Guns

Hey guys!

So I think we have all heared lately about the Conneticut elementry school shooting, the mall shootings, the Kansas city football player shooting, and casino shooting inVegas. It is so very sad and my prayers go out to all the families.

My question is what will the USA now do about this? My personal opinion is that if the people of America cant handle guns or use them the right way they shouldn't be aloud to have them. Truely, how many people have to die before something is done.

What are they going to do to make children feel safe again because I sure as hell do not feel safe at school or outside of my home anymore. I attend Kennedy High School and since the day I have gone there, we have never had a lock down drill...is that supposed to make us feel safe or our parents feel okay when they send us off to school and put our lives in to the hands of the school staff? It seems that this school in Conneticut had security provisions in place but this crazy person got in anyway. And let's talk about the guns he had. They were his mothers. Why would a woman need assult guns? Having a hand gun in a home as protection is one thing but the guns they had surely had no business in a home or being used for personal use.

Is making guns illegal the right thing to do? Will that really stop the guns from showing up on the street? It's just like marajuana. Tha'ts illegal too but I wonder how hard it would be to walk down the halls of my school and find some. Is it the gun...or is it the people who have the guns? Is there really a good answer to this problem? Time will tell I guess.(334)

-Ardeeemilla(:

Family

Hey guy!

So my family is a super important thing to me and so when we get a chance to all get together it's always a fun time. My family is from Wisconsin so obviously we LOVE the Packers. Weekends are huge for us during the football season because not only are we Packer fans, we are also Badger fans. Every weekend we have different traditions that we follow. On Saturday, the women hurry and clean the house. The whole while and the men do whatever it is they do outside. Then once the college games start, it's to the living room to watch the big games. On Sundays, my and sister and I wake up early to get started on the food. We make tons of snack foods like guyacamole with chips, cheese, meat and chracker tray, little smokies, bacon wrapped watter chestnuts, mozarella sticks and much more. Then we all grab a plate and gravitate to the living room to watch the Packer game. Then depending on the time of the game, we take naps. With all the snacks in the house, we get to eat all day long and just have fun. Throughout the day there are claps and screams coming from the living room. Game days are so fun in the Solorio house and really intense.

But, the best part of it all...is New Years Day. Usually the Badgers are playing in a bowl. This time the entire family gathers at my aunts house. That's my family, my moms brothers and their families, my grandparents, my great aunt's and uncles and my great grandfather who turned 92 years old on December 7^th, Pearl harbor day. Everyone brings a snack food to share with everyone. But the part that is the best is the food yet to come. The mem all gather in the garage around a seafood boiler. They make a seafood boil like you can't imagine. It's small baby potatoes, baby onions and carrots, shrimp, crab, fish, scallops and lobster tails all cooked together. Then they bring it in the house in big roasters once it's done cooking and we all dig in. You put melted butter over it and enjoy along with all the other great foods that have been prepared to go with it. Then when we are done eating, we clean up and get ready for a good game of Solo. It's a card game that not very many have ever heard of and that I would never be able to explain in a blog. It's one of those games that you just have to jump I and play to understand. Everyone stays all day and then goes home for the evening, fat, sassy and ready for a good nights sleep! (459)

Ardeeemilla(:

Memory books (:

Hello people!!

So I have an amazing boyfriend that ive been dating for 2 years and we have tons of little things like tickets from our first movie that we saw together and tons of notes that we have given eachother. So one day i was going through the box of things that i had from him and i decided i wanted something i could look at all the time and show other people and keep our little note in good shape. so i decided i wated to kind of make a picture book but i wanted to personalize it and i wanted the cover to also represent us. so i have little things like music notes because we are both in show choir and virgo and cancer because im a virgo and he is a cancer. I also have JFK on the side because that is where we go to highschool. I filled it with school dance pictures, pictures of us, our notes and little things he has made me. I still have lots of room in it and so i continue to put things in it so once we get older i will have a book of memories from our relationship since it started.

The first thing you need to do to make one of these is to buy the necessary products, they are all pretty cheap.

• Any size photograpgh book that you want.
• Magazines
• stickers
• glue stick
• glitter
• and decorations you want (not 3D decorations)
• Mod podge (you can get at any craft store)

First you cut out of the magzine any backgrounds, letters, anything that you want on your book to personalize it. Then glue it on the book where ever you want. I would do one side at a time. Once your done with that take a paitbrush and paint a layer of mod podge over what you glued down and let it sit and dry. Then do the othersides over laping things on the corners because you dont want random lines. You want it to look like a collage and relate to the pictures that you are going to put inside of it. If you want sparles on it, before you let it dry sprinkle the sparkles on it and then let it dry. Once it is dry put one more coat of mod podge over it (or as many needed for all the papers to stick down and not start to peel off) and let it sit over night until it is completely dry. Then fill the book with picture and any memories you want. you can always add more to it as you get older. Now all that left is to enjoy and share with others. (: (464)

Ardeeemilla(:

Christmas cookies!

Hello guys!!

So I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas cookies!! So I thought I would share with you my families special favorite Christmas cookies that we enjoy every christmas! :)

Sprits Cookies are my moms favorites. They are cookies that are made using a cookie press. A cookie press is a manual machine that you put the cookie dough into and then squeeze it out through plates that have different cuts in which create different shapped cookies. The dough is made in different Christmas colors like green and red. We make Christmas trees, wreaths and other fun Christmas shapes.

My father loves just about any kind of cookie, but is most favorite is a cookie that the recipe has been handed down for many generations on my moms side of the family. My great great grandmother made an oatmeal raisin cookie but it's a little different than the kind you are probably used to. These cookies are ground. We use a hand grinder to gride up the oatmeal and raisins prior to adding the rest of the ingredients and baking. My dad loves to have these in the mornings with his coffee but we don't make them other than around the Christmas holidays.

My sister's favorite of course are the cut out cookies. They are a sugar cookie and for her, the best part is decorating them. She loves to draw and paint, so she has fun creating new designs on each cookie. The only problem is that she is a perfectionist, so it takes her FOREVER to finish them.

My brother loves the Mexican Wedding cakes. They are small cookies that have pecans in them. They are rolled into balls and then baked. Once they finish baking, they are put into powdered sugar. The powdered sugar coats them and turns them white.

My favorite Christmas cookie is the sunbakkel. It's a Norwegian cookie. My grandmother is 100% Norwegian and loves to intruduce us to new things. These cookies are made in sunbakkel tings which look sort of like small pie pans but they are only about 3 inchies in diameter. The cookie dough is put in the tins and pressed around the sides and the bottom of the tin creating what looks like a small cup after its baked. They are YUMMY!! (382)

Ardeeemilla(:

What makes you, you?

Hey!!

Everyone knows that we take after our parents in looks and charachteristics, but do you think that we do when it comes to likes and dislikes? Or is it just an environmental thing. For instance, if you grown up with a parent who does not like carrots, they probably won't cook them for you. So you probably wouldn't get the opportunity to eat them as a kid and you would probably hear your parent make statements about how bad carrots taste. So the first time you try them, you don't like them. Do you think it's because you were told your whole life that they tasted bad or is it because you have something in your make up that dictates that you won't like them?

My mom grew up in a house wher her mother was a person who always had a very clean house. Her mother also spent time sewing and crafting. As an adult my mother also enjoys sewing and crafting and she spends a lot of time cleaning up after everyone so the house is clean. Will I grow up to be the same way? Is it a generational characteristic in my family to like clean houses, sewing and crafting?

Genetics is an interesting topic. What makes us who we are and why. I have brown eyes because both my parents have brown eyes. But why do my brother and sister both have blue eyes? It's becaue my grandmother is Norwegian and they typically are blonds and have blue eyes. My grandmother has blue eyes. My grandfather is German and they are typically dark haired and brown eyed. My grandfatherhas brown hair and brown eyes. But his father had blue eyes! What?? And my mothers Norwegian brothers and sisters have everything from brown hair, to red and blond and blue, green and brown eyes. Some day I'll made a graph and study how it all fits to gether. Is't just like a jigsaw puzzle. (327)

Ardeeemilla(:

Picture Day!

Hey guys!

So our picture day is this Thursday and I thought I would share with you all what I think of picture day.

Picture day to me seems like a day everything kind of goes wrong. A day you try so so hard to look great for a picture that everyone sees for years and years to come. They show it to their family and look back on it when they are older. Somehow no matter how hard we try, our picture never seems to look the way we want it. Maybe its our insecurities coming out of us, being selfconcious or just our picture not looking that great. Its a good thing they came up with the touchups they can do on the pictures otherwise there would be a lot more random hairs sticking up and one day zits that just happen to pop up on picture day. I have yet to find someone who is just really good at taking school pictures.

I think its really funny when kids do things like pass around the same purple sweatshirt for tons of guys to wear and then there is a sea of purple pictures through out the year book. (This happened at our school last year.) It's also always surprising how many kids forget that it's picture day and come to school in their pajama pants or with no make up. Oops! Then there are all those who end up having to have a second take becaue they didn't like the first one.

I'm sure that on the flip side, the photographer viewpoint of this day is less than spectacular as well. An average of 1000 kids all with different personalities and attitudes getting their photos taken. Sit, turn, tilt, smile, Cheese! Sit, turn, tilt, smile, Cheese, 1000 times over. Why aren't they listening to me? Can't they hear me? If they don't pay attention, we're going to be doing this until midnight!

Fortunately it only happens once a year. It's a pain, but it's a good thing, I guess. It's for the future...so we aren't forgotten. (349)

Ardeeemilla(:

Christmas everywhere! (:

Hello!!!

Christmas is getting so close so I thought I would talk about Christmas traditions of a few other countries and some of my own families traditions.

We all know how the people of the United States celebrate Christmas.

China -The Christians in China light their homes with beautiful paper lanterns. Santa is called Dun Che Lao Ren. The children hang stockings just as we do.

England- We have gotten many of our christmas customs from england. One of there things are our christmas trees. There are some stories of this starting because the king and queen. In england instead of mailing out their christmas list, children throw it into the fireplace and Father Christmas reads the smoke. England is also where the tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney began, due to the fact that Father Christmas(Santa) once accidentally dropped some gold coins on his way down the chimney which got caught in a drying stocking. Another interesting thing is that instead of opening up their gifts as soon as they wake up, English children wait until the afternoon.

France- In France Santa is known as Pere Noel. He has a partner called Pre Fouettard who keeps track of who has been good or bad for Pere Noel. In some parts of France, Pere Noel brings small gifts on december 6^th and comes back to deliver more on Christmas. In France the children get to open their presents on Christmas, but the parents and other adults have to wait until New Years. In France the children sometimes set their shoes in front of the fire place hoping that Pere Noel might leave gifts in their shoes for them. They also have dinner at midnight on December 24 that is called Le Reveillon.

Mexico- In mexico they call christmas Navidad. They celebrate christmas by having a posada, it a is a time when people dress up as Mary and Joseph going aroud asking if mary can stay there. They ar e told that there is no room and shut the door but the door then opens back up and they are invited in for songs, food, and a piñata for the kids. The celebration lasts nine days and on the ninth day they are told there is room for mary and they go to church and celebrate Jesus's birth.

My family celebrates by all going to my grandparents house over break. This year Christmas is on a Tuesday, so we will travel to Wisconsin to my grandparents home on Saturday. We'll probably relax Saturday afternoon. My grandmother always puts up a large Christmas tree that has to be real. She has many homemade ornaments, but one special one...a pickle. She and my grandfather always hide a pickle ornament in the Christmas Tree and everyone has to try and find it without touching the tree. The story is, whoever finds it will have an extra present under the tree. Sunday will be a day for the men to go deer hunting while the women make lefse. My grandmother is 100% Norwegian. My grandfather is 100% German. My grandmother tries to integrate both nationalities in the holidays. Lefse is a Norwegian food, kind of like a tortilla. It's made out of potatoes. Sunday afternoon will be a cookie baking day. Yum! Monday is Christmas Eve. My uncles will come to my grandparents home with my cousins for the day. All the kids will hopefully get to be outside building show forts. 

 

My mom grew up in Wisconsin where there is usually a lot of snow, more than there is here. She is a pro at building snow forts. When she was younger, the snow forts took up the entire front yard at my grandparents. That evening, everyone will get dressed up and go to the Christmas Eve service at church. My cousins who are still in gradeschool are all in the childrens program. It's always fun to see if we can get a bag of goodies that is meant for the kids on our way out of church. It's usually full of fruit, peanuts and candies. Then we go home where my grandmother has an already prepared seafood chowder for us to eat. It's amazing! After the late dinner, we get to open the gifts that are in our stockings. Then of course, it's always a rush for my little cousins to gto home and into bed because Santa Clause will be there soon. Christmas Day, everyone gathers back at my grandparents home sometime late morning after they have opened their gifts from Santa. We then get to eat lutefisk and the lefse that was made a couple days earlier. This is another Norwegian food. You take the Lefse and butter one side. Then you take a boiled potato and mash it onto the lefse. Next goes the lutefisk which is a fish. Then you roll it up like a burrito and eat it. It's not something that everyone likes but we all try it. We also have either some German food with that or whatever my grandfather wants which is usually ham. Then we all migrate to the livingroom to open our gifts. There is usually a couple football games mixed in there somewhere too. Then we wait a week until New Years. New Years Day is also a seafood day. All the mean cook a seafood boil which consists of potatoes, carrots, onions, shrimp, cod, scallops and whatever other seafood they decide to add. Everyone brings a dish to pass. We eat, play cards and watch football, usually the Wisconsin Badgers playing in the Rose Bowl. (936)

Ardeeemilla(: