Mockingjay

I just finished the third book of the awesomest trilogy EVER! It was called Mockingjay, the third book of The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. In my opinion...the best book ever! It had gory action, sad scenes, and great character interaction. The book was was about Katiss Everdeen fighting through all of the hardships of the second war of Panem.

Catching Fire

I have a Nook and the first thing we bought on it is the Hunger Games trilogy. Catching Fire picks up the story of Katniss Everdeen right after she returns home to District 12 having won the 74th annual Hunger Games. Since every 25 years, in honor of the past war, the government puts a new spin on that year's Games. So, after Katniss returns home, preparations are starting for the 75th Games.

I will write the complete synopsis later because Jake and my mom are still reading the books and I don't want to give it all away.

The Hunger Games

In Florida I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This is a very popular trilogy, as in no library in Chicago has any copies available and you have to wait for weeks to get one. We bought the first book at Target and I started reading it first - I LOVED IT! When we went to Florida on vacation with grandpa and grandma, they bought me a Nook and now I have all three books on it. I'm on the second one now.

The first book of the Hunger Games is about Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old from District 12 who ends up as a contestant in the annual games of Panem. The Hunger Games is a contest which is mandatory for teens to play in, and they play to the death. There are 12 Districts in the country of Panem and each has to send a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to the Games. The kids have to battle and outwit each other until only one is left - the winner, the only kid that gets to live. The story tells about the various adventures, battles, struggles, and relationships Katniss goes through before, during, and after the widely televised Hunger Games.

The idea of the Hunger Games is a little like some of our popular reality shows, like Survivor. The big difference of course is that in the book the players die if they mess up, not just get voted off.

The Puzzling World of Winston Breen

Recently, I went to our local library and found a book called; The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin. It was a book the I was required to read for school...they made a good choice! This book was filled with action, adventure, suspence, and puzzles. The book started when the puzzle-expert Winston Breen buys a keep-sake box for his little sister's birthday. But it all went wrong when his sister found the false bottom and started a puzzling treasure hunt. But this was no ordinary treasure hunt...Winston and his sister had to work together with a team of treasure-hungry oddballs to figure out the starge assortment of puzzles.

The Complete Horowitz Horror

Recently I went to our local library and found a book by the same author who wrote my favorite Alex Rider series: Anthony Horowitz.

This new book was titled The Complete Horowitz Horror and it was a collection of 18 short stories. The stories were supposed to be very scary, since they were called "horror" stories. But only one was actually scary, while the rest were weird and kind of boring. I did not like this book AT ALL.  One good story out of eighteen is not good odds.

Alex Rider; Crocodile Tears

During the summer we read books and review them on our blogs (Jake also has his own blog).

The most recent book that I read was Alex Rider: Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz. It is about an average fourteen year-old kid that had his life transformed by a secret agency, M I 6. The book starts with Alex taking a New Years trip to Scotland for a party that his friend's dad was invited to. But it all went wrong when they ended up in the freezing water of the Loch Arkaig. But when Alex got back to London he was sent on a mission...both to save the world again, and to get his revenge.

The Booklist reviewers said this book was: "Impossible to resist!" I agree 100%!

bake sale!

we are having a bake sale on monday!

school!

5th grade is awesome! we get to switch classes for different subjects. That means that have three different teachers; Mrs. Thompson, Mr McPharlin, and Mr. Newmark. They are all nice and sometimes strict.

Easter sunday!

today is easter sunday!!!!! every easter we do this awesome, giant, fun egg hunt.  we started it around 1ish and we are going to end around 5.  so far we've gotten over 2 dozen chocolates and candies and we just found some moon sand.  EASTER IS FUN!

my wish list

here is what i want for Christmas this year:

1. Beyond The Spiderwick Chronicles set (3 books)

Trick or treat

I was a caveman this year, Halloween was awsome! We got so much
candy. It was fun!

My 2 day swim meet

Today and yesterday I compete in the Joliet Jets Ghostly Gathering
swim meet. I swam 100 Free, 50 Fly, 50 back, 50 breast, and two relays.

"Up": book sharing project

house floats in the sky
Paradise Falls here we come
adventure awaits


(The book I chose for my book sharing project was "Up," a novel version of the movie.)

ice cream

My mom took us all to Scooter's after school today. I had the Smores
flavor. It was very good.

swimming rocks

I'm getting better and better at diving off the block:

and my favorite stroke is the butterfly:

slide!

Finny likes to slide! First he likes to go up the stairs and then down the slide. He is finally old enough to get on the slide by himself and slide down without falling. He also likes to swing on the baby swings at the park.

getting better

Today I had my regular swim practice and afterward my coach said that she wants me to try swimming with the higher-level team. That's really good news because it means that I have gotten better at swimming in the first 2 weeks of practices. :-)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Over the summer I have read the first three books of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series: "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," "Rodrick Rules," and "The Last Straw." I also have the "Wimpy Kid: Do-It-Yourself Book," where you can fill in all kids of stuff about yourself. My brother Jake filled in some pages. The 5th book of the series, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days" will come out on October 25th and I hope to get it. The series is about the life of a middle-school kid, Greg, who keeps a diary about stuff that happens to him during the school year. He has an older brother, Rodrick, and a younger brother, Manny, and they all have funny things happen to them in school and at home.

swim practice

Today I had swimming like I always do on Wednesdays and Fridays at 4:00 p.m. and on Saturdays at 7:45 a.m. We have practiced two swimming strokes so far, Freestyle and Backstroke. I think that I am the best out of all six of the swimmers on the Pack Prep team.

My Munny

Today my mom entered me into a contest where you enter your munny design to KidRobot to see if you win. If I were to win I would got an 18 inch munny for free! Here are the pictures of my munny:

first day of school!!

Today was my first day of school! I am now in fourth grade. It is a Tuesday so I got out of school at 2:30.

new skate park

This weekend we went on an adventure and we found a new skatepark. It is in Northbrook and it has become our favorite park ever. At the park there is also a batting cage, 2 baseball fields, a golfing range, and a lacrosse field. We will be going there again in the afternoon, there's a lacrosse tournament my dad wants to see and we get to do more skating! :-) We have lots of pictures, like always:

• playing lacrosse
• at the skate park

4th grade playdate

Today I went to North Ave. beach for my 4th grade playdate. It was fun, I got to see a lot of my friends. My favorite part was digging a big hole with my friends and playing in the water with Griff's Skim Board.

After the beach I had my first swim practice at the UIC. We had a couple swim races and I won two of them. My next practice is on Wednesday.

another trip to Scooter's

We had an awesome afternoon today - first we went to Scooter's for custard and then we stopped by Rotofugi, a cool designer toy shop. Scooter's flavor of the day was cake batter and I LOVE cake batter - I had a large size of custard with Reeses and Heath. It was delicious! :-) Rotofugi is awesome, just like Kidrobot but even cooler.

swim team

I made the swim team at the CWAC (Chicago Wolfpack Aquatic Club)! :-) I'm very exited. I have team orientation on Thursday, 9/3, in the evening. My team is called Pack Prep. My mom said she will buy me a new swimsuit.

Oriental Institute

Today we walked all the way down to the UofC campus with our neighbors/ best friends to see the Oriental Institute and its mummies. We've been there many times before when we were little, but not recently. It was a fun afternoon and I saw lots of cool Egyptian exhibits.

biking with Finny

I can ride my mom's bike with the baby seat with Finn. It's a little harder because there is extra weight and the seat takes up a lot of room in the front. But I like it! :-)

swimming tryouts

We just got back from my swimming tryouts at the UIC P.E. building. I was the first one to start the tryouts, I swam Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Butterfly. I also had to dive in the pool head first. I find out the results on saturday. I would like to make the swim team, it would be fun.

Cirque Shanghai

Today I went to the circus with Aidan. It was at Navy Pier and it was called Cirque Shanghai. It wasn't like a regular circus - with animals and clowns and stuff - but instead there were a lot of acrobats. Here is a picture of one of the cool things they did. I liked the performance a lot. Thanks to Aidan for taking me!

bikeride to Buckingham Fountain

We went on another long bike ride - we ended up at Buckingham Fountain this time.

stung!

I just got stung by a yellow jacket - on the knuckle of my right middle finger. I was looking for a ball inside a bush and there was a yellow jacket on one of the branches. I reached my hand inside the bush and it got on my hand and stung me. Now I have an ice pack on my hand and I took some Benadryl, just in case I may be allergic. It stings and hurts a lot.

munnys

I collect these soft vinyl designer toys called MUNNY and DUNNY. I buy them from my favorite store - Kidrobot in New York City. The MUNNYs I get are the do-it-yourself kind, which means they are white and you get to decorate them however you like. I have done one already and I am now working on my second one. The DUNNYs I have are smaller and they are already decorated in different wacky and weird designs by famous artists. Here are some MUNNYs I found online that other people made and I really like:

dunnys

I collect DUNNYs. Here is my collection:

long bike ride

This afternoon we went on a bike ride. We only planned on going to our beach but instead we just kept biking. We biked all the way downtown, to Millennium Park to visit our favorite sculpture - the Bean. After we got there, it started to sprinkle a little, so we only spent a little time there and then headed back. It is about 8 miles from downtown to our house on the lake shore bike path, so we had a long way home. And the rain got worse and worse. We kept biking but then there was a lot of lightning and we had to stop. We stopped at the 39th street beach house, hid from the rain under their roof, with the lifeguards. We saw lightning hit the pier - it was very bright and very loud! Then my dad rescued us in the car. It was fun biking in the rain! Our photos on flickr.

Friday in the City

My mom took me and Jake to New York City for the day. We had a lot of fun. We went to my favorite store - KIDROBOT, in SoHo - and we went to the Empire State Building. We had lunch in Little Italy and lots of sweet treats all over the City. We discovered the best ice cream in the world - Spoon City, on 5th Avenue and 33rd Street. It is frozen custard and you can get flavors and mix-ins and it is delicious. This is a picture of another treat we had that day - Pinkberry. I had the coconut flavor frozen yogurt with white and milk chocolate shavings. We got home very late - it was a great day!

road trip to NY

We took a road trip to New York, to visit my grandparents. We drove through 4 states to get there: Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. It was a long drive, but we stopped a lot along the way and we also slept in a hotel overnight. The hotel had a nice pool and I got to swim in the morning. That was fun. In Pennsylvania we were stuck in traffic in the middle of the road and there were no exits for many miles. We were stuck for almost 2 hours in one spot! And then there was a tornado warning and my dad drove very fast to escape the storm. We made it, we left the tornado behind.

two dead fish

Yesterday Bob and Boomer died. Sad. They only lived for less than 2 weeks. Too bad.

our rocky beach

We live really close to the lake, like 4 blocks away. So we go to the beach very often in the summer. We have a favorite beach - it has lots of rocks, so we call it the Rocky Beach. I like it there because I like to build tall rock castles out of large stones. And we sometimes snorkel and swim. See photos on flickr.

Monopoly

Today I had four friends over and we played some board games. I have Monopoly World edition and we had fun playing that all together. It's always more fun with more players.

Race to Witch Mountain

I watched a cool movie - "The Race to Witch Mountain." My favorite part was when the kids were captured by the government agents inside the Witch Mountain. It was a good movie, with lots of action.

The Last Invisible Boy

I just finished a good book - "The Last Invisible Boy," by Evan Kuhlman. It's about a boy named Finn Garrett who is becoming invisible and he has to deal with a lot of issues, like his dad dying.

Hyde Park Infernos

After the regular baseball season, I joined a travel league. My team was called the Hyde Park Infernos and we won our series against the West Side. It was fun playing in different parks and driving to games.

drawing with chalk

We do a lot of chalk drawing in front of our house in the summer. More photos on flickr.

Washington Park pool

I like it when we go to the pool. It is very cool because it has a huge water slide!