Paper

Jessica Carden

Mrs Anthony

Eng101-111

12, February 2014

    

    Family Values
 

        I strongly believe in my family’s values. Our traditions bring us close together especially at holidays and vacations. I love the anticipation of our gatherings for other events like movie nights, nature center activities, zoo visits and other traditional events. This feeling of belonging makes me feel loved.  My respect for everyone including family, friends, teachers, elders and peers has been instilled in me for as long as I can remember. Responsibility is taken for granted in my family because it is ingrained in our being. Our family values include traditions, belonging, love, and respect, but let’s evaluate my family traditions first.

        My first Christmas that I remember is an example of one of our great family traditions. I woke up to a cold winter morning; there was a winter wonderland outside my grandma and grandpa's house. The snow was coming down making it a beautiful day. I ran out of my bedroom straight to my grandma saying, "Snow!". I had never seen snow before, and I had to go outside to see it. But I had to wait until I ate breakfast. My grandpa was making his famous flip pancakes. He was a hoot. The pancakes were being thrown up in the air.  After all my family members consumed the mouth-watering pancakes; then it was time for presents. My Aunt Lissa brought me a giant stand, but there was something on top of it. It was rapped in red and green paper with a big bow on top of it.  I ripped the paper and bow off as fast as I could; under that paper was a surprise. It was a saddle! I jumped up onto the saddle and started acting like I was riding a horse. Little did I know that was only half the presents I was going to receive. Then my aunt took me outside to my grandpa's barn, and I had to walk in my aunt's footprints because the snow was so tall. When we got around the corner, there was a majestic horse named Black Beauty. Holidays are always great with my family, but so are vacations.

      Trail riding has become one of my favorite summer vacation activity traditions. The day was a brilliant sunny day. The wind was a light breeze; we were driving to Wilson Creek Battlefield. The horses were all loaded up in the trailer. We had brought three of our horses. Pumpkin was a short, white and brown appaloosa horse, but his hair looked like a Mohawk. Maggie was a strawberry roan that we like to call "short fat girl." Spot was a white and brown spotted paint. This was my first trail ride! I am so excited that I was saddling Spot as fast as I could. Than I did Maggie for my aunt while she did my sister's horse Pumpkin. Then everything was ready and we were off and into the magical woods. You can sometimes barley see the sun peek out through the trees. The woods were amazing with the birds and buzzing bugs interacting. The next thing I knew it was over and we had to go back to reality. I didn't want to, but we had to. This was a most wonderful day, but more adventures were to come. The trail riding tradition is just one thing in the long line of traditions that also includes the movies that the whole family enjoys.  

      Another tradition in our family is book reading followed by watching the movie. The books we have read lately are the Hunger Games, Twilight, Mortal Instrument and Divergent series. The days go by slow when we are wait for the night to come to see these amazing book movies. We have lots of fun at these show. The school times help the day go by fast. We all meet up at my grandma's house to have supper. We make cupcakes for dessert with fun symbols on top of the cupcake for the book we are about to see.  It is a blast! When we are eating, we watch the movie that came before the movie we are about to see. We arrive at the theater early before the movie starts and we talk about what we like in the book and what we hope to see in the movie. Our excitement is rising by the minute. The crowd in the theater is filling up the seats, and everyone is waiting for the lights to dim. The list of family members grabbing their rows of seats includes: aunts, cousins, sisters, grandma, and friends. When all the commercials are over, the movie starts. As the title pops up on the screen, people are hooping and cheering at the title. When the hot actor appears, the screaming begins. Then after the movie is over and the crowd is tired from waiting till midnight to see the movie we shuffle to our cars and head for bed because work and school are today. On the car ride home the excitement continues as we talk about what we liked and what we wished they would change. This excitement is greater because of our family enjoying the book reading and movie watching together as a tradition.

 

   When you think about respect, what comes to mind in your head? I will tell you what respect means to me. It means a lot to me and every one should have it, because  without respect we wouldn't have trust. I respect everyone I meet; I learned that at an early age like everyone else. The first time we learn that is with our parent. They know what is best for us, so we don't get into trouble. I show them that I respect them  by doing what they want me to do like helping with the chores around the house. It's not a big thing to do; it is an easy to do. It is also like telling my family that  I love them.   Another way to  show this respect is with my teacher. If a teacher tells me to do something a different way, I do not contradict her by saying "No, I'll do it my way or the highway". It is disrespectful and the teacher  has feeling too, and they are just trying to help me. I believe in always being respectful to other and think about how I want to be treated.

   From what I have shown you about tradition and respect, I hope will  enlighten you. Traditions are in every family and it is especially important in mine as you can see. I hope it has made you want to make new ones in your family and reflect on the ones you already have in your family.  Respect is also important for everyone one way or another. It can improve your relations with family, teachers and friends. My life is better because of my family values especially our traditions and respect.