Category: Fun

Thanksgiving Break

It has been really nice getting to have an entire week off from school for Thanksgiving. A week off allowed for me to relax, do homework, spend time with friends, goof around with my sister, and visit my family in New Mexico for Thanksgiving.

Getting a week off from school was great and I didn’t realize how much I needed it until the break arrived. I was able to sleep in, work on homework, read, and relax. Two of the books I read over the break were Land of Stories: Return of the Enchantress and Happily Ever After. Happily Ever After is a book that accompanies The Selection series by Kiera Cass (my favorite book series by the way). Land of Stories: Return of the Enchantress is the second book of the Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer. I recommend both series to anyone who enjoys romance and fairy tales.

Thursday morning, my family and I packed up our car and travelled to Farmington, New Mexico to spend time with my aunt, uncle, and grandpa. On the way to New Mexico, we heard “Alice’s Restaurant” which is a Thanksgiving traditional song three times. Oh boy. There was plenty of wonderful food to eat when we arrived at my grandpa’s house and we had a good time together. In my opinion, spending time with family is very important, especially during a holiday. You get to catch up with one another and have a good time together. I definitely did not go Black Friday shopping, despite the good deals many businesses offered. To be honest, Black Friday shopping scares me. It gets so intense and personal for some people!

On Saturday my family and I were out and about running errands and visiting family friends. When we had time, my mom, sister, grandma, and I went to the local mall and found a great ugly Christmas sweater. It’s pretty ugly, but the ugliness almost makes it cute. When dinner time rolled around, my entire family drove to Zeb’s which is a buffet restaurant where you can pick a meal from the menu with a side from the salad bar, a meal from the meat bar, or the salad bar as a meal. I ordered a Alpine Burger that had a burger, mushrooms, Swiss cheese, and sour cream on it (I added that from the burger bar). In the end, the food was good and we were all stuffed. Zeb’s is a wonderful restaurant that has a large variety of delicious food and great service.

Today my family and I packed up and are currently on our way home. Eight hour car trips are the perfect time to work on blogs, haha. It’s been pretty cold so far and there’s some snow up in the mountains.

Overall, I had a great and productive Thanksgiving break and look forward to more trips to New Mexico, time with family, and breaks in the future. I hope you and your families had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful week!

November 29, 2015
How to Be a Babysitter

For about a month, I’ve been pretty busy babysitting. Being a babysitter requires social skills, time, responsibility, and creativity. Babysitting is extremely fun and I enjoy doing whatever I can to help others, so it’s something I’m doing more and more often.

I wrote this blog post for a school assignment and I thought it would be good to share with you all. Here are a few tips on how to be a great babysitter. Just kidding, these are actually some very sarcastic tips on how to be a babysitter. Enjoy!

Congrats newly minted babysitter!

Welcome to the wonderful world of babysitting! Here are a few tips on how to succeed in the babysitting industry:

1. Don’t exchange information with the parents. When you first arrive at the house, the parents will mostly likely ask for your phone number and maybe your email. Don’t give them your information and never ask for their’s. You don’t want them scamming you and remember the rules with stranger danger.

2. If you are babysitting when the kids have to go to sleep, tell them scary stories before bed. Make sure it’s scary to the point that the child is screaming and possibly crying. Kids love stories before bed, and by telling them a scary story, you accomplish another task on your babysitting list.

3. Feed the kids a bunch of candy and sugary foods. Most children love sweet treats like candy, cookies, and ice cream so give them what they love! You’ll be extremely popular with the little ones and watching them bounce off of the walls can be very entertaining.

4. Make yourself at home. A majority of parents will tell you to “make yourself at home” which basically means “get comfortable and do whatever makes you feel at home”. Eat the food, watch some T.V., and even sleep in the parents’ bed if that makes you feel at home. If you really feel like making the house feel like your own, change up the place a little and let our your inner interior designer.

5. Show the kids where all of the dangerous items are. By telling the children where the dangerous items are, they will be aware of them. Make sure the objects are visible and easy to reach just in case the kids need to defend themselves or use any of the items.

6. Leave all of the doors and windows open. Leaving the windows and doors open allows for fresh air to circulate throughout the house. Also, everyone on the outside can observe what is going on inside the house, and you, the fearless and protective babysitter, can observe everything that is happening outside so you can protect the kids.

7. Introduce the concept of procrastination to the kids if they have homework. Homework isn’t important until the night before it’s due, so emphasize that to the children. Procrastinating will improve the kids’ performance in school because performing under stress forces kids to work harder to get their homework done.

8. If the family you’re babysitting for has pets, leave the doggy door or cat door closed. The doggy door or cat door is the only way a pet can escape, so by closing off their only way of escape, you prevent them from running away.

9. Respond to every phone call the house receives. The parents don’t need any messages. You’re there to answer the phone so you will answer and make decisions for the parents.

10. Remember that YOU are in charge. You are the one getting paid, so you need to make it crystal-clear to the parents that they pay you the amount you want to be paid, you will do what you want, their children will follow your rules, and the parents arrive at home when you tell them to. If you tell the parents to be home at 9 pm, and they say they’re running late and will be there at 9:45, get out of there. The kids were your responsibility until 9 and after that, they aren’t your problem.

Good luck!

October 18, 2015
Happy Homecoming!

Homecoming week is one of the busiest and most enjoyable weeks of high school. There’s a big football game, many activities, and also a huge dance. My homecoming was last night and it was amazing and also exhausting! Here are a few tips on how to make your homecoming dance and week a success.

1. Attend school activities. School activities during homecoming week are highly-attended most of the time and they’re super fun. Why not enjoy time with friends and classmates and show some interest in your school? Events like powder-puff which is the girls’ flag football game, the homecoming dance, pep assembly, and the big football game are special, exciting, and memorable. If you don’t go, that’s okay but you’re missing out on a lot! You’ll value high school a little bit more if you go to these events!

2. Participate in spirit days. This goes along with the first tip. At most schools, there is a theme for homecoming and during the week you dress up to get in the spirit of the theme. For example, at my school the theme this year was Vegas and throughout the week we dressed up like flamingos (Flamingo Hotel), Romans (Caesar’s Palace), and tropical (Mandalay Bay. We also did two spirits days for school pride and class colors. Getting involved in spirit days is really fun and silly. A majority of people think that they might look ridiculous wearing a toga to school, for example, but when the whole school gets involved, you can all look silly together and have fun.

3. Make smart decisions. Most often at the homecoming dance or on the way to the dance, students think it’s okay to break out the alcohol and drugs and do whatever they feel like doing. I strongly disagree with these ideas and believe they’re insane. There is never a good time to do illegal and inappropriate things like drugs or alcohol as a minor, in my opinion, let alone a school dance. You should avoid drugs, alcohol, and other dangerous or risky behaviors. There are plenty of other ways to have fun at a school dance, like dancing (what a concept), playing games, and so on.

4. Have fun! Homecoming is a special time of the year and take advantage of it! You only have four years of high school and homecoming only comes once a year so make the most out of the time you have.

To make homecoming week one of the best weeks of the school year, just remember to attend school activities, participate in spirit days, make smart decisions, and have fun! Happy Homecoming!

October 4, 2015
Garden of the Gods

Yesterday, my dad planned a surprise trip to Garden of the Gods, in Colorado Springs. The ride in the car seemed to go on forever and ever but the long trip was definitely worth it.

Garden of the Gods is a national natural landmark and public park located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The park is 2.136 square miles and to tour the park, you can take a segway, walk, or drive.

On the way to Colorado Springs, my sister and I needed something to do to keep ourselves entertained, so we started looking at the license plates of every car that passed us. This eventually became pretty entertaining because there were a lot of cars from different states. I kept track of the different state license plates we saw, and in the end we counted 36 different state license plates! We saw, the Dakotas, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, Wyoming, Maine, California, Minnesota, Florida, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Washington, Montana, Illinois, Virginia, Kansas, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina, Louisiana, Alaska, Arkansas, Ohio, Iowa, Maryland, and New York.

When we finally arrived at the Garden of the Gods, it was amazing. There was this mini museum that showed what kind of animals live around the area and a very interesting and entertaining fifteen minute video on how the rocks formed the way they did. The formations of the rocks and the nature all around was majestic. Since I’m in a cast, it was probably best that we didn’t take the four-mile walking tour, so my family and I took our car and traveled around the park.

Overall, the trip was wonderful. The views were great, spending time with my family was fun, the rock formations were beautiful, and the fudge at the trading post was delicious.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Labor Day weekend! 🙂

September 6, 2015
A Wicked Review

Last night, my family and I went to see Denver’s most popular musical and Broadway’s biggest blockbuster, Wicked. And I have one word to describe it. It was wicked! Haha, pun intended.

In case you don’t know the story of Wicked, it’s about the two witches of Oz, Elphaba and Glinda. It’s all about Elphaba and how she became the wicked witch of the west, her life story, and also Glinda’s life story. The plot and flow of the story was smooth and extremely well done. There was also a lot of good humor. I won’t spoil the actual story for you all, in case you haven’t seen it.

Alyssa Fox starred as Elphaba, the wicked witch of the west and Carrie St. Louis starred alongside her as Glinda the good witch. They had phenomenal vocals and were both extremely talented and worked very well with each other. Ashley Parker Angel played Fiyero, the lead male in the show. He loved Elphaba and Glinda loved him, so that made things interesting. Ashley also had a lot of talent and helped make the show funny and memorable.

In addition to the plot and main characters, the music was beautifully done and very catchy. Some of my favorite songs from the show are “No Good Deed”, “Popular”, and “Defying Gravity”. “Defying Gravity” is probably my absolute favorite because Alyssa Fox did an extremely good job with it. She was very powerful with her singing on this song and it sent good shivers down my spine.

Credits to the photographer of this image.

Overall, Wicked is a wonderful show and good for the whole family. I would definitely go see it again and I highly recommend it to everyone. I hope you all are enjoying the holiday weekend and have a good upcoming week!

July 5, 2015
Memorial Day Weekend

Not all weekends are full of excitement and fun but this Memorial Day weekend has been a very eventful weekend so far. I’ve played a lot of tennis, visited the Wild Animal Sanctuary, and went to a huge Mexican restaurant, oh, and studied for finals.

Saturday was mostly studying for the final big week of school. Finals, yay! (Totally kidding.) My dad, sister, and I also got onto the tennis courts and had a lot of fun. It’s been raining like crazy for the past few weeks so we had to get out earlier than usual to beat the weather. Exercise is super important, so it’s best to get out when you can!

Today started off with a fun two hour tennis practice and then my family and I did something we’ve never done before. In Keensburg, Colorado there is the largest animal sanctuary in the Western Hemisphere and it is called the Wild Animal Sanctuary. The walk is a total of two miles and is pretty enjoyable.The sanctuary owns over 700 acres of land and is home to abused carnivores from all over the world. These animals have room to run, play, and live their lives to the fullest. You get to walk on a path that is 30 feet above the ground so that the animals don’t feel threatened or become anxious. There were lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my! We heard lions roar and saw grizzly bear wrestle and even ostriches run and play. The Wild Animal Sanctuary is a wonderful non-profit organization with an even better cause and the walk and sights are worth the drive.

This was the white tiger taking a nap at the Wild Animal Sanctuary.

After the three hour journey, my family and I traveled to a huge restaurant in Denver called Casa Bonita, which means “pretty house” in Spanish. From the outside, Casa Bonita looked like a cute, high-quality Mexican restaurant, but when we walked inside, I realized how huge the restaurant was. There was a mini pool for cliff divers, arcade, buffet area, and so much more. You could choose from an all-you-can-eat buffet or a different meal. I went with the chicken dinner buffet and it came with an enchilada, taco, rice, and beans, and the food was delicious. There were also free sopapillas with the meal and those were additionally tasty. The shows with the cliff divers were short and funny and also ended with someone diving into the pool. I really enjoyed the experience and had a lot of fun today.

And tomorrow is Memorial Day, where we get to honor the men and women that served our country and dedicated their lives to it. Tomorrow would be a good time to get together with family and celebrate the people that serve our country. Happy Memorial Day everyone and have a good upcoming week. 🙂 And good luck to everyone taking finals this week!

May 24, 2015
A Trip to the Capitol

This past Friday, my sister and I had the day off from school so our dad drove us all down to Denver to tour the Capitol.

At first we walked around on our own and then decided to take a tour that lasted about an hour. We got to see the Hall of Presidents, Brown’s Attic, the entrance to Governor Hickenlooper’s office, the Senate and House in session, and the breath-taking view from the dome.

President Kennedy in the Hall of Presidents

Not only were there 61 steps to climb to reach the dome (yes, I counted) but the view of the Rocky Mountains and everything in Denver was great once we got there.

At the top of the dome; It was raining so we had to stay inside but the view was still great!

The rotunda

We had a great day at the Capitol and I highly recommend it to people coming from out-of-state looking for something to do and for all Colorado residents.

Going to visit monuments or important buildings in your area is a super fun and educational way to spend the day. For example, did you know that the Colorado flag is blue for our beautiful blue skies, red for the color red in the rocks, white for the snow-capped mountains, and yellow for the over 300 days of sunshine we get? Going places like the state capitol is a good way to learn more about things like the state motto or the meaning of the flag. (The motto is “nil sine numine” which means “nothing without providence”.

See what your area has to offer!

April 19, 2015