3, 2, 1, Blast Off!

Goodness, it has been a long time since I got on to blog. Life has been generally crazy and wonderful as I ended my time at FaHoLo Camp, spent a week with my family, and got back to JBU for New Student Orientation and my sophomore year. Here's a whirlwind tour of the last few weeks. I hope to get back to some of my thoughtful writing soon, so stay tuned!

These wonderful folks are the FaHoLo camp staff. We had a great time working together this summer. The people in the white shirts are most of the lifeguards, and the rest of us did just about everything but lifeguarding.

 

You may have heard already, but I had to call 9-1-1 my last night of work because an older lady fell on the pool deck and got a 2 in. cut in the back of her head. (It bled a lot!) It was a crazy night and I am glad I had the training to do what I needed to do. It was scary, but the adrenaline rush was kind of awesome. I hope I never have to do that again, though.

This is Sarah (my bicycle adventure buddy), who goes to Evangel. We really hit it off and enjoyed each other's company the last few weeks of camp. She ran the high ropes course most days, and I even got to work up there once!

One evening, Sarah and I went to her house to make muffins, get her movies, and hang out with her family. They made me take guppies home with me, so I now have six guppies that I left at home with Rachel. We decided to name them Susan, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Jill and Eustace, like the Narnia characters. (No, we cannot tell  them apart...)

I was home for only a week after camp and before school. It was crazy trying to get everything done and spend some quality time with my family. One day, I went to Pat Catan's (a craft store) to get some scrapbook supplies, and they had bubble tubes for 97 cents or so. I bought one and then Rachel and I went out and blew bubbles in the back yard. It was hilarious watching 13- and 18-year-old sisters frolic around and try to pop bubbles with our noses and catch more than the other person. I also had fun taking pictures (this was my favorite one).

We went to the Franklin Park Conservatory and Gardens in Columbus one day as a family. The butterfly room was my favorite because both Rachel and I were able to coax butterflies onto our fingers and show them off to other people. The wonder displayed in the other children's eyes was delightful. We also got to watch glass blowing, which I had never seen before. It was a fun adventure with the whole family, and was especially precious because of the short time I was there. We went to see the movie Brave that night, too.

 

 

Dad and I drove my car down to Kansas City last Saturday. (I get to have a car at school this year!!!!!)  Since Ryan and I hadn't seen each other since the end of school in May, we spent a few days with the Rosner and Miller families, so I could see Ryan again before school started. We had a great time together.

 

Ryan took me to one of his favorite stores, James Country Mercantile. They sell period accessories for Civil War reenactors. My favorite part was finding this cape and dress to try on. I would love to go with him to a reenactment sometime, and maybe even dress up as one of the period ladies for a day. We'll see :)

 

On Sunday night, Ryan told me he had a surprise for me. I knew he had something up his sleeve, because he had been telling me for months he was "working on a secret," but he wouldn't tell me any more than that. I was completely blown away when he pulled out this ring.

 

 

 It is a promise ring, and he looked all around Kansas City and the world wide web for the perfect one. I think he did a wonderful job picking it out! It means to me that we both treasure our relationship as it is now and would like to see it grow and develop in the years to come. He wanted me to know that he planned on being a significant part of my life for the long haul. It is a symbol of our commitment to one another and to God, to wait until the right time, and to enjoy the journey He has prepared for us.

 

After a wonderful weekend in Kansas City, we made our way to Siloam Springs so I could begin my training as an Orientation group leader. My O. partner, Ryan DaCosta, and I were assigned to nine new students and did everything with them throughout JBU Orientation 2012. We had a blast and had a great group of new freshmen.  

 

This picture is our group at our Serve Siloam project site, The Manna Center. We worked to sort bulk foods (flour, M&M's, tea bags, chicken fingers, etc) down into smaller packages and to organize the clothes in their thrift store. I got flour all over me!

 

Today is the first day of classes, and I am hoping and praying for a wonderful year! I am taking Microeconomics, Spanish Literature, Financial Math, Consumer Behavior, and Public Relations Writing. I am the Copy Editor for the Threefold Advocate student newspaper and will be writing some for them as well. I am also continuing in my role as SIFE project leader for Project HOPE. It's going to be a crazy busy year, but also a wonderful one. I love my dorm room and my roommate, Ashley Grant. We're planning on having lots of fun when we're too tired to do school anymore. I love having a car on campus, and have already given a few freshmen rides to Wal-Mart and church. I am so thankful for all my friends, and there have been lots happy, squealing reunions since I returned to campus last Wednesday. I hope you are having a wonderful end of summer and beginning of the school year. God bless you! I'd love to hear how your summer went, so please leave me comments or send me emails or snail-mails.

 

My JBU Address is:

 JBU Box 2957

2000 W. University St.

Siloam Springs, AR 72761

The Bicycle Adventure and Other Stories

Did you know? Nearly every major injury I have sustained was caused by riding a bike.

The other day, I went on an adventure with my new friend, Sarah, at FaHoLo. It involved bicycles, and I will tell you about our adventure in a minute. First, I have to give you a brief tour of the Laura + bike=disaster timeline.

Let’s see. Once, I was riding a wheeled toy in our garage. I would have to ask my mom exactly how old I was, but that’s not important. Suffice it to say, I flipped the tricycle thing over onto the concrete floor and got a gigantic bruise on my forehead. I think it was right before some dance recital, photography session, or other moment at which it would be nice to appear photogenic, and mom spent a quite a while putting foundation on my bump to somewhat cover it up. Oops!

When I was about 8 years old—my adult front teeth were newly grown in—I attempted to ride my neighbor’s full-sized bike. I did fine for a while, until I tried to turn into my driveway. I swerved, and the next thing I knew I took a bite of concrete, scraped my nose and chin and chipped off at least a third of my right front tooth. I got a cap on that tooth and you can still see the faint line that delineates the real tooth from the cap. You’d think I would have learned my lesson about bikes. Or not.

When I was 10, dad left for his first international trip—a business trip to the island of Cyprus. When he called home to tell us he arrived safely, mom got to tell him I had wrecked my bike and broken my right arm. What happened was this: I was trying to ride one-handed down the hill in our neighborhood. I had seen many of my friends doing it well and thought I would give it a try. I veered out of control and to correct the problem I grabbed the left-hand handle brake (which makes sense, given that I am left-handed!). Unfortunately, the left brake stops the front wheel! This presumably caused me to flip the bike and fracture my arm. Now, that was in the days before every pre-teen had a cell phone, so I had to wait on the curb in pain for someone to drive by before I could get help. I wore a cast for six weeks and was as good as new. (Taking piano lessons for six weeks with a cast made my piano teacher’s life difficult, but I got a lot better at playing chords with my left hand during that time!)

That is most of the harm I caused. Since those adventurous days of childhood bike injury, I have managed to stay in mostly one piece while navigating the roads on my beloved bicycle.

That brings me to the other day’s bike adventure. I got a text from Sarah, which simply read, “Come to the new maintenance building. It will be fun!” I figured she was right, and so I wandered off to join her. She led me into the dark, dusty building and over to the corner where, to my surprise, lay a bunch of old bikes. It looked as though the bike section of Wal-Mart had crawled there to die. Flat tires, broken brakes, and loose chains dominated the scene, but with a little bit of searching we each found a bike that probably wouldn’t kill us to ride. With our new-found modes of transportation, we cycled off into the sunset.

The bike I found is a character. It is a red boy’s Huffy, and when I first found it, its chain was off the gears, its front brake was busted, and the seat needed tightened so it wobbled forward and backward while I tried to ride. I put the chain back on, figured the front brake was what caused my 10-year-old arm fracture so I was just fine without it, and decided it would be fun to try to ride with a loose seat. That dusky ride was one of the most delightful things I have done in a long time! I had a blast riding with Sarah. (And I didn’t fall or anything!)

The next day, I asked the mechanic, Kyle, to tighten up my seat. That helped make it a lot easier to ride and I have been riding it around camp a lot more since then. That night, Sarah and I rode down the entrance road and past the go-cart track to the field with hay bales in it. We hopped back and forth across the rows of hay bales and then sat and talked until it got dark.

So, while most of my major injuries have come from riding bicycles, some of the most delightfully fun times in my life have come from those rides as well.