Come to the Water by Daves Highway

The absolutely amazing sibling band of Daves Highway uploaded a new video today!  It's their version of the song "Come to the Water" by Brett Younker.  

I love the video so much because it shows off their great harmonies and also the fact that they love worshiping God so much.  It inspires me a lot.  

Make sure to "like" their video if you enjoyed it immensely.  Happy rest of Tuesday!

The Cutest Toofs Are Back!...

Good afternoon everyone!  I was just looking at my blogger notifications, and guess what popped up?  An update from Inhae Lee, the creator of My Milk Toof!  Yayyy!  

You can read her very exciting post here about the latest from our favorite little milk teef.  There is one piece of info that I just have to share...  She's creating book number two!  I'm so excited to see it!  But I definitely need to get in the game and buy book #1 first.  :)

I hope you all have a great day!

Hint, Hint :D

Hi everyone!  I'm just going to post a video of what I'll be blogging on next time.  Sort of a hint to what the next post will be about.   

Perpetua

Hi guys!  I'm back sooner than I expected (my latest post was from last night) but that's okay!  I remembered a great book that I just had to share with you all.  

A number of months ago, or maybe even last year, I was introduced to what is now my favorite book, Perpetua by Amy Rachel Peterson.  A leader of the youthgroup I attend shoved this book at my friends and me, and told us to read it.  (*Fun fact: My youthgroup leader's friend is the author!!*)  I didn't really want to read Perpetua since I had so many other activities going on.  Even so, I read it in three days, and I loved it. 

Perpetua book cover.  I had to make it a little larger so you could see the details.  (Source: store.ihopkc.org)

Perpetua by Amy Rachel Peterson is based on the true story of a Christian martyr from the Roman Empire during the 3rd century.  The book follows Perpetua's life, from when she was a rich and spoiled Roman noblewoman, to the day she died by standing up for her faith in Jesus.  As a teenager, she becomes a follower of Jesus, or a Christian, and proceeds to change her life completely.  Her ideas change about how Christianity is outlawed Rome, and she becomes sort of an undercover Christian.  Now before you lose interest in this book because the main character dies (well, obviously she does since she's a martyr), you have to know that there is also a romantic story tied into it too.  I won't tell you what it is, cause it's your job to find out.  

I recommend this great book to anyone really, though I'd mostly say that young adultish aged girls are more likely to find the story interesting.  Enjoy the book! 

Favorite My Milk Toof Story

I hope you've all been having a great week, and if not, just think that it's almost Friday!  I've been pretty busy with school and homework and homework and more homework, but it's been a good week anyways.  

Here's a link to my favorite My Milk Toof story.  I love it because... well, if you read it, then maybe you'd know!  :)  For those of you who don't know what My Milk Toof is, please check out my older post here.   

I'll be back, hopefully very soon, with more stuff to share.  Thanks for reading!

Nail Art With TAPE

Tape nail art!  (Source: makeup.com)

Another cool manicure to add to the list!  I was looking through a magazine, and it was so easy and cool that I just had to try it.  I did this nail design a while ago, and it took me about half an hour because the nail polish wouldn't dry.  But overall, it was quite easy and very attractive.  

More tape nail art!  (Source: polishyoupretty.com)

All you need is a few colors of nail polish (ones that compliment each other of course), masking or scotch tape (NO DUCT TAPE, it will peel your polish off), and a whole lot of patience.  

Step 1)  Choose a base color for your nails.  You might want the lighter color to be the base, in case the darker color won't let the light one show.

Visual of step three  (Source: shine.yahoo.com)

Step 2)  Wait patiently for the base to dry.  Seriously!  I beg you!  The whole design will be ruined if you don't let it dry ALL THE WAY. 

Step 3)  Take pieces of tape (thick and thin triangles, circles, simple strips) and stick them randomly over the dried base coat.  Make sure that they're easy to peel off, though!  The great thing about this is that you can experiment with shapes and make your own signature design!

Step 4)  Take your other polish color and paint over your nails, tape and all.  Make sure to get all those little nooks and crannies!

Step 5)  Another long wait for the polish to dry...

Step 6)  Peel off the tape and admire your amazing design before you seal it up with some clear nail polish.  Then admire it some more!

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy making your own taped nails!  

Princess Academy!

Hello!  I just want to get in a quick blog entry before I go to sleep.  

Shannon Hale!  (Source: squeetus.com)

For those of you who know who Shannon Hale is, good for you!  For those who don't, Shannon Hale is one of the greatest young adult authors ever.  In my opinion at least.  She's written the Books of Bayern (The Goose Girl, River Secrets, Enna Burning, Forest Born), Princess Academy and Princess Academy: Palace of Stone (which this entry will mostly be about), Book of A Thousand Days, and even co-wrote two graphic novels about Rapunzel with her husband.  Pretty much all of Shannon Hale's books are set in the past, in worlds of fantasy.  Fantasy meaning fairytale-like with lots of heroines.  

Anyways, I'm so excited because Shannon Hale has finally come out with a new book, Palace of Stone!  It's the sequel to the original Princess Academy book, which is also amazing.  It might have come out a couple of weeks ago in August.  I recommend the two Princess Academy books to everyone out there...  even guys!  Shannon herself said that guys actually enjoyed her book about princesses, so never fear.  Happy reading everyone!
 

Princess Academy, book #1!  (Source: turn-the-page.net)

Princess academy, book #2!  (source: goodreads.com)

Liberaaa....

Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone!  To celebrate, my family is having friends over for a barbeque.  I didn't know about this little party until our friends were arriving.  Oh well, at least there's good food to eat!  :D

I know I said in my off-season Christmas music post that I'd talk about one of my favorite vocal groups.  Get ready for a huge amount of gushing.

Libera is a boys choir from South London.  I may be wrong, but I believe there are about forty or so boys in it, even though they don't all go on tour.  They usually start out at about age seven to nine (called the mini-boys), and can range up to about age eighteen.  Some of the boys leave the choir after their voices have broken.  But the die-hard members stay on because it has been such an amazing part of their life.  The unique thing about Libera is that with every generation of singers, more young ones come in when the older ones leave.  In that way, Libera has gone on for 15+ years.  Cool, huh?  

As it says, Libera 2011 members that were on tour.  (choirfan.wordpress.com, Courtesy of French fan Fan_de_LoK)

Another piece of important info is that the choir is run by a man named Robert Prizeman.  He is truly a genius and deserves more credit than he is given because he has written many songs that Libera sings, directs them AND plays instruments during their concerts, and he arranges the boys' voices into astonishing harmonies.  Not to mention he deals with a bunch of pre-adolescent boys during tours. 

Reasons I love this choir...

1)  Their voices are freakingly angelic and high.  The first time I heard a Libera song (props to Pandora!), I thought the people that were singing were girls.  Imagine the surprise on my face when I found out that they were BOYS.  

2)  It is so different from a lot of the music that I usually listen to.  They sing mostly classical sounding music, and a large number of their songs are in Latin.  I like pop music and "pure music", which is what I categorize songs with acoustic guitars and actual pianos, instruments like that.  I'm very surprised with myself that I kept listening to Libera.

3)  The soloists are above stellar.  Only a choice handful of boys are continuous soloists, and I do say that the director of Libera, Robert Prizeman, has picked them well.  If you think about it, during concerts, soloists have to sing by themselves LIVE.  That's a bit scary...  but whaddya know?  All reports from concerts say that they sound great every time! 

      This should probably go with number three, but I'll give it it's own number.

Ralph Skan!  (dearmadine.blogspot.com)

Tom Cully!  (inridi.blogspot.com)

4)  Ralph Skan and Tom Cully.  My favorite soloists ever in Libera.  You can hear Ralph here in one of my favorite songs, Song of Life.  Hint, he's the one that sings first.  Ralph is currently in Libera, but sadly, his voice is getting lower so he won't be singing solos soon.  Tom Cully is probably the best soloist Libera ever had, in my opinion.  He had an amazing range, and while he was in the choir and you heard someone sing super high, you immediately knew it was him.  He left some years ago, but still comes back to help with the choir sometimes.  You can hear him here in You Were There (he also sings first).  If you really want to hear him sing super high, you can listen to Ave Maria here.  Hint, he sings alone and so high that your throat hurts when you hear it.      

Less legit reasons of why I love this choir...

1)  I think it's awesome how people younger than me can become so famous.  Especially young boys singing.  Super obsessed fans in Japan (yes, they tour largely in Japan.  Actually, the people in Japan are probably their biggest fans!) fight to get autographs from boys that are the same age as my sometimes-annoying younger cousins.  

2)  The mini-boys are so cute and adorable.  I know they're not much more different than other boys in elementary or grade school, but they look so innocent in their white robes! 

Lookin' spiffy in the white robes...  (thenobleartofmusic.blogspot.com)

3)  They rock their signature white robes pretty well.  Libera wears white robes to most of their concerts (their formal concert attire, haha).  The boys say that it originated from monks long ago.  Oh, and their hoods on their robes are gigantic!  It looks like the mini-boys could get lost in them!  :)

4)  Libera's name is Libera!  For those of you who don't know, it's Latin for "free".  Their name came from this song, here.   

Libera takes Moose on tour!  (libera.org.uk)

5)  Their group mascot is a small stuffed moose called Moose.  

That's all that I could think of for now.  Whew...  It was quite a lot to type.

I'm really sincerely sorry if you read through this whole post and had no interest whatsoever in Libera.  I just had to share it with potential fans!  If you'd like to know more about them, you could go explore their website, Facebook, and Twitter.  Numerous fans have blogs completely devoted to "all things Libera" that you can google.  My favorites are called *BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS* and Mini Angels.  I'll keep updating with little random facts I've learned about Libera, and also with Daves Highway and the Gardiner Sisters.  

Thank you all so much for reading, and have fun rest of the weekend!  Happy listening!