Cultus = Amazing!!

Wow, I had gone to Cultus running camp last year with the cross country team, but this year was absolutely amazing!! This year it involved more people, more running, and more food!! We arrived at Cutlus on Tuesday and ran the short 4 or so miles to our camping spot, where the fun began! I was on the green tribe with T, and M was one of the captains on the red tribe (just like last year.) The entire 4 days consisted of competitions between the tribes (raft wars, Prestons relay, sand castle building, setting up a tent blind folded, dance off, etc.), bushwhacking! (ouch!), 12 mile runs (good job varsity!), running Cultus Mountain (about 13 miles), tubing, and sun tanning. All in all it was a fun, intense trip, and I spending time with XC family! My legs are beat and sore but it sure was worth it, Senior year is gonna be amazing!

XC Girls! (At cultus after we stole Chase's stash of Candy and ate it all! haha)

Well, next week is the kickoff days where we get ready to go back to school. Summer is ending pretty fast, and it is hard to believe that this is our last year. The last final weeks are going to consist of running (duh!), reading, studying for the SAT coming up in Oct., and college applications. M, I am so proud of you for starting your own business of photography, you have many skills that are appreciated by many! Keep up the good work! T, it was a blast being on the same tribe as you this year, I know you are going through a bit of a rough patch right now, but I hope everything works out for the best and I am sending you my love <3!! K, I haven't seen you in a while, and we miss you!!!, I hope you have been out having fun traveling and exploring the world! I loved the pictures you posted on facebook of all of us back in freshman/sophomore year, they have definately brought back many thrilling memories I want to keep forever! (Hope you don't mind if I post a few ;) ) We should all get together before school starts!! :)

Love, S

So! I will wrap up the rest of the epic vacation

Iowa was good, we hung out with Gran, went shopping, swimming, and rearranged my aunt (second or something) Ruthie's bedroom in the middle of the night :D . I got a bunch of clothes at Stuff Inc or something like that, I know it was called Stuff. Took pics with Gran etc. Left Iowa City, went through Dubuque, saw the Effigy Mounds and got lost in Wisconsin. Which has VERY bad signs by the way. Went to Duluth Minnesota. Swum in Lake Superior, got bit by flies (damn them!) and the Huckleberry falls was nice to climb around on. The time there was nice, I did a lot of reading, went for a run, Paddy helped around the farm. I liked Gwen (moms friend who lives there). Went fishing, which was kinda fun, because I wasn't sitting in one place the whole time (trolling I think), so I don't hate it lol and the trip out there via four wheeler was fun too! Next we went through North Dakota. We went through Fargo, which apparently a lot of people that I know had family there a LONG time ago. We went to this buffalo museum thing and saw three white buffalo, which are sacred fyi. We went through the Theodore Roosevelt national monument, which was really beautiful, we stayed the night there. There was a huge herd of buffalo out there too, they were standing in the road at one point, it was quite funny, buffalo make strange sounds! We went to a dinosaur museum, which was cool, but not my favorite. Then we went into South Dakota. We went through the Badlands (which means we went through both, North and South, North is the Theodore thing). And to Wall Drug, which is so touristy it kinda made me sick XP. Then we went to Deadwood, which was okay, I liked the graveyard, and camping there that night was fun. We went back through to Mount Rushmore, which was cool :D. We stayed there for TWO WHOLE NIGHTS, it was decadent lol. We got the storm of a lifetime in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The water was coming into our tent! It formed a lake, which I named Lake Sunshine :D we stayed in a hotel that night... lol. We also swam in a hot springs pool that had been there for over a hundred years :o!  Oh and the mammoths. There was a excavation site you could go in, it was a sinkhole that had gotten filled it. Anyway, the found like thirty mammoths in there! And they were all male lol! It was cool :D and at the end of the tour the guy said that "If you have a chance go down and see the paleontologists on display downstairs." completely deadpan, Mom and I were the only ones that laughed. Anyway, we go to the elevator and it says hours are from like 9 to 4 or something and it was like 4:30, but Mom said they were work-aholics and would probably still be there, and they were! Little framed windows and everything XD.  There was also a hut made out of mammoth bones (example) that was really cool! We also went to wounded knee. Which was interesting. Mom had another guy fall in love with her lol (there were lots over the trip, I would think four? maybe five lol I only caught one that I know of, more later XP ) So on through to Wyoming! Devils Tower, neat, Bighorn Mountains, really cool, Medicine Wheel, quite cool and Yellowstone!  Which was cool, Paddy liked it :) Camping was HELL though XP we didnt want to stay a second night but we saw old faithful! And two days in the park was good. Technically we slept in Montana, btw. Then Idaho, where we went to Craters of the Moon, which is this HUGE lava field if you haven't heard of it, we slept there, and I kinda admired a soon to be marine >.< I know weird, right?! I saw him building this huge beautiful stack of rocks, several of them actually, and he was at it for HOURS while we were caving (we set up camp where he was doing it then went caving) and he took it all down in the morning... it was neat. Anyway, so we get to Oregon and stay on the Snake River. It was really pretty, particularly watching the storm come in... we had the worst WIND storm ever... Mom tied the tent to the car and broke the window with her adrenalin lol. We held the tent up for two and a half hours. Through midnight. It was actually kinda fun lol. In the morning we patched it with plastic, which didn't work well >.<. I can STILL hear it flapping we drove to Hells Canyon, went to an Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, and we had our one and only fight (Paddy cried, Mom and I were fighting) I am pretty sure because of the widow... We made it to La Grand though! We slept right near the Oregon Trail, WHICH WAS COOL. I thought. Saw a cute boy in La Grand, he had a lip piecing :K and, well he was cute ^_^ AND I think he may have liked me, just a bit... he worked at Starbucks :P Made it to Portland alive, stayed the night at Grandpa's. Went to Tanna's (my aunt on mom's side). We were there for a couple of days, then came to Bend, which I had NO idea was such a destination! We couldn't camp anywhere! We did find a place, went to the High Desert Museum and then moved into the teepee that Chris owns (we ended up there for two nights because the day we wanted to leave, sunday, the car broke, we had to get its axles or something replaced...) We floated the river twice on saturday :) Oh and on Friday we went to Munch n Music, saw Liss and then Sara, Cody and Karen. It was kinda weird with the second crew...  Sunday we hung out at my Grandparents to see llamas (for Paddy). So yeah, went Back to Portland, hung out a day with the cousins (Selene and Isabell) Then came back here and dropped me off.... I was sad... I cried, but then I cry every year lol. Oh and during pretty much the whole trip we read a AMAZING book, Shantaram, I would suggest it, I am going to buy myself a copy.

:)

Love you all
~K

Pictures of the many great adventures of summer 2010!

My youth temple trip. Jesus statue in the visitor center :)

Slides at the seven peaks water park in Utah!

Me, sara, and katie at the top of the world!!!

Me and Karen at Steens! we are so awesome!

everyone wanted me to wear a faux hawk to turkey dinner...i did :P and i went with chase..muahahahaha!

At steens with some awesome peeps :D

my steens tent! TENT 4 HARDCORE! OPA!!!!!

camping with my brother, and my step brother matthew and my step sister leah! we are awesome siblings :)

Moses, our horny toad lizard

modeling for some artists for 3 hours, got 40 bucks!

one of my portraits :)  my favorite

another painting

shooting with the fam....yes...im a stone cold killer

serious face

crazy face :P

I have had a wonderful summer so far..and these pictures cannot even describe how amazing each experience was. and i had several experiences where i had no camera available...but some are best left without a picture :)
Hope these last few weeks will be a great ending to our last high school summer!
love you all :)
~M

College is just around the Bend

Hey all! So yesterday I came back from a four day trip up in the Portland area, where I looked at 6 colleges, and toured about 4. It definately opened my eyes up to the possiblities of after high school life and I am getting pretty excited to keep exploring! My first stop was the U of O campus, but it wasn't much of a stop because I had already toured it back at Spring Break my junior year. Then I went to Western University, Linfield College, Lewis & Clark, Willamette University, and OSU. So far I know for sure I am applying to U of O, Linfield, and Gonzaga (I toured Gonzaga my sophomore year), I still need to keep researching on the other colleges before I make a final desicion to apply.
So yeah! Busy with that, and I also plan on taking on the job of re-decorating my room (I am sorry that you aren't here M!! I wish you were so that you could help!) Anyways I was thinking brown and blue for the walls, and I haven't quite decided if I want to go the excess mile and buy some new decorations for the walls/ new furniture. ( I am voting no since I really do only have one more year to spend in that room) So let me know what you guys think :)  I think I will take on and finish this job this week!
Can  you believe August is here?? Cultus is coming up yay! As well as school :O This is our last year of high school girls (congradulations!!! I hope it's the best of em all!) So let's make our last year memorable, fun and exciting! :D Cheers! Love, S
p.s. I am giving blood on the 10th with T, I gotta say I am super nervous!! O_O