Hello world! Sorry I haven`t been blogging lately. There has been so much stuff going on.   I´m finally in Costa Rica, and I love it. I´m going to a new school and I´v met some awesome people. There are four other people in my class. Two of them are in fourth grade and the other two are in fifth grade, which is the grade I am in. Emily I-don´t-know-her-last-name and Dorian Cian-something are in fourth grade. Jacob I-know-his-last-name-but-he-might-kill-me-if-I-tell-the-world and the other Jacob I´m -not-allowed-to-say-his-last-name-because-he-WILL-kill-me, are in fifth grade. I have a lot of close friends at this school. Oh, and the school is called Home School Beach Academy, but the principal decided to change the name to Academia del Sol. I´m learning a lot of Spanish and stuff…..So, Bye!!!

Wow! I have been in Australia for a year! Tomorrow is the first day of January, and today us the last day of December. Since most of my friends are in Melbourne, I have to face time to speak with them. This morning I told everyone I would see them next year.
Bye! See ya next year!

Instead of celebrating Christmas Eve by drinking hot cocoa by a fire while watching Rudolph the Red Nosed  Reindeer like I usually do, I am celebrating  it by surfing and eating ice cream in my bathing suit. And instead of drinking cocoa I am drinking ginger beer, how fun! I wonder if Santa will arrive on a surfboard, being pulled by dolphins. Instead of wearing a fluffy winter coat, he will be wearing board shorts! Because we are in Australia, Christmas is in summer. It is really weird. But I like Christmas being in summer. I’ll be surfing instead of watching movies. My family and I are using our socks as stockings. Because a tree is too much work to set up, me and my dad shaped three garlands into the shape of a Christmas tree and decorated it. Have a great Christmas!

I love mud! It is so fun! I am planning on participating in the mud run with my dad. I am very excited. My friends used to call me Muddy because I love mud. Now all of my friends call me that in Australia. Mud is very smooth. I like to play in it. I get very dirty, but that’s what makes it fun. If you make a pile of mud, and tap it really fast, sort of low. If anyone knows anything about the Mud Run, please comment and tell me all about it. Thanks so much.

Muddy Gilmour

A few days ago I met two identical twins living right next door to me! I was so excited. Their names were Serina and Hayley. After we went swimming in the ocean together, they asked if I could come to a surfing lesson with them! I asked my dad an d he said it would be OK.  At eight thirty I met them in  between our houses and their grandfather drove us to Clarkes Beach. We found a few beads and put them in a pile. Then, we met Big G; our surfing instructor. We got our wet suites on and met Amy, a girl in our class. Serina  and I grabbed two boards and walked down to the beach. Big G taught us a few stretches and we warmed up. Then he showed us the steps to standing up and we got to it.

The hard part was getting out. When we made it halfway it had been about ten minutes so Big G just dragged us out. Then he put me and me and Serina on the same wave and we took off. We stood up and did the disco on our foam boards. About ten seconds after we started dancing, we fell off. Then we rested, and started. When Big G had pulled us back again, he told Johnny ( a helper of Big G’s ) to bring Amy and Hayley over so we could surf a quadruple wave! Well not a quadruple wave, I mean all four of us will go on the same wave. It was so fun! I am very happy I made friends with Amy, Hayley, and Serina. If I hadn’t met them, I wouldn’t have experienced such a fun day! When Serina, Hayley, and I arrived back home and had a picnic together.  I had such a fun day!

I have had a lot more time to do interesting things with my family since we moved to Australia a year. For example……Climb a giant tree fort, feed a baby lamb, feed a baby goat, feed parrots, have a King Parrot land on my head, have fun at the beach, and visit a lot of knew places.

The tree had two levels, the first was twenty-four meters, and the second platform was thirty meters high. It was not thirty meters higher, just thirty meters from the ground, which was a bridge, which was thirty meters off the ground. I went to the second platform so all together I must have been one hundred feet off the ground! Scary! It was a beautiful view, and I am glad I climbed up to see it. I was actually visiting a place called Lamington National Park with my family. It was in a rain forest, so because we were in a suite, we cold see all of the treetops. We also experienced a huge thunderstorm.

Another thing I did was feed some adorable baby goats an lambs. I had to hold the bottle really tight because if the nib fell off then the lamb could swallow it and choke. I feed the animals when my family and I went to Macadamia castle. at the gift shop I bought a lucky elephant, made in Thailand. It was a very interesting trip. If you live near the Byron Shire I suggest you eat the caramel pancakes at the cafe. They are SO good! I also saw a few Eastern Grey Kangaroos. I also saw a few Emus. I got to hold an alligator, go on a train ride, and see adorable white rabbits.

While at that cool place called Lamington I got to feed some Crimson Rosellas ( a type of parrot ) and King Parrots. I got a bunch of scratches, but that is ok. If you zoom in on my face I have a weird look. The parrots claws were digging into my head and my arms and it really hurt. That one on my head was just chilling out all the time the others were eating the seeds in the bowl. i was tempted to grab the parrot and take it home with me, but I was afraid it would get mad at me and peck me, or scratch me or something like that. They were very beautiful birds, and I am glad one landed on my head.

Hey! I have had a lot more time to read now that I am home schooled, so I’d like to share some of my favorite books with you!

Ages Ten and up

The “Underland Chronicles” by Suzanne Collins is one of my favorite book series of all time! It may be a bit violent at times, so I suggest this series is appropriate for ages seven and up. Also by Suzanne Collins is the Hunger Games, followed by Catching Fire, and last Mocking jay. These three books are also appropriate for ages ten and up, as it contains violence. Suzanne Collins is a wonderful writer and is one of my favorite authors.

Another favorite of mine is the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. It is very well written and is a great series. I suggest you read the books before you watch the movie, the seven books tell you little things that you should know that are not in the movie. The movie is violent at times and surprising at times, but the books are great for people who like excitement.

Kids Books

The Sixty Eight Rooms, by Marianne Malone, one of the best books I’ve read. The Sixty Eight rooms is an exciting book that will have you sucked in until you know what happens next. It is an amazing book and I loved it!

The Adventures of Mr. Pink Whistle by Enid Blyton is a very kid friendly book and is best to have it be read to you by a parent or friend.

The Ramona series, by Beverly Clearly. Some of the best books I’ve ever read. When I was four, my family would come in my room and take turns reading chapters to me before I went to bed. We went through the whole series, and before I knew it we were done! When I turned five I learned to read small print, and I was reading all of the Ramona books over and over and over.

Mitch and Amy, also by Beverly Clearly is a great children’s book I read when I was six years old. I have read it so many times I almost have the book memorized!

P.S., my mom just wrote a book called “The Book of Questions for knew Parents” and is a book of questions for knew parents. It just came out on Amazon and she is really excited.

Well, in my previous post I told how I took two classes on Monday and Saturday. On Mondays I do Circus Arts and on Saturdays I do horseback. In this post I will tell you a little bit about Circus Arts and Horseback.

There are five different activities in Circus Arts, and all of the students in groups of eight rotate. I usually go in this order; mat ,silks ( climbing ) , trapeze, mini tramp, and objects/ tight wire/ parallel bars. Everyone first stretches so there body is prepared for the activities. Then the class is divided into groups of eight. First I’ll tell you about silks.

Silks are huge bed sheets about ninety feet long, cut into strips five feet wide. These sheets are put through a small ring on the ceiling and hang down evenly, two forty-five foot long strips hanging from the ceiling. Don’t ask me how in the world the staff members get it up there; I have no idea!

Next thing I do is trapeze. it is not a flying trapeze, just a small still one hanging down from a hook in the ceiling. Me and my classmates usually put chalk on our hands because the bar can sting. We do lots of tricks, too complicated to explain!

Then there is mini tramp. A small trampoline used to practice your jumps. Most of them you can tell what to do by the name. For example, straight jump, tuck jump, full turn, half turn, and pike.

Last but not least the objects, bars, and tight wire. The tight wire and parallel bars are used to practice balance. The parallel bars are what you can imagine; parallel bars! The tight wire is a wire about eight inches off the ground and has a rope on a pulley that you can hold onto in case you are having difficulty balancing. The objects are objects like the unicycle, juggling balls, and a disk that you can balance on a stick.

On Saturdays I do horseback. I have a beautiful chestnut horse who’s name is Meliqua. She is very easy to ride, because she is smooth. That is why I like her. I have learned to wash my horse, feed her, and put her saddle on and how to take it off. I am about to learn how to take it to the next level. Cantering!