Camping in Big Bear

Last year Shana and I decided to branch out and go on a camping trip with the Glendale ward. For the past two years they have been doing a camp clean up/camping trip at a Boyscout camp up in Big Bear. Well a couple of weeks ago we got an e-mail inviting everyone who went last year to come on out again this year. So we decided, what the heck, we'll take a nice break from LA and head up to the beautiful Big Bear mountains. Both of us had to work Friday and we didn't get to leave until about 7:30 which wasn't too bad, but it meant that we didn't get there until 10:30. The only blessing was that traffic on the 10 wasn't bad at all. It had been fairly cloudy all week here and by the time we got to the mountainous windy road the fog was setting in. It was actually kinda creepy to not be able to see anything but the lines on the road in front of you. About half way up the mountain the fog cleared and the beauty of the night sky was unveiled. The stars were absolutely amazing. I miss being able to see the stars in the city. We made it up to camp just in time to partake of the trout roasting in the fire. It had been caught that afternoon and was so good. I think my taste buds are growing up as my affinity for fish has increased over the past few years. Shana and I decided to go to bed right when the silly get to know you games started coming out. We got all bundled up and hoped it wouldn't be too cold in our little canvas boy scout tents.

The next morning I woke up bright and early. Surprisingly I was not cold during the night. Because I was a group leader for the service project we had a meeting before breakfast to get our assignments. My group go to repaint and carpet the cooks quarters. Sounded like a pretty cool job. But then we saw the paint. The color on the can said Melon but it was almost a bright pink. The pictures do not do it justice. And it gets even better, the carpet we were supposed to put in was maroon. Talk about classy. I guess the cooks won't really care. But in the future if anyone gets depressed send them to the cooks quarters for a nice bright wake-up. It was so much fun. We painted two rooms and then it turned out we only had enough carpet to carpet one of the rooms. So we put the carpet in and called it good. I think the fumes may have been getting to us after a while because the giggles were coming out.

You can't really tell that the carpet was maroon, but it looked rather interesting all together.

After lunch we finished putting the rooms back together and headed off to the barn for some horseback riding. I hadn't ridden in several years, but I had a blast. I was quite saddle sore the next day, but it was worth it. It was just so nice to get out in the forest and away from the city for a weekend. Camping plus a service project made for a fun time.

Garden

My Los Angeles style garden has again been started with hopefully more success than last summer. (All the plant died from lack of sun, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.) When parents came out for graduation my mom and I went to the nursery and got some plants. I had been wanting to try my gardening skills again but just hadn't had time. But now with graduation behind me I have lots of spare time. Here are some pictures of the plants when I first planted them vs. a couple of weeks later.

cucumber

Little cucumber blossoms

tomato
You can even see the blossoms on the second one


My baby tomatoes with blossoms (sorry it's a little blurry)

zucchini
Can't wait for this one

green pepper, basil, oregano
I even got to use the herbs in spaghetti sauce on Sunday

left over flower seeds from Jessica's Relief Society lesson

I think the plants like a deck that actually gets sun because they've grown quite a bit since I planted them. My camera is kind of on the blink so I don't have as many pictures as I would like.

My tomato plants even have a couple of small green tomatoes on them. Hooray! Now if only the bugs on my cucumber plant would go away. I tried soapy water, hopefully that'll work. Any other suggestions?

Stay tuned for more pictures and hopefully more vegetables!

Thoughts that fail to fit anywhere else

Other newsworthy topics:

1. I started to garden again. My balcony garden didn't turn out so well last year. In fact everything died. I got one red pepper and one very bitter, disgusting strawberry last year. But things are looking up as all of my plants are still alive one week after planting. The flowers are even starting to sprout. This year's try includes: tomatoes, lemon cucumber, zucchini, green pepper, oregano, and basil, plus flowers.

2. I have the best fieldwork ever. I have to do 12 more weeks of a clinical rotation to be able to sit for my boards. I'm at the best little pediatric clinic in Santa Monica. The therapists are amazing and wonderful people to work with. The kids are just adorable. It's so low-key and fun. I'm really loving it.

3. I have discovered the gem of public transportation. Previous to this I only took the bus between the USC main campus and the health science campus. That wasn't real public transportation since it was a USC bus that took us back the forth. But I decided since my clinic is just a few miles away and parking is terrible/really expensive around there that I was going to try out the bus. It's been surprisingly wonderful. I love not having to manuver through traffic. I can just sit on the bus and let someone else do it. It comes about ever 10 minutes which is also great. Yeah there are some sketchy people on there, but it's kinda fun to people watch.

4. I have a new goal of cooking a new recipe once a week. We'll see how it goes. I love cooking, but just don't take the time to do it. Maybe if I cook something fun I will make myself take the time.

Whirlwind of a Week

I finally made it to the end of school. My actual last day of school was May 1st where I took my comprehensive exam. Good news--I passed and got to graduate. Now I just have to take my boards in September and I'll be a real occupational therapist!
May has been quite a month for me. After finishing classes I worked for a few days and then made a really quick trip home to see my brother Thomas before he headed off to the Missionary Training Center. He is going to the Colorado Colorado Springs mission. So I went home for basically a weekend and go to spend some time with the family. I went to David and Laura's track meet, Steven's track meet and David's soccer game that weekend. (I forgot my camera for the track meets. Oops)

David wasn't too happy about the officiating of the gameDavid heading toward the goal.

I also got to reconnect with my roots and participate in the lawn mowing extravaganza at home. We have 2.5 acres and still continue to mow it with a push mower. We had a riding mower at one point, but that has long since gone the way of the world and we're back to push mowing it. I never think about my house being on a hill, but man when you have to mow it, it is definitely on a hill. More appreciation for Mom and Dad who do most of the mowing around there.

I also got to be home for Mother's Day which was fun. I made dinner for Mom and tried a new cheesecake bar recipe with berries on top for dessert. Yummy. I think some of the best recipes ever are ones that you kind of make up yourself. This one didn't disappoint me. It was also great to be home for Mother's Day because my brother John who is on a mission in Argentina got to call us. I got to talk to him for a few minutes. He's coming home on July 1st so I'll get to talk to him longer in about a month.
I also had to take advantage of Oregon's no sales tax (compared to California's 9.25%) while I was home and attempted to find some cute clothes. Really I was saving money because I didn't have to pay tax on anything! I was semi-successful after trying on way too many things. My disdain of shopping was reinforced as pretty much nothing I tried on fit, or if it did fit there was something wrong with it (sticker residue on the pants, broken zipper, etc.) But I managed to come away with a few things.

Tuesday my parents, David, Laura, Thomas and I flew to Utah to take Thomas to the MTC.
Mom and Dad with Thomas

Thomas and I outside the MTC

Poor guy ended up with the flu on Wednesday and felt pretty miserable when we dropped him off. But I have heard from him since and he managed to get over it in a few days. We missed seeing Grandma even though we stayed at her house because she was out globe trotting around the country. But I did get to see my sister Carolyn who was also there for the week. It was great to see her. We hit up a few Provo hot spots (Cougareat, BYU Bookstore, Brick Oven, the Creamery). Ahh those BYU days, brings back memories.

Thursday morning we flew to Southern California at the crack of dawn and got here by 8:30am. I guess it was nice since we had the whole day ahead of us. All the extended family got together to go to the Angels vs. Red Sox game.

Kids calling the rally monkey (I guess it worked)

Mom and Dad showing their spirit

I think the kids just came for the cotton candy

The Openshaw victory dance

It was a great game. It went 12 innings and the Angels ended up pulling it off. Thanks Geoff for picking a good game. After the game it was time for pizza and talking at the Grandparent's house. The usuals medicine, politics and religion were all discussed throughout the night, so it was a typical family gathering.

Friday was the day I've been waiting for GRADUATION! The gowns were hot, the speakers mediocre, Laura was enthralled by the speaker

but I got my diploma case with the fake diploma and even got to keep the tassle from my cap.

Thanks to my family and extended family who came to support me.
Bob, Robyn, and Catherine drove all the way out from Redlands!

Grandparents, Parents and siblings with Uncle Mike the photographerCatherine wishing she was done with school too

It was a great day. Sad in some ways because I'm sure there are people who I won't see very often that I spent the last two years seeing on an almost daily basis.
Sarah, Rena, Tammy, Noah and I celebrating all our hard work

But happy because I am moving on to a new adventure in my life. It's been quite a ride these past two years, but somehow the time has flown by.

What's next you ask??? If someone knows, please let me in on the secret. If not, I'll let you know when I know!

Occupational Imbalance

At school a couple of weeks ago we were filling out this balance wheel where we colored in how much of the time we spent in productive activities, sleep, self-care and play. I realized how unbalanced my life had become when there was almost no self-care or play involved in my daily activities.
But this imbalance only has to last for 2 more weeks. At 4:00 on Friday May 1st I will be finished with graduate school. (I'm counting on passing my comprehensive exam that's at 1:00 that day) But for the next 2 weeks I will continue to make the kitchen table my home because I've given up on my comfortable pod, the red couch. It's just too comfortable to be productive. And my desk is too buried under books and papers to even think about studying there. So the table it will be. If I suddenly go missing please come look for me under the mountains of books that surround me.

Random Shenanigans

A couple of weeks ago we decided that we were going to branch out of our little Westwood area and do something new. The new movie Monsters vs. Aliens had just come out and we decided to take a stroll down to the Howard Hughes Center and see it in IMAX 3D. Sara and Kristen obviously didn't get the memo that we were supposed to look cute in our 3D glasses (if that is possible).
After a midnight run to Ralph's to buy stuff for Sunday dinner we were driving home and randomly saw a large mattress in the middle of the street. So what did we do, stop the car, act like tourists and take pictures while Kristen jumped on it. I guess it's ok to jump on the bed when it's not in your house!
After General Conference we decided to get a little bit on sunshine and take a walk at the beach. It was a gorgeous day. When we pulled up to the parking attendant we decided to take a picture of the sign that said how much it was just so we would know for future reference. Now I know to go to the beach before 9:00 and after 4:00 to get the best deal. Too bad that is missing prime beach time, I guess that's why they do it!
Good thing we got a cute picture before Jessica, Josh and I got overtaken by a rogue wave. I was slightly cold after that.Honestly can it get better than this though. The weather was beautiful, the sunset divine. Maybe dealing with the traffic is worth it.

Pinewood Derby-NASCAR style

So I'm a little behind in the blogging world because of way too much time spent on school (posting about this to come). But several weeks ago we had a ward activity fashioned after the cub scout pinewood derby. But to put a little twist on it we decided to go NASCAR style. I'm not really sure I went along with the theme, but it was a fun activity anyway.

So a couple of days before the activity I came home and find Jessica, Sara and Jacob sitting on the floor in my living room with some wooden cars, sand paper, paint and other items needed to properly dress a pinewood derby car. After a LONG day at school this was just what I needed--an artistic outlet. I had originally decided to make a car with Tycen and Shana, but somehow that never materialized, so I hurried over to pick up a pinewood derby car and start on my masterpiece.

The hardest part (or so I thought before making the car) was deciding what to make. It had to be something original because who wants their car to look typical. So after looking at all sorts of pictures online I finally came to the best idea ever...a hearse. It's the last ride you'll ever take so it's gotta be a good one. Now that I had come up with an idea the real hard part began. I soon realized that making a pinewood derby car out of a rectangle block of wood without using any sort of power tools is rather interesting. But I went to work using my chisel and pocket knife. Let me tell you, it is quite a job to fashion a pinewood derby car by hand. Our living room turned into a workshop complete with wood shavings all over the floor! At one point in time I looked down to see that my hand had taken the brunt of the force from the chisel and was sporting a big red blister that had popped before I even knew I had it. But I couldn't give up, so blister or no blister I was going to finish that car. It took several days of working, sanding, painting, and drawing to complete my masterpiece, but Saturday afternoon it was ready for the race of a lifetime."The Black Widow"

We got to the church and I think there were 16 entries. We first raced to get our times and be seeded in the bracket. I was somewhere in the middle. I won my first race but then lost in the second race to The Red Army (the car the eventually won it all). I guess it was good way to go out. But despite only making it through one round I had a great time. There were lots of really creative cars. I must say I was partial to Sara's "da po-po" and Jessica's "Mean Bean". After consuming NASCAR style chicken wings and corn dogs we decided to call it a night. Very successful ward activity.

The crew (well some of them)