Related posts:

1. Cheerleading Nationals!
2. Nationals Part 2
3. National Champs!

1) My cheerleading team

Being a part of a cheerleading team basically means that you have 35 other people who you are with for 2 hours, 3 times a week, who you have to get along with.  You can’t really fight with them, because one of them may save a part of your body from being injured.  We try not to hurt them, and they try not to hurt us, but it happens sometimes, and we get over it.  We have to learn how to work together, and even though I’ve only known most of these people for 3 months now, being with them feels like being with family.  Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been getting stressed out and frustrated at things that aren’t going as planned, or people getting hurt, or school assignments, but as soon as someone sees one of their teammates start to well up and start crying, there is always someone there to help- I know from many experiences.  Someone is always there to lift your spirits, and say ‘why don’t we try it again, and maybe we’ll try something different this time?’, and it always helps.

Below: My team! This was taken last week after practice.  5 points if you can find me!

2) School

This is my last year at Carleton, and although there has been construction going on during all 4 of my years here, I’ve just been realizing that we have a beautiful campus, and I’m lucky to have gone here.  I’ve met all sorts of awesome people- most through the cheerleading team, who have made my time here even better.  I’ve had my fair share of stressful living conditions and ‘friend’ drama, but the library or the ‘couch room’ as I like to call it, have made a great getaway for me.

3) Food and Shelter

I’m pretty sure this is a given, but as I said before, I’ve had my fair share of stressful living conditions.  That being said, I’ve always had a place to go if I wanted to get away from it all, whether it be a family friends house, or one of my friends apartments.  As for food, when I was home this past weekend I made some banana chocolate chip muffins.  And since, well, I love them, I brought some home with me.  The other day I brought 2 to school. One to eat on the way to school, and one for the middle of my class when I’m feeling tired and want to sleep right there on the desk.  On my way to school I passed a couple of guys asking for food/money.  I learned somewhere not to give them money, because who knows how they will spend it- I know all people on the street asking for money aren’t looking to spend it on bad things, I’m just saying- if I’m giving my money to someone who is hungry, I expect them to spend it on food.  Since I had a muffin on the seat next to me, I decided to give them that.  Well, in the end I don’t think they ate it, because when I gave it to them they looked at it like it could have been poisoned.  But hey, I tried, right?

4) Family and Friends

And lastly, the most obvious one.  Something that mostly everyone is thankful for, and needs no explanation.

Related posts:

1. Happy Thanksgiving!

• On Tuesday I went to the Ottawa Gymnastics Centre with some girls from my team to work on our cheerleading stunts.  I got hit in the nose and it started bleeding. It hurts, but it makes me look tough! I guess this isn’t really a good thing, but we did get the stunt to stick.

• This past weekend I went home and it was AWESOME!  I did a bit of everything I love doing when I go home- hanging out with family, playing with Hails, going out and spending time with friends, and playing with the kittens!  Being at home makes me so happy, but I love coming back to school and cheerleading.

• I was super sick last week, pretty much until Sunday.  I had to leave church on Sunday morning because I couldn’t breath.  But starting Monday I felt amazing!  Good thing, because I had to make the 6 hour drive back to Ottawa.  Since getting hit in the nose I haven’t been able to blow my nose though, and it’s making this getting better thing not work at all.

• I found this video on facebook.  Some students at Carleton made a video for the project ‘It Gets Better’ and it’s posted on the site.

• This video and this blog.  I would like Coco Rocha’s life and wedding please.

• Becoming better friends with the new girls on the team. I love them all already!

• This picture:

Hailey looking around me to see where Kate went

• And this picture:
• Getting to cheer at the Ravens home tonight!  The theme is Carnival, and there are going to be buskers and everything.

• For the next month I have plans/people visiting for every weekend Tonight,  my friend Owen is visiting, next weekend, the Aunts, Kate and Hailey are coming, the weekend after that I’m going home to pick up the van for the competitions, the weekend after that I have a competition in Montreal, and the week after that I have Nationals in Brampton!

I’m going to be posting 2 posts on my days, since I’m doing the themed photo posts, so stay tuned for my next post tonight!

Related posts:

1. Good things about getting older.
2. A Very Good Reason
3. Accident Prone!

First thing, this movie is for Aley. Puppy vs. Cat We were talking about what I should write about, and her suggestions were something along the lines of “me, puppies, me, kittens, procrastination, me”, so there you go Al. I also have to post this video, because Nicole Kraumanis is my amazing cheerleading idol. Nicole Team Canada Audition

Second, my car died yesterday. It was a sad day spent at home, not being able to go to school without scrounging up $3 to take the bus there, and probably $3 back.  I hardly got any studying done there, because T-Mo distracts me at every chance she gets…so does the lure of my comfy bed.  I called CAA this morning to go to school, and they told me it would be about 4 hours. Thank goodness it only took about 1.5 hours.  So I drove around Ottawa for about 20 minutes because the CAA man told me to, and I would have done whatever he said to make my car okay again.  During my drive I realized that Ottawa is an awesome city in any season.  Most cities are only fun to walk around in in the summer, and dreadful during the winter months (if they do have cold, snowy winter months), but Ottawa is just so nice.  In my opinion there are 3 things that make Ottawa so beautiful during the winter.

1) Parliament.

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If you can find something in your city that looks as amazing as this during the winter send ‘er over.  Otherwise this wins the prize. Here’s a better picture of the lights on Parliament:

source

2) Rideau Canal.  For those of you who don’t know, Ottawa has the world’s largest skating rink (Winnipeg has the longest, but I guess it’s skinnier),  measuring 7.8km (4.8 miles) long.  Along the way they have Beaver Tails, hot chocolate, skate rentals, and it’s the focus of  the Winterlude festival.

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Me and my friend Andrena skating last year.

3) The Byward Market.

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To be honest I don’t know a lot about the Market.  I know that most of the good bars are there, there are some super cute shops, and they have cute vendors on the sidewalk.  Oh, and my favourite restaurant- Lonestar!  It’s a nice place to take a walk, which is what Kaylee and I do a lot there.

Anyways, this post just justified my love for Ottawa.  I do love it a lot, but I will love going home on Monday even more I think! Especially once my exams are all over and done with!

No related posts.

Me and my driving partners for the weekend Erika and Elisa. These girls saw me at my worst those couple of days.

Me and mom!

Part of the team at awards

One of our pyramids

haha the BEST part of our dance!

First partner stunt

The pyramid from Katelyn’s view

The second pyramid!

My side of the pyramid

Part of my large entourage. Erica, Katelyn, Oma and me!

First partner stunt again!

The first pyramid with all of our awesome tumblers!

Aand our dance again!

That’s it for the Nationals pictures for now!  Back to watching my Christmas movies- first The Santa Clause 2, and now Christmas With The Kranks! Yep, tons of Tim Allen on my TV tonight!

Related posts:

1. The Long Awaited Wedding Post- Part 6: Bride & Groom
2. Cheerleading Nationals!
3. The Long Awaited Wedding Post- Part 5: Formals

I got this Christmas survey from Rachel, who is also going through a move of her own right now, and you can read all about her funny moving stories at her blog (which include losing a dresser along the way? haha)

6) What is Your Favorite Holiday Dish? hmm…I don’t think we quite have specific dishes that we eat on Christmas.  But at Oma Close’s house we usually have turkey, mashed potatoes and caesar salad, and I like gravy over everything, even my salad Mix it all together and it’s even better!

7) Favorite Holiday Memory as a Child. When mom or dad got a new lazy boy recliner, and it was just put in the family room, and dad was sitting in the family room all morning and didn’t notice it was there. And another one, One year mom and dad made us go to church BEFORE opening presents, so every time someone asked us what we got for Christmas we would sadly say “I don’t know”. Cruel, cruel parents, haha.

8)When and How Did You Learn The Truth About Santa? I don’t remember at all…probably wasn’t that traumatic.

9) Do You Open a Gift on Christmas Eve? Usually on Christmas Eve we go to Oma Far’s house and open presents with all of our cousins there, then go to midnight mass with them.

10)How Do You Decorate Your Christmas Tree? We recently started using a fake (the horror!) Christmas tree, and we put up the lights as we put the tree together, then put every ornament we can find on it! Especially the ones from when we were kids.

11)Snow! Love it or Dread it? Seriously? This isn’t even a question for me. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

12)Can You Ice Skate? Of course! I DO live in Ottawa, and we have the Rideau Canal!

13)Do You Remember Your Favorite Gift? Nope, they are all great!

14)What’s The Most Important Thing About The Holidays For You? Getting to see family and spend time at home!

15)What is Your Favorite Holiday Dessert? Pavlova…? Not necessarily a “holiday dessert”, but still an awesome dessert.

16)What is Your Favorite Holiday Tradition? Waking up super early, even though I might be the only blonde at home, I’ll still go downstairs early and open my stocking.

17) What Tops Your tree? An angel that connects to the lights and lights up!

18) Which Do You Prefer: Giving or Receiving? I get so excited when people are opening my presents!   I just eek so much!

19)What is Your Favorite Christmas Song? I don’t really have a favourite, but I love Christmas songs that celebrities sing, and they usually stay on my Ipod year round.

20)Candy Canes…good or bad? amazing.

21)Favorite Christmas Show? the. the. the. THE GRINCH! I watched it on tv Monday night!

22) Saddest Christmas Song? Silent night

Related posts:

1. A Christmas Survey
2. Christmas Spirit
3. Blog Swap: The Spirit of Christmas

Hope you all had a great weekend, I know I did!  Cheerleading Nationals were this weekend in Brampton, and pretty much the whole fam jam came. 4/5 blondes were there, 3 aunts, 1 Dave,  1 brother in law, 1 oma, and 1 mom! I always have the biggest entourage there and I love it!

We came 4th! Our awesome coaches Anson and Meagan are in the front.

Karlene, Ashley and Me at awards.

Me and Ashley at the Afterparty! Which was innnnsanee.

More pictures will be coming, this is just all I have right now!

Related posts:

1. Cheerleading Nationals!
2. Nationals Part 2
3. Cheerleading Nationals 2010

We even got a picture with him!

Okay that’s it for my brush with fame, now here is what I dressed up as on Halloween!

Related posts:

1. Brushes with Fame
2. some good things…
3. Procrastination At It's Best.

I know it looks like I’m not doing anything, but I promise I am!  I also have to say hi to Erinn, Serena, and their roommates.  I have heard stories that they talk about me in their living room after practice. So Hey Serena, Erinn and roommates!

This post is just filled with cheerleading.  But this includes some baking!  Tomorrow we have a bake sale, and I made brownies and cupcakes! 

I decorated them with farm animals too! The pink ones are pigs, brown are cows, and yellow are chicks.

There are going to be some sister contests coming up this week, so keep reading!

Lauren

Related posts:

1. Bring it On!
2. Cheerleading Nationals!
3. Thanksgiving

OC Transpo Bus

For the past week (and before the Christmas break), I’ve had to find different ways of getting to school almost every day because there are no buses running.  Wednesdays I have no class, but I had to be at school to help recruit for cheerleading, so I was going to walk the hour to school, then someone recommended to me that I should take the shuttles (Carleton has school buses running from different parts of the city every half hour to help students get to their classes).  The closest shuttle stop from me is a half hour walk at our nearest shopping center/O-train stop, so I got bundled up, and left at about 3:45, since I had to be at school for 5, and figured that would give me enough time.  I got to the stop at about 4:20, and noticed a sign on the times board saying “Due to the weather, the shuttles will not be running today”.  There I was, boots on, with slippers underneath, down filled mitts, tights, yoga pants, a short sleeved shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a down coat, and BOTH hoods on (I later got made fun of when I mentioned that I took off my hoodS.).  In other words, I was totally bundled up, and totally pissed that I walked half an hour to a bus stop where no buses would be coming.

After I got over my initial shock, and about 5 minutes of trying to call a cab (obviously busy every time I called, because how else would people get around these days?), I walked to the nearest Second Cup and called a teammate to come pick me up and bring me to school.  On our way to school I find out that they had changed the recruiting times from 5-7 to 4-6.  It was now 5:20.  So I get to school, take off my layers (and my hoods), and starting trying to recruit people.  Now has anyone ever had to attempt to recruit university aged guys to try out for a cheerleading team? NOT fun, let me tell you that.  Pretty much our approach is “if you think the guy is hot and jacked, go hand him a flier and chat him up”.  I’m clearly not very good at this.  I attempted to recruit for about 20 minutes, then a group of us decided it would be better if we’d just go to the residence and try to force people to try out hand them out there.  Well.  In order to get to the tunnels (do you really think we would walk outside?), we had to walk past one of the campus bars.  Now you should know that one of our favorite sayings is “Our drinking team has a cheerleading problem”, and we do live up to that saying.  We decided it would be easier for us to talk to people if we had a beer in us.  Well one beer turned into two, and two into three, and next thing you know we’ve forgotten all about handing out fliers, and were now talking about siblings having the same tongues, and things only the fiveblondes would understand like “touch tongues!”, and living on farms/ranches, since the group I was there with consisted of two sisters from Texas-Kelly and Kristina, and one guy who works on a farm-Matt (did I mention that he also is from a family of five siblings?  Only one sister though).  Kristina, by the way is my twin.  If you are looking at pictures from my cheerleading you’d better look twice to make sure that it’s actually me, because we have to do the same thing.  We were then talking about staying for trivia night, when I got a call that Krys was waiting for me outside res commons-almost all the way across campus.  So I grab my coat, say my goodbyes and run across campus…only to be met by a chihuahua in Krys’ truck!  Now I assure you, I wasn’t drunk enough to be seeing things…okay well maybe I was, but there was honestly a chihuahua in the truck.  I’ve never seen one up close, and Radar is enough to turn me off of them.  No offense to anyone who has one, but chihuahuas are creepy looking dogs in my opinion.  It turns out that this lovely dog is staying at my house for a couple of days while Krys’ sister visits us from Montreal.  I’ll let you all know how this goes.

I had totally forgotten that we (me, Emily and Krys) had planned a Monopoly date with Krys’ friend Dan and his girlfriend Felicia.  Monopoly is a touchy subject in our house.  We usually end the game in a big fight, and a win for Krys.  This time was different though.  This time I won!  It was a crazy game, and I didn’t quite understand how I won, but I’m not going to fight it, I’m going to take that win and be happy that I’m the one who broke Krys’ winning streak.  Oh yea, he also wins EVERY single  game we play, including Risk, Clue, and Whoonu.

Anyways, that was my wonderful adventure with the OC Transpo strike.  I was only planning on making it about my adventure getting to school for the recruitments, but I tend to ramble when I’m bored, and have 5 hour breaks in my schedule, which I do every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Related posts:

1. Adventures in fashion.
2. Adventures in Bacon Making
3. Adventures with the Sixth Blonde