“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”

I always have to do these recap blogs soon or else I forget. So here goes.

We decided to go to Lake Forest Ranch this weekend. We being Heather, Ryan, David, Michelle, Billy and myself. I spent Friday morning making record bowls for my UH300 class, then I packed up, picked up Heather, Ryan and Billy and we started on our way. And by that I mean we inched our way in traffic to the Northport Walmart, spent an hour choosing bread and meat, and finally took off in the downpour. The drive was a lot of nothingness, but we had a good time and eventually made it to the camp. It was SO beautiful. We got ourselves situated in the bunks, jumped on some of the mattresses, then decided we were hungry. We had planned to go to Sonic for one of our dinners, so we chose that night since David and Michelle wouldn't be getting in until way later. So we set out through the back exit of the camp toward Louisville, MS, which was probably 30 or so minutes away. It was the closest town. So we made it a few minutes outside of the gates when BAM! tiny adorable bunny ran out in front of my car. I screamed, slammed my brakes, then continued. Not 5 seconds later BAM! another bunny decided it wanted to die too! So I scream some more, slam my brakes, and just inch my way a few more feet before I came to a stop and just stared at the road. I don't know if I actually hit either of them, but I was freaked out. And I couldn't feel my arms. That was a fun reaction. So Heather offered to drive, which was an excellent idea. I spent the rest of the drive yelling about how I probably killed one or both of them and everyone else made mean bunny jokes at me. Love you guys.

So we made it to Louisville, found a cute restaurant, but they were uber expensive and about to close, so we continued to Sonic. Ryan was stubborn (what else is new) so we kept driving to see what else was there, and I'm SO glad we did because we ended up finding this awesome little place called BJ's. They didn't close for another 45 minutes, so we went in. We showed our clear lack of any local knowledge by standing awkwardly in the doorway until someone told us where to sit. Yikes. Ryan and I ended up getting the country fried steak, which I don't believe I'd ever had before, but it was amazing. And the onion rings were perfect. Billy and Heather got ridiculously massive baked potatoes and Heather also got pork chops. Needless to say, we were all very, very happy. Heather drove back to the camp and they spent the whole drive convincing me we were going to come across rabbit carcasses in the road. I was horrified. Luckily, we didn't find any, so either I didn't actually hit them, or something ate them. Ew.

We hung out in the bunks for a while playing card games until Michelle and David got there. Yay! So when they did we let them get situated then we walked over to the fire ring to start a fire. Heather brought these weird fire starter things, I called them poo bricks, because that's exactly what they looked like. Though Michelle, Heather and I spent most of the time criticizing them (yeah, sure boys...), the boys got a very nice fire going with the wet logs! We sat by it for a while, then started tossing hot coals around. Don't ask me why, but it was pretty fun. We all got some lovely burns and blisters on our hands, though. After we let the fire die down we hung out in the bunks and went to sleep sometime around 2 or so.

Saturday we got up around 8:30 or 9:30, and by we I mean everyone but Ryan, who can apparently sleep through anything. I got a shower, which proved to be useless. We..sorry, the boys, made breakfast of eggs and bacon, then we decided to take the boats out. Heather, Michelle and I took the canoe and Ryan, David and Billy took one of the flat bottom boats. We easily out paddled them (duh) and then discovered a paddle boat stranded on the other side of the lake. Heather being the good LFR counselor that she is decided that we should save it. We sidled up to it and as I was trying to get it closer WHAM! Heather leaps from the canoe, taking Michelle and I down with her. I landed face first in the weeds and up to my calves in mud. Yummy. Oh yeah, we hadn't bothered to change into bathing suits, so my clothes were soaked. The boys laughed at us so we proceeded to splash them heartily, and Heather of course. We flipped the canoe back and Michelle and I took it while David and Heather rescued the paddle boat. We all got back to the docks. Unbeknownst to me, David and Ryan were plotting long before this and took the opportunity to flip my canoe again! Wonderful. So we spent the next little while shoving each other off the dock. I shoved David into the shallow part by accident so he hurt his foot. Sorry David!! The only one who didn't get shoved in was Ryan because of the stupid bro code and the guys protecting him. DUMB. Anyway. From there we played frisbee, discovered we were standing in prickers, changed, then moved our frisbee game to the big field. Played that for a while, hung out for a while, then it was time for horses.

Now, friends, some of you know and some of you don't, that I used to own a horse. His name is Rebel and he now belongs to my dear darling cousin Gabrielle. We had planned to move to North Carolina when I was in high school, but it never panned out. But when it was going to happen, my parents bought me Rebel and I spent several summers training him and being a good little country girl (yeah right...). But really, I loved it and the memories I have of Marika helping me learn to ride and to do everything I needed to do to take care of a horse are some of my favorites. But anyway. The way he ended up in my darling aunt's care was that 1. we weren't moving to NC and 2. I fell off of him. It was ugly, I was scared, and it just wasn't good. So since then I've been a little skiddish when it comes to riding horses. I got right back on, thanks to Marika, but after that I was still leery. So anyway. Long story short, I was nervous about our ride. We walked to the pasture to round up the horses, got them all ready, and luckily all of it started to flood back. I got all of my gear on correctly, and we got ready to go. I cried just a little before I got on the horse, not because I was scared, which I was a little, but mostly because it reminded me so much of Marika and how much she loved her horses. But thanks to the wonders of sunglasses, no one noticed. And then it was time to focus. Got bless Heather, she knows all of my crazy and helped me get on my horse like a pro. Once I was up, I felt good. I rode a horse named Missy, who looked a lot like Rebel. We rode them around the lake, and it was fun. Missy did NOT like mud, so she ran me into a few trees to avoid it. But it was really great to finally be back on a horse. Once we finished, I perfected my dismount and didn't land on my butt. It was glorious. We took off all of the saddles and such and then I drove my car down to the pasture so I could drive everyone back to camp. Unbeknownst to everyone else, well, I guess until they read this, that was the moment I took to completely lose it. Imagine how crazy I look, driving by myself down this dusty gravel road sobbing. Oy vey. It's just hard to do something Marika loved so much without her. But it brought back so many memories of all of the summers we had and I'm really blessed to have had that kind of relationship with her. And I'm really happy we rode the horses. Once everyone else got there, I was good to go. Heather fed all of them, then we went back to the cabin. We ate an entire jar of my mom's salsa (mom, I need to bring a bunch more back next time I'm home!), sat around for a while, then we gathered out food stuffs and headed for Jerry's house.

In our hour in Walmart, we did manage to buy 5 pounds of hamburger meat. The boys cooked again, and it was delicious. We got to spend some time with the couple in charge (kind of ) of the camp, who were really nice. We ate and talked and just hung out for a while. After that...what did we do? I know we all just wanted to pass out. Haha. I think we went back to the fire. Oh yeah. I drove the boys around so they could collect firewood and Heather and Michelle went to rescue a submerged canoe we had noticed on our horse ride. That was an adventure. But we got it! Then it was time for fire. We all realized how much my hammock straps sucked, but everyone took turns swinging 4 inches off the ground in it. Heather and Billy fell in Heather's hammock, which was kind of hilarious. We stayed by the fire til it got dark, then got bored and went to the rec room. Actually, I ended up alone taking my car back to the cabins and walking to the rec room paranoid that I was going to be abducted. Did I mention we spent the entire weekend strategizing for the zombie apocalypse? Cause we did. Anywho. We all went over there and played this ridiculously fun ping pong game. I don't remember what it was called, but I just called it utter chaos. Then we played some soccer and other stuff and ended our night with some intense four square. Hahaha yup. I never went to summer camp, so it was very exciting.

We got back to the cabin and David decided to bust out his jujitsu skills and teach Heather and Ryan some stuff. It was hilarious. Then we ate some sammies, threw goldfish around and passed out probably around 1 or so. Well, I didn't. I laid there for a few hours before I finally went to sleep. Oh well.

This morning we had planned to wake up at 8 and leave by 9. Our alarms went off at 8 but no one moved. I finally got up at 8:45, which triggered everyone else to get up. We left by 9:45ish. Then we went back because Heather forgot her phone. Then we left again. Haha. We made it to Tuscaloosa a little after noon, parted ways, then met up again to go to the air show. Billy dropped Heather, Clay, Ryan and I off as close as he could get to the airport. Well, we thought it was as close as we could get. We were WRONG. We walked forever around the airport until we finally found the entrance. My shoes failed me and I now have blisters on the bottoms of both of my feet. Ouch. We met up with Heather's family, walked around a bit, then settled in the grass to watch the Blue Angels. I felt like a little kid again. I absolutely loved it. Seeing all of the planes was really neat too. After the Blue Angels flew, we got our stuff together and trekked to Heather's parents' car, which was almost as far as where we had been dropped off. Not quite, though. So they took us back to our cars, Heather went with them and Clay, Ryan and I went to Mugshots. I chugged two glasses of tea and two glasses of water. And we are talking Mugshots glasses, not normal sized glasses. Dehydrated is an understatement. After that we parted ways and I came home for Tux to scream PAY ATTENTION TO MEEE!! He's now passed out on my leg.

Alrighty. Well, I guess I should get some homework done. As usual, I'm super behind. Woo! This weekend was really amazing, though. I'm so glad I went. Can you believe it's just under a month until graduation? It's unreal...