way overdue...

I'm sorry its taken me this long to get a post up about my off roading trip with Lauren, I just keep forgetting to do it. :P

A few weeks ago I took my friend Lauren off roading, to the same spot Alex took me to(I was very proud of the fact that I found it all by myself :D) everything went fine on the way in, and while we were there. We walked around in the creek for a while(a couple of hours to be exact, we were trying to find a swimming hole tht Mat and Alysha had mentioned, turns out that we passed it very early on and didn't even notice :P)


so here's a cool tunnel that we explored later, it just looked too inviting not to! :D

getting ready to head out down the creek


cool rocks and pretty scenery :)


you have no idea how much fun it was to climb that rock :) and what do you know, that's where the swimming place was...but we kept walking. :P


walking through the water...it was much easier than climbing on the rocks on the sides, but the stream bed hurt! Had to be careful cuz I kept falling :P


we decided to walk on the side of the creek on the way back...it went sooooo much faster! it took us 2 hours to get to where we stopped, swam a little and turned around, it took us 45 min. to get back!


Lauren like the catwalk/bridge :) it's kinda cool because there's water rushing on both sides so its pretty loud :)


Aaaaaand, like I said, we couldn't NOT explore the cool tunnel :) this is right before went inside.
We left right after this because it was around 1:30, and we had been there for about five hours at that point :P we were both pretty sunburnt...however, lest you think that the entire trip went without incident, we decided to do a little bit of exploring on side trails on the way back, and the result was...




a slightly stuck Simba. I had to call Mat and Alex to come pull us out. Sadly no pictures of the rescue party, but they got there after we had been sitting there for about three hours...interesting afternoon :P

4th of July

For the 4th of July my Mom wanted us to have a big get together, and play softball, while celebrating both hers and Libby's birthdays. Originally we were gonna have another family join us, and do us against them, but that didn't work out. So we got up bright and early on Saturday morning and got ready for our get together. Everyone was there, Libby, Jon, Gabe, Emily, and all three little boys, Jonathan, Thomas, and Josiah. Shortly after they arrived we all headed down to the jr. High behind our house to play softball. We warmed up by playing catch, and Phillip hit some balls to us. The we all got a turn at bat. Gabe hit first, then me, Phillip, Dad, Emily, Little Jonathan, Thomas, Libby, and Big Jonathan. It was a blast! :D then we headed back to the house for a barbecue, and to open presents. The boys made flags later on too. Everyone helped out! Afterwards I left to go off roading with a group from the church. A couple of the guys went in together on a deuce (you know those army transport trucks? the ones with the canvas sides and jsut plank benches in the back? yea, one of those) so we all met on highway 38 and piled into the back, then headed up the trail. It was the cooelst thing, because it's so big, you don't feel the bumps at all. Felt an aweful lot like riding on the paved road, not kidding. We went to a fire lookout tower, and hung out till it got dark enough to see the fireworks. We were able to see at least 15, probably more like 20 shows all at once. Some looked like they might be as far away as disnyland. Thye aren't quite as impressice when they;re small like that, because we were so high, but it was still cool to be able to see so many at once and the sound lag between seeing them and hearing then was cool too. We left around 10 and got back down to the main road by 11. On both the way up and the way down we started singing songs. We sang tv show tunes, and veggietales, and disney songs. It was a lot of fun.


softball, warming up, helping hte little boys aroubd the bases, and relaxing afterward


craft time, making the flags, the finished product


the deuce and us with the deuce(it's a lot bigger close up :P)


pretty scenery from where we were. Isn't it gorgeous?


city lights(blurry cuz my camera wouldnt make them clear without the flash, and it wouldn't capture them at all with the flash), and the one firework I was able to get, cool huh?

Why I'm not a Psych Major

Growing up, my role in my group of friends was "the comforter" I was the stable one, the one without problems, or at least with less problems than my friends had. Therefore, I was the one who fixed things, I made people feel better when they were having an off day, or a bad week. I was the counselor, of sorts. When I graduated high school I went to CSUN and became a deaf studies major. It was what I wanted, and CSUN was the easiest way to do it. Then I transferred to Biola, which doesnt have a deaf studies major, but I was so fed up with CSUN that at the time I was Ok with not being a deaf studies major anymore. My options then became Englsih, or Psych. I picked English but spent the entire summer thinking maybe I should have picked Psych, because of how things were with my friends in High school. I decided not to, but always kinda wondered, What If? Then I was at my friend's house the other day, and we were talking. It felt like High school all over again, she's having a hard time, and I was trying to make her feel better. Suddenly, I realized that I felt better too. Which was the exact same way things worked in high school. I would make my friends feel better, and in the process, I felt better about myself. In me taking care of them, it prevented me from having to focus on my own problems. It pusehd them to the back of my mind, so that I didn't have to deal with them. I realized that it was happening all over again. I had a hard time for most of the year at Biola, didn't really click with people until the end of the year. Even though I finally did, I tink the damage was done. I felt alone, again, and being able to make other people better rather than focus on how lonely I was doesn't help, it jsut postpones the inevitable. I am an emotional mess, and I'm not really dealing with it the right way. This is why I'm not a Psych major. I don't really enjoy fixing other people's problems for the sake of helping hte person, I enjoy it because it makes me feel better about myself, it keeps me from having to deal with my own problems, and it's selfish and pointless to try to take care of someone else when you can't take care of yourself.