Hello from the kitchen where I am currently cooking myself some lunch before I hurriedly throw some stuff together for our trip to Nashville today. :)
        Oh sleeping in late, how glorious you feel yet how you force me to rush to get things accomplished on time. But I get to see Amber today! woot! and check out the new apartment.
        The Wednesday/Thursday write-over for the webseries was awesome. Though we didn't get as much finished as we originally hoped, I think we successful in at least trying to understand the characters more. And I think we finalized 5 episodes. 5/10 isn't....bad. lol.
    Ok, I gotta go be productive before I can leave now.

Love,
Jill

Hello from the moon. It was storming, so I looked out the window, and the rain was going up! Next thing I know, I'm on the moon! 

Just kidding. I've been watching a bit of Doctor Who this afternoon. Can't you tell?

Anyway...this week has been fantastic! Sunday, I volunteered as a greeter at the children's concert, Slugs and Bugs, at my church. At one point, the performer, Randall Goodgame, led a parade around the worship center and all the kids were dancing. It was so cuuuuuute! Tuesday and Wednesday, I did more volunteering with cute children at Backyard Bible Club. It's like Vacation Bible School, except instead of the parents dropping the kids off, they are invited to stay and hang out and interact with the kids, too. The gospel is presented each night, and there are Bible stories and crafts and snacks. And last night there were bouncy houses! All the kids were so excited! It was also really fulfilling to get to volunteer. During the summer, I feel like it's harder to find something worthwhile to do, especially since nowhere I've applied has hired me. lol.

And speaking of things to do, I've also been busy with our web series, Expect Squirrels. (http://expectsquirrels.weebly.com/). Monday, as most of you know, we worked on some scripts and then ate at Mellow Mushroom. Then last night, we went to Sara's for a write-over. We wrote (very distractedly) from about 9pm until 4 am, then woke up at 9am to Skype AMY!...then we went back to sleep...
Oh, and we listened to Billie Piper songs, and Chameleon Circuit. Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys...
Also, I wanted to sleep in the TARDIS in Sara's room, but she had so rudely filled it with books. :P

Oh, and one more thing: Happy Birthday to Mr. Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch. Alas, today he is 36...another year too old for me (theoretically...) 
So, in honor of his birthday, here is a picture of him being adorable! :)

P.S. On a different note, here's a video of my favorite song from Slugs and Bugs:

Hello from Sara's house! We are at the beginning of our write-in (currently without Sanaa or Anna Beth) and already we have started procrastinating! It's really awkward to type in the hot pink disc chair we're I'm sitting. I'm surrounded by all sorts of books I want to read and by my episodes which I don't want to write. Maybe Anna Beth will help move things along when she gets here...haha yeah right.
Ummmmm...what other news do I have? I've almost finshed Sherlock, Canada was pretty cool, and I went shopping with Mackenzie.
Mackenzie will be going off to UK soon and I helped her with her college shopping yesterday. I also went shopping with her sister and her kids. We ended up at my new favorite grocery(?) store run by some Amish people in Cave City. They run a discounted goods store where everything is REALLY cheap. I propose we plan an adventure to this shop so you guys can see it for yourself.
Canada: Katie's wedding went well and the mass was very nice. I felt pretty legit when I signed as a witness to her wedding. Most of the pictures that I put on Facebook were taken by Andrew. Katie got a lot of compliments on her hair and her make-up turned out quite nicely. It took her 3 hours to get ready..me? 15 minutes is all I had. But like I said, everything turned out alright in the end. On the way home, I made excellent timing--we could have made it home in 10 hours, but because of 2 detours around the Louisville area, it put us back an hour and a half.
Tomorrow/Friday: I'm going to the midnight premier of Batman, but tonight is the write-in: wish us luck!

 

Hello from 15 days! So, littleradge made a video last week (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99v_oTQtQFA&list=UUPSGngbkY9G0ddXCfueJdEg&index=1&feature=plcp) talking about this cool project he’s part of called Chronicles of Syntax. It’s going to be a web series, and it looks so cool! Plus, you know, Liam’s one of the main characters, so I
really have no choice but to be extremely excited to see it. Which is my excuse for spending far too much time watching the videos on their YouTube channel(http://www.youtube.com/PrimaryFaction) and poring over their website
(http://chroniclesofsyntax.co.uk/#/HOME). They’re trying to raise money
to fund the first season right now (15 days left, hence the intro), and so they’re offering perks for donating, like getting a personalized video thank you from the cast member of your choice, or being credited in an episode. Needless to say, it’s extremely tempting, if only I weren’t so phobic about money things on the Internet… anyway, if you’re one of the half dozen or so people who normally read this, chances are you already know everything I just said and have
thus far been extremely bored with my blog. So sorry about that. But I can’t help it! I just want it to exist so bad!!!!
Anyways… time to move on to a topic you will be more likely to enjoy: Question Tuesday!

AB:
If your true love was reduced to a talking head in a block of concrete, what would you do?
 I would be sad, as outside of the Whoniverse that would mean that my true love was dead.
Is it bad that I often have stronger emotional reactions to fictional things than I
do to real events?
Nah, I feel like that’s pretty common. If it’s good enough, you can get to know a fictional character pretty well in, say, a 45 minute episode, or a 200 page book, which makes you pretty emotionally invested in the outcome of said character’s story. Real life stuff, however, is
 generally vaguer- unless you know someone personally involved, often all you know is what the news tells you or what you look up online, which doesn’t get into the specifics as much into how it affects the individual people who are going through it. Plus, if you became emotionally invested in all the stuff going on in with all the people in the world, you’d be even worse off than the crime-detecting people in Minority Report (you know who I’m talking about? The
brothers and sister hooked up to the machine that releases the little balls telling the police the name of a person who’s about to commit a crime?). So it tends to be better for most people’s sanity to take a distanced view of the stuff that really happens. Not that we shouldn’t feel for real people to whom real stuff happens, and try to do something to make it better if we can.
Feeling too much, though, and focusing excessively on all the bad things in the world, will do nothing but make us another story on the news.
But back to the actual point I was talking about! That’s what fiction is supposed to do- get us out of the real world for a while and into a whole different plot with simpler characters and
problems that can be solved within their fictional realities of a couple of hours or a few hundred pages, more complete than any real life story will ever be until this earth’s story itself is finished.
Can you think of any other guys to act in our web series?!?!?!!?
*sigh*
If you couldn't be a teacher, what would you want to be?
Didn’t someone ask me this before? Like, Jill or someone? I remember saying I’d want to work in a daycare place, and asking if that was too close to being a teacher to count.
Who's your favorite English monarch?
I think the real question here is who is even better than the English monarch- and the answer here would be John Green, as you can see from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yfbVIZOjlEwhere Charlie decides to go see John Green, passing up the opportunity to get to meet the Queen.
Off the top of my head, though, I’d have to say Queen Elizabeth the 1st. Because she was the first, and I feel like she did significant stuff, back in history…

Jill:
 So, will you see my questions in time for this week's blog?
I always check last minute :)
Who is your favorite character in our web series so far?
Willow. Cause she’s me. And she has a happy ending. :P
Really, though, I think at this point we’ve kind of done the most with Cat, which makes me like her the most. The others, I feel, need some more character development (not that Cat doesn’t,
too- we’re still pretty early in the whole process).
Why are the numbers on calculators and phones reversed?
So, I literally just pulled out my phone and checked it, because I had no idea what you were talking about. But you’re right! And I had never noticed that before. I looked it up, though, and apparently there are a lot of theories. One suggests that the phone people researched and found that errors were less likely to occur if the numbers ran top to bottom, whereas the calculator people just picked one and did no research. It was also suggested that both groups were going by precedent. So they didn’t purposely reverse each other, their predecessors just each happened to pick the opposite direction.
How many digits of pi can you name from memory?
3.141592- that many. I used to remember a couple more digits because of the second Night at the Museum movie (kudos to anyone who knows what I’m talking about!), but it’s been awhile.
Zombies or Unicorns?
Unicorns. This is one issue on which John Green and I do not see eye to eye.
Besides its actual meaning, what's your favorite phrase from Hank Green and Michael Aranda's song DFTBA?
I love that song!!! Thanks for giving me an excuse to rewatch the video :P (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0VnI1dI7zw) So, there are
several that I really like, but I picked “Dead Frogs Teach Bored Anatomists.”
Also worth mentioning, because I thought they were really cool how they actually
related to why they were being created (they get asked what DFTBA stands for a
lot, so the nerdfighters were challenged to come up with a bunch of
alternatives)- “Delightful Fans That Blithely Assist” and “Duel For The Best
Acronym.” That last one’s probably my favorite, actually. How bout you guys?
You should go listen and tell me what your favorite one is :D
If you had a puppy sized elephant, what would you name it?
Ellie? Haven’t I told you already that I’m bad at naming things!
What's your favorite article of clothing that you own?
Well, I do quite like my fencing pants. They’re so cozy!
Favorite number?
Umm. 3?

So thanks for the Questions guyssss! My favorite person this week is…. Anna Beth! Because she’s cool and stuff. Until next week!


Love,


Sara

I'm on week 10.  And I'll be back in murica three weeks from tomorrow.

I had a big cry fest a few nights ago because I got in a big fight with MC.  I don't really feel like going into the details.  But I'm having a really rough culture shock-y week (see my other blog) so I just couldn't take the crap that MC gives out daily.  So she was typing away on her computer while the kids were right there having their prayer time.  It was exceedingly disrespectful.  So I told her right then and there that it was so rude.  I was discrete, and it's not like the kids speak english.  Anyway, SHE brought it up at debrief because she said basically that I'm a terrible person for saying something to her about her complete disrespect for all other humans.  

Anyway,  that's my life.  The constant frustrations and obstacles that I face in order to be in the country that I love.

Hello from Colorado! I’m so happy to be out here with my brother and his family in Colorado Springs- everyone’s doing great, and my nephews and niece Krishna, Asha, and Tejin are as cute as ever! Tejin’s talking a lot more than he was last Christmas, and Krishna and Asha love playing with us. Basically my entire day is spent playing with the kids… which is so awesome! It’s really exhausting because they come into the guest room at 7am and wake us up to play, but every bit is worth it. They are huge balls of energy that love to play baseball, “policeman,” Jenga, air hockey, and a lot more… Whatever happens to be within their eyesight is played with, dragged around, and enjoyed. That includes me and Alexis, of course. XD

Thankfully their house escaped fire damage from the canyon fire, but a large part of their neighborhood, including the house next door, was completely destroyed. It’s pretty shocking to drive up the road we’ve driven up hundreds of times before to see… well, practically nothing. Houses are turned into two foot tall piles of ash and rubble, and once a house catches fire, firefighters are powerless to save it. I’ve only seen 1 house that was halfway burnt, and it was surrounded by other houses that were completely destroyed. What’s really strange is that next to a large area that was demolished will be bright green grass and trees and shrubs or an untouched house. It really just shows the power of the wildfire and how (I don’t have a better word for this) random the fire’s path seemed to take.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of tourists and onlookers at the damage caused by the fire- the day we came up there was no one checking, but now there are posted police officers up the main road, checking ids to make sure the only people coming up the road were actual residents. I know that people are simply curious, but I would hope they’d allow the residents some privacy. Sadly, that’s not the case, and it looks like the curiosity will not go away soon. As is to be expected, many people are scared that another fire will break out- especially as the cause of the fire (likely arson) is unknown. Hopefully people will begin to feel more comfortable to live in the area soon, but for now, it’s a terrible spectacle.

There is hope. People are beginning to rebuild—I’ve already seen a few posted building permits—and wildlife are returning to the area. Still, there’s a lot of work to be done. Please keep all who were affected in your thoughts and prayers.

The song of the week is a bit of an older song… And by older, I mean 2007 lol. :) It’s by OneRepublic, and it was one of the few singles from the album that, although released as a single, the media didn’t really pick up on, but I really like it. After you’ve had a bad day or a bad week or even a bad year, often there’s something that happens or someone touches you in a way that’s truly spectacular... and oftentimes unexplainable.

OneRepublic – “Mercy”

            Hello from my bedroom. Sorry no stream of consciousness creeping today. It's just me. I was going to do another vlog today, but I got caught up playing with new editing software. I was sick of moviemaker so I went on the search for something better but still free or at least cheap. The one I'm playing with right now is VideoPad. It definitely looks nice. It's even got the duel screens for clip editing like Adobe Premiere.

            The quality of the videos it puts out are nice, but what you can see of the clips during the editing process is really laggy for most file types, which is really annoying. I've been trying to figure out if there's a way to fix it. If not, I think I'll try to find a different video editor. I don't know if it'd be something I could get used to.
        Let's see, what else happened this week? I gave my dog a bath today. She was not very accepting of the idea, and I didn't exactly win her over to my way of thinking. But she is clean now. I walked out the door this afternoon to go to language lessons with Sara and Dwain, and I saw Lillie covered in mud and carrying a giant dog bone. I got the feeling she dug up a another neighborhood dog's treat, but it could've been given to her by one of our neighbors and she's just gotten it out of her own storage hole. Guess I'll never know.
        Oooh! and today I finished reading Anna and the French Kiss (the book I was reading while Anna Beth creeped on us). It was fantastic! I highly recommend it.
            Aaannnnnddddd I've run out of things to talk about. Maybe by next week I'll have the video editing stuff sorted out. but until then, I'll leave you with I video that made me chuckle.

Hello from my director's chair! As I sit here writing this, there's a Jill and a Sarasite on my bed. Jill is on her iPhone, and Sara is reading The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, which is a really cute book. Sara just adjusted her fist against her face, where she's leaning against my pillow. She just finished a chapter. Now she's on chapter 3. Now they're talking about VidCon, which is awesome (not that I'd know), and we should all go next year and meet all the cool YouTubers and go to Disney Land and whatnot. 
Sara's just staring off into space now, all introspectively. Oh, now she's turned her attention back to the book. Jill is perusing the book stack I have on my desk from the library. She was going to pick up Anna and the French Kiss (I have been assured by Nerdfighteria that it is a better book than the title lets on), but she got temporarily distracted by Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Nope, she has chosen the former.
This whole situation is particularly amusing to me because neither Jill nor Sara has any idea that their actions are being observed and recorded.
But now they're just reading, so I have nothing more to write about. Sigh...
Well, now Jill's messing with her eyebrow, as usual. I think I'll throw the spiky poop ball at her. If you don't know what that is, don't fear. It is not really a ball of poop. On the contrary, it's a spiky rubber ball from the claw machine at Amy's restaurant...where we happened to eat tonight with Sanaa, because SANAA'S BAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sadly, Amy was not there at her own restaurant, because there is no Amy in America. (We miss you, Amy! How about skyping on Wednesday?)
I wonder if Jill has gotten to the part in the book about the hamster, or some kind of pet rodent, named Captain Jack. It's pretty early in the book, but it was the point at which I decided I liked the protagonist. Though I still don't know if Captain Jack is referring to Sparrow or Harkness. Either way, I like it. Ooh, or it could be a reference to the Billy Joel song. If so, I continue to approve. 
Anyway, enough about hamsters. Jill is turning the page. She caught me glancing at her and asked, "What?" And yet, she has no idea what I'm writing. (Insert maniacal laughter here)
Now where was I? Ah yes, the spiky poop ball. Well, Jill has stopped fiddling with her eyebrow--OH, I spoke too soon. In that case.......
She's onto me. They both are. They're inquiring about my blog. Aaaand...Jill just lost my place in the book. Oh well, I wasn't too far anyway. Sara is still contentedly reading, and Jill has acquired one of my giant pillows. 
HA! GOT HER WITH THE POOP BALL!!!
And now they know what I've been doing. Oh well, that was fun while it lasted.

Well, what else can I say? This week so far I've done a little bit of work on the web series, including creating a new Weebly site for it. I find it amusing that Weebly doesn't recognize Weebly as a word. But, as Jill has pointed out, it also doesn't allow excessive exclamation points. Picky, picky...
OHHH, I KNOW! THERE WAS A BABY TINY ORANGE KITTEN that showed up in my yard this morning!!! Our adopted stray cat, Tink, ran it off into a shed in the woods, but maybe it will come back. IT was SO CUUUUUUUTE!!! I hope it comes back to love us and live here togetherrrrr! If it stays around I've already called dibs on naming it, since my parents have named every other cat we've had except Sally. So, my kitten will be named Jumper if it's a girl or Moffie if it's a boy. Maybe. I also like the name Toby, and Jubilee, and Jam, and several others...and they all remind me of British people/things and I get the warm fuzzies inside! But who knows if the kitten will ever return...so...
Now Jill, Sara, and I are discussing syntax and holding hands. Now I think they're going to demonstrate. Yep, yep. Oh, the way they imagined the outcome of the sentence (in the book Jill's reading) is a lot more possible than my version. Bravo, logic.

Wow. Okay, how did such a convoluted blog post get this long? I really like the word 'convoluted.' I like a lot of words, just the way they sound, you know? Like 'propitiate' and 'deduce' and 'proclivity' and 'propensity.' And 'harmonious' and 'diatribe' and 'civility.' And I like the way certain words are said in certain accents. Like the way the British say 'jaguar'...especially when Benedict Cumberbatch says it (he's done voice-overs for Jaguar car adverts...I like that they say 'adverts' in Britain rather than 'commercials'). And I really like the word 'chuffed,' which is a British slang term meaning pleased or happy. Hey you guys: what are some of your favorite words? Let me know in the comments!

And just for an extra dose of randomnesThis song! Annoyed yet, Rocko---I mean Jill?

Hello from Canada!
I'm currently at David's aunt's extremely cute bed and breakfast about to help Katie get ready. I have to do her hair and hopefully not do a horrible job on her make-up. I'll post pictures on Facebook as soon as possible--thank goodness for wifi!
We (Katie's mother, brother, and myself) left at 5:15am Wednesday morning and arrived in Buffalo, NY about 5:30pm so we made excellent time. We missed the Peace Bridge (the closest border crossing into Canada) due to bad directions, but we continued on toward Niagara Falls. Mrs. Vincent really wanted to see the Falls (who wouldn't?!) because we were right there...so we went. If you're on the American side, you can't really get a perfect view- apparently it's a lot better from the Canadian side. But oh well.
After that, thanks to Google Maps from my phone and a U-turn toward the Rainbow bridge, we arrived in Canada and ended up taking the scenic route to the Bed and Breakfast where I'm at.
Hopefully all goes well with the wedding and the reception, not to mention Katie's hair and make-up.
We will see...
<3 Rachael

¡Hola de mi casa! This week has been fine :) Yesterday, Jill, AB, Rachael and I spent several
hours in Barnes and Noble (bad idea- I found the new Artemis Fowl book) finishing the first episode of the web series we’re planning to make! It was pretty fun! Other than that, I didn’t have to work last Wednesday because it was 4th of July, so I had an extra long weekend in which to sleep in and hang out with people. So getting up at 6:30 again yesterday was kind of sad, but I managed it anyway. Aaaaaannnnndddddd now I can’t think of anything else to say, so have some Questions!

Rachael:
Would the evil baby orphanage do anything for Voldemort?
Lol, I have my doubts. An orphanage is sort of what started all his insanity in the first place. Unless the evil baby orphanage could also take away all his magic, he’d probably just turn all his fellow evil babies into Death Eaters and stage a coup, thus nullifying any good that could have been done by said orphanage in the first place.
If you had to kill someone, who would it be?
A terminal cancer patient in his/her last moments of life anyway to whom all I’d have to do is turn off the life support.
Why haven’t you posted your schedule in the Etc. section?
I have, in fact, posted my schedule, so your question is invalid :D

AB and Jill:
If you knew you were going to kill someone (you don’t know if it’ll be accidental or not) what would you do?
I feel like I would need more specifics to give an adequate answer to this question. The most I could think of to do would be to try and stay away from said person and warn them of what I knew was coming (without getting anywhere near them, of course- maybe I’d call, or have one of you as a go-between).

Jill:
What is your favorite family tradition?
My favorite family tradition is probably the way my mom labels our Christmas presents. To keep us from peeking at our presents or shaking them to try and figure out what’s in them, she always puts a bunch of random labels on them so we don’t know what’s whose. She uses a
different code every year, with things like reindeer and snowman, and she doesn’t reveal which code words go to which kid until Christmas morning when it’s actually time to pass them out and open them. Not that that’s ever kept us from trying to crack the code… but I can’t remember us ever succeeding.
If you could change one thing to make life easier for your kids, what would it be?
I dunno. I guess, make it easier for them to be involved? Like, make them more aware of different opportunities- for clubs, volunteering, jobs, general stuff. It’s probably mostly because I don’t like talking to people and asking questions, but I feel like it’s hard to find out
about stuff when you actually want to know about it. Like, there are always ads and posters and assemblies for events and opportunities and things when you don’t need them, but as soon as you actually decide to look for something, it’s nowhere to be found. Which is really annoying.
What kind of compliment means the most to you?
I like the kinds of compliments that are backed up with evidence, so I know the person is being sincere and not just trying to be nice. Like, instead of just saying “You’re my hero,” someone could say, “When you pulled those orphans out of that burning building, at great
personal risk to yourself, I decided that you were my hero.” :P
What one smell would you say reminds you most of childhood?
Probably just the smell of outside. My mom was always kicking us out of the house when we were little. Something about how video games and TV were ruining childhood or something… :P Despite having to be forced to leave the air conditioning, we had so much fun- playing on the swing set, catching lightning bugs, jumping on the trampoline. I feel like childhood was pretty much defined by summertime…
How many phone numbers do you know by memory alone?
Let us see: my home phone number from when I lived in Etown, the home phone number we used to have here, my mom’s, my dad’s, mine, yours, 911 (does that count?), Heather’s, and maybe a couple others. So that’s 8 that I can think of right now. I used to memorize numbers, but then I got a cell phone…

AB:
If you could only watch one YouTube video for the rest of your life, what video would you pick? (It has to actually exist)
BAH!!! How am I supposed to pick just ONE out of the million that I want! … I did pick, though- Charlie’s understanding teenage boys video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsinmLHiItI&feature=plcp) Cause I like Charlie, and that one’s funny. I’d probably pick something better if I took more time to look. But I didn’t.
Would you rather live 5 years with no contact with cats or no contact with
children?
I’d rather live 5 years with no cat
contact. Children are way better than cats!
Who do you want to play Finnick in Catching Fire?
Someone handsome and good at acting. I don’t have to know him. He just has to do a good job :) Besides, we’ve already seen how disastrous are the results of my attempting to pick actors for people…
What song describes your life right now?
Well, Sanctus Real’s These Things Take Time ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFT4ScXaSzs)seems like the song of my life always. I’m so impatient…
As far as now specifically… I don’t know. I can’t find any good songs! Probably since nothing especially eventful is going on right now, just a lot of things coming together to make for a pretty busy (in a good way) summer. There don’t seem to be any songs about that. It
probably also goes back to the impatience thing. I don’t want to take the time to look for anything that might work, so I just scrolled through my iTunes list going “nope, nah, no, ooohhh… no, nevermind.” And then I gave up. So sorry about that!
If you were a cat, who would you want as an owner?
Amma Bef :) As long as I could come inside. Poor Tink…
What's the funniest/cutest thing Kennedy (or however you spell her name) has ever said/done while you were babysitting her?
Well, I already told you about how she likes to say “this is not my best day ever!” when she has to do something she doesn’t want to do. She also likes to get into iTunes and listen to the
little blurbs of the songs- while making me get up and sing and dance with her.
Which Alex Day song should play at the end of our first Expect Squirrels episode?
I’m not especially knowledgeable about Alex Day songs. I only like some of the ones I hear. But Forever Yours is good! Maybe cause Charlie made the video for it, but whatever!
Winner? Rachael! I’m pretty sure that’s the first question I’ve ever had about the Evil Baby Orphanage. It was like three of my favorite things- vlogbrothers, Harry Potter, and babies- all in one Question Tuesday Question! So go Rachael! See you guys next week!

Love, 

Sara