Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Extreme Makeover: Apopka Edition

So I'm in my second week of school now and Lord Willing it will be my first real week of school as a sophomore. As most of you know, this year was the first year of our new school building. Along with a new building we have had many other changes occur this school year. Orange County thought it would be a brilliant idea to change the start times for middle school and high school. So now we start at 9:30 and don't get out of school until 4:00. Which in no way am I complaining about starting at 9:30 but along with being able to sleep in comes the part that I"m not so happy about which would be getting out of school at 4 then doing homework and eating supper about an hour after you get home from school then you pretty much just start the whole cycle over. Man these morning football practices are bad not just for the players but for everybody. We don't want no stinky football players in our class. :]

Another thing that has changed at our school is the fact that there is only one cafeteria. There used to be a 9th grade cafeteria on 9th grade campus so they didn't have to walk so far and then the Main campus lunch room. But this year to cut down on budget (i'm guessing) they have only one lunch room. Which I really don't think is bad but boy would I hate it if I had to make the walk over from 9th grade to main for lunch everyday. :]
I can understand why they have to enforce this next rule but it is still a bummer for the good kids who don't abuse it. We are no longer allowed to wear hoodies to school. There has been several incidents where kids have vandalized the school and then put their hood on in order to hide from the camera and also pretty much an every day occurence would be the "If I pull my hood up the teacher can't see my earphones in my ear." It just stinks that the group of kids who don't follow the rules have to ruin it for everybody else. So now I don't have any jackets to wear to school because all of mine are hooded, even my apopka school jacket has a hood!


Well now for the less depressing part of my post. Our new school is really nice! It's 3 floors high and I"m proud to say that I learn in the building that is now the tallest building in Apopka. People not even the hospital is taller than our school. They had to get permission from the City of Apopka in order to build it that high. Well that just shows you have small good ole Apopka is. :]
The Chorus room is so nice. It has nice big practice rooms. For those of you who don't know what those are, they are rooms that are sound-proof and you go into them and close the door and whoever is in the class can't hear you. Our school has got some high tech stuff now. We have these new projector things that are hooked up to the computer and you can watch TV on them. We also have a gadget called the Elmo which is something you can use to project a piece of paper onto the wall instead of having to make a transparency like we used to do back in the day. :]
In between classes as you are walking down the hall, if you look to your left you will see the remains of the old Apopka High School while it is being demolished.
I'm loving my classes. I'm especially loving yearbook. I love most of my teachers and all of the people in my classes. The second week of school and I'm already known as the "Over Achiever" in my English class. :] Hey what can I say I learn from the best ,aka Britt. :] Speaking of English class I already am failing in that class. jk. Mr Hall is a HUGE Seminole fan. Yep theres trouble in the herd. :] So of course any chance I get I will be representin' them Gators! :]

My Spanish Class is awesome! I love Senorita Lowe. :] She is my type of teacher. She makes up songs and dance in order to help you learn Spanish and we pretty much talk in Spanish the whole class, so for me personally I am learning alot quicker than what I did last year in Spanish 1.

My Algebra 2 class is most deff. going to give me a run for my money this year but I think I can handle it with a little help from my shish. :] I have Biology which is going pretty good. We haven't really done any exciting labs yet just doing the basic rules and stuff that you have to go over before you can do labs. I am taking Darter Company this year which is a business like envirornment where we have our own workstation and every morning you come in and you check your email for you deadlines for the day from Mrs. Sims. Then it is up to you in order to complete them. Mrs. Sims is like the boss and then we are her employees. We have 3 classes that we can choose from which are AOT, Web Design and Digital Design. I chose to do Web Design that way I can eventually be able to build a website on my own for my parents business or Little Zion. I'm really excited about that class. Next I have World History which I was never a huge history fan but I guess I will have to suck it up for the year and do it whether I like it or not. Finally I have yearbook. This class is so much fun. We just decided on our theme for the yearbook and what pages we are assigned to do within in the yearbook. I'm so excited about getting to be a part of this. So that is what is going on in "The Big Potatoe" (that is what Apopka is called) and my sophomore year in high school! :]

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Excuse Me Fay Please Go Away!

For those of you who are fellow Floridians and are reading this blog you know exactly what I mean about Hurricane Fay. I think Fay pretty much covered the whole state at some point this week. We started school on Monday then we had of school on Tuesday, which was a complete waste seeing as how it didnt even rain the slightest bit until around dark that night. We had school on Wednesday and Thursday, which by the way were far worse days to be at school than Tuesday was, then the next thing we know we are getting a call from OCPS saying that due to drainage problems we will not have school on Friday.
Now most of you would probably think that I would be so happy about that. But nope as most of you know by now I'm not your average child :] I was bummed because when it comes to school I need and want to be very structured and be on a specific schedule. But with all these bad weather days we haven't even had a full week of school yet. As a matter of fact since we are on a block schedule system I have 3 classes that I have only been to one time this week and that was for less than and hour time period. It's driving me crazy. I will blog more about the school later which I will get some awesome pictures of our new school for you to see.


Now to the hurricane/tropical storm part of the blog. We are pretty high up in elevation where we live so we weren't too concerned about flooding. However the retention pond across from our house which hardly ever has water standing in it was full and then overflowing into the woods across from our house.
Man if only I had a waterproof camera so I could have gotten a picture of me, Britt and Papa Bear going on an "adventure" while it was pouring rain. :] It was quite a site. For those of you who have not been "privileged" enough to see me and Papa Bear during a storm you are missing out! ha.
Me and Papa Bear are pacing the floor the whole time. We can never just be chill and act like a normal person and read a book or sleep. :] But I guess that is the ADD kickin' in. :] While the two of us are dying to go outside and see what all is going on Mom is inside staying dry wondering why here crazy family is outside. Britt was the "Official Rain Gauge Checker". Every hour Britt went out to check how much rain we had gotten. Meterologist Brittany is now reporting that in the past day and half we have gotten a recorded 12 and half inches of rain at the Ulmer household. :]
Then we have the puppies who are completely opposite from each other. Libby on one hand loves the rain while Betsy hates it. Bless Libby's heart she had to go outside last night so bad but it was pouring so she held it in as long as she could then we finally decided that it was lost cause to try to get her out so we just took her out on the patio. So this morning I get up and walk her and I thought that we had a slight break in the rain so I took her out real quick well little did I know that right when I get out there with Libby and she is all the way on the other side of the yard and gets scared when it starts to pour so I have to run out in the middle of the yard to get my baby who is sitting under the tree waiting for someone to come to her rescue.
To sum this blog up, I will just say that it's never dull at the Ulmer household. Especially when we are all at home and stuck in the house. haha.

Breaking News in Spring Hollow!

Reporters (aka Me and Papa Bear) just got back from taking a look at a sink hole. That's right a sink hole just opened up in the front of our neighborhood. So we decided to walk down and take a look for ourselves. Of course you know me I would never leave you guys out of the loop so I brought my camera. I got a picture but it's not very good so I will have to go back tomorrow when it's daytime to get a better picture. Well on the way back we got soaked. The bottom dropped out and well just take a look at this picture and see for yourself. :]

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Supernanny's Encounter with Monkey Joes

This post is dedicated to those who think that a 15 and 20 year old can't be a kid every once in a while!


Today me and Britt headed up to Monkey Joes with the kids that she babysits for. There were 5 total today. WhooWee was I tired? :] Now Britt doesn't usually watch all 5 of them at the same time but since summer is almost over and the kids love to play with each other they met up so they could play for the day while Britt watched them.


I usually don't babysit with her but since I knew that she was going to have her hands full. Not that I thought that she couldn't handle it if anybody could handle 5 kids it would be my sister. I had alot of fun today with the kids. Thanks for letting me help you out B!

I'm not sure who had more fun. The kids or Me? At first I just stayed outside of the moon bounces and all that stuff because I thought I was too big! But then I saw other people that were older than me on it so I finally "gave in" to the kids and told them I would get on with them.
Everyone in the moonbounce


Miss Brittany, Ben and Megan


I finally got everyone to look at the camera.


Britt said we looked like a bunch of caged monkeys.

The kids loved the video games.













Miss Brittany says "Now your silly faces, guys"

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Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Happy Birthday Tori!

This past Saturday was one of my best friends birthdays. So Tori had a birthday party on Monday that went on into today. On Monday night I went over and hung out with the girls and did some good ole planning as to what pranks we could do to Mikey while he was at band camp that night. Well we were still thinking when Mikey and Josh got home so we told them to go in the pool and swim. :] Long story short, they didn't buy it. So me and Ragan went out and swam with them while Tori and the rest put sparkles in his bed and all over his room, sprayed his room with old ladyish perfume and put a barbie doll head and sparkles inside his band case so he would open it up the next day at band camp and find it. :]

Preston is so cute! He wanted to go in the pool with us so bad!

Me and Preston. This is his surprised face.

Tori and Preston blowing out candles. Preston loves blowing out candles so we sang happy birthday to him too! :]

Me and Mere giving Zoey a bath in the sink. ha.

haha. No caption needed. Me and Tori jumping in the pool.

All of us jumping!

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Sunday, August 3, 2008

Facials, Finger Painting & Fondue

Close your eyes and think of gooey green face cream, hot pink polish, chocolate fondue, chick flicks and laughter. When a permanent smile is on your face you will feel what we felt.


This past weekend we had the pleasure of entertaining the "Tampa" crew at the house. I personally enjoyed every minute of the weekend and wish I was back covered in a mud mask gabbing the night away or floating down the river! Thank you guys for coming, you all are welcome at the house anytime!


Now for a visual snack of the weekend's events!






.....before & after the facials....












Sara











Hannah

















Me











The Whole Gang


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