I've Seen What You Can Do

  So I feel like I haven't posted in a long time.
  Maybe it's because I haven't.
  I haven't posted in nine days. That's a bit depressing.
  On the bright side, because of this long absence, I have had several interesting and exciting things happen, which will in turn, make this post interesting and exciting. Hopefully.
  When I last left you, I was headed to Harrisburg for a softball tournament. Let me tell you, it was hot. And I'm not talking tall, tan, and handsome hot. I'm talking temperature hot. What is my proof? Observe:

  See? 110 degrees. Maybe some of you live in a warm, southern state. I do not. This weather is ridiculous. Even my friend from Tennessee told me it was maybe 95 that day where he lives. That evening we went in our hotel's outdoor pool. I'm pretty sure the pool was almost the same temperature as the air. Not so refreshing.
  But moving on to a less sweaty subject, we went out for Mexican food that night. The restaurant we went to was very authentic. My brother even said he couldn't understand the hombre who brought out our food. Hopefully, that man did not hear the comment.
  And on a more softball note, Saturday we went undefeated winning all three games! And since it was my dad's birthday, we went out to the Red Lobster for dinner. Although my brother threw a tantrum, it was still a sort of nice and funny night. Sunday came and we won our first two games, even beating the team our 18u Wildcats team had lost to that morning. We made it to the semi-finals, but lost, 7-10, to the team who ended up winning it all. But, this was an 18 & under tournament, and since we're a 16u team with half of our players young enough to play on a 14u team, I think we did quite amazing, huh?

RUMSPRINGAAAA *you had to be there*

  So that's one interesting and exciting thing (well, at least I thought so). The next?

  Thursday started my youth group's three day "missions trip" (I use computer air quotes because in all reality, it wasn't truly a missions trip. More of a summer camp?).

  Sadly, there were only nine kids who came for the whole thing, and seven others who came for some portion of the trip. But half of our group was new kids and it was fun getting to know them and, honestly, though I really miss some people who are either too old or who didn't show up, I'm really enjoying getting to know these newbies. It's hard being one of the "old ones" but it's new and exciting too.

  So continuing on, Thursday morning we went to the local fairgrounds to fix up the fences on the barns. We chipped old paint off of them and then spent the rest of the time painting them. We were there for seven hours. It was a bit monotonous, but I got to talk with some I haven't talked to in a while, and we all had a fun time... even if it was a bit boring.

 ^Our lovely little group^ :]

  I won't spend too much time on that evening, as it would take several hours to get through. In an overview our evening involved riding in a trailer hooked onto a quad to get some firewood, finding a gazillion newts in the woods, Emma keeping "Henry", only to find the next day that he had escaped his little "home", the quad not being able to make it up the hill and having Jesse push us up, Mocha racing us and not realizing we'd turned around, Jesse fail at making dirt pudding, Kaitlyn's interesting billiards technique, and a quick swim/bath in the pool.

  That night we played "Spoons", "Kemps", and "Wolf", which was AMAZING. Then Carly, Casey, and I all had a mini party... some crazy happenings went on. Shadow puppets, attempts at checking things off Carly's bucket list (which fell through, FYI), Casey being an alien... and many other unspeakable things.

 Our ride

 Mocha, beating us

 Edgar the newt

 Jesse pushing us up the hill

 Spoons!

 Making dirt

 That's how Kaitlyn plays pool

 Deer in the headlights!

 Me, Carly, and Casey

Casey being an alien :p

  Ah, but that is only Thursday, my friends.

  Friday we woke up and after several trips between the van and house, we got everything packed and headed to Lake Jean. After an impact session (we were doing The Way of the Master by the way), we were allowed to wander around the beach. We played a short and rather unserious game of volleyball, went swimming, and then went for a hike up the falls path. I've been hiking here many times before, since I was really little, but a few people had never been there before, and it was fun. We stopped at the waterfalls and some people went swimming and played in the falls. It was a lot of fun! Along the way we handed out water bottles to other hikers. Some were rejected, others accepted. We really didn't get very far on the path, but we had fun. We then headed back to relax at the beach some more. It had started off as a pretty dreary day. it was extremely foggy, it even rained lightly every once in a while. It wasn't too terribly warm, but by the middle of the afternoon it was sunny, warm, and pleasant. I swam with little Emma and we had belly-flopping contests (which resulted in sand down the front of my swim suit. Note to self: no belly-flopping in shallow waters). Then we packed up, I attempted to take a shower, but there were only two stalls, being used by my friends of course, so I washed my hair in the sink, and then took thirty seconds to rinse the sand off myself and scrub some soap on. Then we headed home.

  A few people were really exhausted when we got back, so they went to bed. The rest of us were cool and made a fire, made some s'mores, and talked. It was fun hanging out with all the new 7th graders, plus my awesome friend Marissa was able to come that night and hang out with us. She hadn't been there earlier. Eventually everyone except Marissa, Carly, Natalia, and I were the only ones left, so we played a game or two, talked, and eventually decided that we were going to sleep around the campfire, under the stars. This was decided at 4 AM, so there wasn't a whole lot of sleeping involved, but we got some. It was fun.

 Casey made Annie a lovely... head decoration

 So foggy

 Brandon meditating

 It's such a cute mushroom!

 A momma and her babies

Our way of keeping the fire alive

  Saturday involved two more girls coming, one of them being my sister, and hanging out. The girls made breakfast (I made some awesome pancakes), we had an impact session, then we did whatever. We swam, played Scattergories, bocce ball, and that evening had a family picnic with everyone's family and our pastor and his family. He talked on modesty, and did a really spectacular job. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to go super in depth into everything, but he really covered the issue of the heart in it all, and it was great. Some other members of our youth group were able to come which was nice. Then, we went home.

  The end.

  So I hope I didn't bore you too much. There was so much that went on, I don't think I'll ever be able to remember it all, sadly.

  On a completely different note, my sister brought me home an Audrey Hepburn mug from her trip to Cape May. I am ecstatic. I need to try it out!

Cheers♥