Hello hello! It has been a busy season with school and travel, but I since I didn’t post anything over the summer, I thought I would give you a quick summer re-cap. My adventures in a nutshell. I hope you enjoy it!
June
Camp Crestridge for Girls
One of the most amazing things that I love about summer is Camp. Now this year… we did a lot of camps, but Camp Crestridge for Girls is one of my absolute favorites. Me and my sister Kb started going in 2018, and I started out as a Chickasaw (Now called WolfDen). Camp is two weeks away from home, sleep away, with no technology! In this environment, you are surrounded by God-loving girls and counselors. Each “village” has about 10 cabins and about 8-10 girls in those cabins. You can start going as young as 6 or 7 I believe! At this camp, I know that my faith in Christ has strengthened so much. My counselors are encouraging and amazing. Not to mention the endless activities every day! A typical schedule for one day can – and will – be packed from 7 am to 9 pm. The morning bell wakes all campers up at 7 am for a bright and early breakfast! Then depending on which village you’re in, after breakfast, you head to Cabin clean up or chapel! then after that, you have skills. When you register for camp, you have the option of around 30 different skills. But you have to narrow them down to 9. Each day, you have a set of 3 skills, and the other skills rotate around within the weeks. Then after skills are lunch, and then REST HOUR!! The best hour of all of camp (just kidding, but it’s still amazing), all campers are sent to their cabins to take an hour of rest before the afternoon activities. And believe me, you’ll want this hour all to yourself. Most campers (including me) take this time to write letters to family back home or to read! There is a postal service at camp, and you can get more information about that on the website! Then we have Store after rest hour! And – okay… – let me tell you about the store. Mom says that this is one of the “worst” things about camp, but we as kids and growing teens crazy love it. At the store, you have the option to get 2 things. Either: 2 full size candies, a candy or a soda, or two sodas! It’s the best. Then after the store, you have village activities till dinner. Then… well dinner, then an evening activity! Bed for the lower campers is around 9. Bedtime for upper campers is 10 – lights out by 11. So yeah! That’s camp! And we do that for two straight weeks!! It’s amazing. I promise friends. There are so many things I could go on and on about camp, but alas, I said this was going to be a quick post. Whoops!
Aunts Wedding
One of the highlights of our summer was getting to watch my aunt Miranda finally get to marry her fiance, Mike!!! I freaking love weddings, and in this one, I got to be a bride made! It’s a joy to see these two amazing people come together, and that night will be unforgettable. The wedding was hosted at my grandparent’s estate in Salem, Oregon, at Zenith Vineyard! It included me stuffing my face full of salad and macaroons, the dessert table also had a stunning display of a fudge tower!! How amazing is that?! It was pretty awesome. My family was so glad that our good friends, and second cousins (to me) the Miners could join us over on the West Coast!
Friends in Cannon Beach!!
Throughout the rest of the summer, we hosted many different families in our home. Which is always a joy! My best friend and his family got to join us with the Miners for about a week, and we also spent the 4th of July with them up in Darington, Washington at Matt’s family estate that dates back 100 years! But before all that, an adventure story! I just had to put this one in here because it was so crazy awesome and unforgettable.
Getting Lost in the Forest!
When we had the privilege to have our great friends the Miners and deBlois families out to the West Coast, Mom had a genuine idea to go on the Tillamook trail from Seaside to Indian Beach! We were all like “Oh yeah! Sure why not? It’s only about 4 miles long, 2 hours. It’ll be great!!” Yeah… well okay, it was great. Amazing actually!! But it took us more than… 4 hours to get through, and we ended up hiking about 7 miles altogether. Here’s what happened: we started out on the trail – all 18 of us – and kept walking. Then the path split and we took the right-hand trail, thinking “This is great! It looks more maintained and stuff!”. We stumbled across a pair of homeless people who kindly informed us that it was laundry day. Okay…? Anyways, after about another 20 minutes of hiking, we realized that the trail… wasn’t really there anymore! What had happened? My cousin Ben then informed us that, yes – this was not a trail anymore. So mom said, direct quote: “Stay. Here. I’m going to hike up a little bit to see if I can find the trail again. Don’t. Move!” Can you guess what we naturally did? Yes. We all followed her. So then not only had we lost our previous place in the forest by the other trail, but we also didn’t know where we were going, and all 18 of us had to bushwhack our way up the mountain! I’m not joking at all. The 12 kids all thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. “We get to be like explorers!!! Like Lewis and Clark!!” After about 45 minutes to an hour passed of bushwhacking, losing cellular date and not being able to get google maps to work, sore feet, thirsty kids, and scrapes with dash of bruises, we FINALLY made it to the trail!! Yay!!! The rest of the hike was long, hard, and not nearly as enjoyable but it was still a splendid time! And at the end… oh boy… this is going to sound crazy, and this was most definitely not legal – but! – we called up my GrandpaTim and asked if he could bring his Ford Lighting and pick us all up. And we meant ALL of us… 12 kids (ranging from the age of 7-17), 6 adults, 4 backpacks, and one large dog. By the mercy of God and a pure miracle, we all managed to fit into the truck bed!! No, it was not comfy, yes, it was awesome. Yes, we did go get pizza and ice cream and watch Goonies after! To sum it all up: That was an epic day and can we do it again?!
July
IFAM – 2023
July was packed, but a tradition we have as a family is to volunteer at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico! My mom sits on the Board for IFAM, so we get tickets most years too! Our kids and dad all got to volunteer, and as most of us are under 18, we aren’t legally allowed to volunteer. So we just set up a lemonade stand in the lecture hall! That was a blast, but when we weren’t serving lemonade, we kids walked around the market to see if we could help in other ways. Let me tell you, the best job is the cashier. You get to see all the amazing artifacts by the different artists, and you get to interact with people! My specialty! The weekend only lasted 4 days, which is always sad, but we had a total blast! Not only was the market amazing, but we also got to see our long-time friend Cathy! She is like another grandma to us and we love her dearly. As much as we hate leaving her, the summer must move on, and onto the next adventure we went!
Momentum Skiing Camp – Whistler Canada!
This camp was one of the lesser highlights of my summer. But I learned valuable lessons! For one, learning to hike with skis, ski boots, other gear, and your siblings takes a lot of physical and mental ability! At Momentum, you learn how to do tricks or moguls on an ice glacier! In Whistler, British Columbia, their mountain is a great place to go do some skiing. The only downside this year was… there wasn’t really any snow. But more like ice… :/ But camp still happened! Every day, we kids would hike up to the tram, then over, up, then down, then back up again to get to the peak of the mountain where we would spend about 5 hours skiing. Practicing on jumps and bumps! I learned how to slide on a box and how to land well when going off jumps! I’m not that much of a daredevil as the work on flips or anything fancy like that, but I almost got a grab once! Last to say, camp was fun when we weren’t trying to die on ice! 🙂
Japan-Seattle Suzukie Institute – Violin Camp!
One of the most amazing highlights of this summer was violin camp at Japan-Seattle Suzukie Institute, located at Seattle Pacific University!! Our amazing violin teacher Mrs. Mary, encouraged us to go to this camp, so we did! It lasted a week, with 5 different classes ranging from technique to repertoire every day. My favorite class was Orchestra (Intermediate) with Mr. B. He was particularly amazing and spunky, and at the end of our concert, we did a big tremolo and finished with a flourish for the crowd!! At the end of the week, I had excelled in my violin skills, and was ready to go to France for 3 weeks! Onto the next adventure!
August
Three Weeks in Antibes, France – Sailing/Language Camp
So… my parents did a very daring thing this last year and sent me off on my own to a foreign country. France. They dropped me off at Sea-Tac airport, handed me my passport, and sent me through security with a wave. See ya sucker! Okay, that’s what I said to them. They hugged me a lot and a few tears were shed. But the point is that I flew to Nice, France by myself. Knowing only a sliver of French, and going to a camp I knew almost nothing about.
The camp itself… I unfortunately wouldn’t really recommend it. The counselors (or animators), we not very polite. And being a sheltered, home-schooled, white Christian American… some people weren’t very nice to me either. Which was sad. But I still made friends! (and enemies… but that’s a different story: let’s just say there was a lot of drama in the first week.) Whenever I wasn’t at the main facilities, I was out in the town, enjoying the beyond imaginably amazing DF-Dark Chocolate-Gelato, shopping with friends, studying the architecture of Antibes, or at the “supermarché”, buying my own snacks for during camp. I loved walking around and seeing the colorful beauty of the shops in France. Though, I think the best part was hearing a whole city of people actually speak the language I was learning! Even seeing the little kids was so cute, they just said it so well I was like “Oh my gosh these 5-year-olds can speak French better than I can!” Then again, that was their main language, and… well I had been learning it for about half a year so far.
Speaking of learning French, the school aspect was interesting at camp. The daily activities went like this:
- Wake up at 7:00 am sharp.
- Breakfast from 7:30 – 8:30
- Classes varied at timings but the slot I usual had was class started at 9:15 am
- Break at 10:20 – 10:50
- Class till 11:30
- Lunch open from 12:00 – 13:00 (for people who don’t do army time thats till 1:30 pm)
- 20 min power nap after lunch and before sailing.
- Leave for sailing at 1:20 pm
- Sailing from 2:00 – 4 or 4:30 pm
- In town from 4:30 – 6:15 (this depended on whether or not my friends and I wanted to stay out longer or go back and hang out at camp)
- Dinner 7:00 – 8:30
- Rooms are locked for evening activities from 8:30 – 10:00 pm
- Bed from 11:00 – 1:00 am.
So yes. That’s how my days went. So so long, and hot, but fun. Most of the time. 🙂 Of course, the schedule varied depending on the evening activities and such. But the general gist of the day is listed above. And that was our schedule from Monday – Saturday (Lundi – Samedi). I’m glad I got to go to this camp because it gave me a chance to see what other countries are like, and it helped me make new friends!! I am very thankful to have gone, even if there were up and down moments.
