I am a few days late, but Happy Halloween!  I had an awesome time trick-or-treating with Min.  It was cold and windy outside, but luckily my costume was pretty warm.  Here we are!  See if you can guess what I'm supposed to be:



I'm my explorer and adventurer alter ego, Indi-anna Jones!  Min is an Olympic gymnast, same as last year.  She says she's been an Olympic gymnast every year since she started gymnastics when she was three.  She has to wear a leotard to her practices all the time, so you'd think she'd want to dress up in something else when she gets the chance, but I guess not!  She just loves gymnastics too much. 

At first I wanted to be Ginger Rogers for Halloween (the actress and dancer, not my guinea pig!) and I thought Min could be Fred Astaire, and we could tap dance up the driveways of people's houses and do a little routine when people opened their doors, and maybe they would be so impressed they would give us extra candy.  I ALMOST had Min convinced that being Fred would be awesome and she should abandon her gymnast costume just this once, but then Katie said she did not have time to make me a fancy 1930's style movie gown and a tuxedo for Min, so I had to think of something else.  When I first put my costume together I was wearing a straw hat, and when I asked Matt to guess what I was he said "a cowboy?"  Eek!  He said I needed a fedora hat to look like the real Indiana Jones, but I don't have one.  So I switched to a black hat to lessen the cowboy look, but when Min saw me she said I looked like a southwestern cowboy.  Which I guess is appropriate, since I borrowed the hat from Josefina.  Oh well...I just pretended I was Indi-anna Jones exploring the southwest and trying to blend in with the locals.

I'm off to eat more of my candy!  I have sorted it into three piles:  chocolate stuff like candy bars and M&M's, sweet stuff like Nerds and Smarties, and the icky stuff to eat only when the good stuff is gone (licorice, Good 'n Plentys, and Red Hots...I'm not a fan).

The maple tree in our front yard finally turned a brilliant golden yellow color this week.  It is very windy and the leaves are really starting to fall off now, so I watched it out the window for awhile today.  There might not be any leaves left when I get home from school tomorrow.  It is kind of sad.  I don't want all the pretty leaves to be gone yet.  It would be nice if autumn could last a little longer! 

At least Halloween is coming up in a few days!  Costumes and candy are just as good as colorful trees, don't you think?  That's the nice thing about life - when something good ends there's always something else to look forward to. 

I love fall.  It is one of the best seasons, I think.  The two best things about it are Halloween, and playing in pretty colored leaves!  The leaves here are all starting to change color and fall off the trees, so this weekend Min and I had a blast playing outside.

Here we are whispering to each other about a secret game we wanted to play.



We decided to pretend we were secret agents, and the tree was our hideaway.  We had to watch all the people who walked by below us looking for bad guys.  But nobody walked by so it got a little boring.



Then we tried to make "leaf angels" like we do in the snow!  



Then we scooped a bunch of leaves into a pile and jumped in it!  Min wanted to do flips and gymnastic moves into it, and I kept having to hurry out of the way before she squashed me!



Then a gust of wind came by and blew more leaves off the tree, and they were all falling down on us, like it was raining leaves!  It was cool.  We got pretty buried.  But then a little spider crawled onto Min's shoulder and she screamed like crazy, and I had to go back inside with her.  It was getting cold out anyway, though.




I hope everyone is having a good fall so far!

Guess what - our kitchen got a very rare workout today.  I helped cook real food, and we didn't even use the microwave!

When I went to visit Violet in Utah last winter, she had a cooking party for her birthday and it was super fun and didn't look too hard to do.  Then when I went to New York this summer and stayed with Livia, she gave me little boxes of yummy Italian pasta to bring back home and cook, just like she does.  Then when I went to Cincinnati after that, Hodel and I ate at the Skyline Grill restaurant and I got some special Skyline chili mix to bring back home.  So, you see what I had to do - I had to cook up all this great stuff!  Here I am with some of the cooking supplies!  I am holding my mini box of spaghetti, and there are boxes of lasagna and penne pasta, too!



I figured Katie would be a spoilsport about it all, because she doesn't like to cook, but she agreed with me that we should make the chili and pasta for dinner, and she even went shopping and bought ground beef and tomato paste and real green onion for the chili.  She was very scared to handle the raw beef, and wanted to make Matt do it, but he is out of town for work and I just couldn't wait any longer to have my Cincinnati chili and Italian pasta!  So I told Katie that we are girls, and girls are the best, and we don't need a man around to touch the raw meat for us - we can do it ourselves!  She finally agreed that I was right, and went and got some rubber gloves from the cleaning closet, so there was no way the raw meat would touch her skin!  Then she closed her eyes while she dumped it in the pan, because it was all bright red and icky looking, like fresh intestines,  EWW!!!!  Don't tell her, but I was glad she had to do the meat part and not me, even after all my girl power talk. :-)  Then there was a scary moment where I was afraid we would not be able to cook the chili after all, because Katie could not figure out how to work the new can opener to open up the tomato paste!  But she finally got it to work, and then we had to wait an hour and a half for the chili to cook on the stove.  

I was in charge of the pasta!  I got to watch for the water to boil and stir it!  I splashed some water on the stove while I was stirring, but I did not burn myself.  My glasses did get steamed up, though.



When everything was all cooked, we put the pasta on a plate, spooned the chili on top, then put tons and tons of shredded cheese and chopped green onion on top!  Mmm!  The table has too much stuff on top to eat at, as usual, so we had a picnic in the living room.  Our gourmet dinner was very, very delicious, and I ate so much I thought I was going to burst!



Now I will tell about the good and bad parts of cooking.  

The Good:
1.  When you cook real food, it makes your whole house smell yummy.  Pop Tarts taste good, but they do not smell good like hot, spicy-sweet chili when you heat them up.
2.  You feel proud when you have worked hard to make something yourself.
3.  Leftovers!!  There is so much chili, we will be able to eat it for two more dinners at least!

The Bad:
1.  The raw meat, of course. 
2.  It takes a long time.  It took over an hour and a half to cook dinner, and that is a long time when you are getting really hungry.
3.  Cleaning up!  Washing pots and pans, plates and stirring spoons and silverware for just one meal is a pain when you don't have a dishwasher.

So that was my cooking adventure!  It was very fun and exciting and yummy...maybe I will try it again sometime! 

I got to do something really cool today.  I got to go into the city to see 100,000 different colored paper airplanes (all recycled paper!) launched from the rooftops of big tall buildings downtown!  It was part of a big art contest the city is holding over the next couple of weeks.  A young man planned this event as his art project and has been folding paper airplanes with his friends and family for six months now to prepare for today!  He wanted it to be a fun event to make people happy and put everyone in a celebratory mood.

Here I am in the parking garage!  I dressed in a very bright and colorful outfit in honor of all the different colored airplanes and even brought my Rainbow Brite sprite, Twink, along, because this is the type of event that Rainbow Brite might have planned to help cheer up the world, I think!

 

There were sooo many people downtown!  They had the whole street closed off, so we could stand right in the middle of it!  I had to stay in Katie's tote bag so I wouldn't get crushed, but my head was peeking out so I could see everything.

We saw the green airplanes fly down first!  On the right you can see one of the people on the roof throwing them!
  

Then some yellow!  And more green!  There was blue and orange and some other colors, too, but we don't have photos of those.

   

And then, the absolute best part - the purple planes fell right above where we were standing!  There was an explosion of purple right over our heads!

               

I really wanted to get my picture taken on the street where all the purple planes fell, but I would have been trampled.  Sometimes being only 18 inches tall is a bit of an inconvenience, even if I am nicely sized for traveling in a tote bag.

I got one of the purple planes for a souvenir!  It has music printed inside it.  As the planes were falling, there were band members stationed throughout the street all playing a fun little tune called "Olsen Olsen" (not referring to Ashley and Mary-Kate, as far as I know!) and people were supposed to hum and sing along with the instruments as the planes fell.  You can listen to it on YouTube if you want, right here:

www.youtube.com/watch

It was a very neat day.  Here I am with my purple plane and Twink!

I had my very first tap dancing lesson today!  I got my dance clothes and shoes on Monday, and I've decided that tap shoes are the coolest shoes ever.  I wore them around the house all week so I could admire how shiny and beautiful they are.  I wish I could wear them to school so I could tap down the hallways.  It would be so fun. 

As soon as I got home from school today, I had to pack up my tap shoes and leotard so I could get to my first class on time.



But first I let Ginger Rogers examine my shoes before I put them in the bag.  I could tell she wanted to by the way she was looking at them and twitching her nose.  I think Ginger Rogers knows how to appreciate the exciting things in life, even though she is a quiet sort of guinea pig on the outside.



I started getting awfully nervous on the way to the class.  I had a whole herd of butterflies in my stomach!  I started thinking about how I am sometimes clumsy and always pigeon-toed, and maybe I would be a terrible dancer and everyone would laugh at me and the teacher would have to kick me out of her class.  I wished so much that Min was taking the class with me (she can't because of her gymnastics practices).

But as soon as I went into the studio and the teacher introduced herself, I felt better because she was so nice.  Her name is Miss Adams and she has a very soft voice, so you have to be very still and pay close attention when she talks.  We learned two moves called the shuffle and the ball change today!  I think I got the hang of it okay.  Everybody in my class is a beginner, so nobody felt bad about not being perfect right away.  I loved the noise that everyone's taps made on the wood floor when we did the steps together!  It was so cool.  I can't wait till next Thursday!

Wowie, wow....I am so excited right now.  I HAVE A PET!!  I am an official pet owner!  I've always wanted my own pet, but I never thought I would get one.  Our apartment doesn't allow dogs, Matt is allergic to cats, AND he's deathly afraid of all rodents.  And Katie thinks fish are icky, and says keeping a penguin in the bathtub or a dinosaur in the backyard is not going to happen.  So I figured my dreams of having a pet were doomed.  Until yesterday afternoon, when I got home from school and found this:




A guinea pig!  I guess she is just big enough that she is not too rodent-like, so Matt doesn't have to be afraid of her.  Katie said the guinea pig is my belated birthday present, because I was away in New York with Livia when I had my birthday back in June, so she didn't get to give me a present back then.  And it was worth the wait, because my guinea pig is the best present ever!  I thought very long and hard about what to name her, and then finally the perfect name came to me:  Ginger Rogers!  After Fred Astaire's very talented dance partner, of course!  I played with Ginger Rogers all day.





So far, Ginger Rogers does not appear to have much in common with her namesake.  She does not have much interest in dancing, I don't think - she prefers to sit in her house and twitch her nose and make nests in her bedding, and nibble on her food.  I believe she is more of a thinking kind of guinea pig than a dancing kind of guinea pig.  I would have said the same thing about myself a little while ago (except I am a doll, not a guinea pig, of course), but I'm starting tap dancing lessons next week!  So soon I hope to be a thinking AND dancing kind of doll.  When I get home from my first lesson I will show Ginger Rogers all of my new steps!!  Maybe then she will feel like kicking up her heels (paws?) a little!

Well, I got home from Cincinnati last week, but I've been so busy with school starting up, I haven't had much time to write!  My trip was sooo much fun, and I miss Hodel!  I wish she went to my school.  It's funny - before school started, it seemed like years since I'd last been there, but now that I'm back it seems like I never left!  My teacher this year is Mrs. Fontanel.  I'm super excited to have her because she loves science, like me, and we get to do lots of cool experiments and stuff in her class.  Yes!  

Right now, though, our big assignment is to write an essay about a famous person, past or present, whom we're interested in.  I asked Mrs. Fontanel if I could write about Nancy Drew, but she said no, it had to be a real person.  So I picked Jane Goodall.  She's a scientist who's done tons of research on chimpanzees and works to protect them.  She's neat.  I have lots of library books about her that I have to read for my report, so no Nancy Drew until it's done!

Here's my first day of school picture in my new dress, and my superhero lunchbox with Wonder Woman on the front!




I hope everybody is having a good new school year so far!  I'm off to read about Jane Goodall!

I'm so excited. Yay for anyone who guessed, I am visiting one of my really good friend's, Hodel Yanovic, in Cincinnati, Ohio! I got here this morning but Alyosha and her boyfriend went to the Union Terminal together, so I spent the morning with Alyosha's mom, Katie. Isn't that funny. Katie W and Katie H... :D

 

Afte our tree climbing adventure, we changed into our pajamas, and cuddled down, reading a Nancy Drew book. It was a really good one, the one that is even on the bad Katie made for Hodel! Then all of a sudden I felt something on my head. I didn't know what it was, so I ignored it. But then Hodel felt it too. We looked up and saw the sky opening up, pouring down rain. Definatly not camping weather. We ran to the house, leaving poor Alyosha to clean up after our camping mess. She was glad to do it though, she said.
 

 

Alyosha took us back inside where she let us dry off, and have hot chocolate. I can't wait for other adventures I'll have here! I'm already having fun watching Happy Feet before bed!

Ciao!
-Anna Lee

Guess what!!  I'm back home in Michigan!  I had SUCH a fun time in New York with Livia.  Livia is so cool and fun.  Her mama knitted me a kerchief in pastel colors that is so pretty, and I know just the shirt I'm going to wear it with.  And Livia even taught me some Italian!  Guess what my favorite Italian word is?  Pinguino!  That means penguin, my favorite animal of all time!

Speaking of penguins, the most exciting thing ever happened today.  Well, maybe not EVER, but still pretty exciting.  When I got home the power was out in the apartment, so it was very hot and sticky in there with no fans or air conditioning.  There was also nothing to eat since we couldn't use the microwave or stove.  All there was to eat was chocolate Pop-Tarts.  There are ALWAYS chocolate Pop-Tarts.  I didn't feel like having those, because a doll cannot live off of Pop-Tarts alone.  So Katie took me to McDonald's for lunch and I got a Happy Meal.  I was really excited when I saw that the prize was a Teeny Beanie Baby!  The pictures of them were all so cute, but there was one teeny beanie I wanted really, really bad....the pinguino.  I knew I shouldn't get my hopes up, because there were a lot of beanie babies and the odds of me getting the penguin were not good.  But I had my fingers and toes crossed when I got my Happy Meal bag and looked inside for the toy...and I GOT IT!!!  Stuff like that never happens to me.  I still cannot believe my good luck!  Now my Petey Penguin will have a friend of his own kind.

After we ate, we went to the library and got lots of books.  I got one called Tallahassee Higgins, because I thought it was a cool name.  I would like to be named Tallahassee, if I wasn't named Anna Lee, of course.  After the library we went to a new park we've never been to before.  But it was very sunny and we didn't have any sunscreen on, so we couldn't stay too long.  I did get my picture taken with my new pinguino, though!




I can't get too comfortable at home just yet, because I have one more trip to make before school starts again!  I won't say who I'm visiting so it will be a surprise, but she is a very good friend and I can't wait to see her again!

Livia and I have been playing dress-up a lot. One day we both tried on is Samantha's bathing costume. Livia has two of them so we got to match! We pretended we were girls in 1904 vacationing by the seaside, and wore slippers and hats and everything, right into the water! It was very strange swimming in such heavy clothes, but I liked pretending we were Samantha.

After swimming we went home, and Livia's mamma made us tea and petit fours! In the evening, we watched Meet Me in St. Louis, one of Livia's favorite movie musicals that takes place in 1904. That night, I dreamed I lived in a big mansion, and I was wearing a pretty white dress and hat, just like they do in the last scene of the movie. It was really fun pretending it was 1904...although I'm still glad it's 2009 and I can wear a bikini to the beach!

It's been raining almost every day since I got here! We haven't gotten to play outside much, and I still haven't been to the beach yet, but we've been doing fun things inside. Livia says she feels bad that I haven't been to the beach yet, but I keep telling her that there's still time - the sun has to come out soon!

We've been reading a lot of books. We took turns reading Meet Rebecca out loud to each other and Petey and Livia's Rebecca. It was really cool because I actually went to some of the places in Rebecca's book when I visited the city with Inky. After we finished that book, we played with Livia's Russian nesting dolls and pretended to be Rebecca in 1914! We also watched the Samantha movie, because part of that takes place in New York City.



And then this morning, I walked outside and saw sunshine! Hopefully it will be a nice weekend. We're going to have a barbeque tomorrow for the Fourth of July, and then go to fireworks on the beach at night! Livia says it's very unlikely that the fireworks will get rained out, so even if it's in the dark, I'll finally get to see the beach. We've already picked out our red, white, and blue outfits for tomorrow!



Here's a link to the album I've been working on, so you can see more pictures!
picasaweb.google.com/gakotkov/AnnaLeeSVisit

I've been so busy I haven't even gotten a chance to write on my blog! I got to New York last week, and Livia and I have been having a great time. Last week it was my birthday, so Livia and I had a slumber party! We braided our hair and ate popcorn and cupcakes and watched The Princess Bride. This is us after we braided our hair, before we put our pajamas on.

On Saturday, I visited a really cool windmill nearby. Eastern Long Island was founded in the 1640s by English settlers, and they built windmills that are still standing! I dressed up like a colonial girl and visited a farmhouse from the 1700s (but there were no pictures allowed inside, because it's technically a museum) and then walked around the flower garden next to the house.





And yesterday, I got the biggest surprise! Gabby took me to New York City, and today I got to meet Inky and her mom! Livia stayed on Long Island, and I missed her, but it was really fun to meet Inky and see the city! Livia lent me her New York Yankees jacket before I left because it was a little chilly, and I felt like a real New Yorker. We went to a Ukrainian diner for lunch, and then Inky and I went to a playground. Afterwards we walked around for a bit, and I even got to see the Empire State Building down the street!






I have lots more pictures to add to an album, but right now it's way past my bedtime, so Gabby says I'll have to do it tomorrow. I'll post the album link with my next blog entry!

Wow, remember how I was just wondering if I'll get to do anything exciting this summer?  Well, I just found out I get to go to New York to visit my friend Livia!!!  I have been as far west as I can get in the U.S., but I have never been further east than Michigan.  I will be charting new territory!  I'm so excited.  I had to get my stuff packed up today so I will be ready to leave in the next couple of days.  Don't tell Katie, but I can't wait to get out of here.  She is in one of her very rare cleaning moods and is doing a much-needed massive cleaning/organizing of the apartment.  That is ALL we did yesterday and most of today, and even though it was necessary, I am sick of cleaning stuff!  Sheesh, this is supposed to be my summer vacation, after all. 

(But I will still offer to help Livia with her chores while I am at her house - I am not totally against cleaning as long as I don't have to do it for eight hours a day). :-)

School's out for summer!  School's out forever!

Well, okay, not FOREVER, but still.  Have you ever heard that song, "School's Out for Summer?"  The guy who sings it is called Alice Cooper.  When I first heard that name I thought Alice Cooper would be a female folk singer with long wavy hair and Birkenstock sandals and an acoustic guitar.  But Alice Cooper is really a hard-rock singing MAN with long black hair! 

School let out on Friday, and now I have my whole summer vacation stretching out before me!  I wonder if I'll get to do anything fun.  Probably my best summer ever so far was Summer 2007, when I went on my long road trip to California and stopped at tons of national parks and stuff along the way, and finally picked my perfect last name at Yosemite National Park.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip - I am rock climbing at Yellowstone National Park.

 

I hope I'll get to do some fun stuff this summer, too!  Happy Beginning of Summer Vacation to everyone else who has finished another school year! :-)

Man, Hodel and I have been busy since I posted last!  We visited Katie's mom and dad, wrote and photographed our own story and made it into a book, visited the Eiffel Tower, and read almost an entire shelf of Nancy Drew books.  I'm not exaggerating, either...not even about the Eiffel Tower part, although we didn't have to go to France for that.  We went to Paris, Michigan and climbed on the 20-foot tall Eiffel Tower they have there!

 

The tower was built in the 1980's by some high school students.  They made it out of old metal bunk frames left over from WPA workers who lived in Paris Park in the 1930's while they were working on their government projects.  So the whole thing is recycled!  Cool, huh?

And here we are working on taking photos of Hodel's doll, Rosie, and my penguin, Petey, for our book!  I did most of the posing and Hodel took most of the photos.  We made a good team!



And here's our book after we finally finished cutting and pasting all the text and pictures and stapling it all together!



And here we are preparing for our marathon Nancy Drew reading session.  We decided to make it into a contest - whoever read the most books by dinnertime won.  We stopped after we finished a book and had the other person quiz us to make sure we really read it and remembered the plot and everything.  Hodel won.  I was happy for her, but then Katie gave her a prize - a tote bag with a picture from a 1930's Nancy Drew book cover on the front that holds the book we made inside it perfectly.  Then I was a little bit jealous, but Hodel told me that if I asked Katie really nicely she would probably make me a Nancy Drew bag, too.  So maybe I will.



Hodel has to leave to go to her next travel host tomorrow. :-(  I am really sad.  I'm going to miss her so much!  That's the only bad thing about going out traveling or having traveling dolls visit you - you get to be really good friends and then you, or they, have to leave.  It's hard to say goodbye when you've spent tons of time together and gotten so used to being around someone. Goodbye, Hodel, I will miss you tons!



Hodel and I put together a photo album of her visit here - it has lots more pictures than what I've posted here.  So check it out and see more of what we've been up to over the past couple of weeks!  Here's the link:

picasaweb.google.com/Katie1148/HodelYanovicVisitsMichigan

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!  Hodel and I had a great time today.  We wanted to do something really special, so we decided to have a ball - literally! :-)  We made up invitations last week and I gave them to all of my friends, and most of them came.  Even Alice, my violin teacher, came!  I didn't think she'd want to come to a kid party, but she did, and even asked if she could bring a friend.  I also invited Vanessa, even though I still don't like her very much, even now that I know Min does not want to be best friends with her instead of me.  I didn't think Vanessa would come, either, but she did, and was pretty nice to me.

Hodel and I wore special fancy dresses Katie made awhile ago, after we promised a million times we would be very careful and wouldn't spill anything on them.  We spent lots of time getting our hair to look just right.



When our guests started arriving, I introduced Hodel to everyone.  They were all excited to meet her, and I think she liked them, too!



Here's Min checking out the snack table we set up!  We had chocolates and yummy little fruit candies, and some fruit salad just in case anybody wanted to be healthy. :-)



And here we are with all of our guests!  In the back are Anjali, Alice, Astrid, Becca, and Min; in the front are Vanessa, Kim, Me, Hodel, and Tora.



Hope everyone else had a great Memorial Day weekend, too! 

It got hot here today!  It was too hot to play in the house, so Hodel and I went out on the balcony to play instead.  We liked our explorer names we made up in Ludington State Park, so we decided to have more explorer adventures.  This time, Indi-anna Jones and Ponce de Leona were on a ship sailing the high seas when suddenly there was a huge storm, and the boat got wrecked and we were thrown into shark-infested waters!  We tried desperately to climb aboard a piece of the wreckage to save ourselves from the sharks!



"Hurry, Indi-anna!" Ponce de Leona shrieked.  "There's a great white about to take a bite out of your leg!"

Luckily, we both managed to climb onto the wreckage before we were eaten.  Phew! 



"Now what do we do, Ponce de Leona?" I asked.

"We have to hope we wash up on the shore of a desert island somewhere," she said.  "One that isn't infested with man-eating tigers."



We were pretending we had no food or water and were near starved, but then Katie brought out some leftover Easter candy and bottles of Coke for our snack, and we couldn't exactly turn those down...so I pretended to find some emergency rations in my shirt pocket. 



We were just about to wash up on a desert island when Matt came home and asked us why we were sitting in a basket.  "What are you doing, pretending to take a bath?" he asked.  Please!  Like we would spend a whole afternoon pretending to take a BATH.  What fun is that?  We explained we were drifting at sea on the wreckage of our ship and were about to battle man-eating tigers on a desert island.  I asked if he wanted to be the man-eating tiger, and he very quickly excused himself to go do something on the computer.  He'd have a lot more fun if he exercised his imagination a little more, I think. :-)