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OH. MY. GOSH! It's been forever since I've posted!!!

     Hey y'all! Oh gosh, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while! It's been almost a year since my last post! Soooooo much stuff has happened since then! I'll catch y'all up on some of it.
    So, since my last post, I've switched churchs, I'm now a baptist instead of a lutheran.
    My grandma (who I call Nana) has moved in with me and my mom.
    I met and saw David Archuleta in concert AGAIN!
    I don't have the same friends anymore, I cut ties with my old friends, and made a new group of totally amazing friends at my new church!
    I had developed a huuuuuuuuuuge crush on a guy at my new church, who I'll call Puma ;) Only Amber would get that little inside joke there haha. I'm completely over him now though, I've moved on to a different guy.
    One of my best friends was in the hospital for 9 days, I spent as much time up there with him as I could. He's out now though, so it's all good now.
    I'm considering leaving the dance group at my old church, it's just not as much fun anymore. OH! I almost forgot, I had actually gotten kicked out of the dance group back in February of this year, but they let me back in. But that's a totally different, extremely long story.
    I'm hopefully going to get baptized soon! :)
    I got saved on August 17th of this year!!! Probably the best decision I ever made!!
    I've gotten much much closer to Jesus, my relationship with Him has gotten so much stronger since switching churchs. And it's definitely gotten a lot stronger here recently, in the last week actually.
    I'm turning 18 in like a month and a half!!! So that means I'll be getting my license then too! SCARY! Haha.
    Oh, and of course, y'all have to check out this awesome twitter page, and if you're a cat, dog, duck, horse, etc., or if you're an animal lover/activist then you should definitely follow. Click here!

    Well, that's all I can remember for now. I'll try to post more often. Thanks to everyone who has been reading my blog!

Christmas Dinner

     Hey y'all. I know I just did a Christmas post the other day, but I felt the need to do another one. I've been getting into the Christmas spirit lately haha. So this post today will be about another one of my Christmas traditions: The women's Christmas dinner at church.
     Every year on the Saturday after the church season Advent begins, my church holds a dinner for the ladies of the church, in which we ladies get to chill and the men serve us. It's so much fun, I enjoy the heck out of it every year. It's always held from 6-9 p.m. every time. The ladies are asked to bring a $5 gift to exchange, and also a can of food to go to our local homeless shelter. I usually take a bag of canned food, I don't feel right taking only one can when there's so many hungry people out there & I have plenty of food in my kitchen. I feel the need to share with those less fortunate than myself & my family.
     When we walk into the front door of the church for dinner there's a check-in table, where the men check our names off the list & take our coats, exchange gifts & cans of food. When they take our gifts to be put with the others, they tape a little ticket on them & give us a ticket of our own at the end of dinner. After the check-in process, the men escort us into the Fellowship Hall where the dinner will be held. For the beginning of the dinner we start off with a salad that is waiting on the tables & some appetizers that we get ourselves. They have a table set up at the front of the Fellowship Hall where there's fruits & veggies, and also egg nog & apple cider. Then, for the main course, we have chicken cordon bleu, which is chicken stuffed with ham and cheese. It's soooooo good! And with it we have this really yummy rice thing & green beans (<--- my favorite veggie). And for dessert they bring around trays of different cakes & other yummy stuffs. I always get a piece of cake & a chocolate eclair. I can't quite remember the specifics of the desserts, just that it's cake and yummy stuffs haha.
     Every year Nana and I sit with our friend Melody & her mom Anita. Melody is blind & her mom can hardly see at all, and at first glance you wouldn't be able to tell Melody is blind! She does very well on her own, but her husband still helps her out a lot. And I remember every year she always gets a slice of cheesecake for dessert, haha. Weird, that just randomly popped into my head lol. The Fellowship Hall always looks so beautiful, because there's a lady at church, named Kay, that decorates it so beautifully every year. She hangs these giant lighted Christmas balls from the ceiling & also decorates the tables with a gift in the middle & some poinsettia themed... other stuffs. Haha. At the end of the dinner, everyone at each table chooses a number between 1-10, then after everyone has a number, Kay calls out a random number & whoever has that same number gets to keep the gift in the center of the table. I got it one year :) It was just some hand soap in the box, but it was still cool.
    Then, I believe at the end of dinner, or near the end, we have a quartet come in and sing. They sing traditional Christmas carols so wonderfully. Last year they gave out lyrics sheets so we could sing along to a few of the songs. It was awesome because my friend Meg and I sang the first verse of "Silent Night" in German. We had to sing it in German on Christmas Eve, so we figured we'd get in some more practice haha. After the quartet finishes up, we have the gift raffle. The men come around to all the tables & give each lady a ticket. Then, they start picking up gifts from the gift table and calling off the numbers from the tickets that are taped on them. I'm always sitting on the edge of my seat while waiting for my number to be called haha. The anticipation is so much fun lol. Some of the ladies get really into it, they start hootin' and hollerin' when their number is called. And Melody always yells "BINGO!" when they call her number :)
     After all is said and done, we gather up our things and head home. It's always such a wonderful and very fun evening. I look forward to it every year. I love it :) It just wouldn't be the same without it...

Christmas

     Ahh the holidays are among us. Everywhere you look you see something about Christmas. You go to Wal-Mart, they have tons of decorations, toys, gift wrap, everything! You name it, they've got it! I think I would enjoy all of that stuff more if the retailers didn't start putting Christmas stuff out before Halloween! I think that's a little ridiculous lol. I think at the beginning of November is a good time to start putting it out, not before Halloween! Retailers are crazy these days, haha.
     But other than that I think Christmas is such a wonderful holiday, because you get to spend time with your family and it's just a lot of fun. But, these days I feel like people have forgotten the real meaning of Christmas: Celebrating Jesus' birth! That's why we give gifts to one another, and have family dinners together, because we're celebrating the birth of Jesus. But it seems like everyone has gotten so caught up with all the gift-giving and stuff that they've forgotten the reason they're doing that in the first place! Lots of people seriously need to be reminded of that reason too.
     Every year for Christmas, my immediate family has a little get-together at my house & at Nana's (Grandma) house. On Christmas Eve, Nana, Jeffery, my Mom & I have a little dinner at Nana's. I remember one year for our Christmas dinner we had pizza, hot wings & brownies! I don't know what got into us that year, we just wanted to be different I reckon. That's why I love my family so much, cause we ain't afraid to be different! Haha. Then we go to church for the 7:30 p.m. Christmas Eve service (the one I dance at every year). After that we just come home and go to bed. Well, my mom stays up a little later because that's when she wraps my presents. She never puts any of my presents under the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve, because she's afraid I'll secretly open them to see what they are lol. My brother did that when he was little, that's why. But I'm not like him! I would never do that! Lol.
     Anyway, on Christmas morning Nana & Jeffery come over to my house (It's not that far to travel, they live right next door to me!) and we open presents together :) I usually get up around 8 everyday, so I'm trapped in my room until my mom gets up, cause she likes to be there when I go see what Santa left for me haha :) Then, we go to Nana's house to open presents over there. And it's so cool because we have matching Christmas trees. We both have fake white ones. We never get real ones because we don't like to kill the perfectly good trees. Just let them stay outside in the forest, we can use fake ones lol. And it's so much easier too because you don't have to worry about watering them or anything. But you do still have to clean up some stray "needles" from the fake trees. I remember one year we had this really big box left over from a present, and I loved that box! I stayed in that box all day long haha. That was the year I got my portable DVD player & the "High School Musical" DVD, so I stayed in my big box & watched my DVD all day lol. And last year I was sick on Christmas :( I didn't let it stop me from having fun and enjoying the day, but I still hated the fact that I was sick. The medicine I had made me really sleepy, so I couldn't take it until after all the hoopla had settled down. But once I did take it, I was out like a light! But I still really enjoyed the day and had alot of fun :)
     Every year is always different with my family, I never know what the heck is gonna happen! But I think that's what makes it so awesome. We have our traditions that we do every year, & then we have those crazy random moments that add to the awesomeness of it. I know lots of families get all dressed up and are on their best behavior, but with my family, you're lucky to get us half dressed and to keep our mouths shut! We are a very... vocal family haha. Very loud and boisterous, but still fun. And I wouldn't have it any other way :) <3
     So tell me, what are your family holiday traditions? Do you have any at all? What are they? I'd love to hear them! Send them to me on Twitter to @Samikat08 and include the hastag #SamiSayzHolidays so I'll know what the heck you are talking about! Hahaha :)

Liturgical Dancing :)

My very first dance performance
Christmas Eve 2006

    It was four years ago that I was approached about about starting a liturgical dance group with my grandma and another lady at church. We only did one performance together, then the group kinda fell apart. After that, another lady, Joanne, tried to form a dance group by recruiting a bunch of the pre-teens of the church to be taught by her ballerina daughter Deanna. And it's been on ever since! Originally we had 5 members, Dee, Ms. Storholt (From the very very first dance group), Megan K., Me & another girl, but I'm not putting her name in here because we are having a bit of a feud at the moment. From here on out she will be known as "The girl".
     Our first dance was to be on Christmas Eve in 2006. I was 11 at the time of our first rehearsal, but I turned 12 soon after we started. I was soooo nervous for our first performance together, because back then I was ridiculously & painfully shy. So to perform with the group at my church's 7:30 pm Christmas Eve service was a huge step for me; there's always a lot people there! Our first song we danced to was "O Holy Night". During our first rehearsal together I remember thinking "Oh my gosh what am I doing here? I'm gonna screw this up!" As expected, I made a few mistakes during rehearsals, but that's allowed and ok so it really wasn't that big of a deal. And also the routine wasn't that hard either, so mistakes were scarce. When it came time to perform, I was soooooo nervous and scared!! It went off without a hitch, and while I was dancing, I felt totally calm, totally at home. It was then that I realized dancing was my calling.
     Over the years, we performed more and more routines, each of them a little more difficult than the last. And also over the years we added more girls to the group. I remember we had 9 girls dancing together at one time! And once there was only four. Some of the members go in and out with the dances, dancing when they can, because they have packed schedules. And then there's two of them, "the girl", & another girl who I'm not getting along with, that are just too lazy to get their butts to practice when they're supposed to be there. But there's always four of us that are there for every dance: Dee, Megan B., Jennifer & Me. We never miss a dance. Well, Meg did once because she broke her foot. But she had a good excuse to get out of it. Meg and I have both danced with sprained ankles & sprained wrists in the past, there's hardly anything that can keep us from dancing! In all four years, I have never missed a dance & I don't plan on doing so! I think even if I had a broken foot I'd still be dancing! Well, I've already danced with a broken foot before, but that was ballroom dancing.

     But anyway, in February 2009 our church had its 50th anniversary, so Dee planned a big dance for the anniversary service. We had a big banner set up that said "Soli Deo Gloria" which translates to "To God Alone Be The Glory" in Latin, & it was also the song we danced to as well. We had the little kids of the church come in near the end of the dance carrying little balloon banner things and we dancers also picked up our ribbon batons at that point and started waving them around all pretty. Then, as the dance ended, they let their balloon strings go (they were tied to the wand so they didn't float away) & the balloons floated up to the top of the sanctuary. It was a beautiful dance, & I think it was our best dance to date. At that point, I didn't really get nervous for dances anymore, because we had done so many by then. But, for this dance, I was beyond nervous, because a bunch of Pastors came from all over our church region (I can't remember the technical term for that lol) & even the Bishop came! So since the Bishop was there I was even more scared & really worked extra hard to not mess up. There was over 250 people at the service, & our church isn't that big, so they were packed in there like little sardines! Lol. The dance worked out perfectly, & no one made any mistakes at all :) And when it was over, the congregation started clapping & it sounded so loud, because there was so many people there. I hadn't performed in front of that many people before that, so it was really cool. 

From L to R: Me, Dee, Lisa, "another girl", Jennifer, Megan K. & Megan B. with the "Soli Deo Gloria" banner.

     After that dance we were all wondering how we would ever measure up to it, since that was like one of our most epic dances ever! Dee had set the bar very high with her choreography. I think our "season finale" dance last season was probably just as good as the anniversary dance. It was to the song "The Spirit's Coming", and it was a very peppy and upbeat song. We started the dance by doing the Charleston, and it just kept getting better and better from there :) By this point in our dancing we had 4 new members of the group: Meg. A., Abby, Danielle & Erin. Meg. A. is an adult, but Abby, Danielle & Erin are around 8-9 years old. The little girls really liked the end of the dance, because they got to sit on the big girls' knees lol. We all had a lot of fun with that one, I loved it :) It was for Pentecost, so we had to wear red, and I really think the red and white costumes matched the song and choreography really well. It was definitely a fun fun fun dance :) 

Me with the "Come Holy Spirit" Pentecost banner in April or May 2010.

     A lot of our dances here lately have been pretty upbeat and peppy, but, as expected, we do a lot of slow dances as well. They are still lots of fun too. Whenever we're doing a slow dance, I try to take that as an opportunity to really express my somber, more serious side. Now that I've come out of my shell more I've developed a random, crazy & spontaneous personality, so I really enjoy the slower dances now than I did before, because I get to show people that I can be serious sometimes and not crazy all the time like everyone now knows me to be.
     This next dance that we are working on right now is probably gonna be up there with the "Soli Deo Gloria" & the "Spirit's Coming" dances; it is really epically awesome! It's our Advent dance, so we're in our white skirts & leotards, with our blue capes over the leotards (like the red one in the picture above) & we have some pretty finger scarfs that we wear. We are supposed to perform this dance on Sunday November 28th. I'm excited for this one, because it starts off very slow and then progressively builds up to this amazingly powerful level! I think the congregation is really going to enjoy this one, hopefully as much as I am.
     Then, after this dance, comes the Christmas Eve dance, which will be our four year anniversary!! We get to wear our white dresses with the pretty gold angel sleeves, (the one in the first picture of this post). Since we perform it at night, we dim the lights in the sanctuary and we dance with these plastic battery operated candles. So, since we dance with those candles, we have this little tradition for our Christmas dance: Every year, the finishing pose for the dance is a star. All the dancers come together and form a human star shape. It's usually the highlight of the dance, because by now the congregation is expecting it. And since the group's numbers differ from year to year, I'm sure they're eager to see how we will make it work. And we're also adding a new member! Starting Dec. 4th, our friend Lindsey will be joining our dance group! After that, we have our winter break, then we start back practicing in February 2011.
     So you see, we have a really great dance group at my church. We are really close, and have so much fun in the rehearsals. We get really crazy and goofy during the rehearsals haha. We've been together for four years, and will most likely be together for many years to come.

La mia famiglia nel corso degli anni (My family through the years)

     Today's post won't have much talking in it. I'm going to post some photos of mia famigla throughout the years. Hope you enjoy my family photo album :)




My great grandma(Granny)at one of my b-day parties

 

Momma being silly at Granny's in the late 90's



 

My big brother Jeffery in Granny's house





My grandma(Nana)on Christmas morning

Jeffery, Momma, me, uncle Tommy&uncle Jerry on Christmas



Uncle Lee, me &Zack sitting in the back of Lee's pick-up truck



I think this was on the 4th of July in the late 90's





My mom being silly on what I believe was her

birthday in the late 90's



My mom and me on her birthday in the late 90's

Zack & Sara at my mom's birthday

Me, A.J, Nana &Zack at my 5th birthday party.



Sara's face, Brittany, A.J & Susie at my 5th birthday party.

My brother at a modeling thing back in the day.

                                                                          

Granny with her 80th birthday cake




Granny, Sara, me &Zack on Granny's 82nd birthday







Granny, Susie, Nana, Zack&Sara on somebody's
birthday, but I don't remember whose it was!



Nana at Emeril Lagasse's place at Universal Studios in Florida



Momma "surfing" at Universal Studios in Florida





Nana, Me, Momma &Zack at momma's birthday

party in 2006 or 2007

 

Zack "sleeping" at my mom's birthday party in 2006 or 2007



Momma at Myrtle Beach, SC in 2006 or 2007



Me in one of the jalopies at the Pavillion in Myrtle Beach, SC in 2006 or 2007



Haha my mom on the motorcycle outside the Hard Rock Cafe' in Myrtle Beach, SC in 2006 or 2007



My mom, Nana, Rowdy the dog & Jerry in front of the Christmas tree at Granny's



INDIAN WAR DANCE!!!! HAHAHA!
They were posing all silly for the camera & it ended up looking
like an indian war dance!



Nana at the park in 2007



Momma outside Nana's house in 07 or 08





Sheyanne, Zack, Sara & A.J.'s little sister, at Nana's for Christmas in 07 I believe



Momma laying on the bed with our dog Baby in 2007



Nana, my mom & Me at dinner for my 13th birthday!



A.J. taking a picture of me taking a picture of him at my 13th birthday party.

Cousin Miranda at my 13th birthday. She was real excited about getting her picture taken



Kyle, my mom, me, friend Megan Koceja &Zack at my 13th birthday party.
I love how Kyle's looking at the camera like "Will you quit taking pictures?!" Haha.



Little Sheyanne, Anna, Me, Zack, Megan, Kyle & Kenny (the one in the green shirt)
being silly at my 13th birthday party.



Jeffery, Megan's face & cousin Wanda at my 13th birthday party.



Half of Jeffery, friend Ben, A.J. Cousin Selena & Sara at my 14th birthday party.
Ben finally snatched A.J.'s hat off his head. Boy, that was a big mistake.



Sheyanne wearing my hat in 2008



Haha Sheyanne being silly in 2008



"Who ate my cake?" - Jeffery. Haha Jeffery's birthday in 2008



"Let me out!!" - Sheyanne. Haha Sheyanne being silly at the 4th of July fireworks in 2008



Sara, Thanksgiving 2009. She hates having her picture taken & I finally got a picture of her!



Wanda, Kenny & Kyle, spring/summer 2010. We went on a field trip together to the museum, because we're all 3 homeschooled



Momma & Wanda spring/summer 2010 field trip. We had a picnic beforehand in the park :)



Kenny & Kyle on the playset in the park spring/summer 2010 field trip.



Kenny, Kyle & me playing on the playset in the park at our picnic before our field trip spring/summer 2010



Sheyanne at the fireworks on 4th of July 2010



     My family may be crazy and very unique, but that's what makes us perfect and special. I love y'all <3 :) 
   Thanks for checking out my family through the years! Hope you enjoyed the pictures! :)