I absolutely love to travel and this summer I went to California for the first time. My two best Mary and Kaylie and I decided that we all wanted to o on a trip together after graduation so we decided to go to San Diego. I was really excited to go but as our trip grew closer I became nervous because I don’t like airplanes and I’ve never been on a plane without my parents before but the plane trip ended up being very smooth and quick.
Our vacation ended up being the best vacation I’ve ever went on. The weather was perfect the whole time that we were there. We went to the beach almost every day which was great because I love the ocean. We also did a lot of shopping. We went to Fashion Valley Mall which was a huge outdoor mall that had tons of stores that I have never even heard of before. It also had lots of stores by top designers that I can’t find around home, so that was a lot of fun.
While we were in San Diego, the Padres were playing the Cubs. My friends and I are all huge Cubs fans so we bought tickets and went to one of the games. Petco Park ended up being really nice and the game was a good one. On our last day in San Diego we went to the San Diego Zoo. The zoo was cool because we were able to get really close to all of the animals. We even got see Panda bears which was cool because none of us have ever seen them before.
Once it was time to go home, none of us wanted to go. We loved our trip so much and we didn’t want to go back to Illinois. Even worse our plane ended up being delayed because of bad weather in Chicago. It turned out that the whole time we were gone there was bad thunderstorms at home, but luckily we missed them. There was a little turbulence on the ride home which was kind of scary so I was really glad to get off of the plane. Even though I didn’t enjoy the plane ride, I can’t wait to go back to California again.

Yesterday was the presidential inauguration. Although I wanted to watch I wasn’t really able to. I had my chemistry lecture at ten and then I had my math class at eleven until a quarter after twelve and since the inauguration was scheduled for eleven I ended up missing it. Once I got back to my room after class I did watch ABC for a while and I saw the presidential luncheon where both Barack Obama and Biden gave speeches so I was happy I got to see that. I also watched the parade and I was shocked by how many of thousands of people were there to see Obama. I also saw that he had family there that flew in all the way from Africa in order to see him and I thought that was pretty cool.
Later on in the day, I ended up watching Obama’s speech on YouTube. I thought that he did a good job and that he is a very good public speaker. He made a lot of promises and he gave lots of ideas on how he plans to fix our economy and improve our country and I hope that he is able to do so. I’m glad to see that he is now our president and I am proud that I ended up voting for him since he has now made history. Most people I talked to also seemed to proud that Obama is now our president and they feel that he is capable of being a good president. Later on at night I was flipping through the channels and I watched the news for a little while and I watched part of the Inauguration balls. I was surprised to hear that there were ten different balls that the president had to go to. There were tons of activities throughout the day that Obama and his wife had to attend.
Throughout the day I was surprised to see how many people actually did watch the inauguration and all of the news coverage that occurred. It was on in all of the TVs in the lounges and the dining center and most people seemed to be genuinely interested in what was going on. I am glad to see that that happened since Obama being elected as president made such a large impact in the world and since it will go down in history. I was glad that I was able to witness this part of history.

My name is Katie. I’m nineteen years old. I am and Elementary Education major and I’ve wanted to become a teacher for as long as I can remember. I am the oldest child in my family and I have two younger sisters. My mom is a nurse and my dad is a police officer. I am very close with my family. My family also has a dog. He’s a yellow Labrador and I’ve had him since I was eleven. I am a fun-loving person and I love spending time with my friends. I have two best friends and we’ve known each other since the seventh grade. We talk to each other almost every single day and know everything about each other. I love music. It doesn’t matter what genre it is, I listen to all different types but country probably my favorite. I went to a catholic middle school and a catholic high school, so I’ve always had to wear a uniform. The only thing I got to decide were my shoes so shoes became one of my favorite things. I have over one hundred pairs and I always want more. I love watching and going to baseball games. The cubs are and always will be my favorite team. I travel as much as I can and I love going new places. My dream vacation would be in Venice, Italy. I have always wanted to go there and hope to go there in the future.