Higher Calling Camp

High V

Today I just got back from a journey like no other. Literally. Higher Calling Camp is a religious retreat for any child, religious or not, to grow in their relationship with God. Its a ropes camp that is exciting, challenging, and has crazy surprises around every corner. The morning begins with Mass, followed by ropes, then a night time campfire. Everything you do relates to faith in one way or another.

Each year you go to Higher calling, you do a different set of ropes courses, each year being more challenging than the last. This year was my second year, so I got to do some amazing ropes courses like the catwalk. the Catwalk is a suspended beam 50 feet in the air. You have to climb a tree then walk across the log to the other end. Terrifying, but amazing! Another ropes activity I got to do was the flying squirrel. On the flying squirrel, your attached to a rope and harness with your team attached to the other end of the rope. you start running towards a shallow cliff with a river beneath it and just before you fall into the water your team hoists you up and you go soaring over the river. It is one of the most beautiful experiences i've been apart of in my entire life.

Vertical Junkyard

Although all these courses are fun, Higher callings crowning glory is the Leap of Faith. The leap of faith is just a forty foot pole with giant staples hammered into the side and a trapeze hanging out from the top of it. Once your harnessed in, you climb up the pole to the top, where you then must stand on the top, turn yourself, and jump off to the trapeze. This is no easy task considering the 9 inch diameter of the top and the poles endless shaking. But the jump itself is what makes it all worth it.

Leap of Faith

If you would like any more information on the camp, please feel free to ask any questions to me or visit their website at www.highercallingcamp.org. 

Promo Video-

If this doesn't load, you can watch it from the link above or on you tube by searching Ropes Camp Preview.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy independence day everyone!!! Thank the LORD we are free! Being the history nerd that I am, I would love nothing more than to research and inform everyone all about the true meaning of the fourth, but since this is a blog and not one of my textbooks, I will refrain and save us all a ton of time! Happy fourth and god bless!

Seattle Soccer Tournament

YAY! ITS SUMMER!!! Sorry about the lack of posts, but quite honestly I've just been to lazy to blog. But now I finally have two things; time and something interesting to blog about. Last weekend my little sister Carlie, (the middle one) had a soccer tournament up in Seattle, Washington. Carlie's team, Spirit, had two games Saturday and two games on Sunday. The U14 and U16 teams were there as well. We stayed at the Hyatt, and were at the field almost everyday for soccer. Carlie's team continued to win one game after another, both on saturday and sunday morning.

After the morning win for Carlies team, they knew they would play in the championship game. The game didn't start till 5 so we had hours to kill. My mom and dad decided to take Sarah and I down to pike place market.

It was crowded with tons of different kinds of people, and we were approached one too many times by beggars...kinda creepy. But the market was fun and the views were amazing!

Carlies final game of the day was a success, claiming them the champions trophy. Great job Spirit! Great Job Carlie!!!

Sarah's Poem

Humming Bird Poem

By Sarah Leach

Way up in the blue sky

Little humming birds fly

As quick as a cat

Looking for a rat

They put on a show

Looking for flowers far below

In order to eat

The juice that is sweet

Their wings beat fast

And after a minuet has past

1,200 times up and down

As they soar over the town

There are many words 

to describe hummingbirds

Their quick, cute and smart

And have a big heart

AHHHHH!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls!

Congrats!

Well done!

Bravo!

Wow!

Thats spectacular!

I LOVE YOU

....wanna know why???

CAUSE WE REACHED 1,000 PAGE VIEWS!!!!!!

(Yay!)

I can now officially say that I have joined an amazing group of individuals to reach this many page views including the completely creative Hanna Hibbs of Living by Day and Night and the super cool gal that I really don't know but love her blog Amy Morris from Lovin' Life! 

Thanks guys for all your support! You are the best!

Emily

...What Now?

My life is crazy. Always has been, and always will be. Between sports, school, clubs, and homework, time for nothing is unheard of. But right now.....I have nothing to do! Basketball is done, volleyball is over, and track is no more. My homework is complete, my club/group things don't meet for awhile, and            N O T H I N G is happening! This is so bizarre and strange for me, I just don't know what to do with myself. So I will blog. Here are three random things I almost guarantee most of you didn't know about me!


1.) The sound of people eating food noisily bugs the living daylights out of me. I mean, how is it possible for someone to slurp ice cream? But it happens.

2.) I love the sunday cartoons. Once a week I pull out those colorful strips and laugh at the most stupid things.

3.) I have an amazing cousin named Kelsey who just opened her own cute little vintage shop. I know, your jealous!

Sorry for the randomness, but I didn't know what else to do with all the time!

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter Everyone!!! 

What a wonderful day!!! A day thats filled with Celebration, Candy, and Christ! The Easter Bunny came to our house this morning....oh Sarah, I love your young innocence!!! The little girl was more excited then on her own birthday! After that, we went to Mass. Now at my church, not a ton of people come to mass on Sundays, but today, the church was PACKED! I mean like standing room only! But this mass was especially special for me, because my family got to present the host (bread and wine/body and blood) to the priest. It's something I have always wanted to do, and it was a neat experience. The rest of the day was pretty mellow. An early dinner was enjoyed and my family just hung out. This was the first easter we haven't done anything with anyone, and I enjoyed myself. I hope everyone had a super special easter, and God Bless!!!!

P.S. If you remember anything about my family's easter egg competition, those photos will be posted soon....and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, your in for a treat!

Rain Rain Go AWAY

Its raining, Its pouring, 

the old man is snoring

I would sing that song, however I fear that it is a drastic understatement. Its raining cats and dogs, coming down in sheets, and if I didn't know any better, I would say the angles were crying in heaven. Old men are not snoring, then are wailing, wailing for the rain to cease! The point is, it hasn't stopped raining ALL WEEK. 

This shirt pretty much sums it up.

Yah, I know its Oregon, but why must we have so much rain? It's like April showers on steroids...hopefully leading to may flowers! The rain here seems to put a dead, dreary damper on everyone and everything. School seems longer, nights are colder, and don't even get me started on the day I forgot to wear a jacket to track. Long story short, it was awful. So sorry to be a negative nancy, but I'm just in one of those moods. Those yucky, blucky, rainy moods.

Bread!

Today, I was absolutely bored out of my mind. There was nothing to do! My parents were glued to the couch watching the masters...congrats Charl Schwartzel...and my sisters were at birthday parties. So I decided to bake some bread. Yep, you heard right. I made BREAD from SCRATCH. I feel like a baking expert:)!!!  So now I am going to share my fabulous bread recipe with all of you! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2 Tsp. yeast
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 Tsp. sugar
4 cups flour
1 Tsp. salt

First, combine your lukewarm water.....NOT HOT.....yeast, and sugar in a mixing cup. Let rise for about 15 minuets. This is what a website said to do, however mine did not rise or change one bit, but I was still able to make bread, so do not fear if it fails to rise!

(what the Yeast is supposed to look like!)

Next, in a separate bowl combine the flour and salt. After the liquid mixture is done rising, combine it with the dry mixture. If you stir these two together you should get dough!!

(My Dough!)

Now you kneed the dough until it's soft and round, like the picture above. Note, it should be one solid piece. Once your dough is in a round ball, place it in a pan for cooking. Leave it in this pan with a towel over it for two to three hours. I know this seems like FOREVER, but it will allow the dough to rise even more and it's well worth it!

Finally put your dough in the oven (300 degrees) for however long you think it takes...honestly the times will vary! Your bread should begin to brown slightly at the top. After that, Bon Appetite! 

My Bread!!!

 I even made a turtle! (he is kinda deformed!)

Oh, and the most important step of all...just have fun with it! If your preoccupied with it being perfect, it will fail! So just let yourself go with it, and be ok with deformities, like my turtle!!! ;)

Volleyball!

 As many of you know, I Love Volleyball!!! It's a game of complete control, and you set the tempo. I play for the OJVA Red team, and this weekend we had our final Power League Tournament. Every team in CEVA volleyball has a rank, or seed. At Power League tournaments, how you play and finish determines your rank and the division you will compete in at regionals. This week we were ranked 83, just one spot away from moving up and entire division. With this being the last qualifier before regionals, it was crucial that we preformed well.  When playing in one of these qualifying tournaments, you start the day off in pool play, where you play against three other teams. Then depending on how you finish, you get put into brackets. The top two in the highest bracket, (first and second in that division) move up to the next division. The bottom two move down a division. In our pool, we were ranked second, and easily beat our first opponent, the number four ranked Pirates. The other two teams were more difficult, and both matches went to third games. But we continued to win and finished first in our pool, securing us a place to play for first, second, third, or fourth. By that point in the day, we were tired...waking up at FOUR in the morning and playing volleyball is no fun...so our only way to stay energized were these little jello things called shot blocks. 

They literally give you this little adrenalin shot, and after downing about four of them each, we were bouncing off the walls! The first round of bracket play was intense. Whoever won was guaranteed to move up a division! In a nail biting third game, we were able to pull out the win! You could hear our screams for miles! Our team continued on to win the tournament(and the little goodie bags that went with it!). It was amazing and I loved every moment of it! No matter how we do at regionals, I need to thank every one of these girls who made the season so fantastic! 

You Girls are Amazing!

March MADNESS

They call it MARCH MADNESS for a reason. And I'm beginning to understand why. First of all, like many of you, I swore that Ohio would go all the way! I had checked stats, watched pre-tournie games, and consulted all the expert's picks. Everything pointed to a great showing by Ohio. But apperently Kentucky had other ideas....thanks a lot Kentucky. I truly hope North Carolina crushes you. So after my #1 team was out, I resorted to the next best thing...Kansas. Their big, their bold, and they can handle a basketball pretty darn well! Kansas was the only team that could save my bracket, the one team I had left for the final four! But once again I must have jinxed them,because they were defeated by VCU....thats right VCU!!! An 11 seed! How is that even remotely possible?!? Lets just take a look at our current Final Four...
From the Southwest, the number 11 seed VCU.
From the Southeast, number 8 seed Butler.
From the West, number 3 seed Connecticut.
And from the East, either number 2 seed North carolina or number 4 seed Kentucky(boo!).
 Obviously, this tournament is messed up! Just for laughs, lets take a look at my bracket... oh, and this is my better one of the two...please don make fun!!!

Ohio St.

16UT-San Antonio

8George Mason

9Villanova

5West Virginia

12Clemson

4Kentucky

13Princeton

6Xavier

11Marquette

3Syracuse

14Indiana St.

7Washington

10Georgia

2North Carolina

15Long Island

Ohio St.

Villanova

George Mason

West Virginia

Kentucky

Marquette

Syracuse

Washington

North Carolina

Ohio St.

Kentucky

Syracuse

Marquette

North Carolina

Ohio St.

Kentucky

North Carolina

Ohio St.

East

1Kansas

16Boston U.

8UNLV

9Illinois

5Vanderbilt

12Richmond

4Louisville

13Morehead St.

6Georgetown

11VCU

3Purdue

14St. Peter's

7Texas A&M

10Florida St.

2Notre Dame

15Akron

Kansas

UNLV

Illinois

Vanderbilt

Richmond

Louisville

Morehead St.

Georgetown

VCU

Purdue

Texas A&M

Florida St.

Notre Dame

Kansas

Louisville

Richmond

Purdue

VCU

Notre Dame

Florida St.

Louisville

Kansas

Notre Dame

VCU

Louisville

VCU

Southwest

1Duke

16Hampton

8Michigan

9Tennessee

5Arizona

12Memphis

4Texas

13Oakland

6Cincinnati

11Missouri

3Connecticut

14Bucknell

7Temple

10Penn St.

2San Diego St.

15No. Colorado

Duke

Tennessee

Michigan

Arizona

Texas

Missouri

Cincinnati

Connecticut

Temple

San Diego St.

Duke

Texas

Arizona

Connecticut

San Diego St.

Duke

Arizona

San Diego St.

Connecticut

San Diego St.

Connecticut

West

1Pittsburgh

16NC-Asheville

8Butler

9Old Dominion

5Kansas St.

12Utah St.

4Wisconsin

13Belmont

6St. John's

11Gonzaga

3BYU

14Wofford

7UCLA

10Michigan St.

2Florida

15UC Santa Barb.

Pittsburgh

Butler

Kansas St.

Wisconsin

Gonzaga

BYU

UCLA

Florida

Pittsburgh

Butler

Kansas St.

Wisconsin

BYU

Florida

Pittsburgh

Butler

BYU

Florida

Pittsburgh

Butler

Southeast

Ohio St.

Pittsburgh

Ohio St.

Final Game Total Score:

Oh well! Thats basketball for you! Have a fantastic March Madness!