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.

A Quick Jamaica Account

Hey everyone,
I just got back from a missions trip to Jamaica yesterday. It was an experience that I am never going to forget. My relationship with Jesus Christ has exponentially grown stronger. I'm sorry that I can't write much, but I only have today because I leave for Italy very early tomorrow morning. I will write about that and more about this when I get back.

Here is a picture of my team and me.

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.

My Uncle, The Speed Racer

Yesterday my parents and I went with my uncle to watch him drive a McClaren mp4-12c around a track at Qualcomm stadium. It's a crazy fast car. He had the choice of two models of a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and the McClaren. Obviously he chose the McClaren which was the fastest and the coolest.

This is the speedster

We bought him a gift certificate for his birthday the week before. My uncle drove around the track 3 times. I got some pretty good pictures of him while driving, but the video we took doesn't show how fast he was going. He says that the moment that you hit the gas, you are plastered to the seat and you have very little time between the straights and the curves to react.

He had such a great time that it made me really want to try it. He told me that when I am allowed to drive he will buy me a ticket so that I can have that amazing feeling of speeding down a track. I can't wait.

This is the exact car he drove.

We did this with Gotham Dream Cars

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.

Summercamps before High School

Hey everyone, sorry for not having posted in pretty much forever. I had quite a bit of stuff to do this summer and now I just started High School two weeks ago. Over the summer I went to two summer camps and a missions trip to Arizona. The first camp I went to was a house boats trip at Lake Shasta with one of my church high school groups. We did ski runs every day so I got to go WakeBoarding!!!!!!!! I love going wake boarding I am pretty good at it and it's so fun!!

Here are some other pictures from the trip:

It was a great trip and I made one really good friend. Her name is Katie. For some reason I didnt get any pictures of her while we were there, which made me really frustrated cuz I dont see her that much anymore.

The second camp was with my other church high school group and we went up to Hume Lake. It was so cool. One of the days there, it was Super Spirit Day!!! We had to dress up according to the theme, which was USA. What we did was we had me dress up as President Obama and all the other guys in our group like the Secret Service. We pretty much won the competition and we got full spirit points for that day.

It was the coolest day by far up there. I also made another really good friend up there. Her name is Aley. Unfortunately I got a total of two pictures at Hume because I forgot to charge the camera battery after I got back from Houseboats.

Next I went on a missions trip to the Navajo reservation in Arizona. My team was from the same church high school group that went to Hume. It was such a great experience and now I get to go to Jamaica next year to do the same thing. Here are some pictures:

The Painted Desert was full of different colors of sand and stone.

Amazing view of The Grand Canyon.

Leah and my best friend Gavin. (Gavin tried to make it look like he was jumping off into the Grand Canyon).

This is what I found when we walked into our Hotel room.

Elk just outside of the Grand Canyon.

Our group at the Painted Desert.

Me at the Painted Desert.

My friend Sam at the Painted Desert.

Being able to do all these things was really cool. I cant wait to do more next summer!!!!

See you all next time.

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.