Natalie Bourn

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crawling through log

7th Grade Marine Biology Trip

April 8, 2016

I was the happiest girl in the world when I found out I was accepted to go on the 7th Grade Marine Biology Trip! I was so exited I got to miss school for a week to go on an adventure, make tons of new friends, and learn new things about the world that I didn’t know before. Another great thing was that my dad got to chaperone and I was exited that he would get to do all the fun activities with me. The camp I went to was called PEEC, which stands for Pacific Environmental Education Center.

When I got to camp, I met my cabin mates, other chaperones, and my naturalist. Naturalists are the “teachers” for the week. My naturalist was Raccoon (they all have nature names).

My Days At PEEC

Monday

Monday was mostly driving, but once I got there, everyone jumped right into it. The first hike we did was a short Marine Headlands walk along the coast. On this walk we got to play games like camouflage and meet the people in my hiking group. I learned about invasive species, like the ice plant, and how they negatively effect the environment. When we saw the harbor seals, I learned that the winds effect where animals live. At dinner, I was introduced to the FBI; Fungus, bacteria, invertebrate. They were all decomposers. One of the naturalists dressed up fancy and pretend like he was an Italian scientist and it was hilarious.

Tuesday

Tuesday was stations, tide pools, and a night hike!

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Concerts With My Dad

March 26, 2016

I LOVE going to Grateful Dead Music… Now

My dad introduced me to the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, and more. I discovered that I actually like that type of music and sometimes I’ll find myself listening to them while I work.

First One

The first time Dad took me, we went the day before we left for Maui! That show was Stu Allen and Mars Hotel with the opener being Midnight North. The music was just like going to a real Grateful Dead concert and I heard a ton of the songs I love. This concert wasn’t like a 2 hour Justin Beiber, but it was from 7:00pm to 1:30am! My feet hurt form our front row dancing. I also met a lady in the bathroom who turned out to be Stu’s wife an she got me an autograph.

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It's always the fear of looking stupid that stops you from being awesome

Kiera Cass
dressing up for spirit week

Be Confident in Yourself

March 15, 2016

I’ve learned some really valuable lessons during 7th grade and one is especially important, so I wanted to share it with you.

Have Confidence

The spirit weeks at my school have theme days and I love to dress up. There are always cool themes for each day like Tacky Tuesday and 80s Workout Wednesday. I am known to be super spirited, so needless to say, spirit weeks are my favorite weeks of the school year!

When I show up to school in my full-out, head to toe, themed outfit and I see that almost nobody dressed up, I start getting self conscious and full of doubt. But I have to get out of the car sometime. I walk in kinda fast and look down, trying to avoid eye contact, but then I see my friends dressed up too and I instantly feel better.

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Organic Mandarin Orchard

Going to Work At S&J Mandarin Grove

December 20, 2015

This winter, I got to up to Newcastle to work at my grandparents orchard every Saturday to help sort, sell, and bag mandarins. While I was working at S&J Mandarin Grove, it was fun getting to experience real work and experience the amazing feeling of getting paid. BUT IT WAS HARD WORK! They have 5 acres of mandarin trees including all different types such as satsuma, tangos, clementines, and a whole bunch more. 350 trees out of their grand total are the Owari Satsuma mandarin trees.

As my grandpa (the “S” for Steve) picked and brought back mandarins, I worked hard along with my grandma (the “J” for June) to sort out the bad ones from the good ones and bag them up for people to buy. Although the work we did was hard, it was actually really cool to get some work exposure. They have a scale so we can weigh the bags. There are 2, 4, 7, 11, and 15 pound bags and we had to back a ton of each. You get orange under your nails from bagging, sorting out the bad ones, and having a snack. That’s one of the benefits to the job… FREE SNACKS.

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Fairytale Town Halloween

Halloween, Pirates, and Lots of Candy

October 31, 2015

Ahoy, ye buccaneers! I gunna be tellin’ ye ’bout me voyage to candy!

This year for Halloween, my brother and I were pirates (so we had to get our pirate language down)! I love getting to dress up with my brother so we look great together… and in pictures. I also have a lot of fun embracing my character whenever I get the chance. There are so many different activities and fun Halloween things to do!

Rock Creek Carnival

At Rock Creek Elementary, they do a carnival. There are tons of games such as bean bag toss, knock over cans, wheel of fortune, and more. They even have a haunted house. Our favorite game to do is the doughnut eating contest. Who doesn’t love free donuts, right? My cousins, Riley and Chloe, came with us this year, so we enjoyed the festivities with them too!

Spring View School Dance

At my middle school, the leadership team put on a Halloween dance! The whole gym was decorated with creepy decor and the picture spot had all kinds of scary faces, caution tape, and more. The DJ played some Halloween themed music and my friends and I “partied like monsters!”

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Soccer Halloween Costume

When Soccer Is On Halloween? Your Team Dresses Up

October 31, 2015

Your soccer game is on Halloween! Since some people are like, “I want candy. Not a work out,” we made the day more fun by dressing up as the 101 dalmatians. We all made our own dog t-shirts and socks with spots and our numbers on the back. My mom made my shirt and she is a pretty awesome artist, so my shirt looked like we bought it from a store.

We used Sharpies for the bottom coat of the spots and number because we needed them to show. My mom made templates so the spots looked extra neat and pretty. After the first layer of Sharpies, we got to have some fun! We bought sprayable glitter to cover the spots in because being me, I have to have my glitter. When we finished my shirt (or should I say work of art by Leonardo da Vinci) I couldn’t believe how awesome it looked.

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Exploding Kittens

September 5, 2015

BOOM… goes the kittens! We jut got a new card game called “Exploding Kittens” and it is crazy fun. There are all sorts of wacky cards such as the fortune telling goat, hairy potato cat, NOPE cards, the unicorn enchilada, and tons more. Those were just 3 examples, imagine a whole deck full of hilarious cards.

My mom, brother and I love to go on game lunches. On these game lunches, we bring card games to play while we eat. When we go to do this, we almost never order regular food, just desserts. Game lunches are our tradition and we got a new game to keep it going with something new.

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Begin With The End In Mind

Begin With The End In Mind

August 28, 2015

In my last post you learned about Habit One, Be Proactive. Now I want to share with you, Habit Two, Begin With The End In Mind.

Habit #2: Begin With The End In Mind

This focuses on planning ahead and setting goals, doing things that matter and make a difference, be an important part of your class (or company) and contribute to their mission and vision, and look for ways to be a good citizen.

Some examples of using this habit are:

  • If you know you are going to be busy later in the day or week, get your work done early.
  • Pick out what you are going to wear for the next day if you’re not a morning person (like me).
  • Get a planner to write down your schedule and what you need to do.

Here’s a quote that represents this Habit really well:

I think about how the choices I make will effect my future, and I think about if the consequence of my actions will be positive or negative before I act.

Stephen Covey

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Habit 1 Be Proactive

Be Proactive, Not Reactive

August 22, 2015

Last year in school, we learned about the 7 Habits (based on “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Franklin Covey) and how we could use them each day.

Habit #1: Be Proactive

Being proactive means that you’re in charge of you and your actions.

  • Instead of reacting to problem, you can look ahead and take action to help solve the problem.
  • Instead of waiting for something to happen, you can choose to make something happen with your actions.
  • Instead doing good things only when people are watching, you can choose to do good things all the time.

It is important to know that nobody else can control you and you can’t control everything, but you can control what you do and how you act.

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Latest Blog Posts

  • Looking Back and Looking Forward With a Senior Sunrise
  • Participating In My First “High School Musical”
  • Competing at the FBLA Northern Section Leadership Conference
  • The Dump: A Stinky but Surprisingly Fun Field Trip
  • Participating In The Annual Sacramento Historic Archives Crawl

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