Johanna Speaks

I just bought a violin! So I have been renting for a while, and it's been six months since I started learning! I think I actually got my violin about two weeks ago, but I forgot to blog about it. So now I am! I got $75 dollars off for the violin. The violin was $400, but then I got the $75 dollars off, so it was like $345 or something because I also got a $50 dollar violin bow. That violin didn't have one. I got to choose between one violin with a bow and a different one( that I ended up buying later ) that didn't have a bow with it. The lady said I could try them out, so I took out one of them, put on a chin rest, tuned it up, and started playing it. I did that to both of them, and surprisingly they were very different from each other. They had the exact same look and everything except that the sound was different! One was pretty loud, and the other violin seemed almost to be muted inside the violin. I wanted the one that had a loud voice and bought that one.

 The feel was different. And it seemed almost a little easier to play than my other one, which was more expensive. By the way, these are brand new violins, so they did have kind of a shiny look to them, but I didn't really care for that because the colors on the violin were so beautiful! I named it Blaze. But Noelle called it Hobbes because it had stripes on the back. Every violin basically has stripes on the back, so I told her I could name it Blazing Hobbes! :)

Here are some pics of my beauty Baze! Or Bazing Hobbes:

So I have wanted to play " He's a Pirate " from Pirates of the Caribbean so badly because it's such a fun and cool song to be able to learn! And I especially want to do it with my brother Nicholas, who is super good at guitar! He could even do fingerstyle, too! Which is plucking the strings on the guitar but also doing some strumming too! It sounds so cool! So, if he and I learned it together, it would sound amazing!! But the problem would be me actually trying to play it, which is that the song is pretty hard on the violin to learn for me. But Nick could probably learn easily because he's a pro on guitar! :)

By the way, I have actually never watched Pirates of the Caribbean before. And now I have been so badly wanting to watch it! I don't know if it's okay to watch that, though. The trailer looks fun to watch. But I just so badly want to! I love the songs! And it looks cool to watch! Oh, and Sophie and I have been actually playing Pirates of the Caribbean Lego version on the Xbox. It's so much fun, and I love the story of the game. The Lego guys are especially super funny. And they have all the character's faces and movements correctly. So it's basically showing you the whole movie, but you get to play as the guys in Legos. And they really get all the details in the game perfectly! Here is a video of a professional violinist playing " He's a Pirate". 

Okay, maybe it's not really almost my birthday, but I think it is! My birthday is November 7th. And it's going to be on a Tuesday. Do you think my birthday is soon or not? My family thinks it's not but my birthday is only about two months away! By the way, Gideon had his birthday yesterday, August 30th. He turned 20 years old. Noelle and Nicholas are having their birthday at the end of October. So mine is like a week after theirs. They are turning, I think, 22 years old. Kind of forgot. And I am going to be turning 13 years old soon. Also, I already made my birthday list. Here it is if you want to see it. :)

Also, I know what you might be thinking right now, "Man, she has bad handwriting." Well, I usually do cursive, but my family can't really read it. It's not that I can't spell in cursive, but sometimes I use some letters wrong in cursive, which I do think is right, but people don't think so. So anyway, that is the reason why. 

Back to what I was saying earlier, which was birthdays. Everybody is getting mad at me for making the birthday list so soon, but you never know. It might take them some thought about what they should get me. Wink, wink! ;) 

Cesar Millan was called by another dog trainer named Eldon Mcintyre. He is trying to train an 80-pound golden doodle named Murphy. Here is what a golden doodle looks like:

But Murphy is too much for him. So he and Cesar Millan meet at the owner's house to watch how the dog normally lives there. Eldon explains that Murphy is a super hyper dog and even learned how to open doors when he was really young! He takes socks, clothes, toys, stuffed animals, food, anything he can have his mouth into. He even swallows some socks! And then, they would have to take him to the vet to have it removed. They will chase after him when he has something in his mouth, and then he starts running. Murphy is a big, hyper dog, so he's either running around taking food and such or sleeping in his crate. But the family wants Murphy to be a normal house dog, not taking things every second. So Eldon put a wireless camera on himself for Cesar to see how the dog normally lives in the house. Soon, he finds out how bad it is! 

Cesar comes in to help when the dog just grabbed something in its mouth. The family was surprised and happy to see him. He grabbed the dog, and it's hard to explain what he did exactly, but let me try to explain it: when the dog had something in its mouth, which was a piece of bread, he grabbed onto the piece of bread but did not pull the piece of bread out of its mouth but waited until the dog released it from his mouth himself. Cesar did something else so the dog would release it. I think he poked him on the side of his neck and said tsht. And the dog slowly released it. Then he explained to the owners that this wasn't an aggressive dog but a super hyper one! He said you guys don't have any boundaries for the dog. So Murphy thinks that everything in the house is his to eat or have. You have to start setting boundaries. And if you start doing that, then Murphy will slowly realize that there are some things he can't have." It's going to be easy training Murphy not to eat or grab things, but definitely not easy to teach the owners!"He said. 

Then Murphy ran into the girl's room. The mom said she wanted to go chase him down. But Cesar said that's exactly what escalates Murphy's excitement, and he thinks it's all a game and waits for her to chase him. So Cesar grabs a sock and starts dangling it in front of Murphy's face so he won't grab it or get excited about it and realizes it's just a sock. If he grabbed the sock and the mom or dad or the kids get excited about it and run for him, then Murphy will think that the sock is actually something to grab about and start running. But when Cesar dangles the sock in front of Murphy without giving excited energy, Murphy doesn't care about it one bit.

So, he gives the family some pointers and homework to work on. 

Then they said thank you so much! And Cesar Millan left.

We had a party for Simeon last Sunday! And we also went to a Mexican restaurant with everybody last Monday! So we usually go to the grand buffet for people's birthdays or graduations, but apparently, they were closed on Mondays. And everybody was leaving Tuesday morning except Caleb and Risa; they were leaving Monday. So my mom tried looking for really good restaurants and said we could either go to a Mexican restaurant or something else. She did say the name of a different restaurant; I just forgot what it was. And so we chose the Mexican restaurant. My mom chose the Mexican restaurant that she and I have already been to, and it was pretty good! So, everybody left around 11:30 and arrived at the Mexican restaurant at 12:00 for lunch. And I also forgot what the restaurant was called so I am very sorry! 

Sophie, Caleb, Risa, and I all went in one car. And we accidentally arrived at the wrong restaurant. This restaurant had the same name as the one we had to go to, so we got back on the road and headed where we were supposed to go and arrived! Everybody was already there. And what I mean by everybody is my mom and dad, Jonathan, French Jonathan, Caleb, Risa, Noelle, Ezra, Gideon, Opa, Oma, Nicholas, Sophie, Me, and I think that was everybody. Simeon didn't go because he went to Sacermento for something he wanted to go to. And Cameron didn't go either because he had to do work. Julia, Jonathan's girlfriend, came but only till the end. And after everybody was done eating, Noelle brought out of a bag some stroopwafels! There was a coffee-flavored one, a maple-flavored one, and a honey-flavored one! My favorite was the coffee-flavored one! I have never tried coffee ones. I don't think they even sold coffee-flavored ones in Holland! The usual ones are Caramel ones. 

Heh, I forgot I named this post " Simeon Graduated! ". Well, I should probably talk about the party we had last Sunday for him. Well, everybody came for church Sunday, and even Risa played the violin! And so we played together for church and as usual Nicholas also played! It's always a lot of fun playing violin with another person. And everybody came to church in our family except Noelle and Cameron. Cameron had to play music in his church, so that they couldn't make it. But after church, they came over, and so did everybody else. We talked for a little bit, and then it was time to eat lunch. Then, after lunch, everybody went outside, and my dad presented his graduation paper. And each of the brothers told him something that would be useful for the future. And then Simeon had to say to Mom and Dad and the rest of his siblings what he is thankful for to each of them. And then he opened his presents! Caleb and Risa gave him a gift card. Jonathan also gave him a gift card. And then somebody also gave him two gift cards, and then Opa and Oma gave him two brand new dark blue suitcases. One is pretty big, and the other is small. I really wanted the small one so bad! They looked so nice! 

After he opened his presents, my dad said, "You guys can keep talking and hanging around. Later, we might go down to the lake club if people want to. " Noelle, Sophie, and I wanted to go fishing because I had two boxes of worms in the fridge to use. So later, we went fishing while the rest of the people stayed on the deck. Sophie caught at least five fish! I only caught three because later, I discovered that using a huge red hook apparently doesn't work for small fish. After I changed out the hook and put a small one on, I started to catch fish! But by then, we had to leave. After we got back to the house, we played Bang! Bang is kind of a card game but also kind of a board game at the same time. It's a super fun game to play, though, and I recommend buying it!

Well, goodbye!