My History of Volunteering at the Food Pantry and Food Bank

By Josh

I started working at the food pantry when I was 8. Everybody there was at least 10 years older then I was. We were in Virginia at the time and I started volunteering at the food pantry at the Water's Edge Church. At the age of 9, I was put on the news because I was working at the food pantry at my age.

The volunteers at the food pantry

 Not much long after, we moved to Washington State. I started working at the food bank there. Unfortunately, I stopped after 2-3 weeks of volunteering at the food bank in Washington. The reason why was because I couldn't go on my own at that age, so my brothers would have to come too and they were too young. But now, at the age of 13, I have started volunteering again. This time, Mom, Jeremiah, Nathaniel and I are all volunteering by driving around and picking up donations for the food bank on Thursdays. Most of the stops are at Starbucks. The only place that we visit that is not Starbucks is an Auntie Anne's that usually gives us 25 pounds worth of food. All 25 pounds of it goes into a red backpack.

Us after two of the stops

You'll notice that I am the one carrying the red backpack. We are still volunteering every Thursday.

LEGO Ideas

By Josh
This is an official LEGO website. What you basically do, is you build something, take a few pictures, and submit it. If it reaches 10,000 supporters, then it goes into LEGO review, where it will be reviewed by the people at LEGO to see if it will work as an official LEGO set. If it becomes a LEGO set, you will get 10 complimentary copies of the set and 1% of the net sales from the set (which is a lot, given how many people buy LEGO sets). You need to be 13 or older to join LEGO Ideas, but there is no fee to join. I think that this is a very cool website. Here is a picture of one I've submitted:

You can add almost anything! What I mean is if say, you want to do one for a new movie, they will need to make sure that they are licensed to use it. The link is here.

How to Collect Stamps

By Josh

Before you get to collecting, you will need a few things.
You will need:

• A place to keep the stamps
• Tweezers 
• A large bowl
• Hot water
• A small towel

There are three ways to collect stamps:

• The Water Bowl
• The Collecting Store
• The Post Office

Let's go through the three ways

1. The Water Bowl

This is if you get a letter in the mail and you want the stamp from it.

1. Fill the large bowl with hot water
2. Put the letter with the stamp in the water
3. Wait a minute
4. Grab the letter and put it on the towel
5. VERY CAREFULLY use the tweezers to remove the stamp without tearing it
6. Throw the letter in the garbage and let the stamp dry
7. Once the stamp is dry add it to your collection

2. The Collecting Store

This is if you want to buy an/some old stamp/s

1. Search for a collecting store in your area (we have found some at hooby lobby as well)
2. If you can find one go to it
3. In there you can most likely find stamps
4. Buy the stamps you want to buy

If you can't find one or you don't feel like leaving home then you can always buy the stamps online.

3. The Post Office

This one needs no explanation. You literally go to the post office, find some stamps you want and buy them.

I hope this blog post helps and happy stamp collecting!

Josh's B-Day

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

Josh is 13 this year and I decided to do a blog post about what we did on his b-day from my perspective. Around 7:30. I wake up and go downstairs, and start making a card for him.
Around 8:00. I finish my card and we take Josh his breakfast. I go downstairs again, get some breakfast, and come up again to eat with Josh.

Around 8:30. We finish breakfast and find out The Snohomish Aquatic Center's first free swim doesn't start until 2:00!

Around 8:45. We had some extra Reese's rolls so we took some to the Church.
Around 9:00. After we did that we headed to the local antique store for a bit. Mom got a really pretty pearl necklace and another lavender pouch.
Around 10:00. We head home.
Around 10:15. We get home.
Around 11:15.(I'm guessing) We have Paninis for lunch
Around 1:15.(I'm guessing) We head to The Snohomish Aquatic Center.
Around 1:30.(I'm guessing) We go to the nearby Co-op to pick up some bedding.
Around 1:35.(I'm guessing) We get to The Snohomish Aquatic Center.
Around 4:00. We head home.
Around 6:25.(I'm guessing) We eat dinner.
Around 7:15.(I'm guessing) We go to Blu Berry
Around 8:00. We Sleep. 

Worst Chess Openings

By Josh

I have already talked about the best openings for chess, now it's time to talk about the openings that will really mess you up. The side worse off will be white in these pictures.

First I will talk about the WORST OPENING OF ALL TIME.

This opening needs no explanation. This is the fastest way to mate. Use this opening if you want to lose fast.

I put this as the second worst because of it's uselessness

The reason why I think this is useless is that in the beginning you're trying to control the most squares, and the amount of squares controlled by you is increased by 2 and letting your opponent take all of the other squares. I played a game by myself using the analysis off to the right control my moves, the end result after that opening was this:

(Note: I didn't even try to finish because white was so hopeless)
Use this opening if you want your opponent to control the entire board.

I put this as the third worst because this opening literally depends on the opponent making a bad move

As this is a great opening for when you are playing games with a short timer, but playing casually this is a very bad idea. I played another game like in the previous one and this was the end result:

(Note: Yet again, I didn't try even try to finish because white was so hopeless)
This just goes to show how bad you can lose with this opening.

I hope you enjoyed my blog post on the worst chess openings!

My Birthday is Coming!

By Josh

My birthday is in a month, and I'm already excited! This year I'm going to be 13! We've already decided what my party is going to be like (more of an open house and no big theme), what flavor of cake it will be (Peanut Butter-Chocolate, again) and how many people will be invited. Some may think that I am getting excited too early, but in perspective to the stores that start preparing for Christmas 6 months early, me being excited a month early is no big deal. We have no idea what we're going to do for the day of my birthday.

Magic

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

I'm going to tell you this right off the bat, Magic is a really fun game (if you have good cards at least). I should talk about this before I jump into all the different cards. There are 5 different colors:
 White,
Blue,
Green, 
Red,
and Black,.
 They all have different strategies. White is "Get your health up super high, and then attack." Blue is  "Get your health up, attack a little, and then heal some more.'' Green is "Get some animals out there and heal during battle." Red And Black are " Get your Mana up, (I'll talk about Mana later) then: ATTACK!!! My deck is a mix of Red, White, and Black, Josh is all Green, and Dad is all Black.
All right, Mana: In this game Mana is what you use to cast spells and whatnot. You are going to need a lot of Mana no matter what color you are.
Next the different kinds of cards. First Creatures. They are your are your army (once you have enough on the battlefield).
Next, Enchantment - Aura. with these you can Enchant Creatures with awesome properties!
Next up: land. There are 2 kinds of land. Basic land (Mana), and Land that give you Mana. I have 4 cards that give me Mana. One that gives me Red And Black, one that gives me Red And White, one that gives me White And Black, and one that gives me all three!
Next up: Artifacts. Artifacts usually only cost three Mana each however, they give really cool benefits. last up: Instants
Instants can be casted at any time. My favorite Instant is called "Flesh to dust" It uses 2 black Mana and 3 Mana of any color. That may seem like a lot of Mana but you can "Destroy target creature. It can't be regenerated" The only problem is I only have two.