My 15th Birthday, Christmas, and Everything In Between

Happy New Year! I know I haven't made a new post in a while, and for that I apologize. This is going to be a bit of a long one, so I hope you enjoy!

Last November, our grandpa came over for a few days. He had brought me a big bag of foreign coins for my collection, and one of them was a Swiss coin from 1914! I spent most of the next day getting them all into my coin sheets, and in the evening me, Dad, and grandpa played Scrabble. Grandpa crushed us because I accidentally set him up for two 40-point words.

A few days after grandpa went home, grandma came over! She stayed for around ten days, and we had a lot of fun while she was here.  A few days after she arrived, we went to a rescue zoo in Luray with her. We went through the reptile room first. There were a ton of snakes (obviously), some lizards, a few turtles, and even a pair of hibernating alligators! After that we went outside, where we saw a family of porcupines and two monkeys named Bella and Mr Blueberries. There were a bunch of other animals, including an owl, a kookaburra, a bobcat, a lemur, two peacocks, and a very shy spider monkey. We joked that he was acting shy because he was embarrassed by his neighbour, a monkey that was showing off for grandma.

At the end there was a petting zoo, which had a bunch of goats, some sheep, a llama and an alpaca (don't know the difference? Me neither), and, in the distance, an emu and a turkey.

Have you ever noticed that goats have rectangular pupils? It is really creepy.

This guy really wanted food.

After we were finished at the zoo, grandma bought us some stuff at the gift shop, and then treated us to donuts! Ava's birthday was a few days later, and Grandma gave all of us some presents. I got a copy of Popular Mechanics and some collector's edition Canadian coins. Some of our friends came over in the afternoon for Ava's party, and in the evening I had basketball practice.

A little while later we went on a walk on a trail near a museum that had a bunch of outdoor exhibits, and we got some pretty cool pictures.

I had ordered some expansions for Memoir 44, one of my favorite board games, before this, and a few days later they arrived. Before she left, grandma gave me an early birthday present: a Harry Potter Advent calender!

This is what my bed looks like whenever I get a game set up.

A few days after this, on December 6th, was my birthday! My presents were the Catan Seafarers expansion and one of my favorite books. In the evening I had some friends over for a board game party, and we had hot dogs for dinner and brownies for dessert.

Our first basketball game of the season came soon after that. We lost, but we still had a lot of fun. On the 16th was our Christmas choir concert. We sang four songs: Winter Lights, a Czech carol called Let's All Go to Bethlehem, then Noel, Noel, and for the finale, Sleigh Ride. After that we had refreshments, and when I was done stuffing myself with sweets, I had another basketball game. We lost again, but we were doing quite well, and our defense was frustrating the other team.

I've been doing a lot in Minecraft too, including building massive wheat fields, a barn, and a pasture.

In this picture I'm #87 (the one about to shoot).

The choir concert (I'm the tall guy).

For Christmas we had cinnamon buns for breakfast, and when we opened our presents, I got another expansion for Catan, a Star Wars puzzle, and a book. In the afternoon we watched Elf, which was so funny! After dinner I started making the puzzle. It took me five days to realize that it had two missing pieces and a duplicate piece, which was quite frustrating. Thankfully Mom was able to order a replacement.

On the 30th there was a basketball tournament. The place where it was being held had two separate courts, so two games could take place at once, then the winners of both games would go against each other in a championship game, and the losers would have a consolation game. After we finished our french toast breakfast, we got dressed and went there. The middle school girls were just finishing up when we arrived, and then it was the middle school boys' turn. Technically I am in high school, but I got moved down to middle school because they really needed more players. We lost the first game and the consolation game. It's not that we're a bad team, it's just that the other teams are always better. The high school boys came so close to winning, but the other team beat them by six points!

Christmas cookies!