Really Important Happenings and the River

(I know it's AUGUST, but I'm still posting about JULY because quite frankly July got outta hand real fast.)

July 7th - July 13th

This is a suuuper exciting week for meee!

But I'll get to that in a minute. Hold on.

So it was Fast Sunday this Sunday, Kayla spent the night over here while my parents and family were out of town, and so we went to church together and her family came and sat in my family's bench with me, how nice! I mean it was probably their bench before we moved in the ward.... haha oops.
Anyway, so there was about a total of 100 people in the ward today, we could have all fit in the first few rows if we all got friendly and sat together. It was crazy. I've never seen it that small before! Anyway, so I made up my mind to bear my testimony this day, and I usually like to get up in the summertime around July to review myself from the last time I was up there, it's usually on eternal families which is super important to me, obviously. Anyway, it was a really spiritual meeting and most of the ward got up! ;) there were a lot of tears, but the good kind. :)
Even in Primary I was going strong! I was able to handle all of my kids and interest them in the lesson, and they were really great! I mean there were only five, which possibly may have had something to do with it.. ;)
But even Sharing Time went well!! I'm getting better at loving Sharing Time. I had a stubborn attitude with it when I was of age, and I was a little afraid of going back in there, but I like it a lot better now that I'm older and I can actually sit still. The lessons are even good to listen to, sometimes I find just little bits and pieces of very very basic gospel doctrine I forget, or it becomes mundane and so it's good to have a little review even as an adult. ;) and to hear all the kid's testimonies and stories is very touching also! It's amazing to hear what they pick up even at their age. I know I sure wasn't as spiritually developed at their ages! They are incredible. Today we had a lesson about families, which was a great continuation for what I bore my testimony on, and it slightly made me feel bad for not going on vacation with my family, but it also made me more appreciative of my circumstances, although they are not perfect, they are perfect for me. Yup, so Sharing Time was a great experience today! :) I may have cried a few times. I was just on a spiritual high all day long!
After Sharing Time Kayla invited me to go have dinner with their family, so I went over and was there for the rest of the day. We had dinner, dessert, and then played some games with their family, and read scriptures together. I am SO thankful for their sweet and incredible family! They are very close to how I want to raise my own family someday. It's nice to see a fully functional and happy family that are thriving with the same values that I see important. And I know there are tons of families like that, but I just love their family in a special way. :) to me they show that traditional, happy and genuinely good families are still real.

The next day me and Kayla went back to her house and stayed the rest of the day as well. We went over for lunch and then we had a SUPER FUN Nerf PVC pipe war... I've never had one of those before, but oh my goodness it was so entertaining! I loooved it! We used their whole house as a battlefield and showed no mercy. ;) of course we all ganged up on Cal and he was after me the whole time! Haha but it was fun darting the bullets and diving behind couches and finding that ONE spot that offered protection but you can also see quite a long ways and still have good aim. That lasted for like three hours, and then we played piano trios, and they sang.. I so wish I could just get up my courage to sing and play the piano with them! I know I know how to, it's just the fact that they are reaaaallly good at it, and I am slightly on the average side. I know I shouldn't let that bother me, but it just makes me feel bad about myself. But nevertheless they still made me play... Cal can never get me to sing.. I wish I would, I know that he loves it! He sometimes tries to pick me out at church if I'm singing too loudly. It's a little embarrassing. ;) But when I got home I picked up my piano books and was singing along by myself. Lame. I shouldn't let my lesser talents stop me from doing the things I love in front of other people, especially since they are pretty much my family! I'll be better.
We had FHE also and played charades with their family... it was BOOK TITLE Charades... and I hardly ever read. So of course after like four titles I didn't recognize, they had to go to Dr. Seuss level for me. And I still couldn't even really act out Green Eggs and Ham!! There really isn't a plot line, so I had that advantage... but after this weekend I need to work on charades, singing, piano, and reading apparently. And those are all things I want to work on anyway, so this is a perfect opportunity!

I spend the night alone, and it was kind of freaky without Kayla there! I didn't think it would be, but it kind of was. I spent the day practicing my singing and piano skills... and it worked! I mean it was a bit rough, and it still is, but I'm progressing! :) The whole day I did a whole lot of nothing! I watched the Sound of Music. And then later at like 7 Cal and Kayla came over and asked to borrow a movie, and then somehow I ended up at their house with them to watch it! So basically I have been with them nonstop since the 4th, and it's only the 9th. Almost five days packed with them! I hope they're not sick of me. But you know what, I needed this time with them I feel! Especially since Cal is leaving in a few short weeks.. and I was freaking out because I didn't know how much time I had left with him, so at the expense of my own family, I was able to be a part of theirs in this big week! I loved every moment! :)

Wednesday was a pretty good day. My friend Zach Bishop FINALLY came home from his mission! It's hard to believe that he was gone for only two years, but it felt like forever at the same time! I mean I was a sophomore when he left, so I had school to distract me, but this summer I'm saying farewell to a lot of friends and family who are leaving on their missions, and quite frankly I don't know if I can handle it! I mean I probably will figure out when the time comes, but just the whole anticipation part is what's throwing me off my game. Oh and my family finally came home today!! :)

THURSDAY. The day I've been waiting for since FEBRUARY! Holla! It's finally here, happy dance! I flew out to Idaho today to visit my BFF/Cousin Ashlyn and her family for her farewell! It was really a blessing that her farewell lined up with this week I was here because, let's face it, family is crazy and overwhelming and sometimes you just need someone to vent with and watch cheesy chick flicks with in the park when the pressure and insanity goes to your head. So I get on the plane by myself, (okay I LOVE flying by myself, I get to relax and people watch and it's like a mini vacation itself!) so I sat next to some cute little girls from Boston. Slowly the landscape turned from brown dirt to red rock and pine trees, and then back to the plateaus and then into looooooots of farmland called IDAHOME. Okay just by flying in I already knew that I loved Boise! I've never been before and I've been dying to come for the longest time. So happy I did!! Ashlyn picked me up at the airport, and recorded our reuniting, which involved a lot of screaming, hugging, and uncontrollable smiling! Oh I love this girl! The next time we do this will be in a few years... weird to think. But we went to Jimmy John's and sat in the park in downtown next to BSU and just talked and talked and talked. We finally went back to her house and oh it's the best thing ever. It's perfect!! Later we went to this small town about twenty minutes to the west of them to get Sonic. It was the most beautiful thing.. so they live on a golf course, and then past a whole bunch of hills, they stop and there is this HUGE valley underneath of you. I thought we were on the bottom of a valley, but it turns out they live on the top of this plateau with this beautiful small town valley... and you can see Oregon from it, actually. I didn't know they lived so close to the border. But as the hills parted the sun was setting and everything looked like it was on fire with the sun. It was so gorgeous. I was smitten. Over a town in a valley. Crazy!! So we got our shakes and came back, and then went frog hunting in the pond next to their house, we didn't catch any, but we saw a few and they were HUGE. I love frogs. I would have got in the water, but I wasn't wearing the right shoes and I didn't really want to get more wet than I already was. The sun didn't even set until 10 so my body clock was all off because at midnight I was thinking it was only 7, when the sun sets in Arizona.

But the next morning I woke up bright and early at 4:30 and just watched the sun rise from their back porch which overlooks the golf course and all of these farm fields. I just stood there and watched it for about an hour. It was one of the best things I've seen. It was SO beautiful I can't get over it still! You always hear people say stuff like, "Oh Idaho? That's kind of lame.. and you live there? Sorry...? All there is is potatoes and dirt." WRONG. Holy dang it's awesome here. It's like a little secret no one knows about. Even my uncle just agrees with people when they tell him that it must suck to live in Idaho, because he doesn't want them all moving up there! Props to you, sir. I would actually love to live in Boise. Which is strange because I swore I'd ALWAYS call AZ my home, but now I'm getting quite the attachment to this place. I've only been here for 12 hours and I already don't want to leave. Later in the day we decided to float the Boise River! I was SO excited! I'm always ready for an adventure, especially if it involved something outdoors that I've never done before. Okay it was like the funnest thing EVER. We rode a bus to the top of the river, pumped up our raft and the tube, got in, and floated down for about three hours. We encountered about four rapids, lots of crazy people, and FREEZING cold water, but lots of sunshine and nice breezes! Although at times we got caught in some tree branches, and got scratched, it was one of the coolest things I've done!!
We came back and greeted some of the Melanie's side of the family who also came for Ash's farewell. They have some cousins names Wyatt and Kade (oh and I got to see Cariann again! I used to play with her and Ash all the time when we were younger and lived closer together, it's been a few years since I've seen her! I basically consider all of Melanie's family my family, too. So I'll refer to them as my cousins here.) and we all went frog hunting in the pond, and it was so fun! We all had our iPhone flashlights on and Wyatt and Kade got into the water to catch them, and they did! They are big boys so nothing freaked them out. They were just wading in the gross pond water, walking barefoot. At one point Wyatt caught a frog and put it in his cargo shorts pocket! Haha it was the funniest thing ever!! It wriggled it's way out of there eventually, but the rest of the frogs must have gotten scared because we didn't see anymore for the rest of the night.

Saturday we just relaxed for a bit, and then we went to the Boise Market in downtown.. also something really cool! They had all of these street performers, artists, and cool shops all along these streets. Oh and tons of yummy food, of course! I forgot my wallet in the car, so I couldn't get anything, but maybe that was a good thing... ;) I love street markets! They have such a sweet vibe to them!! I wish AZ had them, but it's too hot and probably full of even crazier people. We took a detour through an alley and it was totally grafittied, it was so cool!! And safe, even! Haha if you did that anywhere else, it'd be asking for trouble. But not in Boise! It is SO cool here! Later we went to the River again since the other cousins didn't get to go yesterday.. so we went and bought more tubes and rafts to accomodate everyone.. but we were STILL short on tubes... so we all had to just deal with it, and weight limits aren't super important, right? ;) for some reason, we had three 6'' something cousins go in the raft with Josh, me and Ashlyn took Bryan, Autum and Carly took Mia, Cariann took Lynann, and Kade was in a tube by himself. We fit three people into the 2-man tubes, which were really small for 2-man tubes anyhow, and the 3 bigger cousins were... struggling... haha actually we all were struggling. Not even a quarter of a mile in the 3 man raft got a small hole so they had to pull off, but were back on in a few minutes... and Me and Ash decided to go down the rapid, and our  raft capsized and poor Bryan was FREAKING OUT.. so we had to pull over and decided to walk back to the top.. luckily we made it back in time for the LAST bus out of there!! Thank heavens. We got to the bottom of the river and waited for everyone else... after about an hour we saw Carly and Autum in the 3 man raft and they had water up to their elbows in it... so they barely made it to the bottom before it finally gave up and we just threw it away. Later Autum, Mia, and Lynann came looking better than the rest of us, but Lynann wasn't having the whole river experience. Another hour later we see all of the boy cousins come, COMPLETELY DRY. They got about half way before they couldn't handle it and walked the rest of the two miles back down. The sun was setting, so that should tell you how late it was. We were all cold, tired, cold, and frustrated. Me and Ashlyn finally just laughed and laughed SO hard! No one else thought it was funny right then, but we had time to evaluate the situation.. it was hilarious. I got some dirty looks for laughing, but it was just one of those things that you have no other conclusion to resort to. They claimed it as the worst River experience yet. And compared to yesterday, it was. But I had a blast anyway. When "bad" things like that happen, I think it makes it even better! Now you have a story to tell and something to laugh about. :) We all got home and showered and tried to get some sleep before church the next morning.