Yesterday, after I had written my post I started to think about the title of my blog “Laila’s Letters”. Shouldn’t my posts be more in the form of letters if my blog is Laila’s Letters? I think it should, and it would be more fun to write that way, so I am going to start writing it that way, in the form of letters.

Monday, December 28, 2009

One more week of freedom, I think that it is a great way to put it, freedom, and school sometimes just seems like torture. Well New Years Eve is coming and I know that I have plans with family friends. These are friends that we have gotten together many other times for New Years Eve, staying up late to watch movies, play games, eat and talk, that’s what you do when you’re with friend’s right? Or even go places, but in a way it is too cold for that right now. With these particular friends we have done many things, we used to live by each other 7 ½ years ago, we have gone to rodeos, gone out to dinner, gone to cabins/lodges in St. George, have gone to Disney on Ice, Salt Lake on many occasions and many more places.

I have never realized how many different places we have been with them until I started writing this. We, my family, have so much fun with them, they have kids that are close to our age and it makes it fun, that way we aren’t bored to death. Friends mean so much to me and have a great influence on my life. This family is the perfect example of good friends, they are a fantastic family and I know that whenever my family is with them we have a great time and don’t like having to leave. I don’t even know if this is making any sense, but I want to write about friends.

Everyone in my family is my friend, they just are without question. Then there are my friends in my neighbor hood and my friends at school, my friends at school are like life savers for me. They always make me feel like I fit in with them and they are always kind to me. I always have a lot of fun with them, in the parties that we hold, during school, or even just hanging out. We always have something to laugh about and we always have a caring touch. My school friends are a perfect example also of great friends. You know how every one is always saying when you go to Jr. High to pick good friends, well that is exactly what I have done and I am happy with my friends at school. I hope that next year in High School I will be able to pick good friends also. I know that I am going to have to learn to have that much fun with my friends in my neighbor hood as I do with my friends at school. It will be a challenge for me to do that but I know that I will over come the problems that I have with my neighbor hood friends, but I am really thankful for my friends at school for the way they are. Friends are a really big influence, so pick the right friends.

One more week of no school before going back and I think that I am going to enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Laila

Christmas Vacation/ Winter Break

Christmas has come and gone and now the New Year is coming. I have had a great week, the week of Christmas, I have enjoyed every minuet of the week. Only one more week of no school and then we have to go back to school. I don’t want to but oh well, I guess I better finish my homework this week too. This past week my family and grandparents have been playing games, watching movies and eating, as my dad puts it. It was a lot of fun, my family goes to a movie every Christmas Eve morning, the movie my family chose was The Princess and the Frog, it was a fun movie, interesting with the voodoo, it was weird every time the voodoo guy appeared on screen. It was a really cute movie, a day or two before that my mom, little sister, grandma and I went to a movie for fun, a girl’s night in a way. The movie we went to was Julie & Julia; I loved that movie that was a great movie. I was mad though in the end that Julia was so rude, I mean it was rude of her to act that way, though I won’t say any more for those of you who haven’t seen it and want to see it. Still though I like it and Amy Adams did a really good job.


Another movie my family and grandparents watched was the John Adams movie, it is a long six of seven segment movie, but it is fantastic. I absolutely loved it, it was about John Adams and his life and one reason I loved it so much is because I love American history, especially that period of time, John Adams was a pretty amazing man. Actually, my grandparents and I stayed up late last night to finish the last two segments because they are leaving today to go home and my grandpa and grandma wanted to finish it before we left. So I went to be late, but enjoyed the movie a lot. My family also watched Night at the Museum 2, Bed Time Stories, Love finds a Home, Prince Caspian, Elf, Polar Express, While you were sleeping, and the fifth season of Monk, maybe a few others also, I just don’t remember the rest if we watched more. The movies that we watched were either movies we got for Christmas or movies that my grandparents had never seen before. Yes I know that it is a lot of movies, but when it is cold out side what else is there to do, though we also ate and played many games. We stayed up late many nights after the movies to play games, like Phase 10, Geo/derby, Jenga and then Wii games. It was a lot of fun, my grandparents and my parents stayed up later then all of us kids to play Phase 10 over and over, because that is a fun, competition at full blast game.

Oh, it is the Christmas break! Or what ever they call it, the Winter break, but it is the break and it makes me happy. I only have a little homework, well now that I’m thinking about it I do have homework in Geometry, Geography and Biology. Oh boy, that will be fun, but I have two weeks to do my big projects so I will be fine. My grandparents got in town Friday afternoon and we have been having a lot of fun lately, getting ready for Christmas and everything. We have been watching the fifth season of Monk too, we have been laughing so hard even if we have seen some of them already. I love that show and I am sad that the season is over now. The TV. show is great and always has me laughing, like the one where the guy who is Mr. Monk’s doctor of something is going to retire. That one is hilarious. The last show of the eighth season to end the whole show was great, I am still mad though that it is ending. I really enjoyed that show. Another funny show was 1 vs. 100, which was a good show, just a funny show. Really, I don’t even know where this post is going I just needed something to write about and I guess it is a whole bunch of random subjects. Plus my subjects go from one to another. Well, I guess I will try to make more sense for the last half of my blog.


Like I could write about how bad I am at writing! I am a horrible writer; it is just not something that I am good at. I mean I like coming up with stories but I am not talented at writing them down on paper. My grammar, punctuation, everything about it is wrong, the way I word things, the voice, I just can’t get it right. My dad’s job is a writer, he is good I can just tell you that, he can edit my papers so well; I mean he finds all the little details. I like making up stories, using my mind to catch others, but when you put it on paper it never comes out the right way. It always goes wrong, never the way I though it would turn out and even sometimes worse. If you asked one of my friends to edit my work they would find many mistakes, writing just isn’t one of my talents. I wish it was, but it just isn’t even if I work hard at it.

I’m good at lots of things, I guess, at least that is what my parents say, they are always trying to encourage me to keep at it and give it my best effort. Some of those things would be piano, drawing and photography. I love taking pictures of the outdoors, I would love to have my own studio one day, and take pictures out in the open. I love drawing landscapes too, they are so detailed that it challenges me, which is a good thing, and I also love drawing animals. Piano is just another thing I love to do, the music and how pretty it sounds, it just all makes my day, unless I have trouble with a piece.

What??

How about going somewhere new? I wish I could right now, it would give me a break from school. I wish I could see the world, go places no one has ever been or seen. I remember when one of my friends and I were little we always wished that we could search the world for new birds. We would be bird watchers, take care of injured, and feed those in need and keep an eye on the endangered ones. We always thought that would be fun, to watch them fly and every thing. Those were just our little girl wishes, but now I don’t know what I want to be at all. I always thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher. I always thought that was what I was going to do. Now I don’t know what I am going to do in the future at all. I thought about being a photographer, or artist, then even a landscape designer. I have no idea. I just can’t decide what to pick, but then who said I had to know what I want to be in the future. Really no one said that but the counselors at school are always pressuring us to decide for the future, that way we aren’t dumb and we have something to work for. Though what if we don’t know what we want to be. I don’t know and technically don’t think that I should know what I want to be when I grow up right now. In ways I think that it is ok too. There are so many things I could be I just have to find that. I have a lady in my neighbor hood that said that she went to college to be a teacher and when she was about done with school she decided she didn’t want to be a teacher and wanted to be a photographer and there is nothing wrong with that. I think it would be fun to be a photographer, to take family pictures, individual pictures, pictures taken inside and outside in different scenes, if that made any sense. Though, then I also think that it would be fun to design landscapes or even draw landscapes around the world. To get different ideas around the world and then bring them here for others to enjoy, I love drawing trees flowers and mountains, so it would be a job that I would enjoy. Then getting back to when I was little, I also thought it would be fun to own a restaurant. To cook yummy, delicious foods, I love cooking and I think that cooking would be fun, though I never want to work at a fast food restaurant, it would have to be a sit down, nice restaurant. I don’t know any more, what I want to be, but it would be fun to do all of those choices I said. One important thing though would be that I would have to enjoy what ever job I had and at least be a bit good at it.

Education

Two more weeks of school and then it is Christmas vacation!!! Wow I cannot wait, I have so many plans with family and friends, and I am just looking so forward to it. Plus I already have my list of Christmas presents that I am buying for my family and friends. Though we still have two more weeks of school left and those two weeks could last forever or they could pass by quickly. Which I hope that they pass by quickly, that way I can do all that I have planned with some of my friends and with my family.



School sure has been different this year. It’s been harder this year, which I thought it would be, though I have to do my homework right when I get home or I never get it done. Though I don’t like doing my homework, it just isn’t fun for me, I mean some homework that teachers give is fun and others are what we students seem to think is pointless. Though I guess we have to do our homework if we want and education, if we want to graduate. In Young Women’s our lesson was about education and I guess that it made me think more about my education more seriously. One of my problems about homework is that when I get home I will go straight to a book and then I don’t stop until I have to go eat dinner. Then it’s already late and I still have to do my homework. My homework is like an addiction, I have to set a time limit or I will never stop reading at times. In some ways that is good and in other ways it isn’t.


I have been told by my grandparents on both sides of my family that education is very important. They ask at the end of the term what my grades were and always tell me to keep it up. To remember how important an education is and that it will help me in my life when I’m older. My parents always get after me too when I say I don’t like school or I had a hard time on a test, though when I say that they always come up with a way to help me so that I will do better on the next one. They always ask me every night if I have done my homework and they always help me if I need help on an assignment. If my parents can’t help me with an assignment they always have someone else who can. I mean my parents don’t do my homework for me, they help me, but they make me put all the effort in my assignments, they guide me and make sure that I know how to do it the next time it comes up.


So with all my help I guess I can’t complain that much about school. Even though it is not my favorite thing in the world I still have to do it and I am sure that I will benefit from it later in life.

Wow, my break sure wasn’t what I expected it to be like. That is another story though. I was just watching The Man from Snowy River. It has to be one of my favorite movies. I love the music in the movie also; I know how to play Jessica’s Theme from the movie. It is a fun and beautiful song to play on the piano. The story is really good, and a little note, I love horses. They are so beautiful, the way they look. Horses are just wonderful animals, unless you get hurt. A funny thing is that there is this little girl in my neighbor hood and she looks exactly like Jessica in the movie, hair and everything. I don’t like the second movie though; it was just a waste of time. They should have gotten married in the end of the first movie or at the beginning of the second, so the second one wasn’t my favorite.



I was also reading Pride and Prejudice this weekend. I really like that book, and I also like the movies, they are both really good. The book is a little confusing but I know the story line so it isn’t that bad. The way it is a little bit of confusing is because the writing is different. It’s not like the writing I usually read in books, though I think that Jane Austen is a good writer. I have seen a few of the movies based off her books and they are really good.


Some thing that made my holiday break better was that BYU won!!! I was babysitting and watching the game at the same time. Though the kids that I was babysitting wanted to watch the game because they are big BYU fans, there whole family was wearing BYU shirts. It was an exciting game with it going over time and then BYU ending up winning by three. It was an exciting and fun game. The thing that made me mad was that we were winning by 11 and then Utah caught up and made it go overtime. Though winning in the over time didn’t bug me at all. I was just glad that BYU won the game. I think that it is funny how everyone gets wild and everything when it is BYU vs. Utah. In my neighbor hood it gets really entertaining. This time of year gets our neighborhood laughing. It is all good though.


As I was saying that this break was different. I really meant it, it wasn’t at all how I thought it was going to turn our. I am really looking forward to the Christmas holiday; I can just tell you that. Plus I have written that in a few previous posts. This time of year is a time for joy, laughter and so much more. Now I am looking really forward to the Christmas break, even though the Thanksgiving one just ended. My Thanksgiving wasn’t that bad, it was just different. I had a really good time with being with most of my family, and I can’t wait for the next holiday!

Only two more days of school and then its Thanksgiving break, or fall break as they call is now I think. I cannot wait for these two days of school to just zip right by. I am ready for a break from school. I guess I am really tired of all the projects, tests, assignments and other things that are due. I am ready for a holiday to just enjoy. I mean this weekend has just zipped right by, I woke up this morning thinking, it’s already Sunday! This weekend was too short. I guess it was because I always had something to do and I was never bored. I’ve worked on homework this weekend, I’ve gone to two basket ball games, I went to the movies last night with Drue, and I watched to movies with my family on Friday night. The two movies I watched with my family were Batman and Evelyn. I don’t remember what number of Batman we watched, but I like that movie so it was good. Then we watched Evelyn. That was a good movie. It was also sad at the same time. It was about this little girl who sees her mother get into a car with another man and drive away. So she runs to tell her father and the two of them try to go after her but can’t. Then the Ireland government, they live in Ireland, takes away this mans little girl Evelyn and his two boys. He has to fight really hard to get them back and in the end he falls in love with one of his lawyer’s sisters. It was a really good movie, and sad at the same time for some of the things that happened. This was an extremely short weekend and I just hope that it doesn’t go by too fast. Then after the Thanksgiving break, three weeks later, it is Christmas break which I can’t wait for. I am so excited for the up coming holidays. I’m already listening to Christmas music on the radio, though I have to get through school first. I also can’t wait for the New Year, and this is why, Fablehaven 5 is coming out around May and I love those books. Those books are so good. Full of adventure, fun danger, heart aches (which I was really mad about) and more, they are great books. On the heart aching part this is what I mean, when Gavin turned out to be the bad guy. I was so mad. That is disappointing, but it did make the book good, but still I was mad about that part. But then Kendra did meet Raxtus, who is the dragon but can change into a fairy also. So in a way he is fairy kind too, just like Kendra. Other wise the book was excellent. Though my brother didn’t think they were that great of a book. I am still trying to get him to finish the fourth book. I mean with each new book they get better and better. I mean my cousin who is in High School; I think either 10th or 11th loves the books. Oh well, but ya those books are great.

I haven’t written yet because I wanted to write about the fireside I just got back from. It was with the author of Christmas Jars, Jason F. Wright. He was a fantastic speaker. I mean every one in the room felt something and at the same time it was a funny talk. He knew just how to catch our attention and make us smile.

What made me smile the most was when he looked at the audience, of which the chapel was full, then said well you must have been told that John Bytheway. It got the audience. We all started laughing, he was so nice and he was just great. He told us a few stories about how his book Christmas Jars has influenced many. He told us some of the letters and e-mails he has gotten. They were amazing. It is amazing all the trial people have gone through and then some one brings the Christmas Jar and it is a whole new world. He explained that to us to. About even if we do small things it will influence many. The stories really shocked me. The one that made my eyes get watery was about a five year old boy. He had gotten headaches and the doctors said that it was probably just growing pains. Well it then got worse, worse enough that he had to go to the emergency room. He had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Then he was in operation with in a few hours. He had cancer for around a year, then when he went to one of his check ups the doctors had to say that there was nothing else they could do. The family took the boy home and they spent there holidays in the living room around him. On Christmas Eve the door bell rang. The family answered it and on the door step they found two jars full of change and cash. With the jars there was a note that said that the money was for the five year old boy. The boy didn’t want to keep it; he wanted to give it to Primary Children’s Hospital, so that they could replace the broken toys. A while later he died. Though ever since that the family has done a Christmas Jar in remembrance of there son.


It was a really good story, though Jason F. Wright went into more detail. The fireside was really good and I learned a lot. It makes me want to do more service and be less greedy. It made me have the desire to do more, give more. So on the ride home my mom and I were talking about the project I am going to do for National Honors Junior Society. I can’t wait to start my project for it; it is going to be so much fun. Though I can’t start for a while because I have to do school term projects and finish all my big homework assignments before I can start. Which is going to take awhile, I can just tell you that.

Piano

I really don’t know what to write about. I remembered that I hadn’t written on my blog for the week at 8:00 pm Sunday night. Isn’t that just wonderful? And right now I am trying to figure out what to write about. When I remembered that I hadn’t done my post yet I was playing the piano.



I have been playing the piano since I turned 8 years old. My first piano teacher was a family friend from Clearfield, but it took to long to get there after school, so I had to switch my piano teacher to a family friend that lived really close, a lot closer in fact. I have been taking lessons from her from when I was around 8 and a half to 9 years old. Though this year, I have had to stop taking lessons from her because she had a lot going on in her life at the moment.


So for now I am teaching my self in a way and practicing on my own, just picking random songs out of my piano books. Three of my four brothers are also playing the piano too. My youngest brother wants to start lessons soon, which he is almost eight any ways. Also my little sister, who is five years old, has been begging to start lessons also.


A funny thing about my brothers also playing the piano is that my oldest brother who is two years younger then me is trying to pass me up in piano. So we are trying to get our songs mastered so that we can go to the next levels in piano. The thing that makes me nervous is that he is only one level behind me. I need to be practicing more to stay ahead of him. To help me get better I have been trying harder songs to test myself.


Though I do not like practicing the piano at all, I dread it so bad. I like playing the piano just for fun, not to get songs passed off. I do better at my playing when I am doing it for fun. When I am doing it to get songs passed off in my books I always forget to practice or just don’t want to do it at all.


I have done some really fun songs and some really boring slow songs. I mean I like the slow songs, but not when the notes don’t go together and sound horrible together. Then I play really fun songs and I end up loving them. Loving them enough that I master the songs and I then have the songs memorized. I love playing the piano. I love to learn songs that I have heard before and play them enough to master them. I like to play songs that I can sing too. I love music, but I only like the music that is appropriate and beautiful. Not the dumb music that swears and has inappropriate words to it. I like the music that has meaning and teaches things that are good.

St. George Memories!

Many people wouldn’t consider going to St. George as a vacation, but our family does it every year. It doesn’t even matter what time of year it is. It’s crazy, that is what some people might say, but our family enjoys it. Why, well we have a lot of family that lives in St. George. I have cousins of every age (except old) that live there so it makes it fun to be around everyone, each person having their own characteristics. It is the Jenkins side of my family that lives down there. I have many stories that I could tell from going down there. One that my cousin Sierra and I will always remember is when we went to my grandparents’ house. The two of us went there for a sleep over and boy did we have every thing planned. We had gotten permission from Sierra’s brother to take his rubber spider, which looked just like a real spider. So the spider was Davis’ spider. Now just a little background about the Jenkins, it is the grandchildren’s tradition to always scare our grandma with fake bugs and snakes, all of us do it. Back to my story now, so we get there and we decide to watch a movie. At the Jenkinses’ residence there are always movies. We watched this one movie that my grandma had, it was about some singers, I don’t know exactly it was a long time ago, and with the movie we had popcorn. Then we got ready for bed. We were really good by getting ready for bed without any complaints just like our parents’ had said to be. When we got in the guest bed room and shut the door we couldn’t stop giggling. We couldn’t wait until morning. We had a plan for it and we were going to stay to schedule. If you made a plan yours wouldn’t have been this good I can tell you that. We woke up at 6:00 am just as we had planned; my grandma likes to sleep in late, and waited until we heard the front door shut as my grandpa left for work. We then scurried to my cousin’s luggage to get the fake spider out. We then crawled to into my grandparents’ bedroom, opening the door very quietly. The grandchildren’s joke was to put the spider in our grandma’s slippers. We did just that, putting it in one of the slippers and making sure that its legs and everything were showing. We then left the room crawling as fast as we could, into the living room. Then we hurried to clean up the mess we made the night before. While we were doing this all of a sudden we heard a scream. It was my grandma, we ran into her room and saw her screaming, looking down at her slippers. We laughed the whole time and as we walked into the kitchen with her. Then as we sat down at the counter my cousin and I smiled and said that we deserved breakfast in bed. We sure were our grandma’s favorite grand children. I mean if all the grandma’s in the world knew what we did we would be all of their favorite grandchildren. My cousin and I had a lot of fun that morning. Though we have done many different pranks since then to many different other people in our family. Like the lizard that my brothers and boy cousins let into my grandparents house, and the sand that my little two year old cousin put a shovel full of sand into his dad’s swimming suit at the beach. All of the grandchildren like to do silly things.

The end of the term is finally here! I have been waiting for it for ever. The only thing that makes me made though is that one of my grades is lower that it’s been through out Jr. High. Though what I am happy about is my French grade is and A, when last year it was either an A- or a B+. Now though its and A! Only three more terms to go and then the school year is over. That seems like it’s a long time away but when you really think about it, it isn’t really that far away at all.


Ok so my weekend has been so busy. So after school on Friday I get home and do a bit of homework and relax. At 7:30 I had to go babysit for some of my neighbors and I didn’t get home until past midnight! I was so tired and slept in till 8:00 in the morning, which I don’t like to sleep in because it always makes me feel lazy. So I wake up Saturday morning and my littlest brother has a basket ball game, so my dad, who it his coach, and my other brothers go to the practice. When they got home my family does yard work until around 12:30 to 1:00 o’clock, and you should see what we did. My brothers and I start raking up all the leaves in the back yard, because we have two huge cotton trees, we finish and go on to do other things in the yard. When we were finished with the yard we look around the trees and there are leaves all over. While we were doing yard work leaves were falling, though the good thing is my dad said we’d just wait until Monday and rake again when there were more leaves on the ground. The thing that bugs me about the trees though is that when the leaves fall off it seems as though the leaves just grow right back, because the leaves are all over the trees. Also even though they don’t grow back in those few seconds it sure does feel like that.

After doing yard work we got to take a break and rest. Then my family left to one of my other brother’s comp. basket ball game. It was one of the most intense games I have ever been too. The team they played to Saturday night was a team they played last year and lost by two points. Well through out the whole game they were either tied or like five ahead. The last quarter the other team starts to be either tied or ahead. We lost by ONE point. I couldn’t believe it, last year we lost by two points and this year we lost by one point. It was a good game other wise, lots of good plays, there were also a lot of fouls, some of which they didn’t call which made me mad. So after the game my family gets home around 8:12 and we do a few things getting ready for Sunday, then we watch one of our family’s favorite shows that comes on at 9:00 Saturday nights. The show is MONK, I love that show, and it is a blast to watch. I mean you laugh all the time during that show from all the funny things that Mr. Monk does, and how he acts. It is just a fun show to watch. That may not sound that busy to some people but to me it was.

It was still a good weekend though, lot’s of fun and other stuff.

Christmas!

I am writing this on the day it is due and it makes me really mad. I am mad because I was planning to do this on Friday but I totally forgot. When I remembered was Sunday morning the day it’s due. After I realized that I began to think about what I wanted to write about. This is what I came up with.

Lately I have been thinking about the holidays coming up. I mean Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the coming of a new year. This time of year is packed with different holidays and different reasons. I have been thinking about holidays a lot lately, but mostly Christmas. For one reason, I have Christmas songs stuck in my head like crazy. I can’t wait for Halloween to be over (sorry to you Halloween lovers, I’m not one of those) my grandparents from St. George are coming for the Christmas holidays. I haven’t been able to celebrate Christmas with these particular grandparents for quite a few years (it’s actually been 9 years since we’ve had Christmas dinner with them). So I am really excited to have Christmas with them because I don’t even remember having Christmas dinner with them. Though there is one thing that we try to do every December with all the girl cousins in our family. This is what we do, we have my grandpa take all the boys and adult men some where while the girls stay at my grandparent’s house. We then, with our moms, sisters, girl cousins and of course our grandma, we make ginger bread houses. It is so much fun; we make our own with our own special designs. We have the most important thing for ginger bread housed with us too. Lots and lots of candy, M&M’s (our family favorite) candy canes, peeps, marshmallows, chocolate Santa’s, Dots, frosting to cover the houses and make the candy stick. With a whole lot more candy too (I just can’t remember all the names). Though there is a sad thing we don’t always get to do it every year because my family lived here and a lot of my cousins live in St. George. Though if I am with my other side of my family we do fun things too, like I remember we went sledding when I was younger. We play out in the snow, play games and have a huge dinner. When I say huge I really mean it. We have a lot of fun during the Christmas holidays, and I love them a lot. The music like I said before are stuck in my head, I caught myself singing them in my bed room. I have been looking at my families Christmas piano books. When I am not thinking about school I’m thinking about Christmas because I can’t wait. The bad thing though is we still have Halloween and Thanksgiving before Christmas comes. Besides those two holidays still to come we also still have school, school, and more school. That is another reason I am excited for Christmas, two weeks off of school. A break I cannot wait for!

In My Father's House

So as I said in my last post I finished Rocket Boys and it was a pretty good book. As soon as I finished that book I started a new one. This time I am reading this book called In My Father's House. It is written by Ann Rinaldi and takes place in the Civil War Era. It’s about this girl named Oscie Mason and her dad dies. Her mom gets remarried and she has a really hard time with it and gives everyone else a hard time. So I am on page 108 and what has just happened is Abraham Lincoln is elected and the people are mad so the war is starting to appear, people getting a bit skittish and really angry at one another. Also her tutor is leaving because battles are starting to appear in a few places. It is a really good book so far, I mean you get to see how life was back then. You get to see how they lived and how it was before the war, politics and all. You see the contention that the war brings to families and how they try to get through. I have never really read any books on the Civil War so this is new for me. I have seen movies on the Civil War, and one of my favorites is Gettysburg. You get to see some sad, but tough battles and you get to learn about real people in the war - not made up characters. The book is 317 pages so I don’t think that it will take me that long to finish it. I am hoping that the ending isn’t sad because I don’t like sad ending books. I am looking forward to learning some more from the book though about the Civil War, and I am sure that the rest of the book will be good.

The Four Day Weekend!

Having the long weekend was really good for me. I really needed the break from school and I got to sleep in, which I also needed. The bad thing is though I got sick over the break and I still am sick, otherwise it was good. I had a good time going to the movies with my family, finishing my book Rocket Boys for Biology. The book actually wasn’t that bad, I mean I learned a few things that I didn’t really learn from the movie. The movie is also really good. I got to do some yard work with my family ( some of you might say that working in the yard wouldn’t be fun), but I had a good time doing it getting to throw away fences that my family had torn out of the yard. I got freaked out by two huge spiders and when I say huge I really mean it. It wasn’t the prettiest sight, though my brothers thought it was funny. I can’t wait for the next holiday break (the day before Halloween), though I do like school and my classes it is nice to have a break from it all every once in a while.

The outdoors

Being in the outdoors is a blast, even if it is doing yard work. I like just being out in the sun, though not on really hot days because then it isn’t enjoyable. Camping in the mountains, going on hikes, bike riding, and exploring are all fun things to do outside. Then there are other things you can do outside like playing games outdoors and going on walks. Those are all things I enjoy doing outdoors. My family goes on hikes a lot in the summer, and it’s always in a new place so that we can see new places. I’ve been on hard long hikes and I’ve been on short easy hikes. Either way its fun, though I do prefer the long hard hikes myself. I enjoy exploring new areas, like whenever my family and I go to this one park we always go into the trees and find new trails or just go random places in the trees. Whenever I go there I always come out covered in dirt and leaves. It’s really fun to go there and be in the trees in flip flops. Why you might ask, well my cousins and I always slip in them, they fall off and them we have to go find them. So I don’t mind getting dirty at all when I’m outside, as long as I can come back inside and clean up. When outside you can do so many things and have so much fun, only if you believe in having fun.

Farms

I love the harvest season. I mean I love seeing the plants grow too, but it is really cool to see the harvesting being done. Having a farm right behind my house I really get to see it in action. The harvest season always smells good. Some people don’t like it but I love the smell of thousands of onions. It just smells so good, and to see all that hard work of the farmers pay off and to look at what they have grown. It is really cool. How the pumpkins get huge, the watermelons, the corn grow tall and then you get to eat this delicious corn, sweet and everything. The wheat waving beautiful in the wind and then harvested, and when the harvest season comes we get to enjoy what has been grown. To eat freshly grown tomatoes, onions and carrots. And others like apples, cucumbers, zucchini and so much more. It’s just a wonderful time of the year. Smelling the freshly grown things and getting to enjoy them is a big thing. I love many things about farms besides the harvest season. Like I said I like the growing season too. I like to look out the kitchen window and look at the farm. Sometimes I’ll just sit there for 20 minuets and just stair outside at the farm. I like to see the plants grow bigger, taller and see the little buds appear. To see the buds grow into fruits and vegetables, and then you get to eat them. (Note: I’m not writing this in the order of the way things grow on the farm.) When there done you seen the farmers and there helpers outside throwing watermelons into a truck or picking up hay bails, its fun to see growth in progress. Even though the preparing the field and planting goes before the other two things I like that too. Then they go over the dirt many times to make sure it’s healthy. Then they plant the seeds or starters and go along the rows planting them carefully. It is really something to see. I just love living right by a farm and seeing everything that happens.

School sure has been different this year. I mean the new schedule and being in 9th grade. It’s a different style for school in a way. Meaning when you have your grades that you are trying to keep up because they count and you being in High School now! You really have to focus in school now. So for me ninth grade is a challenge in a way but fun in another. A few of my classes are easy and others are like really hard and I’m having a hard time keeping my grades good. Like in Biology I have homework almost every night, and the reason for the teacher is because we don’t see her for a whole day so we should have enough time to do it in that extra day of not seeing her. So in a way we have more homework and in another we don’t. We usually have more time in class now to do homework but in some classes the homework is longer now. The good thing about having an extra day to do homework means that I don’t have to stay up so late doing homework. I guess school isn’t that bad, even though I do stress over it sometimes, but I can’t wait for the 4 day week end coming up for a break after about 5 weeks of school. All I am really hoping for this year is that I can keep my grades up and do well in school. This in some ways can be hard, like when grades start to count you have a hard time keeping your grades good. I don’t know, but I guess I’ll live through school.



(Note: this post probably didn’t even make sense.)

The fall season

So last weekend, I think it was Sunday night my family heard loud noises coming from outside. We went out side to look and we saw thousands of seagulls flying by towards California. It was quite a sight. Within the seagulls there were a few geese. When the geese appeared within the seagulls, they scared them a bit and made the seagulls loose there direction, making them scatter in the air. It war really a sight to see. It was so beautiful that night, the blue sky with the white clouds, and there was a slight breeze. It was the perfect temperature, the bad thing though was that there were mosquitos out and I got bitten a few times. I loved it though and I sat and stood out there for around ten minuets, just starring at all the birds and wondering how it is to fly south for the winter. That is another thing, when they were flying south. That is meaning the fall winter season is coming and that is true. The leaves on the tops of the trees are starting to turn colors and the cotton trees is my families yard are already starting to fall off a lot.

The fall season is always so beautiful (even though all the seasons are beautiful), the weather with a chill and the leaves always so colorful instead of green. The leaves covering the ground and with the holidays Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas coming, there is always a lot of fun going on. Though some people might not like the fall season, I love it!

Okay so here is my try at doing the weekly thing…


Reading is a definitely a thing I like to do. I have a book shelf I got two years ago and 2 and a half of the four shelves are full of books. I’ve got 6 books from Sisters in Time, a series, the whole series of the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. All the books in the Fablehaven (accept the last book which isn’t out yet). The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and quite a few other books that are great.

Right now the book I am reading is “Rocket Boys” by Homer H. Hickam Jr. Even though I’m only on like page 17 it’s actually not that hard of a book to get into. It actually has some pretty interesting history and more in it. I have seen the movie “October Sky” and I really liked it so I know the plot but the book goes into more detail about his family and all.

It’s really hard to say more when I’m only on page 17 but for those who haven’t read it here is the story line: In the time of the 1860’s when a group of boys have a dream to launch rockets into space. They made it possible to have that dreams come true. Now a NASA engineer Homer Hickam tells the story of his youth in West Virginia.

So since I’m not that far in my book I’ll write about a few of my favorite books I’ve read so far. Percy Jackson and the Olympians has to be one of my top favorites. It’s about a boy who has dyslexia and finds out that his dad Poseidon the Sea God. The books are about him being chased by monsters and having to go on dangerous missions. He has to meet people who act like friends and turn out to be traitors. He goes through a lot of trouble and has a lot of people hate him just because he’s Poseidon’s son.

Another series that is my favorite is Favlehaven. That is one of the best books I’ve read. It’s about a brother and sister who help there grandparents with keeping there reserve safe. There grandparents, and a few family helpers know about the reserve and see the fairies and other things. There parents don’t know though because there grandparents just think it’s better. There is four books right now, but the author is writing another, the fifth, and I think it is the last book in the series. It is a fun book and full of adventure.

I have also read the whole Work and the Glory series which has nine books and Gerald N. Lund’s new one Undaunted. They are great books and I loved them. Another good book is Inkheart. I haven’t read the other two but I am planning on it. It is a great book about a girl and her dad. She is trying to figure out a lot of things and gets in dangerous situations. So those are some of my favorite books, though I have a lot more I could write about.

Blog Post #1

Hello world!