Guest Blog by The Girl

Here is the report the Girl wrote about her trip a week ago. I think she did a great job! Writing a very thorough outline helped her keep the timeline of her trip. Let us know what you think!
LB

My Midwinter Vacation


I would like to tell you about my mid-winter vacation to Huntington Beach to visit the G. family. Nat G. is my best friend. Her family moved in July of 2005 so they could be with their grandpa and his partner and it was very hard not being as close as we used to be. It took me a long time to get over the fact that she lived in Southern California. The trip down that I made was to celebrate her birthday in December and mine in January.

I woke up at 4:00 am on Friday morning and ate breakfast. We went to the airport and I started to feel nauseous. As we were getting checked in, I “lost my breakfast”. Later, after we cleaned up and were heading for the gate, I relaxed. I was supposed to be the first person on the plane, but I ended up being the last one!

On the plane, I sat in a window seat next to a flight attendant who was headed to Disneyland. I asked her my questions about flying and airplanes and she answered them. In front of me to my right was a little boy about three years old who played peek-a-boo games with me. We flew over the Pacific Ocean and I saw weird ships. They had tall masts and looked old and oriental.

When I got off the plane, A., who is Nat’s dad, met me by the door. We went food shopping and went out on the pier. We got loco-mocos at a restaurant called No-ka-oi which is Hawaiian for “no compare”. Loco-mocos are two scoops of rice with a beef patty on top with an over-easy egg on top of that smothered in a white gravy with bacon bits mixed in, and is garnished with really thin orange slices and parsley. My mouth is watering as I write this! We got souvenirs at Beach Cottage. I got a shell with a picture of a dolphin and a ship on it. I also sent home a post card with a picture of the pier on it.

We picked up the girls an hour early from school and went to the aquarium. We got fish and chips and saw jellyfish about 1/6 of an inch and 1/3 of an inch long. There were lobsters that were 2 ½ feet long! We petted sharks, rays, and horseshoe crabs. Did you know that sharks and rays were in the same family? Different species of sharks and rays felt rough like sandpaper or soft and squishy like Jell-o. We saw otters and seals. One seal liked to “read” the paper that we had about the aquarium, and “play” with the doll a little girl was waving around outside the tank. The oldest seal was really fat! There was also an otter lying on ice cubes about 4 ½ ” wide.

We went home and had homemade chicken soup and sausage for dinner. After dinner, Nat and I watched “Bruce Almighty”.

On Saturday, we had pancakes (which they sometimes call “pandlecakes”) and Strawberries (which they sometimes call “strawblebeberiebubs”). Then we went surfing!

We rented a wetsuit from the Frog Shop for me to use. I tried to surf, but I got thrown off, and the weight of the surf board pulled my back. So Nat and I stopped surfing. Then we got out the boogie boards. But there were a lot of small waves, so we put our boards away on the beach. Then we went back into the water. Nat and I were just leisurely talking. When suddenly I happened to look over her shoulder and see a HUGE WAVE! I pointed, but all I could say was, ”Look!” Nat looked and shouted, ”Run!!”. We tried to, but it was too fast. It was fun when it washed us ashore. But after that, heh, well, we just played on the beach! When we went to be rinsed off, Nat and I pretended we were in the desert because of the hot sand. The road we walked on to get to the car hurt our feet, so it was a relief to sit on the cushioned seats. For dinner we had chicken soup again and watched “Holes”.

On Sunday, we woke up and had the same breakfast as on Saturday.
Then we went to church. It was fun and the preacher had a good sermon on expectations, how if you go the wrong way in life, and revenge. “There are two types of expectations,” he said,” Outrageous and likely.” About revenge he said,” We must learn to love our enemies. To treat them with kindness and respect.” Also he told us about people who were on the track for a good life, and then went one degree in the wrong direction and veered completely off. These sunk into my head like a rock in water and were very meaningful to me. At the last hymn we looked for the book it was in but we couldn’t find it, so we hummed the last hymn (or as we liked to say we “hymned the last hum”).

After church, Nat, A., and I went horseback riding. Nat rode a one-eyed pony named Corky, A. rode a white horse with gray spots named Howdy, and I rode the oldest, a brown horse whose name was Jay Jay. We trotted uphill once and Jay Jay trotted in fits-and-starts because Howdy, who was a biter, kept biting Jay Jay on the butt.

We got loco-mocos again (I miss those!) and went to Dana Point Tide pools. We saw lots of hermit crabs and sea anemones. One hermit crab was ¼ of an inch in diameter! After that we had chicken noodle soup (I had a lot of yummy soup!) for dinner.

On Monday we had pancakes for breakfast then dropped off the girls at school. A. and I looked for a kit to build a birdhouse at Michael’s, Joanne fabrics and crafts, K-mart, and Home Depot, but we couldn’t find one. So we picked up the girls an hour early from school and went to Disney land.

We went on Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Small World, Matter Horn, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tom Sawyers Island, Astro Blasters, Indiana Jones, and Jungle Cruise.

Sometimes I was exhausted when I went to bed, doing so many things, and other times I felt like I could go another day with the energy I had left, then went right into a deep sleep.

During the return trip, I cried during takeoff because I didn’t want to leave my friends. I slept the rest of the way home. Mom and Dad met me at Sea-Tac, took me home and tucked me in. I fell right to sleep.

That is the whole story of my trip. It was such fun to see the G. family, and I am already missing them. I am hoping Nat can come visit us soon, and that we can visit each other many times in the future. It was fun see Huntington Beach, go to new places, and do new things. What an adventure I had! And isn’t her family great?


THE END