this summer i learned how to make a good omelette and how to dive (finally!)

and my summer ended around noon on thursday at the ontario international airport. let's rewind.

once again, i wish life would slow the heck down. my summer began with a freakin sweet trip with my family to the grand canyon. it was my first time there - pretty grand. mark and i did a sweet hike into the canyon the night we got there. i wish i had a digital camera so i could post all my photos. after a couple days there we drove up to southern utah to bryce canyon. there, mark and i split off and did a 30 mile backpacking route up the entire park. we did it in less than two days, so it was pretty intense. but it was a great opportunity to spend some quality time with mark before he left for europe for 6 months. i miss him soooo much.

upon our return to the beautiful concrete jungle that is LA i packed up and headed to my true home - new york. after spending a day or so at tim's house we packed up the car and headed down to west virginia for a little climbing trip at seneca rocks. it was beautiful, soo fun, and stretching. it wasn't my first time hanging off rocks when i'm 200 or 300 feet from the ground, but it takes a little getting used to. we also checked out the highest point in WV which was pretty sweet. it had this cool meadow with huge boulders on the top. we caught the sunset up there one night. you should check it out.

when we got back to NY we chilled in the area for a few days then headed down to camp in PA. i spent the following 6 weeks (minus weekends) as a camp counselor for kids ranging from 6 to 16. i did one week as a soccer camp counselor, the rest was just regular camp. it was a pretty good summer. each morning i got up at 5:45am and was able to catch the sun rise as i walked to the dining hall with dani to make some coffee. we then would sit outside and spend time with God until our staff devotions at 7am. it was the best way to start off my days. my highlights of camp obviously include some excellent bonding times with my campers. i loved going on hikes with them and picking raspberries, blackberries, and an assortment of wild flowers. i loved sleeping under the stars - which are amazing in northern pa (the middle of nowhere for those of you that don't know). i love building fires and i got to do that a lot at camp :) i loved to make pancakes for my campers over the fire in the morning. i loved seeing God work in so many lives. camp was good.

oh, and another highlight of my summer was at honeoye lake - part of the finger lakes - in ny. so tim and i were fishing out on the lake at like 11pm one weekend and well, i caught the biggest in my life. it was 18 inches long at 3.5lbs. yeah, that's right. tim caught a freakin huge one too right before i caught mine (but mine was bigger). we ate our aquatic buddies for lunch the following day. maybe that sounds lame to you, but it was really really exciting for me.

after camp tim and i packed up and headed west. the night we got here went to hollywood to see nickel creek perform at amoeba, that was pretty cool. i'm really enjoying their new album. we also went up to mammoth for the weekend with my parents. that included a full day spent in yosemite, which was the first time there for both of us. i cannot wait to go back there. that places in sooo amazingly beautiful. maybe someday my climbing skills will be good enough so that i can do el cap or half dome, although that might be a stretch. the time with tim out here was so relaxing and so much fun. it was great to have my best friend be included in on my life out here.

and well, classes start on wednesday. so i guess my summer is over. and that's life.