Riley's Blog

Catching Up!

2010-08-19T10:25:00.001-07:00

Man, it's been so long since I've been on! I miss just being able to not only talk to anybody who looks at this, but with myself. Haha. Well as many of you probably know, I'm the drum major for the Monahans High School Band and it is exhausting! I know I'm a band nerd and everything, but jeez! We had a freshman camp at the end of July and I went to that and I actually considered not going at all, but it turned out, both drum majors were needed and a lot of leaders/upperclassmen because the first day, about 30 freshman showed up! Then when we all gathered together and the band director saying that he new there was about 20 kids missing, I became very scared. Freshman are a lot scarier than you think because they think that since they are finally in High School they can rule the world. I've gotten used to the freshman now, but man! I'm really surprised at how many freshman we have this year! Anyways it didn't end there. Not even close. The next 2 days after freshman camp were a leardership retreat that I didn't attend because it was on a Sunday. It was also the first Sunday of the month which, in turn, made it fast Sunday. So after that, since we have the only Junior High marching band (ya!), we started Junior High summer band the Monday after that. It lasted Monday-Thursday. I did help with sectionals in the junior high band. It was really funny being able to "show off" to the junior high kids. They were in awe of how good I was. I got to the point to where I could read trumpet music on my saxaphone. I was even playing better than some of the High School trumpets that were there! I was pretty shocked myself, but I just did what I did. The week after that, finally High School Band started up. The other drum major's name is Lea and we had to be up there from 2-6. It was very boring the first hour and a half. we just sat in the office and did nothing while the band directors were busy helping all the sections out. We would usually sit for about 10 minutes, go and check on each section, and get back to doing nothing. Then from 3:30-4:30 was full band and we basically directed at the side for the entire time, trying to find out what the heck what the band director was doing. After that was sectionals for all the woodwinds and thankfully Lea and I are woodwind players! So we helped with sectionals the last hour and a half. That was my favorite part. Then this week it all changed up because of athletics or something like that. On Monday band people went to the freshman orientation to play the school and fight song, and in the process of getting ready we decided to get the ladder. I climbed up it to get the feel of it and on the way down, fell. It was pretty graceful, but I got laughed at and laughed at myself. It was pretty funny. Lea was the one that was actually worried about falling off it. The irony. Then on Wednesday and Thursday, we had band from 9-11. On Wednesday, not even half the band showed up. It was pathetic. There were people like Lea though that had an excuse not to be there. Everyone else either "forgot", or just didn't want to come, then again, who does? For me, it's the only thing that I have to do, so I'm just fine with it. Everyone else I guess have lives. :P Anyways, that's all for now. The first game is in Snyder on August 27. The first home game is a week after that. That's about all I know right now...soooooo, until next time!

Blu

Starting a New Year

2010-01-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

Well on New Year's Day I was out hunting with my dad, Nolan and Caleb, my uncle Randle, my Papa, and my cousing Ethan. That sounds like a lot of people and it was for me since the first year I went out there Nolan, Caleb, and Ethan didn't go. Then Nolan showed up last year and now, Caleb and Ethan. It was nice being able to hang out with my family. Sure it was dirty and we probably all smelled bad, but it was worth it. Anyways back to hunting. Nolan and I went up there with our uncle Randle and got to camp around 2:00. The wind was terrible. We got there and the wind was howling blowing just so terribly there was no way that any of us were going to go and sit in a blind. Well when we got there my Papa and Ethan were all ready there. They said the wind was worse the day before. We all went to scout the whole farm and see where we might have a shot. My favorite place to hunt was a corner of the property and a boundary line to what we could hunt. The reason it is my favorite spot is because my very first year hunting, I shot my first two dear there within 5 minutes. It was awesome. Well the day we got there we went to that corner where my Papa had layed mace down for the dear to eat and we saw fresh poop. My Papa didn't get up early enough to go out to the blinds to shoot a deer. If he had've been there, he would've gotten a deer. Well it was okay because he would end up getting a deer anyways. So once we got done there we scouted other places and went back to camp and got some plywood to set up a deer blind somewhere. So we went and set it up and came back to camp. We waited until about 4:30 until we went out to the deer blinds. Since I don't have my hunter safety licence I can't sit in a blind by my self or hunt by myself. That was a minor problem. At this time my dad hadn't shown up with Caleb yet, so we went with my Papa in a truck and drove around. Well when we passed by my favorite corner blind, we spooked a deer that was coming to a feeder. My Papa jumped out of the truck (no not literally) with his gun in his hand and shot at the deer. He missed, but he backed up all the way to the fence and got out. The deer had gone under the blind! There were masquite trees everywhere so he didn't have a clear shot. Once the deer came out of the brush...BAM! He shot again and missed again. That would be the last time we would see that deer. After sitting and waiting for about 30 minutes we left and drove somewhere else. On our way through the fields we happened upon antelope. Unfortuneatly we can't shoot antelope. There 9 of them and at least 4 bucks with them. They ran right in front of us. It was pretty cool. I'll tell you what, antelope can run! They didn't even care that we were right there to. It was as if they knew that we couldn't shoot them and were bragging about it. After the encounter with the antelope, we headed back to camp. By this time it wa almost 6:00. We decided that we would wait until 6:15 to go and check on Randle. Randle was being pretty brave himself sittin' in a windmill blind while the wind was raging on. He got pretty cold a couple of times, but told himself to tuffen up. Once the sun was set for good he headed back empty handed seeing at least 4 doe on his way back. It's pretty surprising for my uncle Randle to come to camp emty handed after the first night. He usually has like a 9 pointer or an 11 pointer hanging in the barn when my dad gets to camp. Not this year. We got back to camp settled in more and started cooking dinner. Man I can tell you, my uncle Randle, he could cook. That's probably the reason why we didn't have much left when my dad pulled up around 7:30. Being New Year's Eve, it's tradition to stay up to midnight right? Not when it comes to hunting. We stayed up to about 10:30 and gave up. It was a good thing too because we would be waking up the next morning around 5:00 a.m. We decided to wait to cook breakfast until after the hunt which was probably good. Well I didn't end up in my favorite blind because we figured since I allready got a deer, we would give someone else a chance. So I went and sat in the corner blind opposite it. There is allmost no room to sit even one person in there. It was so uncomfortable. Well I was sitting there waiting for the sun to come up so I could shoot something and right as the sun was coming up, I saw movement. I pulled up my gun and looked through the sites. It was definately a nice buck, but it was too far of a shot for me. So I was sitting there and thinking to myself, "Someone shoot him!" He was too much in plain sight. Then I heard a loud BANG! and he dropped like a sack of feed. I didn't pay attention much after that. What happened was my uncle Randle decided that if a game warden did happen to show up and ask me why I was by myself, we could talk to him right down the road. So Randle shot the stupid thing and he dropped. Caleb was in there with him and they waited for about 5 min. until the deer jumped up and started running! Randle got his sites on him again and might have nicked his leg. He fell, but immediately started running again. He was running into the fence trying to jump over and finaly got over and I see Randle get out of the truck and start running with his pistol in his hands. I never saw the deer get up so I was thinking, "What in the heck are you doing?" It looked kind of funny, but Randle got his fair share of a workout. He ran up to the fence and tried to shoot, but the stupid thing was on safety. So he shot twice and missed both times. He climbed over the fence and started running after it. He followed it for about 10 min. and decided to come back because he lost it. I lost him when he jumped the fence. When he came back with no deer I thought, " Crap. We have to go find it now." Sure 'nough, he came back and got my Papa, came and picked me up, and we went in search of the crazy deer. At first we had really good blood tracks, blood everywhere. You could definately tell that he was sick. Once we got to the place where Randle lost him, we got a little lost because Randle wanted to go to the right, when the deer actually went left around the base of the hill. It took us so long to find the stupid thing. By the time we finally found it, it had gone to the bottom of a hill, around the base, and staggered all over the place. When we allmost got him to the top of the hill (because we didn't want to go back around the hill), I went back to the truck to see if my dad was there waiting so he could come help us because that sucker was heavy. It turned out, he wasn't. So I went back to the deer and started helping haul it back. Caleb and Ethan (my cousin) were waiting in the truck. I asked them how long it had been and they said that it was an hour. An hour! That's way to long to search for a deer. So when we finally got him into the truck, we headed back for camp. We decided to go the long way around since we thought that my dad was still hunting. When my dad got back to camp, he came empty handed. We were thinking,"Man this just isn't our year." Every year since I've gotten there, we've gotten at least 5 deer. Two being mine the first year. That was an awesome year. Last year Nolan got two deer. One was a doe, the other was a buck. I'm still beating him with two bucks. This year, we didn't seem to have so much luck, or so it seemed. That evening, I wanted to sit in the blind that we had made all by myself. So my dad went and dropped me off and went to the blind I was sitting in that morning. After about an hour or so, I got really tired and bored. I ended up falling asleep. After I realized that I was asleep I awoke with a start. I thought to myself, "Crap, I've fallen asleep." After about 10 min., I heard a gun shot. Now I was thinking, ok now somethings coming. So I waited and waited. I figured I wasn't going to see anything and if I did I wasn't going to be able to shoot it since the sun was set, so I got out of my blind and went to the road right as my dad was pulling up. Well my dad was the one that ended up getting the deer. He told me that he was getting a little impatient as the sun was setting and he wasn't seeing any deer right as not one, but two deer come running up. The first one came up on a full sprint on a mission to go to something. The second deer was slower, but seemed to be following the other younger deer. Well when my dad saw the first deer, he waited for a little while and the second deer came up. The first thing he saw was the horns. They were huge! As soon as he saw them he put him scope on him because he thought he had himself a nice big deer. The problem was, he only saw one side of the head. As the deer turned and looked at him, he noticed that he was missing half his antlers. My dad's head fell a little bit as he noticed he didn't get a trophy deer, but decided that this deer needed to die. So he took a shot at it and hit. That was the end of that deers life. The other deer supposedly turned and ran straight at me. I explained to him that I never saw anything and that it probably went around the brush. So we went and found his deer (within 5 min.) and decided to gut it. As he was gutting it he noted that he hit it in the stomach or the gut. While he continued to gut, I asked him how freaked out it would make him feel if the deer got up right then and started running away. He told me he probably would never hunt again. I don't know about you, but a deer that has been cut open and everything just getting up and running would kind of freak me out. Randle ended up coming and helping us gut the deer and explained that Papa had gotten two deer and my personal favorite deer blind. One was a ten point and the other was a spike. It was really funny. So we ended up having a good year. An added thought is that I went hunting the next morning and had no luck in general. In short, I got myself a monster deer at my previous hunt, and I'm happy with what I have. Hopefully I can get something this next year.

Blu

Braces

2009-12-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

Yes reality has caught up to me. Getting braces is not fun at all. My appointment was at 9 a.m. On Friday December 18 and I had a bake sale to go to at 11. I honestly thought they were only putting brackets on so that on Tuesday when the surgery happens (I'll explain in a minute) they have something to connect to. Well as the doctors were putting on the brackets, I didn't even notice them putting them on. It was kind of confusing, but then when they asked me what color I wanted, I thought to myself," I'm done already?" So I picked the color I thought was obvious, blue. So I picked blue and when they put the first one on I didn't feel anything. Then the second one came on and I felt a little tug. They put the third one on and it felt like my mouth was being compressed! It hurt so bad. When they finally got done, my mouth felt a little funny, but I was ok with that. The assistant doctor was actually a graduate last year at Monahans High School. He played football. He told me that I didn't look very different at all. I thought to myself,"Ya right." I thought I looked a lot different, but that's just me. As soon as I was done, my mom and I headed for the band hall. The band directors and I had discussed the previous day that I could get a solo for solo & ensemble. Since Chris Garcia was in town we thought he could help us out. Well I show up to the band hall and only two of the band directors were there, no Chris. I asked the band directors if he was here yet and Mr. Whitaker told me,"No he's probably still asleep." 10:00 a.m. " Do you have his phone number?" I told that I did and called him. It went to his voicemail and I left a message saying something like Chris you need to wake up and get to the band hall. It turned out he called back allmost immediately and said that he was babysitting. So I got stuck with a 3 page long solo that I have to memorize in order t0 make stake solo & ensemble. This is just great. First I have to memorize a really long solo and on top of that I can't practice it because of my braces and in January I'm going to be mostly working my sheep for stock show. I'll do my best though. Now my surgery to happen on Tuesday is going to be painful for me. First I can't eat or drink anything 5 hours before the surgery which is at 11:00 a.m., second I'm getting all of my wisdom teeth pulled out, third I'm getting a tooth implanted because it's still in the gum above a tooth that it isn't supposed to be above, and fourth I'm getting permanent braces on my top teeth for a year and then I get my bottom braces on and wear them for two more years. So I hope that I have a Merry Christmas and wish me luck!

Blu

Football

2009-11-17T16:33:00.001-08:00

We've been doing absolutely great in football this year at Monahans High School. It all "kicked off" right here in Monahans, Texas against the Midland Christian Mustangs with a whopping score of 43-27. Here's something to know. That was the closest game all year. Our next was in Sweetwater which was not pleasant, for Sweetwater. It was their homecoming. We didn't let them score once. The score being 48-0, Sweetwater went home wet(because it rained) and embarrassed. It's been 15 years since we've beaten Sweetwater and more than one of those were playoff games that we got knocked out of. Leaving our mark at Sweetwater, we wern't finished. The next week was homecoming, against Pecos. I know what you're thinking, Pecos, seriously?! Not much of a game if you ask me. And it wasn't. The score being 56-6. It was a huge blowout and our biggest all year. The next stadium that we went, to I have to say, was probably my favorite. The big San Angelo Lake View Chiefs. After coming from a victory against Greenwood, Lake View had a lot of faith coming into this game, with good reason too. They had a great passing game against Greenwood, but sadly, our defense was just too good. At halftime we were winning 28-0. They had a scoreboard with a screen showing the plays that had just happened. They were showing all these great plays that they had done in the first half, none of which were in the endzone. What everyone didn't realize was the score. The game ended with the Loboes-43, Chiefs-13. Their faith, was destroyed. Our next game was the Loboes hosting the Fort Stockton Panthers. I don't think anyone will forget the devastating finish the previous year against Fort Stockton, it being their homecoming, And us winning 56-6. The Panthers were looking to make that memory change in vain. Not that it was a blowout. It was definitely a game to watch. The Loboes ended up walking away with another victory the score being 28-6. The next game was in Seminole. Seminole was not a very good team to begin with, then again neither were any of the other teams, but to say that we beat them is an understatement. We smothered them, along with many more teams, 42-14. Andrews has always been known to have a big head, and they did coming to our stadium. I'm not saying they wern't scared, but they thought they could beat us. I must say that we smoked them! the score was 46-7. We walked away with another smoking victory along with 3 other games that we would score big. At this point, looking at the JV and Freshman teams, they were, along with the Varsity, undefeated at 7-0. Our next game was in the cold Lamesa town. It was a cold game indeed, and a good one to watch. The score was 48-7. Ok, maybe it wasn't such a great game or a new game to watch, but it was good to know that we wouldn't be in any trouble. Our next game was in Brownfield. This was Brownfield's last home game. They being winless, against a team who was Undefeated. The score shows how bad it was too. Getting off the subject a little, we have a fullback who needed 3 yards to have a 1,000 yard season. He got it on the first play with 4 yards. The very next play, Byron Scharf made a 60 yard running touchdown making a great stiffarm at the beginning of the run. The game ended up another blowout, 47-0. The Brownfield Cubs, became 0-9, while the Monahans Loboes became 9-0 being the only 3-A team in the district remaining undefeated. The next game, I must say, was a special one and an important one for the team. Greenwood, who beat us in overtime last year, thought that they could do the same thing this year. The special thing about it was, the Big Green Band had a special halftime performance for the former director, now retired, even Mr. Dan M. Gibbs. Our show included the Jr. High and, the High School ran on the field. A thing that Mr. Gibbs was well known for. Then the Jr. High marched on and we all played Rock Around the Clock. Then we did a scatter drill to spell GIBBS. Then we played Hawaii 5-0. It was outrageous. Getting back on subject, Greenwood got Beat. Not only did they get beat, they lost 42-0. Ending our regular season at 10-0, the Monahans Loboes became the Bi-District Champs. Heading into the playoffs, we again faced Pecos. Now you're probably thinking, how in the world did Pecos make the playoffs? I don't really know. But the Eagles came into the game 5-5. Their final loss was against the Clint Lions. We totally beat Clint terribly last year in the first round off the playoffs the score being 70-6. It was crazy. lol. I was told the Pecos lost on purpose because they thought they would play a different team. Too bad for them. We beat them 41-7. We played the Graham Steers last night and it was not a good night for Monahans. We were leading in the first quarter 7-0, but in vain, they caught up, fast. At halftime, the score was 30-13, Graham. That was the first time we were down at halftime. The band then came and spelled 11-0. When we got off the field, it was obvious that the announcer was for Graham because whenever he introduced them to the field, it sounded something like," There they are, the Rockin' Choppin', big Blue Steer Band!" Is that ridiculous or what. When our team came back on the field, we sang "Aint no Mountain High Enough!" That partially got them pumped up. Now our band usually gets to go to eat during 3rd quarter, but Mr. Whitaker thought it would be better if we played for our team. Boy did it make a difference. After 3rd quarter, the score was 28-30 Steers. That was our best 3rd quarter game we've ever had all year. In 4th quarter, it got away from us. They scored again, and again. The game ended 44-28. Personally though, the reffs cheated a lot. A part of them cheating might have a part that the quarterback for them was in fact Case McCoy, Colt McCoy's little brother. Case came into the game with over 3,000 passing yards. The coaches obviously thought he could do everything because he played on defense too! The thing that's crazy about that was, he got hit by 1 person, and he was hurting! Our quarterback, Wade Roark, got hit by 5 people and was still driving. To put little Case on defense, not a good idea. One of our guys, Rex Rose, was coming in on a touchdown and Case was the cornerback. Case tried to tackle Rex in vain. As soon as he grabbed Rex, Rex just threw him off and scored the touchdown. But you know, if the reffs cheated, then they cheated and we can't do anything about it. The thing is, our Loboes ended the season 11-1 and did great!

Band Camp

2009-08-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Well as most of you probably know, I went to West Texas A&M University Band Camp. It lasted from July 12-24. Whenever I showed up with the Witchers, we went and signed in and received an envelope that said if we either paid all the fees and if we needed a picture. Mine said Paid Need Picture. So I went into the auditorium where they had 2 enterings for the paid doors and the not paid doors. I ,of course, went through the paid doors and went down to the stage and got my picture taken and put on a nametag for me. They had it all done in about 5 min. Then we went and got our teeshirt. They had this whole thing set up to where if you didn't know where to go all you had to do was look at the wall for a sign and it told you what you needed to do after you did such and such. Anyways, after you got your teeshirt you go and get a locker assigned to you for your instrument. Unfortuneatly, there were no more bassoon lockers left. So what they told me to do was go and find a locker in the building somewhere. I had to find a locker where I could fit both my bassoon and my sax. I ended up finding one and it didn't take long to find one. Remember we still haven't left where you sign in at. After you sign in you go to your dorm. There were diferent dorms for boys and girls and a lot of them. Whenever you get to your dorm you go up to the front desk and get the key to your dorm that you will be staying in for 2 weeks. So whenever you can get into your dorm you take all of your stuff down to it and civilize. After that your pretty much free to do anything. And of course I went down and ate dinner. The caf was open at 4:30-6:30 for dinner. I wasn't exactly used to eating at 5:30 p.m. A lot of nights I wasn't able to eat dinner because I didn't keep an eye on the time. Anyways something that we actually did at 7:00 was have a dorm meeting with the whole Dorm. There were individual dorms A, B, C... ect. I was in dorm O. Apparently my roomate and I didn't hear the announcement that there was a dorm meeting every night at 10:30 p.m. AKA, Curfew. So in the middle of the night like at 12:15 a.m. the Jarret Hall (my dorm) leader people came into our room and turned on the lights and said,"Where were you at 10:30!"And they kept on going on and on about how there was a dorm meeting as 10:30 every night. So in concequence my roomate and I didn't sleep very well that night at all. He woke up at 2:00 and went back to sleep and kept waking up every hour. I woke up at 4:15 and went back to sleep and woke up at 4:30. This process kept going until about 5:00. I still ended up waking up early. Another funny story that happened that night was everybody had to bring there own box fan my roomate and I did. So I had mine set up to where it was on the desk in front of my bed and in the middle of the night my roomate heard a loud BANG! and looked up, because it was loud enought to wake him up, and saw that my fan had fallen down and landed on my legs. He saw me get up zombie like and picked up the fan and set it back up. I honestly don't remember any of this happening. Apparently it had turned off and a couple hours later I woke up and noticed this and looked over at my roomate and thought, "Why did you do that?" My roomate remembers that also. I remember that part. This is just the first night. I had to go to an audition at 8:15 a.m. That wasn't all that bad. After the audition everyone was placed into 1 of the 5 following bands: Honors Band, nope, Symphonic Band, nope, Concert Band, nope, Maroon Band, yep, and the White Band. Honors being highest the White Band being lowest. I knew a lot of people that made the Symphonic Band and a couple in the Honors Band. After we were placed into one of the bands, we went to a rehearsal at 3:00-4:00. Afterwards we had an assembly at 4:00. We then had another rehearsal at 7:00-8:00. Then we went to wherever and at 10:30 we had our dorm meeting. At 11:00 it was lights out. My schedule then continued the rest of the time ,besides Saturday and Sunday, as follows:

7:45 a.m. Drumajoring

8:35 - 9:50 a.m. Band Rehearsal

10:10 - 11:00 a.m. Individual Sectionals

11:20 - 12:10 a.m. Sectionals (woodwinds, brass, percussion)

12:10 - 1:45 p.m. Jazz Improvisation

Here in a little bit I might be able to tell you the things that happened within these periods. But right now I think that you know the basic of what I did. Hope you enjoyed the first part of Band Camp.

Blu

Scout Camp

2009-07-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

Scout camp was great! The first night we stayed up until 11:00 playing capture the flag. Right before I went to bed I took off my rain fly because it was hot in my tent. I woke up at 2:30 and felt little rain drop hit my sleeping bed, and thought crud. So I wrestled with my sleeping bag for a minute or two and finally got out of it and picked up the rain fly and went outside to put it back on. As I attempted to do that the wind was blowing so hard that after I got the first string hooked on it blew off and I got it back on again. I ended up getting the stupid thing on and as I was getting into my tent I heard window zippers zipping up. That was my dad zipping up his windows. I thought that was pretty funny. I went to sleep and got up at 6:30 and got out of my tent and there was no sun. I could see just fine but it was still cloudy. We ended up going to a chiropractor to get physicals done since everyone but a couple boys "forgot" their physical. So after that we went back to camp and played around for a while and went down to a part of the river where everyone can swim and tried to start the swimming merit badge. Unfortunately we never got to do that merit badge since the rain messed up something. I'm sorry that was on Monday evening. Then on Tuesday we did everything else that I said and went to go to try to swim, but as I said they were closed. So we went back to camp to do canoeing. We did get that one done. It wasn't that hard to finish. Then we started leatherwork that evening and had a fireside immediately following which ended up finishing at 11:00 so we couldn't play capture the flag. The next morning we woke up at 6:30 and had breakfast at 7:00 and started First Aid (which I already have) at 9:00. Then after lunch we finished up rowing. It was fun. That night everyone started Citizenship in the World. I allready have that one too and leatherworks. We didn't play capture the flag that night because of how long the fireside took also. Thursday started out the same, but while everyone was finishing First Aid, Brother Cagle and Frank Dawson and I set up an Orienteering course. I wasn't extremely difficult, but you could get mixed up. Every boy needed help at the exact same point in the course. This caused me to earn my Varsity Orienteering pin. Also just for going to the camp I earned my Varsity letter. We kayaked after lunch and earned the BSA Kayaking award. After that we went fishing. After I first cast in my first cast, it wasn't 10 seconds when I caught a fish. I was pretty excited. Then 20 seconds later, I caught another fish! I thought to myself this is pretty cool. Then after a while of waiting, I moved to a different place and felt my line pule so I reeled it in and it ended up to be a Barbie fishing pole. Someone else decided to take that pole put a new hook on it and try to fish. Right after he through it in, it was probably 5 seconds and he started shouting "I caught a fish! I caught a fish!" And I looked over and sure enough, he had at least a 10 in. fish. After that out of everyone that fished we caught 35 fish! It was awsome. The boy who caught the fish on the Barbie fishing pole ended up cathing a total of 12 fish. He caught the most fish. That's a basic highlight of my week at scoutcamp.

Great First Half!

2009-06-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

My summer has been pretty much the most exciting summer I've ever had. The thing is, it's only going to get more exciting. You see the the 1st week of June I went to Carlsbad to spend time with my dad. On the 5th and 6th I went to a family reunion in Balmoreah. The next week my mom decided we should probably stay in Monahans for the boy's baseball tournament. That was probably a good idea. Nolan's team won on Monday against the Yankees 6 to 1. That was an exciting game. Since they won that game they didn't have to play until Wednesday. On Wednesday they played the undefeated Dodgers which became the defeated Dodgers, causing them to play on Friday. The Championship Game. Nolan unfortunately couldn't go because of a family reunion, but they still won. From what I hear the score was 12 to 3. They played the Dodgers. Caleb's team did pretty good. On Monday his team lost 6 to 2 against the Rockhounds. That was the worst they lost to that team ever. They had to play on Tuesday against a team called Storm. They beat them in the 4th inning 14 to 4. The team Storm was pretty worn out. On Wednesday they played the Mets. They beat them. On Thursday they played the Mudcats and beat them. On Friday they played the Rockhounds again and lost. That just means that they got 2nd place. I think they did really good. On the 12-14 I was at a family reunion in Llano. It was really fun besides Caleb getting a huge blister on his face and Evan getting blisters on his arm. After that, while my mom went to Carlsbad, I stayed in Monahans. I decided that I wanted to work out. I'm doing the same thing this week and this is my dad's last week in Carlsbad! Next week is Scout Camp and today is my birthday! I'll refresh my update after Scout Camp.

Sincerely yours,

Blu

Maxing out

2009-05-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

This past week, the athletic program maxed out. On Wednesday, we started with either bench, or incline. I did incline. I ended up getting 105 and improved by 5 pounds since last time. On Thursday we either maxed out on squat or on power clean. I did squat. My goal on squat was 200. I didn't get it by a long shot. I got 155. I improved by 5 pounds on that also. On Friday, we maxed out on what we didn't do on Wednesday. For me, that was bench. Last time I got 110. This time, I got 115. Do the math. I improved by 5 pounds on that also. Today, we maxed out on what we didn't do on Thursday. I did power clean. Last time I got 110. This time I got 115. Se what happened? I improved by 5 pounds on everything. I thought it was pretty cool. Well that is all that is very interesting right now.

Blu

Band

2009-04-29T18:37:00.001-07:00

3 weeks ago we had our band competition in Midland. We went to school until 4th period, and even then we still had to wait a little bit. We went just 30 min. into the period and then we were dismissed for lunch. After that we came to the band hall at 12:30 and departed at 1:00. When we got to Midland, we waited for about a half hour. During that half hour people either slept or they went to the bathroom. We went to warm up at 2:30. We performed at 3:00. President Witcher was there to listen and watch and he thought it was fantastic! I must have been because we ended up getting a 1 in both concert and sight reading. Of course we ended up getting a sweepstakes. But something even more amazing than that is that the symphonic band (B band) got a sweepstakes also! From what I hear that hasn't happened in Monahans in 10 years! A lot of amazing things happened this year including getting a 2 in marching. Not exactly the best part of history, but we turned things around in the end.

Sincerely yours,
Blu

ALL IS FUN!

2009-03-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Here lately I've been having fun in athletics. Mon-Thurs we work out. On Friday if we've worked hard all week long, we have competitions. If we don't work hard, then we work out for about 10-15 minutes before we start the competitions. The only time we did that was the first week, every other week we've started out with competitions. The most commonly known competitions that we do are mat drills. They're not as bad as they sound. I enjoy doing them. During the week we practice, so to speak, mat drills. The way that we do mat drills is we divide into teams. Everybody lines up around the mat and the coaches number us. Then we all go to where our number is. The second week that we did competitions we started out with mat drills, then we played something we like to call, king of the mat. Every week there has been 4 groups. What we did with king of the mat was 2 teams would get on the mat and when the coach said go, they would wrestle. Our group went 2nd thankfully because the way it worked was last person standing wins. When we wrestled I didn't get thrown off. What we had to do was stay on our knees unless we were being thrown or wrestling with someone and just happened to come off our knees. Our team ended up wining, but we had to wait for the next group of people to go until we could go again. The 2nd time we went I was automatically being chased. It was a run for my life. When I was running away, They got a hold of my ankle and I was trying to get away as best I could and I did. The person just decided to give up and go work on another person. As I was trying to help someone get another person off the mat, someone got a hold of me. I looked back and it wasn't the same person that had originally grabed me. He pulled me toward him by pulling my ankles yet again and I twisted and escaped from his grasp. But he grabbed me again. He was getting me off the mat and I was trying my best to stay on and he eventually just through me off. This last week, we started off with mat drills as usual, and after mat drills we played a new game. 1st the coaches put a tire in the middle of the mat. There were 4 people that stood around the edges of the mat. They had 2 teams go at a time. Each team had 2 people run all the way around the mat and go around the person at our corner. Then we would go and grab the tire and bring it back to our corner and touch the persons hand. The person that had the hand to touch, had to keep his hand still. Here's the catch, the other team was trying to do the exact same thing. It was a very hard challenge. The next thing that we played was something we call sock wars. What we did was we put a sock that the coaches gave us in our shoe after which we got on our hands and knees and put our heads to each others shoulders, and on the work GO! we attempted to grab each others sock out of each others shoe. When I went against the person that I went against, Coach Simpson yelled Whoa! Whoa! here is the match of the night! And everyone watched. Whenever we started, Garet (that was his name) automattically fliped me over his back. So as he was concentrated trying to flip me, I grabbed his sock and won. I had a lot of fun that day. There are still a lot of competitions to come, but I'll update you on every one.

Sincerely,
Blu

Just can't wait!

2009-03-05T18:02:00.000-08:00

Wow! I really can't wait until I come up to Mansfield to spend time with everyone. I been so caught up with my face that it is so noticeable of the difference. Don't let Jesse tell you how it is. Can't wait to let everyone see!

Love ya,
Blu

Enfintigo

2009-03-01T11:44:00.000-08:00

I found out that it is called enfintigo, but forgot what it was called when I posted my last blog. On Tuesday, I wrote it down on my hand because I knew I was going to forget what it was. I still don't know how to spell it. I might look it up on google. Right now my enfintigo is pretty much scars or red marks now. There are a couple of scabs still, but it is, for the most part, gone. I don't have any picture's yet, but I'll get some as soon as I can. Just needed to let you know.

Sincerely,
Riley (Blu)

It's so much better

2009-02-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

You'll be surprised at how much better my face looks right now! The day after I went to the doctor, it was allready clearing up. Right now I don't have any scabs on my face. I'm glad that the medication is working. News on working out, we maxed out this week. In other words, We saw the most we could lift on the certain thing we were lifting. My max on bench last time was, 95. This time it was 110. On incline, last time it was 95. This time it was 100. On squat, last time it was 125. This time it was 150. I might retest tomorrow. On power clean, last time it was 95. This time it was 110. I'm glad I improved on everything. Next time I do squat my goal is to get at least 200. Phase 2 starts Monday. I missed Monday because I went to the doctor, so I had to make up what I missed. The things that I missed were shuttle, verticle, and dummy jump. We didn't dummy jump last time, but this time I did 52 dummy jumps. On vertical, last time I got 11. On the vertical, you get 3 jumps. On my 1st jump, I jumped 16. My 2nd 17, and my 3rd was 18. On shuttle you run 2 times. On my 1st run, I ran a 5.16. My 2nd run, I ran a 5.16 again. So I decided to stop right there and have that be my shuttle. Some people were going for some MHS records. Some did it, and some got really close.

I hope you think my face looks better!
Blu

P.S. Look at the size of the pills I have to take!

Check this out

2009-02-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

This all happened in the matter of just 4 or 5 days. Pretty bad right.

My face is descusting!

2009-02-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

It may be hard to believe, but it seems that I have scabs on my face! It's not acne because I don't have pimples. Any idea what it might be? Anyway, I' doing good right now besides my face. Yesterday, in football we ran the 40. People who were really fast ran it under 5 seconds. I know a freshman who ran it in 4.93 seconds. I was amazed when I heard that. We all ran the 40 3 times. My best time was 5.85 seconds. I wasn't very impressed with that. But once we all got in a huddle, Coach Owens told all of us that right now our times weren't going to be very impressive. All we've been doing for the last month and a half is work out by just lifting weights and not running. That's all about to change next week. We have 3 phases in offseason football. The last month and a half was phase 1. We're moving into phase 2 next week. That's about all that's been happening in my life that I can think is exciting.

Blu

Stock Show

2009-02-12T18:18:00.000-08:00

I've really enjoyed the past week at the stock show with showing a pig and 4 lambs. As my mom might have allready told you, I got 4th place with my pig on Tuesday. On Thursday, I had to go up to the barns at 8:00, and start washing all 10 lambs. We didn't get completely done until 4:00 p.m. It was very exhausting. That night, Evan showed in the pee-wee show and did very good. Nolan was in the 1st class of lambs which was the light weight crosses. He got 1st place in that class and Caleb and Bobby were in the Medium weight class. Bobby had a cross and a fine wool, and decided to show his cross since they were in the same class. He had Riley Price show his other lamb. Bobby got 4th, Caleb got 3rd, and Riley Price got 2nd with the fine wool. I showed a heavy weight cross and it was the 2nd heaviest lamb that was showed. I got 2nd and didn't get reserved or breed champion cross. The next class was light weight medium wool. I had a lamb that was supposed to be a cross, but was put in the medium wool class, so, I wasn't really capable of getting 1st place with the lamb because of the way it is built. I got 2nd place. But then, a girl named Gia Garland had 2 heavy weight medium wools. She had someone else show one of them, and got breed and reserved champion for meduim wools. Then the light weight dorpers were showed and Mattie had her lamb in that class and Derek Orneleas had two in that class and got 1st and 2nd place. In the medium weight class was Nolan, Nathan Orneleas (who had 2 in that class), and me. I got 4th place and Nolan got 1st place, and Nathan got 2nd and 3rd. In the heavy weight class was Nolan, Caleb (who had 2 dorpers in that class), and me. Caleb had Abbye show one of his lambs and she got 4th. Caleb got 3rd, and Nolan got 2nd. I got my only 1st. In the breed champion round, Nolan got breed champion lamb, and I got reserve breed champion. In the grand champion round, Gia Garland got Grand and Reserve champion. Everybody that night got called back for showmanship round. In the showmanship round, Riley Price won the showmanship buckle.