Fun Week, Getting Ready to Leave!

Well right now I am between topics. Last week I talked about our trip. So since we haven’t left yet I cant talk about that again so I am stuck. We really didn’t do much this week because we are trying to get ready to leave. So I guess I will talk about the few small things that happened. Oh wait Monday we didn’t have school cause it was President’s Day. So I got up that day and waited for an hour and a half sandwiched in the middle of to old ladies talking over me to one another while I was waiting to get my haircut. It was so much fun uggghh. Then after that was over we went skiing. We drove up to Powder Mountain to go night skiing. We got there skied had fun. Oh and we saw someone like run into a tree and the ski patrol had to bring them down on a sled under a tarp. That was kind of weird. We had packed some sandwiches in the car and when we got hungry we went and ate them but the peanut butter was frozen because it was so cold. That was okay though because we were so hungry they were still really good. We skied some more then got in the car to go home. We stopped at a gas station for some drinks on the way home, we kept going after that and were still really hungry so when we got back into town we went to Little Caesars for some pizza. The only thing was is that they were out of pepperoni so there were obviously now pepperoni pizzas. But we were so hungry we still got a ham pizza. I don’t think we have had one taste so good. Tuesday and Wednesday rolled by until Thursday. Thursday was the “One week till we leave!” marker and also the Solo and Ensemble festival at the school for band. I played both a solo and an ensemble there and did fairly well on both. First was my ensemble. It was a tuba and euphonium duet. We did really well be we got stuck with a song that doesn’t sound very good. Even though we played it right it still sounded kind of bad. Then after we played that I played my solo. It was an accompanist and I. She was on the piano and I was playing my tuba. But the only thing is that my accompanist is blind. But she is amazing so I asked her if she would make up an accompaniment to my song. She said yes and we worked on it and sounded really good. We ended up doing really well in the competition. It was a lot of fun too. Saturday some friends and me went swimming and had a really good time then went over to one of their houses to play Rock Band. Then today was my cousins farewell for his mission to Toronto Canada. He leaves one week from Wednesday. It’s really weird because he is not much older than me. He is the first on to go on my moms side of the family and I am next to go. Really scary huh. Well I leave on Thursday for California so wish me luck!

Vacation!

This week was a great week. But it all started out kind of strange. On Sunday I went to go sit down with my family after passing the sacrament. As soon as I sat down my mom leaned over and said, “I think you need to read your scriptures” I just looked at her and was like “umm… ok” and just sat there. Then she said it again “I think you need to read your scriptures right now!” So this time I said ok again and started to unzip my scripture bag. As I finished opening my bag an envelope fell out that had my name on it. So I opened it up and pulled out a paper that said Scripture Hunt. It was a riddle thing that I was supposed to fill out using my scriptures. So I followed all the instructions on the paper and finished the riddle and it said, “Surprise! Prepare this week for those things, which are coming. You will shout with joy and these signs shall follow which shall manifest unto him the truth of all things.” So in other words It said to be ready this week for a surprise and you will keep getting hints. So that was my Sunday clue. Then on Monday after school I went to go get a snack out of the fridge and there was a bottle of water that said “Clue #2” Then when my mom walked into the room she said “Its not the bottle it is the water inside.” So I had to think about that, it means it has something to do with water. I sat and thought about it all night cause I only got one clue a day. I went to bed and got up the next morning and went to go get in the shower. In there I found no shampoo and no soap, instead there was a little bar of soap and a little bottle of shampoo with a post-it note above it saying “Clue #3. You know like the ones from a hotel. Right then I though we are going on a vacation to stay in a hotel and we are going somewhere with lots of water. So lets see this was Tuesday morning. Wednesday rolls around and I can help but think what my next clue for that day would be. Then in seminary my mom comes in with a little bottle of sunscreen and a post card that says “Pack your bags we leave in two weeks.” Then on the other side were the picture is there was a picture of Mickey, Goofy and Donald Duck. So right there in school I found out we were leaving for Disneyland! I am so excited! My parents were not going to tell my little brother and me until the Thursday morning that we were leaving. They we going to pack for us and just get us up at four in the morning and take us straight to the airport to leave. I am kind of glad they didn’t do that. But I wouldn’t have cared anyway. This will be our first vacation since I was in third grade and we went to Disneyland! That was a very very long time ago. We are going to go spend the days we are there at Disneyland, California Adventure, Sea World, Universals Studios and the Beach before we come home. We leave one week from Thursday! I can’t wait!

Summer! Almost Here!

Well summer is getting closer thank goodness. I was counting the weeks and we only sixteen more weeks until summer! I honestly couldn’t believe it. We will be done with ninth grade, done with Jr. High, done with summer and before we know it in high school. Then after that we will be graduated and gone away before we know it too. College in less then four years, it is all just coming and going so so fast. Not a day goes by in my life when I don’t think about the future and where I will be in one year from now, then two years from now and just so on until I get bored thinking. I remember when I was really little, you know like those vacations to Disneyland, first day of school, fun times you had in kindergarten and things like that. It all just seems like yesterday. Well I am really really looking for summer. I think it is going to be a fun one. I just signed up to go to EFY at Weber State. Then only thing is that I don’t get to stay overnight. I will have to drive back and forth morning and night because all the rooms were filled up. But still it will be really fun. Last year I heard how much fun everybody had at EFY when I was an officer last year and got a chance to hand out with the older kids. So in my ward when the young men’s leader said. “Hey everybody we are going to EFY” I was excited cause I had heard so many good things. But I turned out that we were going to this four-hour talk with some churchy guy. It really wasn’t fun at all. So this summer I just decided to sign up with some friends and go with them for the weeklong thing. It should be really fun. Then after that along time into summer I think I will be going to scout camp. This will be well I guess my fifth weeklong camp. Wow just had another one of those “Can’t believe how fast life goes moments. I just seems like last summer I was at my first camp. But anyway my troop is going to Camp Loll this year. The scouts are going for the usual merit badges and stuff, but the older kids who already have their eagles are going on a high adventure trip. For those of you don’t know Loll is just outside of Yellowstone park. So all week long we are going through classes on how to repel, white water raft, and other fun outdoorsy things. I am really excited for that too. Then today me and my mom were talking about jobs over the summer. I think im going to try and find one that I can do before I turn sixteen in September. I am already a soccer referee and that makes really really good money. So I will keep doing that and maybe find more of a full time job during the day. I don’t know I am really excited for summer and nice weather. Sunday was so so so nice and warm. I cant wait.

School Sports

What sports do you play? Soccer? Baseball? Football? Well if you play those then you would try out for the school team wouldn’t you? Well I guess you are just out of luck because those sports are not offered in our school or even school district. Throughout this essay I will focus mainly on soccer because that is the sport that I play. But in this paper I am also including Baseball, Football and other sports. I want to know why there is only a very select few sports offered at our school compared to other schools. I feel sports have always brought people together. To learn to work together, trust each other, and become good friends. Think of the revolutionary story of Jackie Robinson and how he changed baseball and the way people look at other races. Which I feel even led to a change of the world. With out sports this story would not exist. Imagine in school you have two different groups of kids. They don’t like each other and fight. Kids in both groups enjoy playing soccer. They all try out for a school team. They have to learn to work together and trust each other. Sports in school would lead to more unity between student’s and most likely lower the amount of high risk kids. If that does not work then we could use the discipline points system. Say that if they get a certain number of points or more than they cannot participate in school athletics. You can also use this for grades. Tell them that if they do not get a high enough GPA then they cannot play and are removed from the team or just bench them and not allow them to play. I have some friends that are very passionate about soccer. I really do feel that if they could not play the sport because of behavior or grades then they would try their very very hardest to improve so they could play. This friend who I just briefly mentioned does go to our school. He truly loves soccer and is very very good at it. He has been playing on a competition league for a very long time and I have been privileged enough to play competition level with him for five years before he moved on to a better team. I feel that he does not get respect at school because he does not play one of the few organized sports that is offered at our school. Basketball players who have seen him play in gym class think he is bad at basketball so that makes them think he is really bad at all the other sports. That is very not true. If only those kids could see him out on a soccer field. Then go out and try to play soccer for themselves they would find out its not as easy as it looks. Even with other sports I feel that there is a bit of bullying going on because sometimes kids can’t always see the persons full potential. My friend trains non stop all year round to be the best he can be for the upcoming soccer season. He runs almost every morning in the very very cold temperatures and sometimes in inches, even feet of snow. When I ask him why he keeps going? Why he keeps training through miserable conditions he just says to me, “It will pay off when the soccer season comes., because I will be that much farther ahead of everybody else.” People would never know how good he really is. Everybody knows that the kids who are good at sports are always the most popular kids. It’s not fair that people just don’t realize there are a lot of sports that are not as well know out there that are also worth noticing. We need all the sports that we can get to help in getting kids in shape. The state and Nations top health officials say that Americas kids are bigger than ever. They have a higher caloric intake and a less active physical lifestyle. If the state and district are telling kids that they are out of shape and overweight why are they not doing anything about it? They make us take gym class. They feed us very bad food because it is healthy and low in calories. This is still not working because I still hear how overweight the youth really are. If they love a sport then they will work at it to be the best they can be. Everybody will do that if they truly love the sport. I feel this is a way to solving the problem of overweight kids. Give them a variety in choosing a sport. They will probably also work at it like my friend to be the best they can be. I think that adding more sports to schools will solve many problems, Obesity, Bullying, Low GPA averages at schools, possibly even money issues. All of these things have been brought up to the school board as problems. They have a very high chance of being fixed with just a few small changes. Mainly the addition of more sports.