In May, my gifted class and I entered a poster contest for the Kansas Council for Economic Education. The challenge was to pick an economic category and create a poster that well represents that category. I chose Opportunity Costs as mine, and after a long wait, our class huddled around my gifted teacher’s computer to see the newly posted winners of the contest. I felt extremely happy to find that another classmate and I had won for our particular category and age division! If you want to see the poster I entered as well as all of my other classmate’s visit http://icubed.edublogs.org/. The article entitled Congratulations! shows mine, my classmates, and a link to everyone else’s. The post also gives a link to the KCEE website if you are interested in seeing all the winning entries.

Beach, mountains, rainforest, desert. Okay, repeat that again. Beach, mountains, rainforest, desert. When you’re stuck in the middle of America, in a place where the only tourists are your grandparents, it really makes you think: Wow, there’s really nothing that makes your home special. Living in Kansas, where we have cold, cold winters and hot, hot summers. Also, everyone assumes you jump around wearing a prairie dress and apron. The Kansas City area is no tourist attraction… but I’m happy about that. What do you want to see when you take vacations? Beautiful landscapes, amazing man-made landmarks, and utterly fascinating history. Or if you’re my sister, the big ferris wheel. But think about it this way: If you lived in Paris and saw the Eiffel Tower everyday, you would never get to enjoy it as much as the rest of the world does every time it looks at it. It would lose the magic. So I’m proud to say that I live where I live, because it makes every other place so much more splendid.

It’s a regular Saturday afternoon in December, and I’m flipping through a celebrity magazine, wishing I could be where they are: California. Warm, sunny beaches and amazing shops and restaurants, it’s such a nice place! I’ve never been there, but I hope that I will someday! Suddenly, my parents call my sisters and I into the kitchen. They say that they have big news, but what could it be? They tell us where we’re going for Spring Break. Where? Where?! Then they say it: Orange County, California!

We wake up early on a Tuesday morning in March. I’m tired, but excited. We’ve been waiting for this trip, planning for it. I can’t wait! My family and I arrive at the airport with just enough time to grab a bite for breakfast and head on into the plane. Great. I just absolutely love planes. I’m dreading the two long, tiring flights to California. We have to ride to Dallas then we’ll take another flight from there to the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. The flights are long and boring, but it’ll be worth it. Finally, we arrive at our condo: a nice, large place owned by my dad’s cousins; they’re letting us borrow it for the week.

That night, we sourced out a local grill and bar on the coast and walked down to a nearby beach, only to find an amazing view with soft sand and cold water. We stayed in California for five days, then left Sunday. We sort of had to go with the flow the whole trip, as we didn’t really know what we were going to do. But each day brought new discoveries, and each day was unique and worth a second trip.

The first day, my mother and I enjoyed shopping in many different stores at Newport Beach, while we dragged along my dad and two sisters (Annabelle and Georgia were not very pleased with having to wait on benches while I picked out shirts and jewelry!). We then explored the beautiful state park, Crystal Cove, a beach that’s been kept almost the exact same way as when it first opened. I especially loved walking on the rocks and searching to find small ocean life, such as crabs and snails, in the tide pools. That night, we went to my dad’s cousin’s home to eat a lovely dinner and relax in their hot tub (they also had a pool, but Annabelle and I were the only ones to brave the icy water and slippery slide in the cold night!).

On our second morning, we explored Hollywood. We took a two-hour tour of the main attractions and celebrity homes in Beverly Hills. The tour was fine, but our tour guide’s microphone went out, so for a third of the time we couldn’t hear a word that came out of his mouth. A very touristy thing to do, as my mother put it. I loved eating at the Pig n’ Whistle restaurant and shopping in unique stores that we don’t have in Kansas City.

Because this is a work in progress, I’ll finish it up in a later post. Stay updated to find out more!

Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I can’t wait! A whole holiday that is devoted to girly colors and hearts! Mmmm, and all of that candy! But do you know how Valentine’s Day was really started?

Valentine’s Day is made up of ancient Roman and Christian traditions. One of the many theories is that St. Valentine was a third century priest who lived in ancient Rome. The Emperor Claudius II declared that men were better soldiers if they were single, without a wife and family. So, he made it illegal for young men who were soon-to-be soldiers to marry. Valentine got very angry about this, and in his outrage, he still did weddings for couples in secret. But when Claudius II found out about Valentine’s actions, he was ordered to a sentence of death, creating Valentine’s Day!

So, that may be the true meaning of Valentine’s Day, but don’t we all love the special holiday as we know it today? Did you know that for every 100 single women in their twenties, there are 119 single men in their twenties? Did you also know that every February fourteenth, 141 million Valentine’s Day cards are given and recieved, not including the ones that kids buy for their classrooms, which makes it the holiday with the second-most card exchanges? And over fifty percent of those cards are bought within the six days before Valentine’s Day. So, get out there, Cupid!

Here are some of my new favorite winter comics:

How do you react when you wake up at ten o’clock on a Monday, thinking Huh? It’s ELEVEN? I’m gonna be late for school! I’ll tell you how I did: I stood up and got dressed and walked downstairs, only to find my mom and two sisters in the family room watching TV. What are they DOING? I soon learned that school was cancelled because of extreme weather conditions: snow and freezing temperatures. So those two magical words I was talking about? Snow Day!

For some people (like my own mom), snow days are just  another way to slow down her car and keep us annoying kids at home another day. But for me, snow days are just one step closer to my town becoming that perfect winter village that I have pictured in my head. I love the way the snow drips off of the roofs of houses, it reminds me of soft icing dripping off of a warm paint-flavored cake with windows and a door. I like how soft and bright the world looks as I fist wake up in the morning and how it is an Antarctica outside my bedroom window when I close my eyes for the last moments of the day.

So, we had two snow days: Monday and Tuesday. Over that time, we finished the fist season of Glee (we just started watching it) and totally cleaned out the basement. Yeah, real fun. The only person in my family who actually went into the snow was my puppy, who came back into the house with a face full of the fluffy white stuff. Even though my snow days were boring, yours don’t have to be. Below I’ve included a link to a recipe for Snow Ice Cream that Ms. Schmidt told me about. It’s quick and easy, only five minutes!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/snow-ice-cream-recipe/index.html

It’s still so wierd to write an odd-looking “2011″ after the date every time I write my name and date on math worksheets and  spelling tests. It’s very surreal to think how fast 2011 came, even though I watched the New Year’s Eve ball drop in New York  on TV from my family room couch. For my resolution, I am striving to get all A’s on my report card for the fourth quarter of school. That’s something I can control, though. I have hopes for 2011: I hope that middle school will not be as scary and big as I imagine it, and I hope that NASA launches another spaceship into space. I know that last one was a bit odd, but I’m always interested to learn about new planets and that kind of stuff. Maybe it’ll have a banner attached to the back of the rocket saying “Happy 2011! I hope it’s fun!”

2010 has sure been an eventful year-for both the world and myself. My family bought a new car, I got a cell phone for Christmas (finally!), I started my last year of elementary school, and I met Ms. Schmidt. For the world, a new tallest building in the world opened, the 2010 Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver, we had a big oil spill, and more. Many new musicians made their way into fame, such as Kesha and the Zac Brown Band. Over all, 2010 wasn’t the most eventful year, but it’s made its way into my list of great years. But, of course, I hope that 2011 will be even better!

To celebrate the holidays, on our last day of E.L., my gifted classmates and I each created our own holiday songs. We split up into groups and pairings and rewrote the lyrics to cherished holiday songs to make them more… gifted!  All of our songs are about our Enhanced Learning classroom, teacher, or process. I did mine with Joseph and Kalina, we did a remake of The Twelve Days of Christmas. But we changed it up a bit… “On the first week of E.L. my teacher gave to me…” Oh, there I go again, I better stop myself before I type out the whole song! Anyway, if you’d like to hear all of the songs and watch our music videos, then click on the link to my class blog. It’s just labeled as “My Class Blog” in my blogroll. And here’s a nice hint- Mrs. Schmidt, our E.L. teacher, has set up a poll for viewers to vote on their favorite video. Vote for mine!