Change in the Wind

As senior year approaches and I complete my last year of high school, I decided to change things up a bit.

16 miles later...

Yesterday my family decided to take a bike ride up at NCR trail in monkton. It is a 40 mile old rail-road trail from here to PA. Originally we figured 5 miles up and 5 miles back would be plenty. Knowing my family that never happens, we ended up going 8 miles one way and then 8 back, with a 30min snack and creek walk break. While the biking felt good during my legs hurt this morning and stairs are fun. The trail was beautiful, and had many different places to take a break or go down the river in a tube. If you get a chance it is a fun family or friend activity :)

Oh and while we were on our creek walk I decided to go sit on a rock out in the water. While climbing up the rock I found a pair of plaid boxers and maroon sports shorts :P I hope somebody didn't loose those recently lol.

Time for Goodbye :(

Today was the last day of camp and a dinner banquet for all the kids and their families :) We played human bowling and messy eggs (crack eggs on your leaders head, either hard-boiled or raw), and even had pool Olympics - all before the rain broke out! Watching the kids participate in belly flop, diving, cannon ball, and whirlpool contests as well as animal races was such a highlight in my day. I got very close to many of the kids in my group as well as many other kids. The one little boy Peter always wanted me to come and clap his hands together with mine and do all the dances and hand-motions to the songs right with me. He was always smiling and laughing and liked to pretend he was sleeping on the bus just to tease you :P I will miss the kids soo much and was sad to see them leave :( I had to go before the banquet and the kids wanted us to stay soo bad; not letting go and then giving hugs and wanting to see us again. I love you guys <3 Special needs children are so very wonderful, and I'm excited to hopefully be working with them for the rest of my life.

Special Needs Camp :)

For the past two days I have had the opportunity to be a camp counselor at a special needs camp with Grace Fellowship Church and Capernaum Life ministries. The kids are full of joy and laughter and love to interact with all of the counselors. Some of them go to school together, others attend church together, and some are just meeting for the first time. Watching the joy on their faces as they get ready for camp has to be one of my favorite things :) Waking up early and hearing "miss miriam!! What are we gunna do today", the best feeling in the world. They may be disabled in some ways, however they have soo much joy in their hearts and do not care what others think of them or how they look :) They love each other.

Today was day two: County Fair Day :) Once we sang our songs and ate all of our crazy and somewhat gross food it was time to go to the farm (where we play games, eat  lunch, and get in the pool). Our games for the day were fair games: duck pond, milk bottle toss, frisbee toss, and of course a pie smash and a dunking booth (these were for the leaders specifically). You get your tickets by playing the games, once you have five tickets your camper gets to choose to dunk you or pie you in the face :P Of course my camper decided to do both...whooooo and dunk me 3 times :) The water was freezing, but it felt good in the hot sun. Oh i almost forgot the hay ride, a classic county fair fun event. Just a small taste of my week with 12 wonderful ( and many more in other colors) campers in my blue group :)

See ya'll tomorrow :)

First Day of Summer

First day of summer and it's beautiful outside :) Full week of relaxing, settling in to summer and getting to hangout with some friends before the craziness begins. Got my final report card today, 3.96 GPA and graduated with Suma (highest) Honors :) Not to shabby.

A Painting in the Sky

A sunset is a beautiful painting in the sky. The sky is the canvas and God is the painter. Color after color streaked across the sky, colors our eyes have never seen. An amazing display of God's power and beautiful creation :)

Every time my best friend goes away he takes a picture of the sunset where he is and sends it to me :) Each one is more beautiful than the next and shows a different view and background. What amazes me is that even though I am miles away from him and others we all see the same sunset. The same gorgeous colors in the sky, just with a different landscape. Here are just a few of the sunsets over the past month.

                  OBX, North Carolina:

                   
                  Virginia (Back-roads):

Weird Compliments.....ummm thank you?

Have you ever been complimented, yet your not entirely sure how to respond? It's one of those: "ummm thank you?" responses. Well I started a few years ago making a "book" of all the weird compliments I have gotten over the years. Today I think I just got the best one. In talking to my best friend, we were talking about how long my hair was and he was saying how much he likes it. Yet his compliment was: "Yeah it's soo long, and pretty and warm". Warm? That's a new one, but don't worry it gets better lol. I proceeded to question the warm compliment and got "yes, it's warm like a blanket made from Norwegian alpaca belly fur". Haha :) Not really sure how to respond to that, my hair got compared to this little guy: (and then blanket underneath)