Pumpkin carving with my friends! :-)

Yesterday, October 29, 2010 I carved pumpkins with my friends Maia and Sheila. We had a lot of fun taking all the gooey seeds out. We  thought that the pulp part looked like the pumpkin guts! Out of all the pumpkins mine was the heaviest. Mine weighed 16 lbs! Sheilas weighed 11 lbs and Maia's weighed 5 lbs.We took lots of pictures of different pumpkins then we ate. For dinner we had enchiladas and pasta too. Then we had apricot pie that my mother made. It was soooo good! After we had dessert we played and played until my dad had to drop of my friends. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Camping Trip to Greenbrier State Park

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Last weekend,  October 1st, 2010 I went camping at Greenbrier State Park. This was my first time camping. I went with my sister's Girl Scout Troop.My parents also went along with us because my mom is the troop leader for Thulasi's troop. I had a lot of fun. It was a great experience for me. Luckily, it did not rain that weekend.

We got there on a Friday evening. First we put up the tent. Then we helped Mr. Reamer cook dinner. We had delicious chicken tacos for dinner. My mother made the mistake of freezing the chicken, so it took a little longer to cook the chicken on the open fire! But at the end the dinner was really good. My father did a good job poking the chicken to get it cooked.

    

 After dinner we roasted marshmallows and made doughboi.  Doughbois are crescent roll dough wrapped around a stick and roasted over the fire - it sort of looks like a snake coiled around a stick. Then you dip it in melted butter and then sprinkle sugar, cinnamon and chocolate chips over it. We also roasted plain squishy marshmallow's. I had a lot of fun doing this. Sometimes we dropped the marshmallow in the fire and it blew up so big and then it shrunk again. We sang a lot of campfire songs while eating dessert.

The people that were in the camp site in front of us were very ,very loud. After we were done with dessert we helped clean the dishes (oh man)! Once we were done with that we went to the bathroom (it had lots of  bugs) to get ready for bed.We all layered up because they said it was supposed to get around 40 degrees over night . We all pulled up our hoods and talked for a while and then we all went to sleep. When we woke up the next morning it was freeeeezing cold (brrrrr)! I got ready and waited until everyone else was ready. Then we had bagels with cream cheese and hot chocolate for breakfast. After breakfast we went on a 2 MILE hike around the lake!!!!! We saw a beautiful lake. My sister dropped her cell phone in the lake! Her friend Sarah told her that she had to put it in rice when we got home.When we got back from our hike, we put the tent away and left for home.We had a one and a half hour drive back home. I was so glad that I got to go camping!!!! I hope I can go again next year.

My Trip to the Antietam Battlefield

On October 1st, 2010 I  went to a place called the Antietam Battlefield with my sister's Girls Scout Troop. My mom and dad also went with us. The Battle of Antietam was a turning point in the U.S history. It happened during the civil war. The civil war was between the North and the South. The North wanted the South to free the African slaves. On September 17, 1862 the Union Army (north) fought the Confederate Army (south) at Millers corn field which is now called the Antietam Battlefield. The battle lasted only 12 hours, but 23,000 soldiers from both sides where killed, wounded, or went missing.This is the most number of people that died in a single day in the U.S history. This is called the bloodiest day in American history. 2 weeks after the battle, President Abraham Lincoln, the president of the U.S at that time declared the Emancipation Proclamation Right. This freed the slaves in some of the states. 

While we were there, we learned how to communicate with flags, the way the army communicated at that time. They used flags to send messages. We also learned how hard it was to load a canon, except we did not actually fire it and the bullet does not really fit in the hole. I played the role of the person that has to go and get the bullet from the wagon manager and deliver it to the people managing the canon. The bullets were real.......and very, very heavy!!!!! After the tour was over we watched a movie about the why this battlefield was so important.

I liked the Antietam Battlefield because we actually got to use the flags to send messages to each other, and I learned how hard it was for them in the 1800s. Now we can send messages through phones, letters, text messages, and emails.