Erin's Tide Pool Project

I've been working on a small project given to me by a tutor who has come to help us with homeschooling. The link below will bring you to that project. I hope you enjoy!

                   Erin's Tide Pool ProjectKeynote

Camp Quinebarge

 A few weeks ago, my brother & I went to a summer camp for 2 weeks. Camp Quinebarge is my happy place. This blog is to talk about the amazing times I had there.

 Every day at Camp Q, there's a schedule. You get up at 7:30 a.m. If you're a waiter, you go to the dining hall and set tables. You will be a waiter all day for every meal time. Then you would go to breakfast at the next bell. After that, you would head to your cabin for cabin cleanup. Then, you'd head to your 4 morning activities. After that, everyone would go to lunch. Then you get about an hour or so of cabin time. When cabin time is over, you go to General Swim. You would go get changed and head over to your final activity. Then you would have 30 minutes of cabin time, then dinner. Waiters repeat their job at every meal time. Then you get to go to the evening activity, which varies every night. Last but not least, there'd be Friendship Circle, showers, candle pass, & lights out.

Seems like a fairly complicated schedule, but you get used to it. So when you first get to camp, you get assigned a cabin that you will be in for the rest of your stay. You have from 4-12 people in a cabin, maybe more. Each cabin has 1-2 counselors, and sometimes a counselor in training. I got lucky and got a cabin with a total of 6 people in the cabin.

The 3 daily meals change every day. In your cabin, the counselors will most likely have made a chore wheel. You and your cabin mates will switch between daily chores such as sweeping, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the porch, etc. Waiter is the only job where you have to leave the cabin's porch, making it so you only have one job to do during cabin cleanup. I am very proud of my cabin, Senaca, because we earned the title "Cleanest Cabin." We got to go on a pontoon boat ride with ice cream sundaes! Oh, and all the counselors came and looked at our cabin.

After you've cleaned your cabin, you go to your first activity. When you arrived at camp, you got to choose your schedule from these activities: Horses, Sports, Drama, Boating, Adventure, Woodshop, Ceramics, Arts & Crafts, and Nature. I only had the chance to do 8 of the 9 activities, so I didn't get to do Arts & Crafts.

 So with the activities that I did, my favorite was probably Nature or Horses. In Horses, each camper gets about 10 minutes or so on a horse. When your turn is up, you and the other campers that aren't riding either play games, clean, or learn.  The 4 horses that are in the barn currently are Rain, Spuds, Licorice, and Reggie. That's just the overall idea of what I did during Horses.

 When I was doing Nature, I had 2 little boys in my group: Ben & Owen. Both only ever wanted to play with the chickens and bunnies. Which, by the way, I didn't mind. That meant that for most of the week at Nature we would just goof of in the animal pen. We also caught frogs in the frog pond, which was pretty fun as well!

 Drama was also one of the best, because I found it really fun! I only did all of my activities for a week or less, so most of Drama that week was improv. Improv was very entertaining and we did a lot of skits. In one of the skits, I injured myself (no surprise,) but we won't discuss that.

 Adventure is awesome. Period. At Adventure, they have a high ropes course, a ropes course, and a Ninja Warrior kinda thing. I didn't get to try the Ninja Warrior thing because they added it on the second week, and I did Adventure the first week. Anyway, I got to go on the low ropes course once.  On the ropes course there was a zip-line which I got to go on twice! Oh, yeah, and another thing there was the rock wall. I got to go rock climbing once, and that was pretty cool. I hope next year I get to go on all the equipment more.

 I only got 3 days of Woodshop & Sports, so I didn't get to do much. I also only got 2 days of Ceramics & Boating, which kinda sucked, but oh well.

 Woodshop was fun. I got to paint a heart that the counselors cut out for me. Unfortunately, that is the only project I was able to complete. But I had a good time socializing there!

 Sports was good, but we really didn't do much. I played 2 games and Archery. Archery was the main thing there at sports. I was bad at it, but I had a great time shooting arrows onto the edge of a target.

 Ceramics was one of the best. I enjoyed creating and painting whatever I wanted out of clay. It would have been very relaxing if there weren't people yelling & throwing clay, but it was very entertaining anyways.

 I had so much fun boating. I got to go tubing on the pontoon boat, and then I got to go with a cabin mate on a paddle board! Plus the time we got on our ice cream reward trip.

 That's all I have to say about the normal activities for now, but there were so many more activities that I don't even know where to begin!

 As I've said before, there is an evening activity every night before bed. I participated in 12 evening activities for the time I was there. However, I will only talk about some of my favorites.

 On every Sunday, they have a fun campfire at an area in the camp. (I forgot the name of the place) It was a ton of fun because we sang songs and roasted marshmallows! In the middle of the week, we also did a skit that was quite unique. We had a lot of fun nonetheless!

 One of my favorites, Life Size Clue, was a new addition. A handful of counselors dressed up for a dinner party. One of them was murdered, and one was the murderer. It was very entertaining to run free around the whole camp looking for clues.

 The second day of camp, we did Capture the Flag. This was unfair because the other team hid the flag on top of a Monkeytown building. ('twill be explained later) We lost, but had a lot of fun doing so.

We played Find the Counselor, where most of the counselors hid all around the camp. I found 4, so I was happy with that. You got Monketown Money when you found people.

 The Color Run was basically you running down a trail trying to avoid getting pelted with balls of multicolored powder. My cabin got lucky and dodged most of what they threw at you.

The rest from here on are all-day activities.

 Color Wars. Four teams competing for fun & bragging rights. The teams were Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow. All the teams had to go and compete against each other in a 1v1 style. Plus, at the end, there was a relay race. Sadly, my team, the Green Team,  got 4th place. It was tons of fun anyway!

 Finally, it's time to explain Monkeytown. If you go past the boys cabins' and past the nature shed you follow a path to a big sign saying "Welcome To Monkeytown!" There, there are little roofless huts in the trees. That's pretty much all of Monkeytown. There are a few tents too. One day the evening activity is the Monkeytown Auction, where your cabin bets the Monkeytown Money you've earned on a food. Then, you wait 'till the day before you leave. That's when Monkeytown begins! It was raining while Monkeytown was going on, so we had to go to the Dining Hall. So we put our food on the table to begin with. Now, beforehand your counselor would have chosen a game. We got the fishing game.(Without water. XD) So for the first half of Monkeytown, you played carnival games. Then you got to go around and buy food and drink and eat way too much. That was pretty much Monkeytown!

 Every night after your evening activity, everyone joins hands to form a circle. You then sang a wonderful song. I fear I do not remember ALL the lyrics, so I won't try. But it was the grand end to every night.

 And finally, after shower time was the candle pass. It was the final step before lights out. You and your cabin mates would pass around a fake candle and tell about the best parts of your day. Then, bedtime. The next day, you repeat the schedule!

Sorry the lighting in this photo is very bad!

 That's all I have to say about Camp Quinebarge for now, but I might make a part 2 next year!
Thanks for reading!

Big Cities

We have been very busy in the past few weeks in two of the most famous cities in the US: Washington D.C. and New York City.

 Let's start with the nation's capitol. One of the first tours we took was of the Capitol.  Now, we took a private tour of the place so we got to see tons of murals on the walls and ceiling. But the main thing there was the Rotunda. In it were multiple statues of presidents and important people. In another room there was a statue for each state. On the ceiling in the Rotunda there was a massive mural that was just so beautiful. Plus, Washington was in the middle of it (which, by the way, he would've hated).

 Then we luckily got in for a tour of the president's home: the White House. There was a painting in every room we visited, and in most a clock. We saw some of the china that they used in the White House, which had changed dramatically over the years. My favorite part was how Lincoln's portrait stood alone in a room because his family requested it. And at the end, we stood in front of the President's seal!

 We also got a little tour of the Supreme Court. All they talked about were the court cases and how they couldn't do all the cases. But the building itself was cool!

The memorials were stunning! We didn't get to go to the top of the Washington Monument because the elevator was under construction (Boo!). The Jefferson Memorial was very impressive with the 19ft tall statue of Jefferson in the middle. The statue weighs 5 tons! The Lincoln Memorial has 145(?) steps total, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong. Lincoln's statue was also 19 ft tall, like Jefferson's.

Now, the Vietnam Memorial is a little different. It's a wall with every single solider's name on it. It's got tons of flowers and medals put there by the families. As for the Korean War Memorial, it had a wall with the names of those soldiers and then a small field of statues, looking like soldiers in enemy territory.  While we were there, we also saw the Naval Memorial and the Air Force Memorial.

Then we visited Arlington Cemetery. We got a tour of JFK's grave. His wife, Jacqueline, wished for him to be buried there. She also wanted an Eternal Flame to be placed upon his grave. She got both her wishes. JFK's brothers were buried there too.

As if seeing all the monuments during the day wasn't enough, we got a tour of all the monuments at night as well! The funniest bit was that the Washington Monument had eyes!

We went to a lot of museums while we were there! One of our first museums was the Newseum. It was really cool because it had news headlines and pictures from around the world. It even had a piece of the Twin Towers and a chunk of the Berlin Wall! That was one of my favorites. Time for the Spy Museum! This one was awesome because we got to see a lot of spy gadgets and secret codes. Oh, and you can't forget James Bond's special section of the museum! This is another top choice, the American History Museum.  This one is all about objects from different time periods of the U.S. It is really fun to see all the objects that make up our history! The saddest museum, by far, was the Holocaust Museum. It really explained the emotions of those people living in the camps. It's fairly self-explanatory, however. It's always hard to go through those types of museums.

 I've covered MOST of the stuff we've done in Washington D.C, so we can move on to New York City! Of course, one of the first things we saw was the Statue of Liberty. Not only did we see it, but we got to go inside it! We walked up a bunch of stairs to get to a very pretty view of the city. We also got to see a cool museum about how the French built it and why. They also showed previous models of what it would have looked like if they stuck with those old designs. After that, we got zipped up an elevator to the 102 floor of the Empire State Building. It was a little freaky, but we had a great view of New York and the Statue of Liberty! How about "Night at the Museum?" One of my favorite movies was filmed at the famous National History Museum. My favorite part of the museum was the skeletons, but the Hope Diamond was very cool too! Then we took a lovely boat trip around the harbor, where we learned about the history of New York a bit more. We couldn't go the full way around because of construction.

The final things I'm gonna talk about are the Broadway Shows that we saw. We saw Anastasia, Aladdin, and The Play That Goes Wrong. Anastasia was very pretty, with some very pretty singing involved. Aladdin was very fun and musical as well. And The Play That Goes Wrong... was absolutely hilarious. The idea was that they mixed up the professional actors with college students. While it was definitely my favorite, all the plays were amazing. That is all that I have to say about New York for now, but I might make a part 2!

Sorry this blog has been so insanely late! It's taken way too long... but thanks for reading!

Busy In Paradise!

 Wow have we done a lot in the past few months! We have done 3 main things though: Discovery Cove trainer for a day,  Universal Studios, and Walt Disney World. These things were so fun, I had to talk about them in a blog.

 First up was Discovery Cove, with the Trainer for a Day experience. This was certainly something to remember! We went and fed some birds and otters. We got to touch an armadillo and a SLOTH! I was so exited! But not as exited as my mom. Then we moved on to the water portion of the adventure. We went snorkeling, which I loved. We also got to feed rays and fish. They bashed into us and circled around us trying to get the food! I got to reach down and touch a fish. Next, we met an Epaulette shark. It was so tiny! Finally, we did my favorite thing, which was swim with dolphins!! We got to ride on their back and belly, and we got to kiss one! My favorite part was when two of them pushed on my feet with their noses. It was amazing!

 Moving on to the theme parks, Universal came next. We got the VIP experience. We went on over 10 rides while we were there because we could skip to the front of the line.  My favorite ride was the hulk ride. It goes upside down 9 times! We also got to visit an animation school, where students learn how to create and design movies. We saw a sound studio and a 3D printer. It was really cool to see that students helped make some famous movies. For dinner, we went to the Chocolate Emporium. The food was incredible! The milkshakes were mason jars with giant pieces of dessert on top. One of them was a confetti shake with a piece of cake on it! We had to get the desserts to go because we were so full.

 Last but not least, Disney. You really do have a magical time! We went to all 4 parks, plus Disney Springs. The first and main park there was Magic Kingdom. It was where Cinderella's Castle stood towering over Main Street. We saw two muppet shows at the Hall of Presidents, plus a show about the presidents. We went on Space Mountain a bunch of times too. My favorite park, Animal Kingdom, came next. It was where my favorite ride was as well as the Safari rides. On the Safari ride, I saw a baby hippo, a baby giraffe, a baby elephant, and a baby warthog. That was so fun! We also went on this ride called Expedition Everest, where there's a museum of Yeti tracks and proof of Yeti existence. Next up, the famous Hollywood Studios. We rode the Rock'n'Rollercoaster with Aerosmith. We entered the Twilight Zone at the Tower of Terror. But my favorite part of Hollywood Studios was the Star Wars stuff. We met Chewbacca, BB-8, and Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren wanted me to join him, but I said no. He said I couldn't deny my destiny. There were also Storm Troopers wandering around the park at all times. Finally, a trip around the world at Epcot. It had the best food of all the parks. It also had the rides Test Track, Soarin', and Mission Space. But in all the parks, my favorite part of Disney was the ride Flight of Passage, where you turn into an Avatar and ride a banshee. It was a surreal experience. It feels like you're actually there. It was the best ride I've ever been on. Disney overall was an adventure I'll never forget.

 That's all for this blog so stay tuned for more blogs by Erin.

Vacation At Coconut Bay

Today's blog is about this awesome 9-day vacation that we just took to St. Lucia. St. Lucia is a tropical island in the Caribbean. We stayed at the Coconut Bay Resort & Spa. The reason we went to St. Lucia is because it was my brother Reese's last winter break from college. He graduates in May. It was about a 4 hour long plane ride to get there. I went there with my aunt Amy, my grandma Cherryl, my parents, and my two brothers.

While we were landing, we saw the luscious, green island coming up ahead. It really was stunning.
When we got to the hotel rooms, we saw that we had a view of their mini waterpark. I spent most of my time there playing with Ethan at the lazy river.

The Coconut Bay Resort & Spa is all-inclusive. We went to the buffet for breakfast, had drinks for lunch, and went to a different restaurant every night. We also went to the spa. I got a manicure, pedicure, and a haircut. I didn't expect them to cut it as short as they did! They cut off 8 inches of hair. My mom got a matching haircut because she wanted to support me. :)

We did 5 excursions while we were there. That was a lot to do in 9 days! The first excursion was a Catamaran Snorkeling Adventure. We visited 2 beach stops. I saw tons of cool fish. It was a lot of fun! I swallowed a lot of salt water though. Still, I would definitely do that again. We also ate lunch at  a buffet thing. They had a really cute cat that I spent most of the time with.

Then, we went zip-lining. While we were walking there, there was a snake in the rafters! Yikes! There were 12 courses of the zip-line. It was through a rainforest, which was so green that's most of what you could see. One of the lines was 800 ft. long! I wish that I seen a parrot on the zip-line. They said you could, but that it was rare. 

Next, my grandma, my aunt, my brother and I went shopping as a late Christmas gift. My parents and Reese went separately to look around island. We went to 2 different towns. The major city there was Castries.

The most difficult excursion was a bike ride. It was through the rainforest to a waterfall. It was very pretty. We got to taste some fresh coconut that our guide opened with a rock. Now, the bike ride was very hard. It was really muddy, it was slippery, there were some thin bridges, it was steep, it was just really challenging. Both grandma and Amy fell. But the waterfall was incredible. The photo doesn't do it justice.

The final excursion was a horse-back ride on the beach. That was also really fun! My horse was pretty naughty though. He kept trying to eat the grass. He kept getting really close to the guide as well. Our guide had to push him away with his feet. The horses also got into the water a little bit. They liked the water.

I loved sitting in the hammocks, or chilling in the pool. Overall, St. Lucia was one of the best vacations I've ever had!