The One Week Update

Weeeeeelllll....I've been in Ontario for a week now and it's SUPER busy :P It's fun though. Get to do lots of things I haven't done in a while. I've eaten out A LOT. I've had pizza three times and I've had A LOT of chicken fingers and fries (because chickens have fingers...) and I've been to a lot of different places. We went up to my dad's friend/boss Rick's place on Monday night and got to jam on his LES PAUL!!! That was rather wondeful. He's also got a nice Telecaster and my dad's drum set is there so it was fun! What else, what else...? Um...tonight, we're going somewhere with "the girlies"...not sure where though...no one will tell us. I'm at Toni and Sean's right now and I got some CDs!!! I miss HMV. Lots. So I got the newest Finger Eleven CD, a Feist CD and the new Rivers Cuomo/Weezer album, which has all demos from over the years. And then for Christmas, Toni and Sean got me the new Sleddogs CD!!! Yay! Been looking for that one for a while. Now I just need their first album! Anyways...I should probably go now. My dad is picking me up soon and then we're going out for lunch. Talk to you all soonly!
-Kristen

Ontario Update

Hello there! So I'm currently at Jess and Sam's house in Oshawa, Ontario!
Last night, we had a birthday dinner for Aunt Sharon, which was rather fun!
But, I didn't end up having time to get back to my dad's to get stuff before heading off to Jess and Sam's for the night, so I didn't have any clothes or anything and my phone died at like, 8 o'clock. So that sucked because the charger is at my dad's place right now.
SO! Now, I have the day to myself at Jess and Sam's and...yeah! I had a shower so I'm all fresh and not...plane-y. The flight was rather uneventful. Boring as usual.
So yeah!
Now, I think I'm gonna go watch a movie or play some Wii!!! :)
Hopefully I can update again soon!
-Kristen

December

Well then, it's December already! I leave for Ontario tomorrow morning!!
I got 73% on my math exam and my overall math mark is 84%, so that's good!
I also passed Bronze Cross on Saturday as well as my Red Cross babysitting course a few weeks ago. So I'm very proud of myself right now! :)
What else, what else...? Um, church is going great. I'm a regular Sunday School teacher/helper person...thing. So that's cool! I have my own group of kids (aged grades 2-4) and I teach them stuff every Sunday so that's fun. Um...I'm going to go see Amanda Bentley play in Kamloops today! And it's about time! Been waiting to see her live for a while now! :)
Christmas is coming and I hope everyone has a good one! I'll be in Ontario but we're having our BC Christmas on the 28th. Uncle Rich and Auntie Beth are coming for Christmas too!!!! Yay!
Anyways, I've got to get going. I need to finish packing and such...
-Kristen :)

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow

Well, there's about a foot of snow here now. Just in time for the Sorrento Light Up tomorrow night. That should be fun. It was last year! Our church does the music for it and then all the shops in Sorrento are supposed to turn their Christmas lights on at the same time. Then we have fireworks and hot chocolate and Santa comes in on the fire truck and hands out crappy mini candy canes! It's cool! :P
On Saturday, I have another 4 hours of swimming lessons. :S I cut my time on the endurance swim for 19 minutes down to about 15 minutes! That was rather awesome.
Anyways, I started Social Studies. It's really boring. When am I EVER going to use history in my life? there are a few paragraphs that area atiny bit interesting but it's so pointless!!!!!!! Plus, they're just reteaching it over and over again. dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.
ANYWAYS! Well...my math exam mark is supposed it some in about a week or so. Can't wait to hear it. I hope I did well.
I should probably go now but I'll post more soon!
-Kristen

Blowing In The Wind...

Why did most of BC's power go out yesterday? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.
Sunday night, we had dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's and when we were leaving, the wind was insane! It was picking up rapidly! And wind is strange for our area because we're so deep in the mountains. I slept over at Darby's (because we had to finish our game of Kitchener-Waterloo-opoly) and we slept in the basement and watched movies (That Thing You Do and The Muppets: The Frog Prince) and listened to the wind. It sounded like a hurricane and I am SO glad we got our roof redone last month so that our shingles wouldn't be littered across Blind Bay!!! At one point, we heard a few loud noises but we figured it was just a tree branch or something.
The next morning, we got up and it was still windy! The boat was flipped over and had blown about twenty feet from where it had been. There were buckets and stuff across their lawn and their neighbours. When my mom came to pick me up, she said that a tree had blown down across the shortcut to Auntie Sue's house and someone had literally driven through it.
On the way home, we had to drive around a bunch of piles of branches and stuff. It was crazy! And then, at about 2, when I was just about to go onto the internet to write my practice exam for math, the power went out. Yay. So I went over to Grandma's to use her computer since their power was still on. I was about 3 pages into it when their power cut out too!
After phoning BC Hydro, Auntie Sue came back with a report that there were over 200,000 homes in BC without hydro. Yay.
So I went back home and drew a picture for art by candlelight and ate warm (not fully reheated) chicken and drank milk. It gets dark so early! It was pitch black by 5.
Anyways, we got lucky and the power was back on at around 7. I did get to do my practice exam, which was incredibly good because I had to go in and write it this morning. I think I did pretty well. There were a few things I didn't know but for the most part, I knew it.
SO! Today, Beauty & The Geek is on. Must watch it. And then Darby, Preston and I have the lame Red Cross babysitting course. Ugh. It's so boring. But it gets you a certificate. That's all I want. And it applies for school.
Report cards come soon....
Preston got chosen from Air Cadets to do a thing at the Salmon Arm Rememberance Day celebration thing. I can't remember what exactly it's called that he did and I didn't get to go because I have church duties, but he looked all awesome in his uniform, with his rifle. He totally deserved that. And apparently he did really well! YAY! GO PRESTON! :D
Anyways, that's all for now. I need to go...do something. We had youth band last Friday. Darby, Preston, Ty and I played 3 songs to the four people that showed up. But it was still really fun! Music rocks. And then we played some games. Haha...that was fun. Okay, I'm gonna go now!
-Kristen

New stuff

Hey folks. No pictures this time. Don't have any new ones as of yet.
Halloween was cool. I was Eighties Girl. There's a picture of it on Darby's facebook and I think that if you click on Pictures Of Me under my profile picture, you can see it. I helped out with the Harvest Fest party at our church and then there was a little youth group party afterwards. Darby and Preston did the games for that. It was pretty cool.
I started taking the Red Cross babysitting course in Salmon Arm with Darby and Preston. We already know everything (literally) that they teach you but you get a certificate and it applies for school.
Friday I took three LONG math tests in Salmon Arm at the EOP office. I don't think I did very well on them, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. First report card comes soon. My math exam is on November 13th. Hopefully, that will go well.
Friday night, we went bowling with the youth group and then, at the last minute, we went to see Bee Movie, which was much better than I'd expected it to be. That was pretty fun. But I ended up staying up really late, which probably wasn't smart because there was swimming in the morning.
Which leads me to Saturday. I started Bronze Cross. If I pass, it's worth phys. ed., career and personal planning, and 2 high school credits. Well, staying up late and not having swam since August worked against me. I didn't make the endurance swim (12 laps/24 lengths) in under 18 minutes. I did it in 19 and then after that, I had a horrible headache and I felt sick, so I laid down on the side of the pool and then Reid, our instructor, came over and asked if I was okay. I said no (because I wasn't) and he said he was going to go get me oxygen. Okay, so yeah. That was pretty scary. But by the time he got back, I was feeling much better. So that was good. I drank a glass of water and was able to get back into it again. Hopefully, I can still pass and he won't think that I'm not good enough. Because I'm good at everything in the class, but yesterday was just NOT my day. When I got home, I was really tired so I went to bed early.
This morning was church. That was pretty interesting. We had all the kids in the same class because Sandi was at the Women's Retreat so there was no one to run the older kids' Sunday School class. It was fun though. And the worship team did really well. It was a cool week since the Three Susans and three of The Talonz were playing. Plus they picked really good songs.
Anyways, now I'm pretty bored. And I have to go!
-Kristen

Mario

My Mario cat. Little Striped-y Kitten.

He was my favourite cat-o.
This is my smiley Kirby dog.
Kyle and Scotty on the couch a couple weeks ago.
Well, Mario's gone. We had to put him down because he started peeing on things. He was the greatest cat in the history of the world. I miss him sooooooooo much. We all do. He was almost 11 years old and I've known him longer than I've known most people. Yesterday was such a crappy day. Little Mario cat. He had so many names. He was Mario, Miffy, Mivvy, Mario McMivvens, Bartholemew Mivvens, Stripo, Ninnamo, Lalow...The list goes on forever. Don't even know how we came up with all those names. It's in the Spencer blood, I believe.

So, my Mario is gone and we cried lots. I loved him. He's burried in our backyard.

Anyways, school's doing pretty good. I'm almost done math. My exam is on Nov. 13th so pray for me then. Scott's baby shower at church is this Sunday. Should be cool. He's growing up really fast. He's only a month and a bit old and he already responds to things. He tried to smile if you smile at him, too.

Anyways, I'm still not totally sure what I'm gonna be for Halloween. We'll have to see.

All for now. There's new sites on my facebook account and for lots of information, go here: http://www.freewebs.com/kristenmcneilly I'm updating that a lot. It's got ALL the links to my sites and to some sites of other artists that I've met and such. Like Amanda Bentley, Sleddogs and Megan Slankard. Anyways, yeah. I guess that's all for now.

-Kristen

Happy October!

My henna tattoo from the Fall Fair. This a crappy picture because I had to take it with Bilbo, my crappy camera....Enjoy.
This is my room, in case you were randomly sitting there one day thinking, I wonder what Kristen's room looks like. So there's my wall of photos sticky-tacked to the wall and the wonderfully wonderful Relient K poster and then (in order) there's Maroon 5, James Blunt, Avril Lavigne, Eragon and Steve Vai posters. There's my crummy old blinds on the door and one of Nana's old scarves. Willow Tree angels on the shelf. Some of my many hats (camo, The Beatles and Green Day), more posters...Lots of random stuff...
This is possibly the greatest picture ever. Seriously...it's awesome.
Well...Not much new lately. Most of my updates are on Facebook, so you can check there if you're missing something. If I'm not your friend on Facebook and you personally know me, add me. Please....
I'm pretty sick of math. It's the only subject I'm doing right now and I'm just trying to get it done. I'm halfway through right now. It's so boring and most of it is completely pointless. I don't want to be an engineer or anything. Radicals to the power of three are not really gonna come in handy when it come to music. But I'm just trying to get through.
Scott's doing well. Kyle's doing well. Everyone's doing pretty well. i'm doing pretty good. Trying to sort a few things out with myself right now, but I'm good.
Anyways, I'm not all emo, don't worry. I'm just thinking, writing a lot. Reading WAY TOO MUCH. I currently have six books and six CDs out of the library. Keeping myself busy.
Well, I'm gonna go now. Hope you have a great day! Great week! Great month! Whatever! I'll write more when I have something to write.
-Kristen

Scott Richard Sheehan

Me holding Scott
Bri, Kyle and Scott
Sleeping Scotty
Scott
My mom and Scott

HELLO! Alright, so yesterday morning, my mom went in for a c-section and Scott Richard Sheehan was born! He's 7 lbs. 14 oz. and he's rather cute! He's healthy and he's doing very well! My mom's doing well too! She's recovering quickly and soon she'll be able to come home!!

I was at my cousins' house since 7 in the morning yesterday. Today is my cousin, Travis's birthday. He's seventeen! GAH! He had all his friends over for a big party last night and it was so fun! We had fireworks and a bonfire and then we did all this crazy dancing and moshing in the basement with a blacklight and a strobe light! It was so crazy! There were like, 20 of us crammed into the basement, bashing into each other and it was so fun! And then when everyone had gone home at like, 11:30, we all crashed and slept in until around 9am! It was awesome.

SO! My weekend's been pretty crazy so far! Haha! It's great!

-Kristen

News

Well...Things have been pretty crazy lately.
This past weekend was the Salmon Arm Fall Fair, which was really fun! A girl from our church, Raquel, won the "People's Choice" award in the Shuswap Idol contest and a guy from the other church we went camping with was also in it. Next year, I'm hoping to be in it as well.
I rode on a ferris wheel for the first time ever (and yes, I screamed) and Darby and I ate a huge bag of cotton candy and we bought fudge and other yummy things. I entered my acrylic painting that my Dad helped me with into the fair but it didn't place. I also entered the collage I used for my album cover and it won FIRST PLACE!!! woot woot!! So I won $6. It will get mailed to me...
My mom was in the hospital with high blood pressure on Friday night. She's fine now but she's on bed rest until the baby's born.
I've started school and if all goes well, I'll be done math, socials and science by the end of November and have the rest of the year to focus on music and art.
So the bad news that's kind of shaken everyone up is that a guy from Bri's work and the ex-husband of Pastor Rueban's daughter, was in a car accident on Monday (I think) and was killed. No one else was involved in the accident but it's just pretty tragic. The funeral was today and Bri's entire plant shut down to go to it. I only met him once breifly but he was pretty nice. So yeah. I mean, there's a car accident out here every day but it's never happened to anyone we knew, so this is kinda crazy. I'm madly praying for their family, especially for his two kids (they go to our church and are really great kids).
So anyways, happy thoughts...I had guitar lessons today. Ryan's teaching me some pretty awesome stuff now. Lots of Nirvana, The Beatles and Kings Of Leon. Very cool.
I'll post pictures soon of fair stuff and whatnot.
SO! Have a good rest of the week and I'll post more soon!
-Kristen :)

Aloha

Hey folks.
SO! Another year of homeschooling commences! I'm not doing grade 11 English this year because if I go to King's next year, I'll probably have to sit through it again, so I'm just going to work on grade 10 stuff this year. I'm starting school today and if all goes as I planned, I will finish each subject in under a month.
I started guitar lessons! It's great! It gives me new things to play and I play better when someone's teaching me how to do it. So that's awesome.
Anyways...I've got to go eat breakfast and start school-ness...
Have a good day!
-Kristen

News

K! So home school meeting was today. New teacher. She's nice. Very thorough. Knows what she's doing. I have lots of courses. Apparently if I were to work at this rate and stay homeschooled, I could graduate a year early. That would be cool. I still kinda want to go to King's though.
So yeah. English 10 exam results: 89% on the exam and 90% overall for grade 10 English. So I'm going grade 11 this year. Very cool. I'm hoping to be able to get an entire subject done in about 20 days, max. So That would be great if I can stick to that plan.
Gotta go eat dinner.
-Kristen

Well..

Howdy. Well, school starts next week. Ugh. I'm really not looking forward to that. Hopefully, next year I'll be able to go to KCS because that would be awesome.
Okay, Here are some new bands for you to check out: StorySide:B, Johnathan Rice, Brett Dennen, and Sleddogs. Sleddogs are awesome. Their new CD just came out on the 28th and it's in HMV's if you're interrested. If we had an HMV, I'd have bought it already but right now, I'm sticking to listening to it on Myspace and such until I can get to an HMV (which means Kelowna).
Moving on, camping with the youth group was pretty fun. Sandi and Cynthia planned a huge Amazing Race thing. We were in teams of four (ours had 5) and we had to complete the outragious tasks as fast as we could. Our team (The Delta Squad) came in first on the first day but we ended up tying for 5th/6th, which was still pretty cool. There were 8 teams total. Our team consisted of me, Amanda and Aryanna and then Kevin and Bryden from the other church we were with. It was pretty cool :) Some of the tasks were insane. Like the one where we had to go find 20 people to give us random sentences. We also had to paint our faces like clowns and run to the main gates (which was a good 10 minute or so walk) and ask the lady there what her middle name was. It was Lynn, by the way... :P Anyways, because of all the running and the fact that I was not prepared and chose only to bring evil shoes, I am now the proud owner of seven fairly disgusting blisters. I've named them Larry, Harry, Jerry, Popeye, Marvin, Chester and Clyde. I've named my bloody friends.
Alright...so now, I'm beginning my inner panic because I had to switch my iTunes library over to my other harddrive and therefore, it lost ALL my ratings on all 6000 songs, as well as my playcounts and playlists. Um...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! :'( So um...since it took me about a year to get it that way in the first place, I'll have restored all my data by next summer. This SUCKS. If you have any ideas, let me know because I want my iPod (dear old Howard) to be back to normal. *runs away to cry*
Alrighty, talk to you all soon! (not that anyone actually reads this, but, whatever)
-Kristen

#75

Darby's foot...

Me

My and my new little camera

me and my new little camera, again...

The VBS Staff. I'm in there between Darby and Caroline.

Well, hello there! So my mom and I are the new Avon reps for our area so we're selling Avon now. Not as creepily as the lady on Edward Scissorhands, though. So on the last campaign, there was this cool little 20$ digital camera. It holds eighteen pics at a time, has no screen and is pretty much the crapiest digital camera ever. It rocks. It's really small and it's cool. So all the pics except for the VBS one are from that little camera. I'll name him Bilbo.

The last picture is one of all of us that worked on VBS. So yeah! thought you might like to see that.

Anyways...so Toni and Sean are still here. Mark and Marci left yesterday.

My task for you: go on YouTube and search for Kings Of Leon and watch all their music videos and then watch the one of them with Eddie Vedder. It's soooo cool. They're an AWESOME band. I recommend On Call, The Bucket, Four Kicks and King Of The Rodeo. The beginning of the King Of The Rodeo video is kinda weird but the song starts at like 40sec. or something. So yeah. An awesome band. Just discovered them. They rock and they rock and they rock. It's three brothers and a cousin and the singer has an awesome voice and they're soooo cool! I bought two of their videos off iTunes and then Toni and Sean bought me their newest CD when they were in Kelowna yesterday. Seriously worth checking out.

Okay...anyways...It's been kinds cold here for the last few days. like...warm but not warm enough to swim or anything. We've been staying up late and having campfires everynight.

Biggest news lately: two CD reviews!

Megan Slankard emailed me because I sent her my two CDs. She really liked Losing Insanity and she said I have a real talent as a song writer and to keep going because I'll just keep getting better and better. Her favourite songs were "Yourself", "Flower" and "A Plea", and she said I have "a knack for intriguing melody!" So that was very encouraging!

Second, I met a girl named Angel on myspace and she's trying to get a record deal. She said she really liked my music and advised me to go to mbc-star.com and get it reviewed for free. So I emailed them and Alan Garrett, the boss of MBC (Music Business Connections) emailed me back within a week. He listened to all my songs and said I have great talent for songwriting and that I'm distinctive in my voice and sound. He also said that I would definitely improve over time and that he "can imagine you being recorded someday in a professional setting. You would sound great." He gave my a bit of advice for the future and said that he really liked the vocals on "Is Heaven Really As They Say?", "A Plea" and at the end of "Happily Troubling".

SO! That's some pretty big news for me. Thought you might like to hear it. I'm also continuing to get positive feedback here in Blind Bay from the people at church. Carol said that she was listening to my CD in the car and when she went to take it out, there was an Avril song on the radio and she thought that the CD hadn't come out yet...so that's kinda cool. I just hope it was on old Avril Lavigne song because her new stuff is pretty much crap...

Anyways...that's all for now. I'll probably write more soon. Hope you're having a good summer! I know I am!

-Kristen :)

um...

Howdy...so there's not much new here. I've been swimming again lately and there's a new dock at our beach, which gives us a choice between the awesome new dock and the bigger, older, scratchier, harder-to-climb-onto dock. Which do you think we choose?

Bri's parents are coming tomorrow for ten days and his brother and wife are coming for a week. So that should be fun.

Anyways, I don't really have much else to say. There isn't much new around here. Same old, same old.

Have a good weekend.
-Kristen

News

Alright! So VBS is over. It was an extreemly busy week! I was a leader for Blue Group #2 and we had 10 kids between three of us, plus the other ten kids that were in the first blue group. It was a great experience though!

The week before was really busy after Canada Day with preparations for VBS. We had to paint another banner and on the Sunday before, I ended up helping out until nearly midnight with getting all the tshirts made for the volunteers! It was crazy. The Tuesday we had a VBS meeting and then on the Wednesday, I went cherry-picking with the Peters family and then we all went swimming afterwards, so that was fun! On Thursday, I went swimming with Brendan, so I've pretty much been swimming nonstop since the Wednesday.

SO! Monday the 9th was the first day of VBS at the bottom of the hill (so I walked down) and then all the kids arrived. Our group was ages four and five, mostly. The first day was pretty hectic since we were all trying to figure out what station was where, but the second day was much easier. I went swimming with Darby afterwards, everyday and Brendan would usually join us, since he had to watch a kid named Joey. On the Wednesday, we all went over to Pam Friedell's house (which is right on the lake) and swam there, which was fun. The Tuesday, we literally swam for four hours. It was crazy! Thursday, Ty actually joined us but not for long and then on Friday, we had a major waterfight in the park since that's where the last day of VBS was held. I'm not sure why but most of the kids were ganging up on me. Like I was the easy target or something...but we were all COMPLETELY soaked by the end of it!

Sunday was the church's tenth anniversary, so I went to that. There was a big barbecue afterwards. On Saturday night, one of my second cousins, Tim (from Ontario, who I've never met before) showed up at Grandma's with two friends. They're biking across Canada and started in Vancouver. So Tim, Andrew and Aryan came to church and then we (plus Carolynn) all went to White Lake afterwards. I've never been swimming there and it was really nice! Darryl and Lona (from our church) brought their new boat and we got to go tubing! We were there for nearly six hours! Darby and I had originally planned to go swimming at the bottom of the hill with the Peterseseseses...but they decided to go boating instead so we hitched a ride with Auntie Sue up to White Lake.

Anyways! VBS was a really cool experience and I got to know some really interesting kids! There was another kid named Preston, who was really really cute and funny! I think he ended up being my favourite. But yeah! Each kid had their own story and their own way of dealing with each activity we did at Vacation Bible School. So it was interesting to see how they would react.

And now? I'm really bored. I got to go to Darby's for a bit yesterday but I'm not sure what the rest of the week will bring. I want to go swimming...
-Kristen

The Past Few Days...

Alrighty! So! My report card: all A's except for a B in Science (which is a very high B). I don't know my mark for my English exam yet though. So I'll let you know what I got when I know what I got.
So yesterday, I hung out with the Peters family (and the Reutlingers to a lesser extent) and we hung out for a bit and then went cherry picking (which was hot and buggy) and then we went to De Mille's farm/market thing and I bought Boylan (the best pop EVER) for the four of us (me, Jade, Ty and Brett) and then we went back to the Peters's house (throwing banana peels on the way) and then we had lunch and pitted the cherries with this cool little device thing and then Brendan got off work so we all hung out on the computer doing "The Impossible Quiz" (see addictinggames.com) and then we all went swimming for like...2 hours! YAY! It was really fun :) And...um...yeah!
VBS starts on Monday so we've been pretty busy helping prepare for that. I'm a group leader :)
Alrighty then! All for now!
-Kristen
P.S.- two Louder Than Words videos are up on YouTube. Search Louder Than Words or Eight Days A Week or Down On The Corner...or all three and eventually you'll find the little mini clips. They're the same ones that are on Facebook so if you've already seen them, there's not really a point to searching.
Also: one new site to add to my list... http://www.monstergig.com/kristen_mcneilly

More pics!

Preston, Travis and Brendan R painting the water on the waves. They got the fun jobs!
Sandi washing out a paint tray with the hose, Kirby's one obsession.
Me adding glitter to the waves. I got my hair cut *professionally*. Not that you can actually tell in this picture though.
The Talonz again. Ty, Travis, Brendan O, Brendan R, Preston.
Um...a firework late at night. Of course, it doesn't get this dark until at least 11 now.
YEAH! So that's about it for Canada day. Last Monday, Darby and I helped with Zack's (he turned 4) birthday party. It was Cars themed and was insane but um...it was fun... :)

Anyways! ALL FOR NOW!
-Kristen

LATELY!!!

Walking in the Canada Day Parade in Blind Bay! I'm the one in entirely red.

The Talonz playing at the huge celebration thing afterwards.

From left to right: Ty, Travis, Brendan O, Brendan R, Preston

The float in the Reutlingers' driveway, all finished and ready to go.
Our giant banner! I drew most of it out and Darby, Sandi and I painted it. This is the theme for Vaction Bible School this year.
BAHAHAHA! Yeah, so this is Travis during "Float Painting Day" with um...chalk in his mouth...
Okay...SO! My mom was elected as float designer, so she...designed the float. Last Wednesday, Travis, Preston, Darby, Brendan R and Sandi all came over to help paint the giant pieces of plywood we were using for waves on the side of the float and to create a giant banner for the back.

That evening the guys threw together plans for a movie and then Travis, Preston, Darby, me, Brendan and Carolynn (I'll tell you about her in a minute), all went to see the late show of Evan Almighty. We were out pretty late.

K, so Carolynn is a girl from Germany who came for the summer to be like a nanny for a family from our church. She's eighteen and she's really nice! So yeah, we've been hanging out with her a lot lately. And since it's Canada Day she got to see fireworks that would be banned in Germany, so it was cool! She's getting some new experiences and she's been staying out late with us for like, a week now! whoo hoo!

Anyways, the next day, Sandi and Darby came over to finish the giant banner and paint letters on the waves. Everything turned out great :)

Friday night, I'm laying in bed with my PJs on and I was talking to my mom when the phone rings. And it's like 10 o'clock. No one calls anyone after like, 9 around here. So we pick it up and it's Travis and he asks me if I wanted to go over to his little "class party" thing because only four people ended up being able to make it and "Darby want's to know if you could also spend the night". So I got dressed again and went over to Travis's little late night gettogether. Four of his friends from his class were there plus Darby and Preston, and then he invited Carolynn and Brendan and Ty (because you can't invite one and not the other). So then, we had a bonfire and had s'mores and such and then we had a little fireworks show (which intrigued Carolynn). Darby brought her new goat (Ringo) over and Ty was sooo happy. It was funny :P Then, Travis and Preston got the strobelight out and we were all like "moshing" in the rim of the trampoline! IT WAS SOOOO FUN! :P We were like running around and you'd be standing there and suddenly someone would be in your face...it was insane. And Brendan R and Ty were doing like giant jumps off the rim of the trampoline into the circle of people and it was awesome! And then at like, midnight, the four guests and Carolynn went home and the four guys slept in the basement and Darby and I slept in the Lair of the Darbbins. So that was fun! Then, the next morning, I got dropped off back home and spent the day doing nothing in particular.

So then, at 4 on the Saturday, my family went over the the Reutlingers' for Float Assembly Day. Which, in itself, wasn't all that fun because Darby couldn't make it since she sprained her ankle while moshing in the strobe light (odd way to injure yourself). SO! When the stuff I had to do was done, I went over and watched the Talonz practice for a bit (which is Travis, Preston, Brendan, Brendan and Ty) and then Brendan R got me a guitar and I got to play with them a bit, which was cool. :) I discovered that Ty can sing and play drums and bass (as well as guitar) and that Brendan R enjoys jumping around during practices but he won't actually do it on stage... So yeah! That was a fun day :)

SUNDAY! The day we've all been waiting for! So I went to the early church service and then I got dropped off at the float and then I walked behind the float with Darbbins and a bunch of children that COULD NOT ration the candy to throw to the kids. So we ended up running out of candy before the end of the parade so the kids at the end were left with nothing. :( Then, I worked a few shifts on one of the games and watched the Talonz play their first set (which they did great on). Then, Darby got me lunch and we ate at like 2 and we were STARVING! Ugh. Then I took a shift at facepainting and then Darby and I went back to the "green room" (when the games were closing up) where there was free pop for volunteers and where the bands hang out. So we hung out with The Talonz and drank 7Up and whatnot. Then we had to go to the lesser green room and hang out but Travis, Preston and Brendan R went off and did something else. So it was just me, Darby, Carolynn, Brendan O and Ty (plus four chairs and a big table). So THEN! we realized that one end of the table was slightly sunken into the ground! so Ty squished all four corners in and then he decided to sink a chair...a flimsy plastic chair. Which he jumped on. and it cracked. And then he sat on it anyways and we laughed for like ten minutes! :P And then Darby and I realized that the back of my legs were fairly sunburnt (little did I know that I would hardly be able to walk later!). Anyways, then a guy dressed like Elvis walked into the tent and we all tried incredibly hard not to laugh. So we all laughed like mad for ten minutes when he left.

Okay, so then the Talonz played their second set (which was awesome because they played Holiday by Green Day and Ty sang really well!) and then I went home...

So then at like, 9, like a LOT of people went over to the Reutlingers' and we all watched the HUGE fireworks show from their deck! YAY! And now, I'm recovering from a bit of sunstroke and the fact that it hurts to bend my legs. Yay.

Alright, so reading that probably kept you occupied for a while! I'll post more pictures in a moment so you can see some of the other stuff we did...

-Kristen

Eight Days A Week, we pracitce Down On The Corner

Everyone that performed...
Preston playing Let It Be.
At the end of Down On The Corner
Eight Days A Week...
Louder Than Words (less a drummer)

HI! So last night's performance went awesomely! Despite missing a few words and my guitar's volume being WAY down at the beginning, it went really well and was a breath of fresh air after some amature performances (that will get better with practice). Preston also playes Let It Be by The Beatles as a solo performance. Darren played drums really well for us (with his awesomly weird hat on) and we sounded great! I might be able to get some videos up on facebook...we'll see...anyways...

Bri has a baseball tournament this weekend so I probably won't be home for most of it.

Thank you to Gram for sending me lots of gummies (which have fueled me this week) and the two awesome tshirts :)


Anyways, I've got to go now, but I'll write more soon!

-Kristen

Howdy all

Hi...so I'm officially done school, which is FLIPPIN' SWEET! I did one grade 10 exam and that was it! :D Tomorrow is the Blue Water Music recital which should be AWESOME! Darby, Preston and I are playing Down On The Corner and Eight Days A Week. We're goin' for the classics this time. We sound pretty good on both songs (better with a drummer which we didn't have for most of our practices) and it should be really fun!
The new Lifehouse CD was released on Tuesday and I don't have it yet. That is really quite tragic. So sad. I need to get to CD Plus because Zellers decided not to have it. Gr.
Okay, so I'm gonna go play Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 now. I guess I'll write more soon and stuff :)
-Kristen

Lake?

Kyle at the beach!
Me freezing cold...
My mom and Bri
The marina with its new docks...

Hi...okay so it's pretty flippin' hot here now. We've gone down to the lake a few times just to get cooler. Not that you can actually swim though. You might lose a leg or two from the bitter coldness.

Here are some pics of us at le beach "enjoying" the icy cold water.



Last night, my mom and I went to a play in Salmon Arm that Travis's school put on. It was REALLY good! They did a non-musical version of Les Miserables and it was awesome. Travis played the character called Marius and he was really good! And Brendan Osborne was in it too playing the main character, John Valjon (spelling?). It was really cool! The did sooo well and they had awesome costumes and everyone did really well! so that was cool :) woo hoo!



I also have one more link to add to my list of sites: http://www.garageband.com/artist/kristenmcneilly

Anyways, I'm gonna go now. I'll write more soon! School's almost done!

-Kristen

AVALANCHE!!!

Okay...so Avalanche was AWESOME! It was soooo cool! It was so incredible! There were like...at least 500 people there (probably more) and we were all having so much fun! Got to see some cool bands I'd never heard of: Jason Upton and EveryOther Band. We hung out in between concerts and speakers. It was sooo fun! We got to go to the mall (which is pretty darn big for out here) and we ate nothing but fast food for three days and we showered at the rec centre because we were billeting and we ran through random feilds and traded sweaters and stayed up til like...three in the morning for two nights. So yeah! It was awesome! I got to know more people from the youth group (which was awesome because they're all so cool) and we learned some British slang ( ;) hee hee!) and...we went to some cool workshops and skipped out on one of the concerts to go get iced capps and through leaves at each other and then we went to the late concert and drove back to the house (falling asleep on the way :P) and then we talked about nothing in particular until we couldn't hold our eyes open anymore! FUN! So yeah! Jessica and Amanda (my new friends) are insane and we were so crazy at the concerts! And then at the late concert we were like right at the front and when they started to play some good songs we were all jumping around like idiots with "the guys" (Brendan, Ty, Preston, Travis and Marshall) and the concert ended just as we were about to pass out from being soooo tired. We also ran around in fields and stumbled across an abandoned hobo-pad thing. It was weird. But hilarious and then we walked back and Brendan was wearing my Fender sweater so I stole his and then we were all throwing leafy things at each other and um...it was fun! So yeah! I'm gonna stop there for tonight because um...otherwise it'll take you a few hours to read! So yeah...all for now!

-Kristen

Pic#1: Random clown dude. Don't know why he was there but he liked his bubbles...

Pic#2: Amanda and Jessica and Mr. Bakery Man... ;)

Pic#3: There's a long story behind this one...but it's a picture of my camera bag strap and Brendan's knee...

Pic#4: Ty and Brendan in the trunk of the van with the awesome new shoes!

Pic#5: Um...Jade being weird.

Avalanche

Hi! So today I'm going to Avalanche (the HUGE youth conference in Kelowna) with our youth group (23 of us!!) and we're gonna be gone until Sunday evening. WOOT WOOT! It should be ultra-fun! So yeah! I'm bringing the "digi-cam" so that I can take so cool pics! You can see my friends :)
In other news...an unexpected scenario has brought itself up in our family recently and I have now been granted permission to tell of this event. My mother is pregnant... :) I was a bit bummed at first but, I'm getting used to the idea now and I'm kind of excited now. And it's a BOY!!! YAY! I was hoping for a boy! That makes rooming situations much easier. He can bunk with Kyle when he's older :) So...everything's changing out here. It's kind of crazy.
On the school front, I'm kind of behind in everything but I'm working like mad to try to finish by June 15th.
Facebook is soooooo addictive. I've found people on there that I haven't seen in over 3 years! And the groups thing...I'm in over 40 groups...because it's fun. I am, however, disappointed with some of the STUPID rules. Like, you get punished for having a fake name! What the $&#*%@!! That's soooo dumb. I'm forever going to be "Commander Kristen". Gr...And then you can only change your network twice and then you have to wait 60 days. So now I have to wait until the end of June to join the Kelowna network. Ugh...But it's cool. And I like that no onw can see your profile unless they're your friend. Um...yeah...so I'm gonna go now before I can't stop myself from talking about nothing. I'll be back in a few days!!!
-Kristen

Check it out

Search my name on Google :) It's cool...there's like a bunch of things that come up :D
So yeah...what's new? I'm officially done grade 9 math. And I'm at the beginning of science, socials and english. So I'm working really hard with that. I've got guitar lessons today. Should be fun. I also get to RETURN the math kit to the homeschool office.
So yeah! i'm pretty busy today so I gotta run. I'll post more soon!
-Kristen

New sites

Hey...so I've got 3 new sites on my...list of sites. Here they are:
http://www.isound.com/kristen_mcneilly
http://www.musicpostcentral.com/band.php?bandID=322
http://www.indie911.com/index.php?cID=85422
So yeah...woo hoo...check them out...random people keep adding me as a friend on isound...so yeah...
-Kristen

Stuff

1. Happy birthday, Sean.
2. I put a cool layout on my myspace so you should check it out.
3. My brithday is in 3 days!
4. My facebook is http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=774555243

Yeah...so that's about it for now...I'll talk to you wall later!
-Kristen

The Last Spike

Pic #1: Me at the Last Spike Place...Yes, I hammered it in.

Pic #2: Part of the Three Valley Gap Hotel and the righthand waterfall on the mountain.

Pic #3: The aftermath of an avalanche across the road from the hotel. It was cleared away before we got there.

Pic #4: More of the hotel with the lefthand waterfall behind it.

Yeah...so today, we were tourists. We drove an hour and a half (and more) past Salmon Arm to Revelstoke and saw a million incredible mountains and waterfalls on the way. We stopped at the Last Spike place-thing on the way, where they put the last spike into the CP railway. It was really cool :) Then we kept going and went into Revelstoke for McDonalds! YAY! On our way back, we went to the Three Valley Gap Hotel, which was pretty darn cool! Not that we stayed...we can't afford that! But the building itself is HUGE and surrounded by mountains and cliffs and a lake and waterfalls that come from the top of the mountain and there was a fairly fresh avalanche on the other side of the road...and it was cool! So yeah!

It was also awesome because when you're driving, there's all these waterfalls that come off the mountains and come right to the side of the road!

So yeah! It was pretty cool! Tomorrow, we're having "May Birthdays" with Bri's parents :) Should be fun!

-Kristen

Post # 60

Hey everyone! I've got new glasses! We got them at a really good price and they look cool! I didn't even have to get the stupid drops in my eyes! :D

Okay, so my glasses are more round and you can see my whole eye and they're like the same colour as my old ones. The prescription is VERY different. I could hardly read the top line of the chart-screen-thing with my glasses on, so I have a lot of getting used to do with my new ones. The place we went to was great! I got my eyes checked at one place but they didn't have any frames I liked and they were really expensive, so we went to another place and they were at least 30 $ cheaper! So I found frames I likes pretty quickly (and they were all on sale for 99$) and we already knew the kind of lenses I needed so it was REALLY easy and they had them done in 25 minutes! I'm probably going to get new lenses in my old frames too because then I'll have a backup pair. I got an awesome case for them too :)

Anyway, all for now!

-Kristen

Sick

Hi. I'm sick. This is great. I've had swolen glands since Thursday and now I'm all stuffy and I
have a cough. My fever's gone though...so that's good. I had to perform in church on Sunday with an incredibly stuffy nose, which was really hard, but everyone said it was like, my best performance... We don't have any pictures though : ( I'll make sure we have pics of my next performance though.





So Thursday, Toni and Sean (Bri's parents) came and they're staying for ten days. On Friday, we had this big youth night thing, which was really fun. Darby got to go and we played games ands stuff. Saturday, we all went to the BC wildlife park with Toni and Sean and Darby. It was fun! The wolves were out and we got to see a few feeding times and stuff. :) That evening was Shanan's 40th birthday so we all went to that and had lots of fun fun fun. Sunday was church and my performance and then we went for coffee at Grandma and Grandpa's house. And yesterday was Gamma Girls "Graduation" because we finished the whole program thing. It was fun! Sandi left the pizzas in the oven (in the boxes) and they caught on fire and Alexa and Janelle found them when they were looking in the new part of the church and then we all went over and aired out the building and salvaged what we could of the pizza (which was about three of six or something)...so yeah. It was fairly eventful. Later on we made some cool cards and bracelets and got our certificates. I contributed "Steadfastness" to the group during our ten week program. So yeah! It was cool. Today, I go to the optomotrist. Yay. But I think I need new glasses so that part's good. I just hate the eyedrops that make your pupils huge. :S





So yeah! That's about it for me. What's new with you guys?


-Kristen
P.S.- Pic #1: Me in front of the random giant guitar neck at the wildlife park.
Pic #2: Some cougars.

My sites

Hey folks! If you don't have a CD and you'd like to listen to my music, go on one of my many webpages (preferably myspace or purevolume) and listen. Any of them is fine. I want to get my playcount up. Add me as your friend on myspace too, because I don't know if any of you have pages. :)
-Kristen
http://www.myspace.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.purevolume.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.mp3.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.unsigned.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.peoplefisher.com/music/bands/69

News

Sooo...lately, I've been working my butt off with homeschooling. Report cards start in May, so I need to start getting things done which is hard because I need to teach myself the lesson and then do the lesson...yeah. But it's worth it because I'm doing well. I'll be playing in church on April 22nd, hopefully with the Louder Than Words crew (my cousins) but we'll have to see how that works out. I'm not sure what song I'm playing either.
Another scrap of news: I've officially eaten all my chocolate from Easter...which is really quite the tragedy.
Anyways...I've got to go start some social studies lessons...
-Kristen
P.S. - my sites/webpages:
http://www.myspace.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.purevolume.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.mp3.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.peoplefisher.com/music/bands/69
http://www.unsigned.com/kristenmcneilly
http://www.kristenmcneilly.com

EASTER!

Hey everyone! Happy Easter! Hope you had a great weekend and stuffed yourself silly with chocolate and other such goodies!
-Kristen

Pics

Pic #1: Me playing "Yourself"
Pic #2: "Louder Than Words" playing Hold My Hand
Pic #3: Me with my project
-Kristen