Saturday, August 18, 2007

Oopps...

Okay, so I made a bad and/or Blogger did, but its most likely me. I did not put a link to the new blog due to the fact that it didn't exist when I made my last post.

Oopps...

So here it is! [VA or Bust]

I've posted every day since Mommy and I left for Virginia and we'll be at Grandmother's house tomorrow so there are a lot of good pictures of about 12 different states we've been through.

Enjoy!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Last Post

Hey guys! This will officially be my last post of Steph Part 二. Today I leave for Virginia and enter a new season in my life, therefore a new blog is in order.

The new blog is VA or Bust. Time for a new place = a new blog.

Let's do this!

I have some pictures from my last day at home that aren't bad...











See you on the flip side. I am kicking this puppy in the face! (Only those who actually know me will get this. I do not actually kick puppies in the face. I am a lover of all things fuzzy and cute. Just thought I'd add a little disclaimer. Thanks.)

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Summer Camp

From Wednesday until today I was at High School Camp. It was good times and I am so glad I was able to go. (Thank You Lord!) There isn't too much to write so I'll just give you the pictures. And I got Movie Maker to work again so we have a video! Woot!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Tattoo(s)

Drum roll please!

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

Ta da!

And there you have it. My tattoo. I got it a week ago at Good Neighbor Tattoo. The artist was Arne Hansen and he did an excellent job. Obviously it hurt, a lot, but now I can't feel it. It gets itchy at times but that should soon pass and is a good thing since that means its healing.

Everyone has asked me why.

My simple (and really only) answer is: because I wanted to. I didn't get it to be cool (mostly) or because I was pressured or because I want to witness with it. I got it because I wanted it and its just that simple. What happens after this we'll see.

Oh, by the way, it is Philippians 3:12 in Japanese and its on my lower left side on my back. And yes, that is what it actually says. I got it out of my Japanese Bible and checked it so I'm 99% positive that it does actually say what I think it says.

"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold for me."

Loans

I thought this appropriate.

Vacation Part 3: AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

I'm going slightly mad. Now that vacation is over, I have one more week until I leave for school. I have a day and a half to pack my life into a storage container and a suitcase. I get to sort through all my stuff and decide what to lug to Virginia and what to leave to be forever lost in the sea of junk that is the attic.

This has made me slightly insane. Only on the inside of course. Right now I kind of feel like this little guy we found etched into the sidewalk at church. Whether he was intentional or not, I'm not sure. But I definitely do relate to the guy.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Vacation Part 2: The Actual Vacation Part

My family and I have been going to Pine Cliff Resort in June Lake for about ten years now. It is a nice, secluded camp ground on a gorgeous lake surrounded by other lakes. All we ever do is sleep, read, play games and go fishing. An entire week of that and I can say that I am relaxed.

To give you a slight visual I took some pictures, of course. There are a lot, and I mean A LOT, of pictures of the lake. Just to warn you a head of time.

But first we have some serious awesomeness: Bunny Biscuits!

Whenever Mommy makes biscuits she uses the leftover dough to make bunny biscuits. I made one too and there it is minus an ear because Mommy got a little hungry before I was able to take a picture. She was properly reprimanded. I regret to say that my bunny looks rather angry and his/her paws are in a rather risque position as was pointed out by my sister.

Oh well. It's my bunny biscuit and I love her/him/it anyway.

Next we have what my sister and her friends did (minus one) the entire day and a half they spent with us.

Nothing.

And then there was the hike. Yes, I went on a hike. I was reading in my room when Daddy knocked on the window and told me to put some shoes o because we were going on a hike. This 'hike' ended up being around the entire lake. Which actually wasn't too bad. We went at a slow pace and there wasn't a lot of uphill business going on. It was also beautiful, I got a lot of good pictures and I was able to see the lake from a completely different side that in all our ten years of camping at Pine Cliff I had never seen.

The hitting my head on a tree and doing a nice little Tarzan swing into a thorny rose bush to avoid falling off the rocks into the lake was interesting. I can only imagine what my face looked like as I was swinging into that bush and I'm sure my parents won't let me forget it for a long time.

All in all it was a good hike and I'm glad I did it. It was about six miles in all and while that may seem like a cake walk to some, was a lot for me. I have been driving for too long but luckily walking is something I can do and this just proved it further. My legs do work and they can be used for something other than walking to the car or refrigerator! Hurray!

Now onto the pictures...

The Trail... Dun Dun DUN!

A hiking we will go...

Our first glimpse of the lake. (It's a lot bigger than this.)

Some spiffy clouds.

Better view.


Pine cones!

Very large tree.


Trees growing out of rocks. This was pretty cool.

This was probably around the time I hit my head on a tree...


Other side of the lake.


Chris and Daddy



Duckies!

Mommy.

Uprooted tree thats still holding on. Pretty amazing.

Pinecone bud. Apparently you don't get to see these too often because they're so high up. This tree wasn't so shy so we got to see.




Someones house. Yeah, I know...

The boat docks.

More duckies! This is while Chris and I were feeding them of course.


A little video of an inch worm inching its way up my leg. This was right after I did my Tarzan swing into the rose bush.

Mommy hiking IN the lake. We had to do a little of that. Felt good though. It was hot!
The End!

Of the hike! I had you for a second there...

The hike was great and of course there was always fishing.

Daddy casting and almost falling off the rock...

Mommy smiling away.

And then... there were crossword puzzles. Dun Dun DUN!

Here's the thing. I am not competitive at all. Nor do I love a challenge, nor am I ever sarcastic.

Knowing all that, the following story will make perfect sense.

Mommy bought a crossword puzzle book before we left. I decided to give one a try because I was bored. It was pretty challenging and it took me a while but I did it. I was pretty impressed.

Then Daddy sat down and did one in three minutes. Three minutes people! I was amazed and of course had to do as many as possible in as fast a time as possible. I'm still working on it and I think I've fried a few braincells from thinking way too hard for a three letter word that means 'A long stretch of time'. That's usually 'EON' by the way...

And so begins my new addiction to crossword puzzles.

Melissa and crew left on Monday. From left to right: Matt, Serene, Melissa and Chris.

A good Mommy face. Not exactly sure what I did to deserve it but I'm glad I did it.

Daddy accidentally left the waders at home so we went into Bishop to get some new ones. Found these at Kmart for $10. Daddy looks pretty spiffy in these.

One of the many chipmunks that graced us with its presence.
That reminds me a story...

One day Mommy and I were sitting on the porch of the trailing doing whatever we were doing, reading or my new found love, crossword puzzles. Because we were so quiet the chipmunks decided we weren't going to stop them from running into the trailer. Boy were they wrong!

But unfortunately I did miss one until it was too late. So I ran into the trailer after it and since I was blocking its only exist, it decided to run into my parents bedroom, jump onto the bed, run over Daddy's leg and back onto the floor to hide under the bed.

Daddy was taking a nap so as the chipmunk ran over his thigh he made a rather funny jerking motion that made me laugh pretty hard.

Good times.

Some stormy clouds. It rained on us a little one day which meant no fishing but more time for Monopoly!

One day we went over to Mono Lake for the free tour. It was definitely made of awesome.

Mono lake has no outlets. Therefore the only way it loses water is through evaporation. But, like the Dead Sea, its minerals and salt do not evaporate because minerals and salt don't evaporate. Leaving the lake with 80% more salinity than the ocean. Ya, pretty crazy. It also doesn't help that Los Angeles took 500 vertical feet of water from the lake by taken water from the creeks that feed the lake.

All of that been worked out now and they are working on getting the level up to where it should be seeing that 80% of all the seagulls in California go through this lake during migration along with a few other types of birds including but not limited to Osprey.

The cool thing about the high salinity is that it has created Tufas. Tufas are calcium deposits that have built up in the water and are now exposed after the decrease in water level. They are pretty cool.

My favorite part were the flies. They don't land on people and there are millions of them. Most of them are along the shore. To show is where they are our guide simply walked across the shore and a few hundred flies moved out of his way and landed a few feet behind him. I thought that was pretty awesome.

Enough talking, more pictures!




Flies! The black along the shore are the flies and the black in the water are the larvae.



Seagulls.

There was a 'small' leak in the bathroom which is how we think Mr. Frog Man here got into the bathtub.

I'm sitting at the table when I hear, "Good Lord in Heaven above" come from the bathroom. I run in to find Mommy standing over the bathtub looking in. I look in and there he is, Mr. Frog Man, just sitting there like its normal for a rather large tree frog to be sitting in a bathtub in a trailer in the woods.

I told Mommy I would catch him and of course the minute I felt that slimy skin I swuealed like a girl. I did eventually catch him and then he jumped out of my hands and I had to catch him again. Eventually he made it outside. Whether he made it back to wherever he came from alive, I had no idea. Lets just say that with all the birds out there the odds were against him.

It was still pretty cool.

And who could forget Monopoly. I totally owned at this game. We played five times and I kicked some serious buns three out of five of those times. Mommy and Daddy each won once, all of us won by a landslide. Good times.

I told you I'm not competitive...

And so ends the story of my vacation. Again, it was a fun relaxing time that left me feeling refreshed and smelling like pine.

I can now say, I'm glad to be home.