trunk or treat preporations

OK, since the trunk or treat at the church is in two weeks we needed to start on the decorations and the costumes. A trunk or treat is like normal trick or treating , except its going around a designated parking lot and getting candy from all the cars (the trunks are decorated with a theme) that are parked there. Since my cousin Nathan wants to go as WALL-E I will need to do a wall-e themed trunk decoration.
Since we will be going with our truck, I'm going to put up cardboard pieces panted to look like WALL-E, EVE, and the AXIOM, as well as a bunch of buildings.
its supposed to look like a scene from the movie. I will put a picture of the decorations on the blog about us going to the trunk or treat. We also need to make costumes for Nathan, Anna, me and possibly Tomas.
As I said before Nathan wants to go as WALL-E, so I'll need to make a box outfit for the main part of him. Because Nathan's going as WALL-E Anna wants to go as EVE. to do that, we need a piece of cardboard to go in front of her so there is the shape of EVE. She will also need to dress all in white including one glove (the other one will be black, like EVE's blaster arm). Tomas wants to go as Spongebob even though aunt Rebbecca ready has a pirate costume and decorations, if he does go as Spongebob we will need a piece of cardboard for in front and in back to show Spongebobs face.
As for me, I'm hoping to go in my ninja outfit if I can find another black glove. It has long sleeve dark blue shirt, black sweatpants, a black hat, black gloves, and a dark blue neck girder (a neck girder is like a scarf that's already connected to itself in a tube like shape). I've also got a couple of weapons that might work as a show off piece of the idea.

dogsitting

Hi all! So far my cold is feeling a lot better, its down to just a sneeze and occasional cough.

Since mom, me and Anna need to have a dog to pet while we are here in grey sky Ohio we signed up to be a 2 week foster family for the humane society. Foster families get dogs that have just been brought in. The humane society gives them shots and places them with a foster family for a two week quarantine period to make sure that the dogs didn't catch anything at an earlier time. At the moment we have two border collie puppies that are brother and sister. We named the girl Precious and the boy Puffles. Puffles seems to have decided that he really likes me because he comes up to me more than pretty much the rest of the family. Precious, on the other hand doesn't seem to have a favorite person...

They are also fighting to see who is dominant. Puffles is bigger but doesn't seem to be picking the fights so we think that he was dominant before he came. Puffles was brought a week later than Precious so Precious probably feels that she should be the boss here, and is the one that picks the fights.

me, a victim!?!?!?!?

OK, last weekend my mom made me go be a victim (oops, a "patient") for the Boston mills, Brandywine ski patrol refresher test. I had a broken wrist,a broken forearm, abrasions (scrapes) to the palms, and frostbitten fingers. And I had to have that six times for six different groups to fix. Most of them put a support of some type on both broken parts, and then placed a pad of some sort on the abrasions, as well as bundling the frostbitten fingers with something to keep them from getting colder. Now that's about all, but first let me make this clear that i didn't really have those injuries, I had to act them out though.

I've had a cold for about the past week, but it's getting better,and i was doing OK at the refresher. I was really stiff the next day around my upper legs and under my arms though.

a house, a tent, and a sheath

OK, so today as part of school I made Anna's Bitty a house out of a cardboard box so she can play as though Bitty has a house to sleep in.
Oh, didn't i tell you? Bitty is Anna's stuffed unicorn that she's had for at least four years at this paint, and they are almost inseparable...

I also helped to plan how we will make a tent for my cousin Nathan's Brownybear to sleep with it's sleeping bag in.

As for me, I made myself a sheath for my blue bat/sword thing from my tae-kwon-do class. i made it so it will sit across my back at an angle that is comfortable to grab and pull my sword from. Now, most sheaths that people think of today hang from your left hip if you are right handed, and from your right hip if you are left handed. But for me, i find it most comfortable when its across my back with the handle on the same side as the hand you will hold it in. It is held in place by two strips of cloth criss-crossing my chest and connecting to the sheath.

tractors, mowers, and gravel

OK, so in the last week I've been on a big tractor with a lift able bucket, and a riding mower.

the big one, the tractor, I was on because Uncle Alan had ordered gravel to make a new pad beside the garage, and we were using the tractor to smooth the gravel that he placed with a rented Bobcat. I got to help smooth the gravel in the pile of extra into a level "platform" with the tractor, and so was allowed to drive it by myself, and operate the bucket.

The riding mower I did the next day, and I used it to mow a fairly large chunk of the backyard, and one of the side yards, as well as part of the front yard. Since I had been on the big tractor recently and the controls were pretty similar I was able to get on and basically start with no instructions. (good for me!)

We bought a snow blade for the big tractor to level the gravel, and i haven't gotten a chance to use it yet, but I'm hoping i might be able to use that one in the next few days.

fun times.....

Since my last blog I've had a few fun experiences like...

When I helped my aunt Nan move to a different apartment. I got to help because she didn't want to have to box up all the loose stuff for the movers, so we helped her with those things, and the movers got all the furniture the next day. There were a lot of trash sacks filled with non-breakable stuff, and since she lived on the second floor and had a balcony overlooking the parking lot so we just threw the bags off the balcony to the ground, and I went over to catch the bags as they landed on the ground, although I had some trouble doing so... I also got to disconnect her computer.

Ive also made a do nothing machine that actually does two things, it will sort peas... and it will draw an Ellipse (oval). I also got a few laughs reading a comic book that was making fun of Star Wars....

That's about all for now, bye

projects

OK, I'm going to jump ahead to being here in Ohio.

At this point I've been in school for around three weeks and am kinda having fun. I have to do a page of math, work on my physics textbook, and do my "Here There Be Dragons" assignment. On Mondays I do a double workload of math and some physics. And around lunchtime I get to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house for an overnight stay and to work on projects with Grandpa. During this time I've learned to use a variety of tools, like a table saw, a lathe, a bench grinder, an electric sander, a drill press, a hot glue gun, a basic drill, and a jig-saw. I've also watched Grandpa use a nail gun. We've made a birdhouse, a softball bat, and a tic-tac-toe set. When I got back from the last visit I got to help my Uncle Alan wire a new outlet into the wall and mount a new TV in his and Aunt Rebecca's bedroom.

Onward To Idaho.

hello again!

From Whitehorse we took a bit and drove to Laird hot springs and then stopped there for a few hours. And from there we drove to Ft Nelson for a few days. While there I managed to lose the the side piece of my glasses at a playground :-(. After Ft Nelson we took two days and drove all the way to Vancouver. we stayed near Vancouver for the next three days.

While there we drove in to one of the parks where there was a "miracle tree". The miracle tree is a tree that was blown over in a windstorm a few years ago, and had nearly all its roots uprooted. But, there is still green and growing leaves on the ends of numbers of the branches! Also during that day I learned how to use the chopsticks! From Vancouver we left Canada and drove to Mount Rainer national park for the next day.

While we were near Mount Rainer we went hiking through the Grove of the Patriarchs where there were trees that had been close to 500 years old when Columbus landed in America! After Mount Rainer we drove to Boise,Idaho and spent two days there. We visited moms cousin Ted and got to go tubing down the river with him. Unfortunately, me and dad took a spill at the top of one of the mini falls along the way. after Boise we left and went down to Buhl in the Magic Valley near Twin Springs to visit Nettie's friend's family for the next few days. While we were there I finally got to jump on a trampoline again, and I learned how to make pottery on a potters wheel!!

next, On To Ohio!!

alaska finishing basic blog

Hi all, I know that I haven't posted a blog in close to two months, so I'm going to get you up to speed on what we did in Alaska but not all the way home. I'll talk about that in the next blog which should be within a few days.
After getting my new walking stick we drove back up to Palmer and stayed for a few days. During that time mom left for the Idita-camp. The Idita-camp is a week long camp for teachers that's all about the Iditarod. Well mom was gone me, Nettie, Dad, and Anna drove back to Nilnilchik on the Kenai peninsula to go clamming. The total number of clams that we caught was 40 clams. From there we drove back up past Anchorage to a dog farm near Willow where mom was staying.
After leaving the dog farm two days later we drove about half-way to Fairbanks and stopped near Denali National Park. While we were there we got to see the top of Mt. McKinley for about fifteen minutes after waiting for an hour and a half. from Denali we worked our way up to Fairbanks after passing through Nenana and being hit by ash from wildfires. W stayed in Fairbanks for close to a week. Really we stayed in a little town called north pole ("it's where Santa spends his summers") that's about 15 miles from downtown. while in fairbanks we went to Pioneer park and a couple of other places as well. when we left we took the 900 and some mile drive to Whitehorse, Yucon, Canada all in one go.


to be continued...in my next blog.

a new walking stick

Here in Alaska they have a type of tree called diamond willow that makes amazing walking sticks. Wherever a branch grows from the trunk (or branch we're not shure which) it makes a diamond shaped indent of red coloring.

A little under a week ago mom and dad bought for me a piece of diamond willow to make a walking stick from. The guy they bought it from had removed all the bark except the bark in the diamonds. To make a staff you have to slice away the bark in the diamonds without peeling off the redness of the wood inside and have to remove all the wormy wood. Then you have to sand and sand and sand some more till its super smooth when you run your hands against it. Once your at that point you can oil it and give it a protective coating.

I've worked on my staff for around ten hours so far and have just begun to sand it today so I can't tell you what you use to coat the stick yet.

A Few Random Things

I know that I haven't blogged on this area in a while so I'm going to put a little more than one subject in my blog.

Recently Anna and I have looked for a playground at all the places we've stopped at, and here we got a double reward. This RV Park [Hi Country RV Park] has a small playground of its own. This evening we are going to a playground somewhere here in Whitehorse. Most of the parks we've stopped at either have a playground in them or nearby.

Another thing that we've started looking for is sticks that we can play with as weapons, like swords and throwing knives. We do make sure that there aren't any people nearby when we are playing with the "weapons." I even invented a new weapon that is for longer sticks. It has a dagger on one end and an extra long sword in the other end.

I just recently rediscovered one of my more favorite games for the computer and got it reinstalled on the computer in the back room. Now I can play "Age of Empires" again!

Late Light Ending

Everyone knows that there's more day time in the summer than the winter, right? And a lot of people know that during the winter in most of Alaska and the Arctic Circle there is almost no light as well. And if there's almost no daylight in the Arctic during the winter, shouldn't that mean that during the summer there should be almost no night time?

If both are true (and they are) then that should mean that as it gets more toward summer and we get farther north, there's longer daylight. I knew that there was daylight up till at least 10:00 Pacific Time at the moment, but I never really thought about it. So when we turned off the lights in our bedroom last night around 8:45 and we could see around the room like it was starting toward evening but wasn't yet fully past afternoon...it kind of startled me a little bit.

It's getting annoying being sent to bed when it's still light out, but when we've got the longest daylight of our trip there will be light in the sky for at least 21 out of 24 hours a day!!!

a general blog.

we have Internet for the first time in a couple of days and I'm having a little trouble keeping up with my game accounts and with my e-mail. let me see, i have game accounts on Club Penguin, Miniclip, Dagonfable, AQWorlds, Neopets, Runescape, Lego.com, and Bellasara. Most of these don't add anything new for a couple of days at a time so i can concentrate on around 3-4 at a time which is nice.

the sun is setting while I'm typing this, and its around nine o' clock in the evening Pacific time.

since we've been driving for numbers of hours at a time almost every day, I melted down two days ago when we'd been driving for close to six hours and ended up deciding to keep driving to a spot that was nearly a hundred miles down the road, which would take at least another 3 and a half hours of driving before we stopped. Man am I SICK of riding in the car!

jgfi egazsi ojsbn. y,q ojg ztgsk

the key for this code is:

s d e t g y v j z w n a r b , l x q . o p ? ! c f u h i k m
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z . , ! ?

Jamaican WHAT?

This is Jakob's mom...I'm adding the photos he wants for this post so they are ready for him once he gets around to writing this. Check back to see when he finishes this assignment!

Playground Games

Yesterday, we pulled into the newest RV Park, which we will be staying at for two more nights. Now, they have a playground here. Even though it is designed a little differently: it has two swing sets, two of the backyard playsets, a BIG tire to climb in and out of, a series of wooden poles painted red and white, two big "sewer" pipes, and a merry-go-round that is tilted on purpose.

There are also some kids here and they taught me and Anna some "new" games. One is called GROUNDERS and is played like this: To decide who is "it" everyone who is playing starts 10 feet away from the play ground and races to get on top of it (off the ground). The last person on something is "it." GROUNDERS is basically like tag but with a few twists: (1) the person who is "it" has to close his eyes when he is on the playground equipment but not when he is on the ground. (2) When both the "it" and another player are on the ground, the "it" can call "grounders" on the other player and make him "it."

The second game is played on the tilted merry-go-round. What happens is that the low part makes a person OUT til they are away from it. What you try to do is stay on the high part. You do this by jumping the bars and running away from the low part as fast as you can without falling off.

The game GROUNDERS is not a game that either Mom or Dad have heard of. But as mom said, we're in Canada now so maybe this is a game that is played in Canada but not in the US. (Now we can take it TO the USA and share it with friends there!)

all the boring things.

This is to be a blog dedicated to the boring stuff of life.

While driving in Montana yesterday we saw cattle. Next, we saw... more cattle. And then when we looked on the other side of the road we saw even more cattle.

When we are driving I like to read, and read, and read some more, and it gets kinda boring.

Since we have no libraries we are having to re-read our books, and i would say I've reread almost every book we have at least one time.

Mom says that this RV park is for the birds. We've seen several robins, as well as some woodpeckers and other things.

The New RV Home Repair Show (RVhrs)

Today on RVhrs (the new RV home repair show) we are going to work on your back carrying rack. This show is not for people what do not have RVs or any carrying rack on the RV.

To do this first you need a hammer so get out the tool box and grab it.
After that, Go find some one that has good aim and a fair amount of muscles that is willing to help.

Now go to the back of your RV and find the carrying rack, then look along it for any bent spots in the aluminum covering of the bumper bit. Now if you have found any give the hammer to the guy with the muscles and have him pound the bent bit on the rack back into shape with the hammer.

After all the bent parts have been hammered back into shape please look at the plastic end caps to see if they are coming loose. If they are hit them back into place with the side of your hammers head.

and that all there is to it.
this has been The New RV Home Repair Show (RVhrs)



P.S. and yes me and dad have actually done this.

Indians game

OK, a few days ago me and dad went to the last Indians game of the practice season. it was between them and the Chicago cubs. the Indians lost 7-8, which was kinda too bad. But, we got seats in the first row behind the Indians dugout.
And, I've got bragging rights that I've seen the Indians play before my friend Sam who is a devoted Indians fan.

kid exchange...

So I told you about there being 5 kids in the park that were annas age and 2 kids in the park that were my age right? Sadly for anna 3 of the kids her age have left. And what i thought was really wierd was that for evry kid annas age that left a new kid my age has come. For example: the day before annas friends Jean and Sam left, two boys my age came in. And then two days later Kaly (annas age) left and that same day Kaly (this one is my age...) came in...

Now as for my reactions, my first and largest was happyness that I finally had some kids my age to play with. But today, I've been kinda feeling annoyed because annas been hanging around us when we were trying to play, but I kinda understand how she feels because she doesn't have very many kids her age to play with now

scrapbooking trick page.

I'm guessing that most people know what scrap booking is but I'll give a basic idea anyways. Basically scrap booking is taking pictures and paper and making fancy journal pages.

In this case I'm talking about more than a regular scrapbook page though. What I'm talking about this time is a page with a pull Tab that when you pull it one of the pictures turns into a different picture. Its kinda hard to do... well I guess it's not that hard if you are specific about it. It took me a couple of hours but as mom pointed out, if I did it again I would probably do it a lot faster.

our new rv park, for a month

so two days ago we pulled into an RV park in Phoenix area and hooked up. now i haven't seen much yet of any areas other than the RV park but I have made a couple of friends already though. The RV park has a little park playground thing in the corner ;-). We're staying here for four weeks, and its like summer every day, even though its technically winter temperatures here...

friends

Sat the last place we stopped after I helped set up our RV, I went over to a nearby public patio with some picnic tables to read my book. After a minute or two, a couple of kids went past to ask is another could come out. then they came back to the patio thing to sit and chat while they waited for their friend. Shortly after that they started asking me few questions such as Do you like Pokemon? Do you have any Pokemon cards? and that sort of thing. after that we kinda started to talk a bit more and they started playing their Ds games. When I asked one of them if I could help him figure out the puzzle he was doing, he said yes. after a couple of minutes I managed to figure it out. When I did all of them went crazy and asked me how I had done it. It turned out that they'd been trying to beat it for weeks! And that was the start of the week that we played togeter in.

arches,rock formations, and a nationial park

Something I've wondered recently is how many rock formations there are in the world that are called balanced rock. I mean how unimaginative is that for a name?

Anyway, today we went to Arches National Park at the edges of Moab, Utah.
Once there we saw balanced rock (what a surprise!), fiery furnaces, the "garden of Eden", the great wall, double arches, and the windows (both north window and south window). The arches were interesting, to say the least. When we were below the nourth window, mom took a couple of trick photos... in the first one it looks like I'm holding up the arch, right? Ihe second one is my real relitiveness. I bouldered a bit when we were under the south window.

Oh yeah, we saw the delicate arch as well...

boulder hurts...

so, you know that I've been bouldering indoors at the rec center right?

(if not please go to http://jakobwonders.blogspot.com/2009/02/bouldering.html before you read this.)

a couple of days ago I tried to do some outdoor bouldering on a boulder....
well i tried a couple of times to get a foothold on the curved base and managed it on like the 5Th try. i was standing on the side and trying to get a higher foot hold when my hands slipped off.
i fell and landed on my tailbone on the rockey ground....OUCH!!!

a little while afterward i was climbing again. but this time i was scaling sideward along a wall with lots of ledges for footholds and handholds....

Hang Gliding photogrophy

HANG GLIDING...

floating, circling, sinking, rising,
graceful,
fine, shine.

Last week we discovered the launching place on Mt. Zion for a hang glider club. Since we got here to Golden, we have seen them floating in the sky on beautiful days but didn't know where they came from.

We waited for awhile to see if the hang gliders would take off. Eventually, we started back down the mountain path. A little while later...

...the wind caught one glider, billowing the chute and lifting both person and chite into the air. I was watching them and snapping photos as he turned, floated and hovered. Pretty soon two more came around the side of the mountain. THEN the second guy (the one still on the ground of the launching area) managed to get his chute into the air, meaning that we had FOUR hang gliders floating around!!

(By the way, the photos for this blog, and on my entry on http://journey2wonderreview.blogspot.com were all taken by ME!)

Bouldering

So yesterday for the first time I went bouldering. Bouldering is like rock climbing, except that there aren't any ropes for support, so instead you have padding some 10 inches thick on the floor if you fall.

In bouldering you are only allowed to climb to 10-15 foot on a rock climbing wall (the bouldering wall is only 10-15 foot tall...). they also say that when you've climbed up you climb down as far as possible before you drop.

When I got there instead of bouldering immediately I did a little rock climbing. I now know how to tie myself onto the rope as well as a few command/questions for climbing with a top-rope.

In bouldering on a bouldering wall you have more of a challenge because it has a huge bulge in the wall.

main rv water line freeze

(Comment: I know that I already did a blog like this, but this was in a different spot meaning that we needed to use different methods to fix it)

a few days ago we all woke up to find that somewhere in the belly of the trailer one of our pipes froze meaning that we had no hot water, and the kitchen didn't have cold water either.

During the day dad went and got a bunch of 2 ft. by 4 ft. stiff Styrofoam insulation boards and something called snow and ice duct tape (apparently it can withstand up to -40 degrees Fahrenheit...), oh yeah and some slightly bendy pole stick things..

After dad got those things we experimented with ways to stick the boards together. In the end we settled on taping them together. Then taping foot long pieces of the bendy sticks across the crack as straights.

than we took the "walls" out side and slid them under the trailer to form a barrier. before we closed up the barrier we hooked up an extension cord and a heater so we could heat the underside and hopefully thaw the pipes. Then finally we closed up the panels...

It wasn't until the next morning that we were able to get hot water...

School Assignment -- Colorado Indian Shelters

Here in this picture you see a Cheyenne tipi with a brush windbreak right behind it. (I built this as a school assignment.)

The reason that the tipi is specifically Cheyenne is because it is tall, as well as white. Only the Cheyenne Indians had white tipis, and the only other tribe with tall tipis is the Arapaho tribe.

Different lifestyle and terrains had effects on what homes looked like.

In woods or on mountains many shelters were brush shelters (which looked like a tipi without the skin) which were immobile or in temporary shelters like wickiups which were a dome like shelter made of weeds, brush, plants, and grass, etc.

Most plains homes were tipis, although looks varied by tribe.

Now the tribe's lifestyle affected how the tipis looked in more ways than one. There were tall or short, white or a shade of brown, but many tribes used their tipis to tell their legends.

One of the tribes that went through a big change in both homes and lifestyle was the Ute (pronounced you-t) because they were originally forest Indians that lived in wickiups and hunted forest animals, but for some reason the Ute moved to the plains and became buffalo hunters. This action meant that they had to change their type of shelter into tipis.

Party/rv maping

Tonight I'm going to be going to a party hosted by the teen Sunday school teacher at her house. We're planning to play guitar hero and to have pizza and pop...so I'm really exited about that.

Now mapping the RV is a bit trickier than you'd think when one of the rooms is off limits because dad is still sleeping so I'm proud of myself...


(there will be the completed map up here soon, we haven't scanned it in yet so i cant post it)

BLUE SKYS!!!!!

you know how most people think that Colorado is really snowy and cold (which would usually mean gray skies), right?


The truth is a lot different, because actually it's really warm except for the occasional snowstorm, unless.... you are up in the mountains, then its REALLY snowy.



Now as for the skies, it's flipping amazing!!!


And the sky's the same bright blue as in the picture almost every day!!!!!

suggested blog

After my last blog one of the readers (no names are mentioned) suggested that I do a blog about what I could be used for if I were a rock, so here goes....


If I were a rock many of my uses would be determined by my size.

If I were a big rock (as in 3-4 ft. tall,5 ft. thick and 2 ft. wide for an example) some of my uses might be things like a outdoor bedrock, a stony jungle gym, or a personal outdoor cooling system.

Now if I were a medium rock (such as 1 ft. tall, 2 ft. thick and 6 in. wide for an example) uses of mine might include; a holder for mucky shoes, a seat for the great outdoors that would keep you clean/dry, a medium rock might also be used as a ice breaker for icy driveway.

as for a small rock (example: 1 in. tall, 1in. thick, and 1/2 in. wide) might be used these ways, it might be used as a mouth moisturizer, a tossing toy, something to practice your balance with (you try to balance it on top of your head).

what to blog....

NinjaSince moms making me do a blog today even though I don't really have any ideas having used the last one on my previous blog sooo...I will do a blog on what its like to not have any idea what to blog about when you need to do a blog........ Ninja
Ninja
Psst! Can you find the ninjas??? (the ninjas are hidden in this blog somewhere) Ninja
Ninja
oops that was a bit of fun...
Ninja Ninja
actually I may blog about hiding ninjas in blogs...hmm I'll have to think about that.
than again I may just blog about blogging, oh wait that would be boring... Ninja
maybe I'll just ramble about ideas and hide ninjas....Ninja
Ninja
Warning!!NinjaThere are ninjas are everywhere in this blog!! how many can you find??? Ninja Ninja
Ninja
so while I'm having fun doing this moms at the Laundromat doing our laundry.
really bad ninja Ninja
now i know that this entire blog seems a bit of topic i assure you that its not. ninja
one reason is that this is a fione example of what some people would do when they dont have any ideas. Ninja Ninja
another is the fact that i have atayed on topic of what to blog for almost the entire blog.

Snow Playground Fun!!

Last night is snowed and we didn't realize it until early this morning. Once we saw it Mom asked me and my sister Anna if we wanted to go play in it after we put on our snow stuff. we asked if we could play on the playground in it.


Now this was the first time that either of us had played on a metal playground in the snow, though we'd played on a wooden one before. When we got there we found that the metal was slippery.



One of the funnest things about that was when we slipped an fell on a bouncy bridge such as in the picture




After we had had some fun slipping and falling on the bridge I decided to try going down a tube slide that had snow at the end of it.



This is the result, which is ending up sitting just off the end of the slide with your legs covered in snow OR being launched a foot from the ending to land on your back in the snow




Now after we'd done that we started playing defend/attack the "kingdom" with snowballs, (i got Anna dreadfully mad during the process) than started playing spies until mom made us come back for hot chocolate.