Family pictures

This is my family at my Aunt's wedding

This is my family just before my dad left on a trip for six months

I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!

Hiding Chapter 4: A Temptation, a Friend, a Conversion

The other day, I was talking to Brooke about how Mrs. Till taught me how to do my hair to look like a model, when I called her mom. When I said it, I felt really content and happy inside. I have never called anyone else my mother except for my real mother. So, I decided to start calling Mrs. Till mom, and Mr. Till dad. I asked them if they would mind, and they looked like they would cry. They told me that I was like a daughter to them, and that they would be honored if I wanted to call them mom and dad. So, Mr. and Mrs. Till will now be known as my mom and dad.

 When I went to school today, There was a new student. “Students,” said Mr. Butler. “Today, I want to introduce a new student to you. She is an exchange student from China.” With that, a girl stepped into the room and said, “Hi, my name is Noel.” “She will be with us for the rest of the year.” Said Mr. Butler. He told Noel to sit at one of the empty desks, and she chose the one next to mine. She looked at her, and she looked at me. I smiled, and she smiled back. When Mr. Butler told us that it was time for a math quiz, I groaned. I tried to study for that quiz, but math was just so confusing. As I began the quiz, I noticed that Noel was flying through the quiz. “She must be really good at math.” I thought. Suddenly, another thought entered my mind: Noel was sitting right next to me; I could look over and see all of her answers. “What!” I thought to myself “Where did that even come from? But, then again,” I reasoned. “It would be do easy, I could go back and probably understand it anyway, it would be just this once. No one would know.” Suddenly I realized what was happening, I was being tempted! I started panicking; what if I’m not strong enough to resist, what if I give in? I took a deep breath; God said in the Bible that He would not let me be tempted beyond what I could bear. I said a quick prayer, and began my quiz. I ended up getting a C+, which was not very good at all, but I knew that I had done the right thing.

            Over the next week, I got to know Noel better. She sat at the same table as Brooke, Wendy, Katie, and Me. Noel told me that she used to have a lot of trouble with math, but then a friend of hers helped her out and now math is her best subject. When I mentioned that I have trouble with math, Noel offered to be my own personal tutor. I thought it was a great idea. The next day, after school, Noel came over to my house, and helped me with my math. Somewhere in between 2x+3=25 and finding an area of square with a perimeter of 8ft, when mom came in with milk and cookies. After a few more math problems, Noel told me that she had to go home for dinner. I thanked her for helping me, and she left. I couldn’t believe how easy the math problems were to figure out. She really helped me to understand them. If we were to continue this even for a few weeks, everything would change, but I had no idea how true that was, in those few weeks, EVERYTHING changed.

            Noel came over the next day to help me with my math again. About half way through, there was a knock at our door. It was Wendy. She asked if I wanted to go roller-skating with her at the park. I told her I couldn’t because Noel was helping me study for the math test in a few weeks. I told that tomorrow I could hang out. Wendy, looking disappointed, said okay, and left. I felt bad that I couldn’t hang out with her, but I really needed to study for the math test. Noel and I went to study.

            School the next day was strange. Wendy didn’t talk to me at all during lunch, which is not normal. She talked with Brooke and Katie, but not to me or Noel. I figured that she was sad that she didn’t get to hang out with me. Then it hit me: the day before Noel came, Wendy and I were going to hang out, but we got rained out. We agreed that we were going to reschedule for yesterday. I felt really bad that I didn’t keep my word. After school I went to talk to Wendy. “Wendy, I’m really sorry that I didn’t hang out with you.” I said, “If I had remembered, I would have gone with you.” I looked at her, hoping that she would accept my apology. “It’s okay, I understand completely. The stress of a test makes me forget things as well.” Said Wendy. I was so glad that she understood. I didn’t blame her for feeling hurt, if it were me, I would’ve been very sad. I’m thankful that we sorted it all out.

            Not long after I got home, I heard the doorbell. It was Noel. She told me that her aunt, who she lived with while in America, had an unexpected business trip and would be away for a few days. Since I was her closest friend, she asked me if she could stay here. Once my mom arranged it, Noel was my tutor/friend/guest. I got my skates ready and Brooke let Noel borrow hers. I wasn’t totally sure it was a good idea to bring Noel to hang out with Wendy, but she was our guest, so it would’ve been rude to just leave her at home. I just hoped that Wendy would feel the same.

            Wendy seem surprised when I showed up with Noel, but she welcomed Noel, and I didn’t have to explain anything. Because Noel had not been skating much, I had to hold her hand so she wouldn’t fall. Once she was able to do it on her own, I did a few tricks with Wendy. Wendy wanted me to teach her how to skate backwards, but it started raining again, so we had to go home. Wendy offered to walk Noel home, but Noel said that she was staying with me. “It’s like a big sleepover.” She said. Looking disappointed, Wendy went home. I wanted to call Wendy and explain why Noel was staying with me, but she didn’t answer. “I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” I thought. I didn’t think there was any rush. I was wrong.

At school the next day, Math, history, language, literature, and P.E. were normal classes and progressed normally. When Noel, Brooke and I walked into science class, Wendy and Katie were already there. We began with reading from our textbooks, and then our teacher told us to prepare for an experiment. Each person was supposed to combine baking soda with water. I grabbed the right contents from the cabinet and sat down all of the students including me combined our ingredients. A few seconds later, I noticed a strange smell coming from my container. I put my nose to the container and sniffed. I nearly passed out; that smell was so awful. “Umm, Mrs. Frensky, there is something wrong with mine.” I told her. She walked to me, smelled the chemicals, and told everyone to go out of the classroom. Later, Mrs. Frensky told me that I had combined ammonia and baking soda instead of water. Rose called out, “Noel switched the labels. I saw her!”

            Everyone gasped and looked at Noel. “I didn’t do it!” Noel cried. “Honest!” I spoke up. “Noel didn’t do it!” “Then who did?” questioned Rose. “I probably just grabbed the wrong liquid from the cabinet.” I said. Brooke then said that she saw Wendy in the science room yesterday.  “Wendy, were you the one who replaced the water with ammonia?” questioned Mrs. Frensky. “Yes,” admitted Wendy. “It was my job to clean out the science room yesterday. That’s when I made the switch. I’m really sorry.” Mrs. Frensky took Wendy to the principal’s office, and I didn’t see her again until she came to my house after school. She told that she was so sorry for what she did. I asked her why she did it, and she admitted that she was jealous of Noel. Wendy thought that I didn’t want to be friends with her anymore. So, when she overheard Rose tell Hillary that she didn’t like Noel, Wendy decided to prank me, and figured that Rose would take the chance to blame Noel, which was exactly what happened. Wendy told me that if I didn’t want to be her friend anymore, she would understand. I told her that I forgave her already. Wendy was shocked. “But, how can you forgive me? I was no better than Rose when she told our secrets.” Said Wendy. “Even if that was the case, I’ve already forgiven Rose as well.” At this, Wendy was even more surprised. “How can you forgive Rose and me after what We’ve done?” I told Wendy that it was because Jesus forgave me for everything I’ve done, so it makes it easier to forgive people who have wronged me. “I want that! I want to be able to let go of the grudges I have towards certain people.” Said Wendy. “You mean,” I started. “you want to become a Christian?” “Yes! I want to have Jesus in my heart.” Cried Wendy. As I lead Wendy to the Lord, I realized that, despite the less than pleasant events that happened, that this was one of the happiest days of my life.

 

  

Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines Day is a day to tell those you care about that you love them. (even though you should do that every day.) For a long time, I thought that Valentines Day was a "holiday" made by Hallmark to sell more cards. There is actually a very interesting story behind Valentines Day. The story takes place during the third century, and is about a man named Valentine. The ruler of Rome, where Valentine lived, was angry because he thought that his soldiers were lazy because they spent too much time with their families. For this reason, he made a law that I personally think is pretty crazy: he decreed that getting married was against the law! After a time, the ruler noticed that nothing changed with the personality of his soldiers. He then was informed that a priest named Valentine was marrying people at his church despite the law. Valentine was arrested and put in jail. There was a young woman, the jailer's daughter, who brought him food every day. When Valentine complemented her about her beauty, she told him that she was not beautiful and was a burden to her family because she was blind, and she would probably never get married. (During that time, blind people were pretty much helpless and no one would marry them.) This routine continued for a few weeks, until the jailer told hime to stop. he said that his daughter and hime were poor and what Valentine said was breaking his daughter's heart. When she came in, Valentine called on the name of God, and something miraculous happened: her blindness was healed! The jailer and his daughter were overjoyed. Valentine asked her to marry him, and she said yes. A few days later a man who was Valentine's apprentice came to jailbreak Valentine. Valentine, however refused. He said that that was not God's plan, and he must remain in jail. The man stayed long enough to marry Valentine and the jailer's daughter. The ruler of Rome eventually brought Valentine to him and said that he would let him go if he would stop marrying people and follow the law, when Valentine wouldn't, he was sentenced to death. Valentine died on February 14, 269 A.D. He was declared a martyr and a saint by the Roman Catholic church. We celebrate Valentines Day to show love, which is what Valentine was all about.

Home

After ten days vacationing in Florida, we have arrived home. Disney World was amazing! I went on Tower of Terror, Rock and Roller Coaster, Star Tours, astro orbiter, and Captain EO for the very first time. my sister went on expedition everest, prime evil whirl, astro orbiter, space mountain, Tower of Terror, Star Tours, and Captain EO for the first time, my brother went on expedition everest, big thunder mountain railroad, astro orbiter, space mouton, star tours, mission: space, dinosaur, and Captain EO for the first time, and my other brother, since he was only four months old last time we went to Disney world and doesn't remember any of it, he went on everything for the first time. I auditioned for the American Idol experience, singing part of "Let it Go" from the Frozen movie. I didn't make it into a show, but I had a lot of fun. After a line of three hours, we got to meet Anna and Elsa from the Frozen movie; they signed our books and we got a picture with them. We were going to come home last night, but we had to stop at a hotel in North Carolina for the night because of a winter storm. All in all, it was a wonderful Disney World trip.

Hiding Chapter 3: A Birthday, a Disappointment, a Competition

My 11^th birthday was one that I’ll never forget. I was so excited that I had so many friends to invite. I had no way of knowing that Hillary would… well, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning, which is three weeks before my birthday.

            I sat at the kitchen table with Brooke one afternoon. We were looking at a magazine that had party themes. “Well, what kind of parties did you have before this?” asked Brooke. “Well,” I started. I told her that I had never really had a party before. My parents never had that much money, so we just hung out at my previous birthdays. After my parents died, I never had any close friends to invite to a birthday party. Now, of course, I have plenty of friends to invite. As I turned a page, I saw the party theme that I wanted: a clown theme.

            When I was little, one of my friends took me to a circus. My favorite part was the clowns. We went to the party store and bought balloons, a piñata, plates, cups, and much more. Mrs. Till called and scheduled a clown to come to the party for entertainment. Everything was going perfect, Mr. Till just placed an order for a birthday cake. But, as fate would have it, that’s when things started going wrong.

            As I sat on the couch that evening, reading a book for a book report, the phone rang. Mrs. Till answered it, talked for a couple of minutes, and hung up. “I have some bad news Roxanne,” she told me. “It appears that piñatas have been made illegal in this county.” I sighed. That meant that I wouldn’t have a piñata for the party. The phone rang again. This time, Mr. Till answered it. After hanging up, he said that he had some bad new as well. Apparently, all of the workers at the bakery where we ordered my cake have gone on strike. I sighed again. We would have to find someplace else to make my birthday cake. When the phone rang a third time, Mrs. Till hesitated before answering. I was disappointed to see her expression. I could tell that it was more bad news. “I’m sorry Roxanne.” Said Mrs. Till after hanging up. “The clown can’t make it to the party. Something about not being able to find her nose.” “OH NO!” I exclaimed. “What are we going to do?” Mrs. Till suggested we all sleep on it, and we all agreed. I don’t know how I fell asleep, but I did.

            The next morning, everybody had great ideas. Mrs. Till said that she could be the clown; she had, after all, run away from home to join the circus when she was ten. Mr. Till said that he knew how to make a mighty fine carrot cake, which is my favorite. Brooke told me that she knew other games to play at my party that would be a lot more fun than a piñata. After about an hour of planning, we were back on schedule. That is, until we remembered a very important part: invitations!

            Brooke and I rushed to the party store, but it was too late. They were sold out of invitations. We were walking home when I had an idea: we could make the invitations ourselves. After getting home, Brooke and I immediately set to work. A little scented colors here, a little glitter there, a little of a lot of colors on the side, and we were done. We had enough invitations for everyone in our grade. I couldn’t wait!

            The next morning, Brooke and I went to school with the invitations. We went to our classes, went to lunch, and went to recces. During recces, we handed out Invitations to everyone in our grade. I noticed that all of the people we handed invitations to also had something else in their hand. When I handed Hillary an invitation, Hillary looked inside it, and laughed. “Oh, Roxy Roxy Roxy, I have some excellent news: Our birthdays are on the very same day!” I stared at her. Was she serious? I looked over at Lindsey, who opened the invitation. The sound of Hillary’s voice was played. It said: “Gimmie a B, Gimmie a D, Gimmie an A, Gimmie a Y; B-DAY come to my party at Busch Gardens, details inside.” As I looked around, everyone looked from my invitation to hers, and from me to her. Before I could say anything, the bell rang to call us back inside. I couldn’t believe what just happened.

            I walked in the house and went straight to my room. I wasn’t sad though; I got a notepad and pen. I wrote “Ways to make my party cooler.” “What if we went to a circus, or if we rented an elephant?” I thought. As I though more about it, however, we didn’t really have the money for either of those. Brooke came into our room and sat on my bed. “What are you going to do?” she asked. I said that in order to convince people to come to my party, we have to make it cooler than Hillary’s. “How will we do that?” asked Brooke. “By changing my party theme.” “But, what else could we do?” asked Brooke. “Well,” I said. “I was thinking we could have a fondue candlelight dinner. We have a fondue set so it will be easy!” so, we started preparing.

            We went to the store to pick up stuff for the fondue. We asked where the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese was, but they only had plain old cheddar. We also picked up chocolate, strawberries, bread, chicken, candles, and bananas. We came home and made new invitations. I was so excited when we handed the new invitations out to the students. When Hillary arrived at school, however, she had new invitations of her own. Hers promised a sleepover after they went to Busch Gardens. She even said that there would be pizza! When I got home, I immediately started thinking of a way to make my party cooler. I didn’t know it, but I had started something I would tell my grandchildren about: The Birthday Party Competition.

            I came up with a great idea for my party. Mr. Till loves to play the violin, so I asked him to play while eat, as background music. When I went to school with this news, however, Hillary also said they would get special line privileges at Busch Gardens since her brother works there. The next day, I went to school promising a little magic show (starring Mrs. Till), and Hillary promised a limo ride to Busch Gardens for everyone attending. Next, I promised one of Mrs. Till’s homemade cakes, and Hillary’s promise was a life-sized sculpture of her made of cake.  The competition wore on and on until finally, my birthday was here.

            We were all busy with the last finishing touches. My guests would be here any minute. Mrs. Till was writing “Happy Birthday Roxanne” on my cake, Mr. Till was tuning his violin, and Brooke was lighting the candles for the dinner. The first people there were Katie and Wendy. Once everyone got here, I determined that half of the people I invited were here, and half were at Hillary’s. Soon, we all sat down to eat.

After that, everything happened at once. Lucy burnt her tongue on the hot cheese, which caused to knock over her drink, which landed in Jasmine’s lap. Jasmine leaped up, causing the candles to fall and caught the tablecloth on fire. Everyone screamed, and got far away from the flames. Mr. Till poured water on the fire, putting it out. His fingers got burned a little, which prevented him from being able to play the violin. Mrs. Till, oblivious to what just occurred, walked in with the cake, slipped on the fondue cheese, and the cake went flying, landing on Jill. Once Jill got cleaned up, she left. Everyone else followed her, wishing me a happy birthday as they headed towards Hillary’s party. Soon, It was just me, Brooke, Katie, and Wendy.

We cleaned up, and my friends started comforting me. As I looked at them, I realized how wrong I had been. I had tried to make my party cooler than Hillary’s so that more people would come. A birthday party is supposed to be a time when you hang out with the friends and family who care about you. I shared this with my friends and I told them how sorry I was for thinking that they were not enough. I also apologized to Mr. and Mrs. Till for giving them tasks to preform when they just wanted to spend time with me. After that, we had a great time, we watched a movie, had what was left of the fondue dinner, and went out for ice cream. All in all, it was the best birthday I had ever had, and not because the whole school attended, or because I had a larger than life party, but because I spent time with those I love.

           

            

Disney World

On Christmas morning, we came down stairs and we saw a huge box wrapped in pretty snowflake paper. We were instructed to open it at the time by my mom, as she started her camera on new brand new iPad air. As soon as I looked inside, I new exactly what the various gifts meant. There were balloons, a book, a calendar, bubbles, shirts, balls, and more, but they all had one thing in common: Disney World! That’s right, we are going to the happiest place on Earth. I asked my mom and dad when we were going, and they said that one of the gifts would reveal. After looking a little, I looked at the pocket calendar, and the dates circled were in February. We are leaving to go on the 12-hour car trip to Florida on February 4, and we will stay until February 12, when we will then drive home. Since we have already been to Disney World five times, there is only two rides that I have not been on: Tower of Terror and Rock and Rollercoaster. My sister is really excited because if she goes on Rock and Rollercoaster, it will be her very first roller coaster with inversions. Neither my sister nor me have ever been on a drop ride before, so Tower of Terror will be our first. Last time we went, my sister wanted to go on Primeval Whirl, but she wasn’t tall enough. She also didn’t go on Expedition Everest. Now, she will go on both. My younger brother was a few months old last time, so for him, it will be like his very first trip. We have been watching tons of Disney movies to prepare the boys for the trip. We will stay in a hotel called the Shades of Green. It is reserved for families in the military. The only downside is that one of our favorite attractions, Splash Mountain, will be closed. It will be very nice to be walking six miles a day without having to do it in the sweltering heat, and the lines will be short. I have a feeling that this will be the best trip yet.

New Year

Happy New Year! I can't believe that it is 2014! So many cool things happened in 2013, and now we all have a whole new year of memories to make. I am afraid that, due to the busy month of December, I will not post the new chapter about Roxanne Till. Don't worry though; on February 1, I will post it. I hope everybody has a wonderful New Year!