The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed by Heather Vogel Frederick

The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed was a really good book about a girl named Patience and her little brother Thaddeus who join their father, a captain on a Nantucket whaling ship, after their mother's death. Patience learns how to chart their course on a map and to tie knots. She also finds a way to get a cat, even though her father made her leave her fat cat behind. Patience has no idea why she's named Patience, because she certainly isn't patient. Her patience is put to the test when sneaky crew members maroon her father and brother along with most of the loyal members of the crew on a island. Patience stays and is forced to cook for them  and clean the ship, but she finds away to save everyone with the help of some unlikely people... I recommend this book and it's sequel, The Education of Patience Goodspeed, too. They teach about whales, ships, and more. I think you should read these books today!

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion for my mom's side of the family, and it was awesome.I met tons of new friends and some cousins got to spend the night. We got to feed the cows;

 ...and cook! Christopher, Mom, and our cousin Alex made a pizza:.Christopher took these:

I had a great time and I love family reunions! We had Rudy's BBQ for lunch which is one of my fave restaurants, so that was good, too.:-) I always like meeting different family members and this was especially fun because we hadn't seen each other in forever. Everyone was really nice and drove all the way out to the country to see us!The weather was pretty but windy, and I think all of us had a good time. Everyone had an adventure-Mom and Uncle Bob ran into some hogs! Thanks for viewing!

Facebook Costume

For Halloween I was Facebook. Yes, Facebook. You can find how to make one like mine at :http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/face-book-1024870/ . I made mine with help from Dad and wore it to 4 Halloween parties!:-). Basically, we cut a cereal box like a book, wrapped it in wrapping paper,then accordion-folded paper to look like pages and glued it to that. Then we glued a big sheet of paper on top and cut a hole for my head. You're supposed to attach a hat to it, etc., but we punched holes in the top and attached a stretchy headband to it. My middle brother was a scarecrow and my littlest brother wore his train engineer outfit. No scary costumes for us!I liked making my costume better than buying it because I could decide what colors to use and adjust it to size.

Andrew's Cooking Show-The 6yr old Chef!

My littlest brother Andrew wants to be a chef, and he wants to have his own cooking show. So, today Mom videoed him and made a little show. We had to keep stopping so he could make sure he was doing everything right- it was so cute! It is filmed on location!:-) The show is called "Cookin' with Andrew" (how original)Or it could be called the "6 year old Chef". Anyway, Andrew is making chocolate cupcakes with frosting.You will have to watch all the videos to see the whole show-sorry about that! You can find the recipe on the back of  the Hershey's cocoa. The recipe is:

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water
• "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING (recipe follows)

Directions

1. 1 Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
   
   
2. 2 Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F.
3.  Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.
   
   
4.  Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING.
   
   
   
   "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING
   
   1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
   2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
   3 cups powdered sugar
   1/3 cup milk
   1 teaspoon vanilla extract
   
   Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
   Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

We went to the Tyler Rose Garden again recently with some new friends,and I had a fun time. I got a lot of pictures of the flowers and am including some of them. My mom took the last pic of me. My favorite kind of roses are any pink ones!The rose garden is 14 acres, which makes it the nation's largest rose garden. There are over 38,000 rose bushes and 500 different varieties of roses.Every October the Texas Rose Festival held there, with a Rose Tea and a Rose Parade. Roses are Mom's fave flowers, so we go here a lot!:-) Also at the Garden they grow new types of roses. They recently grew some light purple ones that are gorgeous! There were bumblebees all over them, though. If you look close you can see a bee in the photo below. In case you ever want to visit the garden,the address for it is :420 Rose Park Drive, Tyler, TX

Meeting Paula Deen!

We got to meet Paula Deen at the Hastings Book Store in Tyler! Ms. Deen was really nice...Wait! Maybe I should start at the beginning! We got to the store at 3:00pm. Ms Deen was supposed to be there at 6:00pm. However, there was a long line ahead of us- in fact, we were the 200th person in line! So, after three hours of waiting, we got bored, so my brothers and I went to the kid's book section to read. However, they were blocking the kid's section off, and had prepared a little table with a bunch of yummy foods for her. While we were there, we found out that her book, Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible, had reached #1 on the New York Time's Bestseller's List. So, we bought several copies of the book and got them signed by her. Ms. Deen was friendly and said she loved all her Texas gals and guys,told Andrew she liked his shirt. etc.,but of course we only got to see her for a little bit.We met several nice people in line and it was worth the wait! I told my mom "Now all we have to do is meet Taylor Swift and I'm happy!":-) It did take a long time in line, though. People had literally camped out ! Anyway, I had a good time. We got a compliment from Ms. Deen-she said 'What polite children ya'll are!" Oh, and this is my 100th blog post so far!:-)

Humane Society!

This was Jake. He LOVED his toy!

I'm the teen leader for the Henderson County 4-H Clover kids, and we participated in the National 4-H One Day Make A Difference Day by giving to the Henderson County Humane Society in Athens on Saturday, October 8. We got a special tour and were allowed to play with the dogs and cats that were safe and kid friendly. I loved playing with the cats-they were so cute!We (and other 4-H kids) had taken donations of supplies for the animal shelter,which were really needed. All the animals were so friendly!

It takes a lot of food to feed all those animals!

One dog kept trying to sniff us out, then thought he was so smart when he saw us!

This cat was really cute!

Andrew and I loved this kitty.