Rio 2016 Olympic Games

As a lot of you may already know, the Olympic Games are fast approaching, with the games officially starting on August 5 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. This will be a huge event for many athletes, who will try their hardest to bring home a medal. This is no place to mess up. The honor of carrying the Olympic Torch was given to a refugee swimmer, by the name of Ibrahim Al-Hussein, who had lost part of his leg in Syrian War. Al-Hussein grew up in Syria, participating in basketball, judo, swimming. Being a sport fanatic, he always imagined that he could one day carry the Olympic torch. In 2012, he had rushed to help a friend who had been injured during the bombing, when a bomb hit himself. His right leg had to be amputated from the calf down. After later on moving to Greece, he's continuing to play basketball and still swims.
The 2016 Rio Olympics have many, many athletes competing in sports such as boxing, basketball, football, gymnastics, fencing, and even table tennis. My favorites sports in the Olympics are hockey, and gymnastics.

I'm always excited for the Summer Olympics but in my opinion, the Winter Olympics are much more exciting, and I hope to one day compete in them for figure skating. The next Winter Olympic Games will be in 2018 and hosted in South Korea. Spectators have high expectations for 2018, seeing that Russia had absolutely blown people's minds away with the 2012 Winter Olympics.
In my opinion, the Olympics are a great opportunity for various regions to show off their athletic value and to encourage people to be active.

Summer Plans

For anyone wondering, there are 82 days until summer vacation. Granted, it does sound like a lot, but, well, I counted the weekends so that could help a little? Anyway, this summer we're planning to go to Yosemite National Park. I will be taking extra precautions not to set anything on fire, (see older blogs if you don't know what I'm taking about) and will try to stay a few yards away from campfires. Probably not. There are many activities to do, including river rafting, hiking, camping, etc. We plan to get a cabin and [try to] hike various mountains around the park. Yosemite is famous for quite a lot of things, including it's giant ancient trees (sequoias), glaciers, and waterfalls, and probably even more that I don't know about. There are many wild animals in the area, which include mountain lions, bears, wolves, and bobcats. There are a lot of things to keep us busy!

Cesar Chavez Day

Another holiday that I will be talking about is Cesar Chavez Day. Cesar Chavez Day is March 31st and is a federal holiday meant to honor the birth of civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. He was known as one of the best known Latino American civil rights activists, and has become a icon to the Latino community, with many schools, streets, and parks named after him. Chavez worked in the fields until about 1952, when he became a organizer for a Latino civil rights group. Chavez urged Mexican Americans to register and vote, and he made several trips throughout California to make speeches about workers rights. He died at age sixty-six, on April 23, 1993, due to unnamed natural causes. In 2008, a then senator, Barack Obama proclaimed March 31 as Cesar Chavez is the United States, to honor his legacy. That is why we celebrate Cesar Chavez Day.

Easter

When we think about Easter we most likely think about colorful eggs. But what most people don't know is about Easter itself. Easter (or Easter Sunday) is a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. According to the Bible, this was when Jesus was believed to have risen from the dead. Although Easter is a Christian holiday, many other cultures celebrate it as well.

Easter is on different dates each year, between March 21 and April 25, depending on when there's a full moon in spring. There also some traditions associated with it, including the decoration of eggs which many people take part in. This tradition was first started because eating eggs was not allowed by the church during the week leading up to Easter (known as Holy Week), so any eggs uneaten that week were saved and decorated to make them 'Holy Week eggs', then given to children as gifts. Thus starting the tradition of decorating and giving away eggs for Easter.

April Fools Day Pt. 2

April Fools Day isn't all about pranking. Well, okay a lot of it is, but it's also about having a good laugh with others. Here are some other pranks to do on April Fools Day:

-Caramel Onions
Pour melted caramel over whole onions and give instead of caramel apples.

-Glue Sanitizer:
Pour clear glue in an empty hand sanitizer bottle and the victim will not be pleased the next time trying to clean his/her hands.

-Fish Food Sprinkles
Pour colorful fish food in an empty jar instead of sprinkles. Eww...

-Windex Prank
Pour water with blue food coloring inside a Windex bottle. I bet that'll clean well...

-Put some chewed gum on a toilet seat and put down the lid. The next one to go do their business will welcome a nice surprise.



Remember, prank at your own risk!

April Fools Day

In a few months (April 1st) April Fools Day will arrive and everyone will try to prank on another. I got pranked three times last year (yes, I know, three times is a lot, but I'm a highly gullible person...) and pranked two people. Here are the some of the pranks I've pulled on April Fools Day:

-Nail Polish on Soap
Put some clear nail polish on a bar of dry soap. Wait for it to dry. The next time someone goes to wash their hand, they can't get any soap from it even if they try for hours.

-Vanilla Yogurt Prank
Empty out a container of vanilla yogurt and fill with mayonnaise instead. The victim will have an unpleasant surprise when eating their yogurt.

-Colored Milk
Add some colored food coloring to milk in a carton container.

-Oreo Cream Mix-Up
(I'm sure many, many people have done this one before!) Replace the cream filling in Oreos with toothpaste. Yum.

Please be thoughtful about who you are pulling these pranks on! They may not be funny for everyone. Prank at your own risk!

Dubai Trip

A few blogs before, I mentioned going to Dubai an being lost in the airport there but I never explained what we did. The day after we arrived, we decided to go up the Burj Khalifa. It's 160 stories tall and most of my family is afraid of heights so it was a bit nerve-racking going up. Once we reached the top, you're blown away at the amazing view. It's incredible both how high up you are and the sights you can see. Then we went for sushi for lunch. As we wandered around, we were dizzied by all the sights to see and what an incredible experience they were. It's defiantly different from America! We walked down to the beach and it was surprisingly empty and quite so be spent quite a bit of time there. We spent about a week in Dubai, and it was really fun, and a very, very different experience. The people are very friendly and helpful, and the sights are unlike any other. It's defiantly a place you should go.

Surfing Injury

As you might have seen in my last blog, I surf. I'm defiantly not a professional, (in fact, nowhere near it!) which means I slipped up quite a bit at first. During slip up in particular, I slipped off my board and fell into the ocean. As I was paddling back to shore, the saltwater had gotten to my eyes, to they were blurry and I didn't see the child in the water in front of me. As I ran into him, we roll over and the shovel he was holding (a quite sharp one apparently) made a small cut into my shoulder. The cut was really small, more like a scrape, and was nothing serious, but at the sight of blood the child's father did panic a bit and so did I. The lifeguard examined both of us and nothing was wrong, even though the poor little boy was quite confused. My slip up was absolutely nothing compared to the one I saw happen once. I was sitting on the sand, watching the waves, when a surfer came into view. Nothing new, really. But then things took a turn. Another surfer dropped in on the guy's wave. One of them had to get off or they might risk colliding into each other. Neither budged. As they came closer and closer, I was beginning to think they would be alright until at the last moment, they hit each other. The both slipped off their boards, submerged in water. To my right were two lifeguards, their whistle in their mouths, ready in case.They weren't coming up. The lifeguards raced into the water just as one of the guys came into the surface, yelling. As they were dragged out, we discovered that one of the surfers was cut his forehead on the other guy's board. He was rushed to the hospital, and he was bleeding everywhere. I definatly hope not to experience something like that...

Surfing

Pretty much all of my family had surfed before. Except me. So, a few years ago, I persuaded my brother to take me with him on one of his surf sessions. We had just gotten new surfboards the week before in preparation for summer, and we were excited to use them. It was early morning and the swell was good, so we paddled out. I was taught a few of the fundamentals of surfing and after a few tumbles into the waves, I slowly got it. As the day ended, I could surf properly without plunging headfirst into the waves. I decided to go surfing with him every Wednesday and Friday for the rest of the summer. As summer was coming to a close, I could master most of the beginner's tricks. The following summer, I joined a surfing camp. The camp was a ten minute walk to the ocean, and instructors taught me all they could about surfing. It was amazing.

The Ranch

A few years ago, during the Spring, my family and I visited my great-aunt and uncle in their ranch in Illinois. It was a unusual and exciting experience. The ranch was in the middle of a large terrain, almost in the middle of nowhere. The ranch itself had cattle, horses, sheep, anything you could think of, and it was amazing. We stayed their for about a week or so, and we filled up our free time with riding the horses, kayaking on the nearby lakes, hiking, and boating. We also tried water skiing. My great-aunt and uncle had bought the equipment, when they had bought the ranch, but as they grew older, they found that they didn't want to try it anymore. So, they persuaded us to try.  Unlike my first experience kayaking, (my last blog) I failed many, many times at water skiing. And to be honest, it takes time to learn a sport like that. But after numerous fails, and water stuck in my ear, I learned to balance. And once you really get the hang of it, it's really fun. Some days, we would waterski all day. Now, we waterski every time we go there.

Kayaking

Two summers ago, my family and I went on a vacation to Big Bear for about two weeks. During this time, we did various things, including hiking, biking, pretty much everything you could do at Big Bear. Near the cabin we were staying at, happened to be a kayak rental shack. I had never been kayaking before, so I as exciting when my brother announced that we would go. As I sat in the shaking kayak, I was a bit worried that I would tumble in head first into the water. Of course, I could swim, but the water wasn't all that warm this summer so the chilly water might give me a bit of a shock. As we slowly rowed away, I felt like I was getting used to it. Eventually I could even do most of the stuff that the pros could do! As we were turning back to the docks though, my brother leaned a bit too much to his left side, and he flipped into the water. Although very wet, he managed to get out of the kayak fine and swam up to the surface cracking up. To this day, we still tease him about his horrible balance. I was glad I decided to try kayaking, and I still do every summer.