Sleepover with my Best Friend

     In July, my best friend Molly and I had a sleepover. We had been planning this for a while and were very excited. She came over in the morning and after hanging out for a while, we went to the Oregon Humane Society. We had been looking at dogs on their website and wanted to play with them for a while. After looking around the kennels for a while, we went to the playroom where you get to meet dogs. We played with three dogs named Beau, Marco, and David (he was the one in the picture). They were all old and had cataracts. They were cute, but definitely old dogs because they just wanted to lay down and sleep.

     After the Humane Society, we stopped by my house to have lunch. Then, we went to Alameda Park and Irvington Park, where we climbed trees and sat around. Then, we walked to our other friends house and talked with her for a while. We invited her to hang out with us, but her mom was having a dinner party later so they were busy preparing.

     By then, it was about 4, and we went to Subway for dinner. Afterwards, we went to the Lloyd Center Theatre and saw Despicable Me 2. We really enjoyed it and wandered around the mall for a while after watching it. Then my mom picked us up and we went back to my house where we ate gummy bears and watched YouTube videos for the rest of the night.

Enchanted Forest Theme Park

     At the end of August, my friends Ella, Molly, and I went to the Enchanted Forest theme park. We have made it a tradition to go every year. My friends got to my house early in the morning and we spent most of the day there. The Enchanted Forest is themed with recreations of fairytales like Snow White and Hansel and Gretel. There are also little towns in the park, like a Western Town and an Old England  Town. We went through the fairy tale recreations, then through the Western Town. Just outside of the Western Town is a haunted house. It took a lot of negotiating, but I finally convinced my friends to go through with me. Then we went to the Old England, where we had lunch. We then spent the rest of the day in the rides area, where they had five or six roller coasters. I had a lot of fun and I look forward to going next year.

Visiting my Relatives

     For three weeks of August, I was visiting my grandma, aunt, and cousins in Maryland. My dad and I go there every year, but I've never spent more than twelve days there. We flew there on August 1st and got to my grandma's house late at night. We did many things, including traditions like visiting Great Falls (in the picture above) and going out to a fancy restaurant with the whole family. We also did some things that weren't traditions, such as visiting the National Zoo. And after my dad left, my aunt, cousins and I took the eight-hour car ride down to North Carolina to visit my aunt's friend from work at their beach house. We spent four days down there and by the time the four days were up, we all had first-degree burns. When we were there, we visited some popular restaurants and mini-golf courses, but spent most of our time on the beach. When we first went to the beach and I stepped in the water, I felt something cold and coarse brush against my leg. Then another one on my arm. I ran out of the water to my aunt, but she said that they were jellyfish. But they didn't sting, and they didn't have tentacles, or organs. They were just clear blobs that floated around aimlessly. They had one hole in the middle for eating and they were called 'moon jellies'. After getting over the initial shock of being able to touch jellyfish, my cousins and I had a fun time throwing them at each other. We did that for the better part of the trip until we went home. The rest of the trip I spent going over century-old family documents with my grandmother.