Again we had late nights of school much of the week, but starting Wednesday we began preparing for a "get together" with Wayne's fellow grad students we had planned for Thursday. Wayne wanted an opportunity outside of class to talk with the other students about projects and ideas and to just get to know each other better. And since school wasn't providing that opportunity, we decided we ought to. We made several dips and lots of cookies Wednesday, cleaned the house, and minimized furniture in the living room and dining room so there would be room for everyone. Then we played games with Chris and Alyssa at their place so we would get out of our own apartment.
Thursday we reminded ourselves no one comes on time, and sure enough, no one came on time. But we had a good turnout. People brought food to share, several of the girls hung out in the spare room with Star cat because she's too cute for her own good, and we played a few games later on in the evening. We decided we should do things like this more often.
Friday we had two obligations. We signed up for camping at Camp Lehi about a month ago, and helping out with projects around the campground the next morning. About three weeks ago, my company sent around a link to sign up for the annual party...which happened to be the same night. Drat. We debated quite awhile, but finally decided that (a) we had agreed to the camping/project thing earlier, and (2) after having a party of our own, we weren't quite up for socializing with tons more people. So we went camping.
Other families from the ward came too, and it was fun to roast sausages and marshmallows with them. One family has a very energetic three-year old named Jack who likes to shout everything he says. We could hear him when he woke up in the morning several campsites away. Hehehe. When we woke up and got ready for the day, we headed over to see what projects were in store for us. It started to sprinkle. I thought nothing of this, thinking it would soon pass. It continued to rain all morning long. We were both cold and wet by the time we were done. Halfway through another lady from the ward showed up, and they recruited both of us to clean up bathrooms instead of cleaning up tree branches and trunks and debris. I welcomed the roof over my head since I didn't even had a hood on my jacket. Wayne and another guy in our ward (Jack's dad) worked hard though; so hard that when Wayne announced it was time for us to leave, they talked them into "one more thing." Unfortunately, that "one more thing" landed the other guy in our ward on a tree branch that pierced right through his upper lip! I thought we ought to race off to the hospital or something, but he is a doctor and decided since the bleeding was under control we ought to just have us drive him back to his house (we were his ride home) and he could pick up his insurance card and go to the local clinic instead, just to see if he needed stitches to help his lip heal. He said he "always wanted a scar" on his face...to look tough or something. He also mentioned that it was a such a blessing that the branch went through his lip and not his eye. Scary thought. Next time we'll all wear eye protection!
Jack's dad also filled us in on where to find a good place in Santa Clara to fly our kite. So when we got home and took a long warm shower [to get the shivers out], we went to try it out. We're quite glad to have such a nice place to fly our kite now! We also stopped at the store along the way to get a replacement flashlight. The battery officially died on our camping trip, since the flashlight couldn't even help us find our tent from the picnic table. But now we have one that will never die! It's awesome. It has a hand-crank and an AC power adapter so you can either wall charge it, or crank it yourself to get light out of it. We figure that's better than just buying new batteries all the time. :)
- ‹ previous
- 306 of 798
- next ›