Movies, the water park, GP bookstore, and grandma's birthday.

This week was the last week for me before going back to school, and it was a fun one. Like most weeks, a lot of the fun was on the weekend, but on Wednesday my brother and I got to go see a movie together and the next day our mom took us to the water park one last time before I went back to school. Unfortunately, those are kind of the only two things that you can do in Arizona besides sit in your house and going in the pool.

When the weekend arrived, my mom and I had to get up early on Saturday to go to the Glendale Prep "Bookstore." This is just when students go sign in to find out what their locker combination is and their class. One good thing was that it is usually packed with students in lines to get their schedules and other things, but I beat the rush due to my mom volunteering at the booster table at the entrance. She did not exactly choose to volunteer, but the person that usually runs it was out of town and she had called her to ask if she could help. So by the time everyone else was in lines, I could roam freely finding my friends and discovering which class they are in, which leads to the other good news.

 Unlike my three friends, this was the second year in a row that I was lucky enough to get in a class with one while the other two were in separate classes. After being there for a few hours, I left to run some errands with my dad and that was most of the excitement for that day.

 The next day was much more special though because it was my grandma's birthday. She does so much for everybody in her life that it only seems fit for her to have an amazing time on her own birthday! We went out with the grandparents, my Uncle Lou, and my Uncle Joe with his family. to an Italian restaurant that had amazing food, and then went to her house to open some presents and have a little cake. I am pleased to say that she loved her new purse that we got her, as well as the cake. We went home a while later and that really capped off the weekend.

 The best part is that her real birthday is actually the day after on Monday, so we look forward to celebrating a little bit more tomorrow! Thanks for reading and tune in next week on TBB!

Grandma with the grandkids

Blowing out the candles

Racquetball, dog watching, and Collin soccer.

This was the least eventful week of the Summer, but it did get better and more exciting towards the end. The first couple of days, there was not anything going on. While Collin was going to school, I was with grandparents or helping at my mom's work. One day I even got to go out to lunch with my grandma and after was able to go play racquetball with my grandpa at the same gym that was featured in an early post titled "Angry Grandpa." We did not get to stay long, but it is always fun to go out and do something with him. I would have spent some days with friends, but two of them are on vacation and I was only able to go over one day to see my other friend. I feel bad for Collin though because while I get to have fun, he has been working very hard at his school. He gets picked up at seven thirty by his helper named Isabelle and driven down to school, and then Isabelle picks him up again after school to take him home. His day doesn't stop there though. Then he does more activities and exercises after he gets home, so that by the time that dad gets home at around five, he just lays on the couch and wants to go to sleep! However, since Collin goes to a year around school, Friday was his last day before his two week Summer vacation, which is some good news. The weekend was great though because we got to watch my grandparent's dogs. One of them is a boxer named Jonah and the other one is a very big (some would say fat) golden retriever named Cody. They are both hilarious and they spent the night with us too! The weekend ended with going to Collin's soccer at the sports complex near us, and after that there wasn't much. That was this whole week, so thanks for reading and tune in next week on TBB!

Cody by the pool

Jonah (left), Beau (middle), Cody (right)

The Imperial Beach experience ft. the grandparents!

This was the final trip of the Summer, and it was the only trip that actually had the whole family and the grandparents. Imperial Beach is the most southern town in California and within driving distance to Coronado. Two years ago, we had driven down to Imperial to see if we could rent a condo for a week and there was indeed a condo available, so we went there last year. We all enjoyed it so we were able to rent it out again for this year, so this was only our second time. We came in Saturday and spent most of the evening unpacking, but when we finished we were allowed to go out to eat for dinner, and that was our day driving in. We had almost the same routine every day, and it starts by taking Beau for a walk. Then we come back up to the condo, drop him off, and bring all of our stuff down to the beach. We stayed at the beach until around five o'clock, and then head back up. Once we dropped off the chairs, we would go back down to the pool. Sometimes we were able to take breaks from the beach and go out to eat somewhere for lunch. Otherwise, we would head back up to the condo and just eat something there. Most of the family would sit on the beach, but later in the day Collin would start to head out into the water with dad and mom for a little bit. The waves at Imperial are a lot rougher then the waves in Coronado, so I would sit on the beach until after lunch and then stay in the water the whole rest of the day, either boogie boarding or body surfing. Before we went on the trip, we had bought Collin a tube for him to sit in while he was in the water, but he seemed to like it less and less as the days went on. He had fun the first day, but then he started getting knocked around a lot which was not so pleasant! The exception to all of these days on the beach was that we drove up to the Coronado Rec Center on Wednesday so that we could go paddle boarding. My mom really enjoyed it in Park City so she was looking for places to do it in California. We paddled for about two hours and went all the way out to under the huge Coronado bridge! Our arms were really sore after that because it was also windy that day which made it really hard to paddle. We spent the rest of the days down on the beach and before we new it, it was Saturday morning. We brought everything down to the car, and set out for Arizona before nine o'clock. We should have been able to stay a little bit later, but that day there happened to be this parade going down a street that we needed to pass through, so we had to leave extra early. We got back to our house and unpacked our things, and it looked like the end of the adventure. That was until we went inside the house. It was hotter inside than outside and it did not take long to realize that our air conditioner was broken! We did most of the unpacking and then went into the pool for the rest of the day. We ate dinner outside and then we headed back over to our grandparents house to sleep over there for the night. Dad left early the next morning to go back to the house and find somebody to fix the air conditioning. We did not mean to make dad feel bad of course, but while he did all the hard work we got bored at the grandparent's house and went to go see a movie. Lucky for us, dad did find somebody that fixed the air conditioning and the house was cooling down by the hour. We got to go out to dinner with the grandparents one last time and then we went back to our not-so-hot house, and that was the real ending to the trip. Thanks for reading and tune in next week on TBB!

Coronado paddleboarding

Sand castles at the pier

Friends, the water park, more training, baseball, and 3rd of July fireworks.

This whole week was normal, but once again, the weekend was very busy. Collin was succeeding at Chrysalis, and I was with my friends. However, my mom and I were able to go to the water park near our house with one of my friends later in the week, which was a lot of fun. We did not have much to do Saturday, but Sunday held many events. It started early in the morning, with another soccer training session at seven thirty. Despite starting at eight last time, it was still way too hot so we had to go even earlier. I mostly stayed in the pool after that, but then around noon we had left to go see another Diamondbacks game. Unfortunately, this was against the San Francisco Giants, which I had been told were a very good team. They did play very well, but we had to leave the game early because it went into extra innings. I am glad we did not stay though, because it turns out they lost in the eleventh inning. We finished the day by going to see fireworks at the same water park we had gone to a couple days before. I have no idea why they were not having them on the fourth of July, because nobody would be going to school the day after. Even Collin had the next day off. However, it was a very good show, and a good way to end the day. On the fourth of July, we had a barbecue for lunch with the grandparents and my friend. The food was great and everybody enjoyed it. Most people wanted to go in the pool to cool off, but to their displeasure the pool was actually pretty hot. Everyone left around three, and we ended the day with watching a movie. So thanks for reading and tune in next week on TBB!