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Mixed Media Art Project
I am homeschooled. During homeschool we learn all of the things you would learn at public school: Math, Reading, Language Arts, Typing, etc. Recently we did an art project as well. We made self-portraits that are all different and unique according to the person. Mom took pictures of us and we used them to make a simple outline of our face. And Tallulah did a really good job drawing her hair! Then we went in with watercolor to finish our faces and think I took the longest because I really wanted to get the right shade for my skin.
Creating the Background
Each day for a week we did a different part of the picture using different media like markers, prismacolor pencils, pastels, crayons, string, foil, glue, and plaster. The first thing that you look at when you look these is the our face but the background is actually really cool! We drew lines going out from our head and filled each section in with things like our names, our birthdays, our favorite bible verse, abstract lines, and something we like. Each one is very specific to that person which makes them all so different and unique!
SelahMae
We all wrote our names on our pictures. I wrote SelahMae instead of Selah because Mae is my middle name and I like it when people call me by both names together! The next section has curvy lines. My mom asked us if we were walking on a sidewalk how would we walk to describe our personality: I chose curvy lines.
Next we chose a favorite Bible verse. I chose Psalm 149:3, “Let them Praise his name with dancing.” This verse fits me because dancing is one of my favorite things in the whole world. It almost seems like this verse was written just for me. I don’t really know why I chose flowers for my background; it just felt right. (Also clogging shoes are too hard to draw, lol. 555.)
Tallulah
I think Tallulah did a great job. She wrote her name and her birthday herself. Mom wrote her Bible verse which is Psalm 139:13-16. For her line section, she drew all of her made up letters which I guess is perfect for her. In her last sections, she worked really hard to trace circles and made a Captain America shield because Captain America is her absolute best friend!
Jeremiah
Jeremiah wrote his name nice and big. He wrote his Bible verse and made some 3D lines which I think look so cool. Since his birthday is in July, he made some fireworks.
Josiah
And last but not least: Josiah. Josiah wrote his name in a really cool way. Also, for his lines he just made them nice and straight which totally fits him. His Bible verse is Collossians 4:18. He wrote his birthday in such a creative way because it looks like a code. He also cut out a piece of sheet music and glued it to his picture since he is really good at piano. I like the detail that he splattered paint to make freckles on his face. I think his is really awesome!
Finishing Touches
We made all of our shirts our favorite colors so mine is teal, Tallulah’s is purple, Jeremiah’s is green, and Josiah’s is this yellow orange color. Well actually Josiah’s favorite color is black but that is not on the color wheel so he picked this orange-yellow color. It had to be on the color wheel because all of our Bible verses are our complementary colors so mine is orange, Jeremiah’s is red, Tallulah’s is yellow, and Josiah’s is blue.
After the background was done, we added some finishing touches like adding texture to our shirts with plaster, glue, string, and toilet paper tubes. We also added string to our hair and foil somewhere on our picture. Can you find where we put the foil? COMMENT BELOW where you think we each put it! (Hint: we each put them in different places.)
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Dance, Friends, and Fun!!😁
I went to a camp called Discovery Youth Camp. The camp was hosted by people who came from Hong Kong to Chiang Mai. The camp started and 8:30 a.m. and ended at 5:00 p.m. every day for one week. In the morning, we went in for worship and a message.✝️
After worship we had a snack that was usually watermelon and yogurt with cereal in it. Next we came back inside and divided into groups. Before the camp started we got bracelets with different colors to tell you which group you were going to be in. I got red. In our groups, we talked about the message and got to know the people in our group. Then we would head back outside for lunch. For lunch there was always something spicy, something not spicy, and rice. After lunch we had free time, though for me free time was just waiting for free time to be over to we could do breakout sessions😏. The breakout sessions were by far the best part of camp!
The breakout sessions were the reason I wanted to sign up for camp in the first place! When we signed up for camp, we got to pick which breakout sessions we wanted to do. There was drama, vocal training, worship band, and urban dance. Obviously I picked dance!😉 The dance was really fun to learn and really fun to perform. The teacher was a man from Argentina who was a competitive dancer. It made me feel special that he put me in the front of the formations and gave me a special part! Here is a video ⬇️ (I am the one in the braids):
(If you like this video, please make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our YouTube Channel!)😋
After the first breakout session, we would eat another snack (this one was usually just a bag of chips and a juice box) and then we would head out to our second breakout session. Instead of the same breakout session every day, this one was different every day. The first day I did arts and crafts, the second day I did bracelet making, and the third day I did arts and crafts again. I was expecting to do the same craft both days but the last day we actually did a different craft so I was lucky.
That’s how it went for the first three days, but the last two days were a bit different. On Thursday, we watched a movie instead of our breakout sessions (I personally would have rather done breakout sessions but it wasn’t my choice). That night we stayed for dinner and a worship concert. I was able to invite friends and all of these friends were able to come with me!
On Friday afternoon, we did rehearsal for the show. On Friday night, my family and friends came to watch me perform (that’s why I have a video that you saw earlier). These are the people that came to my show!
I had a lot of fun at camp and I am really glad I went. I think my favorite part was performing since I haven’t performed in awhile and I LOVE doing it!!!😍 But I also think that one of the coolest things about this camp was that about 75% of the kids who came to camp were from another country where they aren’t supposed to worship God. When I asked people were they were from, I found out that some of them came to Thailand just for this camp. Even though English is their second language almost all of them were fluent in English: FLUENT to the point where I couldn’t even tell that English was their second language! Even the 8 and 9 year olds! That really inspires me to work on my Thai so that maybe some day will be able to speak Thai like they spoke English!
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Crazy Cool Fruits (Part 1)
In Thailand you can go to a market and you’ll see soooooooo many fruits that you never even knew existed! There are mangosteens, rambutans, guava, durian, and soo many more. Let me show you some!
Mangosteen
This might be my FAVORITE fruit ever! It is called a mangosteen. It’s very dark purple on the outside but a pearl white on the inside. You know if it is good if the peel is a little bit squishy. And to open it all you have to do is gently squeeze until the peel cracks open and then peel the rest of the peel off and enjoy! It tastes so good and sweet and unlike any thing else! Also you will notice here that mangosteens are not allowed in hotels because they stain really bad.
Guava
This might be my SECOND favorite fruit! 🙂 It is called guava. I only like a certain kind of guava that I like to call neon guava. I call it neon gave because they take the guava and dip it in some sweet juice that gives it a neon green color and makes it sweet! The seeds look kinda like teeth lol and really hurt your teeth if you bite them. I really like the flavor but I don’t know how to explain it. I guess you’ll just have to come here and find out 😏
I’m sure you’ve had watermelon and cantaloupe but the one I’m eating in this picture is guava.
Durian
Next up is durian. Durian also isn’t allowed a hotels because it smells like dirty socks that got puked up by a skunk and it tastes even worse. To learn more about it, go to Josiahs post about stinkfruit.
Rambutan
Have you ever heard of a rambutan? it is a red fruit with what looks like grass growing out if it. It does not have much flavor, but the flavor that it does have is really sweet and delicious! You open it a lot like you open a mangosteen. But the redder the better!
Which of these fruit would you try?
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Making Lemonade:)
When we first moved, the other missionary families took us out to their favorite restaurants. There are coffee shops everywhere with fun and fancy drinks to try. It is way cheaper to buy drinks here than it is in America. But even though you can buy a drink for about 50 baht (that’s like $1.50) my mom says it is still too expensive for all of us to have fun drinks like that all the time and that it wasn’t in the budget. That made me sad because I loved having pink drinks and smoothies and fruit shakes. Then Mom thought maybe we could learn how to make some of our favorite drinks at home and see if it would cost less that way.
At first I wasn’t very “in” to the idea, but I thought that I would give it a go. So I made a menu, watched tutorials, and adjusted measurements. Now I make fancy drinks for my family almost every day. My mom says that I am taking lemons and making lemonade. But actually I don’t make lemonade; here are some of the things I do make:
#1
The first thing that I made was sodas. I took some carbonated water and added some simple syrup and flavoring to make a delicious fizzy drink! But the picture down below is not of a soda this picture is of a drink I call a Refresher.
Tallulah loved sodas, but let’s just say they made her gassy; when she burped in our faces it was pleasant for no one. So we thought: How can we make a drink for Tallulah that isn’t fizzy but still delicious? Instead of using bitter soda water, I tried using coconut water. And that is how the Refresher came along! And the funny thing is, no one even gets sodas any more. The Refreshers are soooo good everyone likes them better! The flavor I’m showing here is raspberry because it is Tallulah’s favorite flavor. ( I couldn’t even get the photo before she took a BIG sip!)
#2
This next drink is one of my favorites. We call it a Pink Drink. The name and flavor was inspired by the Starbuck’s Pink Drink. If you’ve ever had a Starbucks Pink Drink you would already know that this drink is delicious! (By the way, all of the drinks I have mentioned so far can be made with different flavors such as strawberry, raspberry, blue paradise, and melon. Josiah’s favorite is peach.)
#3
This next drink is Mom’s favorite! Its a Creamy Cold Brew Coffee and it is just sooo good. What I like to do is ring the bell and then pour my homemade Cold Foam so that my “customer” can see their coffee while it’s beautiful!
#4
Almost every drink that I listed you can order blended, which makes it a Frappuccino! These are super good and look beautiful!
I am so glad that I gave this a try because I love it! When grow up I want to be a barista!! If you ever come to visit us you can get a snack from Jeremiah’s Snack Shack and a drink from my Keim Cafe!
If you came to Keim Cafe, what drink would you get?!
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Sticky Falls
Yesterday, we discovered one of my favorite places in the whole entire world! We went to Sticky Falls, which is a place where you can climb up waterfalls. But think of it more like hiking. It wasn’t like you would normally picture a waterfall, it was more like a mountain of rocks with water flowing down them.
It also was not slippery like you would think that it would be, for the most part at least. It wasn’t hard to climb because it really was sticky. But not gooey sticky or gluey sticky, it was grippy sticky. Your foot wouldn’t slide, it would sort of grab on. Maybe imagine being a gecko climbing up a wall: the wall isn’t sticky and the gecko isn’t sticky, but it still sticks like a suction cup.
Sticky Falls was sooooo beautiful, and unlike anything I have ever seen or experienced before.
STICKY FALLS IS AWESOME!! If you ever come to visit me in Thailand, this is a place I will definitely want to take you to! I would go back there any day.
