Flaming Gorge

This past week I went on my very last official week long scout camp. So last week I pretty much spent my entire week with a bunch of crazy twelve year old scouts, it was... interesting. Actually it was really pretty fun, we spent a ton of time on the boat attempting to learn how to wakeboard, and yes it was attempting, at least for me. I tried every day and on the last day I could've sworn I was in the water for an hour doing successive face plants. I did get out of the water quite a few times but yeah, I stayed up for maybe... 5 seconds each time, so I have learned I am officially not a wakeboarder! :) The other majorly eventful occurrence was our "wilderness survival" night. We were sent out into the "wilderness," actually just an abandoned campground, to stay the night, with nothing but a rather small survival kit. And lady luck was with us that night, it just happened to be the one night of our entire stay that it rained... Unfortunately we had no real means to make a shelter. We weren't allowed to cut branches or anything like that, and there wasn't any loose dead wood around, so we huddled up in our ponchos and emergency blankets for what turned out to be a really long night. We spent close to 7 or 8 hours beneath oak scrub with the rain pouring down on us. I did manage to get around three hours of restless sleep on the cold hard dirt. It was kind of a miserable experience what with being wet, and cold, and wet, but I will admit it is kind of cool to be able to say that I did it. That trip I also got really tan :) I only missed one day of running, and I had a pretty good time hanging out on the boat and playing in the water. If only, if only, those twelve year olds hadn't been there... :)

Signs

So I went mountain biking yesterday with Tanner and Brad. It was the first time I'd really ever done anything like it. It was way fun and way intense! I hope I can do it again sometime soon! I took some quick pictures with my camera phone while I was waiting to pick Brad and Tanner up from their run down the mountain (we took turns driving so we wouldn't have to climb back up the mountain and could just enjoy riding down). They're just some signs that were around where I was parked.

Waterfall

Ripples

Lake Reflections

Ballman

Dripping

Mountain Clouds

Playing

Trees and Pond

Hiding

Mountain

DesNews Jokes

Not to get all political or anything, but these were just too funny to pass up. These are from the DesNews by Mark Russell.

• Pro-Obama: "His Cairo Speech hit all the right notes for a new beginning." Anti-Obama: "He really went there to open up a GM showroom."
• Pro-Obama: "His Cairo speech marked the birth of a lasting peace in the Middle East." Anti-Obama: "Where's the beef? Where are the details? You call that a speech? It's all rhetoric. This is a recording."
• Pro-Obama: "After his speech he walked across the Nile River to visit the pyramids." Anti-Obama: "That's because he was born nearby"
• Pro-Obama: "He maketh the lion lie down with the lamb." Anti-Obama: "But every day they will need a fresh lamb."
  

"Tilt Shift"

Fire!

Summer

School's out.
Text books are put away and novels pulled off of dusty shelves as readers stretch out on lawn chairs to immerse themselves in a world of fantasy.
The sun begins to peek out from behind summer clouds and children run free feeling their skin begin to brown underneath the sun's shining gaze.
Skiis are placed in the garage and hiking boots removed as nature lovers turn their gaze to the ever greening mountain side, imagining the cool shade beneath the trees on a mountain trail.
The tsk tsk tsk of sprinklers fills the air mingled with the laughter of children as they run through the jetting streams of water, filled with joy, simplicity, and peace.
Campers begin to air out their musty unused tents in preparation for the adventures only they can see in their mind's eye.
Bees are heard buzzing through the air searching for newly opened flowers in order to create the honey that feeds their young.
It's a time of beauty, simplicity, peace, and serenity as sighs of contentment are heard and the lines of stress in the faces of students are replaced by the refreshing freckles of sun browned skin.
Summer.

Review of the school year

School has finally ended and summer has begun. This school year was especially interesting for me due to my decision to quit the IB program. This meant not having many classes with a lot of the friends that I've had for many years, however, it did give me a lot of new opportunities to meet new friends that I would never have met before had I not decided to take AP classes rather than do the IB program. I've made some really good friendships that I hope can last through the rest of high school and beyond. It really struck me last night how many good friendships I have, and how much each of them have helped me in various ways. I just hope that I can keep in touch with everyone over the summer and hopefully strengthen those friendships, and maybe make new ones as well. So there's my little sentimental schpeel for the year, and now I'll do a quick overview of the entire year :).
The year began essentially with Cross Country in June. We started training and running more miles than I'd ever run in my life. We were able to come together as a true team as we all struggled to become the best we could be and hopefully have a shot at competing for the region and state titles. Although we didn't get either title we were able to put up a pretty good fight, and we finished fourth at state next to Alta, American Fork, and Davis (both Alta and American Fork are going to be in our region next year, 3 of the top 4 in state!) We became an even closer team when we all went to Footlocker (the race in California) that December. After that we started indoor track and such, always running and trying to improve, and the homework then began to pile on as we got ready to enter the second semester and the dreaded third quarter! Track began and we got ready to hopefully compete for another region title. Again we fell just a little short, we finished third at region by only 8 points to First, that's really close, only a few spots in a few races. Still it was a good season and we were all able to perform really well. Around the same time stress levels began to rise as AP tests came around the corner, but I made it through them, and I'm just praying I passed them all. Then of course the year began to wind down and now it's the end. Again, the year went by really fast, and next year I'll be a senior and graduating, it seems really surreal. I'm going to miss all the seniors I've gotten to know this year and good luck to them with graduation and life in general. Oh, and I did do other things besides running and school, even if that's all I wrote about, I just can't remember what those things were :)

ECHO Echo echo...