By Max

11/7/2022

On the first day, we checked into the hotel, went to lunch, then went to the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier from WWII. It fought against Japan from the army base on Midway Island. There was a part of an airplane that said Maverick in one seat and Goose in the other. Also, we did an audio tour and got to see around the control rooms and sleeping areas. We even went into the beds! After the audio tour, we went to this area where they had moving chairs and VR headsets to make it seem like we were really flying. It was a lot of fun. Then, we went to these things, that instead of chairs kinda moving, it went upside-down and all around while we were trying to shoot down enemy fighters. Brooke always made me be in control and she would be the gunner. It was so much fun. I learned that the fastest way to turn is to turn on the side, then pull up. Otherwise, you just did a barrel roll. We went to the flight deck and saw a lot of cool planes. We got to go in some, and even sit in the cockpit of a couple. There were at least 20 planes and helicopters there. After the aircraft carrier, we went back to the hotel, then went to dinner at Eno’s, a pizza place. The pepperoni pizza had no cheese, but the cheese pizza (thankfully) did. After dinner, we ate s’mores by a fire on a beach. We learned the Navy Seals train down the beach a couple of miles. After s’mores, we went to the room, and that was the end of day 1 in San Diego.

On the second day, I slept in because I finally have my own room. Before I woke up, Alisa and my mom went out and got muffins for us, and a cinnamon roll for us to split for dessert. I got a chocolate muffin. After breakfast, everyone went to the beach. I didn’t come because I was tired and was lazy that day. I was chillin all day until about 4, then I came to the pool and hot tub. After swimming, we got ready for dinner. At dinner, our waiter told us about the daily special, giant tomahawk ribeye’s. The size small was 45oz, medium 55oz, and large was 70oz. we got a small for me, my mom, and my dad to share. It was more than enough for us. Before the food came, we were playing in the field next to the dinner area. After dinner, we headed back to the room, and that was the end of a much-needed chill day.

The third day was fun. We woke up, ate breakfast, then went to the zoo. The first thing that we did at the zoo was to go on a bus ride to tour the zoo. We saw a lot of animals, but it was more of a summary of what to look at later. After the bus ride, we went to the reptile exhibit. There were so many snakes! My dad didn’t like it because he doesn’t like snakes. Then, we went on the sky rider. We saw a lot. The reason that we went on the sky rider was to get to the 4D theater.  The glasses didn’t really work for me, but it was still cool. I jumped a little when the “grass” AKA a plastic cord hit me for effects. We then got lunch at a lunch shop. After lunch, we went to the tiger walk. We saw a few tigers, then found our way back to the car. We could’ve seen more, but two of my sisters were begging to go to a playground that didn’t exist. It was kinda confusing and crumbling the good mood. When we got back, we swam for a while, then got dinner. I played in the field again while waiting for dinner. The first play that I got on offense, I threw a touchdown across the field. We were using a pee-wee size foam football, but it was around 50 yards. I also would’ve got 2 pick sixes and a fumble recovery touchdown, but since at that point we were doing 2v2, I just took a knee. I also almost got a third pick, but I slipped. We ate dinner, then went to bed.

The last day was just go to the airport and travel home.

By Max

11/3/2022

Yesterday was more laid back than Disney day. We woke up, did school, then went to lunch at Ruby’s Diner on the end of the Balboa pier. The waves were so big that you could feel them on the pier. It wasn’t exactly reassuring. We ate lunch then got amazing milkshakes and I got salted caramel flavor. BTW barbecue and caramel are my all-time favorite sauces. We got to the car and started to go to the hotel but saw a fun park and went to it. There was a lighthouse that had a slide off of it. It was fun. We went to the hotel and got in swimsuits. Me, my dad, Brooke, Hailey, and Alisa went to the pool while my mom set up keyboarding class . We swam for a couple hours, then came back to the room to get ready for dinner. I showered then got dressed for dinner at a nice restaurant. We got to Mastros, and it was nice. We got pink lemonades. My mom’s drink came with dry ice, and it looked super cool. It was steaming because it was so cold. I felt the cup and it was cold. I ordered a 22oz bone in ribeye, which is my favorite type of steak. I’m eating the leftovers as I write this. It is the best steak that I have ever had. When I went to the bathroom, there was a bathroom assistant. I was so confused when he said “hi buddy”. He turned on the sink for me and squirted soap on my hands and gave me a towel to dry them. It was odd but cool. I asked my dad if he had any money for tips, but he only had big bills. I had to go to the bar to get change. I gave the guy the tip and went back to the table. We waited for dessert, and when it came it was the best. It was a warm small cake with a giant, round piece of vanilla ice cream on it. It was so good. We went to the room, and that was the end of day 3 in Newport Beach.

By Max

11/2/2022

Yesterday, we woke up, did school quick while eating breakfast, then went to Disneyland. Well, we went to lunch at Sharky’s first, and I got this amazing shrimp. We drove the rest of the way to Disneyland, parked, then walked to the shuttle-train thing that took us to the actual park. We walked to the gate of the park and asked if there was a difference between that park and the adventure park. She said that that park was like Disneyworld, and the adventure park was different. We went back to the ticket booth and got tickets to the adventure park. First, we decided to split up, me and my dad went on the Incredicoaster, themed after the Incredibles, and it was a lot of fun. It was one of the fastest roller coasters that I have ever been on. The girls went on the carousel. We met up with them and went on the Ferris wheel. It was kind of scary because we went on the ones that rolled back and forth. The scary part was at the top when we went backwards, and I felt like we were falling. We got off after 2 loops and went to the jumping jellyfish. It just goes up and down around 50 feet a couple of times. We then went to the swings, and Alisa did the Emotional Whirlwind, the kid version. I felt like I was going to hit something with my feet. After that, we used lightning passes for an airplane simulator thing. We flew over a lot of places, including Disneyland, Fiji, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa, and many more.  You could smell the elephants in Africa! It was so cool. After the airplane thing, we did the Incredicoaster again because Brooke and Hailey decided that they wanted to do it. We did it again, and right before the drop before the loop-de-loop, I yelled to Brooke that it was coming up. We finished the ride, met up with my mom and Alisa, got cotton candies to share, and left Disneyland. On the way to the restaurant, Brooke and I ate a third of our cotton candy. We drove to eat at Beachcomber but had to park across the road about ½ mile away because an oceanfront parking lot was too expensive. We took a shuttle there. The shuttle driver was a super good whistler. He could do a vibrato whistle. It was impressive. When we were ordering, I asked my mom if we could get truffle fries, and she said no. the waiter, Brendan, heard me and gave me them for free. It was super nice. I ordered butterfish, and it was delicious. The kids’ meals came with s’mores, and even though I got an adult meal, our super nice waiter, Brendan gave me one. It was cool. We finished the s’mores, and I got to try sugarcane that was in my dad’s drink. Don’t worry, we cleaned it off and our waiter said that it was fine. We left, I ran to catch the shuttle before he left, and we hopped in. my dad tipped the driver and asked him to keep whistling. The other people in the bus thought that it was the song until we told them that it was the driver. We went back to the hotel and that was the end of a really fun day.

By Max

11/2/2022

I am still a day behind on the posts, so this is about two days ago. On Halloween, we woke up, did school, then left for Newport Beach. We were going to go to the Santa Monica Pier, but we decided to just get out of the city sooner. We did the one-hour drive, and when we got to the hotel and checked in, we got wristbands that acted as keycards to our room. They can be reprogrammed to any Marriott room. We were told that the room would be ready in a couple of hours, but it actually took ten minutes. We drove to our room and dropped off our stuff. We heard about trick or treating at the main hotel. We each got some candy, then went swimming. We got out to get Alisa floaties, and me, Brooke, and Hailey goggles. When we got back, our food was there and there was a bingo game about to start! We all grabbed sheets and joined the game. Hailey won the first game, and I almost won the second and fourth. After bingo, we went back into the pool, and Brooke and I played a bocce ball-ish game with the dive toys. There were 5, so someone would throw one of them, then we both tried to throw them the closest to the first one. After that, we headed back to our room, got changed, then did candy trading. I ended up with the most but gave some to Alisa because she traded all of hers away. My parents went to the store to get us dinner, barbecue chicken legs that my dad grilled. I played basketball while he cooked them. I’m working on new shooting form, so I missed most of my shots. Dinner was delicious. After dinner, we got s’mores. They were hard to roast because it was on a gas fire. They were good though. After that, we went to our room, and went to sleep.

By Max

10/31/22

On the weekends, I get less time to write because I usually write during school time, and on the weekends, we just wake up, eat breakfast, and go. On Saturday, we woke up, then hit the road. We drove through Big Sur and stopped at a few places. We stopped by the Bixby bridge, made in 1932. We also stopped for lunch at Nepenthe. I got their signature Ambrosia burger. It has Big Mac sauce but was made before the Big Mac. After lunch, we tried a telephone booth that we saw, and I’m pretty sure that it would’ve worked, but we didn’t have change to use it. We drove to a redwood forest on highway one. We saw the biggest redwood there, the Colonial Tree. We drove out of the park and to a trail that went through the redwood forest. We got to touch the trees. I felt like an ant. We crossed a river that had man-made lumps for us to cross the river. We got back to the car and drove to the Julia Pfeifer waterfall. Alisa and my dad stayed in the car because Alisa was sleeping. It must be tiring for a 5-year-old to keep up with us! The waterfall was smaller than I thought, but it was cool! We went back to the car and drove for a couple hours and were planning on going all the way to Santa Monica, but there was a beach full of elephant seals, so we stopped. The way they moved was so funny. They basically were doing the worm. They went surprisingly fast. We drove the rest of the way to Santa Monica with only 2 gas station stops. Once we got to the hotel, we checked in, then went to a place called Lobster. I got macaroni and cheese with lobster in it. We went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

SANTA MONICA DAY 2

On October 30^th, we woke up, then ate breakfast, then went to the beach. It was huge! We touched the ocean, then went back to the pool. We swam for a little while, then went back to the room. We changed, then drove to LA. We first saw the Hollywood sign. We got fruit at a fresh fruit vendor. We watched him cut it. We drove to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I didn’t see anyone that I know of, but it was still cool. We stopped at the Guinness world record building and walked through it and did activities. I got 300+ drum hits in 30 seconds. My dad got 350. We kept walking and I saw a basketball game that was fun. We left and went to the wax museum. It was cool, but they needed to clothe the statues more. We walked back to the car, and on the way got more fruit. We drove to the Beverly Hills Hotel and tried to get lunch, but the wait was too long. We drove into Beverly Hills and got dinner at Spago. We saw protesters that were protesting Dior’s leather. We also saw a lot of expensive cars, Ferraris, McLarens, Bentleys, Lamborghini Uruses, and even an Aventador! It was crazy. Dinner was great. I got duck. We also got free cookies from the nice pastry chef. Instead of chocolate chip, they had a thin plate of chocolate in the middle. They were amazing. We then went to the Griffith observatory and saw Saturn through a super powerful telescope. It looked like a picture! The observatory was cool. We also saw the moon through a different telescope. We could only see half because it wasn’t a full moon. There was so much detail that we could see a lot of craters. We went back to the hotel and that wad the end on that day.