In this blog post, I am going to talk a bit about the holiday that my family and I celebrated from February 25 to February 29 called Ayyam-i-Ha. Ayyam-i-Ha is a Bahai holiday that last for four days. It is a time of joy, good cheer, exaltation, being hospitable, helping the poor and needy, eating good food, having celebrations, and giving gifts. In the Bahai calendar, there are nineteen months, each of which have nineteen days. This adds up to 361 days in a year. The remaining 4 days are the intercalary days or Ayyam-i-Ha. Ayyam-i-Ha is also a time to prepare for the upcoming nineteen day fast that starts on March 1st. During the fast, Bahais ages 15-70 fast from sunrise to sunset. The fast is a time to detach from the physical and material things in life and to focus on the spiritual things. Down below is a link to a Bahai website that talks about Ayyam-i-Ha in a little more depth if you want to learn more:

An Introduction to Ayyam-i-Ha

 

 

Last weekend, me and my family traveled to Richmond,VA for a soccer tournament. We left Saturday morning since our first game was at 1:00 pm. Every time we have a game, we have to arrive 45 minutes early. We got there at 12:15, so we walked to the field. My teammates and I warmed up until it was time to start the game. We play nine vs nine, so our starting lineup was a 3-3-2. I started that game in the position left winger. Unfortunately, we lost that game 2-4. Our next game started at 4:00, so 20 minutes later we came back to the field and warmed up again. By the time we started the game, it was raining really hard! At halftime the score was 0-3 them. Then, we got a penalty kick and my teammate scored. Then they scored again so it was 1-4 them. Then I scored! Then my teammate scored! Then I scored AGAIN! Then, with five minutes left, we got a corner kick. My teammate blasted it from the corner and it went into the middle of the field. My teammate slid and scored! A few minutes later, the game was done. We had made a MAJOR comeback and the score ended 5-4 us! We were very excited that we were going to the semifinals, but we were also drenched. We got back to our hotel, ate dinner and played games. We had to go to bed at 9:30 because we had to be on the field the next morning at 7:15 am. The next morning, we woke up and ate breakfast. We drove to the field and played our game in 25 degree weather. Unfortunately, we lost that game. It was 2-2 until the last minute where my teammate slipped and fell. The other team took advantage of this and went and scored. Then the whistle blew. The game was over and we had lost the semifinals. Everybody was sad, but we all had a very good time at that tournament.

 

 

 

During winter break, my family and I took a trip to Aruba. Aruba is an island that is close to Venezuela. On Thursday, we woke up at 5:30 and drove to the airport. There was a HUGE line for the international American Airlines flights and you were not allowed to use the kiosks. Now, some lines move quickly and you can get through them pretty quick because they actually MOVE. This line didn’t move in inch. We missed our flight that day (300 people missed their flight that day) and we waited in line from 6:15 am to 11:30 am. That’s more than 5 HOURS just waiting in line. The next day, we woke up at 5:00 and drove to the airport. That same line was still there. Fortunately, since we missed our flight yesterday, we could use the kiosks today even though we were flying international. We made it to Aruba and checked in to our hotel. We stayed from Friday to Tuesday. Over the following days, we did some really fun activities. On Saturday, we went to the beach. I loved the beach in Aruba because the water was so blue and almost clear. Also, there were no waves. You would walk ankle deep in the water and then suddenly it would dip down and the water would go up to your waist. The beach was kind of like a pool. On Sunday, we also went to the beach again because we liked it so much. On Monday, we went to the beach from 9:00-11:00 and then we rented a Jeep and drove to the national park. On the way, we saw a lot of cacti. It was funny because there was the cacti, and then next to it was the ocean. We drove to a cave and walked inside. There were bats in there! Then, we took a stop at this cliff. It was insanely beautiful and scenic. There was a cliff and below it was some rocks and the ocean. The ocean was so pretty. It was a dark blue and it crashed against the rocks. We took some pictures and then walked down the stairs and got to wade in the ocean. The sand was so white. The next day, we drove back to the airport and flew home. Overall, this trip was so much fun and one of the best trips I have ever went on.

 

For the past few months, my Language Arts class have been reading wisdom tales. Wisdom tales are short stories that come from different places. These stories always have a moral or lesson that you can learn from and apply to your daily life. These wisdom tales tales could have the main characters as animals or humans and are very enjoyable to read. After we finished reading these wisdom tales, we all chose one story to personalize and make into a comic using Comic Life 3. I chose to do my comic about the wisdom tale The Useless Tree. This wisdom tale is about a tree with a twisted trunk and how nobody wants to use it while all the other trees in the grove are useful. Here is my comic down below:

About a week ago, in tech class, we were learning about Flipaclip. Flipaclip is an app that allows you to make an animation using drawings. You draw each little movement on a separate page to make a story. This is kind of like how in the olden days, people used drawings. Each drawing was a specific movement and when you flipped through the pages, it looked like a story. An example of a film that used to use this technique is Mickey Mouse.

In my video, I have the food from the song Chicken Wing Chicken Wing come alive. I used about 215 pages of drawings. Here it is down below:

Hi everyone! As you probably know, Thanksgiving just passed and this year it took place on Thursday, November 23. In this post, I am going to tell you a bit about the history of Thanksgiving. Also, I’m going to be listing ten things that I am grateful for.

History of Thanksgiving:

It all started in 1621 when the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag (a Native American tribe) got together and had a big feast in the fall. This was one of the first Thanksgiving feasts with the colonies. This was how it was for more than two centuries – the colonists and the states all having Thanksgiving celebrations. Then, in 1863, during the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving feasts/celebrations will take place in November. But, many Americans, including Native Americans, think that Thanksgiving hides the fact that oppression and bloodshed might have occurred between the European settlers and the Native Americans because of their rocky relationship.

https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving

 

Now, here are ten things that I am grateful for:

1. My family
2. My friends
3. My soccer team
4. My teachers
5. My theatre cast
6. Food/clean water
7. Cheese
8. The Internet
9. My school
10. WEEKENDS

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you had a good Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone! As you probably know, Halloween just past! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays-I mean, who doesn’t like getting free candy? In this post, I am going to tell you a bit about what my family and I do on Halloween and some info that you might have not known about the history of Halloween. First of all, here is some fun facts about the history of Halloween! All is information is from the History Channel.

As you most likely know, Halloween is celebrated on October 31. This tradition started with a festival called the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. At this festival, people would have a bonfire and wear costumes to scare off ghosts. During the eighth century, someone named Pope Gregory lll identified November 1st as a time where everyone would honor and appreciate the saints. After a little while, All Saints Day started adapting some of the traditions from Samhain. Soon, the night before All Saints Day became known as All Hallows Eve, which soon transitioned to Halloween. Over the years, Halloween advanced into a day of trick or treating, eating candy, having parties, dressing up, and much more.

Now that you you know a little bit about the history of Halloween, here are all the states’ favorite candies:

• Alabama: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Alaska: Snickers
• Arizona: Skittles
• Arkansas: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• California: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Colorado: Original M&Ms
• Connecticut: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Delaware: Starburst
• Florida: Milky Way
• Georgia: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Hawaii: Original M&Ms
• Idaho: Snickers
• Illinois: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Indiana: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Iowa: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Kansas: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Kentucky: Butterfinger
• Louisiana: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Maine: Kit Kat
• Maryland: Milky Way
• Massachusetts: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Michigan: Starburst
• Minnesota: Skittles
• Mississippi: Kit Kat
• Missouri: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Montana: Hot Tamales
• Nebraska: Milky Way
• Nevada: Kit Kat
• New Hampshire: Original M&Ms
• New Jersey: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• New Mexico: Kit Kat
• New York: Kit Kat
• North Carolina: Snickers
• North Dakota: Skittles
• Ohio: Original M&Ms
• Oklahoma: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Oregon: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Pennsylvania: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Rhode Island: Snickers
• South Carolina: Kit Kat
• South Dakota: Kit Kat
• Tennessee: Skittles
• Texas: Starburst
• Utah: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Vermont: Hot Tamales
• Virginia: Kit Kat
• Washington: Skittles
• West Virginia: Kit Kat
• Wisconsin: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
• Wyoming: Original M&Ms

https://www.realsimple.com/most-popular-halloween-candy-6755282

Is your favorite candy on this list? Now, I’m going talk about the things I do on Halloween. My favorite candies are Sour Patch Kids and Sour Skittles. What is your favorite Halloween candy? Usually, I go trick-or-treating with my family/friends and get A LOT of candy. Did you go trick-or-treating this year?

Fun facts about Halloween:

1. Candy corn used to be called chicken feed
2. Every year, Americans pay $3 billion on candy!
3. Jack-0-Lanterns used to be carved out of turnips and potatoes
4. Skittles are the TOP Halloween candy
5. The world’s heaviest pumpkin weighed 2096 pounds!

 

 

 

https://www.countryliving.com/life/g37154795/halloween-facts/

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/halloween-ideas/a35150/halloween-facts/

https://www.ef.edu/blog/language/13-thrilling-facts-bet-didnt-know-halloween/

 

Thanks for reading!

Hi! I am going to tell you a bit about my life on the soccer field. One of my favorite things to do is play soccer. I have been playing soccer for 3 years.

I love playing soccer because:

1) It’s a team sport

2) I love running

3) I love scoring

I play for NCFC Classic club team. I love my coach and my teammates are all so nice! We have practice three days a week and one game either on Saturday or Sunday. We have tournaments twice every season and they are usually out of our city. My position is left winger. I like this position because you are both offense and defense. In soccer, you have to practice A LOT in order to get good and you have to dedicate a lot of time to it. Thanks for reading!

The picture below is from NCFC website.

 

 

 

 

In August, just before school started, my family and I took a trip to Banff National Park in Canada for a week. When we were in the car, driving to the airport, my mom got an email saying our second flight was delayed. We a let out a huge sigh of frustration. Nobody likes waiting at the airport for a long time. When we got to the airport, we said goodbye to our grandparents and waited in so many long lines until we got to our terminal. Our flight was about two hours. Then, we had a stop and we got back on for four more hours.

When we finally got to Calgary, a city next to Banff, we rented a car. We rented a Tesla because my mom really wanted to try it out. Soon, we all got mysteriously carsick and my dad was getting pretty confused on how to drive it so we drove all the way back to the airport and got a different car. By then, it was very late and we still had to drive two hours to get to our hotel in Banff. We didn’t have time for dinner so we just picked up pizza. We arrived at our hotel at around twelve AM and my brother and I were asleep.

The next day, we were all tired from our long night but we did a few hikes at a lake called Lake Minnewanka. This lake was a beautiful turquoise color and we did a beautiful scenic hike that had plenty of clear views of the lake. The whole time, my dad was taking continuous pictures with his new camera. He claimed he was doing this for the memories but I think that he just wanted to test out his new camera. A few days later, we went to YoHo National Park and visited a lake named Emerald Lake. This lake was a crystal turquoise color and was the most beautiful lake I had ever seen. We did a beautiful scenic hike there. Along the way, there were little stops with a little bit of beach. You could hang out on the sand and swim/wade in the lake. I really wanted to swim but the lake was WAY too cold.

This was one of my favorite things we did on our trip: In the afternoon, we went to a waterfall called Takakkaw Falls. There was a short hike to the waterfall and we got DRENCHED since we were so close to the falls. Some other hikes we did were at Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. Three days before we left, we decided to drive through the Icefields Parkway. It takes three hours to get completely through it. After about an hour of driving, my little brother started screaming, “BEAR! BEAR! BEAR!” Sure enough, when we turned our heads, there was a black bear on the other side of a river. We pulled over and we took some pictures.

About an hour later, we came across a stop. This stop was a short hike to a view of a glacier! We went up and took a few pictures with the glacier but it was so cold! My brother and I saw that there was a path straight to the glacier and that you could walk on it. We begged our parents and they agreed to do the hike. We started walking and soon, we came across a sign that said, ‘Warning, only guide groups allowed’. My brother and a shrugged and we kept on going. My brother saw a very tall cluster of rocks and went and climbed it. My dad shouted for him to come down because one wrong step and he was dead. Next to that pile of rocks was a deep canyon with nothing but sharp rocks at the bottom. When my brother had gotten down, we continued our journey to the glacier. There was no path, just slippery rocks, guiding us along uphill. There was very little space and one wrong move and you would be tumbling down with sharp rocks into an ice-cold freezing lake. This lake was all the water from the melted glacier so it was definitely cold. We finally got to the glacier and got to walk on it. After a little while, we hiked back down to our car and soon, we were back on the road.

About an hour later, we reached Jasper National Park and spent the night there. The next day, we drove back to Calgary and stayed in a hotel that was five minutes from the airport. We were leaving the next day and needed to stay at a hotel close to the airport. Unfortunately, we had to wake up at 4:00 am because our flight was at 6:00 am. When we woke up the next morning, we hurried to the lobby with our luggage and waited for the bus (that was going to take us to the airport) to arrive. The bus finally arrived, but the driver was taking his sweet time getting us to the airport. We finally got to the airport and had less than an hour to wait in the lines to get let on the airplane. By the last line, we were really panicking. We were going to miss our flight. When we finally got our passports checked, we had five minutes until the airplane left. We ran to our terminal and got into the airplane with only 1-2 minutes to spare. After our flight, our grandparents picked us up and we finally went home. This trip was one of the best trips I have ever been on and I 1,000% recommend it to ANYONE. Thanks for reading!

Down below are some pictures that were taken by my parents:

 

Over the summer, the sixth grade read a book called Finding Someplace. This book is about a 12 year old girl named Reesie whose birthday is in a few weeks. Suddenly, Hurricane Katrina whirls through New Orleans, Louisiana. First, Reesie’s family is hesitant to evacuating,  even though all the other families were. Reesie’s parents agreed to let Reesie’s uncle pick her up and let her evacuate with him. Soon, Reesie realizes that her uncle can’t pick her up because the highway has been adjusted so that the only direction you can go is out. When Reesie goes to pick up the cake from her next door neighbor, Miss Martine, she gets stuck at her neighbor’s house because of the hurricane. Reesie and Miss Martine try to survive Hurricane Katrina together. This book is full of adventure and I definitely recommend it.

Taken by me

 

After we read this book, we wrote a short essay on who we think is the hero. This is mine down below:

I would consider Ms. Martine Odette Simone as the hero of the story. I think this because if it wasn’t for Ms. Martine’s house, then Reesie probably would not have survived. Also, if Ms. Martine had been mean and if she haven’t let Reesie come to her home, Reesie would have nowhere to go during the hurricane.

Another reason I think that Ms, Martine is the hero is that if it weren’t for Ms. Martine’s coconut cake, Reesie would not have come to get the cake and she wouldn’t have gotten into Ms. Martine’s house.

My last reason is that if Ms.Martine hadn’t  agreed to let Dré in even though he ran away, Dré wouldn’t have been able to break open the roof and save everyone. Every heroic thing other people did started with Ms. Martine. She really went through a lot to make sure Reesie, Dré, and Eritrea were safe.

When Reesie is packing her backpack to take with her when she evacuates with her uncle, he tells her to only pack the important stuff. My teacher asked us to draw what we would take in our backpacks if we had to evacuate.

This is mine down below:

Taken by me

 

Bye for now,

Ella