Guide Dog Literacy Class

On Wednesday, we had an all day class about guide dogs. It was quite fun. Our teacher barely has any vision as I will describe later. She also has a website for her classes.

Roja is her guide dog.

 

After we were introduced, the class started. The first thing we did was try to figure out the objects in the box. To do so, we were blindfolded. I went first. I thought one of the things in there was a Shopkin. I told them it might be something my sister collects. Grace guessed Shopkins which caused everybody to start guessing Shopkins whenever we didn’t know what it was. I may be to blame for that.

After the guessing, we received braille cards. Our teacher, Miss Joy, wrote one of the people’s names in braille. She wrote Grace.

We found out how beneficial canes are to blind people by using her cane to feel bumps and see how it would work. After that, she read Looking Out For Sara. It is about a guide dog named Perry who helped the author get around.

 

You can’t see it, but there is someone using the cane.

 

Miss Joy’s dog, named Roja, had an obstacle course. We laid down pretzels and saw if he was distracted by it. He wasn’t. 

We visited a puppy guide dog in training. Her name was Cila. They had lots of pictures with her. The owners talked about training her, too.

We went on a path and pretended to be a guide dog, handler, and also tried to distract the dog. When it was my turn to be the dog, I was distracted by everything.

We were assigned to talk about different types of service dogs in our groups. I was with Christian. We made it like we were on a TV show. He talked about the dog, and I did the intro and outro. The show had a lot of sponsors. I made up what I was going to say right there. I did have some plan, though.

Christian and I came in second place which meant we were second to go around the block with the goggles that show how her eyesight is. In her right eye, she can’t see at all. In her left, she can barely see.

I made a tripwire with a hose hooked around a stool. We had to move some of the stuff that we put out back. I simulated a recycle can knocked over after a storm. We all navigated the obstacle course quite well even though there was the tripwire.

It is quite easy when it is a person guiding you. It must be harder when you have a guide dog. Miss Joy’s dog tried to bring her to her garage, but she used a command to make her go forward. We only had two items out for her. The guide dog led her through perfectly.

The field trip is very fun and I would do it again.

Communikate is my sister, and she made a blog post about this too.

 

Senior Home Christmas Performance and Balboa Island Lights

On December 7th, our sailing group performed at a senior home with ocean views.

Our group

Kate started the performance by playing “Jingle Bells” on the flute. We all sang “Jingle Bells” after that. Next, Kasen, Asher, and Mr. Terry sang “We Three Kings.”

The kings

 

After that, I played  “Joy to the World” on the piano. Next, my sisters and their friends sang “Away In a Manger” while I accompanied them on piano.

There were more songs and then we sang “Rudolph” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” While we were singing, some of the girls walked around handing out cookies. We were each allowed to have two.

We took some photos outside and then went to have lunch at Fashion Island.

In Barnes & Noble, we had a lightsaber fight. I won most of the time. Even with one lightsaber against Asher and Griffin, I won. We fought where they used toy guns, and I still used a lightsaber. They won by Asher distracting while Griffin snuck up and shot me.

After that, we went to look at the lights on Balboa Island.

 

A very decorated house.

 

There was one lady who put up over 3,500 teddy bears.

 

Mrs. Teddy Bear

We ran ahead of the parents and played tag. Eventually, it turned into a game called Infection. In the last game, I survived the longest along with Griffin. What I didn’t know, was that Sarah had survived, too. She had been hiding the whole time!

 

Overall, it was a fun day!

Central Calfornia Coast Day 3-4

On our third day of the vacation, we visited the redwoods. One of Dad’s friends, Mr. McShane, runs a plant nursery, and we saw him. He let us feed some of his fish. Before that, we walked around and saw what he sold. It appears he has a good business.

We drove to the California Coastal Redwoods at Henry Cowell State Park. It was a path with lots of amazing redwoods. Some were hollow and you could walk in.

Walk right in!

In one redwood, someone had slept overnight. The entrance had a hole in the ground, and it was filled with mud. When Sarah’s boot got stuck in the mud, she walked the boot off. She stepped in the mud and got it back on. There was a dawn redwood from China that was about 20 feet tall. It was also very thin.

 

Fallen redwood

Climbing the redwood. (I did not make it to the top.)

Sit on the stump.

A picture with a nice background.

How wide is it?

They also had a little logging town. The food they made at the restaurant was very good. So was the hot chocolate. The town was called Roaring Camp Railroad. They have a 19th-century steam train that travels around the redwoods. It is huge and quite noisy. Tickets cost $25. We didn’t go on the train but I took a video running after the train for 2 minutes.

We drove to Santa Cruz and went to the boardwalk. Kate and I went on Giant Dipper.

Giant Dipper starts in the dark.

Sarah wasn’t tall enough for Giant Dipper. It was much more thrilling than I expeced. It is actually more exciting than some steel roller coasters. Mostly, I think it was the drops. There are so many of them. Most are really small, though. Either way, it was extremely fun.  I did not think a 1924 wood coaster could be so exciting. It also hurt my elbows. I am trying to cover them up in the picture.

Kate and I in the picture.

When we went back to the hotel, Mr. McShane came to the lobby. We stayed up past 11:00. I got to take their pictures.

Our last day was mostly driving home. We did stop by Pea Soup Andersen’s and the Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center. Kate bought a fox she named Channel.

Yes, that is a life size elephant seal and Kate is holding her fox.

That was a very fun trip. I hope to do it every Thanksgiving, and I will have cheeseburgers every Thanksgiving, too!

 

My other posts are:

Central California Coast: Day One

Central California Coast: Day Two

My Rebel Alliance Story Part Two

Now their base was finished. For patrol, they had modified T-47 arispeeders into snowspeeders. Rebels tamed tauntauns for patrol. No Imperials were sighted in the control room. It was just regular duties for everyone.

A star destroyer was sighted, but it just flew right past. Patrolling was very boring. They were mostly flying past nothing. One, time, a wampa attacked Luke’s snowspeeder but Dak, his gunner, blasted it. Another time a Probe droid was found. It was captured, and its memory was wiped. It only remembered Hoth. Luke went on a mission to Mon Calamari to meet someone named Captain Ackbar. The meeting went well, and he agreed to support the rebels!

Luke went on a spy mission as an imperial officer and was called Admiral Starkiller. They found the rebel base on Geonosis! Promoted, General Starkiller was communicating with the rebels when he was not on duty. He informed them that the Imperials had found their base. They heard the meeting was important because their base was a flying cruiser. Meanwhile, on the Executor Luke was delivering all the Imperial plans to the rebels’ base. When the Imperials got to the abandoned droid factory, all they saw was a few battle droids walking around. The Impeirals figured they had a traitor. No one suspected General Starkiller. Soon he left the Executor. In a shuttle, he flew to a star destroyer and took command of it. He ignored an officer who informed him there were rebels nearby. They were sent to look for the base. The rebels knew which star destroyer was his, so they wouldn’t destroy it. He was actually leading the star destroyer away from the Home One! That way the base wouldn’t be discovered.
He took an imperial shuttle back to the rebel base. They knew it was Luke because he informed them that he would come in a shuttle. All the information let them stay away from the imperials. But soon all the information was old! Now the rebels were on the run! Unfortunately, their scanners were not as long as that of star destroyer Tracker. It found the Home One and was forced to flee. The rebels had a meeting. Luke addressed the rebel leaders of a plan to defeat the Empire once and for all.

Luke announced, “We will lure TIE fighters to our base and steal their ships. Fly them back and report the rebel base is on Malastare. There the whole rebel fleet will be waiting.” The loss of ten star destroyers and seven hundred twenty-two TIE fighters greatly weakened the empire. One of the Executor’s engines was damaged! It barely made the jump to hyperspace. The emperor was enraged when he found out he had been tricked. He ordered the building of a new Executor. An accident in the bridge blew up the whole project. It was decided that there would be a shield generator placed on Endor. The Ewoks could not harm it. (Or so the Emperor thought.) “Now the Death Star 2 is undefeatable!” the Emperor exclaimed. It did have one flaw. If the rebels got through the shield they could fly through the interior, fire at the main reactor and blow it up. His shuttle was used many other times. For example, that was the same one that they took to Endor.

My Rebel Alliance Story: Part One

This is another Star Wars story I made when I was younger.

Luke Skywalker was on a patrol in the jungles of Yavin Four with two rebel soldiers on his left and right. Yesterday, he blew up the Death Star! Suddenly, he sensed the Imperials. He directed the rebels to it. Stormtroopers! He sliced the squad leader down. Then the stormtroopers were in panic. That made it easy for the rebels to kill them. When they got back to the base, Luke told Leia that the Imperials knew they were there. Unfortunately, it was not important in her opinion.

The Red Squadron was on a mission to the moon of Endor. There were rumors that the Imperials were building a space station. Once they jumped out of hyperspace. the rumors were found to be true! When they got back to the base, Red Leader told the rebels about what they had seen.

“We need a strong ship to go to Endor,” Leia decided. Han Solo stepped up. “My ship’s the fastest in the galaxy.” While Han solo went on his mission the rebel base was under attack! The rebel soldier on the watchtower spotted a star destroyer followed by TIE (twin ion engine) fighters. He sent a message to the main computer. Then all the rebel pilots boarded their starfighters and took off. Luckily, Han Solo, flying back from his mission, noticed the star destroyers. He started firing nonstop at the back of a star destroyer’s command bridge. Suddenly, it blew up. All the rebel pilots were amazed. What had happened? Then The Falcon came flying in. Han saw all the X-wings were firing nonstop with a star destroyer. He joined in. Soon it blew up. On the second death star, Darth Vader was not pleased. Two of his four star destroyers had already been destroyed! “Time for my little surprise,” Vader said to an imperial officer on an AT-AT. Suddenly, the walkers came out stomping on the rebels. Gold squadron fired their ion cannons and knocked out a few AT-ATs. Only one remained which was blown up by the wedge on an A-wing. It had been crippled by a turbolaser. Darth Vader told his forces to retreat. They were chased by the rebel fleet! On the way, a B-wing took out a star destroyer with three ion cannons. Gold squadron stayed behind and blew it up! The other star destroyer was evacuated. The Y-wings got there just in time. All the escape pods were destroyed! The last star destroyer jumped into Hyperspace where the Starfighters couldn’t follow it. They flew back to the base and repaired their ships.

The rebels made a temporary base on Tatooine. They used some of the materials that came from Luke and Ben’s houses and the burnt sandcrawler. (Fortunately, another sandcrawler hadn’t picked up the remains of it.) When the Imperials figured the rebels had evacuated, they took the base. What they didn’t think they needed was a star destroyer. In fact the biggest vehicle there was the Lambada class shuttles. Very soon the whole rebel fleet came and retook the base! Luckily for the rebels the Imperials did not have many TIE fighters because the rebel hangars were very small. Unfortunately, a flock of TIE interceptors flew out and took down a member of gray squadron. But the one covering his back fired an ion cannon and the interceptor dropped like a stone! “Only two more left to go,” Han called after Luke took one down. An A-wing fired a missile hitting a TIE interceptor right in the cockpit which exploded into flames. Then, Han shot down the last one. Darth Vader scored a hit on the Millennium Falcon which rocked with the explosion! Luke fired a proton torpedo at the TIE advanced X1 hitting a TIE bomber just as it dropped a bomb, wiping out a platoon of rebel troops. Wedge was covering Luke while he hit a tie fighter which was sent spinning out of control. It hit another, and they both exploded. Another Imperial starfighter was too close to the explosion and blew up too.

After the Second battle of Yavin, the rebels celebrated. Luke led the celebration with Leia, Han, Chewie, the droids and Wedge. After the party, they used resources from the battle to update the base. Only the Imperials wreckage was used, though.

Princess Leia went on a mission to recruit rebel pilots. Somehow she wound up with an imperial officer. When she got back, little did they know that they had been tricked. The officer was secretly communicating with the Emperor. When he was found out, his B-wing was blasted out of the sky by a stolen TIE fighter! When the Emperor heard this, all he sent was a star destroyer! When the ship got there it was surrounded by more TIE fighters. Luckily, the rebels had some built in laser cannons. (And a concussion missile from the TIE bomber Luke had shot down.) The Empire was totally unprepared. All they did was to send down stormtroopers! The Millennium Falcon fired at the main hangar and took down 12 TIE fighters! The star destroyer was receiving heavy fire with a torpedo at its starboard turbolasers. Meanwhile, the rebels were taking a defeat on the ground. But when the star destroyer crashed, it flattened all the stormtroopers except for a special squad which was evenly matched. Unfortunately, the stormtroopers found some scout speeder bikes and zoomed away! When Luke came back, he found them and fired his laser cannons. They went up in a ball of fire.
Now the rebels knew they had to move for good. They had won three battles in a row, but that was mostly luck. It was risky to stay so they moved to Hoth, an ice planet. On the way, they were attacked by TIE fighters which were easily taken care of. When they came, they started building their base.

My Clone Wars Story

This is a Star Wars story I wrote a few years ago.

One day Anakin and Obi-wan’s Delta 7 Jedi Starfighters were cruising over the planet Geonosis. Below them were six AT-TEs, but close behind was a squad of battle droids! Suddenly two vulture droids swooped out of nowhere! There was a fierce battle between Obi-wan and Anakin’s Delta-7s and the Vulture droids. Obi-wan and Anakin chased the vulture droids for a while but in the end Obi-wan and Anakin blew them up!

They landed. When they got out the clone troopers noticed a squad of droids. They took them down easily. Then some more Vulture droids came for the Jedi. The AT-TEs started battling. They destroyed two vulture droids. Most of the droids fled. While that happened Anakin had boarded his Jedi starfighter and taken down some vulture droids. Obi-wan landed and said “I think that’s all”, but Anakin argued “I don’t think so” Obi-wan agreed. Just then they heard some footsteps and turned around to see it was a battle droid! They destroyed it. While they were heading back to the Jedi temple they found a droid factory! Some of the clone troopers’ thermal detonators  went to blow up the droid factory. They found the main reactor without being noticed. The droids thought they were commando droids. (Those droids disguise as clone troopers.) Two super battle droids were guarding the main reactor. They defeated the droids but a few clone troopers fell.

Meanwhile, The Jedi found a droid patrol. It had some walking vulture droids, battle droids, a spider droid, and a few super battle droids. They decided to fight. After all, they had some AT-TEs they could send the clone troopers out to battle the droids. The Jedi decided to take on the vulture droids. They checked their shields and if their astromech droids were ready. The AT-TEs surrounded the spider droid. “It was easy.” The clone troopers said. Unfortunately, the droid commander had contacted the factory for reinforcements and they came!

The clone troopers blew up the factory! Mission complete!  They made it back to the battle just in time for the Separatist reinforcements. Obi-wan got some dropships that helped destroy the hailfire droids. The republic gunships were the heroes! They had fresh clone troopers! Without the gunships the clones might’ve lost the battle!

On Naboo Padme was having her problems. The droids were attacking again! All the Naboo pilots jumped into their starfighters and started battling. She wished Anakin were there. She remembered the time he blew up the Trade federation battleship. That’s how they won the battle!

When the Jedi and the clones got back to the senate building they told the council of their mission. They were happy when they learned that the droid factory had been blown up! It was the 501 legion  .

Back on Naboo before the droids had blocked off the communication they found out about the droids. They sent a message to the Jedi Temple asking for help. The Republic assault ships sent out wave after wave of clones to push the droids back! Not including the republic gunships and ARF-100 Starfighters. Some gunships went to blow up the droid control center. They didn’t blow up the control center but got most of the vulture droids! The cruisers sent out some more gunships to try and blow up the control center. This time they succeeded! Back on Naboo the droids got shut down and Naboo won the battle! In the battle after Obi-won and Anakin had blown up the droid factory. They flew through hyperspace to Naboo and started firing at the core ship on the trade federation battleship. They blew up the command tower. But there were backup pilot droids so they detached the core ship from the ring! That sent the gunships and the Jedi chasing the ship. They got it by the main reactor. BOOM the ship blew up. They won again!

What no one knew was that Chancellor Palpatine was really Darth Sidious. The council planned a sneak attack on a separatist base. Then Palpatine delivered the plans to the base in his private office. Unfortunately Mace Windu was spying on Palpatine. He was suspicious about the chancellor. Windu saw a hologram of Count Dooku he received the plans for the sneak attack. Mace Windu used the force to alert the other 11 members of the council! They were shocked. They never suspected their leader to be a sith. They planned the sneak attack a different way! The Jedi and the clone troopers Took over the base and drove out all the droids! They pretended to not know he was Darth Sidious. He never suspected they did.

The members of the council held a meeting about Palpatine. They decided to break into his office and keep him prisoner. Anakin, Mace Windu, Yoda, Ploo Koon, Kit Fist, and Obi-Wan took part in it. Some clone soldiers helped the Jedi. The high chancellor overheard the plans. He fled to a secret separatist base!  He knew which bounty hunter he should hire for the Imprisonment of Mace Windu. Darth Sidious told Count Dooku to call for Boba Fett. Not only was he a great bounty hunter, Jango Fett, his father was killed by Mace Windu. He wanted revenge.

When Slave 1 landed at the base, Sidious gave Boba Fett the instructions and credits. “I want Mace Windu here alive!” He checked his blaster was loaded, his jetpacks and concession missile ready. Then he flew off. Once he got out of orbit he jumped into hyperspace!

When he reached Coruscant, Boba broke into the Jedi Temple. He used a lock pick to break into Mace Windu’s room! When Windu was heading to his room, he sensed a clone inside. He knew it was not a republic clone trooper. So, he ignited his lightsaber. Boba Fett had killed a clone sentry on his way and changed into his armor. He left his Mandalorian armor in Slave 1.  What Mace Windu saw did not surprise him. He knew a smart opponent would wear a disguise. Boba fired a shot but it bounced off a purple blade. The bounty hunter dodged and the bolt hit the wall putting a hole in it. He fired a round of laser fire causing the Jedi to duck and swipe at the legs. Boba Quickly jumped back in surprise. He fired at Windu’s head but it was deflected toward Boba. He used his jetpacks and locked a concession missile on the Jedi. Boba Fett flew up and fired a shot at Mace Windu who was having enough trouble using the force to push the missile away from himself. When Windu heard the shot being fired, he pushed the missile toward the shot. The missile exploded. Finally, the battle ended and Boba Fett ran away.

He flew back to the base to refuel on supplies. The next idea he had was to get a clone trooper with a tranquilizer dart to capture Mace Windu. He knew that Windu and some other Jedi were going to take Palpatine as a prisoner. Then he decided to ask Sidious to let him into his office, so he could capture Mace Windu. Things went as planned. Windu was captured. The council rescued him. The only thing is Dooku took his lightsaber. The council figured that the Seperatists would put it in Grevious’s secret base. They sent Kit Fisto and Obi-Wan to retrieve Windu’s lightsaber.

They found some vulture droids on their tails! Luckily, they easily destroyed the droids. When they got to the base they found two battle droids and chopped them in half. They tried the door but found out it was fake! They broke in with a hole in the wall. They saw Darth Sidious’s lightsaber ignited. They fought fiercely. The sith was gravely injured at the Jedi’s mercy. They asked for some gunships to bring the Sith Lord to the Temple on Coursacant. Back to the mission, they located a map of the base thanks to Obi-wan’s astromech R4-G9. Soon enough, they found Grevious’s stash of lightsabers. They had the helpful droids disable the security cameras. They grew worried that the lightsaber might not be there! But the last lightsaber they came to was the one they came for.

Back at the Jedi Temple Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto marched in proudly! Mace Windu went up to greet them. “Do you have my lightsaber?” he asked calmly. “Of course,” Obi-wan said. He reached into his belt and pulled out…Nothing! “You must’ve left it in your Starfighter,” Kit Fisto said. Obi-Wan headed back to his Starfighter. On his way, he saw Anakin and Ahsoka heading off for a mission. “Where are you going?” Obi-Wan asked “Tatooine,” Anakin said at the same time Ahsoka said “Jabba’s palace,” “Well go,” Obi-wan said. “Wait!” Anakin exclaimed, “Where are you going?” “My Starfighter,” Obi-Wan answered. Then the conversation ended. He found the lightsaber and returned it to Mace Windu.

When Grevious found his lightsaber was missing, he wanted to attack the Jedi Temple to get his lightsaber back. He asked a droid commander to lead the attack. The commander said that the Jedi were too powerful. Then the supreme commander of the droid army chopped that battle droid in half. “Those things are so weak and vulnerable.” “Maybe I should lead the attack myself,” he thought. For the invasion he ordered 10 Seperatists fleets for the space battle, Droid gunships and STAPS for air. For ground he ordered MTTs, AATs and a separatist droid army.

Meanwhile the Republic intercepted  information that General Grevious had called an attack on the Jedi temple. They planned to defend with The Resolute and other Jedi Cruisers. On the ground, they attacked with clone troopers led by Commander Cody. AT-TEs, and AT-RTs blew up AATs. Republic gunships turned droid gunships to scrap metal.

Very soon the battle was won by the Republic. Although the clone troopers did not outnumber the droids, they were smarter. By the end of the battle most of the battle droids had been defeated. Annakin led his Y-wing bombers on whole separatist cruisers! A few times they succeeded. A few Y-wings blew up from the cruisers explosion. Most of the time they had to get past vulture droids or trifighters. Finally, The Malevolence loomed up in front of shadow squadron. Anakin commanded his ships to open fire on the command bridge. “If we blow it up this flagship willl be useless,” Anakin stated. They dodged turbolasers. Soon, they got behind the command bridge where the scanners could not find them. Suddenly BOOM! The command bridge blew up with General Grevious flying away.

I think we can destroy this thing now. “OPEN FIRE ON THE MAIN REACTOR!” Anakin ordered. Suddenly, a bunch of explosions erupted on the disabled ship. But the Seperatists had other ideas because then an overwhelming number of droid starfighters attacked! Only to be followed by and equally overwhelming number of Republic Starfighters! Fortunately, that left Anakin’s ships to continue destroying The Malevolence. Soon they found an opening which turned out to be the docking bay. Then there was a computer terminal. R2-D2 used his computer interference arm and found the plans for the Ion cannons! Finally, the Clone pilots returned to the Y-Wings with Anakin. They flew through the ship to the reactor core. There Ashoka fired the torpedoes! She scored a direct hit on the main reactor. The Starfighters flew out of the ship just in time! BOOM! “That was close,” Anakin said relieved.

“Now find Grevious,” Anakin ordered. “Shadow 1 and 3 you go together. Shadow 4 and 6, go.  Shadow 7 and 8, you two are together. Shadow 11 you’re the leader. Shadow 9 Come back with me.” When they got back to The Resolute, Anakin took a gunship down to the battle with a platoon of clone troopers.  He found the Republic was losing. All that changed when he entered! Battle droids were nothing but scraps. He jumped into an MTT and sliced the droid carried in half when the hatch opened the commander peered in and saw what happened he called for more MTTs. When the battle ended, maintenance clones cleaned up the remains of the battle.

Although Grevious was not found, they had the coordinates to his new base. It was hidden in the jungles of the planet Teth. In fact, right by the castle where Rotta, the huttlet, was found! Anakin and his padawan knew the place well. For that very reason, they went on the mission.

Soon, their Starfighters dropped out of hyperspace. The planet they were looking at looked like a green marble. They touched down on the castle’s landing pad. When they entered the castle they checked every room not knowing where Grevious might be lurking. Suddenly, they saw him exiting a room. Lightsabers ignited, they charged! Grevious, not ready, grabbed his lightsaber and fought back. Then his arms split in two! They grabbed more lightsabers! That challenged the Jedi. No problem for them. They called for the hidden platoon of troops. Suddenly, he was surrounded. Finally, he jumped up and ran! The Jedi and clones chased him. He jumped into his starfighter and was off. Luckily, a Jedi cruiser was nearby! It found Grevious before he found the cruiser. It used a tractor beam to get the Starfighter. The cyborg was captured! He was brought to Coursacant, where he was planned for interrogation. Unfortunately, somehow he was saved. No one knew how. And if any droids had seen it their memory was wiped.

Product Review- Lego Harry Potter 2011 Hogwarts

In 2013 for Christmas, I got the Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts along with The Knight Bus. It comes with seven Minifigures. They are Professor Sprout, Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, Gregory Goyle, Nevile Longbottom, a dementor and Lucius Malfoy. The set is 466 pieces.

Hogwarts

There are three parts. The bridge and two towers. The bottom of the towers feature the dungeons.

The dungeon with the Room of Requirement above it.

On the right tower, there is the Room of Requirement which does not have anything in it.

The Room of Requirement

Above it is Lupin’s office.

His unnecessary of office.

On the top, is the Mirror of Erised.

The Mirror

 

On the other tower, we have more dungeons,

Does Hogwarts ever have prisoners?

Gryffindor common rooms,

I wish the commons were like Hogwarts 4842.

the astronomy tower,

No telescope?!

and divination room.

The cups are for tea leaves.

 

The bridge has a cool feature. When the Death Eaters set fire to Hogwarts, it seems they would do it to the bridge. There are flame pieces that push the loose bricks covering the bridge away. It looks like the bridge is on fire.

The bridge mechanism. It should have 3 flame pieces but I lost one.

 

This Hogwarts can also connect to Hogwarts 4842. You can switch parts around like putting the two towers next to each other and the bridge on one side. The only problem is that the rooms are somewhat small. There are only 68 studs on each floor. You have to subtract studs for each Lego that is placed down, too. Also, I don’t understand why Lupin has an office there. He had resigned in year 3. Defense Against the Dark Arts was taught by Amycus Carrow. Those are most of the cons I can think of.

Overall, it is a good set, and I would recommend you get it.

Central California Coast: Day Two

In the morning, after breakfast, we were on the road again up the coast.

Our first stop was at Monarch Butterfly Grove. The butterflies look like the leaves in trees! It is open October to February. There are over 28,000!

The butterflies

The sign.

We took yet another detour and found yet another park!  This one had ocean views and a tire swing. It was called Dinosaur Cave Park. Sarah and I were on the tire swing, and it was crazy.

The park

Views

The sign

Views!

 

It was going soo high spinning around like mad. I was partly responsible for the craziness.

Piedras Blancas is a six mile long stretch of elephant seals.

Elephant seals

Touching elephant seal fur

All the young males were there when we went. In two weeks from Thanksgiving, the adult males will come and fight over the females.

Our next stop was at the Madonna Inn. Its guest rooms have many different designs.  We like the ones with rocks. Madonna Inn has around 100 different rooms each to a separate theme.

We made a stop at Moonstone Beach. It has a lot of unique stones.

The “moonstones” there.

The beach also had climbing rocks, a tree and a cave.

Rocks

Tree

Cave

It was a long drive for lunch. We had cheeseburgers for Thanksgiving at Ragged Point Inn.

Cheeseburgers for Thanksgiving

We drove across Bixby Bridge on the way back. There has been many car commercials on it. To see some of our drive you can click this link. There  was more stunning scenery like this:

 

 

You can see Bixby Bridge.

 

 

We stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn in Salinas.

Day two was just as fun if not more as day one.

The other days of the trip were:

Central California Coast: Day One

Day Three: Coming Soon

 

Nerf N-Strike Maverick VS. Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm

The Maverick Nerf N-Strike is a gun that works well, but not as well as the Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm. The Maverick: The Strongarm

The first thing you should know: the Maverick is old. It is the predecessor of the Strongarm. Just like the Recon is the predecessor of the Retaliator. It is not as powerful or as durable as the Strongarm. Another flaw of the Maverick is it lacks Slamfire. Slamfire is where you hold down on the trigger while cocking it. In a fight with the Strongarm versus Maverick, Strongarm would probably win. The Maverick fires about 25 yards. The darts in the Maverick are also hard to pull out. Unlike the Strongarm, where the edges of the darts are exposed, the only way to get out the darts is to pull them out by the tip. The Strongarm and Maverick both have one tactical rail, but they vary in placement. The Maverick’s tactical rail is on the cocking mechanism. The one on the Strongarm is above the barrel. The tactical rail on the Strongarm is much more convenient. You can read a review of the Strongarm on The Paper Master. Overall, the looks of the Maverick are better than that of the Strongarm, but the Strongarm is better.