History Day Stuff

Well, on this dreary Thursday, Ansel presented his history day exhibit with all the other qualifiers at Grand Haven old folk's home in Eldridge. His project is on the "Armia Krajowa" army in Warsaw during WWII, and he spent all afternoon contacting people until he actually found someone who fought in the Armia Krajowa. Nationals isn't all that far off- 9 days now! My second grade teacher was there, and she said that she actually had a copy of the second book, "Farmer Boy" book from the "Little House on the Prairie" series in Finnish! I'm excited go through it and try translating it. It'll bring back memories from her class when we spent months learning about prairie life. I guess that may be why I found this year's Dust Bowl unit to be so interesting.

Sports Time

Well, yesterday not much happened worth posting about, but today I got my sports and workout program back on track. I went in for the first day of strength training expecting a light first day, and I was totally wrong. I gagged and,,, lets just say it didn't end well >_< Nick Arp and several others lost their lunch at the 6 o'clock session too, so I wasn't alone. The rest of the day I pretty much played tennis with Halle Wilmott and Cole. I finally proved Cole that I can beat him in tennis, and I won most matches so I was feeling pretty good. Not exactly looking forward to tomorrow at all though, because I didn't wear sunscreen and there was full on sun today and my face is red as a beet. Its going to hurt really bad.

Foreign Language

Finnish studying is progressing~ I just realized I had a grammar mistake in the title of my blog, Kesällä 2012 means "In the Summer of 2012" but Kesän 2012 means "Summer of 2012." The best parts about Finnish is that every word is pronounced exactly as spelled, there are no grammatical genders, so the word for "it" can mean he or she as well, and there are no definite or indefinite articles like a, an, and the. It really isn't hard like they say, except for the part that word order hardly matters in Finnish, so it gets confusing :/ Also, there are 130 different forms of every verb, so its crazy to try to learn the verbs. The papers in the picture are all for my verb study.

Next year, since they don't offer Russian through the local colleges, (sad, I know) I think I will do French. I think I might dare to say that French is actually be a more pleasant sounding language than Finnish. Next year should be really interesting, I think. Oh, and good luck on your race Mrs. Laber! I think that is coming up soon? I can't wait for the Moonlight Chase, I'll be out running that one!

Creepy-Crawlies

Going along with our Missouri insect conversation, I literally feel like I've seen every insect and amphibious creature possible for the state of Iowa crawling around my yard. Snakes, ants, wasps, bees, horseflies, fat spiders that make a thud when they fall from high spaces and can crawl really fast, a bloating dead frog in the pool (which is still unopened luckily), June beetles crawling around in my hair outside at night, and really big water bugs that can bite. But the little guys in the picture, they aren't bugs at all. Overnight a bazillion of the tadpoles in the pool turned into baby frogs and they formed huge clusters all over the pool for some reason. The last time the tadpoles actually had enough time to turn into frogs before we opened the pool was when I was really little, but this year since it was so warm so early, almost all of them will turn into frogs. Not only that, but its still a whole three weeks before we open up our pool. Also, the spider that Cheyenne was talking about that can cause your skin to rot is rather common in Oklahoma. I now understand why for the three years that my sister-in-law lived there, she would never turn off the closet lights, which repel spiders.

And the Winner is...

SWEDEN WINS EUROVISION!! For the first time, my favorite song acyually made the top ten! So happy :) I'm at Akseli's house and tonight Annika and I are going to watch the song videos. She hasn't seen them yet because they've been super busy packing up to go to move to Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Bartlesville has a pretty big Native American influence, so this summer should be interesting. Ansel is a huge Native American culture geek and he is getting really excited for it. Getting my Finnish studied up, or I'm gonna die this Summer!

Upcoming Freshies

Last night, I went to a party that the whole upcoming freshman class was invited to, and I have to say, they are awesome. You should be really excited for next year, Mrs. Laber. They are truly a promising group of kids, and hopefully you can continue your history Mondays with them! I seriously wish I could be in their class, they are quite a fun and smart group for the most part.
Anyway, I've been sending out thank you packets to those that contributed to my history day project and shipping bills are going to start adding up with all of the packets going to Finland. Today was another history day workday for Ansel, who will be presenting his project at nationals in two weeks! Allie Stutting, an eight grader and my former history day partner, is going to nationals with a performance on Nellie Bly. As you can see by the picture, she's pretty excited for competition!

Time for Fun in the Sun!

School is out! That means it's time to dive into summer events :D April showers really have brought May flowers. We were out picking som wildflowers on the "prairie" before school today. Its not even close to the hottest time of year and we hit 91 today! Looks like a hot summer ahead, just like the Farmer's Almanac predicted. Do you guys have any plans for the first week of summer vacation?

Russian Things :D

My Matryoshki! I'm not sure if they quite rival your collection, Mrs. Laber, but I love 'em anyway. Russia, Estonia, and Finland for the 2014 trip maybe? Fingers crossed. Can't wait to see the pictures for the Central Europe trip this year, I'll post pics from Ansel's history day and Oklahoma!

History Class~

Mrs. Laber and Cheyenne! Here's my blog. Subscribe ASAP! I've loved having history class together, and history mondays, all of our discussions... It was a good time :] Happy beginning of summer to all! Err.., well, almost. Only four more finals left!