Versatile Blogger Award!

Oh Goody Gosh! I've been nominated for the versatile blogger award! 

Thank you soo much Becca for nominating me! 

Here are the rules for the versatile blogger award:

1. In a post on your blog, nominate 4 fellow bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.

2. In the same post, add the Versatile Blogger Award.

3. In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you with a link back to their blog.

4. In the same post, include 7 random pieces of information about you.

5. In the same post, include this set of rules.

6. Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination with a comment on their blog. 

Okay, so 7 random facts about me...

1. My best friend's name is Maria and she lives in California.

2. My favorite books are Harry Potter, Hunger Games and The Wizard of Oz.

3. I love to play the violin.

4. I'm home-schooled.

5. I want short hair, but my mom prefers it long.

6. When I grow up, I'm going to be a famous violinist, and also a veterinarian.

7. I'm not good at keeping up with my blog! I'm just always so busy!

Now, I nominate:

Pleasant Piper


Always Amanda

Love That Doll

Really Ronnie?

That's about it. I'll try to update more ASAP!

Day 1

 Yeah, this post is late. This is not the happenings of today, ladies and gentlemen, but of yesterday. Day one of our two week vacation was off to great start when we ordered room service for breakfast.













I ordered waffles with strawberries and cream, milk and a strawberry smoothie. You can't get much better than that, except when they bring it to you on a tray so you can eat in bed!







                                                                                                                                           
                                               

 The next step of the day was getting our garden passes. Now we can enter any Tourists Only gardens anywhere in the botanical gardens, we just have to show the man at the entrance our passes and we can spend as much time as we want in there. I can't wait to use it!

  The pass says "Garden Pass, Western Gardens" on it, and look at that beautiful butterfly on it. I decided to keep the pass in my purse, so I don't loose it.

It was windy and chilly outside yesterday, but I didn't care. What are jackets for anyway? I'm all ready to head out to some really neat gardens, but when we get out there we discover that most of them were closed because of the wind storm last night. Pooh.

 We did go out to the main garden plaza where we walked around on Saturday, but it really was quite cold and the wind was blowing so hard AND it started raining so we only had time to take a few pictures before heading inside. There's this great big bridge over the stream-bed, it's very fun to walk across, but some of the boards on it were messed up in the wind or something (it's very old), and we weren't allowed to walk on it till they took a closer look, so mom just took this picture of me sitting in front of it.

 This picture is pretty bad, but it was raining and freezing and we were both kind of shivering when it was taken. You can see me standing near the Rose Circle. In the spring and summer, those thorny plants behind me are all blossomed and beautiful, but now they're kind of ugly. I need to ask mom if we can come back in the summer when all the plants are flowered. It'll be a whole other experience.

It's so strange to me how most of the gardens are gray and and the plants aren't bloomed yet, but then there are these few spots where, wouldn't you know, it looks like spring! These daffodils were so bright yellow, and absolutely beautiful.

And here's me smelling the flowers, hee hee! After this mom and I were just too cold to spend another minute outside, so we went back to the hotel. It was almost lunch time, so we drove out to town and got soup and sandwiches from a local cafe. Then we went shopping around town.

Look at this adorable t-shirt I got at a store down-town! It's so bright in this dreary weather. I also got a pretty necklace to match.





So, that's about all we did today. It's still rather over-cast outside, and it was actually snowing earlier, but the sun is now poking through the clouds. I hope we can visit the gardens today!

~Katelyn~

Two Week Vacation!

 

Hey everyone! First, sorry for not posting in a while, but really nothing blog-worthy has happened until I found out I was going on this two week vacation (I shall explain in a moment) and then I had to spend time packing. So, I had a violin concert in a little place a few hours from our home, and my mom had wanted to take a vacation with just the two of us for a while, so we decided to go a week before the concert and stay a few days after.

We left home at 4:30 this morning (AHHH!), so we had time to go through security and everything at the airport. Our plane took off at 6:55.

My mom took this picture of me waiting in the airport once we landed. Then she went and got our bags and we took a cab to our hotel. It's the first time I've ever stayed in a hotel, believe it or not.

The rooms are so nice, mom and I each have our own beds.

I love the quilt on my bed. We're staying at the hotel near the beautiful botanical gardens. We're going to tour them tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I can't wait! 

This is the view from our window. Even though it's still winter and the plants haven't bloomed yet, it's still gorgeous. See that paved circle out there? That's where we're going to walk around after I finish this post. I'll write about it when we get back, but I'd better go now. Bye for now, I'll update later!

A birthday party with Rebecca!

 I know. My birthday was, like, a month ago. But! My sister Rebecca was away in Las Vegas for a call back audition for the movie she wants to be in. She was sad about missing my regular birthday, so we held a little party for just the two of us. There was cake, lemonade, sherbet, candy, everything! Rebecca and I especially loved the little chinese paper fans. They're so intricate and lovely, don't you think?

Mom made us eat sandwiches and watermelon before we had any sweets, which is reasonable, guess. 

Mmmm...yummy sandwiches.

We had a delicious chocolate strawberry roll cake, which Kit claims were all the rage in the 1930s. To us it felt like the perfect tea snack, and we were trying to mimic a classic english tea party, so we wore fancy dresses and ate finger foods and fancy foods.

The mango-orange sherbet was the best!

We also had little baskets of jelly-beans and mint sticks.

We had a great time at our tea-party!

 "I have a surprise for you!" Rebecca said once we were finished eating. A surprise! What could it be?

She brought me back the cutest outfit from LA! And the shirt's purple, my favorite color!

She also gave me the sweetest little coat, but we couldn't figure out why they were selling winter coats in LA!

I love my new outfit!

Rebecca and I decided that we would have a sleepover to celebrate my birthday. We changed into our pjs and played Cadoo, the game I got for my real birthday. It's fun, and the perfect sleepover game! We had to do silly things like act stuff out and sculpt stuff out of play-doh. Rebecca won, but it was a close game.

Then we played with my Addy paper dolls. I let Rebecca be Addy because she was my guest.

I was Addy's friend Harriet. Here we are playing in Addy's schoolhouse. 

After paper-dolls, we played Addy with American Girl dolls. Rebecca let me be Addy this time and she took Cecile, who we pretended was Harriet. 

Finally my mom said that we were being too noisy and we had to keep it down, so we went and sat on my foldout bed and chatted.

Finally we went to sleep. It was so much fun to celebrate my birthday with Rebecca!

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone had a great Valentines day! I sure did! The private school where I go to didn't have school yesterday so the students could go and spend the day with their family. When I woke up in the morning the ledge on my bed had some gifts on it from my family! I was so excited!

From Elizabeth I got a beautiful sparkly hair ornament, perfect for one of my skate performances. Isn't it so pretty?

I got this cool pink hat from Felicity! She made it herself! It's so sweet, thanks Lissie!

Kit gave me a notebook (always trying to get me to love writing), it's really cute! I think it'll be good for notes in class, it's cute, don't you think?

Mom gave me a giant bowl of conversation hearts. Mmmmm...

I love hearts!

Awesome!

She also gave me this cute card!

My favorite gift came from Rebecca, she doesn't even celebrate valentines day since she's Jewish, but she still got me a gift! It's the cutest ever fairy kitty. She's so soft and has a pink beaded collar. Very sweet.

Here's a close up of my kitty's be-jewled wings! I just love her!

Happy valentines day again, everyone! I'll post a little more bout my day at home later, but (since this post is late) I have to study for school. Later gators!

Where has Katelyn gone?

Hello everyone! I have returned! There are several reasons why I have disappeared for most of the month of January:
1) School started and I have been really busy!
2) There's a big violin concert coming up this spring, so I have almost doubled my daily practice time, leaving me with little to no time to write a blog post.
3) We're getting ready for a big skating recital/performance this spring, so I'm working hard three nights a week at skate practice and once I get back I'm so tired I pretty much collapse when I get home.
4) It was......... MY BIRTHDAY ON WEDNESDAY!!!!!!!!!! Here're some photos from the morning of my birthday:

 On the morning of my birthday, I was suddenly awakened by a weird sound.

 I sat up. Why was there a tray in front of me with a delicious smelling breakfast on it.

 Then I remembered it was my birthday! "YAY!" I screamed.

 Mmmm... yummy food!

 After I swallowed my breakfast, I ran out to the kitchen, where there was a pile of presents on the table.

 "Can I PLEASE open some mom?" I asked. She agreed.

 I quickly grabbed the wrapped box that was closest to me and pulled the lid off.

 Inside it looked like there was a piece of fabric and a pair of shoes, but when I pulled it out, that fabric turned out to be...

 An ADORABLE dress. I love it!

 The next present was a board game called Cadoo. It's fun, you get to act things out and build things with clay. I'm not that great at it yet, though.

 The next present was actually a card from my sisters. At first I thought they'd flaked out on my birthday, (again), but when I opened it, it turned out to be some movie tickets for Saturday! I can't wait! Thanks you guys!

 The next present I grabbed was small and rectangular, I pulled it open,

 It was the Wizard Of Oz, one of my all-time favorite books! Yippee!

 It's a really nice copy too! I can't wait to read it (again)!

 The next present was too big to be a book, but too flat to be much of anything else. What could it be?

 I see Addy, and the American Girl logo, that must be a good sign!

 It turned out to be an Addy activity book. It has dolls, a reversible play scene, a craft and a short story about Addy. I can't wait to do some of the projects in there!

 Here's one of the scenes, Addy's school-house. Awesome!

 The last present was very big...

 I pulled off the paper, it was Kaya! Yay!

 Isn't she so pretty? She has very long braids. I think she's so pretty!

 I think she's just perfect!

 I love her!

So, here's a picture of everything I got for my birthday. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for another post about my family and presents from my extended family that arrived later.