Tag Archives: mission viejo

Best Activities for the Holidays

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It’s almost Thanksgiving, which means the holidays are almost here. If you are looking for activities to do over the holidays, here are some of the best ideas for holiday activities this winter.

1) Go to an ice skating rink.

  • There are several ice skating rinks nearby in Orange County, including at the Irvine Spectrum. The Great Park in Irvine has one as well, as well as several others nearby. Many of these rinks have other various activities to do as well.

    2) Make a homemade wreath.

    • Making wreaths is another fun activity for the holidays. To make a wreath, first build a bouquet or bundle of plants. Then, either use a wire frame or a wreath base and attach the bouquet to this. Finally, tie the bundles together and decorate your wreath with flowers,

    3) Go on a holiday lights tour.

    • A great activity for the holidays and a family tradition for me has been to go on a tour of holiday lights around the city. In fact, Mission Viejo has a holiday lighting contest with a guide to the best lighted houses in the city. The guide can be found at this link: https://mvactivities.com/all-mvac-events/home-lighting-contest/.

    4) Go to a local Christmas event.

    • Another activity you can do over the holidays is going to a Christmas event. One of the best local events is located in Newport Beach, where there is a parade of lighted boats. It will be held this year from December 18-22. Orange County also has a winter festival in December at the location of the OC Fair.

    5) Make ornaments to decorate your tree.

    • Another one of my favorite holiday activities is making ornaments. It is great for anyone who is interested in crafts, and there are also a wide variety of ornaments you can make, including felt, beaded, paper mache, and salt dough ornaments, all of which can be made easily at home. You can also decorate your Christmas tree and your house with these homemade ornaments as well.

    6) Bake holiday treats to enjoy.

    • Baking holiday treats is also a good idea for the holidays. Cookies always make a great treat, and some cookies that are great to bake over the holidays are sugar, snickerdoodle, and gingerbread cookies. Another great holiday treat and one of my personal favorites is hot cocoa, which is great to make at home.

    7) Visit some local Christmas attractions.

    • There are many great local Christmas attractions to visit in Southern California. The Descanso Gardens in Pasadena has a lighted walk every Christmas, and there are several other local places with lights as well. Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland have Christmas events as well.

    8) Play holiday games.

    • Playing games can also be a fun thing to do over the holidays. One of my favorite holiday activities is to play board games with family and friends. Another activity that is great to do over the holidays is Secret Santa, where you can exchange gifts with family and friends. These are some of my recommendations for the best activities to do over the holidays, so feel free to try them out this winter.

    Ethan W.

    Mission Viejo Pride Event

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    I recently went to the Mission Viejo Pride event and had a blast! From the delicious food trucks to the live music and crafts, this event was an amazing family friendly event.

    For starters, the decorations and overall environment was so fun and lively! Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves greatly. All the time I was there, I saw people dancing to the music and the lines for the food trucks were always long (but moving extremely fast).

    The various booths that I visited were so cool. There were tons of handouts such as cake samples, dozens of stickers, and animal treats. I got lots of informational pamphlets and even a bag to hold everything. Not only that, but you could make bracelets there too! I also made a super cool tile and got a flier for a drag queen story time which I think sounds awesome.  

    This whole event was such a valuable experience. I loved seeing people feel comfortable and it just felt like somewhere where everyone belonged. It felt great seeing people I knew there and people that I didn’t know, but we had common ties, making the world seem like a bigger and better place. I hope there is another Pride event next year because I enjoyed myself greatly and really recommend going!

    Event Recap: Symphony In The Cities

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    On Saturday, July 27th, the City of Mission Viejo hosted The Symphony in the Cities at Newhart Middle School. I was fortunate enough to volunteer at the symphony, being stationed at the “Instrument Petting Zoo.” I helped teach children how to play a variety of instruments, including violin, viola, trumpet, flute, and a few types of percussion instruments.

    Although it was an extremely hot, the even was really fun. There were horse drawn carriages, bountiful stands and booths for entertainment, and ice water so that everyone stayed hydrated. The entire event was free (excluding ticket costs) and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra also performed at 7 PM.

    All of the volunteer coordinators were super knowledgeable and kind, and they answered any questions we had. It was extraordinarily well-organized, and the kids loved our booth! (At least, they seemed to.)

    Additionally, the Symphony was an incredible opportunity for me to make friends. The volunteers are my booth and I all got super close throughout the course of the extreme heat of our 4-hour shift. We are actually making plans to volunteer at more evets like this already!

    Overall, Mission Viejo’s Symphony in the Cities was a really fun, albeit boiling, event. I enjoyed volunteering and teaching children about one of my passions, and I loved watching the orchestra perform. I ardently recommend this event, and if you didn’t go this year, you should plan to go in 2020. It really is a treat!

    -Arushi S.

    Films of Character: Local Hero

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    The state of being one; oneness. That is the definition of unity and nowhere is it more prominent than in the city of Mission Viejo. From the Teen Voice Blog to the Community of Character Committee, Mission Viejo embodies what it means to unite its citizens. Every month, the Community of Character Committee chooses an important character trait to focus on. This month’s theme was unity, January’s theme was perseverance, and March’s is integrity. For each character, the committee chooses what events to host that encompasses the idea.

    The movie screening this month, Local Hero was about an oil company looking to buyout a coast of land perfect for an oil refinery. The company sent a businessman to represent them and make a bargain with the locals. The townspeople were ecstatic about the idea of so much money at their fingertips when the deal was said and done. What the locals did not understand was that they could’ve been rich but not have anywhere to call home, or they could’ve kept living their lives, just as content as they were before. However, there was a problem when the town found out that Ben, a beach hermit owned the whole beach. No matter how much money the oil company offered him, Ben did not give it up – the beach was his home. In the end, Ben ended up being the hero because he kept the town from their infectious feelings of greed.

    In the film, the townspeople showed unity by trying to bargain as one. While Ben was still a part of the community, he stood his ground and didn’t let a little bit of money change his opinions. So why is unity important? It’s important because we are stronger together, as a whole, as one. Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” In any successful community, it is imperative that the citizens are united.

    -Brooke H.

    Local Hero is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library

    Films of Character: Local Hero

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    Image result for local hero aurora borealisAfter viewing Local Hero, February’s movie that was shown at City Hall, adjacent to the Mission Viejo Library, I realized that even though some movies may have been made many decades before and have a distinct feel, they still remain contemporary and topical to this day. Local Hero is one of these such movies.

    The 1983 movie Local Hero chronicles the journey of a business negotiator, “Mac”, who works for the fantastically rich Knox Oil and Gas headquartered in Houston, Texas. He is sent to a small village in Scotland by the sea by his boss, Mr. Happer, because he suspects that there is a ludicrous amount of oil that could possibly be hidden offshore. His job is to buy the strip of coast, as well as the land four miles inland, which means that the local community would be uprooted.

    The reason why Mac is sent there is because he supposedly has Scottish blood due to his “Scottish” last name, MacIntyre, even though he is actually Hungarian. On his way to the village that is a far cry from the hectic city life that Mac is used to, he teams up with Oldsen, who is actually Scottish. Once they arrive in the quaint village filled with many interesting characters, they are surprised to find that the community is actually secretly willing to sell their houses and relocate, possibly due to the many millions of dollars that Mac is offering.

    But one thing stands in their way: Ben Knox, a loner that lives in a hovel by the sea, has lived there his entire life and refuses to leave, saying that there is no other place in the world where he can make a living, and nobody to take care of the land.

    Things get more complicated as throughout his stay, Mac and Oldsen discover more and more about the area and how beautiful the nature is, begin to fall in love with the local Scottish community, and are soon doubting that buying the land in order to exploit it would be a good idea.

    With a surprising plot twist at the end that reveals who the titular character really is, Local Hero has one of the most genuine and well-paced plots that I’ve ever encountered for a movie in its era.

    With breathtaking cinematography, decent acting, and a surprisingly remarkable plot line, Local Hero shows that you don’t need a fast-paced plot line, famous actors and actresses, out-of-this-world story, or exceptional special effects to be a classic.

    -Michael Z.

    Local Hero is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library

    Apparently, I Can’t Ride a Boat

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    On Saturday, August 12, from 3:30-6pm, my friends and I built a cardboard boat, and attempted to race it across the Sierra Recreation and Fitness Center Pool.

    We were given two large, cardboard boxes, a roll of silver duct tape, and a new X-acto knife (in the package!). We had 60 minutes to mess around and figure out how on earth to get 16-year-old-me across a lap pool against kids a third of my size.

    We decided a canoe shape would stand out aerodynamically and also look cool. We used a red pen to trace the outline of one cardboard box and had great ideas while listening to Hamilton. We made flaps to keep the edges together and coated it in duct tape.

    Soon families began to cart their boats to the pool. Their boats looked very different from ours! We wondered if this was a good or bad thing. We looked back on our hard work and realized in our strategic placing of cardboard and duct tape, we had forgotten to include the other cardboard box! We hastily taped together supporting poles from the other box and hobbled the odd raft to the pool as an employee insisted we’d be disqualified in seconds.

    We waited for our team name, Wrong Direction, to be called, and lined up on the bright poolside. I was the smallest, so I had been nominated to maneuver the raft. I was given a plastic, green shovel to navigate the treacherous water. How I was going to get in, I did not know. My friend etched the boat over the pool’s peak, and when he megaphone blared “GO!” I nervously put one foot in the boat and it instantly collapsed under my weight.

    Laughing, I sunk into the chlorinated water and held onto the soggy, floating cardboard to try and recompose myself. The failure of our creation was magical and hilarious. It took me a while to stop giggling and not-so-gracefully heave myself out of the water. Wrong Direction did not care at all that our hard work and been reduced to mush because creating it and watching me sink (mainly watching me sink) was an as good as a reward as any.

    We had so much fun, and will definitely be staying updated with the Sierra Recreation and Fitness Center’s activities, as I recommend you do as well.

    -Jessica F.