Soooooooorrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!:)

Hey guys!:)

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and a Happy New Year!!! I'm so, so sorry that I didn't write the whole December and during the Holidays:( But it was the busiest time here so far and I have been sick a lot. Ear infection, cold, bronchitis, new allergy... But I'm better now, if anyone would like to know that ;P

So.... Christmas was awesome!!! On Christmas Eve we went to two Christmas parties:o Both were pretty awesome! At the first party, I didn't really know that many people, but at the second one I knew everyone. The second was the best! We played so many fun games, like a game were a lot of people are sitting in a circle and there's a bowl of M&M's in the middle and everyone gets a small empty bowl and a straw. Then one person starts to roll two dice at the same time. If that person gets a pair, he/she has to grab the bowl of M&M's and tries to suck all M&M's with the straw into his/her own bowl. But as soon as anyone else rolls a pair with the dice, the other person gets the big M&M's bowl:) It's way fun!!

On Christmas Day, my 9-year-old host sister woke everyone up at 4:50 am!! She said that she had a bad dream, but I think that she just couldn't wait it open her presents ;) So everyone HAD TO get up and go into the downstairs living room and the stockings were opened before my host parents could even make it down the stairs :D The stockings just had some candy and toys in it. My stocking didn't have that many toys, but about 3 small notebooks because "Santa" knows that I always forget everything;P Then we opened our other presents. I got an iPad mini and I still CANNOT believe that I can really keep it!! I also got a scarf, a New England Patriots blanket and earrings and some gift cards:)) From my parents I got wonderful Christmas cards (Thank you, guys!!!:)) ) and chocolate and I got an awesome Christmas card from my grandma (Thanks, Oma!!!:)) ). The letter from my brother still didn't arrive yet, what makes me kind of sad :(

But Christmas was still pretty great!!:)

On New Years Eve, we - my host family and me - went over to a friends' house to celebrate New Year there. There was also a church party with a dance, but I didn't want to go first. After a little while, everyone pretty much convinced me to go there because I would have a blast and there was no one my age at the friends' house, so my Momma drove me down to the Church. After I spent 1 hour at the Church dance, I realized that I just wanted to spend the last hour of the year 2013 with my "American family":) So I texted my Momma and asked, if she could pick me up. Unfortunately, she has the "Do not disturb" mode on her iPhone activated, so she didn't get my text and also didn't answer, when I called her. By the time, I just wanted to be with my "family", so I decided to walk home. The friends' house is somewhere in the mountains, but I knew the way. I wasn't really sure, if I was gonna arrive before midnight or not, which stressed me out. So I started to walk in my skirt and without a coat through the cold, DARK night.. I got so scared after a while, so I just started to sing some songs and I prayed a few times ;) At 11:45 pm - I was almost home - my Momma finally got my text and told me that she would come and get me. I just texted back that I was on my way and almost there, but she didn't read that text, so she was driving down the road and when she saw me, she was so scared and started to feel bad. I think, at that moment, she really thought that I lost it because I was sitting in the van, smiling like crazy, even though I couldn't feel my legs :D I was just happy to be almost home and the long walk home gave me strength, if that doesn't soon too weird. It was one of those (spiritual) experiences that you just HAVE TO make!! 

When we got home, it was almost midnight, so we gathered around the Christmas tree outside and popped some weird little fake bottles and lametta flew out of them. Then they tried to set the tree on fire, but it didn't really work out. 

But...Yeah...That was the end of my year 2013 and it was one of the best New Year's Eves EVER!!!!:)

The school is still pretty AWESOME, but it's kind of sad that the first semester is over now :(

Here is my schedule for the 2nd Semester, if someone would like to know it:

A-Day.                                              B-Day

1. US History.                                               1. Jr. English

2. Seminary (Mormon religion/church)           2. Mathematics Honors 

~ LUNCH ~                                                  ~ LUNCH ~

3. Human Biology                                         3. Computer Animation

4. A Cappella (Choir III)                            4. Printmaking

That's my super awesome schedule for the 2nd semester:)))

I don't know anymore stuff to write about. Maybe you guys could just ask me something and I'll promise to answer the questions. You can ask in English or German, whatever you prefer because I don't care :)

This is to future exchange students:

If you guys read my blog and you have questions about anything, you can just ask. If you don't want to write it down in public, I'll probably give you my Email address or Facebook name.:) I know what you guys must feel like right now. Most of you probably don't have a family, yet. I wish I could tell you something like "I promise you that you'll get your host family tomorrow", but the sad thing is that I can't - no one can. But I can tell you one thing:" The time that you're spending on waiting for your host family is definitely worth it. You're gonna become more patient and you'll learn so much about yourself. Sometimes you might think:"Why am I doing that? It's gonna take forever!" Don't ever give up!! I got my host family at the beginning of August (August 4?) and my flight was booked for August 8, so it came very rapidly!!! The end of August sounds like a long time, but it's not too bad!:) I know that probably everyone told you that, but it's true: Americans are very, very spontaneous!! And I love it:)) I also know from other exchange students that South Americans are quite spontaneous too, so DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY and enjoy the rest of your "waiting time". It's worth it:)"

I miss all of you guys!! :)

Love,

Charly         

Thanksgiving!!! :).....Finally ;)

Good ev'ning, people!! :)

It's 11:30 at night and "Turkey Day" is almost over. Its way late and I'm kind of tired, but I think I'll have forgotten everything that happened today, by tomorrow ;P 

I woke up at 8 am this morning (that's sleeping in, if you have 4 little host siblings!!) and got ready. After breakfast, my host mum and my host sisters and me made a "Veggie Turkey". It's a vegetable tray, but it looks like a turkey..I'm sorry! I really don't know, how to describe that, so here:

That's our turkey :) We left the house at noon and went to "Grandma Janet's" house and then we started eating at 1 pm after we blessed the food. We had pretty much EVERYTHING!! There was turkey, corn, rolls, mashed potatoes & gravy, yam, ham, salad, shrimps,...and so on!! After that we sat down and watched football, most of the people were just chatting :) Then at 3 pm we had dessert. We had Pumpkinpie, Apllepie and Pecanpie. :) We just ate A LOT!!! ;) After dessert we were talking and laughing even more and we all had weird feelings in our stomachs. I felt like I had to throw up for a second, but after a few minutes I wasn't even sure, if I was hungry or not :D it was just...weird!! And that's what Thanksgiving is all about: Eating, more eating, watching football, sleeping, eating, talking, football, sleeping....eating :D Really, though!!!

We left Grandma Janet's house at 5 pm to go to Grandma Bea's (great-grandma's) house. All the other people were gone and we just picked up the "Squash-pie" that she saved for one of my host sisters :) Finally we went home and just wanted to sleep or give our bodies a rest...because we were eating so much :D..., but then more and more people can and left at 11 pm :)

So...It was a very busy day. :)

I'm just so thankful for my family and friends in Germany, for my American family and friends and just for being here with awesome people that accept everyone and love everyone unconditionally! I love you guys!! :)

I hope you'll have a great weekend and a nice start in December :))

Ciao!! 

Charly :)

Happy Thanksgiving! ;)

Hey guys :)

I didn't really have the time to and didn't feel like writing a new post. I don't really know what's new. 

My host uncle caught a racoon and now he's in a cage in our garden. We have two hound dog puppies and they had to sit next to the cage and they were barking at the racoon the whole time, so they'll get practice. The racoon looks so cute and first I felt sorry for it, but it's a brat!!! It's so dangerous! Two grown-up hound dogs can't even kill it!!! :o 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!!! I'm so excited!!! My first Thanksgiving ever :)) On Friday, Clara and me will have a sleepover :) I'm just sooo excited!! 

I'm sorry, but that's basically everything I can tell you guys right now!! I will tell you everything about Thanksgiving in a few days, though :)

So... Take care!

Charly :)

BYU football game, penguins and a sleepy head ;)

Hey guys :)

Another week is over now :( I'm watching the Broncos game right now and decided to write a new post because they're winning anyways! :D They're playing against the Kansas City Chefs and the score is 24:10 for the Broncos ;) 

My host mom had a knee surgery on Friday and my host dad is turning into a "mom" ;) On Friday he vacuumed the whole house and he loved it, yesterday he cleaned the fridge and he made me a huge lunch bag for the football game :D It's kind of scary, though ;P That night I stayed up too late because I went to bed at around midnight and I had to stand up at 6:30 am to get ready for the BYU game in Provo :) On Saturday, we met at church at 8 am and left the church at about 8:30 am to drive up north to Provo, which is almost clear up in Salt Lake City. We had to drive 4 hours and when we arrived in Provo it started to rain. It was super cold!! Then we found our seats and the game started a little while after that. After 5 minutes of the 1st Quarter it started to snow and it became even colder :D After 5 minutes it was snowing so much so that we weren't really able to see the field! And instead of "blue and white"-dressed people, you could only see white-dressed people. We could proudly call ourselves "snowmen" :)

My new coat is the opposite of waterproof. The only dry spot on my body was the part of my head, which was covered by my hat!! The blanket, I brought had dog hair on it, so stank like wet dog after sitting in the falling rain an snow for a while! We left the football game after the first 5 minutes of the 3rd Quarter because we were drenched, cold and just done with the weather. It was kind of funny, when we tried to walk. I seriously wasn't able to feel my legs from my knees down, so I couldn't move my toes or feet. Clara and McKenna had the same problem an I'm pretty sure that we looked like penguins, walking down the stairs. We wanted to run because that's what you wanna do, if your cold, but it wasn't possible because of the following points:

1. We didn't want to break a leg..or two.

2. We didn't want to brae an arm..or two.

3. We didn't want the people to laugh at us.

We didn't want the people to laugh at the "3 drenched penguins, crawling on the ground, trying to stand up" (Synonym: "us").

4. We couldn't really walk that fast.

5. I think that I told you guys enough reasons now! 

Then we had to walk 15 minutes to our car. It was one of the longest walks in my whole life! When we saw the car, we were so excited that we started to run and we figured out that penguins don't really HAVE TO fly because they can run fast when they see the "finish line" (Synonym: "car") ;) The we just sat in the car for a long time. One reaon was the excitement about getting warmer, the other reason was that we couldn't really drive because the driver's fingers were literally frozen! :D After we finally started driving, all of us had to go to the bathroom very bad...apparently ;) So we stopped at the next gas station, but they only had only ONE toilet for each gender!! So two of us had to go to the men's bathroom, which was kind of bad because we all know what men's bathrooms can look like... ;P

After a one-hour-drive, we stopped at "5 Bucks Pizza" where we ordered 30 pizza because the whole day was a Young Women's and Scouts' activity and there was a total of 45 people. Our car was the first one that arrived, so we got the best seats ;) After dinner, we started our journey home. Most of the time we were asleep on each other's shoulders because we were shivering the whole day long and we had a huge dinner! I got home at like 8 pm and I was super tired!! I went to the downstairs living room, where my host fam wa watching Wrestling together my some friends (It was "Wrestling Night"). There was no space on the couch, so I was just kneeling on the ground behind the couch and putting my head on the backrest of the couch. I had my hands under my head and a hand warmer between hands and head. It was so comfy, even though I was kneeling on the ground, that I fell asleep after a few seconds. I woke up 1 or 2 minutes later because my host mom and her best friend we're taking pictures of me, sleeping in this funny position. My host mom just told me that I fell asleep three more times after that. I can't remember that, but I totally believe her because I was REALLY tired! So I went to bed at 8:30 pm an got about 12 hours of sleep before I had to wake up for church :) When I woke up, I was still tired, so I took a two-hours-nap after church. We stayed at church longer than usual today because one of my host cousins is going on a mission next week (right before Thanksgiving :( ) and he had to speak in "Sacrament meeting" and we had a huge lunch after church. After I took a nap I was still tired, so I just blamed my tiredness on the tetanus shot I got on Wednesday ;) And now I'll go to sleep again because it's 11 pm and I'm almost dying!! :)

That was basically everything I could tell you. I hope that you're all doing well in Germany! :) If you have any question, comments or just random stuff that you'd like to say, just write it down there in this comment-section-thing ;)

Bye and Good night!! :)

Charly

Hellooooo...!!! :)

Hi ;)

Oh, man!! I dont really have so much more ideas about how to start my post. Choosing the title is hard too. I'm just getting weird ;)

Okay. So... Today's topic is.. Just kidding! :D Nothing really happened. This week was kinda like normal, even though I thought that I would never use the word "normal" while I'm here! Never! So so.. It just happened :D I bet that most of you will become impatient right now and will think something like "what's your point? Just say it!" and to be honest.. I kinda like that feeling :D Not to be mean, but I think it's hilarious! :) Okay. But I don't really want you to be upset or something, so I'm gonna tell you something about my "normal week" :)

The Monday was "Veteran's Day" and we had an assembly, where one student's dad was talking about his time as a military pilot. It was an amazing story. At the beginning, our Madrigals choir was singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" (National Anthem) and it was so touching because we had to soldiers, holding the flag of the USA and a flag with the president's seal on it. Then we all said the "Pledge of Allegiance" :) Amazing!!! :) In Choir we learned a new song called "We're his gold" and it's my favorite one for the Christmas Concert!! :)) (Listen to it!!)

The Tuesday was awesome,too, because I got a 94% on my test in "Human Biology" :)) The best one was 96%, the 2nd-best es me and the rest had something about 38%, 56% and something like that. So.. I'm kind of proud!! ;) After school I was hanging out with Clara and we were playing "hide and seek" with the kids. Then I tought her a bit of German because the only thing she could say was "I'm a potato" or "Ich bin eine Kartoffel" and that's weird... But that's why I love her! :)... And I'm kinda weird too..to be honest ;P 

Today was a good day, too :) We had Young Women's in the afternoon and we were making mini pizzas and we were painting our fingernails :) An we had soda :) 

I don't know what's gonna happen during the next few days, but on Saturday I'll go up north and watch my first College Football Game with Young Women's :)) It's gonna be so awesome because Clara will come too and Paige and some other super awesome girls :))

So I'll probably write my next post on Sunday and not in 2 days, but I'm not sure yet :))

Bye for now!!!!

Charly :)

P.S. Guess what??? I love you all :))

It's me... again :)

Hey! :)

How are you guys doin'? I'm very proud of myself that I found time to write a new post! It really was a good idea, to write something every 2nd day!! ;)

So.. Since my last post, nothing really happened :D On Friday, I watched the play "West Side Story". It was a play, performed by people from my high school and an other high school in the same city. It was soo freaking awesome because they were performing it soooo well!!! And it was also very funny to run through Walmart after that because it was like 10:30 pm, we were super tired, Clara an me couldn't really breath because o our cold, so.. We looked fabulous!! :) On Saturday we went to a little birthday party. The girl turned 6 :) After we went home, we played a bit. Today I went to church (Stack Conference) and tonight we went to the little girls' birthday party again!! :)And now that we're home, we are all ready for bed. In fact... I'm lying in my bed right now, while all the other people are still upstairs and awake!!But it was great fun😥😉

That's it for today though! :)

Have a nice day and a nice week!!

Bye,

Charly :)

Hey strangers!! :)

Hi guys! :(

So, first of all, I'm really, really sorry that I only posted like two things since I'm here, but I'm just super happy!! After Anna gave me the advice to try to post something everyday, I decided to TRY (!) it!! :) I think it'll be so much easier because I would probably know, what to write about :D

Okay.. So this time, I'm gonna write something about the last month, so October:

The October went by soooo fast! It's just crazy! The first week wasn't that interesting, which means that it was interesting for ME because I see and learn so many new things everyday, but it probably won't be interesting for you guys out there in Germany! So the only important thing was my mom's birthday ;) After that it was my aunt's birthday :) Okay. Whatever. So October, 18, was Clara's birthday and it was just awesome! Danielle and me made an amazing birthday cake one day before Clara's birthday and I got some little presents. Then on her birthday, we went to her house and surprised her with the cake and some presents and we were singing Happy Birthday :)) After that she came to my house and Danielle, Clara and me watched a movie and just had fun! :) (We were playing with my little (host) siblings, too, of course!! ;) ) The week after that, on the 23rd of October, we had our first Choir concert! The topic was kinda like "Africa" and it was just amazingly awesome!!!! We were singing two traditional South-African songs ("Tschotscholoza" & "Nginangina"), "Keep your lamps" and "Africa" from Toto!! It's a song from the 80s or something and I just love it!! :) We were wearing gowns! It was just an amazing feeling, standing there on stage, wearing a teal-colored gown with a golden sash on it!! :) Love it!!! So.. The concert was amazing and we got many compliments from other students, parents and teachers. It also was a combined-choir concert, which means that all different choirs of our school sing their songs and then in the end we sang "Africa" together, so there were like 250 people, singing this beautiful song at the same time!! Sorry, that I'm repeating myself so much, but it was AMAZING!!! :) Our school has a "Madrigals" choir and only the best Juniors and Seniors can sing in this choir, which means that this is the BEST choir in the whole school. My best friend Clara is in "Madrigals" and she had a solo: AWESOME!! They sang a song called "Earth Song" by Frank Ticheli and it's so beautiful, so I...No!...everyone had to cry!! :)...Now is the time to look it up and to listen to it. You don't even have to understand what they're singing, just listen and relax!! (The real version is the one called "EARTH SONG by Frank Ticheli- CENTRAL ISLIP" on YouTube!!)

Okay. Anyways... :)The days after the concert weren't that good because my little host cousin Austin died. He was only 12 days old and it made me sad too.. :(

Then there was Halloween and it was awesome. I went trick or treating with my little siblings and my host parents and my host uncle Jonny's family! :) (Yep! Our family is huuuuuge!! :) ) So, we went trick or treating all together and with was great fun!! :) An then it became November and with the November, the snow came too!! We had snow on November 4 and we still have some!! We don't have that much, but there's still a thin layer of snow in our yard :) And tomorrow is my granny's birthday!! ALLES GUTE, OMA!!! :) HAB' DICH LIEB!!! :)) ❤️

So.. I guess, that was everything for now :) I'll really try to post something every second day, though! :)

Love,

Charly :)

P.S. And again! If you have a question, just ask!!! :)