I'm finally here!

Well, actually I've been in Cincinnati for almost a week now, but it's been busy, busy, busy with everything you could imagine.

This time of year, January specifically, is HIGHLY busy! It's one birthday after the next. It's quite exciting actually!

I arrived here on January 6th, so I've been here a week. It's nice to be back in Ohio! Last summer, Hodel came to visit me for a few weeks, and in return, I went to stay with her for a few weeks before school started.

Anyway, when I got here, a very kind lady who looked terribly like Alyosha answered the door. It is only 18 degrees in Cincinnati (Warmer then back home but still, far to cold to stay outside very long.) Alyosha's mom gave me some hot chocolate after I brought my things to Hodel's new bedroom downstairs. Then I ventured back upstairs to drink my hot coco and watch The Little Mermaid with Alyosha's mom until Hodel or Alyosha came home.

Hodel came home first! I was so glad to finally see her again. Of corse, then we had to go to her room and catch up on absolutly EVERYTHING!

We stayed up and watched Aladdin until Alyosha told us we had to go to bed. I got to wear footie pajamas that didn't fit Hodel anymore. They were very comfy cozy! Alyosha turned off the lights, and told us to go to bed... We didn't! We talked until almost two in the morning! Oh my!

The next day was thankfully a snow day! Four inches of snow isn't half bad! We went sledding at Alder Creek (The Fairy creek we visited in the summer!) early in the morning. When we went though, our sled went right over the water, because it was so think with ice. It made us go supper fast too!

It also happened to be Chava, one of Hodel's younger sister's, birthdays. So... We had a pajama party!

This week it has been too cold and snowy to do much besides sit inside with a good movie. Hodel said we can put on a play on Friday though. I'm excited!

That's all!

Anna Lee Merced

Guess what, guess what?!  I get to see my friend Hodel again!!!  By the time you read this I will be on my way to Cincinnati to visit her.  I'm so excited!  I've really missed her.  

This is the first time I have gone on a trip since getting my pet guinea pig, Ginger Rogers, so now I have to find someone to take care of her while I am away.  I asked my friend Min, and she said yes, after hesitating for kind of a long time.  You see, the first time Min met Ginger Rogers, Ginger Rogers bit her pinky finger.  I told Min it was because she was wearing orange gloves, so of course her fingers looked like carrots to Ginger Rogers.  And Ginger Rogers loves carrots more than just about anything in the world.  Min wasn't too sure about that.  But she came over to get Ginger Rogers' cage and treats today, and petted her and held her with no problem.  So I think everything will be fine.  I gave Ginger Rogers strict instructions to be on her best behavior for Min, so hopefully she will listen.

Cincinnati, here I come!  This is me with Hodel when she came to visit Michigan last spring.  We had a ton of fun.

What an awesome Christmas I'm having!  Today is the first year that my family got to stay at our own home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We didn't have to go drive for hours to visit any other family members - we got to sleep in our own beds and do whatever we wanted.  I love it!

Last night we had a huge ice storm.  I woke up at three in the morning because the ice was pelting against the windows, and it was really loud!  I was hoping to hear Santa's sleigh bells, but instead, I just heard ice.  I knew Santa would still make it through to deliver my presents, though, because a little ice can't stop Santa Claus.

And sure enough, when I got up this morning there were presents under the tree for me!  One of my best presents was Katie's gift to me, a penguin quilt!  She made it herself, and it's extra special because my friend Hodel gave me the penguin material when I visited her last summer.  There is black velvet material all around the penguin scene and it is so, so soft.  I can't wait to go to sleep tonight all cuddled up underneath it.

 

My other two best presents are from Santa Claus - a Rainbow Brite doll and her horse, Starlite!!!  I already have Rainbow Brite's sprite, Twink, and Twink really needed his best friends here with him.  I asked Santa for either Rainbow Brite OR Starlite the horse, because I never dreamed I could get both at once.  A doll and a horse are both pretty big presents, after all.  I still can't even believe I really got them!  Santa Claus must have thought I was really good this year!  I've been playing with Rainbow Brite and Starlite all day.  I didn't even change out of my pajamas until noon because I couldn't stop playing!

 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas!  I have to get going, because Rainbow Brite, Starlite, and Twink have to finish their latest adventure before Christmas dinner is ready.  Rainbow Brite has gotten caught by the bad guys and is locked up, and Twink and Starlite have to come up with a plan to break her out so she can continue her important job of bringing color into the world. :-)

Merry Christmas from Anna Lee, Rainbow Brite, Starlite, and Twink! 

Today is my favorite day of the whole year - Christmas Eve!  Yes, I do like Christmas Eve even better than Christmas Day, because of all the excitement and anticipation of waiting for Christmas magic and Santa and presents to come in the morning.  

As soon as I got up this morning, I ran out to put the second-to-last ornament on the Christmas tree needlepoint advent calendar.  I do that every morning in December to count down the days till Christmas!  It's so exciting when you get down to the last few ornaments.

 

( Click here to see lots more pictures of my Christmas Eve! )

Mele Kalikimaka is the the thing to say
on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day!
That's the island greeting that we send to you
from the land where palm trees sway...





Do you know that Christmas song?  I have been singing it all day, and I guess you can see why!  One of Katie's best friends got married and went to Hawaii for her honeymoon this fall, and she brought me back a Christmas present - a Hawaiian dress and a real shell necklace and a lei (although I really like wearing the lei on my head like a flower crown, because it makes me feel sort of princessy)!  Wasn't that so nice of her?  I hula'ed around the house wearing my new outfit and pretending I was on the beach for awhile, but then I had to put my regular clothes back on because you just can't walk around in a halter top and bare feet during a Michigan winter, even if you are inside.  But it was fun while it lasted!

And my holiday violin recital is over, too, so all I have to do now is kick back and relax and wait for Christmas!  Only five more days left!!!

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time!  I'm sad about that, because I missed writing about Thanksgiving, St. Nicholas Day, the one year anniversary of the start of this blog, three snow days, and lots of other good stuff, but I couldn't help it.  Katie's laptop died and it's very hard to get pictures up here without it.  Plus I've been very busy making Christmas presents and practicing for my two holiday performances - my tap dance routine today and my violin recital this weekend!  But I promise I'm back now and will try to make lots of posts now that I'm on my Christmas vacation! I had my tap dance performance today!  My class got to leave school for two hours this morning to go perform at a nursing home.  My class, the beginners, did our routine to "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."  I was so nervous, because we performed in the nursing home's recreation room, with all the people sitting in chairs or wheelchairs, and the front row was just a few feet away from us while we danced.  We could see their faces and reactions and everything, which was a little scary, but most of them were smiling at us and didn't seem to mind if we made a few mistakes.  I did my best and even managed to smile a few times.  It's hard to remember to smile sometimes, because I have to concentrate very hard to remember all the steps and keep in time with the music and the other dancers.  It's hard!  I was so happy I did well, because I've been practicing a ton at home.  The kitchen is the only room in our house with a nice big floor space, so I dragged the mirror in there and had pretend dress rehearsals all week!  We had to wear a red or green leotard, and Katie had this red and black striped one with leg warmers and a headband to match.  It's a little big on me, but I like it, though I wish it had white stripes so I could look like a candy cane.  Here I am, hard at work!





I hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far!  I'll be back soon! :-)

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