A Stormy Beginning

Spring has seemed to come in like a roaring lion. Last Friday, we Cunninghams were watching a movie when we saw lightning outside. Surprisingly, there were no storms nearby, except maybe south of us. Dad and Mom then sent us out of the room while they watched "No Country for Old Men." I was listening to the radio in my room when the host suddenly announced that a tornado had just struck the Georgia Dome downtown and had damaged the top while a game was playing. A few hours later, we checked the news and discovered that the CNN building had also been damaged. Apparently, this tornado is one of the few to ever strike inside a major city since most happen on the outskirts. On Saturday, we learned we would get more storms. It was a cloudy day, and we went about our usual errands. Dad and Seth went to Men's Prayer Breakfast, and Seth got his hair cut afterwards. Mom, Mandy, and myself went to clean up the church, and we went to Costco to get supplies for church/school. When we walked out of Costco, we saw huge black clouds a couple miles off. The wind started to pick up, so we quickly loaded up the van and drove home. When we got home, it was sunny but slightly humid. Shortly after we got home, the hail came. At first it was small, about the size of beads inside a Beanie Baby, but then it turned quarter-sized. It lasted for a few minutes before stopping, and the ice melted. With all the stormy weather, we were concerned that we wouldn't be able to go to Houschton to hang out with the rest of the Cunningham clan. However, the storm cleared and the sun came out, so we went. We had a blast hanging out with the clan. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for supper. I would have taken pictures, but my charger is still missing. I'm thinking of buying myself another one since it's been missing for almost a month and I've searched the house all over with no sign of it.


The weather here has definitely been warming up. Our trees in the front yard are starting to bloom. Our white one has the first flowers, and our crabapple is getting leaves. Our grass is nice and green, and the seed Dad planted about a month ago is growing splendidly in the bare spots of the lawn. Today we're supposed to get more rain and storms and Seth was supposed to plant more seed, so let's hope maybe our beautiful lawn will return.


And now for a funny incident. Lately, Mandy and Bethany won't stop yapping on the phone or text-messaging each other. Well, about a week ago, Mandy took a shower and brought the phone with her. She placed it on the sink counter and put it on speakerphone so she could continue chatting with Bethany. Typical Mandy: a socialbug. Two weeks ago, Mom and Seth got new phones. With the new phones came a new phone plan. Dad added the texting service, which is, I believe, paying a couple more dollars for unlimited texting. Ever since then, we've all, except Seth, been using the new application. Even Mom and Dad have been using it.


Spring break was busy for me. On Monday and Tuesday, I babysat Avalyn and Kiera Abraham. On Wednesday, I cleaned the church. On Thursday and Friday, I spent those two whole days finding notes for my English research paper. On Monday I finally finished organizing my notes, but now I have a bad feeling that my research was all in vain. However, we'll just have to wait and see.

What's Up

It's been a crazy and busy few weeks since I lasted posted. There's so much to say, and I hope I remember everything.

I think I'll first start with our trip to Ikea two weekends ago. We were going to go on Friday night, but Dad got home later than expected so we decided to go on Saturday. That night, Dad took down the bunkbeds in mine and Mandy's room, so Mandy and I slept on our mattresses on the floor that night. On Saturday, we ran a few errands in the morning and drove Grandpa Mike's truck downtown to Ikea. When we got there, we ate lunch at the cafeteria. Everyone except Dad had chicken fingers and french fries while Dad had Swedish meatballs. After lunch, we began picking up our stuff. Finding comforters was a challenge for me and Mandy since we needed to pick comforters that had the same color coordination. We eventually found them. After we took our three cart loads to the check-out lanes, the trouble began. The credit card did not allow us to make the purchase, so we had to buy each cart's contents individually. After finally paying, we went outside and loaded up the truck. By the time we left the parking garage, one hour had passed since we had arrived at the check-out lane. When we got home, Mandy and I discovered that our comforters were actually covers for comforter quilts and we didn't have the quilts; to solve the problem we just stuffed our old comforters into the cover quilts. While Mom, Mandy, and I cleaned up the church, we learned that there were more problems with Ikea. Firstly, an important part of Mom and Dad's new queen-size bed was not included in the box, and secondly, there were no slats for my bed or for Mandy's bed. Later that evening, Mom and Dad went back to Ikea and got the needed parts. It was so weird sleeping in a new bed that night. About 3/5 of us Cunninghams had trouble sleeping that first night, but we've grown quite accustomed to our mattresses. My new mattress is hard, but I love it! It's so quiet and doesn't make noise, and it doesn't slope like my old one did. I also love my new bedsheets and my new bed. I would post pictures of the new rooms, but my camera battery is dying and my charger is missing. I'll post them as soon as I can.

Mom had spring break from college last week, and mine is this week. Yesterday and today, I babysat the little Abraham girls. Yesterday, there was a scare when the youngest, little Kiera, bonked her head pretty good while going down the slide. When she started getting a big purple bump on her head, her parents took her to the ER for a CT scan. Thankfully, nothing was wrong and she is still smiling and jabbering as normal. Avalyn wore me out by asking me to dance and bounce with her, and I'm going to sleep well tonight. Over this spring break, I'm planning on working on my research paper for English class and finishing two digital media projects. I forgot if I mentioned this, but I dropped chemistry class because I had an F and was not understanding the material.

The weather's been warming up down here. On Saturday, however, there were snow flurries that lasted on and off all morning. However, there are days when it's 70 degrees though the nights and mornings are still cold. I'm ready for winter to be over and for the plants and green things to come up. It looks so dead and lifeless out here.

Saturday was busy. Mandy and I both had money, and we wanted to go clothes shopping. We went to Kohls, where I bought a cute tank top, a yellow shirt, and a semi-casual dress, and Mandy got a tank top and some pink and black shorts that scream "Mandy" all over them. We also went to Old Navy, where I got a summer nightdress, although Mandy didn't get anything. On our way home, while Mom was in the store, Mandy went to Cato, her favorite clothing store. She got herself two shirts and a cute yellow skirt.

But Saturday was also perplexing. It seems that both of our cars and the house conspired against us at the same time. The van's starter was acting screwy, and Dad's car is not running on all cylinders like it should. While Dad was struggling to fix both cars, he discovered a leaky pipe under the house. We fixed the pipe, and the starter was just loose, which was an easy problem to fix.

Oh, and one last thing. Bethany Abraham finally finished editing Jake and Brittny's wedding pictures. If you want to see me as the short little bridesmaid, here are some pics below.

Life

Well, nothing much has changed. However, today or tomorrow, there will be a little excitement in the air. Grandma Gail generously bought new mattresses for Mandy and me (we're very excited about them), and so Mom and Dad went to Ikea last week. Ikea is a great furniture store with good prices. It is so much fun to go to. They looked at some beds, and it's been decided that Mandy and I are getting new beds! It will take some reorganization of our bedroom, but we're excited about it since we're also getting new bed covers as well. Seth is also getting new covers, and it appears that Mom and Dad will get a new mattress and maybe a new bed as well. We're planning on going to Ikea either tonight or tomorrow and picking up our new furniture and then setting it up.

Otherwise, life has been normal for us Cunninghams. I've had a stupid cold for over a week now, and it's driving me crazy. Mandy's been having a lot of fun with her new camera. She's been filming hilarious short videos of the students at Geneva and taking funny pictures. Mom took her biology midterm on Wednesday, and her biology lab has been giving her grief. Chemistry and its lab had also been giving me grief, and my midterm grade would have been either a D or an F. So, today, I am withdrawing from the class because it's going too fast for me and I'm having trouble keeping up. Next semester, though, I am planning on taking chemistry again, this time a class that meets more than once a week. My digital media class had its second test on Wednesday, and I got a B, which pushes my midterm grade up to an 85, compared to the C I had when I first started the class. College is going pretty well, and withdrawing from chemistry will certainly take a load off.

Last weekend, Seth, Mandy, and myself went to the Howlands' farm for our monthly youth group. It was a gorgeous day, and we had fun taking walks, riding in the boats on the pond, and talking. I'll be sure to post some pictures as soon as I upload them to the laptop.

Oh, and another note about college. I'm quietly boycotting the cafe that all the students eat from. Why? Because there are bugs in the kitchen. When a classmate saw the bugs too and called someone about it, they said "oh, it's just fruitflies." Maybe genetically altered fruit flies, but I know that's not what they are. Gross, to say the least. So, I have not been ordering any of the sandwiches, since the bugs were spotted near the sandwich makers. I've been eating a bagel for lunch. Besides boycotting the kitchen, a bagel is much cheaper than the usual sandwich (which costs $5) and it saves me money on my little "credit card" with its limit of $200 for a whole semester of food. Impractical. I wonder how people who buy both the sandwiches and the drinks everyday at the cafe can afford it.

Well, there's nothing else I remember to talk about. Today, I'll take pictures of our the unaltered rooms. And, after we've reorganized everything and added the new furniture, I'll take more pictures. Then, I'll be able to share them with you on this blog.

Around Here

Nothing much has happened around here since Mandy's birthday last week. Mandy's asthmatic cough returned last week, but this week she seems to be doing better. She's only had to sleep on the couch one night, which is a first for that cough. And now, the cold has transfered to me while Seth remains healthy, as usual.


This week, Seth and Mandy got their five-week progress reports. Overall, they are both doing well. Mandy has really improved since last semester, and we're proud of her rising grades. Today, the two of them are going to O'Charley's with all their classmates and a few teachers. For what occasion, I know not. I think it has been somewhat confirmed that in late March, the school will be taking another trip to Virginia. Dad has been asked to be a chaperone, but sadly he won't be able to make it. In April, I also believe that the school is making a movie. Mandy, from what I hear, is the fashion consultant. Beyond that, I don't know what the movie is about or what is actually going on.


Seth has been practicing driving. This week, Mom has let him drive through our neighborhood while we're on our way home. Someday this week (I believe it was Tuesday), Seth was driving when Mom said "slow down, Seth!" And Mandy pointed out that Seth was only going twenty miles an hour. On Sunday, he drove through the neighborhood but had some trouble since the van is a more "powerful" car than Dad's car.


College has been doing fine. My geography class has done nothing beyond inventing a new game (which is stupid, in my opinion, even though one group did invent a cool new game), giving talks on islands (which have varied from boring to very interesting), and watching movies. This'll be an easy class to pass, I'm sure. My English class has moved away from our Indian-Spanish topic and is now learning how to write essays and how to do research. Today will be our last discussion of "A Small Place," a book we recently read. Digital media has still been tricky. Some days are good, and some days aren't. The class recently had to do a podcast, but I wasn't able to do it due to complications with the software. On Wednesday, I had my first chemistry test. I was panicked the day before and the day of the test because I was having problems with stoichiometry. I wasn't alone, as many of my classmates were convinced that we were all headed for the slaughter. However, we were relieved when the teacher helped explain some of our issues and when the test didn't turn out to be that bad. I'm still waiting for a grade, although I fear I may not get it until next Wednesday. My chemistry lab is going to conduct an experiment concerning lead around the GGC campus, so yesterday we started working on that project.


Last Saturday was busy for us Cunninghams. We girls cleaned the church and then we went shopping. At Wal-Mart, Mandy and I decided to go clothes shopping. We found cute tunic-tops that we adored and some leggings to go with them, but Mom said no to the leggings because the tops were too short. Mandy ended up buying a Valentine's Day gift for Bethany, and I bought the top and some new headphones. On Sunday, we had the Greer family over for lunch after church. We had a good time, and the kids filmed three short movies at the remains of the house behind ours.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I'll be sure to post more if I can think of it.

Mandy's 14th Birthday

Last Friday, Mandy began her birthday celebration. She had about ten or eleven of her friends over, and they went to the ice-skating rink, where they skated for a few hours. After skating, the girls all came to our house for dinner. We enjoyed fried rice, and for dessert we all enjoyed frozen cream puffs. The girls each made a scrapbooking page with pictures taken at the rink, and they watched the newest version of "Hairspray." After the party, I discovered a new program on my computer that allows me to make slideshow/ videos, and ever since I have made about four of them.

On Tuesday night, we five went to Steak and Shake for Mandy's birthday dinner. After dinner, Mandy opened her presents. Among them was a camera (which she absolutely adores) and a bag for it and a pretty teacup.

I've been doing ok in school. I've got my first chemistry test coming up, and I'm a bit worried about it. I got a good grade on a recent digital media quiz. Seth and Mandy have been doing good as well. Seth got his driver's permit this week, and he's been proud of it. Tonight, we five went to Longhorn Steakhouse to celebrate Grandpa Mike's and Mandy's birthdays. We go once a year, and tonight we had a blast. The food was delicious, and we all enjoyed hanging out with our extended family.

GGC

It's been a weird few days at GGC. Last Wednesday, while I was waiting for Mom to pick me up, a fire truck and an ambulance showed up at the school. What happened hasn't exactly been stated, but the answer for now was that a student had a bad asthma attack and fainted or something like that.

On Friday afternoon, security at the college text-messeged students to check their college e-mails. There was a messege that said a student had gone missing and that police were looking for him. On Saturday, I got a messege that said the student had been found. Today, Blair and I discovered what had really happened. The student who had gone missing was being accused in murdering his parents on Friday morning. That is disturbing, to think that a murderer attended your college.

Digital media class has been a killer. The quizzes have three questions, so if you miss one, you fail the quiz. Last week, my class took our first test. I got a C, which I was not surprised at, since some of the questions I had not remembered discussing. We got a quiz soon, but I'm not sure when we're going to take it. Geography has been extremely easy lately. This week, I'm going to do a little presentation on Easter Island. Nothing much has happened in English or chemistry.

And this week, there is Mandy's 14th birthday. I'll be sure to have a nice long post about it.

Snow!!

Well, last week Georgia saw snow! It started on Wednesday. Mom, Mandy, and I were cleaning the church when it started lightly snowing. It looked like it was going to stop, but when Mom took me to chemistry, it had picked back up again. Halfway through chemistry, when the teacher gave us a break, we students peeked outside and saw that the snow was sticking. We were so excited!

The excitement soon faded. At 8 PM, thirty minutes before class was over, a security guard walked in and told us to leave the classroom because they were locking up the building early due to the snow. Mom's biology lab wasn't over yet, so I stood outside. After a few minutes, I decided that standing outside wasn't going to work. To make a long story short, I stood outside for a total of around 30 minutes and spent about 10 minutes inside Perimeter trying to thaw out. I was frozen when I got home, but I warmed out. I think it's a miracle that my pneumonia didn't take the opportunity to make a comeback.

Anyway, that snow didn't last the night. It began raining, so it melted. However, because of a fear of ice, there was no school on Thursday, but I did go in for my first chemistry lab that night. On Friday, we learned more snow was on the way.

On Saturday, Dad, Mom, and the kids went out to run some errands. Around 11 o'clock, it began to snow, and it stuck. It was coming down heavy. It snowed for about an hour, stopped, picked back up again, and then stopped again... this time permanently. The snow wasn't that deep, maybe half an inch. That evening, Mandy and I decided to throw a couple of snowballs around before the snow melted. I accidentally hit Mandy in the face with snow, and she got me a few times. On Sunday, the kids at church were busy throwing snowballs at each other. It was absolutely freezing, and I had decided, which I will never do again, to wear open-toe shoes on the snow-covered playground. By Monday morning, all the snow and ice had melted.

Check out the link for snow pictures.

http://ggc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12517&l=1e2e7&id=603748360