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.

Spring Break 2013

Well hey there everyone! It's been forever since I wrote. Sorry about that, I have been so preoccupied with school and other things. Anyways, I'm on Spring Break and I went to Indian Wells over by Palm Springs and got back on Thursday.

My grandparents and I stayed at a Hyatt that was absolutely huge; there were multiple pools, a tennis court, a golf course, and even an area where you are able to play ping pong or volleyball. Yes, the setting was nice, but the best part of my time there was the friends that I made. The first day there I met Nate.

We are the same age and we both have many similar interests... (girls :p) That day, together, we hung out with a group of some girls that ended up being total duds. The next day, we searched for people with whom we could hang out (just recently found out that you are not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition). We found pretty much no one. So the next day we were determined to find someone.

But before that, I did something stupid... I put his phone in the water because I was completely sure that  it was water proof... (it was a Samsung Galaxy s III.) I was wrong. At first his phone was alright but soon after the screen stopped working. I am never doing anything like that again.

We approached a group of girls ( of course...) that were playing volleyball and asked if they minded if we played too. We all played together and had a great time. The main girl (in other words the one that I liked best) was Sally. She was really pretty and cool. We hung out for the rest of the day. It all went well until that night when we got back from dinner and tried to meet up with her and her friends. First, we couldn't find them right away, second, when we did they said that they had to go back to their room and that they were leaving at 6 o' clock the next morning. I never even got to say bye to them properly, but they were just a small part of the great time I had with Nate.

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.

The Egyptian Way!!!

Over winter break I went to a place where people don't normally go for an everyday vacation. I went to Egypt and Jordan. We stayed there for two weeks and even stayed for Christmas. It was kind of different but it was still really cool to do.

     So the Places we went were: Cairo, Abu Simbel, Aswan, A Cruise on the Nile, where we stopped at several places along the way; and Luxor, which had a lot of places to go to also. Today I am going to talk about Cairo.

 YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

     Cairo, in case you didn't know is the Capitol of Egypt. It is rather large, but it is not like the big cities we have in the U.S. One of the coolest and most interesting things about Cairo is that the traffic is so crazy and the pedestrians just walk right through like there is nothing to it. But of course the coolest part of Cairo is Giza. Where's that? That is where the Pyramids are. The biggest things in the whole world in the Ancient Days, the things that were so incredibly built that people thought aliens came down and built them, the massive structures that made scientists believe that maybe the Egyptians had technology almost as advanced as ours... Yes those Pyramids!!!! They are one of the coolest things you will ever see in your life. And they are one of the few remaining ancient wonders of the world. I really thought they were cool.  We got to ride a camel by the pyramids too. My camels name was Charlie. He was a cool camel.

He liked too eat out of my hand. By the way this was the other camel named charlie, it wasnt my camel this was my camel.

 Also in Cairo, actually right outside of Cairo, there was the Step Pyramid, the very first pyramid built by the father of the one who built the Great Pyramid. It was really cool, but not even close to as big as the other 3 pyramids were. Over by that pyramid I got to ride my horse, Amira; which means princess.

Isn't she a peerrrrrrtyyyy one?

 Oh how could I forget to mention the most important part of our trip to Cairo... Our guide!!! Ahmed!!!!!!!

Best Guide Ever!!!!

We also went to the Museum in Cairo. The coolest thing there was that it had a whole section on King Tutankhamen. Way cool!!!

The museum is in Tahrir Square, which is where all of the protests have been and it is also where the revolution started.

This is a burned out government building right next to the museum. 

Although there had been problems in Cairo, we felt completely safe and we had no problems with protestors or anything like that.

See ya'll later when I talk about the rest of my Egyptrip.

Making Edible Yarn

I don't usually write on the same day as the event, but this time it was special. My Gramma and I made edible yarn with the new edible yarn maker that came today in the mail. (By edible yarn, I mean pasta.) We had a lot of fun making the stuff, but we needed to put the yarn through the slot that made thicker and wider ones. We thought it was going to be a disaster, but it ended up being pretty good. (We made Cacio e Pepe.)

 Here was the box it came in,

 here is me working on making the yarn dough,

and here is why I called it yarn.

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

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

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.

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.

WHY I LIKE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Hey everyone,
I have just been thinking about why I like middle school. Friends and learning is the best part for me. But I also like the teachers and the subjects too.
Each one of the subjects gets you ready for life in different ways. For example right now, I'm typing this by myself and I would not be able to if I didn't have computer class at school. Here is a picture of me typing this blog entry.




The best part about that is that I don't even need to look to type. If you're an adult, think about why you like work if you're not retired.
See ya' everyone

I'm at school again

hi every one, I'm at school in the library on the computer.

It's a good day today at school. We're all laughing at something now,

Bye everyone

A France Mountain Adventure

Last week in France we were in Moustiers and we went in the car for a ride in the mountains. There were several places to stop and each stop we saw something new.

The first stop we saw a beautiful view along with a little black bird. I took this picture of it.


The second stop we saw a rock climber. It was very interesting (but unfortunately we forgot to take a picture.) I was worried that the rock climber was going to fall but then my grandpa told me that the ropes that were tied on to her would keep her from falling. Then I stopped worrying. When she finally got back to the top after walking slowly down backwards, everyone that was watching cheered and clapped. Then finally we took off to our next destination.

The third stop we saw eagles. They were pretty. Through the binoculars you could see every detail of their feathers, their whole wings--just every part of their bodies. I thought they were amazing as they gracefully soared through the air. Then we spotted stairs to go down a spot on the mountain where you could see things better. My grandpa and I went down and I saw my second eagle. We tried to take some pictures of them, but all we got was this but it's still beautiful.


Here's a picture my grandpa took of my grandma and me. For some strange reason, my gramma doesn't like this picture.

On the way home we got really low on gas. I was scared half way to death--that's what I used to say when I was small. But what I say know is "I was scared half to death." If we ran out of gas on those mountains, there was no chance of getting back home. Good thing we made it to a gas station.

If you ever go to Moustiers, I hope you get to do and not do something of these things.

And now, I'm in Italy. I'll be posting soon.

Bye--Everyone