Dear Grace,
Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I guess I was so exhausted from writing that last letter that I had hoped it would suffice for a while J. Okay, so here’s what I’ve been up to this last week. So first of all, Grandma, Grandpa and I all flew out to Baltimore for a family reunion. Aunt Mary and Uncle Steve were the ones in charge of it, and they had the reunion themed as a cruise, so every day we went on different excursions.
So on day one, I went kayaking with just about all of the cousins. It was really fun because the water was never any deeper than three or four feet, so we could always get out of our kayaks and walk around. I had my camera with me in a plastic baggie, and whenever I wanted to take pictures I would take it out of the bag. But, being the dumb-butt that I am, I didn’t want to keep zipping up the baggie it was in, so I would just put the camera back in the bag and then I kept it tucked into the front of my life-vest so I could pull it out at a moment’s notice. Well, along the way we found a rope swing, so we all stopped and took turns swinging and taking pictures. So I forgot about my camera, which was still stuffed in the front of my life-vest, so when I stood up, it of course fell right into the water. Long story short, I need a new camera, haha.
One thing that was awesome though was what my cousin, Jonathan, did. So he randomly jumped out of his kayak and pulled it behind some rocks. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was going to Indian-sneak-attack everyone. I pointed out that his kayak was bright red, and that he wouldn’t be very sneaky in that loud of a color. He looked thoughtful for a minute, then he started tearing up plants from the rocks he was hiding behind and very tackily tied them to the front of his kayak, creating a very comical camouflage.
Then, when a few people caught up with us, he sluggishly paddled his kayak toward them, all the while laughing like a crazy person and whooping like an Indian. The funniest part of this whole “attack” was when Jonathan went after Cameron with his paddle and leaned too far to one side and totally tipped his kayak over and fell out. The best part was I got the whole thing on camera before I baptized my camera, so that little moment will live forever J.
Then, later that day we went swimming in a calmer, deeper part of the river. We were in a pool that was right next to some rapids, and then my cousin Kelli got the brilliant idea to go down the rapids. Without our kayaks. Needless to say, I woke up very sore the next day. As soon as I got to the opening of the rapids, the current sucked me in, and my leg got trapped between two rocks, and when the current pulled me in, it twisted me around and I thought for sure I was going to snap my leg in half. Fortunately my leg slipped free at the last second, but the only problem with that was that I went down backwards.
I turned back around, but then I was on my stomach, which wasn’t cool because I didn’t want to plunge face-first into any rocks, so then I must have looked incredibly retarded because I kept flipping from my front to my back, fighting the current trying to figure out a safe way to go down the rapids. I kind of freaked out at one point because I dropped into a deep pool in the middle of the rapids, and you know how those pools have whirlpools at the bottom that suck you in? Well, I landed right on top of one of those whirlpools and it started sucking me in. I got away, obviously, or I wouldn’t be writing this, but it was really scary and yet fun at the same time.
The next day I went to see Amish country with my sister, Brooke. You remember Auntie Brooke, don’t you? She had her two kids, Cole and Callie, (your cousins) with her, and I got to hang out with them all day, so that did my heart good to spend some time with my sister. I can count on one hand how many times I can remember seeing her in my life, so that meant a lot to me. Amish country is so much fun to visit! Amish people are a community that live away from the ways of the world. They don’t use electricity, and they live very much like the pioneers. They even dress like them, so that’s cool. I’ve never had more fun people-watching in my life! Every time my Aunt Becky or me would see an Amish person while we were driving we would freak out and scream, “There’s an Amish person! There’s an Amish person!” or if we saw a house that we knew was Amish (giant propane tanks in the yard are always a dead giveaway, because they use propane to power everything) we’d scream, “Look! An Amish house!” So yeah, that was exciting.
Then, the next day we went boating on the Susquehanna River, and it was beautiful; the weather was perfect, and the water was unbelievably warm. Well, we pulled up to a beach on an island in the middle of the river where we set up our umbrellas and towels and stuff, and then we were going to go out and go skiing, right? Well, as we were getting ready to set out, the boat wouldn’t start. After a few minutes, we realized that the boat was totally busted, and that we were now stranded on an island.
I figured out the answer to that question: if you were stranded on an island, what three items would you want to have? And I came up with these answers: food, water, and sunscreen. We had our lunches of course, and our water bottles, but after that, that was it. Fortunately, we flagged down another boat passing by, so they were able to tow our boat to a dock, where Uncle Steve took it into a shop to try and get it fixed. In the meantime we stayed on the island and played all day. Fortunately, being the spaz’s that we are, we found plenty of things to do to keep ourselves entertained. So Cameron and Monica were sitting on a log talking, right? So Kelli, Aubrey and I decided to imitate Jonathan and Indian-sneak-attack them. We put sticks and leaves in our hair and put mud on our faces, and then we crawled through the shallow water over to them with water up to our noses.
It was totally awesome because we had straight faces the whole time, and we just watched them with narrow eyes as we got closer. Then, finally we jumped out of the water and screamed and whooped like Indians and attacked them. Yeah, it was totally epic J.
Then later we decided to bury ourselves in mud. Then Kelli wanted to bury me, and while she was covering me with mud she asked: “Can I give you a pregnant belly?”
I said, “Sure,” so she did. She gave me a HUGE pregnant belly, complete with a funny bellybutton, and then she looked thoughtful for a second before she said, “Can I give you a boob-job?” After laughing my head off, I said yes, and she gave me a HUGE boob-job to match my enormous belly. She must have given me size triple D or something, because the pictures we took are flipping ridiculous.
So yeah, those were our adventures for that day. And that was the last day of the family reunion. Did I mention that the Bullocks have fireflies at their house? Oh my gosh I have never been so excited about bugs before, but I spent probably an hour or so outside for a couple of nights in a row catching them! Brooke showed be how to make them light up after you catch them by squeezing them gently. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done with bugs!
So the next day we drove up to New York City, and um, awesome? Oh yeah, definitely. Well all I can say is that I’m glad Grandpa was driving and not me. That would have been freakishly scary! Manhattan is so cool! Grandpa can’t understand why people would want to live there, but I can understand. There’s just such a charming appeal to it, you can’t help but fall in love with it. Well, when we went to check into our hotel room, we waited thirty minutes behind two people, because the guy at the front of the line was being stupid. And when we got up to the counter the lady said our room wasn’t ready, but that she could put us in the penthouse for no extra charge. Needless to say, we were more than okay with that. So the penthouse was this HUGE suite with a king-size bed and a hide-a-bed, and then there were stairs that led up into a sunroom where there was a Jacuzzi tub, a little dining table, and a fabulous view of the Empire State Building. So yes, we loved our room.
We went to see The Lion King the musical that night on Broadway, and it was SO good! Even Grandpa loved it, and that’s saying something, since he hates musicals. The next day we spent the day seeing the sights and then we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw maybe a tenth of the museum, since they’ve combined three museums into it, but what we got to see was very cool. A ton of the Ancient Egypt exhibit, the medieval armor exhibit, women’s clothing throughout the centuries (corsets must have sucked), and a couple of other things, which were all very cool.
Then we walked down through central park, where we saw some people filming some TV show, and then we went to Carnegies Deli. They’re famous for their skyscraper sandwiches, and I didn’t think that sandwiches could get that high except in cartoons. But no, they’ve managed to pull it off by putting a pound of meat on each sandwich. All I could say was HA! But they were delicious, so they were well worth the money.
After that, we checked out of our hotel room and drove back down to Maryland, where we spent the night at the Bullocks, and then we flew home the next day. So those were the grand adventures of our East Coast trip. I’ll write again soon, as soon as I have anything to write about okay? I’ll be sure to force myself not to procrastinate on it next time J. I love you tons and I hope all is going well with you.
Love always,
Katie Jo
P.S. I went to the drive-in movie up in Salt Lake with Andrea a couple of nights ago. IT WAS SO COOL! I’m definitely going again!
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