Hey Shorty, It's your Birthday

I had to wait to get some pics and belated gifts before I could write this post.

I was at girls camp @ Camp Ritchie AGAIN for my birthday so there, the whole camp sang to me in the morning and I got to see them all do the chicken dance for me. Lol. That was funny to see. In the evening they sang to me again...

(Steve Millett - head cook - leading everyone in singing to me at dinner)

The cooks gave me a cake! Thanx to Mari Anguay for the pictures...

Don't worry, I shared cake with many people! And it was Friday night so that meant the bishopric members were there and we all had to sit according to wards...



Linda, Laura , Me & Mari! enjoying pizza and soda for dinner...as well as my cake

Also for my birthday I got...

- gift card from my parents to Target!

- cards from my relatives

- sweet bird necklace, cherry jam, B&BW lotion and a cherry chocolate bar from Kokob



- Paul & Rene & Joey got me an Ocean Blue shirt & gift card!!!! One of my favorite places to eat in Arizona. It is frozen yogurt and there are all kinds of toppings you can put on from fresh fruit to candy to crushed candy bars and cereal. If you come to visit, I will take you there!




Tony got me an iPod Touch! (well I paid half but it was still a great deal for me!) It is so so cool and I am finding cool apps for it (free ones!) and I figured out how to put my music on without deleting all the music that came on it from the previous owner. It has external speakers because it is a 2nd gen (8 gig) and I am really liking that feature too. If only I could get my bluetooth on it to work! I'd love to sync it with my phone and send my phone pics to the ipod for quick uploading to the internet.



My friends Hillary & Ben got me a gift card to eat and you can go to 4 different places! Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 32. I have never heard of the last 2 so if they are in Arizona I will have to check them out maybe! I'm so excited to use this card!



Blake & Bonnie got me snacks and a cool mini slinky and everyone signed a sweet card for me, "Happy Bird-Day" Hooray that everyone knows I'm a crazy bird lover! lol



Got together with a bunch of friends to eat on a Wednesday night at Rumbi Island Grill, that was great! The food there was so good and my "half size" (below) was SO MUCH I took the rest home for lunch and dinner the next day.

Jeremy , my good friend in Oregon, airbrushed my motorcycle helmet for me! He did an amazing job. I'm really happy with how it turned out. So, if anyone needs anything airbrushed or a bumper painted in the Portland area, Jeremy is your man!



All in all it was a great 27th birthday. Stinks to be that age-number but what can you do except score some awesome gifts! Thanks family & friends!

Summer Swimming

Arizona in the summer has lots of YSA pool parties, the neighborhood I live in has a pool, but my favorite place to go swimming is at my cousin Paul's house with his wife Rene and her son Joey! Here are some pics we took testing out my underwater camera a couple weeks ago...

In case any of you are wondering what kind of camera I used to take these pictures, it is an Olympus Stylus 850 SW 8.0 mgp It is shock proof and waterproof. Can go 10 ft underwater, be dropped on the ground from up to 5ft and survive in 14* F temps. Its a great camera!

Goodbye Is Not Forever

Had fun hanging out with Laura & Jeffrey one last time after getting back from camp on Saturday. Got to go to the Woodland 2nd ward for sacrament mtg on Sunday and hang out for a few hours before I started my drive back to Arizona. I had planned to leave around 11 but it was more around 2pm. These are some pics taken with Laura and Jeffrey <-- the last time I will see him for about 2 years as he leaves August 6 to serve a mission for our church in Durban, South Africa! He is way excited to go and I am very excited for him! He will have some amazing experiences over there I am sure.

Met up with Kokob in Tracy and she gave me her birthday present which I loved! (chocolate cherry bar, bird necklace, lotion & cherry jam/jelly!) Grabbed a cup of ice and a Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino and I was on my way. The drive was alright. I ended up on the 99 instead of i-5 but its okay. The traffic wasnt too bad and I talked to friends the whole way pretty much. Thanks to Tony, Laura, Kokob, Brennen, Rusty, Ashley and Matthew for helping me stay awake! I made it to Mesa a little after 3am and was in to work before 9am.

Adventures on the way home:

- Ghetto ghetto gas station in Victorville and this grandma came over to me when I was pulling up to a pump, crying because she had no money for gas to get to Palmdale and her son and grandson were with her so after I got gas I went in and put $10 on her pump for her. Hope it wasnt a scamish scam...

- 3 CHP (CA Highway Patrol) passed me so fast a bit after leaving Victorville and there was an accident on the left side of the road and on the right side by me a bunch of officers had cuffed a guy in the grass and were pulling him to his feet

- headed more into Phoenix, maybe 2-3 hours away and the guy in front of me was drifting all over his lane and acting real weird so I called 911 and they sent a car out to follow the guy. I ended up passing him eventually, then I passed the cop car hiding out and I dont know what happened after that.

All in all an exciting drive home & I'm glad not to have to make it again til December!

It's The Middle That Counts

CAMP RITCHIE 2009 - ITS THE MIDDLE THAT COUNTS

After some confusion and hassle, I got to ride up with Linda , Laura and a few girls in the Woodland 2nd ward up to Camp Ritchie early Monday morning on July 6. Scored a bed up in the nurses cabin again and had an outlet right by my bed and a working sink! Could camping get any better?! I'm so glad they let me stay in the nurses cabin because rappelling staff were supposed to be in tents but I played the "I'm only going to see my sister for a week!" card so they let me stay. Phew.



SO EXCITED that Laura was back from her mission and we could both be at camp together again!

I've really missed this view. Now I was back for one whole week to enjoy it every day!

The second level made stew and cobbler in dutch ovens after learning about how to build different kinds of fires. They had to start a fire with a flint & steel. Eventually all 3 groups got it! The stew that they made was sooo delicious I didnt even eat lunch up in the lodge.

Posing with Linda for a pic after the camp picture which happened Tuesday afternoon I believe



I'm not a morning person. And neither was Pandy! Lol. She got to sleep in while I, being on rappelling staff, had to be up and out at 5:45am every day except Friday (which everything was an hour later that day) .

Left hand side picture is the rappelling staff belaying girls down the rock durning the early morning rappelling. I worked with Sheila (course master, purple sweatshirt), Matt (blue sweatshirt) , his student Jessica (pink) and Bro May (khaki hat) as well as a couple other people who were on staff.



Pandy came to camp with me and tried not to get into too much trouble. For the most part she did well, except when she got onto Laura's bed and tried to hide some water balloons.



The weather was AMAZING. 80's in the day and 50's at night. It was perfect. I wore pants every day except Monday and then one evening I got hot from running around so I wore some shorts. Other than that I was almost cold. Especially at night. Brrr! It was a great change from the hot hot Arizona heat though.



Awesome stake presidency skit one evening with the help of Steve the cook and Bro Haley, the camp nurse. They did a spin-off of "The Princess Bride"



Lodge in the evening. Trash had a certain place to go. Everything was usually neat an organized.





Rappelling staff made a boat for the boat race on Friday down at the lake. It had to be a cardboard boat and we got 1-1/2 rolls of duct tape to use. Other supplies we used for out boat was wood, styrofoam and plastic milk jugs & plastic bags. Couldnt wait til Friday to see if our boat would sink or float!



Thursday was the first aid hike. Laura was injured while running through camp down by the rappelling wall in flip flops! I was the "screamer" and I was supposed to be in shock.



All the injuries and their "screamers"



Hanging out at the lake on Friday for the beach-swim party!



Looks like our boat floats!! Sheila did a great job paddling the lake.



Some random pics...me by the rappelling stuff on Saturday morning and then the rope bridge from the Indiana Jones trail on Friday evening



Saturday morning, water staff gave out awards for the boats that we had made and "raced" on Friday. We got a tiny canoe and a spyglass!



Me with friends! Jazmin, Lacey and Katie!



Headed out Saturday morning. Loaded up Linda's van so it was packed! Took Sis Morgan so it was just the 4 riding together. Stopped at In N Out in Placerville, as did almost every other vehicle coming out of camp! LOL. Got home in the afternoon and took a shower and relaxed for awhile. I'm so glad I got to go to Girls Camp again this year & help with rappelling staff. Who knows when I'll be able to go again!