I am very thankful for the family and friends that God has given me. They are a constant encouragement to me sometimes in ways they do not even realize.

I am also thankful for the school that I am able to go to. I am grateful for all that I have learned while I have been there, and I am also thankful for how God has provided the money for me to be at school.

Another thing that I am thankful for is my “new” iPod touch. While I have been on Christmas break I have been able to convince my parents to trade my old iPod for their 5 month old iPod touch. I am enjoying my new toy so far and I am also writing this post on it. Although having this will male it easier to blog more often, I will not make any outragious promises about it like James did when he got his iPhone.

When we first got off the bus I was in a group of about 10 people. We were going to walk around Navy Pier and see what cool stores were around and just enjoy the afternoon. When we walked into the building we saw a stage with a guy doing a juggling show, so we stopped and watched that until it was over. We then proceeded to walk towards the end of the pier when someone noticed that their was a stained glass exhibit so we walked through that. The only thing was four of us walked through the exhibit in about two and a half minutes and the other six took much longer. When we saw them again, we told them that we would part ways because they hadn’t even made it through all of the exhibit yet. The four of us (Curtis, Vicky, Tiffany, and I) then walked to the end of the pier until we decided what to do next.

We decided that since we still had a little longer than an hour and a half left that we would walk into the downtown area and explore. After we had walked for a couple of blocks, we decided that we should find some interesting place to go into, so I point to a building that looked like it had some stores in it, so we walked through the door and there was an escalator going up. We went up the escalator and the only thing there was an elevator and a door into a parking garage. Since we did not want to go into the parking garage we got in the elevator and pushed “1”. The only problem with pushing “1” was that we went up (The other two buttons we “p” for parking and “g” for ground but we figured that out to late).

When we got out of the elevator we walked further into the city. We soon saw a huge gathering of people, so we decided to walk towards it. As we got closer to it we noticed that it was a large group of protesters, and so we were wondering what they were protesting. We walked further into the crowd and found out that they were protesting “Obamacare.”

As we were walking through the protest we were also simultaneously looking for a Starbucks. We soon spotted one and walked over to it. I ordered a Grande Peppermint Mocha and when I was pulling my wallet out, the person that had just bought a drink from the cash register next to me told my cashier that he would pay for mine too. I was very thankful for this unexpected blessing, even though I had plenty of money with me to pay for it. As he was walking out I once again was able to thank the man for his generosity.

We then started walking back towards Navy Pier. On our way back we saw a street performer that looked like he was about to fold himself into a box. Before he did though he took of his sweater and underneath he had on a bright greenish-yellow leopard spotted outfit and then did some really random things and we never actually saw him get into the box because we left because he was taking to long to get into the box.

When we met back at Navy Pier we loaded onto the bus and headed to Giordano’s which is a really good Chicago style pizza restaurant. We had some outstanding pizza took some funny pictures, then loaded up the bus to head to our next stop on tour. On the way to the next stop I watched “Up” (which if you read upside-down is “dn”). It was a pretty good movie in my opinion. Once again Pixar threw in an some stuff that only people that live in the East Bay would get. One of the places the kid liked to go was Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor. When they mentioned that, I turned to the person that was watching it with me and said, “I have eaten at Fenton’s before and it is pretty good.” They said, “Wait, it is actually a real place?!?!” I thought this response was funny and I was able to explain that Pixar throws in subtle stuff like that in their movies that only people that have lived there would understand.

This was a pretty fun day, and if I ever have the chance to spend more time in Chicago, I would.

So I did my afternoon check of the internet, read some blogs, saw if anything interesting was happening on Facebook, which as usual there wasn’t, checked the trending topics on Twitter, and so on and so forth, and I realized something. Most people right now are tired of school, work, and whatever else people do, so they are looking forward to holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Many of you are probably asking yourselves, “What is going to get me through the days leading up to the holidays?” Well, I am glad you asked because there is plenty to look forward too. You see, most people only celebrate big holidays and they do not realize that every day of the year there is a holiday to look forward to.

So you are probably wondering, “a\Are these holidays even worth celebrating” The answer to that question is that it depends on your personality. I personally don’t celebrate all of the holidays I come across. I normally look at my “secret” source for Holidays at the beginning of the month and see if there is anything that is worth celebrating for me.

The great thing about my source is that it not only gives daily holidays but also Weekly and monthly observances too. So I am going to take this chance and share with you some of the holidays that are left in this month.

Celiac Disease Awareness Month
Dyslexia Awareness Month
National GO on a Field Trip Month
National Popcorn Poppin’ Month
Photographer Appreciation MOnth

IPod Day (23rd)
Worldwide Howl at the moon night (26th)
National Chocolate Day (28th)
Natinoal Candy COrn Day (30th)
National Knock-Knock Jokes Day (31st)

However, there is someone who has promised hope, peace, and change. This person is Jesus Christ. I want to take this opportunity, while people are talking about hope, peace, and change to share a few verses them.

Romans 15:4

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

John 14:27

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

There are many other places in the Bible that promise us hope, peace, and change, these promises are not empty like those of a politician. They are given by God himself. I’d say that is hope, peace and change we CAN believe in.

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Our band has a busy semester planned. We have already done a September 11 memorial chapel, and we are playing at Fall Festival, going on tour, and we also have Christmas band chapel. Oh, and I almost forgot Pep Band at the home football games (and maybe some basketball games this year)!!!

I should probably go to bed soon, after all it is nearly midnight and tomorrow is Sunday.

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I did not want to give up on my iPod too easily though so I decided to do some Google searches on iPods going through washing machines and realized two things. First that was not the only person to ever let their iPod get washed and second that if I let the iPod dry out for about a week it might work again.

After letting it sit for a week I connected it to my computer and not much happened. My computer was able to recognize that something was plugged in to it, but the iPod still wasn’t wanting to work, so I decided to let it sit some more. About a week or so later my brother was in town and together we were able to restore the iPod and put all of my music back on it, but the iPod battery would not hold a charge. We let the iPod charge for several hours and when we unplugged it the iPod would shut off.

So at that point the iPod only worked if it was on a dock or plugged in, which kind of kills the point of having an iPod, so I let it sit for about a month doing nothing. Then one day I was in the kitchen so I decided to play music from my iPod on the dock. After I was done I left the iPod there for a few weeks, and this is probably where the miracle happened because a couple of days ago I took the iPod off of the dock and it didn’t turn off. Later that day to test to see how long the battery would last I watched some video clips on it and it showed no signs of damage. So now I believe that I am the proud owner of the miracle iPod that once was dead but now is alive.

That evening we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner on the eighth floor of the Macy’s building in Union Square, San Francisco. For dinner I had spicy Jamaican shrimp and rice. It was a pretty good meal, but the best part was the cheesecake we had afterwards. Now, none of us were hungry for a complete slice of cheesecake so we decided to share a piece of cheesecake while we were at the restaurant and each order a slice to go. Mmmmmmmmmmmm……………………..

The next day, July 3rd, we had the day off from summer school. That morning and early afternoon we didn’t do much except¬† sit and relax. At one point during the day Dad and I went to Rasputin Music in downtown berkeley and bought some cd’s. Dad picked out some “different” types of cd’s and I picked out some John Williams cd’s. That evening the Oakland East Bay Symphony had a free concert on the Richmond waterfront. It was a very fun evening of music and fireworks.

The next day, July 4th, we went to the Alameda Fourth of July Parade. I can’t say that I actually watched it because I was texting some friends the entire time. That evening we went to Jack London Square in Oakland for fireworks. As I look back I think that Fourth of July was our day where we did the least amount of celebrating.

On Sunday, July 5, we went to the morning service at Calvary but we went to the evening service at Hamilton Square because the summer travel team from Maranatha, the Messengers, was going to be there. After the service their was a fellowship time with cupcakes and other good food. While at the fellowship time we made plans for Monday.

On Monday I took the group on a tour of San Francisco. We started at about 11 o’clock and headed up to Twin Peaks. It was a little windy at the top but still had a very nice view that day. From Twin Peaks we headed to the Golded Gate Bridge. Although I got a little lost while on my way I ended up on the exact street I wanted to be on by making a few lucky guesses. The Maranatha van was able to find a parking spot pretty quick, but it took me about 20 minutes to find a spot. Once I found a spot we spent about an hour walking out on the bridge and in the gift shop. From there we went across the bridge and up into the Marin Headlands for a fantastic view of the city. While up there a few of the guys decide to go on the trail down the side of the mountain so we had to wait for them to climb back up so that we could head over to Fisherman’s Wharf for lunch. When we got there we went to Boudin’s Bakery and had clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Mmmmmmm……… After that we went down to Ghirardeli Square and got our free piece of chocolate then down to Pier 39.

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After a busy day of touring we all headed over to my house for a dinner that Mom and Dad had prepared. After dinner we went up to Indian Rock for one last amazing view of the city. After that we came back to the house and had It’s It Ice Cream and watched a movie. By the end of the day everybody was tired and sunburned, but we had a lot of fun.

Well that is the highlights of the partying. There was actually more party time the next couple of days but I won’t blog about those at this time.

But what you may not know is that there are many other holidays and observances in July. For instance did you know that July is also…

Cell Phone Courtesy Month
Family Reunion Month
National Ice Cream Month
National Wheelchair Beautification Month

There are also some interesting weekly observances like…

Be nice to New Jersey Week (5-11)
Sports Cliche’ Week (5-11)
National Ventriloquism Week (16-19)
National Baby Food Week (21-25)

And there are also many unique holidays like…

U.S. Postage Stamp Day (1)
I Forgot Day (2)
Compliment Your Mirror Day (3)
Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day (6)
Embrace Your Geekness Day (13)
Gummi Worm Day (15)
National Ice Cream Day (19)
Spoonerism Day (22)
Tell an Old Joke Day (24)
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Cow Appreciation Day (25)
Take Your House Plant for a Walk Day (27)
Cheesecake Day (30)

These were just some of my favorites for fun holidays just check out this website.