MS 150 is done

Well, last weekend was the MS 150. This ride is meant to help raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. My family have many cousins and friends who have this unfortunate disease and it just is painful to watch them live through it. When my parents first started this 150 mile bike tour it was kind of a joke in our family because my mom is such a wimp, but now its something that i want to do when i am out of high school. I have first hand seen the effects it has on a family and on a persons lifestyle, and I would never wish for someone to have to go through the pain that my mom's friend has gone through. Team Donaldson:178 riders
The bike area
Mom and Dad, Dad was just a little grumpy as you can tell by his face
Then mom and dad again in Duluth.
This ride, just this year has raised 2.7 million dollars to help find a cure, and just the Donaldson team raised $92 thousand. As always i wish everyone the best of luck next year.
In my life things have been very mellow. I now have practice at 6:00 AM and then go home (biking home) and sleep until my mom yells at me to wake up. Typical teenager attitude there! Aaron is now having recruiters out looking at his performances on the bike! So that is something that we all are proud of!

Wow, the end has came!

Wow how the time has passed. Now when me and a few friends were looking through the yearbook at a few people, all we could say is how much they all have changed, looks and attitude wise. When I look at my past of course there is things I would like to change from this year but all of them have made my life worth while and just that much more interesting! That is what I wish everyone would see in themselves. So many people have betrayed trust, friends, and even themselves that it just caused them to think differently.Below is how much I changed physically. First day of school picture.
Very last day of school! Braces be gone!
Well today is the first of three days of biking for my parents! MS 150 bike tour is starting. they bike from Duluth all the way to White Bear Lake. about 75 miles each day. Even though this is their last year, mom is going out with a bang. She broke her wrist last week and they made a little divit for the handle bar! I talked to chad today and he wishes them all luck! Speaking of Chad, he is now moving somewhere out in Oregon or Washington! He is not sure where but they said they can figure that out after they get the envelopes that say he got in to med school!
On Sunday is the Afton Avalanche and I think all MN bikers are hoping all this rainy, haily, stormy weather will leave by then! I know for sure Aaron is hoping that.

Senior Prank Does Not Quit Making Comotion

Wow, if anyone told me that Freshman year would go by fast I would never have believed them. But look at it now, the year is gone and now no one can re-invent their reputation, unfortunetly. Well as in the headline, the seniors pulled a prank, as always. This time a senior (name not mentioned for my safty and his) went a let loose a chicken DURING passing time. No update on the chicken. Then between 6th hour and 7th, there was rumored to be a huge fight, which did not happen but made every one late to class. This brought even the avtivities director out of her office. Mr. Volm, my study hall teacher, went to school in a kilt, then at lunch played the bag pipes, which brought us all laughing.
Tomorrow is finals and as always no one will study! Our teachers have been telling us to study for the past 3 weeks and as most do, no one listened so hopefully we wont be repeating the 9th grade! Even a few teachers other than Mr. VOlm had fun with the seniors last day. The seniors have this thing with blow horns and so a couple of the new teachers went a bought like, 5 of them. When the final bell rang, the seniors unleashed their horns as did the teachers. You could not hear anything, even outside.
This morning was.... wierd. Me and Aaron pulled into the parking lot and there was smoke coming from the pick up row. Turned out, one of our friends decided to burn his tired to the rims. Teh smoke would not stop and every one was getting so mad at him! I started laughing when I found out who it was.
Last 2 days are half days so I'm getting some- note:some, rest.

Wow has time been passing!

With finals in only 6 school days, biking on Thursday, choir concert on Thursday too, life just is flying by! I have actually been studying for finals so i hope i wont have to repeat last trimesters scare! It came to the last week of the Tri and i didn't even look at the review sheets so i had no idea what i was getting into. Biking is another story itself! Aaron, last week, was 1st in his category so that made us all happy. We also had some company with Nicole and Tamara, Aaron's girlfriend and her sister, so that was entertainment too. Choir has been..... interesting. We had to memorize 4 songs in less than 2 weeks! But i might not go because of Buck Hill races. But yet i might go because of a friend of mine who is going and, well, that in itself is a convincing!

Been to busy with biking and synchro to talk

Im so sorry that i haven't been able to post anything. Synchro has been taking up so much time and now we have thursday night races, and then the mnscs races, and having time for friends and family. Its all been over absorbing in time.
Yesterday we had sections for Synchro -which i lettered in- and my trio made 7th place, my routine we don't really know. Alexa gets to go to state for her solo so that made us all really happy! So now tomorrow I get to go to the pool and turn in all of my stuff for Synchro.
Last Sunday we had our first MNSCS race in Inver Grove Heights. I placed in my age group but came in 2 to last in my field. We also lost a bike going 70 miles per hour on 35-W. Thankfully it was only a $500 bike, but it had minor damages. The front rim was bent to heck and the back tire blew. So it only cost us about 50 bucks to fix and a story to tell a couple of times!
Me on Prologue
This is Dan Koutsky (his bike was the one that fell of the rack)

Lucy has just been told that she was "fat" even though she has way to much energy so now my mom is worried. It actually is getting fun to pick on her!

Chad has gotten into Med school in Washington state and is moving up near where he and Anna got married. My Grandpa is doing OK as far as being alone now. My cousin Danielle is now a college grad. and was here last Thursday to pick up her boyfriend from the airport. It was alot of fun to see her again, on happy terms.

When will the weather go away?

Thursday, great day, Friday cold day, Saturday snowing, Sunday snowing, Monday freezing. Am I the only one to see a pattern here? It seems like we skiped over summer and fall all together and decided that we will just enjoy more and more freezing weather.
Today had been moderatly stressful. At school I was piled with alot of homework that I should be doing right now. Synchro, Ms. B started giving us her "look" saying either get off the team or get everything perfect. Our trio was horrible. Anne Marie messed up on alot of stuff, I could not hold my breathe at all, and only jordan knew the routine because she made up everything and expected us to know it already. See what i mean here.
Lucy has become more distructive each day. Today's victem is kleenex and a film bottle full of pennies. Dad found the container but no pennies yet.
Aaron had Prom on firday so here are a bunch of pictures. Honestly I dont know how she was able to walk in that dress, it was extremly tight.

mom made him hold her for a fun little picture, I got a couple of laughs out of it too!
she is literally a '70's girl
the normal pretty picture
josh and his girlfriend jenna, aaron and nicole
at the grand march.

It goes from extremly hot to dark and stormy

WOw, how the weather can change. Just yesterday it was to hot to play out side or even ride a bike. Today just sitting out on the tennis courts at school we were all sweating. Now at 8:23 P.M. its really dark and its storming pretty hard. When I got home from Synchro practice it was 70 degrees out and now its dropped to 54 degrees, in less than 3 hours. Lucy seems to be handeling the lighting and thunder pretty well. Dad just took her out a few minutes ago and she came in and went downstairs, probably chewing on a key ring or something or other.

I never thought i could be afriad of riding my bike after 7 months but after my crash at chequamegon im scared of any slick spots or any steep hills. Alexa was actually making fun of me because I rode my bike not even 24 hours after the crash but now i had to much time to replay it in my head that it scares me to think of the Eriks Spring Cup. If anyone has anything to help with this phobia comment or emial me!

Bike is out and I am finally riding

Wow, the old Trek is out of storage. After a long winter, the little old red Trek sees the streets agian. My brother has broken that bike 5 different times and its basically a whole new bike. He once rode it at the Red Wing Bluff Riders Charge after one lap he realized something was wrong and kept riding. That time the frame from the saddle post to the back brake was in a jagged line. So now all we have to do is RIDE.
school was very tiresome, mostly because its school but also because we had the parents night synchro meet tonight and I knew it would be a long one. We ended up losing again to Richfield, that makes us 0-4 so this year PL is being really bad. But tomorrow is Friday and I have the house to my self except Aaron is going to be there, so its party mode, well maybe not. But I will be partying with Matt.

Only a month until Erik Spring Cup

Today was quite interesting. AT school we had a "respect" Assembly for all freshman students. I think I fell asleep 4 times during an hour and a half. We were stuck in the huge auditorium, and the lights were off and they had a movie playing so they kind of set themselves up for that. then we went to the gym for an activity where Sean would not shut up. When it would be dead silent he would be the only thing heard, and most of what he was saying was to inappropriate to even post.

But then at lunch i got to thinking. I have not been out on my bike since like, October, and I have a race coming up on May 11th so I should make Aaron take it out of the garage. Its the Erik Spring Cup. Ssupposedly its a good course for new racers so I hope I won't skid on my face like I did for Chequamegon. for more go to the Minnesota Mountain Bike series for more info.

long week and i missed most of it!

well so far in this week its been busy. My grandma died at 10 oclock on sunday night, found out monday after synchro practice and had the wake on wednesday, funeral on thursday. So I have been gone since tuesday after school. Me and aaron drove home after school and packed up moms van and drove for 3 hours down to caledonia, real fun if you know what i mean. I think i about cried of boredom, my ipod went through the wash and still does not work after having it lay out for a month. Cried alot and was back in school on friday. thursday night when we got home i spent about half an hour spraying flowers with hairspray and hanging them up-side-down to dri out. Each grandkid got a yellow rose and then me and my causin danielle picked out a buntch of cut flowers from plants people gave us so now we have sticky flowers. anyone know how long they are to stay up-side-down? If you wanna check out the obituary its at the Caledonia Argus link.

Back to school, unfortunatly

Well school started back up yesterday and most people were sleeping by 1st hour even started. Even people were skipping class just to sleep, because they could not sleep last night because of really late mornings. It also is snowing right now, yes at the end of March. We were supposed to be getting 6 inches of snow but so far I think we have exceeded the 6 inch mark. all of hte trees are covered and even the cars and houses are filled with slush of people walking in and out. Today we had to take the bus over the practice with the boys baseball team and we could barely see it was so bad. Also they are not your normal small flakes, they are the largest flakes I have ever seen.

this is of a tree on our deck. tooken this morning.

International Peace site newsletter

So, as most people in PL know, the high school is now an official international Peace site. We got the peace poles and everything. And as I promised on the 2oth of March I would get a video or something to show you what all happened. I have a better plan, instead of having you watch a 50 minute long video I went to my school website and found a newsletter, with pictures and everything. And FYI the person in the wheelchair is Dr. Olson.
http://www.priorlake-savage.k12.mn.us/pdf_files/PeaceSite.pdf
Yes there were alot of people crying and I was one of them.

Finally i have pictures

OK, so now that I finally hooked up my camera, I now have Pictures to share with all of you. most of them are about the boys swim team.


this is the eclipse from our deck




Boys Junior Class, swimmers, left to right- Kyle Oshner, Aaron, Blake, Ruppert, Josh Gunter.



this one all of them are smiling!



Blake is giving Kyle his gag- gift, a pink brush that says its all about me



a bunch of snow came down last weekend and this is how it ended on our deck


the pine trees in my backyard

Hopefully we wont have anymore snow, but who knows. And now with synchronized swimming. It is now going to great this year. We already lost to Bloomington who had 1/2 of the swimmers as we did. And we lost bad. But we have a meet in Richfield on Thursday so we hope to turn it around. Biking will start at the end of April, we have the iron man race, I wont be riding that one but the first MNSCS series race I will be. So now it is the time to hop back on the bike and train, maybe. Dont worry I will be making sure Aaron is spending more time with the bike than with Nicole!

Painting is finished!!!

Today me and my mother spent about 2 hours at IKEA looking for shelves. Yes that is how long it took us. We also picked up a few lights to decorate with. I got 2 that are a frosted glass and square shaped. And I also got a bunch of hanging lights that are white and blue.For shelves I got a Billy shelve, with 2 glass doors and a shelf divider. And a glass shelf that we will need to take back, it did not come with the other half. I also got a pair of white shelves just to put little things on. It will look really nice when all put together but who knows yet. Pretty soon I will be going to my grandparents house in Caledonia. My grandmother is not doing to hot, so me and Aaron are driving down tomorrow morning, right after my dentist appointment at 9. So we will be the morons driving in a 25 year old car for 3 and a half hours. Once when I can, I will post a clip of the international peace site thing and a picture of my new room!

PL is now a Peace site

OK, so today was the very last day before spring break and our previous Principle had gotten ALS last year (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and as his death wish he wanted our high school to be an international Peace site. So we had a huge ceremony to celebrate it, and also we were honoring Dr. Olson because it was his wish and because he is predicted to die in a few weeks to any day. My whole Synchro team was balling. And we had 3 Peace Poles placed in holders that will go outside our school, which Shako will just have fun destroying next year. It was really sad when they started to talk about Craig Olson. Most of us had to stare at the ceiling to stop from crying, yes me included. tomorrow i will have to post a video, but it was from 1:15 till 2:10, and it was very emotional. I found out he was in the Peace Corp. from 1987 till 1990, he basically made a school in Africa and was headmaster of it. You should have seen him today. even in a wheelchair he was still glowing with happiness just to be in our school again. WE also had all of the foreign students bring flags of the countries they are from and we had around 15 to 25 flags hanging on the track. That was amazing considering that I'm friends with alot of them and never knew that they were born in a different country at all. For instance Tola, he had a whole trimester sitting next to me in science and we always talked to each other but he never said anything. I think that you would have had to be there to get the full effect of it all.

Club is done and Synchro has started

Yes as most of you know is that Minnesota swim clubs just had their state meet this weekend at the U of M. It was amazing as usual. But most importantly is that Synchronized swimming has started and is now in full swing, we have our first figure meet tomorrow at Hidden Oaks Middle School, at our brand new pool. I know amazing right? But then also I have a few announcements, The teams consist of the beginners, then there is my team who is made up of Sadie Webb, April, Amy, Ann Marie, Anna, Jordan, and Kerri, then of course me.
We have the most possible on a team and we will completely destroy every short team that comes to us. We are thinking of putting in 2 lifts at the same time, but we still have no idea where these are going to go, heck we don't even know our music. But we still remain hopeful because we have already had to much drama on the team to worry about the little things, yet.

PL vs. Shako b-ball game

Okay so today I was at the Chiropractor and we had to sit there for around 30 min. and so I picked up the town newspaper. Last week there was a boys basketball game at Shakopee, and of course we are rivals, so Matt Clemens- a senior, captain of the varsity soccer team- decided to run down on the court, steal the ball from a free throw person from Shakopee, and tried to shoot the ball, and missed, and then tried again, and missed. Shako athletic director tackled him to the ground even when we had 3 or 4 police officers there, there was supposedly a gun pulled at a football game and we always had to have that many police there, and held him there until police could arrest him. It was all People could talk about. Given that this happened about 3 weeks ago, I was just looking at my drafts and found this one un-edited, so I thought I might as well finish it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKs5i7OUG_M
Here is the link to watch part of it. The athletic directors thought it would be unsuitable to have the whole incident on www.youtube.com so they flagged it. But what they don't know is that they still have the part where the director tackled the kid.
Now Matt has a record and is not allowed to go to anymore PL games, and probably Shakopee games too. I cant wait till next year, being a sophomore, the rivalries and the fun!

New Semester means NEW grades!

Well, 3rd trimester has started and my study hall teacher scares me. his name is Mr. Volm. he has a greasy black pony tail he wears everyday, and he writes his passes with initials- for names. like the other day i asked him if i could go to my locker and he asked me all this stuff on my "family". just a little creepy, don't you think? but the good part of this trimester is that i have a chance to actually get a good grade on most of my classes, but most likely that wont happen. also in Pannetti's class i have Tristen and Zack in there so it will be interesting to see who sits where. today Zack would not come and sit by me and Tristen at all, we kept yelling at him to get over to the other side of the room but all he did was stare at us. well tomorrow is the Choir picture first hour so i gotta be bright and shining!yippee, not, maybe, probably will be laughing!

Just put a smile on!

Today my friend Aaron Haid started trying to get me to smile so he started to sing the McDonald's song which just made me laugh like crazy! Then I got 2 finals out of the way and I have 3 tomorrow, Health, English, and Science. For chior we have our concert on Monday march 10 so that's our final in that class. Then today synchro didn't start till 3:30 so I went home with Aaron and had some tortilla chips and chipotle salsa! Yummy!!! Then went to practice with Alexa and we ended up swimming 1450 yards, and that's just for Synchro! and we started to hang upside down in the pool and it felt like my brain was rolling around in my head cuz now it hurts so bad. At religion we had the stations of the cross movie and it was really sad how Jesus died! But I'm not really into religion, all I know is that if Jesus was not betrayed by his apostal there would be everlasting life. We start core lifting tomorrow after school so that will be painfull if not even more than shopping with my mother, she likes to go to Savers where all they have are "old lady pants" as I call them.

baby bust

Last night before I went home from Alexandria, my mom got a phone call from my aunt Sal. It turned out that my cousin Kelly, her baby is not going to live. The brain is not wanting to form so the minute the baby girl is born, it will die because it won't know to breath and to swallow. When they did an ultrasound they thought it was just a little malfunction and she would have a missing body part so they went and did a deeper ultrasound and there was no brain. So lately (mostly today) I've been having people come and ask me if I'm OK or not and all I could say was "its a family thing". I only told one person because I've known her for about 2 years and she really does care about my depression and my family. All Danielle could do was have her jaw hit the table. its still hard to believe this is happening in my own family.

A/B/C finals are OVER!!!

As you can see in the title, A/B/C finals happened today, yesterday and Friday. I ended up swimming on Saturday the following, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, and the 500 freestyle! I dropped 6 seconds in the 100 breast and the 200 free. When i went to the backstroke i dropped like 4 seconds, then the 500 i dropped 6 seconds. Then today all i did was the 50 and 100 freestyle, which in the 50 i dropped .31 of a second, which is pretty dang good considering your going only 2 lengths of a pool, and the 100 i sroped 4 seconds in. So i did pretty dang good considering i barely slept. Last night at the hotel my mom was snoring so I went and followed after my uncle and slept in the bath tub. Which I'm not going to do after all the pain I'm going through right now. When your legs are crunched up to your chest and your arms are underneath you, you tend to have really tight muscles which your going to need later in the day. Mostly all weekend i hung out with the team and mainly Anton, a friend of mine who is on the team, and also i swam a little bit.

finals are coming up

Well now that finals are approaching and even in swimming our finals are tomorrow, every body in school is stressing out. Most of it was because we all slacked off this semester. Today i failed a SPELLING test, yesterday a grammar test and the day before a math quiz! How sad can it be? Aaron Haid, a friend of mine, was sleeping during science and was not really conscience at all, the teacher had to stand right behind him with me laughing my head off to wake Aaron up! Then choir came and we had to stand all hour and I was in my 5 inch high heels and Alexa was inch her 3 inch high heels and we were learning the grand Minnesota song, all because our stupid state became a state 150 years ago!And then Aaron, my brother, was walking out of his pod area and had a sign that he would not show me but he did ask me it i wanted a ride home. which of course with my horrible hearing did not hear.
the one good thing that happend today was that in science we got to embarres our selves by jumping because it is the leap day. we ended up having people yell at us because we made to much noise "leaping".
And then A/B/C finals are in Alexandria starting today but I'm going tomorrow. I'm swimming the 100 freestyle, 500 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 50 freestyle, 100 backstroke, and the 100 breaststroke. Sounds like fun right?
here is a couple of pictures that we have from aarons section finals





i believe it was Kyle Oshener diving in. the 400 relay



this is aarons Laker team jsut waiting for diving to get done with. yes that is the section team

february 27

Well today was not really all that great. Chelsea found out about how I'm telling my friend about the stuff she is saying behind her back. that did not go to good. she has not spoken to me all day and yesterday. the only way that she will talk to me is if its on AIM. and i just got done talking to her that way agian. In other news aaron gets the whole house to himself this weekend while me and my mom are in Alexandria and dad is in Caledonia. A/B/C finals are this weekend come and watch or else go to the boys state swim meet at the U of M on friday

february 24

well the boys didn't make it to state, but at least 2 of them did. Kyle Oshner and Blake did make it. the relays were so close but still no cigar. Aaron almost made a state cut with only .19 of a second over the 50 freestyle cut. them my dad was saying how it was all Nicole's fault that she came, she was having really bad luck that week. but we all know it was a touch-out and all Aaron needs to do is grow longer finger nails and so we all started hating on him for always hating getting the weekly cut( when we were little he always was jumpy when it happened). then today my mom asked whether or not i was going to do chequamagon, a bike race in Hayward that challenges all terrain and a persons thoughts. and the night before my dad already signed me and Aaron up so she had no say. this year my goal is to not crash and skid down a hill on my face. last year i only made it half of the 18 miles. and of course skidded down a steep hill on my face. had to ride back in the back of a truck and Ailey gunderson, a friend of mine, saw me and she thought it was me but my parental who know me best said no she is probably still out there. who knows me best now?

february 22

hey now i know that its taken a while for me to post some other things. ok this is halarius, chelsea does not need me or lauren or even kyle to make her laugh at her self. she managed to fall out of her own chair in the morning on her own! and of course me and lauren were laughing our heads off. then today anthony told a really funny joke. "what has 50 teeth and guards a monster? my zipper!" and the timing could not have been anymore better. it was right after school and we all were falling alseep. as for aaron he has section finals tonight at 5:30 at hidden oaks. hopefully our relays will get into state. if they do we get to shave justins head. mom and dad have been not really talking lately. so i dont know what else they are doing. but i'll try and post some more later like maybe tomorrow. lets hope. i dont know. probly forget. just kidding!

february 16

today i finally decided i needed a job. so i applied to a library position. it pays good but thats just for a kid. it all happend when i was at the libary this morning and saw the sign so i called my mom over and asked her if i could do it. she said yea so now i have an application in. but the only problem would be that it's hours are after school everyday and saturday. so that means that either i have to quit synchro or else i will have to get out really early. but enough about that. aaron has sections next wed. and thurs. at hidden oaks. so im pretty glade then on the 1st and 2nd of march i'll be in alexadria for A/B/C Finals for club. and my dad will be down in Caledonia for my grandma. yeah i know, my family is really hecktic. this morning my mom found out aaron has a Zone time for swimming and so that means that he will have another meet for club to go to!? yea!
hopefully after all this it will be a little easier considring how me and aaron are going to do the MN series for mountain biking. thats only on sundays and every day we have swimming at 6 A.M. every day! sounds like fun right?

yes im still getting used to this stuff

febuary 9

today AARon had a confrence swim meet for 4 hours and then had to go get ready for SnoBall tonight while i went to the swimmeet after Feed My Starving Children at 8 a.m. crazy i know. and my mother was at the meet a friend of mine hurt another friend of mine. i dont know how Josh is doing yet. Blake McCleanahan got first in the 200 and 500 freestyle and teh 400 relay got first place. the relay was the closest race. all the splits were point somethings away. aaron pulled ahead in the long run. Nicole, Aarons girlfriend, came over around 6 to get pictures done with and to go over to Blakes house to get more pictures done, for snoball

febuary 2

last night my mom and dad went to the rodeo, and had a blast.

while I was at the U of M for a Synchronized swim meet for our graduates. For the first time i went to Noodles and had a ceaser salad which i definetly recomend to anyone. AAron stayed at home being dumb old aaron. then today aaron is at nicoles mom is at the dog park and dad is in caledonia because my grandma is going down hill really fast.