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INNA

Mt. Rogers

The day after Thanksgiving, me, Catie and David went on the famous Appalachian Trail to take some pictures. It was 24 degrees and freezing cold! And I will definately not show you the pictures of me being an orange marshmallow (Catie called me that).

We took pictures of the wild ponies (Catie took this one) and when we were ready to go on, Catie almost stepped on the wild bunny rabbit! It was so awesome!! He was running and I saw only his white tail and his pointy ears! Aww..he was cute!!

After that, we were taking more pictures of the ponies and one was very friendly. He wanted to chew Catherine's camera and then my orange marshmallow coat. We saw weird gay guys that were looking at David. They freaked him and us out! But anyway. We went up in a bunch of trees and had hot chocolate and chicken soup. We were very cold and so the warm food was wonderful! David can really cook!

We went back and stayed at Presnell's (David's business) for a while and looked at the pictures we took. We decided when we were going to take our family picture.

We went to Food Lion and then home. We were really starved and cold and couldn't feel our fingers and toes. Smiles froze on our faces!

My First Thanksgiving

YAY!! It was my first Thanksgiving! We cooked alot and ate turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, rolls, and alot of sweets!! It was so cool!!! YAY!!!

I was disappointed because in the movies I've seen, the turkey gets carved on the table by the dad. Victoria carved ours in the kitchen. I was informed that that only happens in the movies. Darn.

Renaissance Festival

Next day (November 3rd) we went to the Renaissance Festival. First we were riding an elephant. Can you imagine that?? ELEPHANT!! Actually I didn't really want to ride the camel because of one reason haha... And yeah, elephant had really interesting head with little tiny hairs sticking out of it! It was hilarious!!

The festival looked so old and cool! We were doing bungy jumping, still can remember that feeling. IT was so high! And when I first went up...I didn't want to go down! But that thing did it again and again and again... And after few times I really enjoyed that. Yup. And to tell you the truth, I was shaking after that.

But after that, we painted my face while Tori was eating something icy (not sure what it is called). And the drunk man was so hilarious! He insulted everybody and played his fiddle. He banged his head with a pot when people gave him money.

The Princess was more beautiful than the Queen. That's all. THE END!!

NC 4-H State Council Conference

I think the coolest thing I've been to. I met there exchange students Marina from Russia, Naoki and Tomo from Japan, and Bohdan, the guy from my native country, Ukraine.

First we all had our workshops. And me and Bohdan chose my sisters' workshop first. So we were doing Australian aboriginal art with Catie, macrame with Victoria, dreamcatchers with John, and Japanese oragomi with Sarah.

My 2nd workshop I took with Marina and also with Corissa and Michael. It was dancing workshop. We really had fun there! We were dancing all sort of dances and our teachers were awesome! We had a chance to talk to one of them and so yeah. It was fun!

Then, we left and went to the hotel. We followed the wrong guy and so we almost got lost. We thought we were going to be late to the banquet and have to go in jeans. Then we found the way.

Our hotel room was really cool. We dressed up and went back. We had big dinner and my sister Victoria was recognized for achieving Emerald Ambassador level. YAY!!!!

Guess what happened then!!! DISCO DANCING!!!! It was awesome!!! Some songs we were doing line dances and me and Naoki were doing swing dancing without any clue how to do it!! But we had fun! We did it in our way!
While dancing I saw a woman who was video taping us.

The next day, the districts had our spirit stick competition!! GO NORTHWEST!!! Some friends of ours from the SouthWest District danced to Soujaur Boy. Scott and Will were hilarious!!! NorthWest District got 2nd place!!! YAY!!

It was the end of State Council Conference!! WAHH!! I really miss it!! We went to Wendys after the end and guess what! Alot of people from 4-H were there but I didn't see Naoki and I was upset about that. So we took our food and we were eating on the road because we wanted to go to the mall in Winston-Salem. Spent a couple of hours driving, a couple of hours in the mall. Then we went home exhausted.

You should have been there.

Japanese Tea Ceremony

We were eating Japanese Sushi made by Tori and on November 2nd, it is time for tea ceremony. Me, Catie, Victoria and Natasha were wearing actual Japanese Yukatas. And yeah. Somehow Catie made Marlon to wear James' Japanese Yukata. My Japanese friend Tomo will definately like those pictures. I really loved shoes that go with yukata and I don't really care that they hurt so much! They're really cute!!!

Cherokee Reservation

We woke up early in the morning on October 13th. Hmm.. scary date! haha!
Then I couldn't even imagine how interesting it will be this unlucky day. But, yeah. Everything in order.

First we went to Cherokee and they had a fair. But we didn't stop. We went to the museum. Yeah it was really awesome! With all the cool stuff inside. After that was lovely part - SHOPPING YAY!!! I was so excited when I saw all those cute things..but...we were really disappointed when we saw the Made In China stickers. Grr... How could it be??

But still, we had a really good time. AFter that we went to Cherokee Village. Our guide was the girl with pierced tongue and she couldn't really talk because of that. And people there weren't really talkative. Maybe because they were tired of visitors. HUH. I can imagine! : )

We finished the village and went to the Clingman's Dome. First time in my life I was in tunnel. It was really cold on top of the mountain and of course we took lots of pictures.

On our way home we went through Tennessee. YAY!! There we stopped to eat in Pigeon Forge. That place reminded me of my trip to Odessa in Ukraine. All the lights and the roads looked familiar and maybe because of that I was full of sweet memories while my sissies and James were sleeping in the back of the car. Hmm..That's all.

Blue Ridge Parkway

Parkway. Hmm... Don't know what to say. Just cool pictures HEHE!

Autumn Leaves Festival

On October 12th, Mount Airy had some kind of festival. Love street festivals! Man was drawing pictures of us and I can say he did a good job. We really enjoyed it. We went to eat at the Bluebird Diner and I had lemonade. It was the best!! Mmmm...yummy! We were going to different shops... taking lots of different pictures... going crazy!!
When it was already dark we went to the trailer. But yeah, it's kinda funny because that day walking down town's streets, I realized that it's really America and it is real for me.

Dixie Classic Fair

The next day (October 6th) we went to the Dixie Classic Fair. Little cute school bus was winking at me all the time and posing while I was taking pictures of him. We saw all kinds of rides. It was crazy there! Me and Catie choose first some sort of flying machine that made us sick. And after that we went to ride big Ferris Wheel. It was so high and all the time I was thinking about what happen to people on that thing in scary movies I saw before. But nothing bad happened. We went to ride the giant swing. Back in Ukraine we call it Daisy.

GO TROJANS GO!!

Hey, today is October 5th and guess what!!?? This is the day of the biggest football game of the season. Everybody is excited!
This is our spirit car! Wierd huh? :) While we were sitting on the very back of it, this thing was making really loud freaky noices.
Anyway, we won that evening!! TROJANS RULE!!!

Friend's House 9-23-07

*Names of friends have been changed for their safety and protection.

After church (1 PM), we went to Becky and Dean's house. Al had to install their monitor, and we were going to stay for the afternoon and eat dinner. For few hours, we were trying to cook chicken and pork. So, we decided to order pizza to hold us until the meat was done. At some point, Dean decided to dump kerosene all over the road because he was certain that it would evaporate. Becky, was boiling some water to wash dishes, and instead of waiting for it to cool, she (without thinking) put her right hand in it. Her skin melted a little bit, but she immediately put it under cold water. Then we kept ice on it. We finally ate dinner around 5:30. We took the table outside and ate under a tree. Becky had a box next to the table with her bowl of ice on it for her hand. She had to eat left handedly.

After dinner, I shot with bows and arrows for first time in my life. Then I rode bike with James up and down the hills. It was really fun till I fell down on the grass. Dean was afraid that I hurt my head. I scraped myself pretty badly.

Later we made homemade ice cream. We had to hand crank the chocolate. At some point, a friend of Becky and Dean's came by and told us that kerosene will not evaporate and that in the morning when there was dew on it, someone would hydroplane. So, we get in the truck and drive to the creek that runs through the road and dug up some sand. It was dark, and we were scared because we saw a stranger in a field with his truck lights on. He wasn't moving. We got alot of sand. Becky had her hand in a bucket of ice and water. We went back to the house, and dumped sand all over the road. Then we scraped it so it covered the kerosene. We wanted to wash the truck to remove all evidence. Cate said that we were stupid now because the water will wash all the sand away from the road. But we didn't stop for some reason. That was when we saw a car coming toward us around the hill. We started screaming and running and looking for Becky! She wasn't in the truck! So we couldn't move it out of the road. Dean got in and was trying to move the truck when Becky came running out of the house and started yelling at us about the sand washing away! The car drove by us and we don't think they recognized us. So, we covered the road one more time, ate some ice cream and went to their lake to hopefully see a bear that lives around them. That day finished in the wood silence near the lake.

Motorcycles 9-22-07

A family friend, Mark Atwood, was going by and he wanted to visit us. He was on his new motorcycle. As he called it "..really sexy motorcycle". We didn't want to lose the moment so we asked him about a ride. He went home, got another helmet and leg guards, and came back. Tor was riding first, and they disappeared for awhile. When they turn back, she was really excited, and I was really scared. When she was riding with him I told her "Tor! You don't have your seat belt on!".

So I was next. When we were at Independence Road, he changed the speed and it was really high. I felt something really strange inside, but it was like excitement! Then we were riding not so fast. On the way back he asked me something and I didn't really understand. But I said ok, I want to try that. Then I learned that it was wheelys. The speed was 73 MPH but not all the time. I told him that I want a motorcycle, and he said something like I was born to ride a motorcycle. I was very proud of myself! But no one knew that I was shaking inside. We took alot of pictures. This is one of them. He left, and after a while he came with his new bike. It was bigger than the red one. He said that he will come back and we'll ride the black one. It was really nice to meet him!

Gas Station Story

Further up the road toward home, we stopped to get gas. So, we were sitting in the car with our windows down. After a while, another car pulled up on the other side of us. And the guy and his mom got out of the car. They stand there for a while and guy was staring at Cate whole time with an evil face. Then they went into gas station and his dad was washing the windshield. That guy was still staring at Cate through the gas station windwow. That guy with evil face, had strange clothes. Long baggy pants, huge white t-shirt, and ugly hat. I hate that hat, really. He was like pretending to be a rapper. He drive us crazy.

When Mom-Bonnie get in the car, and we told her that. She was asking very loud about that guy. "What guy? Where? Why was he staring? With the baggy pants?". We were like "Shhh..!! Windows are open!". Anyway, his dad was too busy washing the windshield to hear us.

Wendy's Story

On the way home from Biltmore, we went to Wendy's in Buncombe County. It was close to 9PM. We got our food and the frostys were very yucky. They were like chocolate milk with foam. Cate's junior cheeseburger plain was without any cheese and the meat was so thin you could see through it. We told Alex (the young man with very tight pants who got our order together) after a while. We got new frostys. Alex slapped a piece of cheese on the junior cheeseburger plain and said "I'm so sorry. I thought it said junior hamburger plain. It was my fault". He was so upset so I told Cate that he was crying there because he got fired because of her. So, I make Cate uncomfortable so she can't eat her junior cheeseburger plain. But anyway, we saw a cute blonde guy there and when Cate went to the restroom, she was standing near the wall jumping and motioning that cute blonde guy was there. So, suddenly, we all need to go to the restroom. And James says "Where's that blonde guy?". As we were driving away, Cate saw Alex through the drive through window and she saw him wiping his eyes. We laughed alot!!

LOST IN THE CORN

You never know what will happen to you during the most interesting journey. Never play in the corn or ....

YOU MIGHT GET LOST!!!

Biltmore Estate 9-19-07

I've never seen anything like this before. Biltmore appeared after 3 hours driving and a few minutes walking after that. We made this picture, pretending that I own this house. Before going inside, we visited the gardens, had our profiles drawn, and carved animals out of soap stone. Then we made our first step on the way to the house; it amazed us with its beauty.

Stone Mountain 9-3-07

Stone Mountain was awesome! We left the house around lunch time and headed down to Traphill. We walked the Stone Mountain loop which was about 4.5 miles long. First we went to the Hutchinson home place. Then we went to a waterfall where we cooled off in the water.

After that we climbed 254 steps to reach the top of the waterfall. Then it was another .5 mile to get to the top of the mountain. We took lots of pictures up there. This is one of them. We rested awhile and then we worked our way down the mountain. On our way down, I wrote "Ukraine Forever" on the mountain with a rock. I'm very proud of myself!!

We rewarded ourselves by going to Widow Creek Falls. We hung out there and rested. The water was FREEZING cold. Some hispanic boys pushed my sister into the water. We slid down the lower waterfall on garbage bags. I screamed like a little girl the whole time!!

After that, I was tired but happy! For the first time in my life I saw alot of deer!!! Bucks, does, and fawns (baby deer).