Strawberry Picking

This morning we all got up early to go pick some strawberries at Westmoreland Berry Farm. It was so much fun, and I'm not sure if we even picked as many as we devoured. All the kids left with bright red fingers and strawberries all over themselves. Mom also went earlier during the week and got 12 pounds of strawberries, so we bought a total of 26 pounds of strawberries in 3 days. Yum!

Don't these look SOOO... good? Take my word for it, they are.

Group of Berry Pickers! Kemmey's plus Suzanne's friend.

Rachel and Suzanne

Tanner reaching for the large strawberries!

It looks like one of those "We're Number 1" fingers.

And then, one of me. Picking strawberries is awesome.

Attendance, What's That?

It is so close to the end of the year, however June 11th cannot come fast enough. As I am still awake at 12:50 am on a school night, my motivation for attending school is completely shot. In fact, I am not going to school tomorrow. Maybe if teachers did not waste my time completing useless, busy-work projects, "preparing" me for an SOL, and forcing me to watch movies as I try not to fall asleep, school would be more enjoyable. However, since tomorrow we ARE doing all of those things, I am going to stay home, read, cook, and bake. I have a feeling it is going to be a good day.

In one respect I feel a little guilty for skipping when so many other kids continue to go and do what they are supposed to. However, I still do not feel guilty enough to go. Oh well.

My parents are the best. Thanks to them, I am proud to say that I have never, and will never, have perfect attendance.

Happy Mother's Day

Well, this is a little belated. I suppose if I was a good daughter, this would have been posted Sunday night. If I was exceptional, maybe even Saturday evening. But hey, I love her so much I wanted to make sure it was perfect--and it needed to brew a little bit. :)

My mom is great. Here are some of the major reasons why my mom is the best ever!

1. She loves her eight children and does so much just to raise and love us!

2. She is such a great example and encourages us to reach major

goals and strive for anything we want in life!

(p.s. That is my Grandma, too)

3. My mom cooks really good, homemade meals and feeds us. That is a huge task for a family of ten, and she does it willingly many nights a week!

4. She shows us how much she loves Dad, which is really important. Together they make the ultimate parent team. There is tons of love in our home!

5. She teaches us about life. She taught me a love for photography.

6. She serves. Everyone. Her kids, her husband, visiting teaching ladies.

7. She is a social woman. She texts a billion times more than I do, and she is 40. She is on facebook. She talks on the telephone. You name it.

8. She loves Lady Gaga. During the winter blizzard of 2010, she blasted her music and danced to her every single day.

9. She lets us skip school and picks us up early if we have awesome grades. This May, we skipped a day and headed to Great Wolf Lodge!

10. She loves church music and church books and church conference things. She helps her kids develop their own testimonies by sending us to EFY, going to girls' camp, and hauling us to church most Sundays.

She makes us laugh. She does anything for her family. When she gets tired, she is hilarious and annoying at the same time. She listens to eight kids fight all the time. She is mostly laid back. She is the cook at girls' camp and everybody loves her. She lets me wreck her kitchen and bake almost anything I want. She taught my a love for cameras and let me buy one of my own after playing with hers for many years. She encourages me in school, and believes in her children. She informs us, and doesn't hide anything from us. She is preparing us to be wonderful and loving parents one day. She expects us to uphold our standards and our convictions. She takes so much time and effort each day to be the wonderful stay-at-home mom that she is. She drives at way early in the morning to take me to seminary. I could go on and on, but I think everyone understands that my mom is so incredible and loving.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MOM!

DONE.

This year I took 5 AP National Exams. Yep, five. Today I took the last one. Thank goodness. I am DONE. D-O-N-E done. Now I have to find some motivation to continue caring about meaningless projects and busy work assignments until June 11.

Big Brother, Little Sister

For the most part, I love having an older brother. He gets to try (almost) everything first. We are a lot alike, and so we end up doing a lot of the same things. Take school, for instance. I always followed in Gray's shadows. I used to hate it. All my teacher's came to know me as "gray's sister". Expectations were already set for me based on him. But as I thought about it today, I really realized how much it rocks having Gray as an older brother. He is smart, talented, humorous, nasty, great, boyish, stupid, and way knowledgeable about almost anything.

One experience Gray got to try before me was college applications, and I am not bummed at all. He was the first one, so things didn't go quite as planned. We all imagined Gray getting lots of money for scholarships and going to a great school away from home. He got lots of money, but not enough since we (the kids) have to pay for college ourselves, and he was accepted everywhere he applied (except for Stanford). So the plan for him is to attend Mary Washington and live at home for a year, then go on a mission for the LDS Church for two years, and then transfer .

But now I am freaked about this whole college thing. I need money for college--major scholarships. Some full rides would be really nice and greatly appreciated. I am probably more worried about college than any other junior in my school. I need to really do almost anything I can this summer. I applied for a summer program at VCU, but unfortunately was denied. It would have looked great on college applications, but instead I am going to apply for a two week mentorship and a Chesapeake Bay Trip. That will look good, too.

Gray's college experience has made me nervous. And grateful. Grateful that I was not the first Kemmey kid to apply for colleges, and that I have a lot more insight about it now just from watching Gray.

The Usual

I share a room with my sister Suzanne who is younger than I am. I procrastinate a lot, and so sometimes nights used to end with me using a really bright lamp to finish reading, writing, etc--especially last year. Suzanne would get so angry and complain the light was too brigth, and she needed to get to sleep. However, this year, I figured it out! The little boys all got camping flashlights and headbands for them for Christmas. Turns out, they can also be used for completing homework! Now, I can work hands-free (I also often used an i-Pod or cell phone light) and focus! Plus, it is a great fashion statement.

Cute, eh?

Nine is so Fine

Currently there are eight kids in my family, and I am the second oldest. However, the family still seems so incomplete, and like we need just one more baby. Nine would be oh so fine. So we have almost all of the kids rallied together for a little baby (Rachel is undecided, but I think with some gentle persuasion, she'll conform). And I KNOW mom and dad want another baby. Today at church Dad was stealing babies and holding them, and so was mom. Mom was caught saying she had NINE healthy babies, when she really only has eight.

Personally, I would love love love another sibling. ALL of us would! Maybe if we bug the parental units long enough, we will see some results :)

Home Body.

I am on vacation. Now that I am, I am wishing I was home. My own food. My own bed. My own house. My own close, loving family. Where I can basically do what I enjoy doing.

Rescued

If you remember from this post, I almost lost all of my pictures. However, thanks to my dad's genius brain and awesome computer skills, he was able to save all of my pictures last night. Thank goodness. Amongst the photos were pictures of a baptism in our ward. Two youth were baptized, and it was a really huge event. I was the only one with a real camera taking pictures. If I had lost those, I would have been so upset, and the family would have been too. Thanks Dad for saving them!

That was close.

Slammed

This week is the close of the nine weeks, and the week before Spring Break. What this means is tons of work. Quizzes and tests in all my classes. Finalizing grades and extra credit. Trying to scrape all of the points that I can. This is going to be a really long week. I am slammed.

Mr. Independent

This morning I woke up to get ready for church, and Ryan was dressing himself for church. He always dresses himself, but putting on church clothes is way different than every-day clothes. He needed his pants, button-up shirt, tie, and belt. Very independent, and very determined.

Ryan's Bird Feeder

Today in preschool Ryan made a bagel bird feeder. Peanut butter was used to attach the bird seeds to the bagel, and a string was added to hang it from a tree. As soon as I got home from school, I heard about his bird feeder and he wanted to hang it up right away! So cute.

I don't know about you, but if I was a bird, I would totally eat that whole thing in no time.

Dad's Are Always Right

Well, almost always. One of the things my dad hates is flip flops. He constantly says that the only places flip-flops should be worn are the beach and the pool. Like most girls do, I love flip flops; therefore, my wishes conflict with Dad's. I wear flip-flops all throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Because the weather was extremely nice the last week or so, I wore flip-flops to school on Monday.

Everything was going great until I arrived at school. Then, my friend Amanda reminded me that we had a lab in chemistry that involved strong acids and bases, and that if we did not have proper lab attire, we could not participate for safety reasons. Crap. I was really worried. I kept thinking over and over and over that I should have just listened to my dad all along. If only I had worn my white, closed toed shoes. But, too late for that. So I had a bright idea...

At first, I thought about putting plastic bags over my feet, which students have done in the past. However, since we were using strong acids, they could easily burn through the bag. Then, I thought some more and realized all the years of doing random things for my brother would come to pay off. I went and asked him if he would be willing to switch shoes with me for chemistry, and then we would switch back after my lab. He thought it completely disgusting, but complied.

I wore my brothers huge, year old, sweaty Sperry's while he wore my 3 sizes too small, not wide enough, noise making flip flops. Thank you Gray. You are a life saver. Next time when I decide to disregard my dad's wishes, I better make sure to double check my schedule.

Favorites

My mom first introduced me to blogs about three or four years ago, when I started my own. Now, I love reading other people's blogs. Here are some of my favorites I have found:

First, I found a blog called whatever... about a mother's daily life. Her name is Meg. Recently, she went on a mission trip to Africa. She seems like such a loving and humble person.

Second, Rachel's blog, Born & Raised in the Boondocks. Her roommate was in our ward at church, and so I just happened to click on her blog one time. Rachel seems like such a fun and cute girl and is very humorous! I love all of her pictures and stories!

Third, Danielle's, la la la. She is Rachel's older sister, and I also found her blog from a link. I also LOVE her blog. So cute and funny, and makes me super excited to go to college and enjoy life.

Fourth, Jess's blog The Macs. I think that this blog is more popular, but I still love it. About a year ago, the McClenahan's lost their baby girl, Cora, due to neuroblastoma (cancer) when she was only 11 months old. It was completely unexpected, and only a 17 day battle for life. Now, baby Levi has been brought into their world and family, and her blog continues to amaze me. She is filled with so much faith and courage, and still humbles herself in order to help many, many people.

There are tons of other great blogs that I read, and I should probably find some more "educational" and "constructive" blogs to read. Just listing some of my favorites.

Nerf Guns

Virginia received a lot of snow this year. We had two major snow storms, and a few little ones. During the second week of having no school, Mom decided the little boys needed something to do other than play Wii and junk, and so she went to Walmart and bought little Nerf guns for $7. Mom didn't buy Gray or me any, and we just had to have one. We couldn't let those little boys shoot us and not have anything to retaliate with. So Gray and I headed to Target to search for the perfect Nerf Gun--and of course, it had to be bigger and better than all the others. After 25 minutes of pondering the Nerf Gun isle, we decided. $35 later, we each had a huge, powerful Nerf Gun.

Proud owners of N-Strike Raider Rapid Fire Cs-35

The package... 70 darts, bullet drum, scope, gun.

Assembling his gun.

Dad and Ryan are filled with envy.

Needless to say, victory was ours. Nobody could beat Gray and me with our new guns. Many Nerf Gun attacks were held over the next few days. Victory is sweet.