American Idol 2009

It's started up again. Millions of people audition in the summer to go to Hollywood to sing their hearts out. To sing in competition. Where America votes on who they think is the #1 singer of the year. This is American Idol, Season 8!

This year, it's a bit different. Honestly, I don't like the change. 4 judges? What happened to the classical Randy, Paula, and Simon? (Don't mess with Simon.) I kind of like the new judge though. Kara has an excellent way of putting things.

Honestly, I thought most of the performances on Tuesday night (24th of Feb.) was pretty awful. I think that Micheal was the perfect choice to go through to the top 12. He really nailed the song, 'I Don't Wanna Be'. He's got a great voice, and in my opinion, he should make it very far in this competition. He has a very strong voice. Same with Danny! Alexis I was a bit surprised, but those where actually the best, in my opinion, in that group. She does deserve to be in the top 12. They all do! The rest, I don't quite know how to put it. I don't think they had the guts to be on American Idol.

Honestly, I've only seen group 1. I believe there are 3 groups, so keep an eye out on Fox!

My Insane Mall Trip

You know how girls love to go to the mall? I'm one of those girls. I love to save my money and buy clothes and hair things- especially with my friends. Once you step through the doors, it's like everything disappears. The trees disappear, the traffic lights and the cars disappear, the whole environment disappears. Instead, you see glass doors and windows with all kinds of things on display in front of the windows. Wooden benches sit to the side, and large signs of advertisement are everywhere. Escalators and stairs hear and there, and of course, crowds of people. One of those little crowds was me, my mom, and my friend, Claire. We went about a week ago, Saturday night. (The 7th)

I had saved up a LOT of money, but most of that was for my brother's ipod. (That's another story.) I wasn't planning on spending everything else left over from the ipod money, though. Because luckily, I had a couple of gift cards. One to Claire's, the most girlish place in the universe. Nail polish, earrings, headbands and all you hair accessory needs, plastic necklaces and bracelets, xoxoxoxo pink and purple bags, and loads of girly stuffed animals and trinkets. It isn't very hard to find Claire's. All you have to do is look for a big splotch of purple and pink, and there you are.

I am NOT that kind of girly-girl kind of girl. I'm not a tomboy either. I'd never want to be a boy. But that doesn't make me a girly-girl. I'm just a girl. I'm me. I'm Sonja Heels.

We actually went to an amazing clothing store, Aeropostal. I'd never been there, but I heard it's a cool place. So we go there. Oh my gosh they had insane belts! They had a rainbow striped one with this tan fabric background. (Two layers of fabric.) Another one had shades of blue and green- my two favorite colors. I went totally psycho. "Claire!! Come check out this belt! Omg I'm totally getting this! It's only- awwww...." That's when I saw the price hanging over it. $30!! That was a rip off. I hung it back up. The second after I hung it up, I saw the spectacular polo tees. There they where, just sitting on the table, folded so neatly. They had several different kinds. One had blue and green stripes, another had green and yellow stripes, the other had pink stripes, and the last one had pink and purple stripes. I look at the price hanging above all of them: $.9.99!! That's when I REALLY went bizarre. I thought something like this at Aeropostal would cost like, I don't know, $15.00 or something. I immediately took my wallet out and yanked a couple $5 bills. I took the sweetly folded green and yellow striped polo off the table. I thought for a second, put it back, and decided I'd come back to it later if I know I really want it. I DO know I really want it, but there could be better deals out there. You never know.

Claire's was next. I've always wanted to get one of those headbands that are plastic, and they don't go completely around your head. And they're really wide. Usually with some kind of pattern on it. I ended up getting a purple sparkly one of those, and a pair of earrings. Picking the earrings was the hardest part. They had tons, tons, TONS of earrings. They were all SO cute, but some I would never get. I figured cupcakes would be cute, and it would be one of those things I could wear to parties. It's like I'm eating a cupcake that looks exactly like those earrings- that would be hilarious!!

So we're off to the food court, right? This is the time you've been waiting for. The part where things go CRAZY! So, we're at the food court, trying to decide what to get, when the fire alarms go off!! I was so alarmed- because after all, it is an alarm. The emergency fire alarm lights flashed on, blinking on and off. Extraordinarily loud noises came from everywhere. I panicked, because that's just what people do what they're scared. I thought the whole mall was going to burn down- and I'd never be able to buy that cute polo! My mum bought some chips for the ride home, and we all hurried over to Aeropostal. I ran to the pile of adorable polos, grabbed the neatly stacked green and yellow striped one, and dashed over to the check out counter. Ok, at least the shopping part was done. My mum said we should leave, because it was a racket. I couldn't blame her, but I still wanted to stay. I prayed that they'd stop. I was just about to burst into tears when they did. I unplugged my ears- no loud noises coming from every direction, no flashing flickering lights everywhere. An announcement came on, saying it was a false alarm or something like that.. I couldn't quite make out the words. I was SO happy! I had to let it out. I had to let out a super high-pitch squeak. :-)

The Fire Within

During February vacation, my mom and I went to Willow Books, witch is like my favorite place to get books. It's so peaceful and quiet, and they have such a wide selection. Anyway, I'd heard of this series of dragons that looked kind of cool. All I knew about them was that they where about dragons, and every single book in the series has a close up on an eye. That's it. Of course, Willow Books had them. In fact, all three of them. 'The Fire Within', 'Icefire', and 'Fire Star'. I read the backs of the first two, and I knew I'd like them. I'd always love fantasy stories, considering I basically fell in love with Harry Potter. I've always thought that dragons were very interesting creatures. I wonder if they're related to Dinosaurs!

The Fire Within is about 2 main things: squirrels, and dragons. Yes, believe me, there is a lot of squirrels in this book. When David Rain moves in with Elizabeth Pennykettle, and her daughter Lucy, David notices these strange clay dragons all over the house. Liz makes them herself, but when David's own special dragon, Gadzooks, inspires him to write a story, it reveals secrets about his dragon. He's seen purple in Liz's eyes, and purple in one of the dragon's eyes. He can't understand how Liz kilns them in her studio, if there is no oven or heating system in the den, or for that matter, in the entire house. Except for their oven down stairs in the kitchen, but that's no place to kiln a clay dragon. Now that David's unlocked the mystery, he must master the fire within, to save his dragon.

I must say, it is a page turner. I can't wait to start the 2nd book! But I'm not going to yet- I have about 3 other books to finish first. If you enjoy fantasy, realistic fiction, and dragons, Chris D'lacey's books are for you! I'd recommend these books for kids 9 and up.

Freaky Bus Ride

Okay. Yeah, I'm in fifth grade, and pretty young. One of the youngest people in the whole grade, I think. It's hard to believe I'm still 10. Honestly, I think I look like a 6th grader! Lot's of people guess that I'm in 6th grade- but I'm not. Just an average little fifth grader that happens to write very well. Yeah, I still ride the smelly old bus to school every day, ever since kindergarten. I used to walk and bike, when I could. I don't have much an option in winter, as you can imagine. Walking I wasn't quite a big fan of- it was either bike or bus- and like 20% out of all my years in elementary is bike. The other 80% or so is the bus. Out of all those bus rides, this one was the most freaky. Here goes.

So I'm just reading Twilight, like the best book ever made for teens, and the bus's engine is grumbling even louder than usual. We come up to a hill, and right there on the hill is a tree. It was leaning over a lot to the side- the side of the road. The side we where trying to get up. It wasn't just the tree that was blocking us from getting up. There was also lots of ice on the hill. Lisa, our bus driver, tried to drive through the tree, but we were all, 'Lisa! No! Help the environment! Don't drive over it!!' It was pretty funny. (Lisa is our bus driver)She even tried burning the rubber on the tires so she could get up!! Smoke rose up immediately, and the horrible stench sneaked through all the open windows- it smelled disgusting! We had to hold our noses for like, 10 minutes while we tried to find out a way to get up with out killing rubber, killing our noses, or killing the environment. That was pretty hard. We saw that the tree wasn't exactly blocking our entire route, if Lisa carefully drove around it. That meant getting up the hill at a slightly different angle. We made it! But it took a while.

We were a bit late for school, but only by a couple of minutes. That's why I don't really like winter, but I love it at the same time because you can play in the snow and have no school sometimes because of it! :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend- and actually, there is two holidays around this time. Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day! I had a great Valentine's Day. It's the holiday that you can spread the word of love! Ahh.. love is in the air.

I know for a fact that the ducks are having a nice weekend, too, because on Valentine's Day, my friends, their dog and I went to the duck pond- and we brought Cheerios! There was about six ducks. 4 of them looked extremely similar to Aflac. (Ask about it at work.) Another one had Aflac's look, but it's beak wasn't very bright orange. It was a faded orange. The last duck was very different from the rest. A white body, black patches on the back, with a pink beak. It was very funny- Rasta, my friend's dog, kept barking at the ducks, and even tried to get a couple of Cheerios. The ducks don't get that every day, that's for sure. I actually went with my mother the next day to feed them, and they seemed very surprised- and very happy. :-) Believe it or not, I got some more Cheerios, and headed for the duck pond with my friend, Claire. This time, we gave them a few Cheerios. That's when the big finally came- we dumped all the Cheerios at once- and immediately the quaking came to an end. All six ducks were vacuuming up the Cheerios, one by one. That's my Valentine's story! Feel free to comment and share yours.

Tomorrow is actually President's Day, but I figured since they're only one day apart, I'd write them in the same post. Happy President's Day! Be sure to check out all those stores with the President's Day sales. Sales, sales, sales. Wow. The holiday sales, spring sales, valentine's day sales, there is ALWAYS a reason to have a sale. Weather it's national crazy hat day or something like that, they always have a reason.

Happy holidays, and let's hope that the snow melts so spring can come! I'm not that big of a fan of Winter, at least not now. All the snow right now is rock hard, and you can't do anything with it. Sledding will be bumpy, and everything is slippery, too. I'm a spring fan! Mainly because my birthday is in spring. Once again, happy holidays, and hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Seasons greetings from Sonny's Area.

Sebago Lake In The Winter

You know that post I wrote, 'The Week I Couldn't Walk'? And 'Sebago Lake, Maine'? Well guess what? I went there again! This time, it was in the winter. It was spectacular, I say! SPECTACULAR!

The neighbors were kind enough to plow the walk way and a little path down to the frozen lake. They even plowed a nice big rink so we could skate on it! How sweet. You know what else was sweet? We got to skate all around these tracks made by there gaiter trucks. They even had races! We would skate behind them. Can you imagine what that's like? Having 3 or 4 trucks racing around the ice, and the rest of us having a bonfire on the ice? Now that's something you can't do in the summer.

We did the same thing the next day- either stay cozy warm on the ice by the fire, sitting on a part of a tree, all chopped up, or you could race with the gaiters. I'm not that great of a skater, but I went out there anyway.

Also, we went cross country skiing! Before we get to that, let me tell you a few things about me and skiing, first.

I love to ski down hill, and I've been doing it since I was about 3 or 4. How long have I been cross country? This was only my second time. The first time was actually with the same people! We were in Concord, and it wasn't a very flat ground. I was slowly coming down the hill, when I stumble and fall to my side. I ended up landing on my wrist, and it hurt. I got back up, hoping that nothing was damaged. I keep on going, when I tumble and fall to the side, again. I landed on my wrist, again. I just hope it didn't happen again after that. My wrist really started to hurt now, and I was nervous about skiing the rest of the way. So I took off my skis and walked the rest of the way. Luckily, I didn't have to walk that far because it happened right when we were about to finish the loop.

When I got back home, my dad took my to the doctor to get an x-ray. I really thought my wrist was broken. But luckily, it was just a sprain. I had to wear this thing like a cast, only I could take it off if I needed to. I didn't need to wear it for very long, because once it stayed in that one position for about a day, it healed!

Now back to the other cross country skiing story. We went on the other side of the lake, where no gaiters could go. I had a much better feeling this time, because I was really getting the hang of it! I was gliding really far, and if felt so soothing. The breeze blowing on my face, while a glide as if I take of and fly. It felt so glorious with my fluffy scarf loosely hanging at my neck.

Whether you're there in the summer or winter, there's always something fun to do at Sebago Lake!