Hi everyone. It's been awhile. A lot of things have happened recently and I have been extremely busy. But I have a particular pressing matter to share with you all. Just a couple weeks ago, my little buddy, and first dog, Scratch, died. Many of you have seen pictures of him throughout the years. I've shared lots of funny stories about him. It was really sudden and it was extremely hard to take in... Every morning now, I wake up and he's not in his bed right next to mine. I now notice how many crumbs actually drop on the kitchen floor. The tissues in the bathroom waste basket aren't all over the floor all the time. I remember when I first picked him out when I was in kindergarten. We went out to the pet store in Grossmont Mall. He was the first dog I saw and he was the one that I picked. He got his name when he scratched my lip while we were all taking a photo and my Grandma was holding him. It didn't take long; that's for sure! Here are some pictures of him over the years.

 The Day I first got him

 Scratch's bone stocking

 His Favorite Toy

His place will never be filled... Even if we get a new dog in the future, Scratch will always be the best dog that I could ever have.

Falcons, Hawks and Eagles, Oh My!!!

Hey everyone,

This past Thursday, my grandpa and I went to La Jolla Gliderport to a session on falcon/ raptor flying. The people teaching it were really cool. They said that in order to get the best experience with the amazing birds they brought Harris Hawks. Unlike many other birds of prey, these hawks are very sociable with each other and even hunt in groups. It is because of this that we are able to partner with them while they hunt. (Which happens to be the original purpose of falcon flying.) Apparently, hunting with falcons dates back at least 8000 years. Genghis Khan used a falcon to survive before he became a Khan. He was stranded in the desert and was in desperate need of food. 

 

Anyways, they showed us how they feed the birds, how they teach them to hunt with a partner, how the train them, and they even let us call the birds to the glove. The hawks are trained to the glove, not the human. Each hawk is trained in a specific way. When the one we worked with saw the glove and heard, "Gimme Steam" it would fly to whomever called it. A hawk's talons can crush your bones like they were nothing; they can deliver a force of over 700 pounds per square inch. They can easily take down something considerably larger than themselves. The thing that surprised me though, is how lightly they land onto your glove. It only weighs 2 . 5 lbs, but you still would expect some of that force on your arm.

Here are some pictures that my grandpa took.

This is La Paz, the largest of the two hawks. (She's a female)

This is me working my magic. 

Taking that short class has inspired me to do more. I looked on the California Hawking Club website and found how to start being an apprentice. I am going to continue on that and train a hawk or raptor of my own some day.

YOSEMITE

Over spring break, I went up to Northern California. During that time I went to Yosemite. Although Yosemite might not be the most exotic of places, it was still really cool and beautiful. The mountains were huge. I was awestruck and I felt so small when I looked up at them. Especially half dome; it was so tall and I felt so useless looking up at it. 

The waterfalls are really cool too. There were several different ones. Some were really small, and others were huge. Yosemite Falls was either the biggest or one of them. It had three parts to it, the upper, the middle and the lower.

The biggest one was the upper, the smallest one was the middle, and the medium-sized one was the lower. The nature there was one of the things that makes you say, "how in the world did God make all of this in just anew days?"

We went on a couple little hikes and we took a bus tour around the park. Our guide was great. He knew what he was talking about and used what he knew to make the tour more interesting. 

The lodge we stayed at was called Yosemite Lodge. It was a pretty big place. They even had a place where you could rent bikes. I rented a bike and rode it around for a while we went to go watch people rock climb up the cliffs. While I was riding my bike it started to snow. That was the first time I was ever in a place where it was snowing for more than an hour. It didn't stay on the ground though, the weather was not cold enough for that.

One of the nights, we went out to dinner at the Ahwanee Hotel. The food was really good and the view was amazing, especially since it was snowing. We wanted to stay there but it cost too much so we didn't. The hotel itself is like a hundred years old.

Here are some of the pictures we took while we were there.

 Thats it for now. I will be posting later this month or early in the next.

"Amusement Rides" in Egypt and Jordan

This year we had an unusual Christmas vacation. We went to Egypt and Jordan. It was really cool and it was a very different experience. I got to see a lot of the things I studied in the 6th grade and it just so happened that Egypt was my favorite part of that class.

Along with the interesting things, there were some interesting "amusement rides."

The amusement rides were Horses, Donkeys, and Camels. Throughout the trip I rode 3 horses, a camel, and a donkey. I got to try all of them and each one was different.

This was in the wide open desert where the pyramids are.  Psych! They are in Cairo. We saw the camels while we were at the pyramids and decided to ride them. Gramma's camel was Moses; mine was Charlie and papa's was Whiskey.

This was at the Step Pyramid. The horses name was Amira which means Princess.

This was Hoda. The horse I had in the Nubian village across from Luxor. I rode this horse while papa and gramma went to the Luxor Museum.

This was the horse that I had in Petra. Gramma fell off her horse here and it looked really funny. I don't remember this horses name. We rode the horses to the Sig.

This was the majestic donkey known as Aususs, which was the father of the mules that my Grandparents and our guide rode. We rode them to the Bedouin village out in the middle of the desert.

I will be writing more about Egypt in the coming weeks. And that's a PROMISE!!!!1

Spring break

For spring break this year I went up to Monterrey for a couple of days. It was really nice there, except for a day with rain and wind. We were originally going to leave on Monday, but we didn't want to have to go through an eight hour drive all in one day; so we left on Sunday instead. On our way, we stopped in LA for one night. When we got to Monterrey, we checked in, unpacked, and went out to go see the Wharf and what there was to do. When we got there, we went to go into one of the buildings, but it was closed because of budget cuts. We went a little bit farther to go into a different building but it was only open on the weekend. So all the interesting stuff was closed. We went down to some of the shops there and looked around a little bit, but there was not much there. We heard some sea lions so we went over to watch them. They were funny and cute to watch. Later we had dinner at a sea food place.

The next day, we went to the aquarium and saw otters, some fish, jellys, and some really cool sea horses.

 Sea otter

 Jellyfish

 ????fish

 fishes

 penguin

 seahorse

The next day we went to Carmel and had dinner with some friends. Then the day after that, we started the drive home but stopped in Santa Barbara for a day and went around there for a while looking at stuff. Then we finally got home the next day.
bye

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

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

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.