Surprises by Sarah

My 16th birthday was the birthday of surprises for me. It was quite fun.

The first surprise was a surprise birthday party while we were camping with our friends the Ruffs. I was sent out on a long walk with Taylor. When we returned everyone else was stuffed into the Ruffs’ little camper singing "Happy Birthday." They all had part of a sign that read “Happy 16th Birthday, Sarah.” I loved celebrating my birthday with such fun friends. It was very special.

The second surprise came the day after my birthday. While I was out shopping with Grandma everyone at home was busy preparing a WHITE birthday dinner for me. The meal consisted of chicken fettuccine, white rice, potatoes, and breadsticks. For dessert they prepared a Krispy Kreme doughnut cake. It was my dream birthday meal.

The final surprise came the next morning. Three of the girls had orthodontist appointments in Atlanta. The plan was to have all of the girls go down and make it a girl date by hitting the clothing outlets in Calhoun. After the appointment I thought we were proceeding to the outlets. Instead I was pleasantly surprised when we stopped at a tea room in Atlanta. This was the same tea room Mom took me to last year for my 15th birthday. It was very fun going back.


That ended the surprises for my 16th Birthday. I will have to be on the lookout for next year.

High School Musical by Mary

Recently, the three oldest girls and Dad went to see High School Musical at the Chattanooga Theatre Center. We went mainly to see two of our friends who were acting in it. The show was very fun and we got discount tickets from our friends. Here is a picture of us with Cara (left) and Jamie (right)

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Camping with buds by Mary

Since I never write posts without pictures, here are some pics from when we went camping with the Ruffs -

We had a great time, especially with Sarah's surprise, coke bottle experiments and other fun stuff. I am sure you will hear many other stories from other Zeglen bloggers, but I would like to tell you about a couple things that I found quite memorable. The first night we were there, Sarah and Taylor had some fun with the flashlights. What kind of fun? Well, how does swallowing and throwing up light sound? I have videos from this trick, but I cannot figure out how to load videos on here. Very sad, I know. Another fun event is when we went to the overlook at the park and took a gazillion pictures! Over all in this entire trip, I took approx. 1000 pictures!!!! I know that sounds a bit ridiculous. Taylor and I are both making slideshows with pictures from the trip, and I may (if I figure out how) post my slideshow on the blog!!

Mentos by Susie

On Saturday, while we were camping with the Ruffs, Taylor suggested the brilliant plan of blowing up a 2-liter of Diet Coke with a package of Mentos. Everyone thought it was a great plan, and when we went to Wal-Mart later we bought Diet Coke and looked all over for Mentos. They had Mentos gum, but that wouldn't work, so we high-tailed it over to a gas station and found Mentos there. Upon our return to the campsite, we put the Diet Coke in place and got ready to do our wonderful experiment. However, when we put the Mentos in, the bottle didn't blow up like we thought it would. None of us had ever done it before, so we didn't know exactly what to expect. Instead of "blowing up", it just spewed all the Diet Coke straight in the air in a foamy fountain form. After some debate, we decided that the reason it didn't really "blow up" was because we hadn't screwed the lid on all the way. So we went down to the camp store and bought two (expensive) 20 oz. bottles of Diet Coke. We still had enough Mentos to "blow up" both of them. Back at the campsite we tried it again, this time screwing the lid on all the way. We watched the foam build up, but it didn't blow up. Then we had to unscrew the lid, and it did it again. We tried one more time with the last Diet Coke bottle with similar results. Then the dads stepped in and said they could do it better. Uncle Theron put the last 2 Mentos in a Diet Pepsi bottle. (Since it wasn't Diet Coke, everyone doubted it would work.) However, it spewed the Diet Pepsi out just fine. It was really fun, and we ended up wishing Stephen and Kevin had been there to help us make more (somewhat destructive) experiments. We're looking forward to a potato gun next year. ;-)

The 145th Chickamauga National Reenactment by Sarah

The 145th Chickamauga National Reenactment took place near Chattanooga this weekend. The reenactment did not actually take place at the Chickamauga Battlefield. Instead it was held in Walker County on an 849 acre piece of historical land. The reenactment did not officially open to the public until Friday morning. I had the opportunity of being a volunteer for the dance exhibition for the two school days: Wednesday and Thursday. Being a volunteer meant I was in full Civil War period clothing. The volunteers' jobs were to take kids from the audience and demonstrate authentic period dances. We had about 15 minutes to teach school kids how to dance a Virginia Reel or a Pat-A-Cake Polka. It was quite an experience.
On Friday when the reenactment was opened to the public Vice President Dick Cheney came and spoke. The Vice President's Great Grandfather, Samuel Fletcher Cheney, fought in the battle of Chickamauga. Samuel Cheney was a Union lieutenant with the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry throughout the Civil War. During the Battle of Chickamauga Lt. Samuel Cheney was an aide to Third Brigade Commander Col. William Sirwell.
It was a small national reenactment, but still very exciting. I had a great time being there.

Boston by Susie

On Sunday, September 7th, Dad flew out to Boston for a business trip. He was scheduled to arrive back home a few hours before small group was supposed to start on Tuesday, September 9th. Before he left, some of the children had an urge to remind him that his plane is always delayed when leaving Boston. And of course, the one time we really needed him to be home on time, his plane was delayed and then he missed his connecting flight. He didn’t get home until around 9:30 p.m. None of his wonderful children even thought about saying “I told you so.” ;-)

Events by Susie

Events, events, events!!! Saturday morning, after staying up late Friday night, Peter had a football game and then Lego League. Mom went out looking for a wrap to wear with her dress for a symphony performance she and Dad were planning to attend that evening. She ended up traipsing all over town and, in the end, she just bought a dress on clearance and a wrap to go with it! Then we went to a wedding way out past where we used to live - about 45 minutes away. Once we got there, the wedding was delayed for another 45 minutes, plus it was in a big field with the sun beating down on us, and absolutely no shade! After the wedding, we didn’t have time to go to the reception, because Mom and Dad had to get to the symphony. They didn’t get back from that until about 10:30, and we didn’t get to bed until 11:00. So, come Sunday, we were completely exhausted. We got to bed early Sunday night, which was really good. However, we’re still recovering.

Jukebox Junction Friday night by Susie

Last Friday night Grandma took us to the Jukebox Junction Theater. The first half was “Rock and Roll Revue” and it was pretty fun. In the first half, there were a LOT of love songs, and what they do is they come out into the audience to sing to you. Peter sat on the end of our row and, handsome boy that he is, he was a favorite. After two ladies came over and sang to him, he leaned over and remarked to Dad and me, with complete innocence, “The ladies love me.” Dad and I cracked up. It was so hilarious and ultimately cute. It was then passed down the row so that everyone heard it.

The second half was “Choo Choo Cha Boogie.” We didn’t think the second half would be very good … and it wasn’t. Some of us didn’t want to stay up that late, so we took two cars and planned on Mom taking some of us home after the first show. During the intermission, Mom was getting ready to leave, but Grandma stopped her and wouldn’t really let her leave. Since we were doing this as a favor for Grandma, Mom stayed. Ugh!

for those of you who wanted to see it....

For those of you who wanted to see Sarah after she gained "a million pounds", here it is:

We had a photo shoot of her before she went on a diet so you all could see her in her new appearance.

Congressional Award by Sarah

Last Saturday was one of the best days in the week. It started off by the entire family going running. Afterward we decided to go out for breakfast at Chick-fil-A and then hit the stores so that mom could get some stuff done. We had a great morning. It was tax free weekend so we found some great sales. In the late afternoon we went to see Iron Man in the dollar theater. The best part of the day came when I arrived home. Waiting on the table for me was the Bronze Certificate for the Congressional Award. The Bronze Certificate is the first of 6 awards, given when you have set and completed goals in four different areas. The four different areas are: personal development, voluntary service, physical fitness, and exploration or expedition. For each level you set new goals and put in a certain amount of hours. For the physical fitness goal I trained to run a 5k in less than 29 minutes. On April 19th at the Chickamauga Chase I successfully reached my goal with a time of 28:20. For the voluntary service goal I have been volunteering at the Ooltewah Collegedale library. At the library I mostly shelve, scan, and clean books. For the personal development I got to do one of my lifelong dreams: I finally got to take a quilting class to learn how to quilt. During the 5 week course I learned how to do 5 different basic blocks that I got to put together to form a mini quilt or wall hanging. For the expedition Susie, Mary, and I went to the Chickamauga Battlefield for a day of hiking. It was a very eventful day filled with getting lost, figuring out the very complicated map, needing the restroom, walking, and having fun being together. That summarizes the first level of the Bronze Certificate. I am now very motivated to continue working hard for the next level. It was a great Saturday.