Connor: Blog Of The Day

1. Nana only danced inn the car to smashmouth songs
2. we did not learn how to make ice cream although we found out some interesting facts.
3. We learned that they spin the container as they put in the ice cream.
4.  We saw the different machines and learned what they were used for.
5. I ate Mocha Almond Fudge which tasted a lot like coffee.

Mason: Blog Of The Day

At the Blue Bell factory they did not tell us how they make ice cream. But I did learn how much ice cream they make in a day. They make 155 gallons of ice cream in one day. I learned that the factory is named after a flower.  I learned they were making new kinds of popsicles. Nana did her dance in the car.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

They did not teach us how to make ice cream but here are three things they did teach us.

 #1 They spun the container while the machine was putting the ice cream in so there are no air bubbles in it when it froze.

#2 They have a machine that pushes the ice cream through tiny holes so it will be creamy and smooth.  It was called a homegenizer.

#3 They came out with new fruit bars in three flavors. I can't remimber one but I know there was strawberry and peach.

Marney: Blog Of The Day

They did not tell us how they made it but we did learn things.  They were named after a flower.  We got to see the Blue Bell old truck.  We got to see that they turn the ice cream upside down and then they put it in a huge freezer.  The box spins when it gets ice cream in it. When they make ice cream sandwiches they get this huge one and then they cut it and put them in this box.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

At the factory they didn't teach us how to make ice cream. When we looked at the factory we got to see all the cool machines and how everything was packaged. Just not how to make it. The crazy flavor... Hmmm. I had peppermint ice cream. But I had a little taste of Nana's turtle caramel stuff. It was vanilla with nuts and caramel. The first thing I thought was pretty cool and creepy and at the same time, was how the tour guide knew ALL of the flavors that Blue Bell made. Second They named their company after the blue bell flower! It's very pretty. The third was looking at this mix of berries and nuts that they were going to put into the ice cream. It looked like vomit! But I bet in ice cream form it would be awesome! And yes... Nana did dance. In the car and in the factory.

Daddio: 1/20/11 Blog of the Day

On Tuesday you went on a field trip to the Blue Bell factory and saw how they made ice cream.  For today's blog of the day post, I want you to use what you learned, and explain in your post how ice cream is made.  Start from the cow and end at the finished tub of delicious ice cream.  Also talk about the three best things you saw or learned on your field trip-- did you see anything cool, or try any unusual flavors of ice cream?  Did Nana do her crazy old-person-monkey-dance in the middle of the tour?

Marney And Gabe: Gabe And Marney's Skit Show # 1

Hi, this is Marney and Gabe. This show is a skit show.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY Popo!  And just sit down and watch the show.  Here is Gabe. Hi, if you have any thing good or bad to say talk to me or Marney and tell us what you need to tell us. You can also send us props that we WILL use in the show. Hope you like it. Also you can comment on it about it again hope you like the show so bye.

Connor: Youtube

Hey I have a Youtube channel for let's play videos.  A let's play is me talking over a video of myself playing a game.  I currently am Let's Playing Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door.  I am on chapter two of the game and my jokes are terrible as always.  I might sing in a future video, It has to be a song I know.  Everything that happens on camera is either a funny or interesting.  I cut out any recording that I feel was crap.  So it tends to take one try at the time although when something interrupts the recording it is multiple takes.  If you want to see my videos go to youtube and type in Wisemimir. One word not two just so you know.  It will take you to my channel where you can view all my videos.  Well that's all for now I record at night, but I'm having mommio upload videos for me so no videos are going to be recorded tonight.

Mommio: The Book!

Mason: Blog Of The Day

Popo

by Mason

Popo is funny,

I like it when me and Popo go to see the monkeys.

Popo has Mario Kart,

  and he is smart.

Happy Birthday Popo,

Where will you go?

Marney: Blog Of The Day

Popo
By Marney

Popo is the best

and he likes to invite guests

Popo is cool

and he likes to go in the kiddie pool
Popo went to an airport 

so he could go to a football court

Popo loves scrambled eggs

and he likes his legs

Connor: Blog Of The Day

Today is a wonderful day.
We will celebrate in a special way.
Popo plays lords of conquest
and we set of on our quest
We go sing.
And as we do our voices ring
All of us love Popo
And maybe we all play nintendo

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

Popo

By Kiki

Popo is nice to me,

He's the one I really like to see.

Popo is fun,

He looks like the sun.

Popo is funny,

And he likes Kennedy.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

POPO :)

Celebrate, you're 63!

Now come on and eat some cake with me

Having fun all day long

Being with you is like being with Donkey Kong

 Even though you are old

You can still be pretty bold

You like to watch football lot's of times

The team you like plays pretty fine

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

popo

today is popo's birthday

and he is going to play 

we will give him presants

and we gave him hints

he will go out to lunch

then he will hold munch

popo played chess 

and he is the best

Daddio: 1/19/11 Blog of the Day

It is Popo's Birthday!  In honor of this beautiful occasion, I want each of you to write a poem made up of four couplets in a row (and thus, an eight-line poem).  Remember the rules we gave for writing couplets in last week's blog of the day.  Make sure that the poem is about Popo and how awesome he is now that he's forty-two!

Connor: Family Meeting Min.

1. We need to read real books for DEAR. I'm reading Pet Semetary again.
2.  My leg is healing and I'm going to start doing more things without help.
3.  We are going on a trip to Colorado in July.  I'm really happy about that.
4. No mean things on the blog.
5. Daddio wants to play chess and logic games with us  more often.
6. Mason and Gabe have been helping a lot lately.
7. I've been in a great mood recently.
8. Kennedy is no longer acting like a baby.
9.Avery is happy that she got my room when I couldn't use it.
10. The logic games Nana got are good.  Gabe is happy to play them.
11. This is not going to be my job anymore.  Marney is taking this job so good luck Marney.

Daddio: The Norns' Quest Update

So this was an exciting weekend for my book!  As everyone knows, I've written a young adult book called The Norns' Quest.  I'm not sure what a "young adult" book is-- it seems it can be anything from overly simplistic writing (like the Percy Jackson series) to sophisticated, adult-level writing that is written on fantasy-like subject matter that appeals to teens (like The Golden Compass).  My book is more like the latter.  I wrote it with the idea that it would be read by 13-16 year olds and didn't dumb down the vocabulary, but on revisions chose to replace some of the more obscure words with simpler choices.

Without giving anything away, here's the "blurb" that I wrote for the book:

Moments before she dies in a freak car accident, 14-year-old Abbie Stevenson's mind and soul are stolen by a trio of mystical girls from the future, known as the Norns.  Her soul is taken thousands of years into the future and stitched into another girl's body, the body of the legendary Valkyrie.  Stranger still, when she wakes up, she finds herself in a primative, feral world run completely by children.  Adults are nonexistent.  She's told that the Norns need her to travel to Asgard, the home of the Norse Gods, to become imbued with magical runes which will allow her to return to her time and stop the terrible catastrophe that destroyed the world.  But as she navigates the broken future devastated by the death of ancient gods, Abbie realizes that everything isn't exactly as it seems.

As I posted a week or so ago, we were really excited because we finally finished our fifth proofread of the book and finished the final formatting so that we can print personal copies of it off of Lulu.com.  A good friend of mine from work, Brandon, did me a huge favor and did the layout and design of the dust jacket for the book.  He did such an amazing job, that I can't wait for family and friends to see the finished copy when we order additional copies.  It looks so sharp and so professional.


The most exciting part?  The proof copy that we ordered will be here on Tuesday.  How awesome is that?  On Tuesday, I'll hold 608 pages of my very first novel.  A huge, hard-backed copy of a real book... THAT I WROTE!  We're all super excited about it.


Which brings me to the next exciting thing-- this weekend we sent query letters to five literary agents, requesting that they review sample pages of The Norns' Quest and see if they will represent me in trying to get the book published.  There was a whole process I went through in deciding if I even wanted to publish it or not because, as weird as this sounds, I wrote it for the family, and once they read it (and loved it), I wasn't sure that I wanted to publish it.  But Mommio, of course, talked me into it.  So we researched a bunch of different agents, picked the ones we thought would be good matches for the book, and sent out our first five queries to them.


Will anyone respond?  Odds are: no.  All of these agents say they receive over 300 queries a month, and they only request to see five or six manuscripts from those 300.  And then if they don't like the manuscript, they pass.  So while it's a longshot, it's still exciting to start the process and see what happens.


I think I'll start putting up posts about the whole process I went through in thinking up, writing, editing and getting the book ready to publish.  But for now, I wanted to just give everyone the current status.

Gabe :Bowling

Today we went bowling and it was really fun. We played three games and we had 2 lanes.  Here is how the first game went.

 1 ava

 2 marney 

 3 lily 

 4 me!

 here are some pics

Marney: Eye

Here is a picture of a eye that I made from watching a video on how to draw on youtube.

How I made this is a I used a pencil  and paper. That is it. Bye.