What Christmas means to me?

Christmas may be a time for new presents, Santa Claus and meeting family but there is more meaning to Christmas than that. On Christmas 2014 years ago a little boy named Jesus was born, he is the Son of Man and did important things and performed miracles like turning water into wine, raising the dead back to life and dying on the cross for us. I believe that ‘’Jesus is the reason for the season’’ and that we should ‘’Keep Christ in Christmas ‘’

Christmas is a time to think of the less fortunate than us. For the last two weeks of advent my family & I went to our local food bank to donate food and help out. I got to see how sad it was to watch people have such joy over one meal but it also made me think about not wasting food and eating whatever is served to me. You can also give your time caroling at the senior home. I am sure that will make them happy. During the season we can all be more patient and caring towards others like showing more forgiveness and tolerance. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and remember:

Christmas is coming

It’ll go fast

Give someone joy

 Joy that’ll last

My Vacation in London and Paris

Recently my family and I went to London and Paris. We spent 10 days in all and had a great time, let me tell you all about it. The best place that we went to was the Harry Potter Studios. There I dressed up as Ron, accepted a challenge to find 15 hidden snitches (which I won), I climbed and flew a Nimbus 2000, drank butter beer, visited HOGWARTS!!!!!, bought Bertie Botts every flavoured Beans, saw all my favorite characters WANDS, walked through the shops of Diagon Alley, made my own spell, made and bought my own wand and my audio tour guide was Tom Felton. Another day we went on the Big Bus Tour where we saw the top-secret foreign intelligence spy organisation facility, Big Ben, London Eye, St. Paul’s church, the |Shard, RAF bomber memorial, Stonehenge, Hyde Park, Buckingham palace. Boy, was that fun... We also went to Paris we spent three days there doing a lot of touristy stuff. The first place we went to was the Eiffel Tower, got great pictures there, saw the Mona Lisa in person, we went to Notre Dame and attended a mass. The next day we went to Sacre Coeur and the Arc de Triomphe.  When we got back to London we headed to Salisbury where we saw some of the Magna Carta documents, Windsor Castle and the Greenwich Mean time. Then it was time to head back to Canada. I will never forget this trip, this amazing trip filled with lots and lots of fun.

My Amazing Summer!

This summer was an amazing experience, let me tell you why. After school ended I could have easily been the happiest person alive… no work, no teachers…no worries…. what could be more right? So let me begin the summery of my amazing summer. This summer I went camping for the very first time with my friends and parents. We roasted marshmallows, slept in tents and overall had a great time. The next big I did this summer was paddle boarding, a new sport I learned while at day camp. It is a lot of fun but can be a little bit dangerous if you are not careful. Paddle boarding is stand up canoeing on a surf board. I had a lot of fun with this new sport and it taught me a couple of thing - first of all it taught me balance and trust. The trust part of it is because I couldn’t go alone so I had to trust that my friends don’t tip the board or lean it when we get on. Another cool thing I did this summer was the U.S. trip, I went to Michigan to see my cousins. We played catch in the pool and did an icy challenge where we would go into the hot tub for 3 minutes and then jump into the freezing cold pool. In Michigan we visited a place called Frankenmuth a little German town about 20 minutes away from Saginaw where we enjoyed live music, food and the company of family. The rest of summer went by with visits to my friends houses when we had no camp. Our typical day consisted of video games, TV, outside fun and great food. Playing in the park was another thing I did this summer with my friends; I hung on the monkey bars a lot and my friends and I invented games like “The shoe game” and “Sand volley / basketball”. My summer was awesome and I will never forget it. This summer I did so many new things and I enjoyed them all, I hope that my next summer is as good or better that this one.

The Camping Trip

This past Canada Day weekend I went with my friends and family on a camping trip to Algonquin and I was really excited. Considering it was my first time I didn’t know what to expect but that just made me want to get there faster. 

I had heard from my friend that bears lurked in the forest that we were going to but when I got there it seemed like a really nice place to spend the next 4 days… other than the fact that Algonquin was swarming with mosquitoes. 

At Algonquin I got to solve a mystery about a bird called a Black-Capped Chickadee and why it disappeared. I was very interesting as I have never even heard of this species of bird before. Algonquin also gave me the opportunity to learn about loggers at a Loggers museum. A logger is also known as a lumberjack. At the museum we were taken through an open forest where they displayed a variety of machines and axes loggers used. After the Loggers museum my friends and I decided to take a break. So we went for a swim in the lake. Despite the fact that the water was FREEZING, it was awesome once I got used to it. Another highpoint of the trip was roasting marshmallows. Boy were they good & I asked for s’more! 

Camping was a great experience and I would love to go again. :D

The Cottage Trip to Goderich

On this past Victoria long weekend my family joined 4 other families and headed out to a cottage in a SMALL town called Goderich with only 8000 people living there.
Day 1

The cottage was a lot of fun when we got there. In the morning we played soccer, pump and basketball. Towards the afternoon we went on a walk to the Nude Beach yes you got it the Nude Beach. Why it was called that, I have absolutely no idea. At first the Nude beach was weird with 4 dead fish lying in the sand in the warm sand. Then it got interesting: I found 5 fossils and 3 really cool rocks, they were amazing. At 2 o’clock we went to a cheese factory and sampled 9 year old mozzarella and we even got to eat homemade ice cream. The cheese factory was definitely a cool experience for me. After the cheese factory we went back to the cottage and played till about 6 o'clock on our iPods. We then gathered arounf the fire for some ghost stories...... boy were they scary, when we had had enough we went inside and watched Broken Arrow. That was a great start to the cottage trip.

Day 2

I woke up and played video games for an hour with my friends and then we got out of the house and played soccer. We went to a another beach a little farther from our cottage and there I found more fossils and cool rocks. When we got back we built another fire and this time I roasted my first marshmallow and ate my first s'more, it was delicious. After we roasted AWESOME smores my friends and I performed an improv about a miner that encountered some monsters. Later we watched Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban, I liked very much I am a huge fan of Harry Potter. We finished the movie and went upstairs to play video games even though it was 1 o'clock in the morning. When I was at the verge of dying of exhaustion I turned off my iPod and went to sleep.

Day 3 

I woke up today realizing with a sad and sleepy face that we only had till 12 o'clock to leave home and the time was 8 o'clock so I woke up my friends to make the most of our last few hours there. We went for a walk along the beach and we skipped rocks on the calm lake Huron.

It was a truly enjoyable weekend, one I will remember for a long time to come.

Divergent – A Critique

Divergent is a book starring 16 year old, Tris Prior. She belongs to faction Abnegation, one of the five facions. Each faction has a meaning – Erudite – Knowledge, Dauntless – Bravery, Amity – Passive, Candor – Brutally and Abnegation – Selflessness. The blurb on the back of the book provides no clues about the storyline so does not peak interest in readers.

16 year old Tris Prior and her brother are old enough to take the aptitude test to decide which faction they will join. But these choices aren’t easy, as it sets your future. During her test something goes wrong and Tris is determined a Divergent. She is not allowed to tell anyone about this and she isn’t allowed to ask anyone either. Divergent is a dangerous thing to be, yet 90% of Abnegation’s 16 year olds are Divergent. Her decision to leave Abnegation and join Dauntless, put her life in danger.

Readers searching for action, violence, mystery and betrayals should read this book. The Hunger Games and Divergent are so alike in this sense. The girls are both fighters and are willing to give up everything for their people. But without a doubt, Veronica Roth is an amazing author and deserves credit for a cliff hanger.

Divergent kids should have their own faction and should be equally respected as other factions. They should represent Difference. I think Veronica should have explained why Divergence occurs and how people who resist Divergent kids, should be stopped.

The politics in the book was unnecessary because Veronica talked about it rarely and then dropped the topic. In the book, it makes no mention that this is the future of Chicago.

Also too many character names was a problem. For example, Beatrice Prior changes her name to Tris when she moves factions and then in Insurgent she goes by Six. Names should stay the same and not change, so we don’t totally forget who the character is.

Divergent is a great book, meant for teenagers and up. I give the book 8.5 out of 10.

"Faster, Higher, Stronger"

The Olympics is an international sporting event held every 4 years hosted by a country. There are 2 different kinds of Olympics: Winter & Summer. In the Summer Olympics, there are events like basketball, track & field, tennis and so on. Winter games include biathlon, speed skating and figure skating. Here are some interesting facts about the Olympics:

Winter:
1. These games have never been held in the Southern hemisphere
2. There have unfortunately been 4 deaths in the practise sessions of luge and skiing
3. Sochi was the warmest place to host a winter game
4. 1.8 billion people watched the Vancouver 2010 games
5. The oldest athlete in the winter games is Great Britain's curling champion, Robin Welsh at 54 years

Summer
1. Only four athletes have even won a medal in both the summer and winter games
2. The games held in Athens in 2002 has a record 202 counties participate
3. In the first Olympics in Greece, athletes were crowned with wreaths made from olive leaves not medals
4. China did not win a  medal until 1984
5. Stockholm 1912 saw the last solid gold medals for first place winners - the medals now are only gold plated

Cheers to sports that bring out the best in us and bring us together!

My Tips for a Good Valentine’s Day

People think February is only a month of more and more snow but it is actually a month of kindness and love which goes with the most popular February holiday Valentine’s Day. I think most people believe Valentine’s Day is about buying chocolates for the boy or girl of your dreams, but it just simply isn’t so. Let me tell you how you can celebrate Valentine’s Day with your family and friends.

I have created the following 5 acts of kindness that you could do with your family everyday in the month of February.

Make cards for your friends and family

Help someone

Be nicer to a person who you don’t like

Have a competition where you do acts of kindness and the person with the most acts of kindness wins something

Invite family to your house and talk about the blessings in your lives

I hope you liked my tips on how to have a great Valentine’s Day and please follow my blogging thanks and have a great Valentine’s Day.

My trip to India

I went to India for three weeks and although I cannot write about my entire trip, I have written my best days for my best vacation yet.

We finally got to Mangalore after the three plane ride. My uncle Kenneth was waiting to pick us up from the airport at Mangalore. When we got to Premdhan, my grandparent’s house both set of my grandparents were there. They  were so happy to see us after one year and I was happy to see them too. After we spoke to them for a while we had to go to the hotel we were staying in. It was called Plama.  Once we got there I fell asleep because I was extremely tired. The next day I went to my aunt Marriette’s house where I met my cousin in law Roxana. I spoke to her about movies and we talked about movies she and I wanted to go for with all my cousins like, The Hobbit 2. I wanted to go for it so bad.  After that I showed Roxana a game that I like called Clash of Clans. She said she thought it was really cool. Then I went back to Plama with my parents where I finally finished my book called 'Framed'. My cousins from  a nearing city, Bangalore arrived the next day and I spoke to them about their time in India and their experiences. We go really well together even though they are much older than me. They are really the best cousins ever. On my trip, we also went to the beach; we went in a car and it took about forty minutes to get there but it was well worth it. The beach was really beautiful and we swam a lot too. After the beach we went for The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug. We got back at 12 o’clock in the morning and I dropped in to bed. The following day I just relaxed with my cousins and we bought some tender coconut and ice apples, they were good. We took the juice back home and poured it into glasses and shared it. Then we all watched a movie at home it was called Mall Cop 2, sadly I did not finish the movie because I fell asleep again. The following day we went to my uncle Mario’s beach house, there I swam with my cousins in the medium sized pool. At 9pm we had to to leave because my grandparent’s were tired so we dropped them home and went to my dad’s friend’s house. There I made two new friends Liam and Ben, they showed me a game on their iPod which was about archery. They tried to teach me but I was no good. After 3 hours I said good bye to my friends and we went home.

We also celebrated my grandparents 50^th wedding anniversary while we were in Mangalore. I raised the toast and every one of my family members were there, they were so happy. We partied till late in the night, after all was over I went back to the hotel. My last day in India I spent with my grand parent’s. I spoke to them and showed them my books, they were sad  that we were leaving and so was I.  But I know I will see them next year. My vacation in India was by far the best one ever.