Saturday, May 23, 2009

Today is the day that we leave for ISC! Of course most of you know that we are burying my grandpa today so i will be headed to Warrensburg on my own (well my mom and dad are driving me down so not really on my own), I'm sad about what today will bring. It hasn't sunk in yet that my grandpa has passed away I still expect to see him at church or when I go to there house. Someday it will hit me and it will be a hard day. Well, OK, let's move on to happier things like...birthdays! Today is one of my very good friends birthday! So a special shout out to my friend Hannah! Happy 17th! I hope its a great year for you! Well, I won't be blogging for about a week or so. I know, how sad! It's for a good reason though!Please be in prayer for my family as we face new challenges and hardships in dealing with the passing of my grandpa. Also, be in prayer for the O'Dell family as they also face hardships. The found out that their uncles cancer is to large to be removed by surgery, so the doctors are going to use radiation to try to shrink first. One more thing to be in prayer about is that the school kids will do good at ISC! We will do our best, but we need your prayers! So to sum it all up, pray for my family, the O'Dell family, and that we all do good at ISC! Thanks for reading!

P.S. I wrote something else but it's under my piece about Jeff City, so if you have time, please check it out!

Just recently some friends of mine invited me to go with them to Jefferson City! We went on a tour of the capitol building and the mayors mansion. The capitol building was amazing! We got to listen to the Senate and the House of Representatives. We didn't get to listen to the whole session but what we did get to listen to was really cool! The Senate had had a meeting the night before that lasted until 3 in the morning. The lady that showed us around said that its not an uncommon thing for the Senate to last that long and then still have to meet the following morning. I was amazed by that! Another thing that was really neat was when we went to the Senate side of the capitol building our Senator introduced us to all the different Senators from different counties before they started their session. After he introduced us, he came over and shook our hands! Elisabeth (Matthew and Amanda's little sis) was asked to be page or secretary for they day! She was really excited to do that! Basically what she did was take some papers back and forth between the main secretary(I guess thats what you would call her) and a few different Senators. After we were done at the Senate side we all headed over to the House side!I was really surprised at how many more Representatives there were than Senators. Anyways, our Representative did the same thing that the Senator did he introduced us and all that good stuff. After all of the going back and forth between the Senate and the House the lady from the Senators office took us for our own personal tour of the capitol building. She took us to the whispering gallow which is about 5 stories up! It was a little scary, but completely worth it! There are only two whispering gallows in the nation the other one is in Washington D.C. Our capitol building was designed after the one in D.C. Now, if you don't know what a whispering gallow is its really cool!It was designed that you could stand at one side and another person on the other side could whisper something into the wall and you could hear it on the other side! Its really cool! Another thing she took us up to was outside the capitol building about 10 feet or so from the top! That was so amazing! You could see a lot of Jefferson City from up there!I thought that I would get really scared being up there but the lady told us that there was like a 4 foot wall that surrounded you so I was fine after she told us that! While we were on that trip we stopped in St.Louis to see the arch! It was a pretty windy day so once we got up inside the arch it was blowing it around. It was a really cool feeling though. Everyone went up but Matthew and Mrs.O'Dell didn't like it so they headed back down. Amanda, Bro.O'Dell, Elisabeth, and myself stayed up for a little while longer. It was really cool but not as cool as being at the top of the capitol building! It was an amazing mini vacation! I recommend it to everyone!

Hillary here,

On Saturday (May 23, 2009) My school will be leaving for International Student Convention! This will be my second time to go to Internationals! I am so excited! There are four girls going and five guys going. Thats not everyone that went to state convention, but its enough to still do some competing. The boys get to play basketball and do there individual events and everyone else still gets to sing in the ensemble. Everyone is really excited to go! There are just a few things that kinda stink about leaving on Saturday. My friend Hannah's 17th Birthday is on Saturday and I didn't want to miss it. Another thing is that I have to go down on my own on Saturday because my family is burying my grandpa. It will be a very hard day but, I know that it will get better because I can go meet up with my friends at ISC. Ok, back to ISC, this year it is back in Warrensburg! Which is the main reason why we get to go because it is so close to home. This year some of the girls are going to participate in the open events that they offer. Some of the events are photography and sand pit volleyball! We probably won't do very good in volleyball but it will be fun to try! It's going to be a fun week!I can't wait!

Hi my name is Hillary I live in the Midwest. I'm 17 and plan on graduating next year! I have lived in the same town and the same house for almost 16 years. I have gone to the same church all my life and have gone to the same Christian school since kindergarten. I have lots of friends and I have known them pretty much all my life! I love my friends! We hang out all the time! They have always been around when I need them the most! My friends Josh, Amanda, Caleb, Matthew and myself hang out the most, probably 3-4 times a week. Our favorite hang out spots are Sonic and watching movies together. I have known Matthew and Amanda pretty much since forever and the 5 of us just started hanging out about 6 months ago. I can't leave out the girl that has pretty much been my lil sis. That's Cece, we have seen each other through a lot one of the most recent thing we have faced together was the passing of my grandpa last Tuesday (May 12, 2009). She came over when i found out and we just sat on the couch and cried together. I found out that he had passed away at 3:30 Tuesday morning and she was at my house in a matter of minutes. She stayed with me till like 6:30 or so. She has been a blessing in my life and I Love her like shes my lil sis. I have so many people in my life that I can't name them all! You know who you are! Well I can't wait to see what the summer has in store for me and my friends and family!