50 Degree Weather in December?

Just last week, it was below zero degree temperature in Chicago. Now it is in the 50s. This is absolutely crazy. It it pretty hard to believe that it is currently 54 degrees outside in Wilmette according to weather.com, in late December. I love winter and snow but if it is 50 degrees outside there will be no snow and instead, there will be rain. Winter is suppose to be cold and snowy. Although we have had a ton of snow lately, I love it when the ground is white because that is what winter is all about in my mind. 

Many people have a different opinion on winter. Some people absolutely hate the snow, but I couldn't imagine Christmas with no snow. 

First Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, my cousins fiancé from Italy's mother, aunt, and twin brother came into town from Italy to meet a new part of their family and to have Thanksgiving in the States for the first time. As I walked into the door of my aunts house, all i could remember was how excited they were to meet me and how thrilled they were to be with our Italian side of the family for Thanksgiving. They spoke very little English so it was extremely hard to understand what they were saying. They continuously said "Happy Thanksgiving" because they were so overjoyed with excitement. They could not believe all the food that we eat for Thanksgiving. They ate a ton of it anyways! It was by far on of their most exciting experiences because they were so thankful that they could be there and they cannot wait to come back to the States for the wedding in March!

Has anyone ever been to a different country, celebrating a holiday that we don't celebrate here? 

Moms on Facebook

The other day I was on my Facebook looking at one of my friend pictures. I noticed that her mom was "tagged" in one of the pictures from Thanksgiving, meaning that I was able to click on a link to her moms Facebook. I think that it is kind of weird that moms have facebooks because is it mainly a High School, College, and of course a mid-20s type thing. But for a mom in their 40s or 50s? I think it is a bit weird. I have nothing to hide of facebook but I would never want my mom looking at my facebook. 

What do you think about moms having facebooks?

Living with no heart

The other day as I went on my email to check my mail, the homepage had some recent news stories and a specific one caught my eye. The heading said "Teen girl lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital." As soon and I read that, I knew I would be interested in this article. I clicked on the link and read the article. I was so interested in this topic i decided to search for another article and found one from ABC. This article is about a 14 year old who was living with no heart for 118 days. She had 2 heart transplants and the doctors decided to do something vary unusual and that was to insert artificial heart pumps which made blood flow through her body. This is absolutely amazing to me. What do you think? Is this a Miracle? 

Culver Academy Uniforms

This past weekend, I was in Culver, Indiana for more hockey games. We played two games at Culver Academy. For those that do not know, Culver Academy is a Military Academy for high school aged students from all over the world. Many of them from Spain. Students who attend this academy, must wear their uniforms at all times except for when they are in their dorm rooms. Girls are allowed to change into jeans on Friday and Saturday nights but not until 7pm. The girls wear navy blue and green plaid skirts with black tights on the bottom and on top they wear white button up collard shirts with navy sweaters on top. Since it was pretty cold last night, most of them we wearing black pea coats as well. The guys we wearing blue military pants that had a navy blue stripe down each leg and on the top, they wore blue button up shirts with maroon sweaters over the shirts and had navy jackets on top. A two digit number of the year the boy was going to graduate was sewn on the left shoulder of the jacket. Every time they guys would walk into the ice rink, they would remove their hats as a sign of respect and they would put them back on as the left the building. It is amazing to me that these students wear these uniforms every single day. Has anyone ever seen these Culver students before?

Pre-game Preparation

After trying many things to get our hockey team prepared for a game, this past weekend in Madison a girl on my team stepped up and had a GREAT idea. The previous weekend my coach had confronted my team about our playing habits, and wanted us to come up with a reason why we had been so inconsistent. In this search for an answer, my team and I had decided that we were going to put a new twist in our pre-game preparation. After our warm up and stretch outside in the parking lot, we decided to try something new. Whitney, the girl who came up with this outstanding idea, told everyone to lay down and close there eyes and asked everyone to turn off there iPods. Since I have played with Whitney before in the past, I had already done this pre-game preparation meditation. As we were laying down with our eyes closed, the first thing she told us to do was think of a color and to think only about that particular color. After about a minute, she told us to stop thinking about that color and told us to think of a sound and only that sound. After about another minute, she told us to think about the color and the sound and only those two things. She then told us to think only of the color and to totally forget about the sound. After that, she told us to stop thinking of the color. As I was laying there with my eyes closed, I was thinking about absolutely nothing. You may not think it but you really can thing about nothing at times and this is exactly was this activity was meant to do. Make you clear your mind and think of nothing. In order for it to work, you have to concentrate really hard and think about only the things the leader tells you to think about. For most people, this worked. Our minds were clear. We went out and played an outstanding game and that is exactly what we wanted. We finally found a Pre-game meditation activity that we will continue to do before we play games.

Has anyone else who plays sports done anything like this to get mentally prepared for a game?

East Coast vs North Shore

This past weekend, I was in Boston for an elite hockey tournament. When we were not playing games, my mom and I tried to visit as many places as we could around the Boston area. We visited Boston College, Harvard University and Boston University. Each school was very different. Boston University was more city like, Harvard was very old and historical looking which i liked very much and Boston College was more of a gated college but very pretty. We also drove around and looked at some of the very historical looking houses. The houses out east are not your typical North Shore houses. The houses out east were much older but very nice looking. The houses out there fit the environment very well. Some of the house even had dates on the side of them that dated way back. Although I love the North Shore very much, the East Coast is very very pretty. Has anyone else ever visited any of theses places? What do you think of the East Coast compared to the North Shore?

Statesville Haunted House

Saturday night I went to the Statesville Haunted House near Joliet after a hockey game with about 10 of the girls on my team. The haunted house was on a farm in what seemed like an old medal shack that they turned into this very scary haunted house. When we got there, it seemed like there were 3,000 people surrounding the area. We waited in line just to buy tickets for about an hour and then after we bought our tickets, we had to wait in an even longer line, like the ones at 6 Flags, for about an hour and 45 minutes. I was freaking out when it was finally our turn to go into the house. I really had no idea what to expect. I knew that every time I would turn the corner, someone would pop out and scare me. Well we all made it through and we could not stop talking about the time when the guy in a very creepy mask with a chainsaw started running after all of us after we got out of the house. We all full out sprinted to get away from him. It was quite scary. Has anyone else been to this haunted house or to any haunted houses this year? What was your experience? 

Yard Signs

This past weekend I was in Wisconsin for a day for a couple hockey games. As I looked out the car window as we were driving, I noticed a whole bunch of McCain signs in peoples yards. In Illinois, I had noticed how there were loads of Obama signs in peoples front yards and every once in awhile, you would see a McCain sign. I am a person who does not take sides. I just thought how interesting it was to see the difference in the parties people are for when it is just a state away. Has anyone else noticed this? If so, what are your thoughts?

Vice Presidential Debate

After watching and then talking about the debate the next day in class, I noticed that Biden had a lot of bad things about McCain but could not say anything bad about Palin. This is because Palin a a women and Biden knows that he cannot attack her and say bad things about her based on her gender. It would not be correct for him to do that. Since Palin is a women and knows that she could be showed on camera at anytime, she knows that she has to smile all the time during the debate and she did so. However, as a guy, Biden did not have to smile like Palin did because he is a guy and guys just do not do that. They are always so serious and try to act like Mr. Tough Guy all the time. These are just some things that I noticed and that we talked about during the debate. What do you think? 

Cops on ATVs In Winnetka

The other day, I was driving to golf practice in Winnetka and I saw an ATV coming toward me on the other side of the road. As it got closer, I noticed that the front of it said Police. I was in the car with my brother and as the cop went by, we looked at each other and said, "Cops on ATVs in Winnetka? No way!" We could not believe what we just saw. Not only are there cops on ATVs in Winnetka, but there are also cops on motorcycles. You normally only see cops on motorcycles in warm climates in places like California or Florida. You would never expect them to be in Winnetka. But Police on ATVs, I have never ever seen that before anywhere. It is pretty cool to have cops on ATVs but it just seems a little bit crazy. What do you think about the idea of having cops on ATVs in Winnetka?

Hockey Night In Canada!

I am currently in Canada (for hockey) at the Stoney Creek University Showcase, and it is a little scary. As soon as I stepped into the rink I saw what seemed like a million college coaches all looking for the perfect player, and even though I am still a junior, college, for a hockey player starts junior year. Recruiting starts now so I know that this tournament is extremely important. I have no idea what I want to do with my life but what I do know is that I want to play Division I hockey. So far we have won all of our games and the coaches keep showing up hopefully to watch me, and help me achieve my dream. So how do I figure out what I want to do?

September 11, 2001

I know this that I am a couple days late in posting about 9/11 but I thought I would share my story with you all. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I remember walking into my parents room after I woke up to see what was going on. My mom said that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Centers in New York City. The news was on and a news reporter was reporting about the first plane that had crashed. As they showed the building with the plane in it, I saw a second plane take a hard left hand turn into the second building. My mom screamed and at this point we knew that this was no accident. I eventually went to school and by this time, pretty much everyone in my 4th grade class knew that two planes hit the World Trade Centers. My teachers wife kept calling our classroom to keep us updated on what was happening with the latest news throughout the day because we couldn't watch the news in class. One time she called and when Mr. Kleckner picked up the phone, his wife told him that both towers had fallen. This was just a terrible thing that happened and we talked about it pretty much the entire day. September 11, 2001 was a very sad day for everyone in the United States. This something that I will never forget for the rest of my life and I hope you enjoyed reading about my story of September 11th.

The video is about September 11th and at the beginning there is a black screen and you will hear audio. The video will eventually appear.

Starbucks Coffee Daily!

Many people walk into school each and every morning with the same drink from Starbucks. Do you view people differently if they come to school each morning with Starbucks in their hands? Starbucks is not exactly cheap and having it every day before school can be very costly. On average, a grande drink from Starbucks in around $4. If you have it everyday, 180 school days, you are spending around $720 on Starbucks coffee for the entire year. That is a huge amount of money just for Starbucks. If you get Venti sizes, the cost will go up even more. So tell me, how do you view people who walk into school every morning with Starbucks in their hands?

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