Travel Section For Kids: Happiest Place On Earth!

I've been very lucky as a kid, as my parents treat my brother and I to Disneyland every December. On our recent trip, we went on Sunday, December 16th and it was empty! The longest line we had to wait in was for Indiana Jones because the ride broke down. Everything else though we only waited 15 minutes or less.

I love Disneyland because it's a great place to go not only for rides but fun. It's also really cool how you actually feel like you are experiencing all the different lands, like Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Frontierland, etc.

One of my favorite rides is Thunder Mountain because it goes fast and the scenery around it is cool. And my favorite part is the goat chewing on a stick of dynamite!

Another favorite is Star Tours based on the Star Wars films. I like it because:

• I like Star Wars!
• The ride is based on an Imperial Spy trying to escape Darth Vader. They choose someone out of the audience to be the spy- and I was the one this time!
• If feels like you're actually in the spaceship

Another ride I like is Pirates of the Caribbean. You feel like you are in the southeastern United States when you first get on the ride (it's all dark and it looks like you are in the swamps of New Orleans- there's actually people eating dinner and you think you are outside at night). The ride puts you in the middle of Pirates and the British Navy battling!

The Matterhorn is another cool ride. It's cool because you feel like you're going through the Swiss Alps. It was even cold and rainy that day we visited! The coolest part is the Abominable Snowman who runs around the mountain. You get to ride in bobsleds and you go 33 miles per hour!

One of my new favorite rides is Indiana Jones. Even if you have to stand in line for a long time, it's worth it because you get to see all kinds of cool artifacts while you wait. Once you get on the ride, you sit down in a safari jeep and take off! There 3 different doors you can enter- BUT- there are 160,000 combinations of the ride (I read that in a book about Disneyland secrets).

My brother Ryan loves to go on the Jungle Cruise. It really seems like there are real animals on the ride. You get to go on a boat in the middle of an 'African' jungle. There are attacking hippos, elephants that spray water, and there are even headhunters! (Just pretend of course)

One place in Disneyland that actually isn't a ride but a place to run around is Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer's Island. First you take a log raft over the island. One you get there, you explore cool places like Dead Man's Grotto which is a cave you explore, Pirate's Lair where you go into a fort (shown above), and explore a tower that has very confusing passages!

Another fun ride is Autopia. It's an old ride at Disneyland that they just re-made. You get to drive little cars around a track. My brother especially likes it because he is a crazy driver!

Disneyland has so many rides, that I can't even talk about every single one on Apple Syrup- I would be up all night! The worst part about Disneyland is leaving. So just need to go visit it yourself!

Travel Section 4 Kids: Guerneville Is 4 Kids!

Guerneville is a small town in Northern California- it is between Napa and the ocean. It is a great place to visit for kids. I have been there every summer since I was born. What makes this place so great is the scenery. There are a ton of redwood trees, pine trees, cedar trees- basically it's a big forest that's close to San Francisco. It takes 10 hours of driving to get there from my house in San Diego. But it is worth it! After driving through a bunch of trees you get to an amazing river. It is called the Russian River because Russians discovered it a long time ago. On the river there is Johnson's Beach. Which has kayaks, canoes, surfboards, and everything that floats you can imagine. I go to Johnson's Beach though to skip rocks. They have a lot of good flat rocks to skip.

My 'Gompa' and 'Goma' live on the river and have a dock on the river. I dive and jump off of it. The water is warm in the summer. There is a dam downstream that keeps the water higher so it's deep enough to jump in. There is a little 'path' on the dam that fish can swim up to get around the dam.

If you don't feel like swimming, you can go to the 5&Dime in Guerneville like I did today. The 5&Dime is cool because it has lots of toys, candy, inner tubes, coloring books, gag jokes, and all kinds of stuff you need to have fun at the river- like a Magic 8 Ball!

My favorite thing at night to do at the Russian River is play Pee Wee Golf. It has been here since my mom was a little girl. It's a great course because it's challenging and has video games, a juke box, and some of the holes are a dinosaur, cannibals, there's a loop to hit your ball in, an ant hill, and they even put in a new hanglider above the course. Seriously.

Or maybe you like nature, then check out Armstrong Woods. It is a forest made of redwood trees. Some of the hikes are challenging, others are not. My Gompa has taken one trail that's super steep. Today me and my family got lost! Because my brother, Goma, and Gompa ran ahead.

Now that I'm old enough, I can play a real golf course like the one called Northwood. I like this course because it's pretty- it's surrounded by redwood trees and the grass is really green. At the end of the course, there is a restaurant called the 19th Hole that has the best hot dogs!

There's one last thing I want to talk about the Russian River and Guerneville. If you follow the Russian River west, you will hit one beach at the ocean called Jenner. There are a bunch of seals at the river mouth so that probably means sharks are nearby because sharks like to eat seals! Jenner is cold and one time we made a fort out of branches that had floated downstream. The really cool thing we and my brother do on the beach at Jenner is balance on old railroad tracks. I think they got there because they built a jetty to help direct the river to the sea. To wrap things up, Guerneville is a great place for kids!

Apple Syrup Art Gallery: Yard Sale!

My teacher Mrs. Jones was teaching us about photography this year. And something hit me- I love photography! So here are some of the pictures I have to share from my yard this week. I hope you enjoy them.

If you like any of these photos, they are available for purchase!

Video Game Review: Pilot Wings for Nintendo 3DS

Today's video game review is Pilot Wings Resort for the Nintendo 3DS. This game let's you know who's the boss of flying! From jet packing to hang-gliding to flying in squirrel suits to super sonic jets; if you like all of this- then this game is for you. Once you get to the beginning of the game, you go into the member store and sign a waiver and your member card. Then, there are 2 choices: 1) 'I've Flown Before.' 2) 'I Haven't'. Pick 1 and you go straight to the mission mode. Pick 2 and take a one minute flight.

There are 2 modes- mission mode and free flight mode. (My favorite is free flight). Mission mode is where you take challenging missions with the plane, hang-glider or jet pack. One course on the hang-glider you can fly from an island (Crab Island) to Wuhu Island. As you move along you unlock special mini games- like instead of your regular jet pack you turn into a super jet pack. And the plane turns into a super sonic jet. And the hang-glider turns into a pedal glider (it's hard)!

On free flight mode, pick any vehicle you want and fly around Wuhu and Crab Island. Collecting different trophies or rings lets you unlock idols. Hang-glider has rings, jet pack has idols, and with the plane you can collect stunt rings.

While you're flying around, you may notice some 'i' icons (the i stands for information). Collecting one of these tells you about that specific place. Collect a few to get cool items.

In conclusion, I give this game 10 out of 10 Apples- I really like this game!

Behold the Nintendo 3DS!

Behold the Nintendo 3DS! it's the new DS that you can play in 2D or 3D. It has all new buttons like the circle pad and a home button. The apps that come with it are a camera, sound system, Mii Maker, Mii plaza, AR games (that come with cards for the games) and Face Raiders.

With the camera you can take 3D or 2D pictures. With the sound system you can record a sentence then change the sound of your voice. With Mii Maker you can make Mii characters just like the Wii. There is also a Mii Plaza. If you're walking around town with your 3DS and come across someone else with a 3DS, your Mii can show up on their 3DS! And the more people you have in the plaza, the more people try to rescue the king who got kidnapped. AR Games is a new feature. You can play games like archery and AR Shoot (it's like a ball you try to shoot into a hole). What's special about AR Games is that you get an AR card and you point the 3DS camera at the card and the 3DS recognizes the card. It then unlocks a game for you to play. And the cool thing about the AR card is that it projects real time images on the screen of the picture you shot. Face Raiders is when you take a picture of someone then they come to life as an emperor that tries to attack you! You then need to blast him with balls.

There are a lot of games you can buy for the 3DS. My favorites are Mario Kart 7, Starfox 64 3D, and Madden Football. Mario Kart 7 let's you race on land, air, and sea. It's cool because instead of you just riding on land and picking your vehicle, you can customize your vehicle and your kart is equipped with a hang glider and a propeller for going underwater. I give Mario Kart 7 a rating  of 10 out of 10 Apples. I love it!

Starfox 64 3D is Starfox like you've never seen before. You can to battle new bosses and your enemy Starwolf. The game is like Star Wars but better because when you turn on the gyro controls it feels like your actually driving a space ship! And the new things you can do with your ship is that you can turn into a submarine or a tank (the tank and submarine only work on some levels). I give Starfox 64 3D a rating of 9 out of 10 Apples. I don't give it 10 out of 10 because it's a little too challenging.

In Madden Football it's like Madden '11 for the Wii but what is different is that you can play it in 3D. My favorite team to play as is the Chargers. You can play 5 on 5 or 11 on 11. I give Madden a rating of 8 out of 10 Apples. I don't give it a 10 because I think the computer plays a little too hard!

I'd like to get more games for my 3DS like Super Mario 3D Land, Kirby's Mass Attack, and De Blob 2. But I can't have them because my mom won't let me!

SeaWorld for free!

Did I get your attention? Ok, it's not actually SeaWorld- it's actually the tide pools at Swami's. But it is a lot better than SeaWorld and it is free. Since the tide dropped to a -1.5' last Saturday, lots of sea critters and tide pools popped up. So me and my family decided to go check it out. When we got there, the tide was super low.

The first thing we saw were of course sea anemones. I like taking mussels and feeding one to the sea anemones. I like how when you put your finger on a tentacle, they try to suck off your finger!

The next thing we saw you can probably see everyday- a seagull. Seagulls like to eat bread and walk around. You can not catch seagulls and my dad calls them rats in the sky. There's this game we play at Moonlight with the seagulls. It is called Seagull Football. You throw a piece of bread in the air and if your seagull catches it, you get a touchdown! If another seagull catches it, it's an interception.



If this looks like it came out of a book, you're wrong. It is a mini waterfall created by the dropping tide. The water on the reef is dripping down into the ocean.







This is Mr. Hermit Crab (the crab- not my brother). He's little and lives in a shell. These little guys hide when you pick them up. They like cleaning sea anemones and they like climbing on the reef.

This is the remains of two lobsters. They are the heads and I eventually found two more. Someone must have had a good meal and just left them on this rock.

It's a mussel farm! This picture must have more than 800 mussels in it. Each one of these is really stuck to this rock. There are TONS of mussels all over the rocks at Swami's.

Here is a shot of the reef where the tide isn't low enough yet to walk on it. I like this picture because it has lots of color.

This shell is called the wavey top shell (or at least that's what I call it). I call it the wavey top shell because it has little waves on it. This might look like it's huge but it's about the size of a muffin. Anybody in there?

This looks like it's on the moon but it's just sand. It looks like the Sahara desert because it has all those little sand hills in it. The little waves and the tide made it.

This is a brittle star. It can move across your hand easily- only if it's in a hurry. You can find them most anywhere in a tide pool- usually under rocks- and they're really cool because they're brittle AND look like stars!

I hope you enjoyed looking at all the tide pool pictures and the critters. Make sure you go down there the next time the tide is low. Happy tide pooling! 

Breaking News! Tree Fort Appears in Backyard!

Breaking News! Tree Fort appears in my backyard this weekend! Actually, it wasn't a surprise, I've been asking my dad to make one for awhile. But he went out of town this weekend and Papa Don (my grandpa) surprised us and said he'd help build it. Let's start from the beginning though.

When we first moved into our house 7 1/2 years ago, we had a lot of old trees and bushes where spiders, rats, and other creepy crawlers lived. So my dad took it all out (with some help) and planted new trees and bushes. But what he didn't know, the old trees didn't want to go away. So we had a lot of rain that first winter, and the eucalyptus on our hill we cut down, started to grow back. 7 1/2 years later, it is over 30' tall!

So I've been looking at that tree for a long time and I've always wanted my dad to build a Tree Fort up there. But he doesn't have the best set of tools. That's where Papa Don could help. Me and my dad last month made a Monkey Trail up on the hill. The Monkey Trail is an old branch that fell off the eucalyptus and my dad made a bridge up to it so we could walk on it.

So we already had a bridge up to the tree that could connect to the Tree Fort we wanted to build. So Papa Don came over last weekend with his drill, chainsaw, saw, and wood cutter (which had humongous blades). First, while I was at school Papa Don went to Home Depot and got the wood. So then after he picked me and Ryan up from school, we saw a bunch of lumber and bricks in our front yard!

Then we had to slip them through the side gate and dropped them in a big pile in the backyard. Next, we got to the action! Papa grabbed his chainsaw and starting hacking away through the bushes on our hill so he had room to work. Ryan and my job was to haul out the old branches Papa chopped down. GP (also known as Grandma Patty) had to break down the branches into little pieces (it filled 6 trash barrels)! So now we had room to build the Tree Fort. We then went and started building the Tree Fort with all the lumber Papa bought. This time we only started with the frame.

Some pieces of wood were too long so Papa had to get his wood cutter and chop it down to the right size. That took a lot of work so we stopped at the end of the day. The next day after school (Friday) I came to the Tree Fort and looked and the floor was already in because when I was at school, GP and Papa put in the floor! I was excited!

Then on Saturday, we put on the railings so nobody would fall off.  Since the Tree Fort is built on a tree on our hill, the back of the fort is only 4' off the ground. But the back of the fort is 7' off the ground! We didn't want anyone to fall off (especially my brother Ryan)!



And finally on Sunday, we built the Lobster mailbox! GP bought it for us and we have a home for it now. I really like my Tree Fort because you can see the ocean and the street below. I can't wait to play on it this week!

And before I forget, since it's so high in the tree, I also have a basement underneath. I don't know what I'll do with the extra space, but I'll maybe store some toys down there.



I love my new Tree Fort. Thank you GP and Papa for building it. Maybe we can camp out on it the next time you visit.