Shriners and Ladies

Right now there are large men in tall hats playing bongos outside my door. It is 10:53 PM and there are men playing bongos. How did these men get here? Why are they here? Where did they go wrong in life? These are all valid questions.

Anyway, today I met my roommate, Cara.

She taught me how to make a pita.

Then, my mom and I went and explored Spokane and Coeur d’ Alene. We also learned how to spell Coeur d’ Alene. It took me at least a solid week.

I loved those hay bales.

Coeur d’ Alene is an adorable little town complete with perfect frolic fields, white picket fences and red barns. It just makes me want to eat an apple pie or milk a cow or something.

This is the river in Spokane:

Gonzaga University upside down.

I went back to Whitworth for the first time since I first visited last year. I am feeling antsy pantsy for all the adventures that are to come.

Oh, and let’s not forget the shot of the trip.

Keep it Real

Sara Nicole

Wait, what is a LAM..Buh?

Portland, Oregon.

Probably one of my favorite cities in the world.

I could live here if it didn’t rain all the time.

Why can’t it always just be summer in Portland, Oregon?

That’s what I have to say about that.

On Wednesday I rekindled a long lost friendship.

My mom and I met up with a family friend, Carey Hall.

We went to lunch at this charming little deli called “Elephant’s Delicatessen”

It was kind of a rip off though because they don’t even serve elephant there.

Tonight I went for a 10PM around Portland and for some reason, it was one of the most invigorating experiences.  I don't know.  I just felt excited to be in a new place. I felt free. It's like it was foreshadowing for what is to come-- living in a new place, meeting new people, growing in independence.

I best be hitting the sack now.

It’s off to Spokane tomorrow to visit my school and one of my roommates for next year.

Dad will be flying our plane. I think.

I hope he doesn’t hit a bird and have to land the plane in the Hudson. Too soon?

And I hope mom doesn’t get the GPS cord tangled in the steering wheel. again.

I don’t care what anyone says. I am a really good navigator.

Keep it Real

Sara Nicole

We all want to be pecan farmers

On Sunday evening, the wife and I arrived early to church:

The best things have always happened when we have arrived early to things.

Well actually, this would be the first time.

Nickrole can balance on my hand.

Today we helped Nicole's mom teach her aerobic's classes.

She had gotten surgery a while back so she needed demonstrators.

Naturally she asked us. Our butts will be sore tomorrow.

Cindy Cain is one of the best aerobics instructors on the block. Ask anyone.

But today she was a little drugged up on Vicatin:

.

Nicole: Wait, is Miss Salveson going to be in this class?

Mrs Cain: No, she's retired from teaching

Nicole: Wait how does that correlate?

Mrs Cain: Shhhhhhh, Nicole listen!

.

Mrs. Cain: Hey, you're back! What was your name? Ashley right?

Jennifer: Jennifer

Mrs. Cain: Oh, well I got the Y part right.

.

Mrs. Cain: Who filled my water bottle with coffee?!?

Nicole: I don't know. Dad maybe?

Mrs. Cain: Why are you blaming everyone else? Don't be a bratty girl...Oh it was me. Here give me a hug.

.

I don’t know how she teaches both those classes everyday. Cindy Cain is an amazing woman.

.

In addition, Nicole and I have been debating things like what are the actual lyrics to the Holes theme song

Man, that is a catchy tune.

As it turns out, Nicole was right. Color me embarassed.

. On that note, I am halfway done with digging my hole.

The reason I am digging a hole is irrelevant but I am halfway done with my hole.


On that note I hope it stops raining soon. We have to keep canceling tennis and Lexi and I have been forced to sit out waiting for it to stop thereby making butt shapes on the courts. Most of them were intentional.

So overall, solid weekend.

Reep it Keal

Sara Nicole

That’s not normal for whispies to turn clear

Today began with asleep Nicole accidentally holding my hand and whispering in my ear.

And ended with a dead javelina.

In the middle of stressful times and everything that is going on in my crazy life, I am so glad I have my best friend.

Who loves sushi and raving more than the average bear.

Who makes better zuchini bread than Sara Lee and better kabobs than Bubba.

Whose hair turns clear in soft tones and nose grows worms in comic books.

Who will be a dog-owner, a baker, a singer, billionaire and carnie, I mean Carnival Cruise model.

Who goes out of her way to do things for nothing in return and is always there no matter what.

Like C.S. Lewis once said, “knowing you is like a small taste of heaven."

I love you more than words can say. It’s hard to imagine what life will be without you in my life everyday.

Keep it Real

Sara Nicole

It’s Tuesday Somewhere

Every once in a while, it seems as though your life is divided into chapters in a novel. When you look back on your own there are a few instances that stand out in my mind. Just a few chapters are so beautiful and perfect that you can’t help but smile when you turn back to their pages. You look back longing to go back to those moments or at the very least somehow recreate them. Yet, no matter how hard you try to go back to that beautiful chapter, turn back the pages of the book or fabricate that moment or emotion, it will never be the same. You can’t turn back the growth of the characters or plotline in a story; just like a novel, life is an unraveling story that changes and develops.

The more you try to retell an old chapter the more you end up frustrated, grieving the loss of the person you once were and the person you could have been. The real tragedy in the story is not the circumstances, but perhaps the way you reacted to them, forcing the wheel of life in a new direction. You feel overwhelmed with indecision-- anxious that you will choose a path that you will wish you could rewrite. People come and go. You try and fight the inevitable--fight the fact that everything must come to an end. You wish for a grand reunion of lost loves and passions--mending past regrets, fixing the people you have hurt and telling others how much they really meant to begin with.

You think back to those high points and begin to comprehend that they came together in a way and time you’d never expect. They were not mere milestones that society tells you ought to be your happiest moments or something you dreamt up in times of loneliness. A story of true beauty and perfection is written by someone with great and rare talent. It is then I realize I am not the author of my own novel. And I feel at peace letting the gusts of life pulling me in different directions pass me by. I relinquish my pen and paper. That alone gives me peace. Peace and hope. For today and for tomorrow.

Keep it Real

Sara Nicole

Three is better than four

About four months ago this idea came up that we would visit Senora Brown’s house in the middle of the night.

When I say we, I mean our Spanish 7-8 class.

And when I say Senora Brown, I mean the fun-loving, sometimes crotchety, rattlesnake killing, alien loving, mullet having, beloved teacher that taught us the language of Spanish for the last four years.

You have to understand that this Spanish class is not a normal Spanish class.

Some of our more notable accomplishments have included:

- attending a voluntary salsa dancing festival 2 1/2 hrs away

- creating an official class power ranking system

- producing perhaps the greatest movie ever made my high school students.

- two movies actually, one wasn’t enough.

In fact, words could probably never express the events that took place in Room 413 that second semester of senior year. Our days were filled with Spanish Scrabble, macarenas, reenacting crime scenes, endless presentations on our arbitrary ideas, always getting sidetracked, obscure movies relating to the north, slipping anuses, listening to War of the Worlds if only to fulfill Sra’s obsession with aliens. Words could not express the jokes that strung out far more than it made sense to string out and the friendships that were formed that year. From our class hangout to the last day when made Senora cry, I think for most of us it really made our senior year.

Of course, when we set out to do something of this magnitude, we always follow through.

Even if it is two months after school is out.

We had figured out where our teacher lived months ago, thanks to an elaborate algorithm.

Unfortunately for us, Senora Brown practically lives in Egypt.

Last night we finally executed our 11380 plan.

Or as Hiren and Nikil called it, Operation Brown Down.

Not our most attractive picture...

We left her a briefcase with the combination: 011380. In it contained our second DVD with our outake footage of our movie, a printout of our 11380 Strickland plans, a special video message to her and Spike (or maybe his name is Lester), and our beloved torch signed by all 12 of us. I only I wish I could be there to see her face in the morning. If she ended up moving, I really hope I never find that out.

Looking back at the year, Spanish was really such a dyanmic and perfect group of individuals. They are definitely some of my favorite people. I honestly think that it was the tendency to go at great lengths for the sake of a joke or a moment that made this class so special. It is surely a quality not many people possess. It still is crazy to think back to the events that led up to us trekking down Senora Brown’s creepy driveway. Last night was our last time together and I am completely at peace with that. There will never be another Spanish 7-8 and there never should be. I know we will all go on to have more fantastic experiences but still remember the crazy little adventures we had together in our little hick town of Prescott. To everyone who was a part of this, I truly cannot thank you enough. I could go through and thank every person not only for the ridiculous ideas and the times I have laughed harder than ever before, but for just being your wonderful selves. To all my spanish amigos, Te amo y Adios. (Hiren, that means goodbye.)

I truly hope that Senora will someday google herself and find these pictures of us in her driveway.

I mean its not like Esther Brown has not been googled before.

Keep it Real

Sara Nicole

Have you seen my shirt with the red hammers?

Oh, my gosh, I just wanted to tell someone and you were the first one I ran into.
Today is the day that I sold these little suckers. 

Six years ago a friend and I started this awful hobby called we take the tops off soda cans and collect them in these small tin cans. We would go around town just searching for them. We would get pop tops from grocery stores, from airplanes, and from other people’s trash cumulating to a grand total of 10,000 pop tops.  Like I said, it was an awful hobby. And this is just my share.

Twenty-five dollars will never be enough to cover the time and injuries that went into the obscene amount of aluminum that sat in a drawer for five years. Okay, so world's dumbest hobby, but it was hard to let go of the little munchkins cold turkey. Next time warn me before I take up something like professional dumpster diving. K.

Passion

Never in my life have I been so driven—so devoted to a single objective as I have with tennis this summer. I never really cared much about the sport until my senior year of high school and by then it was too late for significant improvement. I don’t know exactly when or why everything changed for me, but over the past few summer months I seemingly developed a tennis addiction. I played every single day, every chance I had—sometimes 4 or more hours a day. When I wasn’t playing tennis I was thinking about it—dreaming up ways I could improve my strokes and place the ball exactly where I wanted it to go. When I was playing, I never wanted to stop. I wouldn’t even want to go out of town because I didn’t want to be away from the court. It’s like I got some weird satisfaction from hitting a winner shot or putting all my energy into winning a point. I was always striving for improvement, striving for excellence. It became an obsession and an outlet for my frustrations. Whenever I was having a bad day, whenever I felt worthless or upset, I knew I still had tennis. I found fulfillment, in a way, in how much I was improving.

Yet, my love for the sport was not measured by my ability. It was truly for tennis, itself. I was a gymnast for almost half of my life—certainly competing at a higher level than that which comprised the majority of my tennis career. Looking back, my proudest gymnastics moments were great not because of my passion for the sport, but because of a passion for glory. But through all those years I can think of few instances where I felt the same passion that I do for tennis. It’s a feeling of pure joy and freedom. It’s a desire to strive for more, push for more, work for more. No matter what it takes, no matter how long, no matter how many hours, obstacles or injuries. It doesn’t matter if I am not the best one or if I lose every match. I now understand the genuine meaning of passion. It is not a sentiment of pride or self-seeking action. I mean, people play sports for all kinds of reasons—for the physical fitness, for the friends, for the popularity, for the scholarship, the money, the fame, the honor. That is not passion for the sport itself, but what you will get out of it. The past four years of tennis (even though it has been sporadic) have given me so many benefits, but my passion is rooted simply in the love of the game.

Passion. What is passion? To me passion is playing the piano for three or four hours when I have minimal knowledge of music. It is that moment where I swam through the canyons of the Klamath River and stared up at that waterfall and realized it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Passion is meaningful friendships and whitewater rafting. It is hearing a good sermon and spending months reading, understanding and pursuing its meaning. It is falling asleep to my favorite song because I cannot get enough of its perfect sound. Passion restores my faith in love and art. It is a supernatural devotion whose essence extends far beyond practicality or self-seeking action.

About two months ago I went with Nicole and some other friends to the Heights college group to hear a guest speaker, Trent Sheppard. He taught on Mark 12:30:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

It’s a passage I’ve heard my whole life but I guess I never understood its complete message. He taught about each God-given means we have of loving God. Our heart shapes our passion; our mind shapes our understanding; our strength shapes our service and our soul shapes our will. Never in my life had I had such a clear picture of what love really meant. The premise of the lesson was how every individual has a tendency to love only with one or two of these means.

On the drive home Nicole and I talked about the aspects of love we most struggle with. I knew without a doubt that for me it was passion. So much of me loved God with my understanding and service. I tried to honor Him in the choices I made and the things I did. I used my knowledge of the New Testament and worldviews, the understanding of his sacrifice, the capacity of his greatness to shape my love for Him. Apparently, I was missing something crucial-- something that without it, will lead to a road of arrogance and legalism.

Over the past few weeks, I began to make the connection. Why is it that I can feel such passion for tennis, music, friendships and the outdoors but not the God of the universe—the everlasting, unchanging God? A God greater than our simple minds can comprehend, yet personal enough to know the inner-workings of our mind and love us more than we could ever fathom. I wanted to love Him with all of my heart—all of my passion.

I came to the realization the passion that I have for tennis parallels the way I should be loving God: an unwavering obsession, a source of joy and fulfillment. If I can love something so insignificant, shouldn’t my love be so much infinitely greater for the one who first loved me? I want to submerse myself in his love not so as to give myself the glory. I want to live for him, through him and by him through the good times and bad. I don’t want to be trapped anymore—trapped in personal notions of morality and good deeds. I’m tired of trying chasing after the person I think I ought to be. I’m tired of running. I’m ready for freedom. I want to love like crazy—to love Him with passion.

Keep it Real

Sara Nicole

Sushi Always Works

It has been lovely to get back home and into the swing of things in Prescott.  Good friends have really made the summer worthwhile.  My good buddy Nikil just came back from India. It is a good thing because a month in a half is far too long to go without hearing phrases like “Get yo’ autograph with Kwame Jackson.” I guess no one else will really understand that one. It was more than great to catch up. Sometimes in life, you just have to spend an afternoon making up impractical but subtly promiscuous acronyms. That’s my motto.

Monday morning I headed out to Colorado with Taylor, Adam and Nina for a backpacking trip. Apparently, the plan was to hike El Diente, which means “The tooth” in Spanish, but let me tell you there were no teeth on that mountain.

The drive was about eight hours which is equal to about four Taylor Robbins stories, give or take. As it turns out, we all got a little too distracted with all the good conversation and the open calculus book we refer to as the life of Taylor Robbins (you’ll have to take my word on that one) and we took a wrong turn and ended up in Shiprock, New Mexico. We all decided to embrace the local flavor so we went out to eat at a traditional southwestern restaurant. It was one of those Mom and Pop type places. They called it Taco Bell, but they didn’t even serve tacos with the real kind of cheese. On the plus side, the detour gave us extra time to do things like make up raps about the city of Dunton.

We hiked into camp that evening, that is before we frolicked throught the fields near the entrance to the trailhead. This is our before picture:

It wasn’t ten minutes after arriving at the camp before I fell head first into the creek, camera and all. Oops. If anyone were to be the one to fall into the creek it would be me, for those that do not know my track record. Don’t worry, I had a shamwow that my mom told me to bring along. I was saying wow every time.

It was a beautiful first evening complete with a walk to the waterfall, roasting gummi bears, and meeting our new friend, Nick, who happened to drop by for a visit and gladly welcomed to join our group by our one, Taylor.

The next morning after a hearty breakfast and melting my shoes in the fire (oops again) we finally began our ascent up to the 14,000 foot summit. It was super steep and rocky, but absolutely beautiful. It was an awesome hike with an awesome group of people. Backpacking is always infinitely better when you are with people who enjoy it as much as you do.

It was a fairly difficult climb, at least for me. The last stretch of loose steep rocks we had to scale were easily the scariest thing a few of us had done. We felt very accomplished after summiting.

I guess that wall of rocks we had to scale were much more dangerous on the way down. Nina and I were basically crawling down the side of the mountain on our stomachs watching rocks down 500 feet with each step we took. About a quarter of the way down, the rock I was standing on broke loose from underneath me and I apparently flipped down the side of the cliff and the boulder then landed on top of my leg, resulting in this:

In the end, we had to cut the trip short to take me to the Emergency Room for stitches. This naturally led to Taylor’s rant in the waiting room about the new health care bill. Never a dull moment with Taylor. I truly do not know what I would have done without each member of our group helping me down the mountain and bandaging me at the bottom.

All in all, we can agree, the trip was a huge success and we all want to go back. There were so many highlights of the trip for me; I couldn’t begin to describe the experience. I only hope I can have many more others of equal or greater value. For now I suppose I am stuck at home with stitches deprived of tennis and showers-- two of my greatest joys in life. It was well worth it.

Keep it Real
Sara Nicole

Northern Exposure

So my mom decided to take another one of those semi-spontaneous trips of hers. She has been known to pop into my bedroom asking me if I want to go to London with her this weekend or informing me that she and the mister are going to Panama in the morning.

As it turns out, Alaska ended up being a real winner. Probably one of the best family trips to date. Here are just a few photos of many that could never do it justice.

My mom and I met up with my grandparents and stayed in an RV with someone my grandpa apparently knew from some exclusive racquetball clan, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. We hiked. We biked. We saw bears and glaciers. We ate our weight in mixed nuts. We had strange encounters with Japanese tourists. It was truly memorable.

Our first morning in Alaska, upon Grandpa’s request, some Alaskan friends who I am apparently barely related to reluctantly agreed to take us to see Sarah Palin’s house. They, however, would not park anywhere near the driveway. People in Alaska tend to respect the privacy of the Palin family more than most. Anyway, grandpa pulled up the little silver saturn right into their driveway and snapped some photos. My grandpa is funnier than the majority of grandpas, I bet.

Every once in a while you experience a moment that it just so perfect-- a moment that you feel inspired and that stands out in your memory as one of pure happiness. On the drive back from Portage Glacier the second day in Alaska I sat in the back seat and laid my head on the car window. I was staring out at the vast array of quicksand that that stretched throughout the valley. The patterns of grey were so beautiful and so expansive-- like the ocean’s horizon-- until they met up with the bouldering mountains. I was listening to the most perfect music, mostly to tune out the Rush Limbaugh Grandpa had on XM radio, but that is beside the point. It was nearly 11 PM and the sun was just beginning to set. The way the clouds tumbled around the sky and the sun shone through the layered holes of whiteness, it looked like an antique pastel painting. It was an indescribable moment. I suppose sometimes music can just have that effect. It was perfect.


On the third day, my mom took me to do literally my favorite thing in the world, whitewater rafting. We rafted Class IV and V rapids. The water was much colder and the rapids were much bigger than anything I had rafted before. We made some new friends even, like the guy in the black helmet sitting next to me in the picture. His name was Tony and he decided why call me by my given name when he can call me things like “Pop-Tart” and “Trish”?


Whitewater rafting is such an incredible experience. I think it’s something about the challenge and the adventure. You have to have complete trust in your guide and complete confidence in yourself. I’ve never experienced anything else like it.
On a side note, I think my dream job would be where I live in some remote jungle in South America among the village people and just guide whitewater trips down some exotic river all day. But also, part of the job is to write some type of column for a newsjournal, but not the boring kind. However, the hours are flexible that I can travel around the world taking pictures for like National Geographic and then some gum company would sponsor me to make some type of distinctive dance video with all my worldly travels, like the guy from the You Tube video. If anyone knows of a job opening that meets those specifications, please let me know.

On Day 4, my mom and I went on a 26-mile bike ride up the coast.


I was chased by a moose. Let me repeat that. I was CHASED by a MOOSE. My mom tried to get too close to it with her bike. I tell my mother time and time again to stay away from the hazardous wildlife, but you know how she gets around subarctic mammals. I was too busy peddling away from the moose to get a picture of our new friend but I did get this one later, which I was quite pleased with. I think it may be the shot of the trip:


Apparently, another moose crossed right in front of where my mom was biking, but by the time she got her camera out to take a picture, it had died. The camera that is, not the moose silly.

The glaciers. The mountains. The waterfalls. The miles and miles of thick, natural, uncharted forestry. The setting that no words can describe and pictures can portray. The rural countryside. The simpler way of life. I can’t wait to go back someday and backpack through the beautiful mountains and maybe even go back to some of the trails I hiked on this trip. It's hard to imagine anything more beautiful. I just love Alaska.


By the way, Northern Exposure is the name of this obscure TV show that my parents used to watch. It is set in Alaska and I think it is centered around this guy who runs a coffee shop and hunts caribou on the side. He has this girlfriend twenty or so years younger who is dies in a tragic fishing accident. I think it got cancelled about a year ago. What?! To be fair, I inferred all that information from the ten minutes I have seen of the show. Anyway, if you have any information on the whereabouts of the complete seasons of this show on DVD, please let my mother know. Apparently, she will pay top-dollar for the collectors edition of the caribou hunting show.

Keep it Real
Sara Nicole