Camp Quinebarge: The Returner

 YIPPEE! My brother and I were fortunate enough to be able to come back to Camp Q for 4 weeks this year!  This blog is to talk about this year's highlights, as well as changes the camp has made.

 The schedule has not changed since last year. It still has evening activities, General Swim, etc. If you haven't seen my first blog on Camp Q, I would suggest checking it out!

 Okay, so this year I got to try every activity. My favorites were Boating and Nature. In Nature, they removed the chickens from last year because last year they pecked someone's eye. The bunnies were different bunnies, too - James and Poppy! The counselors were all different as well. A Counselor In Training from last year, Sonja, and 2 new counselors, Brittany and AJ, were the people running Nature this year. We got to use solar cooking to bake brownies, catch frogs in the frog pond, and play out a mock trial of the Lorax. We had to either defend the Oneslur or prove why they were guilty of destroying the trees. It was really fun!

 I did Boating for 3 out of 4 weeks. The last week I couldn't get in. Anyway, I got to go tubing every time because not many people wanted to do it and I was friendly with the counselors who ran it. One of the counselors, David, would call me a fake name. His favorite was Penelope. So, I started calling him Jack, the name of the other Boating counselor. It was our little inside joke. All the boating counselors would make my tube ride especially bumpy. I loved Boating!

 Horses this year was unfortunately less fun. At one point in Camp Q's 3rd session (My 1st 2 weeks), a 4-year-old named Isla was left alone on a horse, fell off, and had to get stitches! Now they don't let anyone on without a lead attached to the horse with a counselor leading us. They also don't play game like last year. Reggie, Licorice, Spuds and Rain were all still there though. The counselors completely changed in this activity as well.  Luke, JP, and Ellie, all new counselors, ran Horses this year.

 I got to do Arts & Crafts this year! It was pretty chill, because we got to do whatever we wanted most days. We got to go and sit outside on nice days, which was nice. Most of the time, it was a fairly calm activity.

 In Ceramics, we got to make stuff out of clay. I made a box, decorated the box with snow and ice, and called it my "ice box". I also made a few pots and a monster, but I didn't keep any of my creations because they fell apart.

 Adventure! Woo! Adventure had High Ropes, Low Ropes, and the rock wall. My favorite part was the rock wall. Most of the time you just sit around, though. That rocked!

 THPORTH! Aka, Sports. But calling it thporth is more fun. In Sports there were field activities, tennis, and archery. I always did archery, but I never managed to improve. It was alright, though, because the counselors were awesome. I'm on good terms with all the counselors that were at camp last year, as well as some of the new people.

 DRAMA! That's the level of enthusiasm that ya gotta have for Drama! We played games most of the time, which was highly entertaining and silly. I thought Drama was really goofy in a good way!

 Finally, we have Woodshop. I mean, it was not extremely interesting. You sand the wood, then you paint it. Other people like it, but I thought it was kinda boring.

 Okay, now we can move on from the activities! Well, those activities anyway. We're heading back to Color Wars! 4 teams. 1 winner. Who will claim the victory? Find out in the next paragraph. The teams are Yellow, Blue, Red, and the best team, Green.

 In Color Wars, you do a bunch of tasks to earn points. Then, later in the day, you do a relay race. Whoever has the most points by the end of the day claims bragging rights. Green team came 4th the first session I was there, but the second session we didn't get 4th! We got 3rd! Last year Green got 4th, I guess I'm bad luck to our team! Overall, the winner was Yellow.  GREat job...

 We also did Monkeytown this year, of course. I did it twice because, y'know, 2 sessions. It was the same. We had so much food! I also got my hair done by some expert stylists.

 They still had evening activities this year. One of the best evening activity was on the end of my first session, because we watched a movie and had ice cream sundaes! It was funny, because the counselors were fighting for the kids to choose whatever they were holding. For example, one counselor would push for chocolate syrup while the other would push for caramel. My FAVORITE activity, though, was the dance. We got to dance and sing to well known songs and party with our friends. That was an absolute blast!!!

 I can't think of anything else to say about camp except that it was AMAZING! I am so excited to go back next year! I hope you enjoyed this blog!

Minnesota & Murrays'

 Once again, we are back in The Land Of Ten Thousand Lakes... and mosquitos. It's been so nice to be able to visit again, and to see our friends and family. Plus, it's finally summer! The snow is gone until October now! But we didn't have great weather down in Texas, either. I mean, it was 58 degrees one time! 

 Getting back to the blog, being here in Minnesota visiting has been so enjoyable! I won't talk about all of Christi's friends, because this blog would turn into a book. However, I got to have a few experiences with some of my friends. 

 The first time I got to see my friends was at a birthday party. There were so many balloons! The first few minutes were total chaos, with people hitting each other with the balloons. *POP* *POP* *POP*  Those were the only noises you could hear for a moment there. Eventually, after everyone arrived, Lasya, the birthday girl and my best friend, decided to tell horror stories. Emily, my other best friend, took out her phone and played a video of a campfire in the center of all of us. It was hard to listen to Lasya, though, because some of the girls she invited were chatting and giggling the whole time. After that was done, we played a round of Uno to see who would go first on the Virtual Reality set that she had set up for us. Emily won, so she played this game called Beat Saber. In Beat Saber, you would hold your lightsabers and hit the notes in the direction that the game called for. For example, let's say your right saber was blue and your left saber was red. Every note had an arrow on it pointing up, down, left, or right. So you would hit a blue note pointing downwards with your right saber, slicing onto the note vertically. Emily did pretty well, but then Lasya had a turn. She played Expert Mode and was going crazy. She was amazing at it! She beat the level with ease, then gave it to another person. We had pizza and soda for dinner. Finally, near the end of the party, we had this huge chocolate cake. Lasya's brother grabbed some frosting and smeared it all across her face. 'Twas a good day!

 My next encounter with my pals was a sleepover at Emily's house. Lasya and Emily are my BFFs, so they were both there waiting for me when I arrived. We started off by talking and catching up for a good hour. Eventually, though, that escalated into a nerf gun war. I was at Emily's house last year, and people got hurt during a nerf war. This year was no different, so that idea ended quickly. We went outside to play with her ball. I was throwing the ball at them as they were on the swings, and they would kick it back to me. When Emily kicked it, however, it landed in their neighbors' yard. Now, their neighbors have a fence between them, with a tiny, black Pomeranian guarding the yard. Emily warned us that the pom pom was kind of vicious, but I went in anyway because, well, it's a Pomeranian. This dog weighed no more than 10 pounds. I went in by the gate and the little thing leapt at me and bit onto my jeans. I grabbed the ball and got out of there as quickly as possible. But, because the dog was barking at us angrily, the neighbors could hear it and came outside to apologize. Who knew Pomeranians were such good guard dogs? We scurried back inside and curled Lasya's hair. Well, Emily curled her hair. I was playing with hair clips the whole time. After we had Lasya model for us, we walked a mile or so to a park (when we could find it) and we played there for a half hour before heading back. We ended up playing video games for most of the sleepover and we stayed up until 3:30 a.m. We also had pizza, soda, and brownie sundaes for dinner. Plus, french toast, bacon, and soda for breakfast. That was an awesome sleepover!!

 I had one more sleepover, and this one was with Ethan. Ethan and I went over to our friend Devan's house. Ethan's friend, Joe, came over for a while, too. We, again, played video games for 3 hours or so before we walked to Scoops for ice cream. We went to another party at night, then had some people come over to their house for a bonfire to burn homework. After the fire, Devan passed out in his bed. Ethan and I watched a movie in the basement until 1 a.m. We were not getting much sleep!

 Since we didn't sleep, we were tired the next day. But the next day was Murrays, which we waited 6 months for! Emily was going with us to Murrays, as we were both allowed to bring 1 friend along. None of Ethan's other friends were able to come, unfortunately, but Ethan seemed quite content with Emily. 

 So we were about to leave to pick her up, when this long, shiny limo pulls up in the driveway. Ethan and I knew nothing about this, so seeing it was pretty surprising! We went inside and it was SO NICE! Plus, we brought sparkling cider and champagne to celebrate with. The whole reason we were going to Murrays in the first place is because Ethan lost 20 pounds. So we roll into Emily's small neighborhood with this limousine. Kids go outside and people are taking pictures. Emily's family steps outside and is in awe.

 

 We went to Murrays and Emily was even more awestruck at the quality of the restaurant. We were also there with our Auntie Kerry and our "Gamma" Cherryl. We shared steaks and dessert, and, as always, it was so tasty! The steak was tender, juicy, and well seasoned. The dessert didn't last long. Then, Tim, the owner of Murrays, showed Ethan, Emily, and me the kitchen. It was super cool to see how they make all of their famous steaks and bread. Murrays is one of our favorite restaurants, and it was a treat to go there.

 That's it for this blog! Murrays was so much fun, especially for Ethan. Be sure to check out his blog, too!

Owls, Hawks and Turtles

Let me just start off by saying how lucky we were to have this experience. This was a private tour, and the buildings were not open to the public.

 We were invited to visit our friend's place of work (she's a veterinarian), at a place called A.R.K. They save animals who are injured or unsuitable for the wild, and they nurse them back to full health. If they can't be brought back to full health, they become animal ambassadors. So, you might see them at a zoo or an aquarium. 

 

We got to go into 3 buildings and view 4 rooms in total.

The first building we entered was the kitchen, if you can call it a kitchen. There were birds in cages off to the side, as well as 2 BABY OWLS!!! Their names were Ben & Jerry. I think that they are Great Horned Owls. Oh, right, the kitchen is also where they prepare the food for the birds and the turtles... *Ahem*

Moving swiftly on from that, the next place we visited was the clinic. It's where the creatures get their medication. We got to see our friend and her assistant draw the blood of 2 turtles. One turtle was definitely more calm than the other, though. The annoyed turtle was smacking it's fins on the side of the tub repeatedly! It was very entertaining, but kind of pitiful. The building was also where they stored turtles that were either soon to release or needed surgery. We got to see them splashing water all over us, because it was close to feeding time and they were very excited.

The 3rd place we got to see was the holding area. It was where a bunch of turtles were mostly peaceful in their tanks. It was a lot of fun learning a few facts about the turtles, and seeing their wounds. We were also able to see how much they've healed.

Final area of the morning... the aviary! All the birds hung out in their cages, most not being releasable. Most of the birds or turtles end up at the local aquarium, but some go to other states. We got to see hawks, turkey vultures, pelicans, owls, and a few more breeds as well!

My favorite part was definitely seeing the tiny owls hovering in their cage. The poor things were orphaned when their tree was cut down!

Thanks for reading!

Vegas And An Upgrade!

 Hey! It's been a while, eh? Well, I've been busy! We were getting a new home. We now have a room for me and Ethan plus more living space. I guess we have a bunch of storage now, too. And it's a trailer! No more big mountains in the RV!

 We knew it was time to return to Vegas and see our grandma. We picked her up at the airport after setting up the trailer.  We met her in the Rio Hotel/Casino. We had a great view of the pretty city lights and the pools, which were unfortunately closed for the season. One day, my mom and dad went  off to meet with Penn and his wife. Later, after a lazy day alone with grandma, we got invited, for free, to the Penn & Teller show. We met them backstage after the show, too!

After Vegas, we drove to Amarillo. It was freezing and we were miserable. We did some boring DMV stuff for the RV, too.

Now we are in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It's much nicer here, weather wise.

 We were exhausted! Well, anyway, please be sure to look out for more blogs by Erin and goooooodbye!

Plant-Based Eating & Climate Change

Let me just start this off with saying that my family and I already try to lessen our harmful impact on the environment. We bring our own bags to the grocery store, we use stainless steel straws when we can, and, most importantly, we eat plant-based foods.

Yes, you read that correctly. Greenhouse gases are basically one-way heat portals. When the warmth from the sun beams down on Earth, the greenhouse gases trap the heat inside the atmosphere. That ultimately leads to the entire globe heating up, melting icecaps and glaciers, killing animals and forcing them to move, etc. Climate change can also cause a new harshness in natural disasters. Hurricanes, tornados, floods and storms can become far worse than they used to be, causing more damage to our homes and belongings. People could die from the severe weather conditions that are arising. There is so much we can do to make sure that our planet doesn't turn into a puddle of slush. Okay, maybe it won't be THAT bad, but we could slow this process down! One of the best ways is eating healthy.

 www.theguardian.com has an article that states that a vegan or vegetarian diet has about half of the carbon footprint of a meat-loving diet. A plant-based diet will be sure to emit less carbon, a greenhouse gas, far less than meat. When you raise an animal like, say, a cow, they emit about 1/7 of our earth's greenhouse gases. Of course, it's all those gassy animals combined to make up so much of Earth's greenhouse gases. Red meat is especially harmful. I know, it may be hard to give up your favorite sirloin steak, or an afternoon of fried chicken, but ultimately, it will help lower greenhouse gases in the long run.

Of course, eating healthily is not going to put a plug in the greenhouse gases, far from it! Even if almost 8 billion people could afford to make the switch AND choose to go with it, it'd only remove 14.5% of the greenhouse gas effect. It will take more than fruits and veggies to stop climate change.

Thanks for reading this! Comment below on 1 way YOU help the environment!

Career Project

We've been relaxing in Port Aransas, TX, for about 3 months now. My parents got my brother and I a tutor. She has recently decided that she is too busy to come to us anymore, her reason being that she is very busy. She gave us a project a couple of weeks before her departure, however. The objective: Choose a career you are interested in, and write a 7 paragraph paper on it (However, I'm not sure the conclusion counts as a "paragraph"!) So I wrote mine on the topic below!

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I might be interested in becoming an Animal Curator, or a curator that works for a zoo/aquarium. A curator is the brains of the operation, or at least a section of it. They tend to all of the animals' needs, such as food, health, training, breeding, environment, and even emergencies. Most of the time, curators will need at least a 4 year degree in zoology, biology, or a related field. A master's degree is preferable in those fields, however. Curators are typically available at any time in order to care for their creatures' needs. They may control the whole place, or just a part of it. Curator is only 1 level of progress, though. If they work hard enough, they can officially become the director of the entire workplace! These people might ALREADY practically own the building, but that depends on size and location.

The place you choose to work is key. Choosing a bay or an area near water may contribute to the type of building you have. For example, you may study marine biology if your work is near an ocean, or tropical birds in a rainforest environment. Speaking of environments, you have the ability to upgrade your skills based on what kind of animals you have and your workplace. You may learn how to train dolphins to do backflips, or teach macaws to land on a shoulder. There's no shortage of possibilities in this career choice! Curators are also fortunate enough to be able to choose who they work with. They get to hire the staff for their branch of research. Maybe they'll hire some trainers for the birds, or doctors for the medical department. Surprisingly enough, curators only get paid an average of $53,000 per year. That's not a whole lot for running the show!

 Animal curators must have the skills to communicate properly with their coworkers. They have to know how to speak clearly and in a way that their employees will understand. Plus, if they need money, they may need to write a grant. Writing grants takes a lot of effort, and you must make sure that your grammar is proper.

Curators must measure out lots of animals' food daily. They must know how much to feed them, and how much each animal weighs. They must have a medical staff to help them with their animals' dietary needs. For example, a sloth might be 8 pounds over the average weight. The curator must figure out how much to feed that sloth daily to get it back to a healthy weight. Plus, it helps to be able to manage your finances!

Curators will want to be able to help the building grow and succeed, so they will need the skills possible to make good decisions. They may need to decide on a new tank to add in, or something larger like how much money to loan from a bank. Social studies can help people learn about their local landmarks as well. I mean, it doesn't hurt to know your area's history! Curators also need diplomatic skills to make sure their staff is getting along.

 For someone to be an animal curator, they must know a lot about animals. They must know tons of biological knowledge about all of the animals they work with. They must know this because in their job, not only will people be asking questions about them, but they have to understand what foods their animals can eat, their breeding habits, the proper people to hire to work with specific animals, etc. They must be prepared to answer any question and deal with most situations.

 I'm still fascinated by this career. I love animals, and taking care of them would be cool. I'd have to research quite a bit though!

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Thanks for reading my blog! Stay tuned for semi-usual-not-really-often blogs, coming up sometime in the future!

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! 

Attractions In Texas

One thing about Texas is that it has so many places to visit. One of the places we visited was the Perot Science Museum. My favorite exhibit in the museum was the Sports room. It was very interactive. You could race fast people and animals. We raced a cheetah, which was gone before we put one foot down. It taught you how your body works. Another exhibit was a fossil room, where you could learn about extinct animals. Again, it was very interactive. Ethan and I could create prey or predator and fight each other. The prey had to defend itself against the predator, whatever it might be.

Next, we went to the Melting Pot for my birthday dinner. It was a marvelous fondue restaurant that we went to with my mom's friend, Kerry. It was my first time having fondue. It was fun because you could cook your meat in the fondue. I had s'mores fondue for dessert!

After Dallas, we traveled to Houston. While we were there, we went to the Space Center. We learned about the moon landing with Apollo 11. We saw some real spacecrafts, and we got to go into a cargo plane and a space shuttle. I had 2 favorite parts: a Mars presentation and a science presentation. The Mars presentation talked about the rovers and how we will get a human on Mars by 2040. The science presentation was about air pressure in space and what would happen to different objects without air in space. 

Now, we are in Corpus Christi, and we are enjoying the weather and beach. Stay tuned for more blogs by Erin.

The 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

We went to John F. Kennedy's museum in Dealey Plaza. Here is what I learned.

JFK was born on May 29, 1917. His parents were Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose F. Kennedy. John had 8 other siblings. He was not a very healthy baby. John suffered from diseases as an infant, such as whooping cough, measles, and chicken pox. He was almost 3 years old when he suffered from a life-threatening disease. About a month later, he was better.

September 12th, 1953, John married Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. 7 years later, he became the president of the USA. He was big on civil and equal rights. His blunder was when he tried to invade Cuba. The mission backfired. Cuba attacked back. John prevented a crisis in Cuba. The Soviet Union planted nuclear bombs in Cuba. John sent an army to block the Soviet Union from entering Cuba. After a 13 day standoff, Russia backed down and removed the bombs. John was considered a hero.                                                  
                                         

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

His other famous achievements included the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban and the Space Race.
Russia sent a satellite called Sputnik 1 to orbit the earth on October 4th, 1957. JFK said that we would land someone on the moon in this decade. It didn't happen until 1969.

November 12th, 1963, JFK and his wife arrived in Dallas, Texas. Secret service was there. But, at 12:30 p.m., there was a gunshot. John grabbed at his throat. More gunshots. John fell suddenly. Realization slowly crept in. He was driven to the hospital. John had been shot in the throat and head. The second shot had missed.

The people waiting at the Trade Mart were confused. Finally, the announcement was made 2 priests who were with the President say that he is dead. The official announcement came shortly afterward.

7 witnesses said they had saw a rifle on the 6th floor window. The police closed down the building and went to investigate. They couldn't find the man anywhere. They found a rifle and some food. They scanned the fingerprints and they led to Lee Harvey Oswald. Lee had lived in Russia for 3 years and was a part-time worker at a gun company. The police searched everywhere. Then they got a message saying that a police officer was shot down. They eventually found Oswald in the Texas theater. Lee was shouting, "I didn't shoot no one!" Shortly after Lee was arrested, he was shot. The police found Jack Ruby to be the killer. He was charged for murder.

Overall, I liked the museum. It was very informative. We got to see where Lee camped out. We saw the exact places where JFK was shot. I never knew anything about JFK before this. He died and left his young kids without a father. But, he did have a lot of achievements. I highly recommend that you visit there yourself.

Writing Assignment

I've been doing descriptive writing for one of my homework assignments. Here is my character.

There was once a knight, Sir Finn Ramshorn, who was known for his courage. People also saw that he was kind, helpful, heroic, humorous, and self-effacing. He was pleasant to be around. The townsfolk noticed his long, curly, chestnut hair. His gold-tinted armor shone in the light.Yet, despite his perfect appearance, he was clumsy, and he often tripped. No one ever heard him raise his voice; it was gentle but deep. He was beloved by all.

The Solar Eclipse

We drove 12 hours total, not including stops, to see the total solar eclipse. It was one of the most amazing sights in the world. It was so cool to see the world dim around you! It looked like the moon was eating the sun! It suddenly turned dark in the middle of the day. The cornfields around us turned grey.

We placed ourself in Savanah, Missouri for the eclipse. We thought it would be cloudy, so we drove 4 hours total to Concordia, where, as it turned out, we were right. We managed to see a perfect solar eclipse. Our neighbors at Savanah told us that the clouds had blocked the eclipse.

This was definitely worth the ride. It's a once in a lifetime experience. If you missed it, you can go to Chile on July 2, 2019.

 Stay tuned for more blogs with Erin.

Amish VS Mennonites

This is a report about the similarities and differences of the Amish and the Mennonites.
We were going into our RV campground when we saw people dressed in simple clothes, and they all looked very similar. My dad said, "They look like Mennonites."  My mom and  I were curious about the religion, so my mom decided that I should research it for my homeschool.

Amish and Mennonites are very similar. They both came from the same sect of Christianity called Anabaptists. They both speak Pennsylvania German and/or Dutch. The population of these religions has grown a lot over the years. The reason their population is growing is because they are still having the same number of children as they did in the late 1800s. But the children are now living to adulthood due to better nutrition and healthcare. Both Amish and Mennonite people believe in a peaceful life.  Despite many similarities, they have a few differences.

Let's start with the Amish. Amish are from Switzerland. They have a stricter separation. They believe in no trimmed beards and hooks in eyes instead of buttons. They use horse and buggy transportation, and do not use electricity.

Mennonites are from the Netherlands. They use more modern conveniences, and they have a less strict set of clothing.

Today, I learned about a religion I would have never seen if I hadn't been traveling. We figured out that the people we saw were Mennonites.

Back In Minnesota

We are in Minnesota again! Finally! I am currently at my grandma's house. We have been visiting all of our friends. I got to see Isabelle Castaneda, Abbi Wood, Owen Hogan, Devan Ballantine, Emily Eagen and Allison Eagen. I got to see a lot of my friends at Jessica Ballantine's bonfire party (It was too wet for an actual bonfire).

We went to a ball game with my mom's cousin in the Twins Stadium. But it was so cold we had to go into the Metropolitan club. That's for season ticket holders only!  So it was pretty cool.

We went to a Greek Restaurant called the Mediterranean Cruise Cafe with my Aunt Beth and Uncle Peter that same morning.

My friends were the same to how they always were. They told me about school, plans, and stuff about their lives. I just really enjoyed seeing them, and I will get to see some more soon.

I am at my grandma and grandpa's house right now and it's great to see them again! I missed them so much! We got to see their dog, Missy, again. Missy loses a ball every day! It was also great to see their 4 cats, Sassy, Leo, Twig, and Lizzy!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, stay tuned for more blogs by Erin!

Bees In Need!

Bees are very useful for many things. They are most known for being helpful. They collect nectar from flowers and turn it into honey. Not only is that helpful to the plant, but it is a food for many animals, such as bears and humans. And the pollen from the plant is used to feed larvae (bee eggs).

Bees can come in all sorts of sizes from the tiny stingless bee who's workers are less than 2 millimeters long to the Megachile pluto, the biggest bee of the leafcutter bee, who's females can be up to 39 millimeters long! The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are the Halictidae, or the sweat bees. They are commonly mistaken for wasps or flies.

Bees have a complicated social structure. Bees have different ways to communicate. Honey bees do the “waggle dance talk.” It is used to tell worker bees where food is. The location can be up to 500 ft away! The bee jumps and wiggles on its sisters to get everyone's attention. It then buzzes its wings and wiggles its abdomen vigorously. Here's a video link.

Bees are sadly dying out mostly because of CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder. No one knows quite what it is, if it's disease, mites, neonicotinoid pesticide, or fungal infections. None of these could be deadly by themselves, but combined bees will die out. We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

One of my ideas to help them is to make pesticide specifically for certain types of bugs, as not to attract bees. Another idea is that you could plant flowers in your yard. Don't use pesticide to kill weeds or pests in your garden: You could be killing a hive of bees.

 Bees are unique creatures, helping many today. I think that we need bees in this world, and I hope that we can help them thrive. I hope you learned something today. I hope you enjoyed this blog! Stay tuned for more blogs by Erin!

My Special Assignment

I had to write an assignment on my RV adventures for Mrs. Walker, a teacher at Eagle Ridge Academy. The plan is to have her tutor me. This is the assignment she wanted me to write.

Erin’s Adventures

In May of 2016, my family and I started traveling around the western half of the United States. This essay will discuss how we spent that time, things we saw, and family and friends we visited. I will discuss traveling to national parks, museums, memorials and other highlights. We traveled roughly half of the United States. This essay concerns the adventures we had. I hope to give the reader a sense of what it’s like to live in an RV. I also want to give the reader suggestions for places to visit.

My daily schedule is fairly consistent. For my morning routine, I usually get up at around 7:40. I usually play on my tablet until around 8:00-8:30, unless we have to leave early. On normal days, I start homework. I do math, logic puzzles, reading and typing. I use the following programs online to do this work: Khan Academy for math and history, Puzzle Baron for logic puzzles, ReadTheory for reading and vocabulary, FreeRice for vocabulary, DuoLingo for Spanish, and Typing Adventures for typing. Around 10:30, I have an early lunch. By 11:00, I’m usually done with my solo work. I then play until my dad calls me for history and science. We cover these topics with my brother. When we finish that, my mom sometimes has some more work for me, like a book report or essay. On days where we have to leave the campground, we usually just do math, reading, and Spanish. Sometimes we leave early to drive to a museum or historical site. I usually spend the rest of my day playing. I do math occasionally during the day. Between 5:30-6:30, we eat dinner. At 8:00 or 8:30, we go to bed.

There are a few downsides to the RV, and not seeing my friends is one of them. I still talk with them through email and postcards, so I am still in contact. I also see them on Hangouts. Hangouts is a chat application that allows you to see the person face to face and chat with them. We managed to make a few appointments with some of my mom’s friends. Her friends live all over the United States, so it was interesting to see them. It was fun to hear their accents and pronunciations. Also, I have family in California! I saw my grandpa Bill and my grandma Joy. I had never seen their house in California before! They have two Boston Terriers, George and Rosie. We’ve seen my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Even though I don’t get to see my friends in real life, I do get to see family all over the country. Since we've returned to Minnesota, we have seen some of my friends already!

One of the upsides to the RV is that we get to see so many animal and nature encounters. Two of my favorite hikes were to bodies of water. The first was with my cousin, Jake. We hiked one and a half miles to some gorgeous hot springs, with a small cave under a waterfall. The second hike was to Punch Bowl Falls in Oregon. We hiked to a waterfall with a wide but shallow stream. It had a hollow tunnel, and we were able to walk into it. On a different day, my mother and I went to the San Diego Safari Park and Zoo. We bought tickets for the “meet and greet” at the cheetah run. The cheetah run is a program where you watch a cheetah and its dog friend chase after their favorite toy. The meet and greet was where the cheetah comes into the enclosure that we were in with two leashes on. The cheetah was only about a foot away from me! We got to take our picture with the cheetah and the dog. It was looking straight at me! We also saw the ringtail lemurs active, which is apparently pretty rare. They came out on the path very close to us. They dug in the bushes rapidly, with their tiny paws scratching at the dirt. One of them even climbed the wall to look over at the other lemurs in a separate enclosure.

In addition to outdoor activity, we've been visiting many museums and memorials. My top two museums are the mustard museum and the technology museum. The mustard museum talked about the history of mustard and showed all the mustards made by different states and countries. It was silly, because it was more like a shop than a museum. The tech museum is an interactive museum in San Jose. There was an earthquake simulator, a jetpack simulator, spy missions, password testers, and other awesome gadgets. We built a robot that you could customize with lights and hats. That was my favorite museum! My favorite memorial was the Oklahoma Bombing Museum. I hated the actual story of how everyone died, but I liked how willing people were to help. The outside area had the memorial with 901 and 903. 901 represented innocence. 903 represented healing. In the middle, 902 was a lake where the bomb hit.

We've worked pretty hard at some of our activities. We went on an 11 mile hike to the Dungeness Lighthouse in Washington. It took almost 3 hours each way! It was on sand, so that made it worse. We also went on a 12 mile bike ride, 6 miles each way. We hiked up to see the top of Mt. Rainier in Washington. Mt. Rainier is the tallest mountain in the Cascade Mt. Range But it turned out to be really foggy! I drank ice water out of a stream there.

That was my essay on some of the adventures that I had. I hope to have given the reader a sense of what it's like to live in an RV. I hope to have given the reader suggestions for places to visit. I hope to have pleased the reader.

World War One Museum

Today we went to a cool museum about World War I. I hope you enjoy!

A lot of people didn't like the way things were going. Prince Ferdinand of Austria was assinated, so Austria wanted to investigate. Serbia didn't want them spreading bad news, Austria declared war. It then set off a chain reaction. Britain, Germany, Russia, France, and others started declaring war on each other. And so it started. They brought allies into the war as it got harder. 

Here are some things I learned about the war: People dug trenches to hide from gunfire. The trenches were in the mud. The reason mud is bad is because they got diseases from it and they got buried in it.The museum had exhibits to show what different trenches from different countries looked like. They used cannons and tanks. They had rows of all the cannons and a huge old-fashioned tank. It also showed some of the clothes that they would wear. Women started to get included in work such as nursing and farming. They had a field of poppies at the beginning to honor those who died.

It was horrible as one of your friends died by your side and sprayed blood all over you muddy coat. Bullets fire straight past you. You get knocked out and you wake up on a solid bed with a nurse leaning over you injecting anesthesia into you. In other cases you could be dead. It was hard for the soldiers who were dodging bullets and hiding, not to mention that they also have to shoot back.

We also saw a crater made by a cannon. It was so big you could stand in it. You could probably fit a family of ten there. You could see outfits, trash, and bags all buried in the rubble.

Oh, and we went to the top of a huge tower behind it all. We saw the gorgeous Kansas City, MO. It was pretty with the vast buildings and the faint hills behind them.

Overall, I loved that museum. It was historical but fun at the same time!

If you enjoyed this little blog, then make sure to check out my other blogs. Stay tuned for more!