Hiking at Malibu Creek Park

Rock climbing

Last week, we went hiking to Malibu Creek Park with my friend Eleanor, my grandma Tanya, my mom, and all of my siblings.  When we got to the park, we went hiking up the trail.  Off the trail, we climbed a big hill of rocks. On the top of the rocks we saw all of the beautiful mountains.

River bed

When we came down  the rocks, we kept following the path until we reached the Creek. In the winter time there is a huge, deep, and fast flowing creek.  Since it's summer,  almost all of the water dried up so we were able to walk on the river bed. The river bed had many slippery and shaky rocks so  it was hard to cross.



When we crossed what used to be the creek, we saw cattails. Cattails can grow up to 3 to 10 feet long.  Cattails are one of the most common  plants that grow at the edge of ponds. My Grandma knew a lot of things about Cattails.  She opened a Cattail and there were seeds inside it. My Grandma gave everybody a couple of seeds and told us to blow on them  so each seed would fly away and grow into a new Cattail. 

Cattail

Opened Cattail

As we continued to walk down the river bed, we saw an interesting bug. It was orange and had a blue bottom. We walked so much that everybody became very hungry.  Then we sat on a log and ate our lunches. After eating lunch, it was time to go back to our car. On the way back, we saw a hawk soaring high above us looking for food. We had an amazing day and came home very tired.

Interesting bug

Hawk

Have you ever gone hiking in the mountains? 

What did you see?

Wedding

This past weekend my siblings and I were all in a wedding. The wedding was at a restaurant located on a tall mountain. The ceremony was outside and had a beautiful view of the mountains and sunset. In the beginning, my sister and I where the entertainers. We played the piano while all the guests were arriving. When everybody had arrived, my little sister Hannah was the flower girl and walked in front of the bride throwing flowers. My little brother Michael was the ring boy, and carried the rings down the isle and gave it to the best man. My older sister Miriam and I were holding the bride's dress while she walked down the isle. The bride looked beautiful!

 


The beautiful bride

 

View from inside the restaurant



After the ceremony, we went inside the restaurant. In the restaurant when they opened the curtain we saw the beautiful view of the city and mountains. All the children sat together at the kids table and my mom and dad sat next to us at table one. We had to wait a long time until we got our food because the bride was taking photos. For dinner, all the children got chicken nuggets with french fries which were delicious.

The wedding had traditions from 4 different cultures, American, Russian, Uzbek and Jewish. One of the traditions was that everyone had to scream out Gorka which means bitter in Russian. When the audience said Gorka the bride and groom had to kiss in order to make everything sweet. At the wedding there was also lot of music, singing and dancing. We all had a lot of fun and went home very late.

What kind of special traditions have you seen at weddings?