California Trip with Papa!! CWL Anahiem!!

      The past weekend, I went to California with my Dad. I got flights from here to California and back using my Delta miles. We were going to California to go to the Call of Duty World League event in Anaheim. I paid for the 2 tickets for the event and the hotel also with money I had been saving up and some of my birthday money. We flew out Thursday night at 6:30 PM and got to Los Angeles around 9:30 PM. There is a 3 hour time difference between California and Michigan, so when we got to California we had lost 3 hours. 

        The first Day of CWL Anaheim was Friday, and we went to Denny's for breakfast before we walked to the Anaheim Convention Center.  I got a meal that had a buttermilk pancake, with some eggs, hash browns, and this delicious jalapeno bacon. 

      After having breakfast we walked over to the Convention Center. It took about 10 minutes to walk there from the hotel that we were staying in. When we got there, we waited around for a while because the doors for the spectators did not open for a while. We finally got in and got our wristbands, then got in line to go into Hall A. Once we got inside, there were a ton of booths for different things. There was a G-Fuel booth, a FaZe Clan booth for shirts, an Optic booth for apparel, and a booth for a ton of different shirts and things to buy. There was the main stage at the front of the room where the main games were played, which had a ton of seats, and 3 large monitors.

There were 3 monitors, one on the far left, one front and center, and one far right, so when the games were being played, no matter where you were sitting you could always see what was happening. The first day, the games on the main stage started around 1 PM. It was the beginning so a ton of teams were fighting to get their way into the winners bracket. If a team gets into the winners bracket they then have a chance at winning some of the money from the $200,000 prize pool. The first day was really fun, I got to see a ton of new teams compete.

In each game where 2 teams play each other, there are 5 rounds in total. Each round is a different game mode. Since there are 5 rounds, to win a team must win 3 out of the 5 rounds. The 3 gamemodes that were played during this event were Hardpoint, Uplink, and Search and Destroy. 3 very different game modes, with different objectives. To keep it simple, Hardpoint is a gamemode where you hold a position to gain points and to not let the enemy team take the area. Uplink is basically soccer, but in Call of Duty, and Search and Destroy is a gamemode where you only get 1 life, and you try to defuse a bomb.

In the Convention Center, there are a ton of Optic fans, so whenever Optic Gaming plays another team, it is crazy, because everybody wants Optic to win, so if they win a game, or one of their players makes an amazing play, then the crowd goes insane. It was fun the first day, then we returned to our hotel.

Day 2 was Saturday. We got to the Convention Center around 10:00 AM. Here is a picture of the front of the Convention Center.



The first day I bought a FaZe Clan Hoodie, and it looked really awesome.



I got to meet some really awesome people on Day 2. I got to meet FaZe Temperrr who is a member of FaZe Clan, I got a picture with him, it is kind of blurry but it is awesome that I met him!



I also got to meet FaZe Censor who is a YouTuber, and also part of FaZe Clan. He has abour 2.3 Million subscribers on YouTube, and I got to meet him, and have him sign one of my Shaker Cups at the event.



I bought a FaZe Clan Jersey for 20 Dollars along with a Shaker cup. The FaZe Jersey looked really nice.



I bought 2 new flavors of G-Fuel at the G-Fuel booth, I bought Blue Ice, and Fruit Punch. G-Fuel is a tub of powder that you put in water, and it makes it a type of energy drink, but it has a ton of vitamins and antioxidants inside of it also. There are many different flavors that you can get. We watched many more teams play on Day 2, more teams that lost their games did not get into the championship bracket for Day 3.

On Saturday night, I got Taco Bell for dinner, and I brought it back to the hotel room, and Me and Papa watched Happy Gilmore on T.V.



Day 3 was Sunday, and it was our last day of MLG Anaheim 2017. Today, I met the person I came here to meet, which is Jev. He is a member of FaZe Clan and is a YouTuber with about 2.4 Million subscribers. I watch all of his videos and it was amazing to meet him. Here is Jev signing things at the event.



Day 3 we got to see who won the $80,000!!! Optic lost against a team, and Splyce, which is a European team was doing really good. The final match was Splyce against Luminosity, and who ever won would win $80,000 and the other team would win $48,000. It was an amazing game but Luminosity won and it was crazy!

Here is Splyce and Luminosity talking after Luminosity beat Splyce. 

The trip overall was amazing! We still had Monday in California so on Monday, we walked from our hotel to Target to buy some things. Then from there, we walked to an AMC Movie theater to see Wonder Woman. It took a lot longer to walk to the Movie theater than I thought, It actually took us about 40 minutes to walk there, and then another 40 back. Wonder Woman was a great movie, and I enjoyed it a lot. Then we walked back and stopped at a small Taco Restaurant to get some food.



Our SuperShuttle picked us up at 4:30 PM and we got to the airport, and flew back home. We got home early in the morning on Tuesday, at about 10:00 AM, so Papa skipped work, and I took a nap!

I would love to be able to do more trips like this in the future!!!

-June 25, 2017

Starting the Summer in Michigan!!

      Since being back in Michigan, I went with my Dad to go see Jalen, Nayda, Aunt Jen and Grandma. My Dad and I drove up to Holland, Michigan to meet with my cousins and Grandma at a place called Anna's House. Anna's House is a restaurant in Holland and it serves only food during Breakfast and Lunch. Inside is really large, and very nicely decorated. I decided to get the Breakfast Burrito for brunch when we went to see Jalen, Nayda, Aunt Jen and Grandma. Here is a picture:

It was very good, but I only finished about three quarters of it. It was very good with the guacamole though. It was nice to see Nayda and Jalen to see what they were up to. Here are some pictures we got at the restaurant. 

After eating brunch with the cousins, Aunt Jen and Grandma, Me and Papa went to Target to get some clothes for me. I got 2 new pairs of shorts, some tank tops, new shirts, and a ton of socks. I think I got 14 new pairs of socks in total, which is amazing because I LOVE socks, and I had only like 3 pairs before I got more from Target. Actually, I also got 2 other pairs of socks that had the American flag on them so they were really awesome looking. We also got some snacks, and they came out with a new Mountain Dew flavor, which is Dew-S-A. Which is 3 of the flavors combined into one drink and it is pretty delicious.

 

I also have got to hang out with Papa a lot since being back. We have been to Taco Bell a few times and we went to this one really good pizza place. We went to a place called Licari's Pizza Kitchen. It is right next to the corner of Knapp and East Beltline, and also literally 1000 feet away from Celebration Cinema North. We went to eat at Licari's Pizza right after we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men tell no tales, which was an amazing movie. I waited until the end of the credits because I thought there might be a possibility of a last short scene at the end of the movie, just like they do in the Marvel movies. I remembered Marvel is owned by Disney, and Disney made the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and I was right because after ALL of the credits which took about 5 minutes to watch, there was a final scene. I am glad that I waited until the end to see it.

Back to the restaurant, at Licari's pizza, we got a really good pizza that had sausage, pepperoni, salami and green pepper on top of it. It was some of the best pizza I have had, it was voted best pizza in Grand Rapids. Me and Papa ate 6 out of the 8 pieces of it. 

Me and Papa recently also went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant we like to go to, called El Cunado, which is located on Grandville Ave. It is a small restaurant, but the food is delicious, and I chose to get a burrito, and I forgot how enormous they are. I almost ate my whole burrito, but I had to take some home. 

My huge burrito from El Cunado.

I also have been doing a lot of yard work since being home. I have been working in the front yard, and also around all of the trees because their are suppose to be circles of mulch around each one instead of grass, and I have to clean them up and free them of the weeds that have grown into them. Here are some before and after pictures of my yard work.

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When Papa and I went to return some cans to Meijer, I got some Takis and a huge Gatorade. I did not know they came in this big of a bottle but I love how big they are. 

I also got some work experience with Tommy, a friend who lives close to me. He is a Chef, and works at a place called Kitchen Sage. I got to go and work with him last Thursday, and it was a really cool experience. We did a ton in one day. In the morning, I helped folding 500 sheets of paper into some pamphlets that they were going to use for an event this weekend. That took a few hours. 500 pieces of paper does not sound like a lot, but when you have to fold each one 2 times perfectly, it takes a while. 

We got to go to a meat shop and see what they did with their meat. I went with Tommy to Gordon Food Service and Meijer to get some things to make a salad and other food also. I helped cut some buns up to make croutons. I am going to try to get 5 days of working with Tommy. 

-June 3, 2017