Basketball Slam In Amsterdam

On Saturday I went to Amsterdam with my basketball team. My basketball team was made up of 4th graders, 5th graders ,6th graders and 7th graders. we went to Amsterdam in a really nice school bus. i sat next to my friend Steven.  He's the only other 4th grader who is on the team.  We only get to play this tournament and then we have to wait until next year to get to play again because 4th graders aren't allowed to play.

When we got there we started playing almost immediately. we played the Amsterdam Bears, the Rotterdam Sharks and a mix of Amsterdam students. we first played the Bears and won by a landslide. next we played the Sharks and they weren't very good so we won. then finally we played a mix of the Amsterdam team and won so we went undefeated. i  had a really good time.  I got to play 2 quarters in each of the games except the last one Steven and I came out early because the other team almost came back and we needed our best players in there.

Here's me and one of my best friends, Steven.  He's going to leave our school to go back home to Canada at the end of the school year and I'm going to miss him.

My other best friend, Jax, is going to be leaving too.  We have 2 new kids coming to join our class after Christmas and it's a boy and a girl but Mrs Holcroft doesn't want to tell us too much about them because she said it's better to wait and hear about them right from them.

Earlier that morning Sinterklaas came and I got four presents battle ship, mijn eigen broeikas at least that is what it is in dutch, ipad case and a portable bluetooth speaker, and a spirograph. i also got lots of candy like candy canes, kitkats and york mints. my friends at school told me it was fake and i thought so too but it turns out i was wrong about it.

Mom made me take my picture with Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, but you really can't even see Piet in the picture.

Then Nan came and I took some pictures with her.  There was also the biggest tree there at the mall and Mom and I went up and walked through it.  It had a big light tunnel through it that was cool.

Astronauts and Astronomy

This week I went to astronaut camp with my class for two days. We stayed overnight and it was my first time on an overnight school trip. It was called the EuroSpace Center. 

In my room were my friends, Steven, Jax, Christian, Charlie, Mathew, Max, Antony, Raj and Rushil. There were bunk beds and I slept on the bottom underneath Antony.  And Max was next to me and I could see him through a square between the two bunks where we could talk.  Max said he couldn't fall asleep and then when I looked over there he had fallen asleep 5 mins later. I was the first one up. 

While we were there we did Mission Control, moon walk, the multi-axis chair, rotating chair, we made rockets and went on a space tour.  My friend Kevin and I worked together on building our own rocket. We rolled up a piece of paper, made wings, put a cap on with a parachute, and stuffed a paper in so the parachute wouldn't burn.  But I stuffed it too far down and the paper burned, the rocket set on fire, and the parachute burned but the rocket came down safely.  The man in the parachute didn't do too well though. 

We went on this really big bus it even had a bathroom. I set by Aman and mom gave me mentos to share with everyone. The 5th graders came on the trip with us and they were really nice. 

This week I also had my first day of tryouts for basketball.  I'm only in 4th grade, so I don't get to play the whole season but I get to go to Amsterdam for a tournament. There were 14 kids who tried out and there are only four 4th graders (me, Steven, Aman and Jax) and the rest are 5th, 6th and 7th graders because the team is for under 12.  Two of the 4th graders are going to quit and go and try out for swimming instead. Because for swimming everyone makes the team.  But to swim here you have to wear those small bathing suits that look like underwear and that doesn't sound too good to me so I'm going to stick with basketball. 

My favorite thing this week was the Euro space center.  I was nervous about sleeping over somewhere without my mom, but I really liked it.   

My least favorite thing this week was going to the Sinterclaus party for my mom's work because it was really only for really little kids and it was too boring for me so we only stayed a little while and left to go have fajitas at our favorite place. 

I had a play date on Friday too and me, Steven and Jax played on the trampoline for hours.  Mom bought the coolest fire pit and marshmallows and we were able to toast marshmallows and make smores.  They were so good and we had fun sitting there making them and eating them.  Then we went to the big show at my school for the end of the Festival of Peace and Hope and I got to sit with my friends. 

I came up with a great idea this week.  Because when my two friends came over, mom said maybe we should get a ping pong table, but I said it wouldn't work because there were 3 of us.  My idea is to make a three sided ping pong table. How cool would that be?

Swinging in the safari

On Friday me and my mom went to a safari in the Netherlands.  I was supposed to be in school, but mom let me stay with her because she's going to be away all next week for work.

We took a car tour and a walking tour at the safari.  We went on the car tour first. We saw buffalo, lions, gazelle, giraffe and many other animals.

Look at these guys climbing on the tree.

Hungry?

They were staying out of the rain.

I didn't know there were camels in the Netherlands???

After that we went on a walking tour and saw monkeys, wart hogs, elephants and a lot more!  But we had to leave early before we finished because It was closing.  

On the way out, we passed a place where there was one animal who got stuck in with the Rinos and he couldn't get back to his other friends back to where he was supposed to be.  And we saw the safari worker trying to get some animals to go back into their houses for the night and they were running around and he was driving his truck chasing them.  They went around and around and around.

This guy came right up to my window and wanted a ride.  We told him we couldn't fit him this time, but maybe next time.

Beautiful Barcelona

This week i went with my mom, grandmother and my aunt Louise [Lala] on fall break. We spent most of our time off in Barcelona.
While we were there we stayed at the Hotel Arts. it was a very nice hotel that was rated five star. There was a pool outside on the second floor a lounge on the thirty third floor and a exercise room on the 1st floor and a fancy spa way up on the top. They also had really good candies.

Also we went to the Sagrada Familia. At the sagrada familia we took pictures and went on a audio tour. There were lots of people and it was really crowded. 

We came back the next day and went up in the towers and it was really high up.

After that we had to walk down the stairs witch were so small and in a spiral. My mom told me that she went up in the towers before with my grandmother and my grandma fainted.  

There's Nan and LaLa they were speeding down the stairs ahead of us.  

 This is me taking a picture of mom taking a picture of me.




Can you see the pigeon sitting on top of the berries?

 This is the gate where you come out at the bottom of the stairs

I went swimming in the pool at the hotel two nights and the water was so cold!!!  The second time my mom made me take off my fitbit and then we left it somewhere by the pool and now it's lost.  I knew I should have just kept it on.

On Saturday we rode on that big bus with the part upstairs where you can sit outside.  It tells you about what you're seeing but in all different languages.  You're supposed to be able to get off and on all you want, but we mostly stayed on.  

I got to take some pictures with mom's good camera, and we saw this guy who looked like he was just floating.  How does he do that?

We also went on the cable car ride over the city. It was cool and quick. We were supposed to get off at the half-way turnaround, but we stayed on and rode all the way back. 

And I brought Aunt Bear's glasses with me so she could be here with us.

We saw a lot of things and they were really beautiful.

Pj Passout

Friday at school we had pajama party for elementary school. When I got on the bus a kid named jack told me that they switched the day to the 27th instead of the 17th. I said " turn the bus around!"  I almost passed out thinking about walking around school all day as the only one in pjs.  We couldn't turnaround and go back to my house so I looked on my iPod and told him that the 27th was a Monday and I knew that it was a Friday and also that we were off that day. I had to spend the whole bus drive listening to him telling us it was not pj day.

On Saturday we went to a big church. They played the organ and other instruments. It was really boring and they were so slow because they had to tune there insturments every song because it had to be      

" perfect ". But it was kind of cool.  

Also we went to visit a person who works with my mom summer castel. We could not go in because they were gone but it was kind of cool to look at it from the outside it was huge.  The guest house people drive thru to get to the castle is as big as my whole block.  Paul said he's going to invite us over so we can see the inside. 

Bowling

This past week me, my grandma and my aunt went bowling. I won one game and LaLa won one game. After that we ordered our food which took 30 minutes but it was really good.  Did you know they call it bowling stones here?

In school now we're studying the weather.  I have to do my first research project and Mrs. Holcroft gave us each our own research notebook.  I signed up to do Blizzards for my project.  Mom and I were trying to finish the research on the computer last night, but we got too tired.  I know a lot about blizzards now and even when the biggest blizzard was.  Do you know when it was?  The worst blizzard of all time was the 1967 Blizzard of the Midwest.

Mom was gone for 10 days and Nan and LaLa took care of me and Baci and Beau.  I got to sleep in Mom's bed while she was gone.  I went up and got ready for bed and when i was in there Nan would bring up Baci and Beau and put them in there with me to sleep.  They would try to sleep on my pillow and I had to fight them for it.

We're going to go to Barcelona in a couple of weeks and this will be our first trip here in Europe.