Henry Hudson Claymation

In all of first quarter and in the beginning of second quarter, I've been working on a European Explorer Claymation. My partner was Jenna. A claymation is where you take a lot of pictures, put them together on iMovie, and it comes out looking like a movie. You have to move each clay person, or thing, in the slightest bit, otherwise if you move it too much, it doesnt come out smooth like a movie. In movies like "Chicken Run" you would notice that the characters are made of clay. That movie is a claymation. When you're professionally making a clay mation, you have to have new clay characters for every slightist movement, but when you're making a claymation for you're Social Studies class, it doesn't have to be as precise.

The parts I liked the most about making our claymation was that we had everyday to work on it, instead of having to do the project at home. I also liked doing the dialogue because there was a lot of voices to do and we had to do some man voices. In the second scene, Jenna couldn't do a man voice because her voice is to high, so we just used our normal voices. It was also fun doing the dialogue because if Jenna wouldn't be there one day, I would have to do the voices my self, or get someone else to it with me. I also liked moving the little clay people because you could move them how ever you wanted and make them do what you wanted. Putting all the pictures on iMovie was fun because, even though we would have to re-set all the times on every picture, we could play the scene and it would look really cool. Putting the ending credits together was fun because we got to play music on it. I want to do "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, but I cant do it for sure right now because Jenna isn't here. I hope she likes the song because it looks and sounds really good with our ending credits.

The hardest part of this claymation was figuring out what we needed to do for our scenes. We had to take a lot of thinking time into what we were gonna do for each scene. If we had a scene wrong, we would have to start over and then we would be behind on the project. It was really hard if Jenna and I got behind because we have soccer practice after school and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have games so we can't always catch up after school. Figuring out what we were going to say for dialogue and narration was kind of hard because we didn't always know what to say for each character. It was also difficult trying to time each picture on the right time because if it was too short the voice would go into the next scene. If it was too long, then we would have to spend the next 5 minutes trying to find the right time.

In this project I learned that it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to create something really good. I also learned that it takes partnership to finish something. If Jenna wasn't my partner, it would have been really hard for me to finish our claymation. I learned that it takes patience if you want your claymation to turn out right. If you don't have patience, then you get into a big jumbled mess and don't know what to do. I learned that if you don't get a scene done by the time it's due, then you get docked points for not trying hard enough, or someone deleted your work and you have to start all over. I also learned that if you DON'T save your work to the server on your computer, someone could easily delete all you progress and then you have to start over and you get really behind, and then your behind for the rest of the project, pretty much. If your partner wouldn't be there one day, you have to work extra hard and fast because you want to get your scene in when it's due.

This project wasn't really that hard in the beginning because you just had in to start working. This project taught me a lot, and I won't forget everything I have learned. In the future this project will probably help me if we have another similar project. I hope we have another project like this claymation in High School because I had a lot of fun working on this. Although I'm kind of sad it's over, I'm happy we don't have to stress this any more.

What I did while my parents were in California without me

Last friday, my mom, dad, and little brother Landon, left for Californa. Without me. I was left with my sister because of stupid school. Ok, so sometimes school isnt so stupid but it is when you are left alone with your older sister and cant go to San Diego. They came back last night about 9:30ish. They brought me a tie-dye tshirt that said San Diego. Im wearing it right now under my blue and white warm up soccer jacket. They also got me earings. I totally forgot that I asked my mom to get me earings when she she asked me what I wanted. My mom has the same ones except they're a little bigger and blue. Mine are pink. My mom also got us both (my mom and me) the same pink ones, but they're triangles. I love my mommy and daddy and little brother. I was alone most of the days they were gone. I basically sat home for 5 hours on sunday all by my self. I sat on the couch and cried for like 10 minutes because I couldn't stand being alone for that long. I tried doing fun stuff like watching movies, and going on the computer, but after while, it all got boring. I started watching a movie called "Rest Stop: Don't Look Back" but stopped after like 15 minutes because it way too gory for me. I watched re-runs of about every single show in the entire world. Ok maybe it was only ABC Family. But it seemed like a crap load of T.V. I was bored to tears. On Friday-Saturday I went over to Shaina's house. We rode her horses and I jumped a jump that was like 2 feet high. But give me a break, it was my first time. On Monday, after soccer, I went over to the CMA Church for the last hour of Middle School Monday. After that, my friend, Niki, and I rode the transit home. She asked if I wanted to spend the night because there was no school on Tuesday because it was Veteran's Day. I said sure and she asked her mom and she said yes. I called my sister and she said she didn't care. So that was my semi boring time while my parents were in California without me.

My Birthday Party

I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted to do for my 14th birthday party. Some of you may be saying that when your 14, your too old to have a birthday party. But not me. I love having birthday parties. Except for last year when only 2 out of 11 people invited showed up. But I wont get into that. So me and my mom were throwing out ideas for my birthday party this year and none of them were good enough. I thought about going to the Paint Escape with 5 friends and picking ceramic things to paint. My grandma thought about taking me and friends to a place in Seattle where we can make out own chocolates. But that wasn't a good idea to me because then I would have to only invite people who like chocolate, and not all my friends like chocolate. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was stressing this a lot. I wanted to have the best birthday party ever and I couldn't squeeze that little idea for an amazing party out of my head.
I came home from school one day and my mom said she had an idea for my birthday party. She asked me if I wanted to know then, or wait for a month to find out. I asked if it was a really good idea and she said it was. So I had her tell me. She told me about The Great Wolf Lodge. I was so excited and said that was a really good idea. But the thing was that I could only invite 2 people. And I already had two people in mind. I already had one person that was coming no matter what. My best friend, Niki.And I asked my other best friend Vanessa. She is going to ask her mom and I hope she says yes!!
I can't wait for my birthday party!! GREAT WOLF LODGE, HERE I COME!! (and niki and vanessa too!!

(post pictures later!!)

Life Graph

When I was in Kindergarten, my friends and I were a little mean to the other kids on the monkey bars. We would wait until a kid was on, then we would cut in front of them by jumping from the side. We would all laugh except the kids on the monkey bars. One of my friends jump to the farthest bar and I thought it was cool. So I tried it. I didn't make it and landed on a huge chunk of wood. I was crying so hard that I couldn't see where I was walking. My friend, Tess, saw the blood on my face, and puked. I got escorted to the nurse's office and got pop-sickle. The nurse asked if my sister, Karissa, was at school today, and I said yes, she was. Then she asked me if I wanted her to come down with me. I said yes and the nurse went to call the Intermediate School for my sister. She got a pop-sickle also, and we waited for my dad to come.
Tess also went home because she puked. When my dad was signing me out of school, he said, "Tess got sick, and Chelby gets pop-sickles." I laughed and then we left. It does not feel good to have a fat lip.
Needless to say, I never did cut in front kids on the monkey bars ever again.

Lightning!!!

Imagine this.... It's about 9:00 pm and there's a huge storm. The wind is blowing hard and crazily. Lightning is coming down all around you. And your sitting out there with your mom and dad sitting on a metal table. Scary huh? Not! It was our last night in Snake River up in Eastern Washington. It was awesome. I was trying to take some pictures of the lightning. I couldn't get a single shot because the lightning is way too fast for my camera. Then I realized that the camera has video on it. I switch from pictures to video. I'm talking about what's going on and hoping to get some lighting on video. I'm talking for about 2 minutes and then FLASH!! Lightning!! I finally got it on camera. The coolest thing ever. It was a purpleish pink color. I thought it was cool enough to put on my blog and I hope you think so too! Comment back on the video!! BYE!

Discovery Cove

On October 21st, my mom, dad, grandma, and I went to Florida. It was kind of like birthday present to me but not really. I thought I was just going to be going on tons of awesome rides and get my picture taken just about a million times with Disney characters, but no. I had a lot more in store then just that.
The first day we got to our condo/trailor, we went to go get food. we stopped at the gate and my mom went up to "talk to the person in the booth". I saw a lady that looked a lot like Joyce, my grandma's cousin. I asked if that was her and my dad said no. But my mom was talking to her. Hmmmmm. Weird. So then when my mom got back to the car we started up the car and left.
When we got back, I was really tired and so I went to go lay on my grandma's bed. I looked out the window and saw Jackson and Joyce. I thought maybe it wasn't them, but then they got closer and closer. I was sure my mom didn't want me to see that they were coming, so I pretended like I didn't see them.

When they got to the door, my mom called me out into the living room. I went out there and saw Joyce and Jackson. I was "suprised". It was awkward because I'm really shy with new people. And so was Jackson.

The first few days were awesome, what with being in Florida and all. About the third day, My mom woke me up and told me to put my bathing suit on under my clothes. I didn't really know why, but I didn't ask questions. My mom and dad put their bathing suits on also, and we were off to where ever. When finally we got to the mysterious place, the questions started flowing out like a water fall. "Where are we?" and "What are we doing here?" My mom handed me a brochure and my jaw just about dropped to the floor. We were at Discovery Cove. The place where people can snorkel in the warm river, swim with tropical fish in the salty lagoon, or make arrangements to swim with dolphins. We got in, got our water-proof photo badges, and were on our way to get our wet suits. Everything digestable was free. It was awesome. A dream come true. Then I found out I was going to be swimming with a dolphin!! I was SO excited!

The dolphin, Latoya, was beautiful. She may have had scratches, but she was a gorgeous blue. I got to swim on her dorsal fin, feed her a fish, play tricks on her, and even kiss her!! It was so cool.
After we were all tired, we HAD to leave. It was most definately a day I will never forget.

My Baby Brother Landon

My brother Landon was born on Jan. 31st at 11:26 p.m. He's about 8 months old now and is growing like a weed. He's already wearing 18mo clothes. He has reddish-brown hair and gorgeous, big, blue eyes. He loves to roll around on the floor and play with his toys. He always has his cloth diaper and loves to try and eat it. It's the cutest thing in the world when he makes talking noises. Once, I swear I heard him say "yay". He's very ticklish on his thighs and stomach. He loves to be thrown up and down, and swung around in circles. When my family was on vacation, we went to a park. We put Landon in a baby swing, and pushed him slowly. He wasn't very amuzed. My dad pushed a little harder and Landon was laughing like crazy.
He eats 2nd Food baby food. But is still on the formula.
The only time Landon cries is when he's really really hungry, or can't poop.
One time when my mom, grandma, aunt, Landon, and I were going to Idaho, Landon caught a cold and was not happy. He puked up all the formula and coughed a lot.
He's the cutest baby in the world.

Thanks for reading!

Chelby's Blog!!

Hey! Thanks for checking out my blog. It's new so there wont be much on for a while.