VACATIONS

Author's Note: I wrote this piece about my vacation every weekend up to our house in the middle of nowhere and some of the things my whole family and I enjoy doing together and individually.

Most people would say that the best vacation they ever went on was to some place warm like Florida or California.  But I pretty much go on a vacation every weekend, or at least that’s what I call it. My mom owns a house up in the middle of nowhere literally. It’s a little town in the middle of Wisconsin called Knowlton. Only on some maps can you find it. I love it up there because every time we go we do something totally different you can say oh we’re going to do this but it never works that way. My cousins and I like to go four-wheeling during the spring, summer and fall. My aunt and mom like to help my grandma out with her flowers and garden. I hate doing that. My dad and uncle like to hang out in my grandpa’s garage, where he used to be all the time, and build cool stuff and help with fixing things around the farm, I love to help them. Are land got harvested a year or so ago and so we will go out with the four wheelers and the tractor and pull branches and trees out and have a huge bonfire. My cousins and I when were out on the four-wheeler’s we always have to go out on cliff trail which is where the river runs through are land and throw Kow-a-Bunga sticks: which are huge sticks that you throw root end first over the cliff, and then scream Kow-a-Bunga: it’s so funny and a lot of fun. We love just going up there and being outside. We have 120 acres to do whatever we want and yes sometimes we say we’re board or have nothing else to do but you can just look outside and know exactly what you can do. I wish that I lived there at times but sometimes it’s just nice to come home, but the north is my life and that’s where I’m from and will never have a complaint that I would ever want to go anywhere else I think the rest of my family would agree.

CHRISTMAS

Author's Note: I wrote this about CHRISTMAS to show about all the things I think about when the Christmas comes around. 

C~ Coco, Chocolate and Candy

H~ Hats, Hanging Stockings and Holiday Cheer

R~ Reindeer

I~ Ice

S~ Santa, Stockings

T~ Tree, Time Till Christmas and Topper

M~ Mailing Cards, Making Cookies and My Family

A~ Anticipation

S~ Snow

HUNTING

Author's Note: My writing circles group picked this topic because Chloe and I felt like writing about how are family's go hunting during Thanksgiving break and the other three people in our group wrote their opinions about hunting, and what they think it is.

Every year my family goes up north during Thanksgiving break and my two older cousins and my uncle go hunting. This past year my friend Brody shot the biggest dear we have ever weighed in are three car garage. It was an 8 point buck that weighed 180 lbs. It was huge and since it was outside the garage and then it snowed there was a silhouette of it on the driveway. My Cousin Peter’s friend also came up north with us and shot his first deer, it was a 1 pt that weighed 114 lbs. The funniest one though was my cousin Matt who shot a nub and swore that he would never shoot a nubber. So my mom had to give him a bunch of stuff about it. My uncle’s friend Brian shot a doe that was really small and people thought it was a nub, but it wasn’t. My uncles other friend Moose (Jim) shot a doe that he gave to my uncle and cousins because he already had enough venison. Brian Fiet’s son in law John shot an 8 pointer too, but it only weighed 147 lbs. My family loves hunting season it puts venison in are freezers and lets us spend time together as a family over Thanksgiving.  

THE SMELL

Author's Note: My group picked this topic for Writing Circles the day after this happened. The reason we picked it was because it was fresh on are mind and had a lot to talk about.  

The smell that engulfed the Pewaukee High School on December 1, 2011 was the worst experience ever. If I had to do it all over again I think that I would pass up on the opportunity. Walking down the hallways and sitting in classrooms the smell was so bad kids started getting really bad headaches. Most people believed that the middle schoolers should have gotten to leave too, and this was because they sent the high schoolers home as a precautionary measure. The two schools are connected and it was not fair most people thought. It wasn’t that bad though we just continued on as if it was a normal day, and the smell eventually disappeared.

DECISIONS

Author's Note: This is an essay I wrote about the book I just read, about the good decisions and bad decisions people choose to make.


If you had to travel a 1,000 plus mile sled dog race, through the uninhabited Alaskan wilderness to finish in a place called Nome, you would probably be on edge. How about if people are starting to get murdered on the trail? You must be scared now, I know I would be. That is how the mushers in Sue Henry's book Murder on the Iditarod Trail feel. Scared and unsure of what is going to happen next. Sometimes things happen for a reason, sometimes people make good decisions and sometimes they make some bad ones.
                                                                                                        
In some ways I feel that I can relate to the mushers in Sue Henry’s book, yet I feel like I could never understand what they’re going through, or why some things start to irritate them so badly. People get the feeling in their stomachs that it is just something they have to finish even if someone tells them that it’s a bad choice. They feel it is something that they have to do: for it to feel like an accomplishment to them. If you have ever been determined to finish something that you know you can do well in weather you come in first or dead last you know you’re not a quitter because you went forth and completed the Iditarod. This is how the character Jessie felt, she was a girl musher on the Iditarod trail and none of the guys wanted anything to do with her. It was her fourth year racing and she had her best team since she started and knew she could have a very good chance of winning, but people didn’t think it was safe and wanted her to quit. She came in second after all and was still proud of herself. She reminds me a lot of my cousin, he’s twenty- four and is in training to be a cop. He didn’t quit on his dream in doing this but he’s not done yet and I’m really proud of him.

I never had to experience something scary or unsafe before, but I had good experiences in places that I could have gotten hurt in. This is kind of what the mushers in this book thought they were going to start a fun dog sled race, and ended up in a bad situation. One year my family had our 120 acres harvested and we went up to my grandma’s house to watch the harvest, it was really cool and different because it is not something that you see every day. There were cords and cords of wood everywhere that were being cut down and then hauled away on big trucks. I could have gotten hurt or even killed by any one of those trees or big machines, but thankfully I didn’t. This reminds me of this book because the mushers could have gotten severely injured by the winds and bad weather.    

While this is a scary thing to experience most people need to understand that they Iditarod is not a happy place. It can be but mushers race on a sled behind dogs through the dead of night racing towards checkpoints which are spots to rest. Originally the race was meant to stop in the abandoned town of Iditarod, but soon it went on to Nome. It costs mushers thousands of dollars to race in one year so some will do anything to win the grand prize. Which is sadly what happened in this book a musher really needed the money and killed the three most likely people to win, and didn’t even think about it.

Some need to understand that you need to win the fair way, and not just go hurting people because you can, you’re going to get caught. The good decisions people make, and the bad decisions people make determine the outcome of life. Everything happens for a reason weather it’s the right choice or the wrong.

PATRIOT'S PEN ESSAY

Author's Note: I chose to write this peace on what I believe to be why people should be proud of their country. And I believe I most certainly am! I hope this piece explains why.

According to the U.S Government over 72% of young people are ineligible for military service, yet the other 28% of people who are eligible only 5% actually decide to enroll into the military. These men and women in uniform that serve our country every day are people who decided that they wanted to make a difference. These are the people who stand tall every day because they want their children and grandchildren to see that you can have anything you want in your life if you try hard for it. Most would say that the people who mean the most to them are their parents. While this is true for most, they are very important people but the people that mean the most to me are the people who are fighting in uniform every day for my safety and my freedom.

The first thing these military men and women need to think about is their decision and then their departure. The decisions these service volunteers have to make is one of the biggest they should every have to encounter. The decision needs to be made between the military personal and their family. If they decide to go through with their decision, when they depart to live home is a struggle, the goodbyes and the so-longs are the kind of things that make it the most difficult. But it is one thing that they need to stand up and go through with.

Even though the decision and the departure are difficult don’t forget about the actual time they are serving. They hold their head high in honor of their country. They sometimes may want to hang their head and cry or just give up. But they know that they can pull through, and don’t want to be a person who tragically only gets a so called “one way ticket” and doesn’t return home to their family. It’s a tragic thought, I know but they all want to return home in peace.

Being proud of your country is something that everyone should take part in. People need to understand that we have military volunteers fighting for our country and are freedom every day. Even though most people think the guaridians who can protect them the most are their parents, while this is true the people who protect you and your freedom the most are military personal who truly believe in their country, like everyone should.

TRAVEL

Author's Note: I came up with the idea about traveling because I was thinking of how much people travel in there life time and what people think of as traveling.

During 50% of Americans lifetime they travel more than a million miles. Even though most think traveling is getting in a plane or in the car and going across a country to some other state , and that’s the only kind of traveling they do. While that is true traveling can be anything like getting in the car and driving across the street or walking a mile to your friend’s house. You’re traveling to those places: but most people don’t think of it that way they think it’s just a trip across town to the grocery store or to the lake. But, that is traveling also, along with traveling very far in a plane or a car.

If you walk or if you run somewhere every day, most people would say they are just going for a walk or for a run. But I believe that when they do that they are traveling if you physically move whether you think it is or not I believe that if you’re physically moving you are traveling. This has an exception though if you are running on the treadmill or doing something in relation to that and aren’t actually going anywhere you aren’t traveling. So that means that that time you spend doing those things don’t count as miles you have traveled.

While walking or running are two ways I believe you can travel don’t forget about those short trips you make across town in your car every day! Most people believe that those little trips they take in to town for groceries, and for gas. That is traveling because it is those trips that make up the millions of miles you travel in your lifetime. These count for traveling because it is miles being added to your car that you are traveling in.

Even though little every day trips are a big way to travel most people travel by train and subway everyday because they don’t have a car. So most people who travel that way are traveling to work or to their homes to get to where they need to go. This is traveling even though you are not driving you are moving from point A to point B. You aren’t moving like walking or running but you are getting somewhere because when you step on that moving object and then you step off you're in a totally new location.

Traveling I truly believe is done in many different ways and it is hard for people to understand 

 how easy it is to travel millions of miles in their lifetime. You can travel physically like walking or running or in a moving vehicle, you really have to stop and think about how many times you travel in a day in a week or even in a month, it adds up. I could barley believe when I actually stopped and thought about the many different ways I travel. Even though traveling by plane and car are too great ways to travel I knew that there were many more.