Big Fat and Orange!

How does your family find their pumpkins for Halloween? Do you go to Hy-Vee or some other store to pick one out of a crate? Do you go out to a pumpkin patch and roam the field until you find the one perfectly round pumpkin that you just want to carve into? Or do you not get pumpkins at all!? Well until recent years, my family did none of these options.

When I was little, my siblings and I always wanted to get the biggest pumpkins possible for Halloween! If you’re a big Halloween person, then you know that the best way to get the biggest pumpkins is to plant them yourself! So for many years, this is how my family got our pumpkins! When you grow your own pumpkin, you don’t have to worry about paying an arm and a leg for that beautiful 3 foot by 3-foot pumpkin. Also, it’s only a short distance from your house so you don’t have to spend an entire afternoon searching, and you don’t have to carry it very far!

Some other things my family would do for Halloween was to carve our pumpkins together! One night about 2 weeks before Halloween, we would cover our kitchen table with newspapers and crowd around to carve the hardest designs we could imagine! All 6 of us going crazy with our ice cream scoops, giant spoons, and fingers seeing who could gut their pumpkin first! Then we would gather the seeds from the guts of the pumpkin and roast them on the stove with salt! They made a perfect snack for when you’re carving your pumpkin! After we were all finished, we would find the perfect candle to put inside our beautiful jack-o-lantern!

This is what I miss. I miss carving my pumpkins with all of my siblings, and having the biggest pumpkin on the street! I miss seeing 6 jack-o-lanterns sitting on our front step! I miss being together as a family with that healthy competition. These are the things you miss when you’re the youngest and all your siblings are off to far away places for school. This is when you realize how lucky you were to have fun family activities when everyone was around. This is when you realize how great your life was before all your annoying siblings left.

IADC

My Father is a lawyer. Because of this job my father has to represent people in court who have been accused of committing a crime. These people are called the defendants. Although I believe my father is very well known in Cedar Rapids, it always helps having people who will send clients in my father’s direction. This is what the IADC is good for.

IADC stands for International Association of Defense Council. The purpose of this organization is to allow lawyers all over the world to meet and network. This is helpful because let’s say my father here in Cedar Rapids was asked if he knew or recommended any defense lawyers in New York. Since he is part of the IADC my father knows many different lawyers from New York whom he could recommend, and the lawyers he knows in New York know many lawyers here in Cedar Rapids as well.  This is why the IADC is useful.

Every year the IADC has a big gathering. This gathering has meetings and knowledgeable guest speakers for the lawyers in the family and is always held in fun interesting places so the rest of the family always has other activity’s to choose from. Because there are meetings every year and they last about two weeks you really get to know a lot of the members. I myself have made many good friends through this organization who I still have contact with throughout the year! Because of the IADC i have good friends in Tennessee, Florida, Austria, France  and England. It's so fun being able to meet these people and be able to learn new things about their culture.
Since my father has joined the IADC he has attended many meetings only bringing me to 3 of them. He has been to Italy, West Virginia, Barcelona, and Canada. This coming summer our trip is going to take us to North Carolina, and the year after that is Hawaii! Although going to all the resorts is fun, the best part is definately being able to spend time with all my new friends!

EH!

The most recent time I have taken a vacation out of the country was last summer in Canada. Although it was very similar to american society, there were still a few key changes! For one, the views were amazing! On our trip we were able to go to two water falls, drive through the mountains, and take a ski lift to the top of a mountain. Although all those were great, I think one of the coolest sights we got to see was when we traveled peak to peak. The Peak to Peak was a gondola ride from the tip of one mountain to another. The gondola traveled 4.4 kilometers. The Peak to Peak breaks three world records. It has the longest unsupported span of 3.024 kilometer, the highest lift of its kind at 436 meters, and completes the longest continuous lift system on the globe!


Although seeing all the fantastic sights was great, we also had a chance to do so many fun and cool things on our trip! One of which was bear watching! At 6:00 in the morning we stumbled into a van and were driven up the mountain. On our trip we saw about 8 bears and one baby bear up in a tree! We also got the chance to witness to a mother bear protecting her cub, so the male bear wouldn't kill it! Another activity we got to do was zip linning! It was so much fun being able to zip through the air! It felt as if you were flying! We were zipping and zapping over the mountains and rivers below! We were going upside down, backwards, and spinny!


One of the other families that is a part of the IADC, (read my next blog!) met us in Seattle for two days before driving up to Whistler, Canada! While going out to dinner one night, we found ourselves in the "best" Chinese resturant in town and our order was taken by a man would would say fried rice, as fri ri and sweet and sour chicken as swee and sur chicaan. Let's just say we all had trouble keeping a straight face! We also got to go on a bike ride around a big lake! After renting our bikes we started our ride and were lucky enough to find starfish and other creatures of the deep!


Although our stay in Whister was only a week, we still had so much fun staying in our hotel (known as a castle) walking around the ski village (were Olympians spent their extra time during the Olympics), and having snow ball fights! I can't wait to go back to Canada and say "EH?" once again!

Nude Beaches!

After spending our four days in France, my mom dad and I got on a plane to Barcelona. My brother Ethan, who had been studying in southern France and traveling around Europe for the entire summer, met us there for the weekend before going back to school late Sunday night!

What I loved most about my trip to Barcelona was the city life. People would go out for dinner at 11:00 pm, go to a club at 1:00am and then stager home after a night of partying at about 7:00am! Barcelona was definitely all about living the nightlife! Although this life style was interesting to watch, my family and me did not participate!

On our trip, we did many things. Before Ethan went back to school, we were able to go on a four hour bike tour around Barcelona, lay out at the beach, visit Gaudi’s Park, and hang out at the hotel with the other Americans! Every thing we saw was so interesting, including the man who had tattooed a Speedo on himself, so that he wouldn’t have to wear a swimsuit! Although we had a fantastic time with my brother, after he left we were not hindered!

Once it was just my parents and I again, we did many fun things! One of the most interesting trips we took was to a mountain outside of Barcelona, housing a cathedral and a village of monks! We were able to see many paintings and interesting architecture. I lit a candle, that would “burn forever”, in honor of my uncle who was at the time, dieing from cancer. The next day we visited one of the biggest market in Europe. This market had anything you could possible want, including clothing, fish, poultry, vegetables, fruit, handmade items, and candy! We spent quit a bit of time browsing around that market and when we were done, we went out for an “eventful” dinner.

If you have read my vegetarian blog, then you know I decided to be a vegetarian, while in Spain. Well this dinner was when I made up my mind! After looking though the menu and going though the whole baby veal/skinned dog story, our dinner really got going! Before being served, we were given a shot of “homemade moonshine”. Let me just say, that after taking a sip, I passed the shot glass over to my father! Then after eating our food, we ordered desert! Since cheese was a popular desert in Europe, my mom got some cheese with walnuts. When her order arrived, she was given a basket of shelled walnuts and three giant clumps of cheese! How appetizing! What an eventful dinner!

After all our events, me and my mom spent the last day searching through stores and I managed to find 8 different sundresses that I bought! In the afternoon, we went on a cruise along the coastline then boarded a plane the next day!

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Qui Qui!

As I said in my last blog, my family loves to travel! The second time I was given the pleasure of taking a trip out of the country was when I went to Paris and Barcelona! Both places were so much fun, but I’ll talk about Spain another time! My family decided to go to Paris, because my mom believes that every young girl should have the opportunity to see Paris! I completely agree and I cannot wait until I get the chance to go back!

Mom, dad and I took a trip to France the summer before my sophomore year! Although we only stayed for 4 days before taking a plane to Barcelona, I still was able to have the time of my life! When we arrived in Paris, we did many things! We got to eat breakfast at a French café, walk around the Eiffel Tower, and take a bike tour of the city. While we were in France, we took two bike tours, both showing us different parts of the country! Our first tour took us around the city of Paris. We got to see things like the Louve, the oversized porta-pottys on almost every block, and the everyday streets of Paris! We were able to visit old town and the Latin Quarter (where Johnny Depp has an apartment) and were also given the opportunity to stop and take photos!

On our second tour, we found ourselves hopping a train, with our bikes, to the town of Versailles! We got to ride our bikes all around the little town and even stop at a market to buy our food for lunch and where I found an adorable sundress. Once we biked to the Palace of Versailles, we got to eat our lunch on the canal lawn with a beautiful view of the palace right in front of us! After we took our tour of the palace and did a little more biking, we took the train back to Paris so we could get a good nights sleep!

The next day we did many exciting things! First we went to the Arc de Triumph and walked up 282 steps to get to the top! We then had a fantastic view of the city! But nothing compared to the view we were given after walking up 684 steps and taking 2 elevators to the top of the Eiffel Tower! That view is one you can’t beat!

Although we did many things, other than what I’ve mentioned in this blog, one of the last and possibly most memorable things we did was go on a small boat ride through La Seine.  We were cruising around Paris at night and were even able to see the Eiffel Tower blink its 20000 lights at 10, 11, and 12 that night! I will never forget that amazing trip!

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The Octopus

I love the travel, and in my family I’ve been very fortunate! I have two siblings, a brother and sister, who were both adopted from South Korea. Since my parents wanted to expose them to the Korean culture, we took a family vacation to South Korea when I was 12. It was the summer before my 7^th grade year and me, and the rest of my family, were extremely excited!

Upon landing in Korea, it was 23:00 their time and about 9:00 am our time. We had gotten on a plane about 5:00 in the morning the day before, me and my sister had already pulled an “all-nighter”- meaning we had already been awake for 18 hours. Since I am not able to sleep on planes, I was awake for another 22 hours before sleeping for only 5 hours and having to get up to start our day! I was extremely tired, but my excitement to start our vacation was keeping me energized!

Although we saw so many awesome things in Korea, the different culture still managed to be the coolest part of our trip! When going to a fish market one early morning we witnessed a small octopus fling itself out of the bucket it was in. It then proceeded to slink down the concrete, until a Korean lady put her finger up a hole in the middle of the octopus, walk back to the stand where it had run away from, and flung the octopus back into its bucket. This is something you would not see at home, folks!

Another unique thing was the food! When we would go out to eat, we found ourselves eating quail eggs (taste just like normal eggs), Boulgogee (a type of beef), and this nasty coleslaw stuff that you would dip into different toppings. Although the Boulgogee was delicious, I still found myself cringing at some of the other foods. Also, all we could drink while on our trip was bottled water and coca cola, because the water in that country was unsanitary.

Some of the things my family and I did were visiting the demilitarized zone, DMZ, going to a Korean play, playing around in “Lotte World”, (a Korean Disney World) and many other things! I strongly encourage anyone who loves to travel to pay a visit to South Korea! I will forever be disgusted by octopus and will never forget the great memories I gained!

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Time of My Life

Just one short week ago, Seussical the musical premiered at Kennedy High School. It was a fantastic show and even though we have a brand new director, we all had a ball! Seussical is a story based off of the books by Dr. Seuss. In Seussical the books, Horton Hears A Who, I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat and The Hat, Oh the Thinks You Can Think, and others, are put together to make one large story. They transformed the stage to a wonder world that all kids could enjoy!

Performing as the mayor of Whoville, may seem like a “tiny” role (get it? Tiny!), but it was still so much fun! I love performing! Whether it’s plays, musicals, or singing, I love being involved. The feeling of everyone focused on you and going along with a story that you are portraying, being watched and applauded by so many people can be so invigorating. Being in the cast of Seussical was no different and I’m so sad it’s all over! The memory of being the mayor of Whoville will always stick with me. Whether I end up staring on broad way or just sitting in a cubical, I can’t ever forget all the fantastic times I had with the cast.

Although performing with a cast can be very fun, it’s also extremely rewarding to perform by yourself! I hate learning new French and Italian songs, but when it comes time to perform, all the work is worth it! Plus it so great knowing you did it all by yourself, knowing you didn’t have to depend on someone or worry about not getting the lead. If there is anyone reading this who has never been given the chance to perform, I strongly encourage you to get out there and show people what you can do! It will all be worth it in the end!

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