Steens! Tent 4 Hardcore! OPA!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY GOSH!!!  i have to say, steens has been the best experience this summer for me, although the summer rafting trip is a competitor. i learned so much and had so many valuable experiences it was amazing. So....the first day...we really didnt do much, in fact we just set up our tent and ate dinner. Then we tried to memorize everyones names in the tent, 19 names...im already bad at names. i never wanted to admit it, but i never memorized everyones names by the end of the camp.

Second day: Acclimation, this consisted of a series of stair step short runs, 2 min, 3 min, 4 min, and so on. Then on the 8 min runs, we had to start collecting dead sage brush and aspen and rocks, it was fun! then we learned how to do KP or kitchen duty and clean the porter potties (which was gross....)

Third Day: The BIG day! this consisted of a marathon distance hike/run through a very deep canyon. So it began, we were told that we were not allowed to talk...no talking...for 26 plus miles!!!! it actually wasnt that bad. Anyways, the first 14 miles or so we just hiked, and crossed a couple of streams, then we had our lunch break. After that, our shoes were never dry, cause we crossed a stream every 2 miles, and we started our 60 60's. 60 seconds walking, 60 seconds running, however, if you get stuck in the back of your group, its more like 120 seconds running, 0 seconds walking, its terrible! So i stared off in group 3, which ended up being way faster than it was supposed to be, so after like 4 miles of running up out of the canyon, i had an asthma attack and dropped back to group 4. So then we hiked the rest of the way out, which was still difficult. Then when we finally got out of the canyon, we got to shake Harlands hand and we got one lemon drop, which tasted like heaven! Then i ran all the way back to camp by myself,  7 miles to beat the bus! i was so happy  and felt so accomplished. it was amazing!

fourth day: recovery, or more like "recovery" day. we did an easy 20 minute jog in the morning after our tent having KP, which means we have to wake up 30 minutes before everyone else to clean the toilets and get ready for breakfast. then we did recovery circuits, which were killer. they included sit ups, push ups, strength and core stretching, and learning form.  the rest of the day wasnt too bad.

fifth day: Cross Canyon! OPA!!!! This was a race, tent against tent...meaning your team is only as fast as your slowest person. We had to race to the buses, that were on the other side of a canyon, 3 miles wide, without a trail, full of sharp sagebrush, barbed wire, dense forest, and stinging nettles. despte the many scrapes and scratches, and a huge gash in the leg from jamming into a tree, it was the best race i have ever had, i will never ever ever ever complain about another cross country race again in my life. it was so intense. oh and did i mention that we had to memorize a quote while running as well....ours was "wipe that blackboard clean, wring that sponge dry. Today is a new day." - Harland Yardi (i dont know how to spell his name) Anyways, it was great.

sixth day: Steens Olympics! uphill 5K....the hardest 5k ever, however, i will never complain about another hill in a race again, because it will never compare! I got 10th place, and our tent won the event by alot! we rocked the running, the fasted team ever! Sagebrush sack hop was a failure for our team, and so was the tug of war, though it was soooooooooo intense! covered in mud, with people screaming in your face and shaking from the pain in your arms and getting pictures taken of your face....so intense! and the relay, also a team failure, but still fun. I had a downhill leg. fasted 400 meters of my life..pretty sure i did it in 40 seconds. So, we may have gotten 4th in the Olympics, but at least it matched our tent number! go TENT 4!!!!

Well, it was a very memorable experience, and i wish you all could have enjoyed it with me. I love you all and i oppologize for the long post.
Love!!!!

~M

17 Finally!

Hey! So I was planning on writing on my birthday but then it slipped my mind that day, so I am writing two days later :D Not too much has happened up to this point, some volunteering at Family Kitchen, hanging downtown at the Summerfest and Munch n' Music with friends, and lots of XC! M came with me on the day I went down to the Summerfest and we went and saw Toy Story 3 afterwards, good movie! I reccommend it :)
On my 17th birthday I went and volunteered in the morning with the XC team for the Deshutes Dash. Lets just say it was REALLY hot out, and stupid people who would not get out of the runners way were getting on my nerves! However I did get a SWEET free shirt out of the deal and afterwards was fun when I had my BBQ/movie night. Lots of memories there! I wish you guys (T and K) could have come, maybe one of these years :) Oh! and I rented my first rated R movie (Zombieland) very funny! The joys of being 17 now haha.
Yesterday I met 2 new foreign exchange students, one from Japan the other from France. They are both staying with two different families that are friends of my family, so it was cool to meet them. Kelly has her eye on the French one so don't even think about it lol! Well speaking of Kelly I better go because we are planning to meet up soon!
K, I hope you are having  a fun fabulous trip! Sounds like it so far! M, you show them all who is boss at Steens! And come home and write all about it! T, thanks for the birthday call I was soo happy to hear your voice, and I hope you had fun at the beach today! We should go to the Deshutes County Fair when you guys get back!! I am getting verrry excited for it! oh, that and Culuts! yeah!
Love, S

I wish I had more computer availability

Then I wouldn't have to write so much at a time! Goodness,well, I left off at Star's right? Yes, well I discovered that I kinda like So You Think You Can Dance? when I was at Star's. Yup, I have succumbed to the reality TV. I probably won't watch it much though. Aside from that, not much else happened in Prescott. Sedona is beautiful, ans so is Jerome. The drive the the Grand Canyon was interesting... Its really quite sad what the white people have done to the Native Americans. The Grand Canyon is cool, but kinda to big to really grasp, if you understand what I mean. Camping near there was pretty cool. Then we drove to Utah, and stopped at a little RV park/tiny hotel thing and camped, drove through Zion Canyon because we didn't know you could only go up there (to the cool part) by bus, and by the time we realized, we had gone all the way up to the top on a really bumpy bad road and I did NOT want to drive down and back up again. So we drove the Bryce canyon and hiked around, which was really cool, and on the way out... we tried to take a short cut. That short cut didn't work out. It had rained that day, and the road was clay/dirt and sand in some places, as well as being UP hill. About five miles in we got scared by a wash thing that went right through the road, right before a sandy wet hill... so yeah, we turned around.  We got to a placed called Bluff and had dinner at a restaurant called the Cottonwood, which my mother described as "A little Knott's Berry Farm!". Then I decided that I would drive, at night, to the next town. The next town was a LOT farther off than I thought lol. So we stopped at Four Corners in the middle of the night (it was only around ten miles out of the way). That was kinda fun actually lol Mom and I were the only ones up and we were kinda hysterical, but we saw the Milky Way... that... was really cool, it made me really happy :D. So we drove through Kansas a bit, got to Dodge City, looked for a camp site, in the middle of the night, in the middle of no where bug country Kansas lol. Our car was covered in bugs. And there wasn't a camp site. So we drove all the way back into town and stayed in a hotel. Dodge city was okay, old timey cowboy thing they had going on. OH! I should tell you the story about why we stopped there: My great great (possibly great) grandaddy moved from Wales, to Australia (with his brothers), to Texas (to be a Cowboy). He saved the money he made driving cows from Texas to Dodge to move to Oregon, and homestead. Lol. Yup. Next we drove though western Kansas. Which is one of the most boring places I have EVER driven through. seriously. FLAT FLAT FLAT FLAT FLAT. When mom made me drive it was slightly better because I had something to focus on. We drove to Ottawa, where my family (Dietrich family) had a cabin, with is tiny and cool :D (I forgot to write about Colorado, we saw a Grizzly BEAR and had Mexican food and stayed the most expensive cheep, kinda icky hotel ever (it was like 75 for a room that smelled like pee and bleach, we asked for a different room, which, though musty, was much better)) Next we went through Richmond (TINY). My mom lived there for four years when she was a kid, so that was interesting. THEN *intake of breath* we drove to Iowa, though a small corner of Missouri. We got in to John and Ruthie's, in the middle of the night *gasp* again lol. Now it is time for me to get off the computer, or be punnished lol. I will tell you all about Iowa at the next chance I get lol.
LOVE! (sorry for all the writing)
~K

wow! last year of girls camp/rafting/manti trip...craziness!

Too much has happened in the last three or so weeks that i just cant explain in words. T did an excellent job at summing up the rafting trip, however i just wanted to say that it was definatly a huge highlight of my high school cross country carreer, and i am so happy that i went. I could have never made the bonds that i made with those people anywhere else, except maybe on an island in the middle of the ocean. It was a blast and i wish i could do it again :D
Continuing on to the past...the manti trip. That was also a great bonding experience with all of my church friends and it helped me revive my spirituality and faith my God. I was able to spend some much needed time with my amazing friend Katie Cooke, whom i will miss so very much when she heads off to college. I learned more about my own faith and grew in my testimony. Anyways, on the not of my love for God....

GIRLS CAMP!!!!!! i am soooooooo very sad that this was my last year of girls camp. I have had so many unbelievable experiences at girls camp and made some unreplacable friendships....i think im about to cry.....

This year, i was able to climb mount McLaughlin again, which was almost as hard as last year, cause i was already soar and tired from the rafting trip. Me and my new friend Kira powered to the top again and were able to enjoy a fun filled 2 hours at the top while waiting for the rest of our group. this year we had to climb even more snow (which was fun to throw rocks down). She and I will have a great friendship for the rest of out lives, i know. We have been through so much together, including last years climb and this years, the spiritual experiences we had were amazing. Then yesterday, i did the mile swim...which was REALLY hard!!! but the water was warm :) im so not used to being this tired and soar...i feel weird, haha.
Anyways, i feel like i have grown and become a much more mature and spiritualy connected to my heavenly father. I cannot wait for steens! this summer is the best summer i have had in a long time!!!!!!

Love you all,
~M

P.S. i apologize for all my church talk, but that is what happened these past weeks, and i love it  <3

Okay Okay so shoot me

yeah i know ive been unforgivably lazy with the blog but im about to make up for it. I guess i will have to start where miki left off and talk about the rafting trip--in short, it was absolutely amazing! what a great bonding experience for all of us :) Don taught us how to steer and maneuver the rafts while also barking out commands to the other people (on the paddle boat, which was A BLAST through the rapids, let me tell you). We hit a few class fours: Boxcar, Wapanetia (sp?), and Oakley...? Was that what it was called? Anyways, even though Chase, M and Cody nearly mastered the pontoon, the paddle boat out-epic-ed that boat easily (vertical rafting, anyone?)When we werent in the water swimming or pushing people in (oh and BTW Don has an evil streak, i'll explain later), we were busy setting up camp. Although the girls tent failed. completely. The Girls--Ally, M, Karen, Sarah and me-- faced off against the Boys--Chase and Cody--in a prank war. It went a little like this:
Boys: attempt to scare us at night by making "rattlesnake" noises. Didnt fool us for a second
Girls: fill the boys tent with pads and tampons. Hehe
Boys: silly string us while we were sleeping (side note: that stuff smells awful)
Girls: M and i try to squirt gun them but they have sealed there tent. So all the girls just took down their ten with them inside
I think we all know who won ;)
But by far the best part was getting to know everyone better; it was such a diverse group. All of our unique personalities shone through and were appreciated by everyone else. Personally, i found a new buddy in Ally, and remembered what a deep friendship i had with chase.
Although im very sad that it ended so quickly, I left the trip with many memories, new connections, a stronger trust in my own instincts, and most importantly, bigger biceps :P  
But right now, i am in Vir-GEEN-e-uh at my cousins house, and her daughter is dressing up their chihuahua simon in doll clothes. Sad for the dog's manhood but good for my funny bone. Welp, i will be back in two weeks and i miss you all already! M, hope girls camp is fun and good luck at steens! dont worry you will do great and come back stronger, just try and sneak in some naps here and there eh? K, last i heard you were in Cali with your madre, so you better be soaking up the sun and enjoying yourself! S, i know you had a great time in Ireland (or so i read :P) and i cant wait for you to tell me all about it in person. I loooooooooove you all and will write again soon. maybe. dont hold your breath.

<3 <3 T <3 <3

P.S.  so once while rafting in the paddle boat we came across a hauge dead floating fish. Guess who said 'Grab that fish and lets throw it at chase!!'  if you said DON STEARNS you would be correct. Like i said, eeevil streak

Ireland (the land of amazing accents)

Hey! I know it's late so I apologize if parts of this post do not make sense. I just got off the plane from Redmond not too long ago, and I have to say it is lovely to be back home...now if only i had my carry on bag with me that would be even better, but hopefully it turns up tomorrow. To sum of some of what has happened in the past few days I caught an early flight (with a small group from my church) on June 27th, and went to Portland, then caught a plane to Chicago, then caught another plane to Dublin. We stayed in Glendalough for a good portion of the trip in this nice rustic kind of home setting, and we took plenty of hikes to the monastic city, the upper and lower lakes and lot of museums. Then on I think it was the 3rd of July we caught a ferry over to the largest of the Aran Islands and stayed there for the remainder of the trip, with a very welcoming old couple who had a bunch of bunks in their house, and a really well kept up garden. We had rented bikes so it was nice to be able to get places faster around the island. Most of the placed we visited there had lots of celtic religion behind it, so in other words i felt like i was cycling around a very large museum that was outdoors.
Though I am bummed that I did not get to set off fireworks this year for the 4th of July, and that I missed the senior rafting trip all in all it was a worthy experience. :) I hope you girls are all out having fun (and by that i don't mean out drinking.) Oh and T you need to start posting!! :)  I need to get to bed considering I haven't slept in about 24 hours. My internal clock is pretty messed up right now, talk to you all soon!  Love, S

So it seems I am the most realiable ;) strangely :D

Why hasn't anyone else posted? I know you are all doing things lol. Anyway, a lot has happened to me since the last post! I totally forgot to write about Lillian's Party. It was after the Parade and we all went, Paddy, Mom, Dusty, Joe, and I. It was pretty fun, mostly because I love Lillian, and her house feels homey to me, its really nice, but I also met a girl named Belinda (or something, can't spell lol) she was there with her friend (a purple Pony) and she was only nineteen. Which was REALLY nice. Its weird sometimes, because Mom only hangs out with adults/people substantially older than me, so its nice to see someone who is closer to my age. I didn't really talk much, because not to long after we had to leave, but like I said, nice. So after that, we left on... Tuesday? and drove to Yosemite. It was lovely, very different from the last time we went though! Last time it was sort of pooled in places along the river bed and it was safe to swim right up under the falls, this year it wasn't lol. But it was still pretty and fun. My family are weird tourists. Then we drove to Todd's house, he owns a house now, up above Hollywood, and we stayed there for a couple nights, I met his dog (nice old girl, as long as you are careful). I also finally got a little mini tour of Hollywood, the famous part, Chinese Theater, Walk of fame etc. Which was cool :D I mean, we go through there all the time and I had never seen it, so, I was happy to see it lol. I also saw the Hollywood sign :D thats pretty cool as far a typical things you could see lol. And Hollywood is quite pretty at night, from the top of Todd's hill. (Oh, and if Tammy ever reads this, the new Spock lives just two houses away from Todd :D apparently he is nice). After Hollywood we drove... and drove and drove, and holy cow is it a long way to Arizona from the California coast! We did sort of go the long way (through Joshua Tree) but man... anyway, Joshua Tree is beautiful, and HOT, I will probably take forever to get pics up, but I promise to, before October lol. We also had to stop in Phoenix to see my mother's friend Uma (who is wonderful by the way).  We stayed there for about a half hour and then drove to where we were staying in Tucson (Sherrie and Jim's house, my mother worked for their publishing company). So we stayed in Tucson for about three days, the third, the forth and the fifth. On the third we we out and saw Joey (my mother's baby sitter/friend and my baby sitter/not really friend, anyway she is sort of like family to our family) and then we went to see our old house. The poor house is all ghetto now, with blankets in all the windows, and a monster sticker on the front window. The back yard is a mess too, the poor trees are either dead or hacked to pieces and the grass is totally gone. There was a car in the driveway with a tattered tarp on it tied down with rope. Which, I mean, we kinda lived in a nice ghetto before (we were poor :) ) but really, they could at least keep it looking nice. We felt weird creeping on their house. So anyway, we drove a block down to my old, old elementary school, Corbett (the one that SUCKED) and walked around it. Pretty much looked the same. AND THEN we steeled ourselves to knock on a door. lol I used to have a really good friend named Sasha, she lived about halfway between my house and the school (which, I stated earlier, was only a block away). It was great because she had a little sister who was the same age as my little brother and my mom really liked their mom, so we all became really good friends. It was a little weird because we weren't sure if Doris (the mother) had actually divorced Coco (the stepfather). So it would either be everyone there, or just Coco. Thankfully Boo (the younger daughter) answered the door. So the whole, abbreviated (lol) story with them is: Doris and Coco did get a divorce, right around the time Coco's mom died, about nine months later they remarried. Also, my friend Sasha got really bad into drugs around fifteen and sixteen (she is the same age as us) and gone to rehab and jail and all kinds of stuff. She is still pretty bad (about drugs et cetera) hard on her poor mother (who has Lupus btw) and cetera, but mildly better. I feel bad for her family, she was hard on them, and they already have so much issues. So yeah, we spent the third catching up with them. The fourth was pretty good, I slept in and then we went to see Kino, my recovery school :D That was interesting. I kinda wish it hadn't changed, you know? but it has, quite a lot in fact. maybe I can post some pics of that too. I miss going to Kino, in a way, there are definitely things that I could have done better, or not done... Went back to Sherrie's had a party with people we didn't know, and who were old *sigh* then went out driving to see Doris again around the time the fireworks went off. Which is very distracting lol aka I drove very slowly so I could watch them all over the city as I drove lol. We got to set off a whole bunch of illegal fireworks that Coco had bought (Paddy LOVED IT) it was really nice to have real fireworks for once (normally we get stuff like snakes and sparklers, which are nice! I love them! but... I like mortars too...). It was interesting, because Sasha and I didn't talk a whole lot, I mostly listened to Doris talk :D which is fun I really like Doris. I promised to write to her, which I will, but we will see what happens. I hope she writes back. She is speaking of moving to Portland, which could be interesting. I don't know, like I said, we'll see. The fifth was spent with Joey again, and we went to see Taliesin West on the way up to Star's. We never went IN to but was interesting to see from the outside. (Taliesin West is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, designed specifically for the desert, its pretty neat). So here I am, on the sixth (I believe lol) at Star's. Star is my mother's best friend from high school. She is nice, and has a daughter (adopted from China) who is adorable, but needy, wow. So I'm not sure whats left in store for us in Prescott (where Star lives) but soon we will be going to Sedona. I will fill you all in the next time I can, sorry to write so much! I miss you all.
~K