Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Hurray! It finally snowed here in Frydlant!

On Thursday morning, I woke up, looked outside my window and found eight inches of sparkling white snow! I couldn't believe my eyes. I have been waiting for snow for quite some time now, so I am glad it came.

Today we have about ten inches of snow surrounding us. I don't think it'll go anywhere soon - the temperature is in the high twenty's Fahrenheit! (-2 or 3 C)

Here's what the Winter Wonderland looks like!

Meez

Look at the cool Meez my mom told me about. I made this one myself! Isn't it cool?

My 13th Birthday!!

Yesterday was a really special day! It was my 13th birthday, spent with four of my closest friends.

My mom, Becca McMartin, Grace Pitcher, Lucy Till and I, shopped in a small mall in Ostrava from 3 to 6pm. We were only in like four stores the whole time! Isn't that crazy?!

The most fun shop that we spent time in was a jewelry/accessories shop that was so so cool, fun, and colorful! I loved it! Any girl who likes accessories would L-O-V-E this store. We spent a while in there looking for a particular style of jewelry that I wanted - some of those long big round beaded necklaces.

The rest of the time I tried on clothes and the girls would tell me what I should try on and what would look good with it or if it looked good on me. They were great at that! If they liked something they would say either: "Oh Claire that is totally you!!" or "That looks GREAT on you!" It was really fun to have them there only shopping for ME!

Turning 13 and all, I was looking for a different kind of look. I like the long shirts with the empire waist, and believe it or not we found two of them at the mall.

In the end I got a bunch of clothes and accessories, just the kind I wanted! I can't wait to wear them and see what people say!

Of course there were other very cool presents too. My dad gave me a metronome and my mom gave me a cool set of hair styling tools. Tyler gave me the 6^th Harry Potter book in paperback, and Caleb gave me a collection of my favorite little things like a notebook, candles and a funny picture of him!

On Saturday, the Ellenwood family came over to celebrate my birthday with me early and guess what was on our satellite channel, “Jetix”? Drum roll please....HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2!!! It was awesome! I loved it! It was also great to see it with the Ellenwood’s on European Satellite! I mean, Jetix IS a channel that comes from the Disney Channel but we don’t have Disney Channel here so it was cool that they showed the movie on Jetix!

Exit 316 casting!

This Saturday we had the casting for one of the main roles in Exit 316. Because my dad works on the team, I got to watch all of the auditions, which was so, so fun!

My mom and I came about half-way through the auditions on Saturday and then all day today. We sat in the back and watched as girl after girl auditioned. It was always the same things: 1. Talk for a minute about themselves. 2. Do a monologue (one person talking) specially written for the auditions. 3. Talk to one of the guys (an actor in Exit 316), who helped us get to know them better.

But even though it was all the same, each one played it differently; and that's what made it fun. Some people wore a long skirt; others a hat or a scarf, but they all looked different.

Altogether there were three rounds. Each had narrowed down to a certain amount of girls and each had different tasks. About forty Christian girls tried out from all over the country, then they narrowed it down to nine.

In the end it came down to four girls and then down to one. I think they chose the right person for the role: she's a good actress, knows how to show emotion and is great with interviewing other people.

I loved being a part of this. I have never been on that side of the table - I've always been the one up front. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to experience this. I had so much fun!

This is the girl that won. The one on the left, just in case you were wondering. :o) Her name is Aneta and she's from Prague.

All in all, it was a great adventure and I can't wait for the new season of Exit 316!!!

JV Kids camp!

On the 22nd of August, I woke up at 5 AM, got all of my stuff together and drove down to Frydlant with my family where our JVK bus was ready to be loaded. We all said our good-bye's to our parents and drove off. On the bus we had music, books, games and best of all, great friends. About 2/3 of the way in, we stopped in Ljubljana to pick up everyone from Slovenia. After around 5 more hours, we arrived at the place we were staying at 12:30 AM or so. Tired and sleepy, we all scrambled into our cabins and went to bed.

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of the breakfast bell. I got dressed and headed down to the teaching area to have a quick Bible reading with all of the other JV kids. Once that was done, we had American cereal for breakfast! I had Lucky Charms - Yummy!!

After breakfast Becca had a really cool surprise for us. Every year we get one thing to remind us of camp, kind of like a "souvenir". We all came over and Becca said that this year we were getting towels. I looked over at the dining area and spread all across the tables were colorful towels from stripy to swirly to pictures of surf boards, anything you can think of. I was so excited to pick out my own towel! I picked a green and pink one with all sorts of swirls and little pictures. I love it! These towels were given to us by various friends of JV, including my "Aunt M." and Mr. and Mrs. "AG"...THANK YOU!!

I love our group, Akiko. I loved it especially this year because we had Nate and Anna as our counselors. We also did way more things as a whole group not just Akiko boys separate and Akiko girls separate. We had Bible reading in the mornng together which was really cool because we could help each other and learn as a whole group.

This year at JV Kid's Camp we learned about prayer. I think it really helped me and I learned a lot. As always, Queen Blue (Mrs. Pitcher) taught us. One thing I really liked doing was a craft we did. We made prayer beads that remind us to pray either for a certain thing or just for anything. I made beads to remind me to pray for one girl in my class that has some problems in her life. I prayed that God would forgive her and that she would notice his presence.

I really felt God's presence at camp this year, I also really felt connected to the theme. I had never really learned about prayer so most of the things Queen Blue said were new to me. It's hard to express in words what I felt because it was just so amazing.
Also, I really enjoyed the place we stayed at this year. Right by the beach, beautiful weather and instead of tents (Thank you Becca!) we stayed in cabins.

If you look at this picture, you will see two cabins. The one to the right was ours. It's so cool to look at it now and remember all of the great times we had there.

It's so fun being a JV Kid!

Vacation to Corsica!

I just got back from my vacation to Corsica. It was awesome! I loved it there, the beaches were beautiful and so was the scenery.

We got up at around 5 AM, met the Hash's and Ellenwood's at our Tesco and then drove all the way to Italy where we would take the ferry the next morning. Us girls slept in the cars and the guys pumped up mattresses and set them down outside by some trees close by.

Next morning we got up and headed towards the ferry. We got on it around 9 and rode on it for four hours!! I sort of liked it. We stayed in an eating area the whole time and played Zilch (a dice game) and cards. I got really sea sick though, so went on deck to get some fresh air. It looked so beautiful from there. You could see the land we just came from and watch the waves of what looked like endless blue water.

We arrived in Bastia, Corsica where we ate pizza and then carried on with our journey to the campsite we were to stay at.

That afternoon we drove into our campsite, set up our tents and set off to look at the beach. It was really nice, the waves were really big that day so I got my pants all wet (which was actually kind of funny).

In the next few days we spent hours on the beach, swimming, talking, tanning and enjoying each others company.

After a week spent on Corsica, we packed up and took the ferry back to Italy. That night we drove to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower! It was so cool to actually get to see it!! We got some great pictures while there. Also, my mom had her birthday that day! To celebrate her, we had real italian Gelato (ice cream). It tasted so
good and I will remember that taste for a long time.

We drove through the whole night and arrived the next morning in Berchtesgaden, Germany. We set up in the cold morning air and ate breakfast.

Berchtesgaden is located in Germany, very close to the Eagle's Nest where Hitler had his headquarters.
As you might have guessed, we visited the Eagle's Nest next morning. We took a bus up the mountain to the parking lot, where we took an elevator up to the actual building of the Eagle's Nest. From there we hiked around on a trail that looped around the mountains. It was such a pretty trail! I could see towns in every direction and mountains higher than 1800 meters!

That day was also Noah's birthday. So after we came down the mountain we drove to an Alpine slide (summer toboggan slide). We went on it 3 times, it was so cool; you can go so fast!

That evening, it rained hard. Our tent leaked a bit but altogether it was just that everything outside was wet. Luckily right before it rained we had gotten all of our things into dry places so nothing important got wet. But that meant we couldn't do anything outside, which is really hard when camping!

The next day it rained even harder so we decided to leave a day early because it's not worth it to camp in the rain. But before we left we did one last thing to end vacation.

We found a big pool with lots of smaller pools, if you know what I mean, and spent four hours swimming. We had a lot of fun and I think it was a great end to vacation.

Last night we got home at around 3:30 am and went straight to bed. I loved sleeping in my own bed in a dry house again. But I won't get to for long, because tomorrow we leave on a bus at 5:30 am to JV kids camp in Croatia. So in one way, it's like I'm getting another vacation!

Please pray that it won't rain there as it has in so many other countries in Europe these past few days. We have had way too many years of rain at JV kids camp so pray that going more south will make a difference in the weather!

The Millers

Our good friends the Millers came over yesterday! This family used to live here in Czech but then moved back to America. When they lived here they were some of our closest friends; so it was really cool to see them again.

I had am awesome time with Emily (Miller) while they were here. We laughed, picked blackberries and her dad even made us a pie out of them! It was delicious.

We're going on Vacation soon. We're going to the island of Corsica, France. It's gonna be so fun. As usual, we're going with the Hash and Ellenwood family. We're going to drive there and take the ferry across to the island. The ferry's supposed to be four hours long! I hope I don't get sea sick! :o) I'm so excited, it will be so fun!