Lucky Number 13

That's right. I'm 13. As of two weeks ago. September 28th. Day of my birth, folks. We celebrated by remodeling my room this summer, so I didn't get any presents. From my family. But I did get presents. From my class. Because I had a birthday party! And I took the courage to invite the whole class, because ya know that takes a lot of guts...my class is kinda wild. And it's also small, haha if you go to a regular  middle school or Jr. High your grade is probably 200 kids or something, but mine is only 36 or something. Minus about the 6 kids who didn't come I'm estimating?

Anyways, it was a great birthday, and a great birthday party! We had a scavenger hunt/race at the mall, called the "Amazing Grace Race" ( because of my name) and it was a blast! We got split into random teams of about 5 or 6 kids, and surprisingly, ( or not) my team won! We actually got back to the house a good amount of time before the other teams, woo hoo! :) We won by getting Cold Stone gift cards -  score there! The rules ad things for the scavenger hunt are as follows:


The Amazing Grace Race
Rules:

Stay together as a group AND NO RUNNING

Unless stated differently, a task has to involve all your team members

Points will be added for every successfully completed task: A bonus point can be given for style or creativity

A point will be subtracted for any messes left behind or any craziness during the task

You can do the tasks in any order... AFTER YOU COMPLETE FOUR TASKS, EACH TEAM MEMBER HAS TO TRADE ONE SHOE WITH ANOTHER TEAM MEMBER

Your Referee will take a picture or video of you when/as you complete a task
Hint: think about LOCATION of tasks - you won't have time to go thru the mall more than once - YOU DON'T NEED TO GO PAST MACY'S

You have to stop when the Referee says so... Last one back to the house loses one point.
Ten Tasks in the Amazing Grace Race

1.  Make a pyramid anywhere you want (creativity gets a bonus point)

2. Take a photo of all of you IN a photo booth (not taken BY the photo booth)

3. Take a photo with Sponge Bob, the Cookie Monster and Shrek (hint: Scooby Doo loves THE VAN these guys are IN)

4.  Take a photo holding guns - one gun per team member (You might have to go on TILT to get this one done)

5. Put on a creepy Halloween Mask that you have to find by looking at the right Target! (Hint: it is WAY in the back corner of the store)

6. Take a photo going up an escalator - one team member per step (the Referee doesn't have to stay with the team members)

7.  When you are "In the Zone" or feel like "Champs" you have to let your voices ring by singing the Payphone chorus (The Referee has to get this on video)

8.  Get a free sample of food - one point for each free sample up to the total number of team members

9.  Put on a funny hat --- just to make it CLAIRE(clear, if you didnt catch that)  - each hat has to be different

10. BONUS: Get a Starbuck's cup WITHOUT speaking any words in English (the Ref has to get video proof) - each cup is worth one point

So there ya have it people. Since I didn't have my camera( bad Mary Grace! ) I didn't get any pictures of the scavenger hunt, and since most of the pictures my mom took of the regular party before and after have someone making a stupid face or something, I will only post a couple of pictures! :)

                                                           Boom Box!

                                                                       haha

                                                      The schedule and rules

 

                          Haha, Anne Marie wrote" Happy Birthday MG  " all over the car!

                                                 Me and my bestie Andrea!

                                                      Mrs. Gardner's group

                                                            My Dad's group

My group. :) 

                                    My Amazing Race Group- The Sonobello's, haha. :)

                                           Me and one of my best friends Leanne

                                                    My whole class, haha. :)

Break a Leg! .....But Not 'Til May.

So, our school's play this year is High School Musical! That may sound stupid to you, but I looked at the script and I am actually really excited! Our school has never really done something like this before, and I think that it's going to be a very awesome outcome if we put the same work into it that the 7th/8th graders have done for every other play!

So on Monday and Thursday, we had auditions, you could choose either day to audition.  So you went into the school library, sat in this section of seats we call the "Story Stairs" and one by one, each person sings their song, and acts out the part they want to play in the Musical in front of everyone.  I auditioned on Monday, and even though I was a little nervous to sing, I had a really great time acting in front of everyone doing all of the different parts, like Gabriella, Sharpay, Taylor, and Mrs. Darbus.

Today at first recess we found out who the cast was, and we went back to the story stairs and Mrs. Rickard and Mrs. McCarl, the Drama Troupe teachers, read the cast out loud. They also put up a list of characters and who would play them in the hallway. So, all this morning, I was literally flipping out in my head, because I was just that nervous to find out who I would play!

As it turns out, I was chosen to play Taylor McKessie! I am really excited about that role, because


#1- It is one of the 3 main female parts, I am the main female characters best friend, and President of the Science Club!

and

#2- I really didn't want to get the main part, ( even though I knew I wasn't going to get it anyways ) because I wanted one of the eighth graders to get it, which ended up happening.

And even though I got a pretty good role, not all of the girls got the roles they wanted, because that would be impossible, I am trying to be modest about it, even though I am very excited, I try not to like, rub it in people's faces and only talk about my role.  :)

So thanks for reading, and if you live in King County or anywhere around there and want to come see me perform ( it really is an amazing outcome at the end, we spend all year working on an hour-to-hour-and-a-half program, and it is always amazing, and when I remember I will post you the dates, all I know is that it is the weekend after Memorial Day. :)

So Thanks for reading!!!

MG

Back To School Pictures

Well I had a pretty good first day of school, and although I don't have some of my friends in the classes I would like to have, that's okay because..yeah! So anyways, I have some pictures here from the first day of school! ( BTW, it was the first day for John Mark and John Luke at stvs, and they were SO cute!!! )

 All of the bags with our kleenex, wipes, earthquake kits, etc. lined up. We are actually missing one there :)

 John Luke doin' a cool pose for the first day : )

 The Boys :)

 John Luke! Adorable! It's the most cute thing when I go up to him at recess ( because the older kids and kindergarten have recess together)  and I hug him or chase him and he gets all embarrassed, like "Get away from me! I'm trying to be cool with my friends!" Hahaha :)

 John Mark..so cute!

Yeah..I look kinda tired..that's because I only got like 4 hours of sleep the night before because I had a really bad stomach ache and could not fall asleep grr!!

What!? What is This Terrible Thing You Speak of?

Ullgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

School starts next week.

On Monday.

Hurraugh. ( Notice the sarcasm. )

Well, I suppose that is kinda good, because I am putting some cool things on my blog for the brand new school year-yay! In a couple of days I will reveal what new features I will be putting on my blog. :)

But other than that, school starts next week, and I am only excited to see the friends I haven't seen over the summer.

I am totally not excited for Waking up early, making everyone's lunches every morning, ( 5 lunches people, 5 lunches! ) having homework, quizzes, tests, and . . . just having to go to school.


But I really hope I get an awesome class with all my fave. 7th and 8th graders!! That would rock! And also, I get to audition for the play this year, and wear a grey skirt instead of a plaid one, ( woop woop! ) plus I am trying out for club volleyball (yay! ) so those are some things to look forward to.

Also, I am going to Massachusetts for a week and  half next Thursday, so that's exciting. ( Except for that I will have to make up homework) And this year we get out every  Wednesday at 2:00, but I don't see how great that will be. Because sometimes we have the first Friday of the month off, and now we won't have as many off. GRRR. I also think that we should be able to wear whatever shoes we want, instead of grey, white, and black, :( , and get to wear cute things! I think it would be so awesome if the Jr. High got to wear free dress every Friday or something like that!

Also, the Puyallup Fair is this month, and I have already talked to a couple of friends of mine about setting up dates to go, so I hope that happens! That would be reaallly fun, because I love the Puyallup Fair.

But now my Mom is kicking me off, because it is my sisters turn on the computer, so

Au Revoir!

MG

Summer!

Since summer is coming up, and I am out of school in three days , (woo hoo! ) I made a list of things I want to do and accomplish this summer. Although I probably am not going to do half of them, I still am putting them out there just in case one day I am absolutely dying of boredom. =D

Things I Want To Do This Summer! 



1. make a music video
2. build an awesome sandcastle
3. have an overnight movie marathon
4. Bike five miles
5. Eat the best banana split ever with my friends
6.  Bury a friend in the sand
7. Sleep in my backyard, under the stars
8. Write a song
9. Write a poem
10. Write a play
11. Start my novel :) 
12. Have an epic water-balloon fight
13. Make a collage out of old magazines
14. Get a new piece of furniture in my room
15. Go stargazing
16. Get a job working for my Dad at Paladin
17.  Collect pretty seashells at the beach
18. Make a fun playlist for my iPod and go on a job
19. Take a photography class
20. Spend a day at the library
21. Try to blog once every couple of days
22. Get a good time on my swim races 


Thanks for reading, and have a good summer!!!!




MG 

Camp Osprey

Well, Y'all. It is very nice to be blogging again!!!! I am here to tell you about my absolutely fantastical time at Camp Osprey!!! I actually typed up everything that I did, and will show you my camp binder in another post, but who wants to hear, " So first we did this, and then we did that, and then we went here, and then we went there, and then we saw this animal, and I talked to this guy, and we had a lot of fun, yadda yadda yadda. "  No! That is plain and not full of spirit. So here, I will give you a brief overview of what we did, and if you want to hear like everything, ( a paragraph on each activity-we had to do that for our camp binders) then just email me and I will gladly send them to you. But over the course of camp, we did some activities like.....

When I first got there, I found out that I was in the raccoon cabin with two girls from my class, Claire Varden and Hannah Park. I also made a couple of good friends in my cabin, and still keep in touch with them. We had a lot of fun during the week, making up our cabin cheer, practicing the song for the skits and songs night, making posters, laughing, talking, and having fun. Most of us became good friends.

Aslo during the week we worked on most of the activities with our class, in our color groups. I was in a color group with a couple of my friends, which was good. We did things like soil study, walking on trails, water study, survival, rope-making, and other activities.

On Thursday i think I had the most fun. The camp staff surprised us with a fun day, and we got to spend the afternoon playing campwide games like capture the flag( The girls side won-of course! Mrs. wattier, the camp director, won for us!! ) Ga Ga ball, and other fun things. That night, we got to see our parents, and they came to see the campwide skits and songs.

Every night we either had a campfire or square dancing or an activity, like duck drawing. The square dancing was fun, and the campfires were always solemn and serious.

Overall, I had a GREAT week at camp, and if you want to find out more details, just email me! (my email is on the sidebar ) And btw, they are in a random order because of the way I downloaded the pics...sorry.  :)

 Me with my Adopt-a Tree

 At the composting

 Picture of a bunch of us

 Me with my music of the earth

 At mass. Father Bill and Mrs. Stewart, our principal, came down to camp and had mass with us.

 Our cabins friendship poster

 My cabin

 on the Plant I.D. trail

 Making rope

 Tracks

 Me and Emily

 silly picture

 Isaiah photo bombing my picture......this is while we were playing a game

 Mrs. Vance

 Our cabin flag

 In our cabin

 The lake

 Owen before going to camp in San Juan

 Andrea and Carolyn before leaving

 On the bus before leaving

 Eating lunch

 Lexi and Lily eating lunch on the first day

And there are your pictures!!

Thanks for reading,


MG

Catholic Schools Week!

Yay it is Cathlic Schools week! This week is really exciting, and the theme for This year is sort of like this " Archdiocese of Seattle. Catholic Schools. 73 Schools grounded in Faith, Service, and Academic Excellence" Catchy, huh? Lot better than last years. So, On Sunday we had an open house, to show odd all of our awesome work! Yesterday, we had a school-wide rosary, led by my little sisters class. Today, the whole school is going roller-skating at a rink, and we have non-uniform! Tomorrow, we have a visitors lunch, where we can have either our parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, family friends, grandparents, anyone, come and have lunch with us and visit our school! On Thursday, we have a school mass, and on Friday we have a read-in. Well  have to go, or I'll be latefor school!

MG

Snow School! :)

Haha yeah I know my title is cheesy, but at least I thought of it. :) Well, technically we have school, but it is a two hour delay, so we start at 10:30. we originally were going to go to the March For Life in Olympia today, so we wouldn't go to school anyways, and if we didn't have school we wouldn't go to the MFL,but if we had a two hour delay, my parents said we could just skip school. :) So I guess we are just playing hooky..haha I love playing hooky....kind of. anyways I took a whole bunch of pictures yesterday, notof the kids playing but of the beautiful scenery, but I haven't downloaded them yet so they will probably be up by tomorrow or this afternoon.....I might take some pictures today, because we got like 4 inches of snow..yay! We started a snow fort yesterday, and we have WAY more snow today to clear up from the cul-de-sac,, so it is going to be big! :) Well I have to go eat my oatmeal and play in the snow....have a nice day.  :)

Thanks for reading,

Gracie

Friday the thirteenth!

Since toda is Friday the 13th, and I had to write an essay for school about it, I thought I'd put it up here for you to read! :)

                                                                                    Mary Grace Curran
1/11/12
San Juan
My Unlucky Day

I think I could tell that my day was off to a bad start when I woke up in the morning, breathing hard and sweating rapidly from my bad dream. I don’t even want to go into detail to tell you how scary it was. Anyways, after I recovered from my nightmare, my day just got worse.
I suddenly realized that it was 7:20. oh no! I was going to be late for school! I suddenly rushed up from my bed, and ran to my closet to get my uniform on. I searched through my drawers, but in despair saw that I had no clean uniform. I sprinted downstairs, messy hair and all, and went into the laundry room. On top of the washer was my uniform, about to be put in by my mom. I screamed at her not to, but it was too late. When I pulled my uniform out, it was soaking. I went up to my sisters room and put on Anne Marie’s uniform, and it was too tight, but it would just have to do. I got plenty of laughs as I ate breakfast, put my old shoes on-the new ones I had just gotten had been eaten by our dog-and hurried out the door.

When I got to school, you can imagine the types of looks that I got. When I sat down to do d.o.l., and was putting the date on, I realized it was Friday, the 13th. No wonder my day was going horribly! By the time recess came around, my day had not gotten a tad bit better. To sum everything up, i had gotten all of the questions on my d.o.l. wrong, I tripped in front of the whole class while giving a book talk, plus I tons of kids had been laughing at me. Not to mention the behavior slip to talking too loud, homework slip for forgetting my backpack with all of the work in it, uniform slip for my hair being messy, and tardy slip for being late. I thought, ‘ Well at least I have a chocolate cupcake for snack. “ But then I remembered that I had forgotten my lunch.

Out to recess I went, and when I got outside, my best friend Andrea said “ Woah. Look what the tornado blew in. What is wrong with your hair? “ I sighed and told her my story. She said, “Well, that’s too bad for you, and by the way, I left my favorite game at your house like a month ago. I am having a sleepover with Carolyn, Claire, and Kayla. I thought it would be fun if we could play it tonight. Mind if I drop by and grab it? “ Woah! Talk about being dissed by your best friend! My day was going horribly! I looked up with a as-best-as-I-could-when-I-was-mad- smile, and said “ Sure. You can come over at 4 . “ Andrea smirked and said with a snooty voice, “ Thanks. I know I can always count on you! “

I lounged off to the library to see if my favorite thing-reading-could cheer me up. But then Mrs. Rickard told me that I had two overdo books. What? I have never had a book overdo! But I guess they were in my backpack as well. After that little mishap, the bell rang, signaling the end of recess. The rest of the day was so bad, including sitting by myself at lunch, being pointed at and laughed at, getting another behavior slip, slipping in the mud at recess, and not even having a lunch to eat by myself. When I got home, I found out that both my parents had been really badly injured in a car accident, and were in the hospital. As I cried and asked you was watching me, I got-you guessed it-bad news. It was my least favorite babysitter, Sally McFunnypants.
I growled under my breath, and went upstairs to start the 4 hours of homework I had. My little siblings had destroyed my room when I was at school, and ripped all of the pages out of my favorite, autographed books. I just sat on my bed that was pretty much ruined and cried for the rest of the night. I guess I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, the clock read 7:59. I groaned and thought, not another bad day! But then I realized it was Saturday. My parents had miraculously gotten better, and were both home. My room was back to normal, and I saw a new uniform hanging in my coset. That day, my mom helped me clean my room, and scolded the kids. Andrea called and said she was really sorry, and that the sleepover was actually tonight. she asked if I wanted to come, and I said, “ Sure! “ My day got better from there, and I realized that even I would sometimes have bad days like yesterday. But for now, I was happy just the way I was.

Geography Bee

In social studies class that I have 3 tims a week, our teacher , Mrs. Burnaby, as well as the other social studies teachers in the intermediate, quizzed all of the students on geography with this test thing, and I came out as one of the two finalists for my class! This was in Decemberm and this week on Tuesday our school held a geography bee for the 12 finalists from all of the social studies classes. We got asked a bunchof quesitons, oraly and on a whiteboard where we were all asked the same question, and all in all I got third place! I beat about 4 eighth graders, one seventh grader, and 4 or 5 sixth graders. A fifth grader, Luke Dorsett, got first, and an eighth grader, Connor Loats ( winner last year ) got second. It was really fun, and also at the same time really nerve wrecking!

School......

Well yesterday we went back to school, and I am NOT ready to get back to my regular sleeping schedule, I don't know about you, but I like sleeping in....and Winter Break went by WAY too fast!  I also didn't get a nice surprise yesterday.......I had like 5 hours of homework, and I had to SKIP DINNER!!!!! That ain't good, people. Hopefully I have less tonight.  :) Thankfully, since it is the new year, we changed seats, and in Social Studies with Mrs. Burnaby, I sit next to Claire and Kayla, which is pretty good, and I am thisclose to arms length away from Carolyn...  :) It is kind of funny, because Claire and Kayla have sat next to eachother every day in S.S. since the beginning of the year! I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that they both have last names right next to eachother at the very end of the alphabet, because I think the teachers take the list of the students in their class, alphabetically, and then they just go don the list getting rid of students one at a time in the rows of desks, and they always have the last people in the alphabet left! Anyways, we have the same seats in homeroom, but in science I get to sit next to Carolyn!!! Which is really exciting, and kind of funny because we sat next to eachother in our last science class, hee hee. Which also means we will probably talking, and getting in troule for talking...hmmm..... :) Well I hope you had a good day back, ( which is today for all of you lucky guys, the 3rd! St. vincent's was the ONLY SCHOOL in the Archdiocese to have school yesterday!) But luckily, the 7/8 grade teachers are working on high school reccomendations on Friday, and since every kid in the 5/6 has at least one of them on Friday for classes, school is canceled for the 5-8! Woo hoo! and even better, I get to rub the fact in my siblings faces, who are in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade, and who have to go to school. ( evil laugh ) muahahahahaha!  :)

Christmas Concert

Our school recently had it's annual Christmas concert, which I wasn't going to go to since I was sick, but I mustered up all of my energy and went, coughing-all-the-way. And now  caught it back .And I am sick over break. I knew I shouldn't have gone. But on the bright side, it was a GREAT concert, with lots of beautiful songs, and I know people say every year is " the best one yet " but I haven't really thought that the past years, but this really hit the spot. It was an amazing concert, and with all that practicing from the individual classes, to every other day in the afternoon for two hours, to the final dress rehearsal, to finally the final night, I'd say we St. Vincent students better be pretty proud of ourselves!

SICK

The flu has hit the Curran house! No wait, it just hit me. Poo. Yes, I am sick at home, as I have been all week, and have caught the regular flu symptoms-runny nose, ear-ache, very bad sore throat, fever, and body-aches. I am feeling a little better than I did on Monday, and tomorrow is my schools Christmas concert, that we have been practicing for for about 2 months, it is like the biggest thing that we do all year, and all of the classes sing Christmas songs, and the select choir sings amazing Christmas songs, it lasts two hours, and it is really fun!  So I really hope that I can get better by tomorrow or tomorrow night!


Thanks for reading,

MG

Rummage Sale

Today was the school's rummage sale, run by Blanchet homeroom. I do the school newspaper, so I took pictures and wrote an article for it. 

Here is my article:
Rummage Sale

Thanks to Blanchet homeroom, many kids in need will be helped this Christmas.  Last year , the rummage sale made $956. 50! This year, we made $1,029.14  which is even better!  You may be wondering, " Where does all the money go to? "  Well, students in Blanchet homeroom write down ages for a boy or a girl, and then their homeroom teacher, Mrs. Mary Issaacson takes those ages to the store to buy gifts for The Dove Tree.  The leftover money?  Well, Mrs. Stewart may use it for other school needs, and it may go to other people in need. One year with the leftover money from the rummage sale, we helped out with people who had gotten their homes and other things destroyed in a flood.  Thanks to all of the St. Vincent famililes and students who donate toys and other things, the rummage sale turned out to be a great success. There has been over ten rummage sales, and students are excited when the time comes around for another one.  One change this year was that it was in the Activity Center, instead of the Parish Hall. The students came to the rummage sale with about 10 cents to $5. 00 .  The rummage sale items go for great prices, and make awesome birthday and Christmas presents as well.  At the rummage sale, one of the big items were the raffle prizes, as they are every year.  Even though students don't have the guaruntee of winning the raffle prize, the money all goes to a great cause.