A Very Merry Christmas to You!

     Merry Christmas! (A little late.) It was really fun this year. We had our cousins over, played a bunch of games, went to Christmas Eve service, and opened presents, plus we got to go see Rogue One! It's really good, go see it if you have the chance. ;) It was really a great Christmas all around.

Christmas Traditions

     Yippee!! Christmas is almost here! I'm excited... but not as much as I have been in past years. It seems like as I get older I could care less. Which I guess is what normally happens, but it feels a little weird.

Christmas Carols - auf Deutsch!

     Welcome to Anna's Family Blog!! Today I'm going to be talking about several Christmas carols. As the title states - auf Deutsch (in German!). All the carols I mention were originally written in German. There are a lot of German carols, some of which haven't been translated into English.

Christmas Decorating

    It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! We started putting up Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving, and it took longer than it usually does, for some reason. Let me tell you, though - we have about a gazillion ornaments that we have to hang on our tree. That's why decorating takes so long. :)

Gobbler Games 2016

     Happy (late) Thanksgiving everyone! This year was our seventh annual Gobbler Games. We invite family and friends over to hang out, watch football (and play it), eat food and the highlight of the day - play games! But these are no normal games.

In Everything Give Thanks

     Hey all!! It's the week before Thanksgiving, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. A week from today we'll have our Christmas decorations out! Sheesh. Anyways, today's post is going to be kinda short.

Piano

     I love the piano. I've been playing it since I was nearly six (that's nine years now!) and it is the most amazing instrument ever. Don't get me wrong - I also love the violin (strings in general, really) and some wind instruments, but you can express so much more with the piano.

Election 2016

     It kinda seems like this whole election cycle has been a crazy one. I think (and I may be wrong) that the majority of both parties would like to start from scratch again. I've been getting rather discouraged about the way our country is heading...

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

     Welcome! Today I'm going to be talking about my favorite past time - reading - and what I've been reading recently. Plus I'm recommending a book I just finished called Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Halloween!!

     Sorry for the late post... I have been super busy the past few days with school and other stuff. I hope to be on time next week. Plus I forgot to count October 31st in my list of Mondays, so I didn't really have a good idea for this post until I realized it was Halloween (four days ago).

My Birthday!!

     So if you read the TAJ blog, you'll know a little bit about my birthday already. Today I'm basically going to take that post, expand it, and add a bunch of pictures. :) Enjoy!

New York, New York

     Today I'm going to cover in more detail part of our three-week long trip in July. I wrote an article about our trip at TAJ News Blog a month or so ago, so if you want to check that out, it might put some context on this post. :) Today (as the title says) I'm going to cover our a little less than two day hiatus in New York City.

Hurricane!!

     We're currently in Florida recovering from hurricane Matthew. I don't have time to do a normal post, but I just wanted to say why I'm not posting this week. I will be posting about the trip either next week or the week after - not sure yet. :)

Thanks for reading!

These are a few of my favorite things...

     "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm winter mittens, brown paper packages tied up with string: these are a few of my favorite things!" Sorry. Had to go into that if I start it. :) Anyway, enough of the Sound of Music. Today I'm tackling some of my favorite things about fall.

Lord of the Rings: Fascinating Facts

     This is my final post in my Lord of the Rings series... (Sniff, sniff.) But don't worry! I'm sure I'll be mentioning it again soon. :) Today we're going to look at some interesting facts about Lord of the Rings. I've found a bunch (mostly on Pinterest)  of super interesting facts and really funny jokes. Pinterest is also awesome for cool Lord of the Rings/Hobbit artwork.

Happy Hobbit Day!!

     Since today is Bilbo and Frodo's birthdays, it has been named 'Hobbit Day'. And since I'm doing a series on Lord of the Rings, which centers mainly around hobbits, I made this little video to commemorate! Enjoy!!

~Anna

The Quenta Silmarillion

     Yay!! My favorite post in this series. :) For this post, I'm going to rave about how awesome The Sillmarillion is and why you should read it... Not really, but close to it. :) This is the third blog post in a series on Lord of the Rings. Check out the links to the other posts at the bottom of this one!

Comparing the Books to the Movies

     Welcome back to my blog!! Today I'm continuing my series on Middle Earth. The first part of my series was about Tolkien's life. I found it fascinating, but if you were a little bored, this one should be more interesting. :) On the docket today - comparing the books to the movies!

J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings

     Hi! Welcome to my blog... :) Today I'm going to be starting a month-long series on The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Quenta Silmarillion. Fair warning - I am a Lotr/Tolkien fanatic. In this post I'm going to cover the man behind the books, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Lake Erie: Ten Fascinating Facts

     Hi all!! Today I'm going to cover some of the most interesting facts about Lake Erie. On our road trip this summer, we visited Lake Erie. It's the second Great Lake that I've visited (the first was Lake Michigan) and I think it's so cool how big those lakes are!! So, on to the ten most interesting facts about Lake Erie...

 

Olympics!

     Welcome! Today I'm going to do a post about the Olympics (dramatic music plays in background). There were a lot of really interesting things that happened the past two weeks. I mostly watch gymnastics and swimming, and a bit of track, but I picked a variety of highlights to, well, highlight. :)

Our First Week: A Recap

     This week was our first week of school. I'm going to summarize some of my favorite subjects, so far. I'm also going to do a quick overview of the week.. :) I published a post about my favorite subjects from last year, that you can check out here.

The Declaration of Independance

     Welcome!! So I know the Fourth of July has passed, but I was saving this until I could get some pictures from Philadelphia - which we visited on our road trip. Super cool!! But here is a short summary of the writing and adoption of the Declaration of Independence (consider this the 4th, but late).

Interesting News

     Welcome! Today I'm going to be doing something more along the lines of news than the more personal line I usually take. I'm really into history, and I read a news article recently that the person who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, John Hinckley Jr., will be released as early as tomorrow.

State Roundup

     Welcome!! Today I'm going to roundup all the states I've visited, in preparation for our third (!!) road trip! I created a color coded map to make it easy to identify. I'll include it at the bottom of the post.

Road Trip!!

     Hi all! As you probably noticed, I redesigned the blog... My compatriots and I over at the TAJ are also working on redesigning our blog (tajnewsblog.blogspot.com) and hope to have it up before Thanksgiving... So be sure to go check it out!

Some Pictures

     Hi! Sorry I missed the last two weeks... It's been pretty busy recently and I didn't get the chance to post. Today, however, I'm going to be posting several of my pictures from the San Diego Safari Park. I'm saving some of them, so I can use more when I have to write posts quickly, but I'm picking out several of my favorites.

Short Today...

     Hi! As the title says, this post will be short. I'm writing this post at 8:31 Sunday night. We've been super busy this week since Wednesday, and I haven't gotten around to this until now. I don't have much time to type this post so what I'm going to do is pretty simple. I'm posting on TAJ today, so here's the link to the post if you want to check that out: My Top Five for Summer.

     Again, this is a follow up post for the one I did at the beginning of May.

     We went to a safari park in San Diego recently, so I may post some pictures from that as well. If I do it'll be either later today or on Wednesday/Tuesday.

     Thanks for reading!!

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

     This Friday two events took place. First, it was my brother's birthday. Happy birthday shout-out to Jack! And second, we went on a field trip to Palm Springs to ride the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. It was really fun, and I thought I'd share a few pictures with you, as well as some of the Tramway's history.

     The man responsible for the construction of a tramway was Francis Crocker. He was a young electrical engineer when he first thought to build a tramway up to Mount San Jacinto in 1935. It was soon dubbed "Crocker's Folly" by a newspaper, but O. Earl Coffman, co-manager of Palm Springs Desert Inn, helped Crocker's dream turn into a plan.

     When World War II started, plans were postponed. But in 1945 a new tram bill was passed, and by 1950 technicians were moving ahead on designs for the tramway. Funds for construction were raised by selling $8.15 million in private revenue bonds. No public funds were used.

A view of one of the towers from the tramcar.

     The Korean War posed another delay, but the project began to take form in July 1961. Helicopters were used to erect four out of five of the towers. They flew some 23,000 missions hauling men and materials needed to build the towers and the Mountain Station.

The view toward the Mountain Station.

     The inaugural ride of the Tramway took place on September 12, 1963. Francis Crocker and O. Earl Coffman were both present, as well as various local and state dignitaries. In September 2000, the Tramway got an upgrade. Passengers now rode in the world's largest rotating tramcars.

One of the first tramcars used. These did not rotate.

     Since 1963 almost 18 million people have ridden the Tramway up the chino Canyon to the San Jacinto State Park. From the Mountain Station, you can look out over the San Jacinto Mountain Range or take a number of small hiking trails.

     Below are some more photos. They start from at the top, where our family and some friends took a short hiking loop. It was really pretty and not too hot.

On the trip down, I took a lot of pictures. You can see really cool mountain formations, and the city of Palm Springs from the tramcar.

Palm Springs... It would be cool to take the Tramway at night to see all the city lights.

That's the tramcar's shadow. There were two windows that were open, and I took several pictures out both. It kinda scared me sticking my camera out the window, but I had a good grip on it, and it is still in my possession. 

And this is a completely random flower that I thought looked pretty. :)

     This was a super fun field trip, and the views were amazing. Thanks for reading this, and be sure to check out my post next week at TAJ!! I'll be posting my summer post. I wasn't able to post it in the usual rotation over there, so I had to move it back a few weeks. But if you enjoyed my school post, I'd check this one out!

     Thank you for reading!! 

Camping

     This past Saturday to Monday we went beach camping at Carpinteria. It was pretty awesome, and I'm going to share a few pictures from the weekend below.

     I found this on a sign downtown, and since it describes a bit about Carpinteria's history and name, I thought I'd share it:

The Chumash indian village of "Mishopshnow," discovered by Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, August 14, 1542, was located one-fourth mile southwest of here. Fray Juan Crespi of the Caspar de Portola expedition named it "San Roque" August 14, 1769. Portola's soldiers, observing the Indians building wooden canoes, called the village "La Carpinteria", the carpenter shop. 

     Here are the pictures:

 Right after we got there, we went down to the beach. The water was cold at first, but not as bad once you got used to it.

 Luke's pants were really wet... :)

 Here they're trying to build a sand castle that will withstand the waves. It didn't go too well.

 After we got cleaned up from the beach, we went on a little walk along the beach and into downtown. The picture above shows some Harbor seals. I got a lot of pictures of them, which I may be sharing in a future post.

 I think this is one of my top five favorites from the whole trip.

 Another of my favorites... 

 Mom said I should take pictures of our family, too, so I took this when we were walking. Love the expression on Luke's face!! 

 This is another of my top five. It's a Baptist church. They had some pretty awesome stained glass in the windows.

 Random fact: This is a Wardholme Torrey Pine. It's the largest known Torrey Pine in existence. Planted in 1888, it now measures 126 feet tall, a 20 foot 5 inch circumference, and an 130 feet branch spread. 

 Following Mom's advice to take pictures of people, I took the following the first night when we were sitting around the campfire.

 This picture was taken the morning we left. Mom and I sat around and read. :)

 Sunset on the beach... It was so pretty!

Mom and Dad. Mom was cold. :)

 Then I went on a selfie spree. First just me... 

Then I pulled Leah into it...

And finally all my siblings. All of whom look very nice in this picture, except for Luke, who looks like he's had too much sugar or caffeine.

 The next day we went up ten miles into Santa Barbara, where we visited the Santa Barbara mission. It was cool!

 Love the wood on this old door...

 Apparently Juana Maria, which the book Island of the Blue Dolphins is based off of, was taken here after living alone on an island for eighteen years. She died here, and this is a memorial to her.

 Lots of famous people came to Santa Barbara mission, including the Von Trapp family (above) which the movie The Sound of Music is based off of. A lot of presidents have also visited, as well as Babe Ruth and Queen Elizabeth II.

 After seeing the picture in the mission, I just had to go have my picture taken in the same spot. If you look, the columns and other things are almost exactly arranged as they are in the Von Trapp picture. 

 There was a big grassy space with some rose gardens outside the mission. I took pictures, and this is my favorite. It's also in my top five for the trip. 

 The mission in the background, the grassy space mentioned above in the foreground.

 And the inside of the tent trailer. Specifically, my sleeping spot. Yes, it is usually this messy. I don't like it, but it's hard to keep clean. :)

 This was the second sunset we saw, and my final picture from my top five. I love the way the sun is reflecting off the wet sand and the ocean. 

 The family (except for me) walking along the beach.

     Those are the highlights from our camping trip!! I had a blast, but it felt really good to get home and shower. I do not like sand in my hair. Ugg! Again, I'm sorry this post is late. I was tired yesterday, and busy unpacking, so I didn't get around to it.

     As a side note, because of the camping I was not able to post my summer post at TAJ, but I will be posting that on May 23, if you want to check it out.

     Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures!!