Christmas Time Already?

Wow it's Christmas time already, how did that happen. I just can't believe the season of Christmas is already here, it seems like thanks giving just finished... oh... wait... it did...

Our house is completely decorated, inside, and out. We always decorate our tree with a whole bunch of different ornaments we have from a whole bunch of different places. Almost everyone pitches in to help put up the decorations.

Here is a picture of our tree. 

And here is a picture of the outside of our house.

Every year my uncle comes over on Christmas Eve to spend the night. On Christmas morning I wake him up and we open our stockings. After that we wake up my Grandparents/parents and watch them open their stockings. When all that's done we get dressed, go downstairs, eat delicious cinnamon rolls that my grandma makes for us.

When we finish we clean up and head over to the tree to open presents. It's a really fun time; getting and watching other people get presents. About 10:30 is when my mom and brothers come over. We keep all their presents in a room upstairs until they come so there will not be so many presents under the tree, which there already are.

After everything is finished I open up some of the things I got and  play with them or build them, like I have to do sometimes. Finally we eat and then enjoy what we got.

But let's not forget the real reason for Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the son of God. This is what I wrote when we lived in Italy.  The Meaning of Christmas

I hope you all have a good Christmas and a happy new year.

Dancing Jingle Goats

Watch this funny video. I laughed so hard I almost lost my head. It's super cute.

To see more, go to : Giggle With the Goats

Thanksgiving 2010

For thanks giving I went up to my grandma's brother's house in Auburn, which is up by Sacramento. I had a lot of fun with my cousins and family. It was a very fun time. I hope I can do it next year too. It took a long time to get up there, and even longer to get back. My uncle has a dog named Patch and my two other cousins have dogs named Aussi and Dexter. The were all friendly, but my favorite one was Aussi. He was my cousin Chris's dog.

Here are pictures of when we were up there. 

 Aussi

 Cousin Jenn

 Uncle Dan

 Playing Cribbage with Uncle Dan and Cousin Chris

 Corrine and Craig

 Aunt Glennis

 Me shooting targets in trees with a paintball gun

I had a really good time there.
bye

Halloween plans and activities

Today for Halloween I am going to go out with my little brothers to help them trick or treat and to make sure they don't  get lost or scared or hurt. I am going to leave with them at about 5 and finish around 6.

After that I am going to go to my friend's house and maybe go trick or treating if we feel like it, we are a bit to old anyway. If we do go, I am going to be a ghost or master of disguise, if the mask gets to hot. For a 12-13 year old, going trick or treating is mostly for all tricking or just getting crazy on candy.

For my costume I am going to wear all black clothes, a black cape and a blue ghost mask with a veil covering my neck.

If you are a parent tell what your kid is going to be, if they are young enough, and if you are going to do anything fun.
See ya

Remember Me

Hi everyone,
 
I meant to do an entry at the beginning of school but I have had so much work that I have not had time to do it. Now I am doing an entry on my great job in school.

I think I have a four point 0, but it all depends on one science test that my teacher needs to grade; it might take a while and it might not get on my first progress report, but I hope it does cause I want a four point 0.

Last year I had a little bit of trouble with math, but this year I am doing great in Advanced Algebra!! I have high A's in all of my classes except for science, for now anyway.

This is Me First Week of 7th Grade

I like all of my teachers, but my science teacher is a little bit different from the others because she is not organized and I like neat teachers!!!!!!!!! (I hope she does not read this!)

My other teachers are really cool especially my Art, History, Math and English teachers. My art teacher is crazy, he always makes jokes, so does my history teacher. My English teacher is nice and he loves Italy like I do. 

I'll keep up more with my blog now on what I am doing in school and other things that happen.


See ya everyone

Amboseli day two

Amboseli was the last place we went to. Our second and third days were a little bit different than the first. Early in the morning the second day my GRANDPA/DAD and I went on a nature walk with a couple Masai men who knew their stuff about the area they live in. I learned many interesting things and saw some really cool stuff, for example:

we learned that Dik diks, on right, leave a little black thick fluid that comes from their eyes on different plants, or something like that, to mark their territory.
Here is one doing what I just explained they do.

We also saw some footprints of Aardvarks, porcupines, and elephants. We also heard some really cool bird sounds and looked at different spider's webs.

Later that day we went on an all day game drive where we stopped for lunch later on at the top of a hill. We drove around looking for things when we saw a big group of elephants with hyenas hanging around them.

They kept creeping up to the elephants, but the elephants chased them away. It turned out that there was a dead hippo behind the elephants that the hyenas wanted to get to. The elephants chased them away because they thought that the hyenas were going after them. We sat there watching for who knows how long. When nothing else happened for a while, we eventually got bored and left.

A little while later we saw hundreds of more elephants in the distance. It was just a huge line of them that never seemed to end.

Driving along some more we happened to come by a couple of ragged looking lionesses looking for water and food. They looked like they were exhausted and could not go on much longer. I had to feel sorry for them, they looked like they hadn't eaten in years.
They did not do very much, but since we had the best seat in the house, meaning we were the closest to them, we stayed and watched for a while.


We headed off to lunch and on the way we saw some hippos and elephants in the swamp water. On top of the little hill we were eating lunch on, we could see birds flying in the distance, hippos in the water, and some little sandstorms in the distance. After I was done eating I still had some leftover bread from the sandwich that I had so I was able to feed the birds around me. There was one that liked me and was brave enough to eat right out of my hand. It was cool because, one, I love birds, and two, they are wild birds not pets or ones from a zoo or something.
After that we started to head back to the lodge. We drove by a pond with storks and spoon bills in it.

Awww, isn't that cute. Those are spoon bills, the one behind them is a stork.

That is it for now everyone, I might not be writing for a while because school is starting tomorrow.
see ya

Amboseli day 1

We drove to Nairobi to an air strip and took a plane that only took four people. The ride was very bumpy because the plane was so small.

The view was amazing, I could see some animals from where we were in the plane. A funny thing is that the bumps were so big, that I thought we were going to fall all the way sometimes, but we didn't.

We landed in the middle of nowhere on a dirt air strip with someone waiting to pick us up. His name was David and he had some drinks and snacks with him for us to have.

I took this. Scherzo.

We drove to the lodge, on the way seeing some Maasai Giraffes.

Notice how the pattern is different than the Reticulated one in Samburu

We also saw some Ostriches. When we got to the lodge, they had warm towels to wash our faces off with and they had some watermelon juice for us to drink. The first night we stayed in a cabin, even thought we were supposed to have a tent which we ended up getting the next day anyway. It was very nice, the whole thing was like it was made by hand, or most of it anyway.

We had gotten there early so we went to the Maasai village near by, which we were going to do the next day. We went with a nice young women named Kimberly, who was from Island of Jersey. She works with the local people around the lodge.

We got there and we were greeted by the Chief, who was very young, because he was voted by his village to be the Chief.

The people greeted us with a dance and then showed us the houses, or huts, that the people lived in, then they showed us how they made fire, and then finally we went to look at some of the jewelry made by the women. We got some things as presents for some friends and I got a bracelet.

After that we went back to the lodge and relaxed for the rest of the day.
I will not be talking about Kenya on my next entry, instead, I will talk about my week in Big Bear Mountain.
bye

Lake Nakuru

We did not do anything the first day because we had to drive all the way to the lodge, the most long and boring trip ever. When we got there we had lunch, but shortly after that we went to the room. It was so cool, there was netting on the  beds and the room was filled with all sorts of bright colors.

It rained all the rest of the day so we did not do anything special, so... off to the next day.

The next and last day at Lake Nakuru was the day we went on a drive in the national reserve, which is known for the tons and tons of Flamingos in the lake. As we drove in we saw several baboons, they were so funny to watch because, unlike the other animals, they did not know to get out of the  way of the vehicle. I was worried that we were going to run over one of them, but we didn't thankfully.

All together that day we saw:

• hundreds of baboons with their little ones playing on some tree roots
• Storks 
• spoon bills
• Rhinos
• all sorts of gazelles and antelopes 
• hippos
• hyenas
• elephants 
• giraffes 
• lions in trees  

• and more...

that is all so I will talk to you people later.

Maasai Mara part 3

The third day started out with a morning game drive at eight o'clock.

This is me freezing to death.

We did not see a whole lot of things but we did see a nice sunrise and a huge herd of elephants all together. There were several babies too. There were ones that were playing and having fun and there were ones that just kept walking along casually with no distractions.

look at the little baby Elephant

These elephants are having a fun time.

After that drive we had all day until about five to enjoy the day and relax until it was time to go on the next game drive, which was the one at five.

I got to go on a walk with the manager of the camp to look for birds and plants and to learn a little bit about them. I learned several things that were really interesting. For instance, gazelles and different animals eat the sodom apple when they have a stomach ache but if we eat them we get a stomach ache.

This is Raymond the manager.

 It was not just a night game drive it was also a sun downer in the middle of the bush near all the animals. It was cool to look around and see everything around you. Our guide had drinks and chips lined up on the hood of his car. We walked around and talked until it started to get a little bit darker. This is what we saw before it got completely dark.

I took this picture too. That is what makes it cool.

It would have been many people dreams come true if they were in my shoes.

When it finally got dark, we set out on our drive. Since it was dark, there was a spot light and I got to be the one who held it and spotted all the animals in the pitch black of the night. Luckily at the Mara, you can not go very long without seeing a bunch of wildebeast or something. We would see hundreds of them, but you could only see their eyes because it was so dark. It sort of looked like lights in a city, but only moving ones.

We saw some animals that we could not see during the day, like Bat eared Foxes and hares and some other stuff too. We also saw hyenas and zebras. It was just plain amazing to see or not see, ha ha get it.
I'll talk about Lake Nakuru next time.
See ya

The Maasai Mara part 2

The second day in the Mara we did a full day game drive. We went out at 8 o'clock in the morning. We started off by seeing several Zebras right when we came out of the camp. We did not see much at the beginning of the day, but we did see all of the animals that usually take part in the great migration, they just stood around. It was amazing how well they got along together. It was cool to see so many animals in peace with each other. I had never seen so many animals all together at once in one simple place.

We drove off to somewhere else to find what we could. We went a little while without seeing anything different, then our guide spotted some lions a little ways away. When we got there we stopped for a while. It turned out we were really lucky, the lions were mating. it was interesting to watch. The female would go over to the male, the male would get up, get on the female and they would "go" for about fifteen seconds.

The lions kept it up for a long time, it seemed like it anyway. A little bit later we left the lions and headed out to look for something else that could be interesting.

We were driving along when Nixon, our guide, spotted Zebras over by a river a while away. When we got there there were thousands of Zebras lined up near the river. Since we were there for the Great Migration, the Zebras were deciding if they wanted to cross the river to the other side or not.

They ended up not crossing, but it looked like they were going to a couple of times. What they would do was get real close to the water, get a drink, then they would go back to where the rest of the herd was. One of the reasons they did not cross was because of the 3 Crocodiles that were nearby just waiting for the Zebras to start crossing so they could get a good and tasty meal.

Once we decided they were not going to cross, we left so we could find a place to get out and have lunch. We stopped near a river with Hippos in it.
The cool thing about the lunch was that it was out in the middle of nowhere, the bush, where any animal could pop out of the bushes or something.

After lunch we left. We did not see anything more that is worth telling about, so I will talk about The Maasai Mara part 3 next time.

The Maasai Mara Part 1

To get to the Maasai Mara, we needed to go to an air strip in a town near Samburu. The plane was not very big but we went in a smaller one to Amboseli. It was cool to watch out the window and see how the area changed. I mean with the trees the color of everything that we saw. Since we were so close to the ground we could see animals running around and playing and living their life not knowing we could see them.

When we landed in the Mara, there were animals all around us. From the looks of it, I think that the animals thought we were just some other weird animal, the plane that is. Our guide in the Mara's name was Nixon. He was a Masai. In his vehicle he had some beverages for us.
 
The Mara was the coolest place we went to. And it was my favorite, we were there for three days. We stayed in tents that were right in front of the river were many hippos were. It was a beautiful place to stay at and the service was nice, the food was good, you could see animals across the river from your room or the dining area, and I had my birthday there. The Mara was the only place that we were not by ourselves on our drives. There was one other couple with us.

We took our first game drive in the Mara at four o'clock in the afternoon. It was unlike any of the other places, where we had to look so very hard to find one animal at a time, where in the Mara, we could not go ten minutes without seeing hundreds of Wildebeast or Zebras or any Gazelles and birds.

 Road block, Wildebeast style.

Thomson's Gazelle

 We also saw a lot of Topi which are what you see here.

Zebras playing

We were driving along looking for anything we could see, when Nixon, our guide, spotted one lioness behind a rock a little ways away. It was deciding if it wanted to try to take on a buffalo or not, so we watched it for a while, but it did not do anything, it was still interesting to watch though. We left the lioness and went to look for something else. We only went about two minutes when we found two male Hyenas laying down. They look surprisingly a lot like dogs.

This is Nixon

We left the Hyenas and started heading back to the camp, which was called Karen Blixen camp.

That was the end of our first day.
I will write about our second day next time.

Sweetwaters Camp

Hey everyone

Today I am talking about Sweetwaters in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. We only stayed for one night but we wished we could of stayed longer but it was still nice to stay there. Right out side of our tent there was a water hole where many animals would come and drink the water there. The Warthogs were fun to watch eat, they stick their butts in the air and munch away on the grass.

When we got to the place we had lunch, and sitting or standing right out side the window of the restaurant, was a Maribou, which is like a mix between a Stork and a Vulture.

 And then after lunch, I got to go on a Camel ride. It was fun, but mine was being a bad boy, he kept stopping to eat leaves and he started to run one time.

At four in the afternoon we went out for a game drive. Before we actually started we went to a Rhino sanctuary and a Chimpanzee sanctuary. The Rhino was a blind black one, so he had to be kept in captivity so it could live longer than it would of in the wild on it's own. His name was Baraka.

 We didn't see much at Sweetwaters but we were glad of what we saw. But we did see vultures eating a dead giraffe and lots of gazelles and some giraffes and an elephant.

The next morning we got up and went to the town that was nearby so we could fly to the Maasai Mara. As a matter of fact that is what I will be writing about next.

Samburu the first place we went

Hi everyone,
Samburu was the first place we went after we stayed the night in Nairobi. In case you did not know, Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. We got to Nairobi late at night and we needed to get up early in the morning to get to Samburu. The drive was six hours. Half of it was bumpy roads so it was a bit annoying after a while. We finally arrived in time for lunch. 

Amazed by the beauty and the nature of the place, we walked through with monkeys all around us and many different beautiful birds. At the lunch area, or the dining area, there were two of the local Samburu men that were scaring away the monkeys with their slingshots and using them so the monkeys don't steal any food from the kitchen or from peoples plates.

 It was an enjoyable meal with the scenery and all the stuff around us that's going on at that moment.

At four o'clock, in the afternoon, of course, we went out for our first game drive. At first we did not see anything but birds, but then we started to see a lot of Impalas, dik diks, and other antelope and gazelles. But then we saw the one thing we thought we would not see, a cheetah. 

The next day we saw some water buffalo over by the river, a warthog, a huge herd of oryx and some elephants and three reticulated giraffes. The stay was good, but we did not see that many animals, or at least as many as we thought we would. 
On our way out of Samburu, we stopped by the local village to visit for a little.
The people danced for us sang some of their songs and showed us around their village. It was fun to see all the people and the way they live.

Next I will be writing about Sweet Waters, where we stayed for only one night.

Kenya

Hi everyone sorry I have not written in so long I was busy with stuff I needed to do and plus, I got to go to Kenya for 2 weeks and it was fun and even more amazing than you can imagine. We first went to a place called Samburu which was a in a tropical sort of place which had monkeys and a few antelope called Kudu that came around every once and a while. I kept a journal so I wouldn't forget about everything. All the animals are:

• Wildebeast all over in the Masai Mara because of the great migration
• Zebras same thing as the wildebeast
• Giraffes
• baboons
• Rhinos
• Chimps
• Elands
• Topis
• Elephants
• buffalo
• monkeys
• dik diks
• impalas
• thomsan's gazelles
• grants gazelles
• hippos
• crocodiles
• vultures
• eagles
• secretary bird
• ostriches
• cheetahs
• lions
• hyenas
• mongoose
• jackals
• hartebeast
• oryx
• maribou
• warthogs
• storks
• spoon bills
• and much more

and many birds that were beautiful in color and that we saw many times so we could appreciate how pretty they were.

 This is Wafula--does he look familiar? I was given an African tribal name by a Kenyan man I met. It means Rainy Season which is a good time for Africa. It is a time when everything grows and animals are nourished.

This is only the intro to everything. My next blog entry will be about the first days in Samburu National Reserve.

Flying Baseball Runner

Be sure to watch the whole thing because this is fuuuuuuuuuuuuny. I think I'll try this sometime.

A Fortunate Series of Events

Hi People
I don't have school this week so we're just staying home and doing things as a family We can't do anything big because we're saving up money to go to Kenya this summer.

Two days ago we decided we were going to this sculpture garden, Queen Califia. and I got to bring a friend so I chose my best friend Kurt. We picked up Kurt and left to go. It took a while to get there and Kurt and I got bored in the back seat. When we finally got there, we went into the park and we saw all these different totem pole type things

and a huge dome in the middle with a bird head and the queen on top of it and under it was an egg.

 Surprisingly they weren't even painted. They were made out of all different rocks and minerals like mosaics. I recognized some of the minerals and rocks that were on some of the sculptures--like obsidian, pink quartz, mica, and tiger's eye. They were all put together to make really cool things.

We found out the same person that made that garden made one in Tuscany where I was living and yet we didn't know. Next time we go to Italy, we are going to go the park, Il Giardino dei Tarocchi.

From there we found out we were close to the Wild Animal Park so we decided to go there. My grandparents and I have memberships and Kurt told us he did at home so when we got there we told the person at the gate and they looked up his membership and he got in free, too.

When we got there it was around lunch time so we decided to get something to eat. Gramma and Papa got chili-cheese dogs and Kurt and I got nacho supreme.

After that we headed over to the gorillas. They were pretty lazy. When one finally came out of the cave, it lay down right next to another one.

We went and saw a show that was funny. It showed some cool animals, a servile, a bird that could break dance, a river hog and a cheetah. I really liked the servile because it has excellent hearing and could hear high frequency which are not hearable to us.

We saw elephants, lions, giraffes, rhinos, elands, horn bills, guinea fowl and bunnies.

These were special because we will see many of them when we go to Kenya this summer. It made me even more excited.

Summer is not that far away--three months. I can't wait. Kenya, here I come.