Home (Sort of)

My room in the knew apartment is almost done. All that needs to go in is the furniture, and the statues on them. I have a table in my room for the T.V. (Dad said I could have the broken T.V.). A few boxes with action figures, and my shelving for toys. I put all my stuffed animals on the shelving though. They take up a lot of space. I didn't realize how much I had. I like soft stuff and they're soft, when I see them I want to have something soft, and they piled up over the years.

The girl who was at the apartment before us put up fans on the lights. Mine works really well. Gets the air circulating (my mom and dad's is broken, pays off for the T.V.). She also left flower pot hangers in my room, the living room, and the porch. I hung three bats from the one in my room. The one in the living room I hung small plush snowmen. I bought them at a school sale. I have I think eight in the collection. Only six were in the box that me and my mom took with us to the apartment.

Mom and I have taking a car load of stuff to the apartment every day for two or three days. We were going to tomorrow but Mom has to work at 11:00 and it takes us about an hour to get everything in and set up in the right room. Then we hang out for a while because I think the apartment is really cool. The assistant manager says that our apartment is the biggest in the building. Along with two others. Were on the inside corner which means the apartment wraps around the building giving us more space.

Mom and me are very excited about this. We always love going over there. Mom just needs a little break tomorrow before work, that's why she probably won't go. If she sleeps well she said we can do a small trip.

As I have said we are very excited, except for Dad. He has to be negative about this.

Apartments

We signed the lease for the apartment! Mom and Dad didn't want to because it was taking them so long to get back to us. we wanted to sign it almost two weeks ago! We went through a lot of papers and got the keys. I took along a tape measure to measure my room to see if my stuff would fit. My mom said that if she does not get called into work on the sixth we can start taking stuff over. My mom reserved movers for us on the eleventh I think it was and that is when we should be moving in.

We had a pretty bad storm last night. We didn't have to go to the basement but the rain was blowing up against our house causing a lot of noise. Mom got home a little late because the storm started when her store closed. There was nothing on the news so I just watched movies while Dad slept in the other room.

Sixth Sax Lesson

I had my sixth sax lesson. We are now almost all the way through the book! One more lesson and we should be all the way through it. When we got to the lesson all the rooms were taken so we spent five minutes looking for a room. Then we finally went out side to do the lesson.

We went through the songs pretty easily. I squeaked on a few G's, but we fixed that up pretty well. He was amazed at the amount of practice again (about as much as last week).

Me and Dad went out today to buy the second book. When we got there we bought a Drag'n Swab. The person there said it was their best sax cleaning product. You put it through the sax and pull it back and forth through it. We also bought a stand.

Not writing much because nothing is happening. We have been approved by the apartments, but we still can't move in.

Apartment

We found an apartment to live in. Yesterday (July 8) we went to the apartment and town house place. We were able to see a two bedroom apartment on the first floor. That one was O.K. Then we asked if we could see the two bathroom two bedroom apartment on the third floor. We wern't supposed to see that until today, but the person living said we could if we didn't mind the mess. Our house is a mess already so it didn't matter. That one was cool. It had a nice kitchen space and the living room space was incredible. The deck was more sturdy that the first we looked at a few weeks ago. The lights in the bedrooms had little fans on them. The assistant manager said that those would probably stay with the apartment when the person living there moved.

It only had one phone outlet from what we could see so that puts our computer in the living room (which is where it would have been without the outlet in that spot). The bedrooms were a nice size. Enough to put all my dragon statues in. The two bathrooms were right across from the rooms. So we could do what we do now. I have my bathroom (which is the biggest) and Mom and Dad have theirs. My bathroom didn't look like it had a toilet but it was hiding behind the door.

My mom and dad's room had a walk-in closet. All the rooms have a small walk-in closet, but that one had enough room for four people!

We went down to the office and I got to watch game shows on T.V. Mom and Dad talked a bit with the assistant manager and we locked down that apartment. That means it is ours. We also got two garages for our cars and storage.

There are few other things that come into play, but we'll deal with those when the time comes.

Cool Statues

Our family used to (kind of still do) own a home company. We would go to craft shows and people would buy stuff we bought from catalogs. We don't go to the craft shows anymore, but we still get the catalogs.

Yesterday (July 7) we got another catalog. We always look in them because we want to see if there is anything cool in them. I always find the myth and legend part cool (you'll see why a paragraph down). My mom always likes the cowboy section with the horses (she's a horse person). I don't know what my dad likes best.

In the myth and legend section there is always the dragons. I love dragons. I have a bunch of dragon statues in my room (not as many as liked though). The catalog had some really cool ones that Dad said when we find where we are going to move to we might be able to order some. I scanned the pictures into the computer of the ones I really want. They're are other ones I would love to have, but these I think are really cool.

I don't know if your computers will be able to see these very well. Ours can't.

Black Dragon Table. About two feet high.

Or I could get this one. I would only get one if we can get these. I like this one better because it has color. The other one though has a sword. Buying this one would take almost $60 off the price.

A Dragon Beach Towel.A dragon sitting in a small temple. I would only use this for view, not the candles.Dragon lamp.Dragon mirror with candle.Dragons with sword wall plague.Large blue dragon.Magical dragon mirror. It's motion censored so that when it detects movement it turns into a mirror.

Minnesota Zoo

We went to the Mn Zoo for my mom's birthday. In the morning when we all got up we gave my mom a unicorn statue. We saw it at a garage sale and Mom really liked it, but she didn't buy it. Me and my dad went back later and bought. She confessed she saw it when we were moving boxes, but the only harm in that was we didn't get to see the look of surprise on her face.

We got to the zoo around 10:30 and stayed until 5:00. The line to get in was the longest we have ever seen on this day (we come ever year on my mom's birthday). The wait was only about five minutes though. We paid $66 to get in!Most of that was because adult payment to get in is so high and we bought tickets to see a dinosaur movie. T-rex! We started by seeing monkeys and going to the Africa exhibit where they have the bears. We came to a bridge after a while and Mom noticed there were shower sprayers there. I spent about five minutes spraying my self with them. When I was done I was soaked!

When we got to a spot where we could either go to the farm, or the Minnesota Trail we picked the Minnesota Trail and that meant more walking. The wolf exhibit we don't get much excitement out of because the wolves are always hiding. This time though they running around less then a foot away from the glass! We got some pictures, but it was hard because they were moving so fast.

It was a nice day and we were having a nice time until, we got to the Minnesota Trail. That was a amazing. We had asked at the gift shop near the from if they had and wolverines. They didn't even know what a wolverine was! They said they had two after calling a few places and they said it was at the Minnesota Trail. We got there and the closest thing to a wolverine was a wolf. We got that and a huge Mere Cat that was half off with any purchase.

The Trail was cool! The raccoon in the beginning was hiding behind a pile of logs and running out. Then going back behind the logs. The first few animals after that were normal then cam the wolverines. At first I was disappointed because this was what I was looking forward to and the wolverine was sleeping. I walked back to Mom and Dad and when we came back he was running around. We got some good pictures then we rounded the corner there were more wolverines! There were three more and they were posing for us! We must of took twenty pictures of the wolverines. That was probably the most fun part of the trip.We can't see the pictures I took because the digital camera I was using card got full.

At 3:10 the movie was going to play so we left from where we were and got in line first. I went over to the third and final gift shop. Guess what I found. A wolverine! The people gave us the wrong gift shop. Mom was annoyed because we spent $45 on stuffed toys.

The movie was in 3-D. The movie was only forty minutes long so we didn't expect it to be great. It was good but there was not point. A girl was lost in a museum and she kept thinking she was going back in time to the dinosaur ages. My favorite character was a kitten that looked like our cat.

After seeing all the animals we headed home and overall I would say it was a good day. Don't think that was all that we did there though. I didn't put all the details in because that would take to long. I just put in the high lights.

I recorded a few more songs on my saxophone.

This song is called Grandfather's Whiskers. It took awhile, but I can now play it pretty close to perfect.




This song is called Ronde. This was one of the first i could play. Now I can play it really good.



With packing we almost have the basement done now. Mom is working fast because when she gets two jobs she won't be home as much.

Mom has now got two jobs! She will have a total of over twenty five hours which is all we need to get into an apartment. Mom hasn't actually got the twenty to thirty hour job yet, but the way they were acting she is pretty sure that by next week we can get an apartment.

Early Morning

Today I got up at 6:00. That's a big difference considering I usually get up from 8:00 to 9:00. It is raining. Pouring almost. The wind is blowind hard and it was blowing right into my window. I couldn't get back to sleep so I was able to come down early when no one was awake and make a post.

That didn't last long. Dad came down and he didn't say I had to get off, but I did.

My mom's job official closed. She went back to return her keys and get another check. Her first one bounced.

We are doing a little more packing bit by bit. Still over all, this week has been extremely boring.

The three bedroomed apartment we wanted to rent already got rented. The two we also looked at though will probably be open. There was also a two bathroomed that we want for $70 more, and two people were going to look at it, but we still want that one.

We think we will be moving to the apartments where we are looking. It's just that we haven't found one there yet.

First Sax Lesson

I had my first saxophone lesson last night at 6:30. We arrived early because the traffic wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. I got to ask the teacher how to play the higher notes. It turned out it was what I thought it was, I was just doing it wrong.

We were able to change the lessons to 3:00 so now I will be able to write about them when I get home (unless Dad won't let me).

He asked me first what i could do, and because I couldn't play the higher notes I told him I couldn't play the beginning pages. That was soon resolved. He told me what the button was I had to push, and it turns out I was sitting wrong. He told me that I had to practice tonging.

We went through the first few pages of the book I brought to help start out and he said "It's amazing how much you are ahead of the average student!" or something to that meaning. Then he said I should practice some of the pages with articulation over the week. I said "I try to practice twenty minutes a day." He laughed then said "It's like pulling teeth to get some of my other students to practice." We took the CD out of the book and out it into the CD player and I could play along to the song. The song was played very fast and I messed up and had to stop playing. He said "That's O.K. You shouldn't be able to play that fast yet. If you could, that would be great!" I found out what I did wrong though, I have a tendency to not arc my left hand. That pushes down on some buttons making it sound bad.

He left to get a practice sheet and I played the song again , but with no mistakes and as fast as the CD. It turns out I have to use a different reed because the one I'm using got chipped. He told me that I had my reed positioned wrong, well I got that from him. Because he told me the way to position the reed and I had it wrong.

There is a possibility that I will be going to that collage when I get old enough.

Very soon I think I will ask my dad if I can record my playing and put it on my blog.

We are still doing a lot of packing. We ran out of boxes so Dad had to go to the store to get more. My mom's a little angry and confused about why he has to spend $100 on boxes, but I told her we need all the boxes we can get. We have alot of stuff. So far we don't even have one room totally finished.

We're doing the family room now, but it's taking a while. One reason because nobody wants to do it. My dad says we have to do it, then everyso often he goes to his blog. My mom says we have to do it and when we do sometimes she does the laundry. Even I do it sometimes. I say "We have to do it! You guys keep saying we have to do it, now let's pack!" Then I go off and play war or watch T.V. Even bother the cat sometimes.

It's not fun, even depressing at times, but we have to get this packing done. My mom says "Well we have a month" It was two months not to long ago. Soon it will be time to move.

Como Again

We went to Como Zoo for Fathers Day. This trip I would say went better because the weather was nicer. It was kind of cool and there was a light rain. That felt really good after walking a long time. We got some pictures for Firestar's Virtual Image Zoo. One of them even has me in it (Mom too).

Today in about half and hour we will leave to go to my first sax lesson.

We are doing a lot of packing now that moving comes closer. We just finished taping a few boxes together and putting our movies in it. I got all my computer games for the Wii and Gamecube in a box, and Firestar has been having tons of fun exploring the new open space.

Not much to write now. Tomorrow I will write about my lesson.

A Home To Live In

We found a place to live yesterday Friday June 19. We can only go there though if my mom gets her salary up to $500 or $600 a month. It is low right now because the store I like to help her in is closing, and she quit one of her other jobs. She found a few new ones, but my dad says "We can move to the apartment if you get at least twenty five hours a week even with the minimum wage."

That is where I think we are meant to go. Yesterday we went to look at them and the guy there said he could show us a two bed roomed one, and a three bed roomed one. The two was nice because it had a lot of wood flooring in the front. Me and Dad like wood flooring and cabinets a lot. The problem with the two bed roomed one was that it was small.

The three bedroom was cool when we walked in. We saw a huge room with a porch at the end (all of them have a small porch). It was nice and we room for us to sleep, and a study for the computer. Where my room would be is right next to the study, so if I don't forget I will ask my dad if we can put a door like the closets there in (the closets are sliding doors) between my room and the study. The problem with it was there was no wood. A few wood cabinets, but no wood floor. The porch there too felt a little unsteady, and I don't want to test it out much, because if it breaks, you would fall three stories.

During the day maybe even at night, there is a pool outside, so if we can get in by August (which is when we plan to leave) we can go swimming. In the main building where you rent the apartments and town houses, there is a place where you can exercise any time of the day for free. There is three of those things were it has places to put your shoes, and a treadmill.

This what the treadmill looked like, except more high tech.

This is kind of what the stair climber looked like, except it was much bigger and looked like the treadmill, but had the foot places.