Wasser Ski

I am joining Janna at Mommy's Piggy Tales to record my youth. This is the 10th of 15 series, every Thurs, that I will be recording. These memories are from 8th grade.

8th grade was a grade of who's who. Who are your friends, who are you dating? I was still in the transition period of who my friends were. I had started to become better friends with some girls who would have a big impact on me by the faith that they carried.

But as far as school went my favorite subject at this time was my German class. My good friend Kari was in it. We got to pick German names to use in the class period. My name was Daniella. Which I think I picked because my parents picked out Danielle for a name for me when I was born, but obviously didn't keep it. I remember taking field trips to some German restaurants in the (Cities?) This restaurant was dark and dingy. To my shock, during this visit my German teacher Frau Swenson snorted a shot of tobacco through her nose. It was done with a contraption that I guess was very Germanic. And yes....all of the 8th graders stood around and watched her do this. I thought it was disgusting as most of them cheered her on. But, during this class towards the end of the year we got to make a commercial to show the class in German of course. Kari and I wanted our commercial to be on how having the right pair of water ski's can make a big difference in skiing.

So a chilly May day we went out skiing to make our commercial.

I remember it started out with me not skiing well, and my big line was.

"Diese wasser ski sind schreckliche!" ("These water skis are horrible!")

To which Kari had good water skis and skied great!

But it was a whole lot of fun to make.....hmmm makes me want to view it again. Kari's parents own it! I should check to see if they have it still. Maybe I could post it=)

Gone!

Last Friday we went to some car/motorcycle races. I was quite surprised that it was a very family friendly place. Seeing that there were many families there. Lots of kids waving checkered flags=) We sat in the first bleacher since Kenz is very mobile now and I knew she would not do well just sitting for a few hours. There was plenty of room between the stadium seating and the race track. They kept things going at a good pace, plenty of different races. Each lasting no more than 5mins? The last two races of the night were longer though, maybe a total of 30 laps. Kenzie was getting fussy so I thought I'd take her out to the truck feed her, change her get her a little more settled before we left. I knew my husband had lots to get together back at the bleachers plus the kids to get to watch...so I headed back to help him.


Now the way the stadium is set up is there are two entry points to the seating. I could take the first one and walk all the way down in front of everyone to where we were sitting, or I could walk behind the bleachers and go to the 2nd entry way which is right where we were sitting. I chose to walk behind the bleachers. As soon as I got there everyone had this worried look on their faces. Our friend Beth said to me "Caden is gone!" What! I look to my husband. He said that he had told Caden and Keira that it was almost time to go and he had bolted. What and you just let him?? I didn't quite get what was going on. So my daughter points down in front of the stadium saying she saw him. I look and start walking wondering where she sees him. I ask a few people on the way to see if they saw him. "No!" I walked all the way down. He was not there. My heart was pounding! So I turned back around walked back and hoped to see him back with my husband. Nope. Our other friend Joe took off to look in the bathrooms, my husband to look by the concession stands. Nothing. The minutes felt like eternity. My heart was racing and I was screaming inside. I handed Kenz off to Beth and told Keira to stay with her as well. I started just running and thinking how can I get them to stop the races..it was sooo loud there is no way he could hear me yelling for him. As I was yelling very loud and in a panic. My only thought was if someone took him they would have to bring him to the parking lot to leave. I knew I had to get to the parking lot and stop whatever cars are leaving. I had never been so scared! I just kept pleading "Please Lord No!...Please Lord No! I ran right to the outside of the ticket booth and there he was walking towards me. My heart leaped and I grabbed him and picked him up and asked where he was? Crying he told me he went to look for me over and over he just kept saying he was looking for me.=( I NEVER told the kids I was leaving to get Kenz ready at the truck. They were so engrossed in the race he never realized I had been gone for a while. So when my hubby said it was time to leave he bolted after a woman who he thought was me and followed her, in front of the bleachers, she was a ways a head. If I had taken just a few more minutes we might have crossed paths. I'm pretty sure he was walking in front of the bleachers as I was walking in back of the bleachers. But, I had never been so thankful to see him. At the time it felt like I was in a dream. Luckily it was a good ending! And the owner gave Caden a checkered flag as he knew he was missing. It took my heart until next morning to feel less anxious.

How about you...have your kids ever gone missing?

Ho Hum

I am joining Janna at Mommy's Piggy Tales to record my youth. This is the 9th of 15 series, every Thurs, that I will be recording. These memories are from 7th grade.

Jr High. The big time. I went into Jr High not having too many school friends. The friends that I had ran around with before started to get into things that I wasn't into. My locker at school was in the yellow hallway. At school they had these different color hallways. It looked very much from the 70's. I just remember how fun it was to be able to decorate your locker. Or, share your locker with someone. Which I did for a short while at the end of the year. But, my 7th grade year was not very memorable. I started playing basketball and softball and played alto saxophone in the band. I did fairly well playing the sax usually first or second chair. But when it came time for solo performances....ah yeah. I would get so nervous my whole body would shake. the teacher excused me because I think he was embarrassed for me. If you were in band you could also be in choir or small band because they traded every other day. I did not want to sing. So I was in small band, and you had to do lots of solo performances. I only did one. After that one my teacher pulled some strings so I could be in the advanced art placement class. Granted I have no art skills what so ever! But that was way more fun than having to get up in front of others. Plus the art student got to take lots of field trips. Lots! So getting nervous in front of others has its up side=)

At home I pretty sure my step-dad and my mom got married within the last year. Sorry a lot of these dates I don't remember very well. Well I think they actually got married during my 6th grade year. I remember both my mom and step-dad were in the Army. The newspaper people came out to interview them about the possibility of them both being sent to Operation Desert Storm and having children at home. They never went.

All in all 7th grade was a pretty ho hum year as far as school went.