The scene where Dumbledore drinks that bad potion to get to the fake Horcrux was too short and not painful enough.
13. It wasn't dark enough. I don't mean like lighting, but you didn't get the dark and dangerous times feeling. In the book they really stress how evil the times are and how uptight people are about security and what not.

We give it a 6 out of 10. Now you've heard our thoughts on the movie, and if you want to see how other people reacted check out our list of links. If you saw the movie please comment about it below. For those of you who are going to see the movie, Be Warned!

Links

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090717/ENT01/307179951/1162

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/07/harry-potter-changes-annoying-geeks.html

Two Babies

Yesterday we had David and Jacob over. After playing baseball for a while we decided it was time for a snack so we went inside to get some ice cream. After both babies gulped down their first bowl of ice cream they made sure that everyone knew they wanted more. When my dad decided that they had enough we got out the yogurt. It was the same thing all over again. If you watch the video you'll see what I mean. Ah blissful Summer!

By: Sydney

Awesome Friday

Yesterday was an awesome day, aside from being the last day my mom had to go to her class, Grace had asked to take us to the Zoo and my dad was coming with us. When we got to the Zoo we almost immediately went to the new Africa section were we loved the miniature looking baby monkeys and the beautiful bird nests. In the African village we fed the Giraffes and used the brand new video camera to look at our selves. After Africa papa went off to talk on his phone while Dever, Juju, Grace, and I went to sea lion beach, at sea lion beach Grace asked if anyone wanted to go on the train ride and instantly Juju knew that he would cease to exist if he did not ride on the train. So we made our way over to the train and looked at animals while we walked. At the train we purchased our ticked and, after finally convincing Gracie that we could leave the stroller at the station we boarded the train. We got lucky and were able to sit in the front two rows! When it was time for the conductor to say "all aboard" he turned around and asked which one of us wanted to say it. It was decided that Juju could and he got to say "all aboard" to the entire train! After the train ride we went to the bird house and then left the Zoo and went to Clara's Pizza Place. After gobbling down a 36" pizazz in record time we returned to the house where we said goodbye to Gracie and, to finish the day off, played a short game of baseball. Thank you Grace for having such a wonderful day with us!

By: Sydney

Photo Shoot

Yesterday we had the neighbors over and we had nothing much to do we decided to do a photo shoot. Nora is wearing a cherry dress that used to be mine and Fiona is wearing a Japanese bathrobe and a pioneer dress. I'm sure that they will all grow up to be fashion models with smiles like those!!!

By:Sydney

with pictures be Sydney!