My Friend Sammy

This is my friend Sammy. He's a very smart boy and also a very good Bionacle builder. I have known him since pre-school. He was reading chapter books in kindergarten and now he's reading books with 300 and something pages. He's in my class at school.

This is Sammy and his Bionacle

I like having him over cuz he's fun to play with and he likes having adventures. The first time I had him over we went over to a canyon. We saw some beautiful views of houses, hills and little teeny mountains. And we saw Yoshi. We saw some birds making pretty noises. Sammy really liked it.

The second time he came over to my house which was a few days ago, we mainly did all Bionacle building and I gave him one.

Here's a picture of me with him.

He likes Pokemon more than I do and I thought that wasn't possible. But now it is because I play other games like Ben 10, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and Lego Star Wars, The Complete Saga.

Sammy's good in math, social studies, science and everything else. But he usually gets B's on them. He also reads my blog all the time because he likes it. He's been begging me to put him on my blog. He's even been reading what I already wrote in Italy.

He's so cool.

See ya later, Bye.

Tearing Down My Room

Today my grandpa and I tore down my room and we moved out some stuff that would cover the walls that we are going to paint. The theme of my room is going to be Chargers--wooohooo. I'm going to have a picture of LT, a Charger bolt and some Charger banners. My room is going to be light blue and gold and in the middle of the wall going all around my room will be a white stripe that has a pattern that goes Charger helmet, Charger bolt, Charger helmet, Charger bolt.

But first my Uncle has to put up new dry wall and he's going to take the popcorn off the ceiling--you know the yellow stuff, popcorn, that you eat with butter--nah, I'm just kidding. They are little white pieces of styrofoam that are on my ceiling.

I am excited to change the looks of my room now that I'm growing up. Before I had pink walls and wallpaper that is, well, let's just stay it was a little girlish. Now that's gone and you can see the inside of what it looks like.

Here's a movie about my room and some other stuff you might be interested in. It's my first movie. Woooooo!

I'll do another video when my room is Chargerfied. That's how I say it at least.

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I'm a Sick-o

Yesterday I was sick and now I still am. But I feel fine, really. I wanted to go to school yesterday and today and I hope I get better tomorrow. I'm probably sick because a lot of kids in my school are sick. I have a sore throat, a cough and a runny nose--anybody know how to help me catch it? And also, my temperature was 100.2º. That is really high. Here's someway that I know I'm sick. I never take naps and I've been taking naps and I barely play my DS.

My grandma got Puff Ball to wish me to get better and right when I saw Puff Ball I thought he was so cute and he looked like Scratch. Don't they look alike? I think they do. Scratch is begging for barbecue Lays right now but Puff Ball is just staring out into the open. When I was pointing at something Scratch bit the Lay out of my hand.

Here's a video of Scratch playing with his toy. It was cute. Cough, Cough--oops, I just coughed.

It's a beautiful day here but I can't go outside and play. I really know I can but my grandma says "No way!" I want to shoot baskets but my nonni say that it's not good for me to be outside.

Scratch was just biting my leg then when he stopped he snarled at me. Now he's just acting sad. Maybe he's sad because he's saying "please get better, Casey, please." Or he's sad because he has a beard at 4 years old--just kidding.

I got an A on my social studies test at school. I get lots of A's.

See you next time with my blog entry with me and Chiara--my Italian tutor. Well, I'm going to go sneak outside. Bye

What I Miss About Italy

I'm back home but I still miss Italy. These are the things I miss:

• Signora Franca's lasagna
• Signora Franca's pizza
  
• Signora Franca's granddaughter--Camilla
• Signora Franca's dogs--Pimpi and Lenticchia--Camilla's dogs
  
• The street where I took walks
• Being free to roam by myself
• Gelato--I like after eight, puffo
  
• EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeVvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee EeeeeeeeeRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyTtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiNnnnnnnnnnnnnGggggggggggggggggggggggggg.
  
• Tommaso
• David--Big Statue in Florence
  
• Carlotta
• Silvia
• Francesca
• And all my other friends that were in my class
• La Cantinetta di Rignana
• The piazza
• Bruno and his bread that he gave me everytime I went in his store
  
• Oreste
• The Grog Shop
• Snoopy's
• Sara and Sara's Dad
• Crystal hunting
• Playing with Pimpi and Lenticchia
  
• Playing with my sister Camilla whom I really, really miss
• Making a tent and doing our homework together and then watching a movie
• Merenda
• Valentina
• My teachers
• Good school lunches--yeah!
• Snow--one day in spring
• The sunrise and the views
• Our apartment
• All our trips to places in Italy
• Sofia
• Nico
• Siena--the Palio
  
• Il Portico in the piazza--yummy, yummy lasagna
• Judith
• Giulia
  

But I get to back in 4 months for 2 months--I can't wait.

My Classmates and teachers in Greve.

San Francisco

For Thanksgiving I went to San Francisco with my grandparents and my Uncle Jeff. He's really cool. We had fun. I saw a gorilla that wasn't real but it seemed real because it bonked its chest and roared. These pictures were taken there at Rainbow Cafe. My Uncle Jeff bought me a real panther there that I named Panthy--just joking, it was just a stuffed animal

This is Uncle Jeff and Me.

This is a gorilla and my grandma.

Here I am playing an old fashion baseball game. It was in a building near Fishermans Wharf. There were all sorts of old fashioned games there. There was an arm wrestling one that nearly broke my arm.

• 

Here I am waiting for the cable car to come. It was cool except for the part where we had to slow down going down hills.

Here we are on the cable car. We were getting on the cable car here down by Fisherman's Wharf which was near Pier 39. This is me, Uncle Jeff and my papa, who's only 40 years old. That's funny because Uncle Jeff is 37.

Here's a video of the cable car turning around. It's turning around on a round table. Strong men had to turn around the cable car and push it off the round table.

One of the interesting thing that we did in San Francisco was that Uncle Jeff and I went on a submarine that was used in WWII. We got to go inside of it and see torpedoes. I thought it was really, really cool. It would be hard to live underwater for a long time with a teeny, teeny bathroom and a desk that can't fit two people in the room. Every time you tried to get up you would hit your head on the cot above you.

Which three are the monkeys? I'll give you a clue--the first one, the second one and the third one. I'm number 4.

This is the Golden Gate Bridge but it's not as big as the Bay Bridge. We passed right by Treasure Island.

See you in 5 years--just kidding? See you soon--ciao, ciao.

Christmas

On Christmas Eve night I got to open one present. It was from my Uncle Jeff who came to spend the night. It was a Ben 10 character. His name is Benwolf. He is really cool. Here's a picture of him.

The next day my Uncle and I opened our stockings. He got a screaming Homer pen that says "Ahhhh This is the greatest day of my life." I got two packs of Skittles and Benwolf ate them all. He said they were yummy.

When it was time to open presents, my mom came. My mom is nice. She's brown but I don't live with her. She lives near Old Town. I love her. I couldn't believe all the presents she brought me. My favorite thing that she gave me is a Block Zone. Here's a picture of my mom. She is very pretty. She also gave me a helicopter that you control to try to pick up little boxes with a hook. I liked having her with us. It was fun.



My favorite present of all is one simple thing--a Boston Red Sox hat from my Uncle Jeff. He loves the Red Sox and so do I. They won the World Series this year in baseball. I like them because they are a good team and I like red. My friend Tyler likes them, too.



My grandparents got me something I really wanted. It is an I-Dog Pup. It does its own tunes, wobbles it head and reacts to music. Like this.......

Isn't he cute?

My tutor in Italy Valentina sent a present for me and one for my gramma and grandpa. When I opened it was a Leonardo da Vinci book. I really like Leonardo da Vinci things because I like to learn how t o make things like with my erector set. I've read 10 pages of it all ready with Yolanda my Italian tutor here. The book is in Italian.




After my Uncle Jeff's friend Sally came with her dog, Bear. It has a medium size body and very short legs. He can sit up on his rump and his front legs sticking up. It's really cute. Sally is very nice. She's fun to be with and so is Bear. When Bear is around, Scratch gets jealous.

When it was time for her to leave, Bear didn't want to leave. He was laying on the grass and didn't move cuz he wanted to stay with me.

My grandma got a game called Mancala. It is so fun. I beat her two times in a row.

It was a fun day and then I had to go to sleep. Then the next day I played with all my toys.

Bye--see you next time.

Extreme Cookie Time

Yesterday me and my friend Hannah baked cookies. They were very good. They were shaped as Christmas trees and candy canes. Christmas trees were green and candy canes were red, of course. We had fun doing them. This is a video of me and her making the cookies.



She has a very tight grip. When she kept grabbing my shirt, it was really hard to get out. We play together a lot. She came over again today and we watched a Christmas movie called "A Fruitcake Christmas."

Sorry--gotta go. I gotta cold and I'm sneezing a lot and sniffling and...you get the picture.

Merry Christmas from me and my doggie, Scratch.

Samaritan's Purse

Sorry I took so long to write a blog entry. I'm just too busy. I have school, football, Italian lesson, friends, karate, church, helping girls in soccer practice and walking Scratch. I'm just way too busy.

All year long I have been saving up my Jesus money and I finally used it for Samaritan's Purse. I bought things that children who don't have anything need. And we put them in shoeboxes and wrapped them up.

We put things like toothpaste, toothbrush, toys like balls, Spiderman disc shooters, little stuffed animals (not as big as my dog), dolls, jump ropes and a few other things. Somethings were for girls and somethings were for boys (for sure the dolls were for girls.) I did two boxes for girls and two boxes for boys.

These were the things for the boys' boxes.

These were for the girls' boxes.

It was fun getting all the stuff with my money. We went to the 99¢ Store. Me and my gramma wrapped the shoe boxes in Christmas wrapping.


I put a note and a picture inside each of the boxes.

This was my note.

After we got it done, we took the shoe boxes to the Mail Boxes Etc. store. They were collecting them so they could mail them to Samaritan's Purse.

Mail Boxes Etc.

Last year I helped Ethiopia and Alaska. Here's a link to what I wrote then The Meaning of Christmas.

I really like Samaritan's Purse. I have a good friend that I have never seen before-Franklin Graham. He is very nice. Please send things to people who need them. Jesus will really like that.

Ho, Ho, Ho--Merry Christmas.

My Exciting Saturday

On Saturday there was a Halloween Carnival at my school. Actually, it was supposed to be on Halloween but since the fires were during Halloween time, they couldn't do it then and changed the name to Fall Festival.

At the Festival there were games, jumpy slide thingies, food, light sticks and there was a fortune teller. A lot of my friends were there and it was fun.

At the end of the carnival, there was a raffle drawing. People bought tickets for a Nintendo DS and a MP3 Player. I really wanted the Nintendo DS but I really thought I was not going to win so I went home.

Later my friend called and in an exciting voice, he said "YOU WON THE NINTENDO DS!" I was so excited, I was jumping up and down and running all over the house because I couldn't believe that I had won. It's much better than a Gameboy. It can use Nintendo DS games in it and Gameboy games. I like that because I have a lot of Gameboy games that I can still play.

The next day my Uncle came to my house and I asked him if he could take me to buy a Nintendo DS game called Pokemon Pearl and we went to Best Buy and it ended up costing more than I thought it would. And I didn't have enough money. So my Uncle used his money and he paid half and I paid half. My Uncle Jeff is really nice and he's the best Uncle in the world. I love him so much.

After I got my game I started playing it right away. I really like it. Here's a picture of me with my Nintendo DS.

Do You Know Who's On First?

Hi, here's a very funny video on You Tube. It "quacked" me up. I hope you like this. Now here it is!