Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Heart of Dixie

Today was me and my mama's night to spend together. We went to Wal-Mart to get a birthday present for my cousin. I like riding in the car because I get to talk to my mama all I want, and she has to listen.

"Mama?" I asked her.

"Yes, Stephen?"

"How far away is Kansas?"

"I don't know, Stephen." Mama says "I don't know" a lot. Usually when she says that, I tell her to think, but sometimes she still doesn't know even after she thinks.

"Are you going to go to Kansas?" Mama asked me.

"Yes, when I am a man."

"When will you be a man?"

"When I am 22 years old I will be a man. When you are a man you are old enough to drive a car."

"What type of car will you drive?"

"I don't know. You pick," I told her. Sometimes making decisions is hard, so I have my mama do it for me.

"How about a pink car?"

"There aren't pink cars."

"You could paint it pink."

"I want a red turbo 4x4 truck. Red is my first favorite color and blue is my second. Bapa has a black turbo 4x4 truck. I will drive one like his."

"Okay."

"Mama?"

"Yes, Stephen?"

"When I am a man, I will live in Montgomery, Alabama."

"Why do you want to live in Montgomery?" Mama asked me.

"Because it is the Heart of Dixie. That is the state nickname. And it is on the first page of the United States Road Atlas." Sometimes mamas ask silly questions.

"Will Buckler live with you?"

"No, Buckler will live in York, Alabama. It is the only city in the state that starts with a Y. But he can fly over to Montgomery whenever he wants to visit me. When he flies, he will fly over the limited access highways, so he will know how to get there."

"Okay. That's good."

"But Sally will live with me." I say, Sally is one of my friends.

"Why will Sally live with you?"

"Because we will be married."

"Does she know this?" Mama asked me.

"No, Sally doesn't know yet." And my sister, Kathryn doesn't either. She thinks she's going to marry me because she says I'm her prince, but I'm not.

I think Mama was getting tired of talking about Alabama, so she changed the subject. "Stephen, what treat do you want to get from Wal-Mart?"

"What type of treats do they have at Wal-Mart?"

"You could get some candy, or a drink, or an Icee."

"I want to get rootbeer, Sam and Ethan like rootbeer. When we were driving to Baha Camp, we stopped at a COFFEE shop, but I didn't get coffee. I got chicken nuggets and sprite. Sam and Ethan got rootbeer."

"Okay, you can get some rootbeer."

"The coffee shop also had beer," I said in a whispered tone. I wasn't sure if Mama had ever been somewhere that had beer. Beer is not good to drink. "I didn't drink the beer though, it isn't good for you."

"I'm glad you didn't drink the beer. It is not good to drink beer."

"The coffee shop was in Filmore. Did you know that Filmore used to be the capitol of Utah? It isn't anymore though. Now it is Salt Lake City. Filmore is more in the middle of Utah but Salt Lake Ciy is a lot bigger. " I want to make sure Mama know as much about geography as I do.

"Yes, it is."

"When we were driving to Zion's National Park for Baha Camp we mainly drove on principle highways. We drove on Veteran's Memorial Highway. That is another name for Interstate I-15. How close are we to Springville?"

"We are there now." Mama says right after we exit off the Veteran's Memorial Highway.

"We won't be in Springville until we turn right."

We turned right.

"Okay," I said, "We turned right, now we are in Springville." After we turned right we were at Wal-Mart. I bet Mama was really happy that we got to talk on the way to Wal-Mart. And we got to talk the whole time we were in the store and on the way back too.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

How to sentencize

One of the things you learn in kindergarten is how to write a sentence. This is a very important thing to know, so I decided to tell my mama all about it while I was reading one of my dinosaur books to her. She thought it was very interesting, so I will tell you too.

The first thing you need to know about writing sentences is that they are made of words. In between the words are spaces. Spaces are not symbols. They are where Mr. Spaceman lives. Ifyouleavenospacesthenthereisn'troomforMr.Spaceman. If you leave a big space, like        this, then there is more room for Mr. Spaceman.

Next you need to know about periods. They are dots. They are not polka-dots. They are tiny dots, but you can still see them. When you put a period after some words it sentencizes the sentence. Sentencize means you write a period.

You put an explanation mark at the end of a sentence if you want it to be an explanation. An explanation mark is like a line down and then a dot, like this ! To make an explanation point on your key board, you hold down your Shift key and 1 at the same time, like this!

Now you know how to write a sentence. Don't forget to leave room for Mr. Spaceman.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Baha Camp

A few weeks ago I went to Baha Camp with Baha, Bapa and my cousins Sam and Ethan. Baha and Bapa are my mom’s mom and dad. We went to Zion’s National Park. It was 261 miles away. I know because my Utah map told me so. When we first started driving to Zion’s Baha let me hold the GPS so I would know where we were. I told them whenever we had driven a mile or passed an exit or city. It was a lot of fun.  It wasn’t very long before Baha said she needed to hold the GPS. I guess she wanted to know where she was too.

Did you know there are signs on the interstate every mile telling you what mile you are on? Once I learned this I was able to keep everyone updated every mile even though I didn’t have the GPS.

Once we got to Zion’s went on a lot of hikes. There were signs that said dogs weren’t allowed.

“Well Baha, it’s a good thing Buckler is invisible.”

I don’t know why Baha laughed. She seemed to do that a lot when I talked about Buckler. I guess I’m just funny.

At the beginning of every hike I went on there were maps. I like maps. My Baha gave me a US Road Atlas that I loved but she left at her house. I keep asking her about it but she keeps forgetting. Whenever we saw a map I had to show Sam and Ethan where we were and tell everyone where we were going. It is important to always know your location in case of an emergency.  

Sam and Ethan weren’t as excited about the maps. I don’t know why.




I think maps are great.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Can I Tell You Something?

My name is Stephen.  I am six years old. I like maps, Afghanistan,  and my dog buckler.

Maps are great. Did you know that you can find maps on the internet? Google earth has maps of the whole world and even the other planets. I am always asking my parents for places to look up, and they usually get tired of it after a couple of hours. I’m not sure why. That’s how I learned about Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is where Buckler is from.  Buckler can fly. That’s how he got to my house from Afghanistan. One time he came to kindergarten with me and lifted up my school into space. He put it back down and told me that he wasn’t tired at all. Buckler is invisible, because he is an imaginary dog.

Lots of times Buckler flies outside the van when my mom is driving me home from school. I have to tell mom he is there so she doesn’t hit him. I don’t know why she can’t see him.
Once she hit him, and he died. But don’t worry, he was ok.