Spring 2006

Track Team, March-May

This spring, for the first time, I participated in the Kamiakin track team. We started daily practices in March and ended the season in late May. I tried all the possibilities—sprints, distances, hurdles, shotput, high jump, long jump—and ended up competing in the J.V. long jump [below right] and the individual 400 meters and 4x400 relay [below left].

The J.V. team participated in five meets, but I competed in only three. I missed our second meet because I was in the Caribbean, and I missed the third one because I was sick the week we returned from the Caribbean and didn't attend enough practices for the week. I placed second in the 400 meters the first meet. Since our team was so large (about 100 students), I wasn't scheduled to compete in the long jump every time.

The practices were hard work, especially on hot spring days (fortunately, we didn't have many of those), and when Mom or Dad picked me up from the junior high at 5:00 I was usually sweaty and exhausted.

Still, I had a lot of fun. Lots of my friends were on the team, and we cheered each other on. Dad came to my meets with Brennan and Zeva (my dog), and Mom brought Sofia when she wasn't napping. All in all, I got into good shape and had a good time, and I plan to try it again next year.

Fourteenth Birthday, April

My 14th birthday was on a Wednesday, which is good because this year our school district began a schedule of early dismissal on Wednesday afternoons. (We get out at 1:15 instead of the usual 2:45.) So I got out of school early and walked home to Mom's. She gave me lots of birthday hugs and wishes, but she chained me off from my presents and wouldn't let me open them until dinner.

Late in the afternoon, Dad, Suzy, and Brennan took me to Red Robin for dinner. Grandma Joyce came, too, and Mom, Jan, and Sofia showed up to complete the group. I had a messy BBQ burger, and the waiters brought me a big birthday sundae and sang and clapped loudly for the whole restaurant to hear. The sundae was great, but the singing was embarrassing! Grandma gave me a polo shirt. Mom gave me a Kodak EasyShare E330 digital camera (I helped pick it out), and Jan gave me a 1 GB memory card to save my photos to. The camera is easy to use and takes great pictures, and it came in very handy when we left for the Caribbean just three days later.

Dad promised me a new bicycle for my birthday, but we hadn't found just the right one by the 26th. After I got back from the Caribbean, we found a Schwinn High Plains mountain bike. It's AWESOME! I have lots of fun doing wheelies and riding down my block no-hands.

Caribbean Cruise, May

On Saturday, April 29, Mom, Jan, Sofia and I left home for what turned out to be an AWESOME vacation: a cruise in the Caribbean.

Our first day consisted of a very long trek of car rides, plane rides (with a stopover in Dallas), and the challenges of keeping Sofia entertained, ending in our late-night arrival at the Miami Red Roof Inn. All Jan’s family from Holland had already arrived, and we saw a few of them before we fell into bed.

The next day was spent waiting, waiting, waiting—by the pool at the hotel, in the car, in long, hot lines at the cruise terminal—to get onto the ship. Jan rented a van to drive all the families from the hotel to the terminal to get everyone aboard, and while he was doing that, I boarded with Mom, Sofia, and Jan’s father. Everything went pretty smoothly except that Sofia was very challenging, and somehow the terminal staff lost my room key, so I had to stand in another line after dinner that night to get a new one. We were the last of the family aboard beside Jan, and it was a long, exhausting day.

Our first full day on the ship was a day at sea. I was able to do a lot more exploring of the ship. Being on the Carnival Valor was like being in a floating city. There were people everywhere, some dressed up, some only in bathing suits and flipflops. Inside was a maze of hallways and elevators among the 14 floors, with shops, a casino, numerous bars and nightclubs, a three-story theater, a library, an arcade, and two huge dining rooms. There was also a club just for teens, and even a daycare center, although Sofia was so clingy throughout the trip that she never used it. Outside were lots of different decks—big open areas and small quiet corners—for laying in the sun, various swimming pools (although none was very big), an awesome water slide [right], and a basketball court. One of my favorite spots was a secluded balcony at the very front of the ship, unknown to most because it was difficult to reach.

And there was lots and lots of food. For breakfast we mostly ate at Rosie’s buffet, where you could get everything from a simple bowl of cereal to pancakes, French toast, bacon, fruit, yogurt, and pastries. We usually ate lunch off the ship, but on deck was a hamburger grill, several specialty sandwich counters, and a pizzeria that was open nearly 24 hours. My favorite was the soft serve ice cream machine, on tap day and night. I also liked having my Fountain Card that Mom bought, which allowed me unlimited soft drinks for the entire trip.

For dinner the whole family took up three tables in the formal dining room, and the food was awesome. Every night presented a selection of several hors d’oeuvres, a couple salads, main dishes that always included a choice of pasta, fish, and meat, and five or so desserts. Over the week, I ate filet mignon, chateaubriand, prawns, and discovered that I like Beef Wellington. Our waiter was great (if you didn’t like your order, you could just ask for something else, and he never looked disapproving), and “Mr. V the Maitre d’” encouraged people to clap, wave their napkins, and sing with the waitstaff after all the food had been served [left]. It was wild!

Most nights after dinner I went to one of the shows in the main theater. A couple nights they had big music and dance shows, but most nights there were comedians and magicians. My favorite was a hysterically funny comedian named Percy Crews.

Our second day was a stop at Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. I left early with most of the family for a morning-long tour of the island. (Mom and Jan had been there before, so they struck out on their own with Sofia to find a beach.) We had to take a tender boat to the dock, and from there we got into vans and headed to the Cayman Turtle Farm. The farm has around 16,000 endangered green sea turtles, ranging in size from 6-ounce hatchlings to 600 pounds. We learned about turtles, and we got to pick up and hold some smaller ones [right].

Next we made a short stop in Hell. I took some photos of the barren rocks, but I didn’t send any postcards from the Hell Post Office.

Finally, we boarded a boat that took us to a group of sand bars called Stingray City, where we slipped into the waist-deep water to get up close and personal with some very large stingrays. That experience was COOL. At first, I just waded around with them, but then I gathered my courage, and when the next one swam by, I reached down and touched it...and jumped 3 feet out of the water! It was squishy and smooth, and not at all what I expected. The most frightening part, though, was when I inadvertently stood next to a woman who was feeding them and found myself surrounded by a horde of stingrays, their undersides rubbing up against my chest!

Our third day was spent at Roatán Island, Honduras. Mom and I got off the ship early to head into the hills and experience zip-lining through the treetops. They put a harness and some heavy gear onto us [left], hooked us up to two lines (one for traveling, the other as a safety back-up), and we sailed through the trees! It was cool. Mom said it wasn’t as scary as she expected, except for some of the first platforms we stopped at, which were very high in the trees. (Don’t look down!) We stopped at 12 platforms in all until we reached the bottom, and we saw some great views and had fun skimming the treetops. (Mom said her stomach muscles hurt the next day from holding herself up in the harness, but I think she's a wuss.)

Then it was a scramble to get back to the ship in time for our afternoon excursion. We weren’t certain whether we would make it, but fortunately we arrived with literally just one minute to spare.

With several of Jan’s family, we then headed to the Roatán Institute for Marine Sciences to meet some dolphins. There a guide gave us a short overview of the history of the island inside the museum, and then we got into a long, low boat that motored us a short distance to a nearby island. Then we changed into our swimsuits and got into the water.

The dolphin that worked with our group of eight (all family plus a nice man from Delaware) was called Fiona, and she was only two years old. Since female dolphins, we learned, can live to 40 or 45 years old, she was just a baby. We watched her do some behaviors for a food reward and then were allowed to pet her. Dolphin skin feels very strange: soft, smooth, and almost unnatural, as if it were some kind of neoprene. It has a directional nap that you can feel but not see, and scientists have concluded that dolphins can swim so fast (up to 50 mph) not only because of their body shape, but mostly because their special skin reduces frictional drag and turbulence. Fiona had some scratches on her, and the trainer said these were from “playing” with other dolphins.

Next we all took turns posing for photos with her while we held her and received a “kiss” from her. When my turn came, she missed my cheek and instead pressed her nose into my neck; it was more like a dolphin hickey [above]. She was supposed to end by doing some tricks for us. She circled very fast, but she didn’t jump out of the water as she was supposed to. The trainer then treated her just like a child, ignoring her when she finally returned and not giving her any treats for that misbehavior. Although we didn’t actually swim with a dolphin, it was still a great experience to be up close with one of these amazing, beautiful animals. (More on dolphins)

On the fourth day the ship anchored off Belize City, Belize. Everyone scattered to do various things. Mom and I were the only ones to opt for a ride in the jungle. We took a high-speed tender to a dock in Belize City, made our way through the Tourist Village, and got on an air-conditioned bus for an hour’s drive, with one bathroom stop, to the mountains. The guide told us a lot about Belize, and we stopped at one point in front of a large cashew tree so we could see what cashews look like before they’re harvested.

Once we reached our destination, we boarded a “jungle buggy,” a converted army half-track with seats on a second-story platform 10 feet above the ground and covered with a canopy. The forest wasn’t like the Hollywood rainforest Mom expected, but we drove through three different ecosystems—lowland pine forest, lowland savanna, and broad-leaved forest—and saw mahogany, sapodilla, logwood, and chicle gum trees, various palms, and lots of interesting termite nests. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any animals except a small crocodile that tried to crawl under the truck.

Next the truck “docked,” and we got out to explore. We hiked a short distance to a Mayan cave surrounded by 100-ft rock walls. Lianas and bromeliads hung from rock ledges and trees. Mom and I were given a helmet and headlamp, and our guide led us into a multi-chambered limestone cave where we saw large stalactites and stalagmites, bats, and some examples of Mayan pottery, and our guide told us how the Maya used the caves.

Our fifth day the ship stopped at Costa Maya, Mexico. Mom, Jan, Sofia, Betty, Christel (one of Jan's many nieces) and I got off the ship about mid-morning and walked the long dock to the Tourist Village. We had intended to take a taxi to a nearby village, but the large pool inside the tourist complex was too inviting. It had fountains and different depths of water for wading and swimming, and Sofia practically jumped right in. So we gathered enough lounge chairs for all of us and spent most of the day there swimming and sunning [right].

Eventually Mom and I went shopping; she bought various souvenirs for herself and everyone else (some merchants wanted to bargain and others didn’t), and I picked out a Maya-inspired miniature chess set, which the Janse family then gave me for my recent birthday. It was a very fun day.

Our last full day was on the sea again. I spent the day in my bathing suit goofing around in the pool, slipping down the water slide, laying around, roaming the decks, and eating. It was a great day. That night I didn’t want to go to bed (no more late night pizza and ice cream!), knowing it was my last on the ship.

By the time I woke up on our last day, we had arrived back in Miami. We gathered our things, ate our final breakfast at Rosie’s, and then waited on deck in the sun with all the family to be called to disembark. It was a long, slow process of lines, lines, lines—getting off the ship, walking through the terminal, getting through Customs. We drove to the hotel where some family would stay the night, drove to the airport in Ft Lauderdale, and waited for our plane.

Then began the long ride home, with a 3-hour stop in Dallas. Lucky us, Sofia slept most of the way from Dallas to Seattle. We didn’t get home until about 1:00 AM Seattle time, and I was SO tired that I went right to sleep. My own bed felt SO good!

Overall... I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

Zoo Field Trip, May

On May 25th, over 100 students from my junior high went on a field trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. The trip was a reward to all the kids who were going to be initiated into the National Honor Society on May 31st. (To be a member, you have to have a GPA of 3.5 or higher for the first three quarters of the year, complete and document 15+ hours of community service, and be nominated by your teacher.)

Mom took off work so that she could be a chaperone. We were allowed to self-select our groups, and Mom ended up accompanying a group of seven that included [left to right] me, Anita, Claire, Lisa, Kristen, Alanna, and Kevin. All of us are in the 8th grade Symphonic Band, and five of us are in the Jazz Band as well.

We had a great time and saw lots of cool animals. One of the highlights was watching an orangutan, 3 feet away, clean its nose for all to see. The coolest thing, though, was seeing and hearing the howler monkeys. As my friend Austin put it, they sounded like they were battling each other with their bellows and screams... so we started beat-boxing. Their vocalizations became our group call, helping us to find each other (and providing entertainment at the same time). Overall, our trip to the zoo was fun. Hey, we weren't at school!

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