AMF Book & Bowl

Flat Stanley was so proud of Team Lewis for reaching their AMF Book & Bowl reading reward!  They had to earn 370 AR points between December & May.  Thankfully, Team Lewis is full of AWESOME readers, and earned 454 AR points during that time period!  

On Monday, Team Lewis met at AMF Noble Manor Lanes for two hours of fun!  All but 3 students attended, and we had some family members who also joined us for a few frames!  

A good time was had by all!  We thank AMF for offering such an awesome reward program!  Also, to the Team Lewis families for getting the kids to the lanes!  

Anthony hoping to pick up the spare! 

Maddie, Emmaline, Kira, Anthony & Stanley think AMF's Book & Bowl is #1!!

Stanley trying to pick up a bowling ball! Don't they have any his size?!

Getting everyone's name in the computer! 

The 2012-2013 Team Lewis lineup!  

Jaleesa & Stanley waiting for their next turn. 

Maddie & Aunt Nay picking up some spares!  

Robby lining up for a strike!  

India

The 4th grade students at Carnegie did a research project on India for Cultural Day.  They learned so much, and wanted to know more.  Ms. Lewis realized that a former employee of hers, and a fellow Carlynton Alum, Jeana Hickling, moved to India.  Jeana so graciously agreed to host Flat Stanley!  

He arrived on May 17th, 2013.  It took him 3 weeks to arrive!  I hope Stanley had enough milk & tuna fish sandwiches to last him that long!  Stanley stayed with Jeana & her family on Galgibag Beach (village), Canacona (country), Goa (state), Inda (country) at a yoga ashram.  Ashram means "community" but it is often used for yoga schools.  

When Stanley arrived, it was 93.2 degrees and windy.  The wind was bringing the rain.  For 9 months out of the year, there is no rain in Goa, but then for 3 months, June, July & August, it rains A LOT, EVERYDAY!  They refer to this time as monsoon season.  The field where Stanley was staying turned into a lake!  

For fun in Galgibag Beach, they spend a lot of time at the beach, swimming and building things in the sand.  Since it is monsoon season, the waves have gotten too large, so it is not safe to go swimming.  The kids in the village play a lot of cricket (similar to American baseball) and football (which is American soccer).  At the ashram, people do yoga every day and read a lot of books.  

Here are Stanley's pictures & information about his trip:

We went to the local market.  You can see me on the way there on the scooter on the bridge.  That's how we get around.

At the market we got pomegranates and golden mangoes from the fruit seller

And cinnamon from the spice seller.  Did you know cinnamon is the bark of a tree?

We went to the beach

Where I relaxed with our dogs.   None of the dogs are on leashes here, they all just roam arounds, most animals here just roam around freely.

 We ate lots of fresh fruit from our trees, I helped pick mangoes, pink and green ones.

and Jack fruit.  They taste kind of like bananas. 

I even helped pick coconuts!  

I saw a lot of animals roaming around... like these water buffalo, cows and goats!  

If a herd of goats are coming down, you have to drive very slow!  

Stanley thought it was really neat that their houses in India were painted very brightly!  

Stanley even got to participate in a yoga class!  

Stanley would have told us about his trip sooner, but last week the lady he has been staying with had a baby, so they've been a little busy,  She's been glad to have him there, as he has been helping the baby to sleep peacefully, so Stanley thinks he will stick around a while longer.

Thank you, Jeanna & family, for sharing with us your adventures with Flat Stanley!  Congratulations on the new addition to your family!  Best of luck!  

San Francisco, California

Ms. DeBolt, one of our Psychology interns from Duquesne University, was going on a trip to San Francisco to see her fiance'.  She graciously took Flat Stanley with her! 

Their first stop was the famous Golden Gate Bridge.  The bridge was opened to traffic on May 28, 1937 after taking 4 years to be built.  It is unknown how many people worked together to build the Golden Gate Bridge as there were 10 different contractors who each had their own subcontractors, but sadly there were 11 fatalities during construction.  The bridge was built at a cost of $35 million.  To build the bridge today, it would cost over $1.2 billion.  In each tower, there are over 600,000 rivets!  The fabricated steel used in the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge was manufactured by Bethlehem Steel in plants in Trenton, New Jersey and Sparrows Point, Maryland and in plants in three Pennsylvania towns: Bethlehem, Pottstown, and Steelton. The steel was loaded, in sections, onto rail cars, taken to Philadelphia and shipped through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. The shipment of the steel was timed to coincide with the construction of the bridge.  The Golden Gate Bridge has a span of 4,200 feet.  It was once the world's longest suspension bridge, but now it ranks in at number 9.  The bridge was painted orange so that it blended in better with it's natural surroundings.  There is a toll you must pay to cross the bridge, with it currently being $6.  As of May 30, 2012 1,970,331,117 vehicles have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (includes northbound and southbound) since opening to traffic on May 28, 1937.  

Stanley also stopped at a famous park in San Francisco called Alamo Square.  Across from Alamo Square are the "Sister Houses" or the "Painted Ladies".  These Victorian houses are used in many different movies, television shows, and many post cards.  You may remember seeing the Alamo Square & the Sister Houses on the opening credits of "Full House"!  

Stanley also went to a winery with Ms. DeBolt.  There are over 1,200 wineries in the state of California.  California accounts for 90% of the wine production in the United States!  The winery Stanley went to was called White Oak.  There are vineyards on the property to grow the grapes used in making the wine.  The "old vines" were planted in 1912.  The "new vines" were planted in 1936.  It was a neat tour to go on!  

Thank you, Ms. DeBolt for taking Flat Stanley across the country with you!  He had a great time!  

Las Vegas, Nevada

Emma’s dad and I went to Las Vegas, Nevada on September 20^th, 2012.  We flew in a Southwest airplane.  We flew almost across the whole country.  I could see a lot from my window seat, from the farms in the mid-west to the Rocky Mountains, to the Grand Canyon.  We landed around dinner time and were picked up from the airport by Mr. Weiland’s friend Josh, in a Jaguar.  It was the coolest car I have ever been in!  Besides the police car that Emma’s uncle let me ride in…….  

When we got to the hotel it was amazing all the lights and people.  I was tired from all the flying so I went to bed.  The next day I had to go the Las Vegas Convention center to set up our booth for the show.  The show was the MINEXPO 2012. It is the largest mining show in the world.  They only have it every four years.  People from all over the world come to see this show.  There was everything from hard hats and lights to huge dump trucks that can haul 400 tons. (Try and figure out how many kids it would take to fill the bed of that dump truck?)  I did find out you can put the weight of 36 suv’s in it.  We finished setting up the booth for me to hang out at and Emma’s dad to work at.  

Now we can go and see some sights. First we had to go see the hotel Paris, for Ms. Lewis, of course!  They have a huge Eiffel tower coming out of the hotel, also they have the Arc de Triomphe (Arc of Triumph). Then we crossed the street to the hotel called Bellagio.  In front of the hotel they have a 26 acre lake.  Every 30 minutes a song starts and fountains under the water start shooting up in the air following the music.  They call them the dancing fountains.  You guys know how popular I am?  I had these two show girls want their picture taken with me!  In Vegas they have these large shows and the girls wear crazy hats with feathers on them.  The next day was the show and we got to ride the Las Vegas monorail to the show.  It is kind of like the Pittsburgh subway but with no driver.  It works all on magnets moving the train on the tracks. There was around 40,000 people a day walking around.  I think they came to see me!  So after 2 days of working finally we got to go walk around the show.  I got a picture next to a tire on a truck that was 20 feet tall.  I really am short next to the tire.

After the show we got to relax a bit. It was very hot there 95-100 degrees every day.  So we went swimming a lot, but most of the time we stayed inside.  Vegas is in the desert so it is warm all year long and it rains only a little every year.  So all the water they use in Vegas is from Lake Mead.  They built the Hoover Dam to hold back this really big lake.  The lake water comes all the way from the Colorado Mountains.  The snow melts in the spring and flows down the Colorado River to Lake Mead.  So if there is not that much snow in the mountains the lake gets lower and lower every year.

The MINEXPO is very important for all of these people to go to because they can find out new and better ways to do their jobs.  They mine everything from coal, gold, silver, and salt. There are mines right here in PA mining coal. They use it to make electricity so you can have lights and charge all your gadgets.  They use it to heat homes and also make steel.  That’s why Pittsburgh was the steel town because all the coal mines in the area.

I really learned a lot from my trip to Las Vegas.  I met a lot of people from different countries.  They said to say hi kids in Australian “hey mates”, German “hallo kinder”, French “salut les enfants” and Spanish “hola ninos”.

Thanks, Mr. Weiland, for taking Stanley along with you to Las Vegas!  Stanley learned so much at the MineExpo 2012, and really enjoyed getting to see all of the excitement!  

Ecuador

Ms. Lewis's neighbor, and 5th grade student at Crafton Elementary, Anya, traveled with her family to visit their family in Ecuador.  Ecuador is located in South America.  

Anya gave Ms. Lewis these two pictures, but "doesn't remember" where they were taken.  Ms. Lewis will investigate with Anya's parents, and update the blog as soon as she finds more information!  

The first picture is taken in front of a waterfall in Ecuador.  

This next picture was taken in front of a volcano in Ecuador.  

Both pictures are pretty neat, but will be even more interesting when we learn more facts about each location!  

Thanks, Anya, for showing Flat Stanley some neat sights in Ecuador!  

Townsville, Australia

Flat Stanley went to Townsville, Australia to visit with Emma's cousin, Ben.  

Here is the journal Ben sent back.  The pictures are phenomenal!  Such amazing animals were seen on Flat Stanley's journey down under! 

• Flat Stanley visited Townsville, QLD Australia.  Townsville is in the "dry tropics" along the coast in the northern part of the state of Queensland, near the Great Barrier Reef. Since Australia is in the southern hemisphere the seasons are the opposite of those in Pittsburgh.  It is actually the start of winter here. However, since it is in the tropics it still 24C (75F). Townsville is a small city with an official population of ~200,000, but it feels much smaller.  There is a university here - James Cook University, but most of the people in the town are miners that work in the mineral or coal mines or members of the Australian military.  We have a couple of professional sports teams, but the sports are very different from those in Pittsburgh.  Our teams are the Cowboys (a rugby team) and the Townsville Crocodiles (a professional basketball team).
  
• The people here also talk very differently than people in Pittsburgh.  They speak English, but have different words for things and a funny accent.  For example, everyone calls each other "mate", they say "No worries!" all the time and "ta" means thank you. They also like to say "Goodonya" when you do something they like or to wish you luck.  Some foods also have different names.  Cantaloupe are "rock melons", peppers are "capsicums" and raisins are "sultanas".
  
• While here Flat Stanley met many of the local animals.  Some were strange and funny - like the laughing kookaburra (for video and audio of their laugh check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qix6oUxim3Q), the platypus, the possums, the koalas and the kangaroos, but others were scary, like the cassowary and the goanna!  He met the platypus and cassowary in the tropical rainforest north of Townsville, in Yungaburra and found the goanna in the rainforest village of Paluma. He also met lots of colorful, tropical birds like the sulfur-crested cockatoo and the King Parrot.
  
•  While here Flat Stanley spent a lot of time exploring outside in the mountains and rain forests.  He saw the rain forests and waterfalls. He also climbed Castle Hill - a rocky mountain in the middle of Townsville, went to the beach (the Strand) and road his bike along the Ross River.  He is sad to leave Townsville, but excited to return to Pittsburgh to for summer and to watch the Penguins!

Wallaman Falls

Climbing at Castle Hill

Stanley was frightened by the goanna! 

Thank you, Ben, for taking Flat Stanley all over Australia!  We really enjoyed seeing all of the awesome pictures!  It looks like he had a blast!  We're excited he's home now, and hopefully he can help the Pens win the cup!