Back in Ireland, January 2018!!

Before I flew back to Ireland I went shopping at Target with my brother and my dad. There was a cool structure made of different kinds of pop. 

I bought a lot of snacks and candy to take back to Ireland. My orange carry on luggage was full of snacks by the time we flew back.

We flew out January 6 at around 5 PM. We flew from Grand Rapids to Detroit, then from Detroit to Amsterdam, and then finally to Dublin. On the long 8 hour flight from Detroit to Amsterdam, we had first class seats. I tried to sleep on the plane, and I slept for about 4 hours. I had dinner before I went to sleep. 

This is the colorful underground tunnel in the Detroit Airport

Here are some last pictures from Grand Rapids:




 We got back to the Dublin house around 1:00 PM. I took about a 2 hour nap, then we went out to eat for dinner. I was very tired for the first half of the dinner, but once I got back home, I was not tired since we walked to the restaurant and back. I went to sleep around 10 PM.

Monday January 8, I went back to school. 

Sunday January 14, Me and my Mom, Oma, Levi and Levis friend all went out to eat for Breakfast at a place called Roberta's. They had a mixture of Pizza, Pancakes, French Toast, and Egg meals. Levis friend, Levi and I all got a pancake. It was really delicious, and they had real maple syrup.


They had some cool art in the restaurant also.



After I was finished eating, I took the bus back by myself so that I could get home to do some homework I had to finish. 

Later in the week, Oma made her first Souffle in the Dublin house, it turned out very good. 



Saturday January 20th, we had our 3rd beach clean up for the Marine Conservation Club. It was a very rainy morning, but still a lot of people showed up, including 2 4th years. We met at Booterstown Dart station at 10 AM, which is the closest dart station to my school. We cleaned up the parking lot of the Dart station, then walked along the beach to pick up more trash. There was a lot of trash in the parking lot, just like the last time we cleaned up around the same area. There were a lot of cans and glass bottles. 



Chance texted our group chat at around 9 AM asking where everybody was, and we said that we were meeting at 10 AM, not 9. Once we all got to the Booterstown Dart station, Chance was no where to be found, so we just thought that he went home. After we were done with the beach cleanup about 2 hours later when Dominik, Isabel and I were going to go put the trash in the trash bins, we found Chance at the Dart station, and it turns out that he was waiting for us at the Bray dart station, which is about a 30 minute dart ride south of where we were. 

Chance thought we were meeting in Bray, but we had a meeting on Tuesday and changed it to Booterstown, but at first Isabel planned to pick up trash on the walk from Bray to Greystones, so I can see why Chance was confused. We apologized to Chance because he was waiting 2 hours for us at the Bray dart station.

This is when we found Chance coming home from Bray

Chance went home, and the rest of us went to put the trash in the bins near Isabels house. After that, Dominik and I went out to eat at a place called Wow Burger. Dominik suggested it to me, and I had never heard of it, but it was right off of Grafton street close to my house. We got there, and the first floor was a bar, but the basement was the restaurant, it looked like an old fashioned American diner, and I think that's what it was based off of. Their burgers and cheeseburgers are only 6 Euro, and they are probably the best burgers I have had in Ireland over the whole couple years I have been living here.

Sunday, Levi, Oma, my Mom and I all went out to eat dinner at Dillinger's. They have a really good menu, with a lot of different choices for food such as chicken wings, tacos, nachos, and ribs. I got a 2 course meal with the first one being chicken wings, which were amazing, and for my main course I had ribs which were also amazing. I had so much food that night I cant remember a night that I had so much food:

Chicken Wings

Ribs

This is what my mom got to eat, 3 small tacos:

Monday I was back to school, and I would normally have a Piano lesson Monday after school, but It got moved to Wednesday, so I was able to go straight home after school which was nice. Tuesday I had Gym, and we did the same thing we always do, which is working out and doing random exercises. Wednesday I stayed after school and sat in the Cafeteria and worked on homework until my piano lesson at 4. I worked on my Music homework along with some Physics homework also. I had my Piano lesson, It went well, I got a new piece to work on, but he said I could chose another piece if I had a good reason so I will listen to the pieces that I have to choose from to see if I want to learn another piece. 

-January 24, 2018-

Skiing - New Years Eve Party - 2018!

Tuesday December 26th, we went to Grandmas house to hangout with our cousins Nayda and Jalen. We had really good food at Grandmas house, and I played the first arabesque by Debussy. Uncle Norm and Aunt Jen had a game ready for all of us where there were many presents wrapped in a ball of plastic wrap, and we each took turns trying to get it open wearing oven mitts, but if the next person rolled 2 of the same numbers on a pair of dice, we had to give it to them. It was very fun, I got some half dollar coins, a bag of Cheetos, a hairbrush, and some lottery tickets. 

We took a lot of great pictures at Grandmas house:

Thursday December 28th, my Dad and I went to Cannonsburg for the first time since I came back to Michigan. I had new boots that he got me for Christmas, and a new helmet also. I got up at 8 AM Thursday morning, so that we could get to Cannonsburg early. On the way to the ski area, we stopped at a store, and my Dad bought me a Balaclava ski mask. It looked something like this:

It was very cold that Thursday that we went, so I had on 2 shirts, 2 sweatshirts and a coat. I wore that Balaclava with my helmet, and my ski goggles. The night before, I had waxed my skis and sharpened them also so they were ready to use. There were not a lot of people there for the first half of the day, which was nice because we did not have to wait in any lines.  

My Dad and I at Cannonsburg

My friend Ben Gair came to Cannonsburg later in the day around Noon. He was skiing with us that day until about 4 or 5 PM, when we all stopped for the day. There were more people the second half of the day. We left around 5 PM. 

Thursday night, my Dad took Levi and I to get our pictures taken at J. C. Penney. We got some really good ones:

Saturday December 30, my Mom, Levi and I all went to see Wonder. I got my Mom 3 tickets to go see that movie for her Christmas present since she read the book to us a long time ago, we had to go see the movie. It was suppose to be very good, and the trailer looked amazing. 

My popcorn covered in seasonings and hot sauce!

We saw it at 1 PM at Celebration Cinema North, and it was an amazing movie, very emotional. I would highly recommend to go and see it.

That night, Tonys mom and Tony picked me up to go to Caleb's fathers house. I spent the night there along with Ben, Tony and Alec. We played Speedrunners on the Xbox One for a bit, then spent the rest of the night / morning playing bed-wars. We went to sleep around 6 AM, and woke up at 11 AM, and Caleb's dad had made us very delicious blueberry pancakes with maple syrup. I had about 4 of them, Caleb had about 7. 

Sunday was New Years Eve, and we were throwing a party at our house for a lot of people, and a lot of people came. I had all of my friends over, and some of their parents, and then people that we knew and that my mom knew. Most of the kids were on the top floor / in my room because there were so many little kids running around everywhere. 

Everybody was looking at about 20 different cameras in those 2 above pictures because so many people were trying to take photos for some reason. 

Most of the people from the party were gone by 2-3 AM, and I had Tony, Alec, Caleb, Asa, Ben and Dighton spend the night that night. We did the same thing that we did last night at Calebs dads house, we stayed up till about 6:30 AM, then finally went to sleep. I slept downstairs next to the Christmas tree on the couch since there were no other places to sleep, and in the morning, everybody except Ben was gone. I woke up around 11:30 AM, and Ben left around 1 PM. New Years Day was a pretty chill day for me, all I did was watch a few football games. I watched Georgia vs Oklahoma and Alabama vs Clemson. They were both very good games, one was at 5 PM and the other was at 8:45 PM, so I was basically watching football from 5 PM to 11 PM. It was very fun, I had it playing on the big TV upstairs so my Dad and Levi could watch also. I ordered Dominos pizza so we had food to eat. 

January 2 of 2018 was a pretty chill day also, at night my Dad took Levi and I out to eat at El Granjero, which is 'The Farmer' in english. It is one of his favorite Mexican restaurants to eat at. I got a Chimichanga, they make the best ones that I have had ever. After that we went back to my house.

January 3rd, we went skiing again but this time we brought Levi with us. My Dad picked Levi and I up at 9 AM. Just like last time, there was not a lot of people there until around 2 PM, thats when it was probably the most packed. It was fun having Levi there, our favorite hill of the day was the Double, especially because Levi was always keeping us on the hill because it is really fun. There are a lot of jumps and hills, and on the left side of the hill you can do some cool paths. 

We were at Cannonsburg until about 4:30 PM, and we stopped to eat at Taco Bell on the way home. I was not insanely hungry, so I only got a burrito and a taco. When we got home, I got out the snow-blower and snow blowed my moms house and my dads house. I had all of my ski gear on still so I decided to do it before I got out of my gear.  

December 26, 2017 - January 3, 2018