Happy 2010!!!

Hey everyone!
Wow..I actually didn't post anything in December :P
Anyways, happy happy new year! Hope you have an excellent year and do lots of cool things! :)
My year will be pretty darn busy...we'll see where it takes me :)
Talk to you later!
-Kristen

And so it goes...

Hey there, folks!
So, I've been working a lot lately, and trying get math done...it's quite time-consuming.
I've also been trying to avoid getting H1N1 since so many people around here have it. Honestly, though, I don't feel all that worried about. I think it'll all be okay.
Anyways, so it's November already...the year went by really fast. I'm looking forward to going to Ontario in December. Fun things will happen!
Aaaand...that's about it! Not a whole lot of new stuff going on right now!
Talk to you soonly!
-Kristen

Ho hum diddly dum

Sooo! It's October! Both my brothers have become another year older in the past few weeks, so it's been a little crazy around here :P
Work is getting quite tiring, though I still don't hate it (yet). I work every second weekend, and since I'm working on Halloween, the two girls I work with that day and I are hoping to come up with some sort of awesome costume-theme...thing to wear.
Still working on math...ick.
That's all for now!
-Kristen

September September.

So! This is the first September that I don't have to go to school.

I've been working a lot lately. It's definitely not a bad job. TODAY though was soooo busy. The power in Sorrento was out, so we had people lined up out the door and people leaving because there was no where to sit and TONS of dirty dishes and MILLIONS of food orders and our regular cook called in sick so there were only 3 of us working. It was insane, to put it lightly. I didn't get my lunch until 3 o'clock. Blah.

Anyways, so, the evacuation for Notch Hill might be lifted this weekend, so that's good. Everyone will get to go home. I, however, am sort of enjoying the company. It's kind fun!

I sold a few more CDs since the release party, so that's good.

ANYWAYS...so that's about all I have to say right now.
-Kristen

End of the summer

So...summer's just about over. Everyone's getting ready to head back to school. Ick.

I still have math to finish! D:

Work is crazy, but it's not bad. I enjoy it, most of the time.

My CD release party went really well. Apparently there were about 75 people and I sold a bunch of CDs, which was cool.

So...the fires aren't really getting any better. My cousins and grandparents have been evacuated and we now have many pets and several new people staying at our house. Smoke is blotting out the sun, though, so it looks like sunset all day.

So...yeah! That's about all I have to say right now!
Have a lovely last day of August!
-Kristen

Right.

Okay, so I am busy.
I got a job at a coffee shop near my house, and I've been working A LOT. And then I'm still teaching swimming lessons. So, yeah. That's busy. But, I got my first paycheck today, which was awesome :)
Also, CD release party will be on August 28th. I've been crazy busy planning that.
THEN there's math to do (which I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on).
My goodness...this is crazy! I'm hoping things will get a little less hectic after the summer's over.
Some rather sad news: my cat, Max got his by a car yesterday. Now we only have one cat. I miss Max... :S
Anyways, I'm tired, so I think I'm gonna go get ready for bed.
Hope you've been having a great summer so far!
-Kristen

The summer...she is here.

Hey hey hey!
So it's July, folks. Canada Day has come and gone, and I have graduated, although I still need to finish math this summer :P
This week, I've been reading large amounts of new books...yay! And buying new CDs and such...because music is amazing.
YOU need to check out Dallas Green (also known as City & Colour). He's this amazing Canadian guy who write awesome songs and wears large glasses :P I got hooked on him and you will too! Woot! :P
Aaaand...yeah. There's not a whole lot of new stuff here. I'm teaching swimming lessons again this summer, and I'm gonna play my tunes wherever I can! :D
So yeah...have a lovely Tuesday!
-Kristen

GAH!

Alright so the album is done! Thanks to my dad and Rick :D
You can hear it here: www.kristenmcneilly.com
Yay!

Still working like crazy on schoolwork. Ick.
My laptop has Internet now, so I can send emails at all hours or play games 'til I'm too tired to move... :D Or I can sit outside and watch math videos.... :S
Have a lovely day!
-Kristen

Swamp-ed

Yeeeah...so things are pretty hectic for me right now. I have about 3 weeks to completely finish English 11/12, Socials 11 (+ exam) and math 11 (which I just started). GAH!
I applied for a small scholarship but I don't know who got it yet...
Grad is fast approaching...I have my dress already (and it's not super fancy! HA!). It sounds like there's not very many of us graduating now, though, so I don't know how that's going to work.
Anyways...yeah. Just a quick update to say that I'm pretty freakin' busy!!
God bless,
-Kristen

17!

So I am officially 17 today (my favourite number!). That's insane. That feels so old :P
I am spending my birthday eating my favourite foods and doing schoolwork, which is not very fun.
I bought a laptop online and it arrived yesterday, so my mom and Bri gave me money towards that as my gift. Kyle and Scotty got me a chocolate bar and a comic book though, so I still had something to open :)
Tonight we shall cake and tasty foods, and on Sunday, we're having a family birthday/mothers' day party, so that will be fun. :)
Anyways...I've got to go learn about WWII now, so yeah.
-Kristen

Post #115 :O

HOLA!
Hey there, how's it goin'?
Sooooo! It is April now! Golly, this year is going fast. I have soooo much schoolwork to do...ick.
We had our grad meeting, though, and got some details down about the weirdness that is a homeschool graduation ceremony/party. I only know 2 other people that are graduating :P
So, March, I went to Ontario and spent like, 4 and a half days recording some cool new tunes, which are turning out quite coolly :P They're not done yet, but I will post on several sites when they are :)
Now I'm super busy with school, church, youth group, and everything else in the entire universe. Oh golly. There's so much to do. Stress isn't fun. Ick.
Anyways, that's about all I have time for right now, but I'll post more when exciting things happen... :P
-Kristen

Rush n' such

Soooo...Welcome to March!

I've been pretty busy lately. But now that February's over, I don't have anything major to do until March Break, when I go to Ontario.

So, Rush (big youth conference in Kelowna) was this past weekend. It was pretty awesome! There were about 1500 people all together, or so, and we had our group of a little over 30. We drove to Kelowna on Friday evening, and got dinner on the way. Then we parked and got bussed to the Rush "Dome" (which is really just a giant barn-thing), where we met up with Bart (haven't seen him in a while!) and then Starfield came out! They were great! Shane Claiborne came out too, which was awesome. They also had this glass box that they lit fireworks in. :P Quinn and I walked around for a while at the back looking at all the t-shirts and stuff, and I ended up buying a Rush t-shirt, a Starfield t-shirt, a Starfield CD, a couple buttons, and a Starfield poster. :D We got back to our van at like 1 in the morning, and didn't end up getting to sleep until like, 2AM! So we were really tired. :)

Breakfast was at 9, so we had to get up at around 7 to get to the buses and then to the dome. We stopped at Starbucks on the way! :D Then this singer guy, Riley Armstrong (who's super funny), came out and serenaded us while the host, Joel, sent us off in groups to our different activities for the day. All the girls in our group ended up picking this "spa day" thing, which ended up including a catered lunch, free coffees, dance lessons (which I skipped, getting a coffee instead), hair and makeup tips (which included a free mascara!), nails, and a craft (I decorated a journal). So that was cool. Darby came at the end of the spa day because she was in Salmon Arm at a speech competition.

THEN! We went back to the dome and Starfield played again, and we had a snack and stuff, and Shane Claiborne spoke again, and then I got a Riley Armstrong t-shirt (AWESOME!) and a button. Aaaand...then Jon Buller/Corey Doak Band...thing...came out and played and then Fresh I.E. (this rapper guy) joined them. I'm not into rap, but they played a song at the end tha was awesome! :P

So, we went back to the church that we were staying at and hung out until like, 2 in the morning, and then Darb helped me wash my hair in the sink (haha!) and we finally got to sleep at around 3. Sandi woke us all up at around 6:30 in the morning with loud, annoying ring tones on her phone, and we had to pack everything up and clean the church, and load the vans and stuff.

Then we went to the dome and Starfield played again and Riley Armstrong played again (he did an awesome slow-mo guitar solo, which involved a drill...) and then the weekend was over... So, we got back onto the buses to get to our vans and then we went to Vernon and ate lunch at the mall and I got another Starbucks (:D), and then we drove back to the ministry centre, and went home.

So, the weekend ended up being amazing...God is so cool! It was almost as good as History Maker last year :) (I have pics on Facebook of RUSH if you haven't seen them and you're my friend on there)

And that's that! So, now it March and I have a LOT of school work to do if I want to graduate this year...ugh. And...that's all for now!
-Kristen

As the end of February nears...

So...
February is nearing its end. It was very busy, between Alpha, youth group, worship team, singing Oh Canada, writing tunes, hanging with friends, parties, church, PI Night, and birthdays, I'm pretty tired of doing stuff. So I get a few days off before our youth group heads down to Kelowna for the weekend. We've got a youth conference there (RUSH), which will have lots of cool stuffs.
So yeah, today is about schoolwork, which sucks, but must be done.
And that's about all the update I can give you at this point :)
-Kristen

February = Busy

SOOOOO! February is the shortest month of the year, but, ironically, it's also my busiest this year.
Friday I'm singing Oh Canada at the Canadian Juniors Curling Championship in Salmon Arm. Saturday I'm leading the worship at Mountain Top Experience church again.
Then there's Pi Night at church, where we eat pie and listen to tunes, which I might be doing some singing in.
THEN there are like, 3 fundraisers that our youth group is doing so that we can go to more youth conferences and stuff.
THEN we have an actual youth conference on the last weekend of February.

So yes...it's rather busy.

Aaaand...on the music front: I recorded a song with my cousin, Travis, this weekend, which is turning out pretty good. It's by no means done, but Travis is going to edit it and then add some drums! :) Also, planning to record (and re-record) in March when I go to Ontario. New album will hopefully be done by the spring! :D

And yeah...that's about it right now...
I actually sat down and watched the superbowl yesterday. Except Grandpa's sattelite cut out during most of the half-time show... :S The ads were great though...that's the best part! :D

I'll post more soon!
-Kristen

Hello hEllo heLlo helLo hellO

Hey there...so did you have a good 2008? I'm liking being able to write 2009 at the top of my papers now.
New Years was great...I was with Darb and Preston, and we watched tons of movies and went sledding at 4 in the morning, and played lots of games, and I stayed up for 24 hours straight. I didn't go to bed until 9 in the morning. :P
So...lots of stuff going on right now. School is back in session, because even though I said I would do school work during the holidays, who was I kidding? They're holidays...I took them off.
I've been sorta teaching myself how to play piano, because those lessons several years ago did nothing for me... and yeah...so that's cool. I wrote a song on the piano and everything! :)
I'm playing at the Mountain Top Experience church on February 7th, so that should be cool.
I've also been asked to sing the national anthem at a curling game or something, which I haven't made a decision about or anything yet.
Other than that, I've been watching lots of music and listening to lots of music and reading lots of comic books lately. Fun fun.
Sooooo...Have a nice day!
-Kristen

Merry Christmas and all that jazz

Hey hey! Soooo...Christmas has already come and gone! Can you believe that? Ugh. but ti was a good year, for me at least. I got a bunch of CDs and DVDs for my new portable DVD player (which I use EVERY DAY), and Mariokart for Wii. I also got some money to put towards my guitar fund. Woot! And um...yeah! So now I'm onto making plans for New Years. Sounds like it's gonna be a Darb/Preston/me thing at their house, which will be fun. Woot...2009! Hopefully I can graduate in the new year...that would be nice.
Anyways, I'm gonna go now...make some music, watch some movies...all that awesome stuff.
So...MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR (or HAPPY HOLIDAYS if you want to be all politically correct). :D
-Kristen

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... :D

Sooooooo...It is Sinterklass day! We pigged out on tasty Dutch treats this afternoon with Grandma and the fam, which was pretty awesome. Nothing beats chocolate letters, pepernoten and those little chocolate things with sprinkles on them! :D
So my trip to Ontario went well. I ate more fast food than humanly possible to ingest but it was good :P I had to get my fill! :) And oooooh the Pizza Hut! Still my favourite pizza.
Anyways, so I went to work with my dad on the set of The Listener, which was pretty cool at first and then once we hit twelve hours I was rather far beyond bordom...
Gram was having some health problems, so that kind of sucked...a lot. But she's doing a lot better now, so that's good.
My dad and I recorded two new songs, which are definitely some of my best recordings yet, so that's awesome! When they're totally done I'll post them somewhere for you to hear.
I had my first of many Christmases to come, which went well. I got a portable DVD player and lots o' cash to buy DVDs with. And Gram was able to make it to that so that was awesome. Uncle Al and Dan also surprised me by coming too, so that was great! :D
I also met my dad's girlfriend, Vanessa, who is very very cool. :)
Aaaaaaaaaaand...yeah! So I'm home now, and still a bit tired. But I've watched many movies in the past few days, and I have lots of new tunes for my iPod.
OH! So, I finished my psych 12 project, which means I'm done the course, and I got 100% on it, so my final mark is 96%! :D YAY!
Anyways...that's about it for now, so I'll write more soooooonly!
-Kristen

November

Sooo...'tis November. Blind Bay is getting gray and cold. Ick. I hate winter.
But I will be headed to Ontario soon (even though the winters there are much worse)! We shall have an early Christmas and feast upon Pizza Hut and Swiss Chalet! Woot!
Also! We are going to record two acoustic songs to put with my new single when it's finished! Whoohoo! :) Shall be good!
Um...yeah...so there's not a whole lot else to report. I've been busy. School is dull...but what else would you expect?
So yeah!
-Kristen

MEXICO!

SOOOO! I'm back! We made it safely between all the borders and such, but it was basically two days of travelling both ways, which was tiring and fairly dull. But Mexico was amazing. It was such an incredible experience! It was dirty and dusty and crazy! There are no seat belt laws (which is fun!) and tons of speed bumps (TOPES!). Every morning, we'd go to Sala (which means living room) for "morning devotions", and we'd go to the cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Coka-Cola was sold everywhere, and everything was cheap. I learned a lot of Spanish (although I still can't speak much of it). There were palm trees EVERYWHERE! There wasn't really a way for us to communicate with anyone from home, but the week went by pretty quickly. We were only allowed three minute showers, so you had to keep turning the water on and off...and we ate lots of pb & j in the visitors' lounge! :P There was also the "Tiendita" or the snack shack, where you could buy tasty things and pop during break. Overall...it was an incredible experience, and I'd like to go back at some point in the future.

Anyways...so here's what we did! :



So, last Saturday, we flew from Kelowna to Seattle, and then from Seattle to San Diego. We had to wait on the plane in Seattle because they're main ignition for one of the engines wasn't starting. But they fixed it, and after almost two hours, we finally got on our way. In San Diego, we checked into our hotel for the night and went out for dinner, which was really good, and had soft ice cream that looked like dog poop...which was a good source of entertainment for quite a while, because yes, we are immature. We stayed up late watching a John Wayne movie (:P) and then got up early to start our drive down to Vicente Guerrero. We drove through Tijuana, and stopped for lunch in Ensenada (we ate at a McDonald's...how exotic). We also kind explored a bit of the city. There was a little sort of plaza beside the ocean, so we sat there for a few minutes and got a whole bunch of pictures beside this massive Mexican flag (seriously, it was huge). Then we drove for a few more hours to Vicente Guerrero, where we got our rooms, unpacked and then went out for dinner to eat tacos. We went to a taco stand called "El Pollo Loco" (The Crazy Chicken), which was pretty tasty. Lorna also got us to try what she thought was brain. So we tried a brain taco. We late found out, though, that it was actually a face taco (bits of cheeks and chins and such). So we ate face. Heh... It was actually pretty good. It tasted like hamburger, but I was grossed out because we thought it was brain...



Monday, we went on a tour of the mission. Darby and I had breakfast duty, which means that we had to set up the tables for the visitors (us and the other groups) and then mop the cafeteria afterwards. After the tour, which was rather informative, we had work assignments for the afternoon. Preston and I were helping to clean up the cement from a little wall they were replacing. I was sooooooooooo dirty by the end of that! My legs looked tanned from all the dirt. And everyone knows my legs don't tan. So that's a big deal. :P It was good though, we worked hard, with a guy named Elias, who had knocked down the wall that morning. That night, we babysat for one of the houses in the orphanage. We were in Casa 6, which had 12 kids, but some of them were older than 16, so we had a fairly easy house.



Tuesday, Preston and I worked in construction again. We started by sifting sand for Elias and the wall, and then were sweeping the dust and stuff out of the rooms in the new addition they're building onto the Bible College, so that they could be textured and painted, which was another incredibly dirty job. Isaac, one of the head builder guys, had us drive his truck back and forth between the wall and the construction site to bring Elias tools and cement bricks, which was pretty crazy. Preston got to drive an old pickup truck in the middle of nowhere in the Baja...haha! :P Anyways, I worked in The Nuthouse that afternoon. They grow macadamia nuts at the mission, so I was working with a few other people cracking nuts. That evening, we went out to a migrant work camps about half an hour away from the mission, for "Adult Evangelism". When we were driving into the camp, all the kids chase the white vans because they know that people are coming from really far away to play with them. It was really cool and very fun! I blew bubbles with the kids for a while and then we had piggyback races, which the kids loved. Then, they set up a movie for the kids to watch and then one for the adults. They give out Bibles to the adults that want them and pray for anyone who wants to be prayed for. It was dark by the time we left, and then we went out to "Smokie's" (sp?) for tacos. I just bought a Coke, though. Everything is really cheap down there, which is pretty awesome! :P



Wednesday, I worked in the print shop in the morning, where we stuck all the inserts together to be mailed out to the US and Canada. That afternoon, Darb and I went on our first "Child Evangelism" together, which was incredible. It was basically helping a lady teach a VBS class to a bunch of kids in a neighbourhood. We would drive through while the teacher (we had Antonia the first day) would call the kids using a little portable amp thing. All the kids gathered at a church building, and when we got out of the vans, a little girl and her tiny little brother came up to Darby and I and gave us flowers. It was so cute, and a really cool experience (Darby told this story in Sala on Friday). Then, we went in and sat with all the kids (we had about 60 come that day), while Antonia sang songs with them and prayed and such. Three little girls globbed onto me...they were really cute! One sat on my lap and studied my skin because I'm so white, and one played with my hair. She picked a hair elastic off her wrist and did my hair with it. I wore my hair that way all week until the elastic broke :'(. Anyways, so they kept touching my face and playing with my hair and looking at my glasses and stuff. They kept saying "bonita" but I didn't know what that meant until later, when I found out it means "beautiful". That was probably the highlight of my trip. After the VBS class, the kids line up with their own cup and spoon at the back of the van, where we pour them a glass of milk (powdered...ew) and give them each a spoonful of peanut butter, plus whatever snack the teacher brought, which in this case was individual packs of pistachios (sp?). I handed out the nuts, while Darby scooped the milk, and a lady named Catherine from another group (she was really cool) did the peanut butter. We ran out of milk near the end and one little girl hardly got anything at all, which makes you feel horrible, because really, it's the only source of nutrition they get, and the vans only come by once a week. One little girl that we gave milk to knew how to say thank you in English ("dankooo"), so she kept saying it and the other kids thought it was funny, so when we were driving away, they all chased the vans yelling "dankoooooo!". A few of them spilled their milk because they were running so hard...



Thursday, I worked cleaning in the kitchen. Jose (he's so cool!) who does a lot of work in there, had me and and a lady named Wendy washing windows and counter tops and such. We went on child evangelism again that afternoon, but I ended up getting sick to my stomach from the lunch at the mission and Lorna got Carmen (the teacher) to cut the class short because I had to go back. I felt pretty bad about that, but there wasn't much of a choice, and all the kids got their milk and peanut butter, so it was okay. Later that evening, we went to another adult evangelism, which was really cool. We played with the kids a lot and when the movie started, two little girls sat on my lap the whole time. They were smelling my hair and asking what colour my shampoo was! :P They were surprised when I told them it was blue! :D After the movies, we prayed with some of the adults and then they were given Bibles. It really felt like something was accomplished that evening.



Friday, I worked in the Nut House in the morning, and then we packed some stuff up. I bought a hoodie and some souvenirs at the gift shop in the mission. We stopped at the market in Vicente Guerrero to buy some stuff. I got a cool hat and bracelet and some gifts for people. Then we headed out to the beach. It was so much fun! The water was the perfect temperature and we waded in a bit and looked for shells and stuff. It was amazing! After that, we went back to the mission and rinsed off, and then went out for dinner. Brendan joined us for that. We went to a little store by the mission after that and Darby and Preston bought massive glass bottles of Coke for a dollar! :P



Saturday, we packed up, cleaned the visitors' centre and left early in the morning. We stopped at the "Bufadora" or the "blow hole" in Ensenada on our way back, which is like this little crevice in the rock where water shoots out every 30 seconds or so. It was pretty cool! There were lots of vendors who would try and get you to buy stuff from their stores...they were rather annoying. There were tons of Bob Marley posters and t-shirts and stuff...one guy even "had Bob Marley's canned appendix"! HAHA! :P Anyways...so we kept driving through Ensenada and Tijuana and then we waited in line at the border for about 2 hours, while vendors on the street tried to sell you crappy ceramic pumpkins and crucifixes. We bought some "churros" (sp?) that are like super-fatty doughnut sticks...they were soooo good! :P Once we got passed the border, we drove to our hotel and stayed there for the night. We also enjoyed our unlimited showers! :D

In the morning, we slept in a bit and then packed up the last of our stuff to leave. And then we flew back home!

Overall, it was an incredible experience. I did so many new things (eating face, driving around without seat belts, eating rice pudding, flying on a propeller plane from Kelowna to Seattle...), and had a lot of new experiences that changed my life. It's weird to think that people live like that, and they're not very far away. I also met some very cool people: at the mission, at the camps, and from the other volunteer groups that came down.

One thing I found interesting was that a lot of the kids in the camps didn't know how to be held. Most of them were fine to piggyback but if you picked them up, they would keep their legs straight instead of wrapping them around you (which makes it hard to hold on!). It really made me realize that a lot of those kids don't get time with their parents, who work usually 6 days a week to make just enough to get food for their families.

This trip seriously was an eye-opener. You think you know what goes on because you see all those World Vision commercials and stuff, but you never really know until you get there. There are pictures from my camera up on Facebook so you can see the mission and stuff, and the title of this blog is a link to the mission's website. I'm hoping to get more pictures from other people's cameras up on facebook soon, so I'll keep you posted.

Now, all we need are some palm trees in BC!
-Kristen

Shuswap Idol

Whooooohoooooo! Sooooo...I won second place in Shuswap Idol! Woot! That's $250! Yay! It was great! I had a lot of fun and I competed against some great singers. I think everyone was deserving of what they won and I'm glad I got to be a part of it this year!
So, on Friday night I sang "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down. On Saturday I sang "Every Little Thing" by Delirious?. And today I sang "Hear You Me" by Jimmy Eat World, which I also sang at the Blue Water Music recital at the beginning of the year. I have videos of all of my performances, so I'll try to get those onto youtube soon.
Anyways, so that was pretty great! Darby won a whole bunch of ribbons with her goats and her photos and stuff, and Preston won some too, I believe.
The whole youth group came out on Friday night to see me play, which was really cool! They were all super supportive.
Sooo now I can breathe easy and play songs other than the ones I performed and...yeah! Yay! That was great!
Talk to you soonly!
-Kristen