On our winter vacation (12/21/12-1/17/13), the thing I look forward to the most is my birthday!! My birthday is December 23!!! I'm going to be 13!!!! I hope this world-ending crud is a bunch of lies. I really want to be 13! For my birthday (this Sunday - WHOO!!), we're going to DiChico's (an amazing Italian restaurant). I won't invite that many friends, but LOTS of family. Some people are going that I'd rather not see (in my family; DUH!, I ♥ all my friends). 
    I bet everyone is looking forward to Christmas! The cool thing is I have "A Fantastic Four Day Celebration". It starts with my birthday (23), then Christmas Eve (24), Christmas (25), and then my mom and I are going to a wonderful barbecue place and then we're going to go see Breaking Dawn Part 2!!!

    When Japan was barely on the rise, it adopted many things from China and Korea such as language (written), customs, religion, etc. One of the most important has to be the written language. Today, Japanese and Chinese are two different languages, but there are some similarities. Just the same as Spanish is with English. The same kind of letter symbols are used, but in different ways to spell various words. There may be a (~) symbol over an 'n'. 
    Without a written language, Japan wouldn't have gotten very far. The whole country revolves around the writing. If things were never written, we wouldn't have past records of Japan.

    It was an ordinary Saturday morning and I was out pulling weeds from the grape vines. It was very sunny with a few light clouds overhead. I heard a small rumbling, but didn't think much of it. Maybe it was my neighbor having trouble starting his car again. The noise got louder and I turned to see a huge group of people on the horizon. I knew what was happening. The Mongols were invading.
    I ran into the house and called my husband down from his office. "Harold, come. Hurry.", I said with a trembling voice. He walked with me, unaware of what was happening. I took his arm and lead him down to the cellar. When we got down there, he asked, "What's the problem?? I was in the middle of my studies." "I saw them. They were on the horizon, coming closer and closer. They are going to invade!", I said in one breath. "Who??", Harold said, clearly getting annoyed by what he thought was a bunch of lies. "The Mongols!!", I shouted. "You cannot be serious. Why would they invade?" "What does it matter?!", I said getting frustrated because he wasn't the least bit worried. "It matters because we could DIE!" 
    Just then, the sound like thunder got very loud. The light in the cellar flickered until it blew out. "Just great!! Now what? Are we going to sit here in the dark room, bound to be infested with rats, spiders, and snakes? I THINK NOT!!", I screamed. 
    "You need to chill out. We'll be safe down here until they pass over."
    Then, I heard a crash in our house above. I walked to the door and cracked it. Our entire house...


                            Engulfed in flames.