The Next Food Network Star

It is, like, one of my favorite TV shows! The plot of the show is that ten people were chosen to compete against each other in cooking challenges including talking infront of a camera, cooking to impress judges, cooking with Rachel Ray on her show, and other related things. Each week they have a different challenge, and at the end of the show each contestant is critiqued, and one of them is chosen to leave and go home. It only aires once a year for about 11 weeks. 10 ordinary home cooks entered the contest and were chosen to compete on the show. Most contestants have previous cooking experience, like owning a restaraunt, working somewhere with food, or even graduating from Culinary school (big advantage). The top ten finalists that started from the beginning are: Aaron, Jeffrey, Adam, Cory, Jennifer, Kelsey, Kevin, Lisa, Nipa, and Shane. The final five ended up being Aaron, Adam, Kelsey, Lisa, and Shane. After Shane got "the boot", the final four went to Las Vegas. There, they were challenged to a Bobby Flay style throwdown, and Kelsey was chosen to leave. The second youngest of the group, Kelsey was my favorite, and my sister's as well. She was so cute, pretty, and sweet, which also gave her a slight disadvantage. Even though she was GREAT in front of the camera, and she had recently graduated from culinary school (she couldn't stop mentioning it) she struggled in gaining authroity, and she also flunked her final challenge. We were so dissapointed when she left. Anyway, just aaron, Adam, and Lisa are left. I do hope Lisa wins because she is my second favorite and I think she really deserves it. The show plays Sunday nights at 9:00 central (10 for all ye eastern folk), but the show from the previous week comes on sunday at 8 central. This is when my family watches it, even though we are a week behind.
Here is the food network star page at foodnetwork.com for you to check it out:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_nf/

Updates for July and August

I have so much to say that I thought I would just update you with everything that's going on:
***Virginia trip***We had soooo much fun there! We saw and did a lot of things, but we also just hung around the house with our family. We got back Sunday and we didn't have to miss our favorite TV show!
***Swimteam***My sis and I only have one more week of swimteam practice!!! We'll have to give up our entire saturday because of championships, but after that, WE'RE DONE FOR THE YEAR!!!! I'm gonna try to convince my parents to let us do another sport next year because I hate swimteam sooo much :p
***Ms. Cooper***I found out that's she's actually not leaving!!!!!!!!!! Even though she's a Ms. (a teacher) instead of a Dean now, she'll at least be at my school again. I knew Mrs. Sparkman wouldn't ket her go entirely. She'll teach 7th grade. There is a very small chance that she'll be an eighth grade teacher (my grade) and even a smaller chance that she'll be my teacher, but still, I'm hoping. I'm just glad I'll still be able to see her some. On the last day of school I thought I'd never see her again.
***Silver Sea***I'm nearing the end of my story!!!!!!I'm really excited to get to the end because it will be a finished product, and maybe I can even send it in to a friend I know from church who owns her own publishing company. Also, I have another big story idea that's haunting me (in a good way). As soon as I'm done w/ Silver sea, I'll start working on that one. More details later.
***My updated webpage***Please come and visit! I made it even better, and I know that someone from google is reading it because the advertisements on the bottom (by google) have to do with ireland, folk songs, and Celtic Woman! It just makes me believe that there may be a chance for Meav to actually see my page and to be moved...She's what's it's all about!
Here's to address to my webpage. At the bottom, you'll see a link to go on to my second page that also is about Meav.
My webpage: http://pages.matmice.com/home/turtlefreak707/

Goin' to Virginia

I can't wait until this Tuesday (July 8th)!! Me, my little sister Jenny, and my mom are driving up to Arlington Virginia, which is only, like, two miles away from D.C. We used to live there, and sometimes I really miss it. We're going for ten days to visit my grandma, grandpa, aunt and uncle, their dog, my great-grandma, and our good friends, the Nuchos. I'm SO excited! We're making this scrapbook for my great-grandma (we call her Gropoopie-long story) because it's her birthday. We're giving her a big gift basket with all things that she loves- chocolate, balloons, our homemade scrapbook (which turned out amazingly good!), and a stuffed duck named David. When Gropoopie was in her twenties, she owned a real duck named David, that used to cuddle up with her a snuggle her (adorable! right?). We got her the Webkinz duck 'cause it's really cute and soft. She doesn't know what webkinz is, so that wouldn't really matter. My little sis got to keep the tag, making the duck (which she named David on the computer as well) her 15th Webkinz. I also can't wait to see my aunt because she's really fun to hang around. She's only 19 (5 years older than me), so she understands me. I can't express how awesome she is. I can't wait to see my grandma because she is a great snuggler and is just a wacky person! She is also really smart and loves to make us laugh. My uncle is really cool because he makes good jokes and knows a lot about bikes, and stuff like that. My grandpa (he's actually my step- grandpa) is cool too because he's really smart and knows everything about everything. He makes really good jokes too. My grandma teaches art class, and my aunt helps, so while my mom is at drumming camp during the day, we will go with them and do art! It's really enjoyable! We did it before, and I painted some really nice paintings and did great pastels. I'm taking some of my Ireland pictures so that I will be able to paint them. I'm just so excited, especially since I haven't seen them since Christmas.

Goodbye Dean Cooper

Wednesday, June 11th was St. Johns county's last dayof school. You might know that the state of Florida is facing huge money problems in our schools, just because people voted to get, like, $25 off their tax payments. It is causing us some major problems, and we're having to get rid of a lot of things that we shouldn't have to get rid of. My mom is just lucky to have her music job. So, each middle school in our county has 2 deans, a man and a woman. It's kind of required. But now, with all the budget cuts, our schools don't have enought money to employ two anymore. That means we have to get rid of one. And our principal is letting Dean Cooper go. Most people at my school hate her, but I've grown very fond of her, and it hurts me to think that I might not even see her again. Unless she is certified as a teacher as well as a dean...if she is, she could stay and teach. I hope she does. She doesn't really know me, but on the day before the last day of school, I asked her to sign my yearbook. She was all happy because I was probably the only one that had asked her to sign. I really do hope she stays. She was an important part of our school. She must be really mad. She lost her job just because some old retirees in South Florida wanted to pay a little less tax. It's SOOOOOOOOOO not fair! It makes me mad and sad at the same time.

Indiana Jones/Karen Allen

Now, I know you've heard of Indiana Jones and heard the "rousing adventure theme" (quote my TV's subtitles) that goes along with the movie. They're all really great movies, and the very first one came out when my mom was about 15 or 16. She went and saw it, and she loved it, along with everyone else who had seen it. I had never seen Indy on the screen in my life, until this Saturday, when my mom rented it the first one, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (I had originally wanted National Treasure 2, but it was sold out for the second week in a row). I'm really glad I ended up watching it, because it was a really good movie! My favorite character was Marion Ravenwood, aka Karen Allen. She was 30 when she made the movie, and she's currently 57. She was really pretty and really funny and spunky in the movie, and I admire her for that. Karen was unaware that she would be in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" until Steven Spielberg called her one day and said, "Guess what, Karen! You're in the movie!" So, she still plays Marion Ravenwood, an older version, but this time there's a twist. A guy named Mutt Williams (played by Shia LaBeouf) comes to Indy and takes him to a camp where a Mutt's mother, Marion Ravenwood, is being held prisoner. Then, Marion reveals to Indy that Mutt is his son. I was like, WHOA....Anyway, you should definately rent the movie if you get a chance, remember, the first one!!!!!!!!!!!
PS-Anything you hear about Karen Allen being the same person as Margot Kidder is NOT TRUE!!! I've looked at pictures and they are NOT they same person. It's just a stupid conspiracy.

Swimteam

It's started up again. It's only for the summer, but me and my sister both agree that it sort of ruins it. You have to get up almost every day at 7:00 (yes, that's what I said!) and go jump in a cold pool and work out for an hour. It's nice that they give you the weekends off, and we don't go monday either because that's the day they clean the pool. But then, we have swim meets against other teams almost every Saturday. They last about five hours, and you only swim four times! It really ruins your Saturday. It just started a week ago, and I'm really out of shape. I pulled one of my stomach muscles, and it was painful even to lie down on the couch. Also, my arm and leg muscles were sore, but not as bad. The only good part is that our team has been undefeated for the past two years. But I've really come to love thunderstorms a lot more-if you know what I mean.

Silver Sea (by:Elise)

I don't know if you knew this, but I write stories. I just think it's so enjoyable to get my feelings down on paper. I've enjoyed writing sine probably second grade and I've been doing it ever since. I think I really started actually spending a lot of time on my stories last year in 6th grade. I wrote one story that I finished a while ago that was very successful. I won't get into that one, but I am going to tell you about "Silver Sea", my newest story (ps-silver sea is actually the title of one of Meav Ni Mhaolchatha's albums, and the front cover of it is where i actually got my inspiration for this story). It's about a girl named Kayleigh Granuaile who is full blood Irish but doesn't really care. Then she finds out that she and her family are moving to Ireland! Their house is on the Cliffs of Moher, these huge cliffs that jut out into the Atlantic. It's a big adventure for her and she learns a lot and meets some great new people. One of the things she learns is that a family lived in her house (which is actually close to 300 years old) a 100 years ago. The family had just one daughter named Muirin Flynn. She loved the ocean very much, and she asked everyone she met to call her Silver Sea. One day, she falls off the cliffs and dies. Many people belive that she wanders the lands as a ghost. Now, a hundred years later, Kayleigh and her new friend Kiera are discovering Silver Sea's secrets to try to help the ghost to rest in peace. It's a very cool story, and I'm enjoying writing it very much.
Please check out Kayleigh's blog:
http://www-kayleighinireland.blogspot.com