The Great Outdoors
Alas, I am home from my long awaited journey into the deep wilderness. It was a great adventure. I will retell the story in half detail. :o) It started around 9am when Mr.Schmidt picked me up. We drove to somewhere near Kirkwood and went to the ranger station to reserve our campsite. There were only three sites at the place where Steve wanted to take us, so we wanted to be sure to get one. We did! And we got the best one too. Yay! After that, we wandered around Woods Lake for a while. It was cool because I would say, "Hey Steve, wanna climb to the top of those rocks?" And he'd be like, "Yeah, lets go." We did that about 3 times, and the last time was this insane rock climb. I wouldn't admit it for a while, but I was a little scared. I'm glad we got to the top though because the view was amazing! There were even a couple of marmots at the top. Getting down was tough but we made it. After that, we were met by Lori and Stephanie and proceeded to head to the campsite. 2 1/2 miles later we were there. We set up camp and headed to bed a while after. But not before I spilled our water for dinner 3 times! Ghetto. The tent situation the first night was: Lori and Steph in one, Steve in one, and me in one. Thankfully, there weren't any bears or else I would have been knocking on someone's tent door in the middle of the night. I was the first to wake up on Saturday morning, so I went and pumped some water and then decided that it wasn't very fun to be the only one up, so I went and cheerfully awoke Stephanie and Lori. I opened their tent only to find a perfect spot for me to sleep in the next night. We all got up and ate breakfast and waited for our dear friend Greg to meet us so we could begin our wild journey to the top of Round Top. When Greg came, we hung out for a bit and then started off on our wild hike. There was a trail leading up to the foot of the mountain, but after that we were on our own. I embraced the pioneer spirit, prayed to God that I wouldn't die, and climbed the summit with my 3 friends.
When we got to the top, I was awestruck. No matter how many times I look at creation, I always seem to look at it in the same light, like I've never seen something so beautiful before in my life. We spent some time just hanging out at the top, and then decided we had better make the trek back to camp. What a journey that was! I decided that I wanted to play in the snow that was around the mountain and I clumsily slipped on the ice. haha. Then I made a snow angel. Come on, who gets to make a snow angel in August? :o) We finally made it back to our campsite and got our swimming attire on. Seeing as it was a warm day, we were all a bit anxious to jump in the lake after a long hike. But, silly us, we didn't really take into account that the lake was simply melted snow! Basically ice water. Lori braved the cold first, then Steve, then Greg, and finally Stephanie. I sat there contemplating whether I should go in or not. What finally convinced me to go in was the fact that I had to go pee, and I didn't want to do it in the back of a rock, oh and Stephanie splashing me helped too. After our "polar bear swim", we hung out and played "I've Never". That was quite interesting. You learn a lot about people when you play that game, there were definitely many laughs during that game. When the sun set, we all headed over to this field and watched it. Amazing. Then, we went back to camp and lounged some more. I saw the craziest shooting star ever, Greg witnessed it too. It just kind of stayed in one place and kept dimming. It was weird, but cool. So, we finally went to bed (I slept in Steph and Lori's tent this time) and slept restlessly because of the wind. But, we did sleep and woke up the next morning, packed our stuff and hiked out. Oh, and then got yummy pizza. And that was my weekend. It not only met, but surpassed my expectations. It awakened my heart once more to close I feel to God in creation, and to the fact that there's no other place where I feel more free than in the outdoors. It sounds so cheesy, but I'm not kidding. I think I'll change my major to hunting and gathering :o)

Crystal and I right before I left on a plane for LA. 

Rose and Korah 

The beautiful chocolate fountain. 

Me being attacked by a shark! 

Reuben, Austen and I screaming in the tunnell 

Cherylyn and I at Neena's wedding 

Finally!!
I am finally going backpacking this weekend. It is going to be awesome to be out in creation. I can't wait. So, I'm 22 now. :o) Wow, I'm old. Just kidding. Let's see, I had a good time in the 805 last week, although I was there for a week, it seemed like a short trip. I'm sorry if I didn't get to visit all of you, :o(. Some exciting things I got for my b-day: obviously the chocolate fountain, money, sheep herder's bread (my fav), Garden State, the book Don't Waste Your Life, and a cool candle, everthing else was cool too. :o) Well, I'm pretty tired. I'll try to write a real post someday. Until then, peace out!

Home Sweet Home
I'm sitting here at home in Santa Maria, listening to Mr.Hough laugh at the Andy Griffith show. It's pretty funny. Something totally amazing happened tome too, Mrs. Hough got me a chocolate fountain for my birthday. It is so cool! I've had a pretty exciting time so far. I'll write more about it when I get back to Sac, but it's nice just to be here and relax.

Pool Party!
Tonight was the most awesome pool party I have ever been to. The people's house we went to was soooo nice, and their pool had a waterfall in it! The floor in the pool was even sand! I couldn't even believe it. I didn't have enough guts to jump off the waterfall, but I did go under it and sit on a ledge. Man, I had a lot of fun tonight. 1 more day until I get on a plane! I am soooooooooooooo excited! You know what else I'm excited about? School. My goal this semester is to pass chemistry and make at least 3 new friends. I also want to have lunch at school more often.

Crystal feeding me a burger while I'm driving. 

Thug Life
Yup, that's what I'm living right now. I got home tonight and was informed of something kinda scary. Crystal and Ben were eating dinner tonight and what do they see? A bunch of guys in white shirts and pants, all of the sudden, one of them pulls out a gun and shoots it. Then this SUV drives away and they shoot at it too. So, I'll be kind of relieved to be in Santa Maria for a while. I won't have to worry about somebody breaking into my car, or braking into my house, or shooting me. :o) Plus, I get to go on a plane and I am way excited about that. Man, I have to wake up at 4am tomorrow, not exciting. Ok, well, I don't think I have anything else to say. I'll leave you on this note, I still have 2 1/2 years of school left. Yippie!

Crystal and I getting ready for bed 

Steph and I hanging out on the new futon 

No Lounge is complete without Kramer 

The beatiful mini fridge where we keep the diet sodas, yummy. 

Some more seating 

Our huge TV and awesome lava lamp 

Our free futon (thanks Steph) yay! 

The door into "The Lounge"