Saturday, August 2, 2008

lately

So...quite a lot has happened recently. Although I should have just written about everything as it came, I didn't. Dumb thing to do. Now I have a lot to write about, and I'm a little daunted by the enormity of the task. I apologize up front if this narrative turns out to be a novel.

Two weekends ago, my extended family (on my mom's side) gathered together in my little town to celebrate my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary (quite an accomplishment!). My aunts, uncles, and cousins traveled from all different areas of the country to celebrate. My aunt Kim, uncle Steve, and cousin Ryan arrived first from Montana. It was awesome to see them, and Ryan has grown up so much since I last saw him! (Ryan is my younger brother Eric's age--15.) Ryan and Eric decided to set up camp in a tent on the deck of my house...and when I say camp, I definitely don't mean that literally, other than the fact that they were sleeping in a tent. Inside their tent, they put together a large array of electronics, including (but in no way limited to) a TV, a game cube, and a wii....all inside the tent! Haha, my little brother cracks me up. Geek.

Next to arrive were my uncle Burnell, aunt Lynn, cousin Tracie, and Tracie's baby, Colton, who all hail from Connecticut. I had never met Tracie's baby before, so this was awesome! He is so, so cute. I kind of wanted to steal him from her, but I eventually decided against that idea due to the great amount of resistance from his mother. And finally my cousin Meagan, her husband Kirk, and my cousin Courtney arrived from Utah. Meagan and Kirk are settling down in the Salt Lake area, and Courtney attends BYU (which I try not to hold against her).

Unfortunately, the next day, I had to work while the rest of the family went canoeing. :( However, it sounds like they had an amazing time. That night, when I got home, I had to hurry and get ready for my grandparents' anniversary party (which turned out to be a huge success). We ate dinner, cake, and candy, followed by my grandparents giving "marriage advice." The advice to me (from my grandma) was to marry at least five years younger than me since women are expected to live longer. I laughed so hard, picturing a little 14-year-old boy. Next on the agenda was watching the movie that Tracie had put together of all the kids and grandkids talking about their favorite memories of Grandma and Grandpa. What I learned from that experience: I HATE watching/hearing myself on camera. Yuck. But the movie turned out really cute despite my presence in it, and my grandma and grandpa loved it. At the end of the night, both of them declared independently that this was one of the happiest nights of their lives.

The next day, we went hiking (near Granite Mountain) with the whole family (minus my grandparents and my mom), which was also a lot of fun. It was awesome to have some one-on-one time with each of my cousins and hear some of their life experiences. I absolutely love talking to all of them, partially because it reminds me that I'm not alone in all of the things that I'm going through. That night, we had a BBQ at the base of Thumb Butte. It was gorgeous weather; we had some very minor rain, thunder and lightning in the distance, and then a very beautiful full moon. We also had a pretty big bonfire, which seemed to me to be the hit of the evening, haha. Everyone liked the fire.















My mom, cousin Courtney, and me at the BBQ; Some of my cousins, aunts, uncles, G&G

The next day, everyone except Lynn, Burnell, Tracie, and her baby headed out. After everyone had left, Lynn told stories about their family, which was honest-to-goodness probably my favorite part of the whole reunion. I loved listening to her. She is an amazing storyteller, and it gave me such insight into every member of that family.

The following weekend, my grandma Joyce and aunt Ginny (on my dad's side) came to visit. I am especially close to both of them, so this was really fun. They also brought their dogs...a 14-year-old border collie (Missy) and a 10-month-old black lab (Cody). LOL, Cody sure kept me on my toes. (I'm lucky I have any toes left after what he put them through.) He is 110 pounds of pure puppy. Gotta love it. (I am convinced that the spelling of labrador was originally "lap"ador; this dog's favorite place to sit was in my lap--a bone-crushing experience.) Later on in the trip, I could tell my dog was getting sick of Cody and Missy. He wanted them out. Missy kept biting him to "protect" her food (which was actually MY dog's food). Finally, he gave in and bit her back...only when he bit her, he bit her hard, and she ended up needing stitches. As horrible as it sounds, I didn't feel too badly for her.
My aunt and I went shopping on Monday! Yay! I LOVE shopping. Especially with Ginny. This was definitely a highlight of my last two weeks. :) Two days after our shopping excursion, they went home. :( I miss them!

On Wednesday night, I was feeling kind of restless. I had been very busy with work and family but had had very little time to just hang out with friends. I needed to get out of the house! Travis Moore invited me to go with him, Eric Campbell, and Natalie Bonnett to go cave exploring. Although I very badly wanted to go somewhere, I wasn't sure this was the place I had been hoping for. However, I eventually gave in...with awesome results! I didn't think I would be the cave-exploring kind of girl (if there is such a genre of girls), but I surprised myself and LOVED it! In fact, I loved it so much that I went again the next night with 15 other kids. The cave is pretty big--and when I say big, what I really mean is long, because you have to crawl through most of it. There were some awesome stalactites and stalagmites, and basically...the whole thing was just pretty cool.













Natalie and me on the first night; Part of our group the second night

There were only two things that semi-scared me. The first was on the first night when Natalie and Eric went ahead of Travis and I in the cave. As I was crawling through a pretty small opening, I felt something touching my back that did NOT feel like rock. I think I screamed; I can't be sure, but I must have made some sort of an I-am-uncomfortable-with-whatever-is-touching-me kind of noise, because immediately afterward, all three of my spelunking buddies started laughing. It turned out that Natalie was sitting on the rock above me and thought it would be uncommonly funny to touch my back to freak me out. It worked. And they DID think it was uncommonly funny.

The second was on the second night when someone scared a bat into flying immediately by my left temple. Now, I would just like to justify myself in saying that I do like bats. Really. I even did a report on them in the 7th grade. Despite this, I do not particularly enjoy when one touches me, or even comes close to doing so. I think I screamed then, too, but...again I can't be sure.

That in a nutshell (a very LARGE nutshell) is what I have been up to the past few weeks. I'll try to be more regular about blogging, because otherwise I'll probably end up with a novel or two every time I sit down to write. And I don't think ANYbody wants that.

P.S. There will be more photos on facebook later if you want to see more of my adventures.

1 comment:

Chy said...

Katie!! I'm so glad that you left a comment on my blog. This is the first time I have been on for a while but it completely made my day. Looks like you have been running from one place to other! Have fun as you get back to school though.