How to sleep comfortably on a plane

Note: these positions may require the use of a pillow, blanket, and/or tray.

Hello readers! Today, I will tell you about some comfortable sleeping positions that you can use on a plane.

1. Requires: pillow
If you have a window seat, just lean your head against the wall! Optional: Cover self in blanket.

2. Requires: nothing
Curl your knees up to your chest. Optional: Cover self in blanket. If you're wearing a hoodie/sweatshirt, you can pull the hood over your head.

3. Requires: blanket, pillow, tray
So you know how, on a plane, there's a tray you can fold down and eat your food on it? You can sleep on it too! Fold down your tray. Place the pillow on it. Cover self in blanket. Rest head on pillow. Note: do not do this if you feel your head is heavy.

Use the sleepmask the airline (hopefully) gives you. If you do not have one, bury yourself in your sweatshirt. If you don't have a sweatshirt...all I can say is that you need a packing list next time. 
Even if you're going to a tropical island, you NEVER know what the weather will be like! 

I'm back...

Hi readers! I got back from Japan...let's see...about a week ago. I'm sorry I haven't written since then. 

<twiddling thumbs>
<yawns>

What's that? You're tired of the suspense?

Okay, fine. I did survive the plane ride. I finally got to watch Muppets Most Wanted. The food was decent (every meal came with CHOCOLATE). The entertainment was all right--there was a fun trivia game, tons of movies, a flight tracker, and music to listen to. Landing was hard. I am one of those people whose ears hurt like crazy from the pressure change. Even when I'm chewing gum.

Our ginormous plane. Two levels. No, my family and I were on
the lower part.

We stayed in Tokyo, in the Shibuya neighborhood, the first few nights. We had a studio apartment with a deck and small bathroom. No fancy toilet. Yet. There was a big bed, a green couch that folded into a bed, and a closet with some mattresses that someone would have to sleep on.  

It was way cleaner before we got here. 0)__(0

Kathy and I even watched some Japanese TV. I liked the one where little were vegetables dancing and singing about (we think) a noodle shop.

One of my favorite Japanese candy was the Pocky--pretzel sticks dipped in melted chocolate or other coating. My favorite was, well, the chocolate type. You probably guessed.

Original chocolate Pocky (image from
here

That's all I really feel like writing right now...what are your plans for Thanksgiving? --Taryn

Happy (late) Halloween!

Dear readers, how was your Halloween? I went trick-or-treating with one of my many awesome friends, since Halloween is just sad around my neighborhood. Hardly anyone hands out candy these days. =( But in my friend's neighborhood (and the one we went to afterward), nearly everyone was celebrating All Hallow's Eve. (Yay!)

Kit-Kats, Almond Joys, and Butterfingers are probably definitely my favorite Halloween treats. Which is why I was soooo happy when one of the neighbors handed out this: 

The "giant" Kit-Kat, and a wrapper from a fun-size for
comparison. I ate the last one before realizing that I
might need it for a photo.

Quick question: why are the tiny candy bars called "fun size"? They're smaller than the other ones. Why are they fun?

My costume was (dun dun dun dah)...a bag of Sour Skittles! I made it myself, out of posterboard, paint, glue, construction paper, rainbow Duck Tape, and Sharpie ink. Oh, and more paint. 

I am holding a mini bag of Sour Skittles in the
picture. Can you see it?

On the back, I put very detailed nutrition information with Sharpie. 

A lot of people liked that! 

I can safely say that Kathy and I will be in a lot of trouble at the dentist's office this month. Just look at how much candy we've had: 

This is only part of it.

What's your favorite Halloween treat? --Taryn
P.S. Take the Taryn's Travels Halloween Quiz here.

100 posts

Dear readers, it's our 100th post!

I say our because you've been awesome in supporting me when I write this. You're part of Taryn's Travels too, for sharing a link from here or commenting. Or just reading this. A couple days ago I hit sixty-nine pageviews, and I'm not sure how, because it wasn't when I was writing. 

Also, don't be shy about commenting! I would love to hear from you.

But thank you. Thanks anyway. You rock, and don't EVER forget!
--Taryn
P.S. from Kayla: Taryn's going to write a post on styling doll hair soon, once she can get Kathy to stop watching makeup tutorials so Kathy can take pictures.

Halloween Mini-quiz!

Hi readers! Today I'll be doing a Halloween quiz. (After all, it's only three days away!)

Which candy are you?

1. What is your favorite part of Halloween?
     a. Dressing up in a homemade costume
     b. CANDY CANDY CANDY
     c. Trick-or-treating with friends

2. Which of these is most like your costume this year?
    a. A classic Halloween monster (ghosts, vampires, werewolves,       etc.)
    b. A goofy getup, such as a minion from Despicable Me
    c. A costume you and a friend designed and are wearing   
    together, like a two-headed monster.

3. What's the best treat the neighbors can give out this year?
     a. Chewy sour candies
     b. Gargantuan chocolate bars
     c. Chocolate-coated pomegranate seeds

4. What are you going to do the day after Halloween?
   a. Plan a costume for next year
   b. Invite people over for a candy trading convention
   c. Watch black-and-white horror movies with a bunch of friends

5. When you carve a pumpkin, you:
   a. Carefully sketch a design on to a piece of paper to plan out
   what it will look like 
   b. Dig in! And try to make a silly-looking face.
   c. Go over to your BFF's house to carve one together. 

Alright, here are the results! DON'T scroll down unless you've finished the quiz!

If you answered mostly a's, you're a pumpkin shaped peanut butter cup! You love everything about Halloween.

If you answered mostly b's, you're an Almond Joy! You're nutty and sweet.

If you answered mostly c's, you're candy corn! You're kind and friendly.

I hope you enjoyed the quiz! --Taryn
P.S. Post your answers in the comment box!

Aack

Hi readers, sorry I haven't been writing lately. But anyway, our trip to Japan is right around the corner. And so far, these are the logistics:

• Wake up at 4:00 a.m. to get to the airport two hours early before we fly another two hours to Michigan for a four-hour layover before the actual Japan flight. Total time traveled: eight hours
• Fly twelve to fourteen hours to Japan. Total time traveled: sixteen to eighteen hours

I. Cannot. Be trapped. On a plane. FOR FOURTEEN HOURS! No fresh air! Teeny-tiny bathrooms with lights that only turn on if you lock the door! Practically no space to move! Aaaaaaaaaaaaack.....

(Sorry, Taryn has temporarily passed out from fear. I am her Fast-Acting Replicating Typer/Secretary, or FARTS. Can I get you a cup of coffee?) 

Summer is almost over =( =[ ={

So, it's July 31st. In one month, it will be August 31st. A few days after that, kids will go back to school. Summer will be officially OVER, and that will be sad.

On the other hand, I love autumn. Pumpkins! Colorful leaves! Trick-or-treating! Stuffing and turkey and cranberry sauce! The knowledge that Christmas is right around the corner!

But right now, I'll focus on the things coming up in the month of August. For starters:

• Kathy will turn nine 
• I will go to cooking camp and jewelry camp
• My family will take the two-day drive to Minnesota, where Mommy will undoubtedly make Kathy, Daddy, and I pose in front of a giant jar of peanut butter or something. We will also go to the Minnesota state fair where they have crazy (fried) foods, maybe on sticks.

Then summer will be over. 

Huh. It feels longer now. =) 

--Taryn

P.S. What's your favorite summer activity? Tell me in the comment box.

Super-cool Minecraft blocks/mobs/potions

Hi readers! I am so, so sorry I haven't been writing lately. I've been to science camp, and...well you probably won't want to hear my excuses.

Anyway, I'm going to provide your with a few cool things to give yourself in Minecraft. If you don't know anything about Minecraft, head to the wiki, found here.

Note: if I write <your username>, put in your username. 

So, without further ado, here are the mobs you can summon-able stuff. Make sure to type each command exactly as written, but keep the above note in mind!

The command to summon a Wither Skeleton Jockey is:
/summon Skeleton ~ ~ ~ {SkeletonType: 1, Riding: {id: Spider}}
The skeleton won't have a bow, sadly; I'm working out how to do that.

To summon a green-robed villager, the command is:
/summon Villager ~ ~ ~ {Profession: 5}
This won't work in 1.8, because of the green villager's removal.

For a "flying pig", you should type:
/summon Pig ~ ~ ~ {Riding: {id: Bat}}

Summoning a zombie horse can be done with this command:
/summon EntityHorse ~ ~ ~ {Type:3, Tame:1}
If you want a skeleton horse, just use the above command, but with a 4 in place of the 3.

Give yourself one of these blocks by typing:
/give <your username> 43 1 9

And for a Stinky potion, type:
/give  <your username> 373 1 63

This potion won't have any effect, but it's fun to show off to your friends. If you want another effect-less but fun potion, like a Sparkling potion maybe, head to this link.

Have fun with the mobs, blocks, and potions! --Taryn


P.S. If you actually wanted to obtain some of these things before reading this post, I hope I helped. Also, if there's another awesome thing that you know how to summon, please tell me in the comment box!

Mo' Creatures mod review

Hi readers! There's a Minecraft mod called Mo' Creatures--have you heard of it before? It was created by Dr. Zhark...and it totally rocks!

The mod adds a bunch of new animals to the game, like ostriches, bunnies (although those are coming to default Minecraft in a future update pretty soon), crabs, pandas...the list goes on and on, and you can TAME most of these mobs! (Regular Minecraft only has sheep, cows, chickens, pigs, and horses, and Mooshrooms. There might be some other animals, but I forgot them. For a full list of all the creatures in Minecraft, click here. Most of them can't be tamed.)

Anyway. The mod review. Well, if you read the intro to this post, you'll already know why I think it's awesome. But I left out one part: fairy horses.

Fairy horses are horses that have been dyed a certain color. They also have wings, and when you ride them, they'll fly if you hit the space bar on your keyboard. You might think they're just colorful pegasi, but...

Can you see their wings? Those are NOT pegasi wings.

Here's me, riding my favorite horse, Nightstorm.

And here's my sweet bunny Marshmallow.

Did I mention that some of the mobs will ride on your head? =)

And here's...you know what, I'll just start putting up the photos.

My sea-life pond, inhabited my a stingray, five dolphins,
a few jelly fish,  a piranha(tamed), and a heck of a lot of
fish!

Lorraine the turkey and Bao Bao the panda

Dill the orange crab

Dustin the blue crab

My turtle pen.

 All right, readers, back up again. Naming your turtles after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michaelangelo) will give them colorful headbands and make them look like, well, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Donatello on my head (yup, turtles do that too)

My ostriches (I changed their appearance by feeding them
essences of light, darkness, undead, or fire). 

My goats

My fox

Melon the cardinal

Brittany the cobra, on my shoulder, and Karl the green snake
photobombing.

Make sure to download the mod here, and go here if you want to easily obtain a fairy horse. --Taryn

P.S. The wiki can be found at this link.

Follow-up to B.O.B

Hi readers, yesterday Daddy helped me put one of my many programs onto my blog. The program is called B.O.B. To move him around, click inside the black box and use the up, down, left or right arrow keys to control him. If you don't click inside the box, he won't move.

Have fun with B.O.B! --Taryn 
P.S. In case you don't know, B.O.B is a character from the movie Monsters vs. Aliens. 
P.P.S Happy 4th of July!

B.O.B

Adorable animals

Hi readers! On my Pinterest account, I have a board for cute animal pics. The photos are so incredibly sweet, and I thought I might share a few with you. 

I LOVE pandas.

Di, thought you might like this one. Also...awwwwww!

Robo dwarf hamsters. So many robo dwarf hamsters....

Taryn, your mom isn't
going to let you adopt
this bunny. Look away
NOW.

It's smiling at me! =)

No caption necessary.

Little baby penguin with its eyes closed. Squeeeee!

They're watching you. Beware the cuteness!

Again, no caption needed.

I'm having a bad day. PUT ME DOWN, HUMAN.

Please don't take my picture for the entire
Internet to see.

The sweetness rendered me speechless.

If I had this adorable thing, I'd name it Creme Brulee.

The eyes are so big..................

For you again, Di! And its ears...so sweet.

Dancing, yeah...dancing, yeah...

And last but most certainly not least...

Play-fighting red pandas in the snow!!!!!!!

I suppose I'll have to tell you where I got these pictures. 

• The penguin was from here.
• The I'm Just A Panda pic came from this link.
• The glaring otter pic was found here.
• Click here for the link to the dog who wanted the food directly in his mouth.
• The "dancing raccoon" pic was actually from a video that didn't have the raccoon in it, but I'll link to it anyway.
• The shy panda was from this link.
• The pandas-on-the-playground photo was from here.
• The fighting red pandas came from this link.
• The three raccoons who were "watching you" are also watching you from here.
• The little gray rat was from here.
• The gray bunny was from here, Creme Brulee's pic came from here, and the big-eyed bunny was from here.
• The sweet black cat photo was from this link.
• Click here to find the webpage with the smiling gerbil.
• The raspberry-wearing turtle pic was from here.
• The robo dwarf hamsters were from here. (Warning, it's in a different language!)

I think that's everything. If I missed something, make sure to tell me in the comment box. --Taryn

My to-do list for Japan

Hi readers! My family is planning a trip to Japan, and yesterday, Mommy asked me and Kathy to find a few activities we'd like to do in Kyoto. Here are mine!

• Kyoto Botanical Gardens. According to the website Inside Kyoto, it rivals the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park as one of the best parks in all of Kyoto. It's a great place for strolling and cherry blossom viewing, if you come at the right time of year.
• The Kimono Design Gallery. JapanTravel claims you can lose yourself in the variety of gorgeous, colorful kimono designs. You can also make your own kimono print!
• The Crocheted Playground. Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam spent three years crocheting this awesome playground out of colorful yarn. I wonder how much it took?

Image from here

• I would love to eat some Kyotan (if that's a word) pickles. JapanTravel says "the history of Kyoto pickles is the history of Kyoto cuisine itself". There are forty-one varieties of the pickles. Some of the most famous types include Seigoin turnip and Katsura gourd, but the kind I really want to try are the bamboo shoots.

I cannot wait to go to Japan! --Taryn 

Cuddles, the programming cat

Hi readers! So, in addition to being a therapy cat, my sweet kitty Cuddles also wants to be a programming cat!

Sorry about the pic quality. It's hard to take a snapshot of
a cat in front of a computer screen!

He does this EVERY TIME I work on a program, which gets in the way quite a bit. This cat...

The beach!

Hi readers! I just got back from the beach yesterday. It was AWESOME. My family and I spent three nights in a lovely hotel with a great view of the sunset. On the first day, we went to:

The ring game, where you try to throw a
metal ring on a hook.

• A "beach barbecue". It's not actually on the beach, but you can go without a shirt and shoes and it's no problem. They also had delicious pulled pork sandwiches, crispy chicken chunks, yummy corn nuggets, and scrumptious deep-fried green beans (!!!!). And tangy lemonade. And orange soda, and...you get it, right? 

Our sodas, and an advice-giving napkin box

• The beach, of course! I tried boogie-boarding, and went out into the waves a bit, which was awesome because you can sort of jump over the waves that are about to break but hardly ever crash onto you. Maybe this description doesn't do it justice. The amazingness of the experience is hard to express.

• A place with flavorful homemade ice cream. I decided on Almond Joy, which had almonds, chocolate, and coconut instead of Almond Joy pieces. It was still good, though! Kathy got a sugar cone heaped with vanilla butterscotch ice cream and covered with sprinkles. Mommy ate an ice cream that looked like regular old chocolate, but it also had quite a bit of chili powder added! Daddy tried "Absolutely Nuts", which was caramel ice cream with, well, lots of nuts.

Kathy, in ice cream heaven.

That's all I can remember of the first night, but stay tuned for another post! --Taryn

Programming

Hi readers! I've recently started learning programming with Khan Academy. It's really fun. I can make the computers do whatever I want!

Here are a few of my favorite self-made programs:
House
Fish Tank
Colorful Rotating Squares (my dad actually made this one)
Translucent Bouncy Balls
Number Analyzer 
Color-changing Raindrops

When I use my apps, I've actually started thinking about how the makers created it. Like with a baking app, I'm thinking, "Oh, there's an array* of tiles here, and when you tap the bottle of vanilla, it's drawn multiple times over and over to follow your finger".

Programming is AWESOME! I hope you try learning it. --Taryn






















*An array is an ordered list.

Cuddles the therapy cat

Hi readers! Mommy is training our fluffiest, most attention-loving cat, Cuddles, to be a therapy cat. A therapy cat is a cat that gets taken to hospitals or senior living centers so the people there get to pet a cat.

In order to be a therapy animal, your pet must: 

• not be too scared of loud noises
• be neatly groomed and have its nails trimmed
• be willing to let people other than the handler pet it
• react calmly (no hissing or spitting) to light ear tugs, gentle tail tugs, etc.

Anyway, as part of training, Mommy has to get Cuddles used to wearing a harness and being walked on a leash. So we take him outside, and walk him up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. He really likes it--in fact, as I write this he's staring out the window, meowing!

I got some pics:

Starting the walk

What's this?

I'm just going to eat it. Yum...

Cuddles' point of view

No, I'm staying here. You can't make me move!

You made me move.

I hope you liked the Cuddles pics! --Taryn

Happy birthday, Taryn's Travels!

It's been a year (well, a year and a day), since I started this blog! Wait, a year? Really? Time goes by so fast! Hmm. At this rate, I'll be twelve in no time. (Yay!)

Oops, getting off track. Click here to read my very first post. Wow...a year already...

My Minecraft ice castle

Hi readers! A few months ago, I built an ice castle, modeled after the one in Frozen. I emailed several photos of the castle to Miss Dawn, and upon her request, I'm writing this post about it. Well, actually, I'm just putting some pictures up...you know what I mean, right? 

The front view of the castle

When you walk inside

The snowflake design in the upper floor

The view from the balcony

If you're wondering why the ice doesn't melt, it's because my castle is made of packed ice, not regular ice. Packed ice won't melt when exposed to light, and it still has the same slippery effect as normal ice! 

I hope you enjoyed the tour! --Taryn