Tuesday, May 11, 2010

~ Family Camping trip~

I recently did a post about our annual track meet that we had this last Friday. We also had our first camping trip of the year with all of dads family, so they could see him before he headed to New York for about 18 to 22 months.  We decided to try a "new" camp ground in Burlington Colorado. It was pretty much about the same distance for all of us ( about 3 hours or so). We didn't get away from the house tell around 4:30..5ish so we got to the lake around 9:00 or so Kansas time. My grandparents were already there, and my Aunt Donna, and Uncle Mike and 2 cousins got there around midnight or so. My other Aunt and 4 cousins didn't come in tell morning. Since it's a little early in the year for camping, it was a little chilly. Due to that, we didn't get to do any of your normal camping stuff ( fishing. swimming, boating, tubing etc) but we still had a lot of fun and just enjoyed being together. We did some hiking, but mostly just visited and ate...ate some more, did I mention we ate? Hee Hee. It's the first time we've all got to be together since Christmas and will be the last time tell at least this next Christmas...if we're lucky. So it was somewhat of a bitter/sweet weekend. Bright side to camping this early in the year..NO BUGS!!! LOL It did end up getting pretty warm Saturday afternoon and Sunday, which was very nice. My 2 aunts, my mom and my youngest cousin Jennifer, and my self all decided to go on a walk. No big deal right?....WRONG!! My cousin ( who had already taken a walk with the other cousins) talked us into going going across this field type thing.....it was at one point part of the lake...there are every 2 different boat ramps at either ends to prove it....wont get you very far now..anyway...it was fulll of stickers and tons of probably snake holes and who knows what else....not my kind of fun. We finally made it across and all told Jennifer she was no longer in charge LOL. We decide to take another way and figure it has to be eventually wind back to the camp site...it did....about 2 miles or so later we were finally back. As Jennifer put it...I've had my exercise for the year! LOL. It gave us something to do though.

For the most part it was a very enjoyable weekend. Anytime I get to be with Family is a lot of fun....most of the time..;o) We're all looking forward to hopefully camping several more times before the summer is over.

However this will be the last time Michael gets to join us for at least a year, more then likely close to 2 years.

We all left the campground Sunday afternoon around 2:30 or so. Long story short, the Suburban had been in St John since the Sunday before, getting painted by a friend. Me and mom were planning on going to get it yesterday ( Monday) but Michael decided about 30 minutes before we left Burlington, that he wanted to go get it Sunday night so he would have all day Monday to work on it, OK..understandable....except we were all exhausted and none of us felt like driving another 2 hours on top of the already 3-4 we had ahead of us. Dad and Michael decided that Him and I should go get it. We got home around 7:00. Long enough to go the restroom..get a drink and whatever else we needed to do real quick, then we jumped in his pickup and headed for St John. We got to St John around 10, picked up the suburban and headed right back. Michael didn't want to stay the night, and dad wouldn't let me drive back on my own the next day. So we made the quickest trip I think I've ever done and got home around 1 or so. I was exhausted. Luckily we had the day off so I was able to sleep in!

These last few days...weeks have just been a total whirlwind! Trying to get everything done, and spend time with Michael before he leaves. We're all dreading this coming goodbye and if I could stop time..believe me I would. He is really looking forward to it, and cant wait to see what the future holds. 

Here are a few pictures of our Camping trip!



HPHE annual Track Meet!

This last Friday we had our annual track meet. It's something I usually always look forward too and enjoy every minute of it.I'm a very active person and enjoy the competitiveness of it. We practiced for about a month, then we had actual track meet.  We had everything weather wise from, bright and sunny to, sunny and WINDY to, cool to, cool and windy to, rainy, cold and windy! It seem when track is in the picture there is NO happy medium. This was no exception. We practiced Thursday before the track meet and it was pretty gorgeous weather, yes it was HOT but there was no wind and when you consider what it could of been, it wasn't bad. I even got a little sunburned on my face. You know the saying that goes, if you don't like the weather in Kansas wait 5 minutes it'll change...we'll it came true, only it was in about a 12 to 24 hour period instead of 5 minutes. 

We woke up Friday morning to a VERY windy VERY cold Friday morning. It was about 30 degree's outside when we got to the track. We all were ice cubes after about 30 minutes of being out there. I was wearing a sweat shirt and a heavy fleece coat./jacket type thing and I was COLD!!!!!!! Both Jamie and Jami, along with Grandpa ( Jami's dad) was able to come watch most, if not all of her events before heading to work. Ryann was done by 11 with all 4 of her events and so Grandpa took her home after her last one was done. She did the 100 meter dash, the 50 meter dash, long jump and, soccer kick. She placed 4th in the hundred meter dash. We're not sure if she placed in anything else yet. They didn't do the best job announcing things over the loud speaker like they normally do.She did really good on all her events and it was a blast to get to watch her. 

I only did 3 events this year. I did the Long Jump, the relay and then the medley relay.  My Long Jump was right before lunch, then I had nothing tell around 1:30 or so. I was running right into the wind for my long jump so I didn't place in my long jump. The wind really interfered with a lot of the events and nobody did that great, considering what they normally do. Our relay went pretty good.Not sure if we placed or not, but it was fun. Then we did our medley. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's a 4 person relay. The first 2 people each run a 200 meter. the 3rd person runs a 4 hundred mete, then the 4th person runs a 800 meter. I did ran the 2nd 200 meter. We didn't place, but we were the only girl team and that was the last race of the day, and a lot of us had already ran several races. We had fun, and in my opinion that's what counts. There was about 250 kids registered, and I'd say pretty much everybody showed up. 

Hopefully next year will be MUCH warmer. Like I said, seems like there is NEVER a happy medium, however, I'll take hot over cold any day. 
 Everyone had fun, considering the weather and I'd call it another successful year. 

We're all looking forward to next year. 

Here are a few pictures of this years track meet. 
                                              

Monday, May 3, 2010

This past weekend-- From Bible Bowl to a quick trip to St John/Stafford.

This last weekend was one of the most craziest, busiest, tiring, stressful and greatest weekends in a while.
We had our monthly Bible Bowl tournaments for this year. We left Friday afternoon around 3 and got to Denver about 10. So not horrible, but bad enough. Me, Hannah, Heidi, Tillie, and Melody ended up getting to stay at the same host home which was fun. It was our coach's daughters house which was really cool. I played B team this month in Division 1. It was Hannah, Tillie, Eric and my self. This was the first month we got Eric on our team and there is never a dull moment with him on your team. He is the most amazing kid ever!. We placed 4th, which I didn't think was too bad. I was pretty pleased. Considering its the whole years material worth, so about 5 books worth. I hadn't studied like I should, so we only got 5th in top brain average, but I was just happy we placed. We were all pretty pleased. Helped us to see what we needed to work on for Nationals and college tournaments, for those who are going. Since it was the senior month, they do all sorts of fun things throughout the day, like a seniors verses sponsors game. That is always very entertaining to watch and of course the seniors won..;o). They also do seniors questions, which is where 2 of the rounds are not timed and all of the lead in questions are about the seniors. That is always a lot of fun, and very entertaining. It's especially hilarious when your playing the seniors that the Q happens to be about ;o) LOL. Then during awards they have all the seniors come up front and the coach of the sponsor reads them a blessing, lets just say there isn't a dry eye in the room by the time they're done. It's neat to see how close the coach is to "their kids" and just give them that few minutes to say thanks and good luck or whatever.
This is probably the hardest, yet best tournament out of all of them. We left the church around 5 Kansas time. We stopped in Limon and ate supper, we did pizza hut this time, which is always a favorite for all of us. We got back to Garden around midnight or so. By the time we got the trailer unloaded, coolers unpacked and all that  fun stuff done, it was probably about 1 when we finally got home, closer to 1:30 by the time I got to bed. It had been an extremely long weekend already and I was exhausted. I had to be up by 5:30 at the very latest that next morning, or in this case that morning LOL.

Michael was to speak at both St John and Stafford Sunday morning. He was speaking in Stafford in the morning, and we ate lunch with them real quick and enjoyed fellowship with them before we had to rush over the St John and give the same speech. I do admit my stress level for St John was pretty high but not as bad I expected it to be. Though I dreaded seeing everyone, it wasn't as bad I thought it would be. We got to see Ami afterward. It was great to see her again and only made it harder to leave.  I must admit though that it was complete torture to be right there in Stafford and not get to see my " other" family :( it about killed me.
We got home around 6 or so. I was literally beyond the exhaustion mark. I haven't been that tired in a really long time LOL. 4 hours of sleep was just not cutting it LOL.

It was a very long weekend but it was also a very fun, great weekend.   What did you do this weekend??