Winter Formal

I think my favorite part of Winter Formal was the dinner. Kelly (girl) Burton hosted my group of friends for dinner.

High Adventure 2010

Four hours after students screamed "summer" through the halls of every school in Hillsboro, I was on my way to a weekend of the great out doors.

High Adventure was held at the beautiful Oxbow Regional Park this year. The park is next to YMCA's Camp Collins, so we spent a day out on the ropes too.

Setting up a tent can quickly turn into a fishing trip when you're with my girlies.

We were camped right along side the Sandy River. There are not many things better than falling asleep to the tranquil sounds of a running river.I do believe I have rubbed off on my friends...their all turning into tree huggin' hippies. Next thing you know their all gunna want dreads too. Sarah made what she calls a "Hobo dinner" for our meal. It was quite tasty.Sarah and I had a great time at the ropes course.Sarah was itching for her turn at the "Leap of Faith". I got a video of her jumping 50ft off a platform hanging in a tree. I took my camera with me to the top for my jump.The next course we did would be perfect for the adrenaline-junky. I'll try to post the videos of this one too.It started raining our second night there. While every one was down in the dumps because on the rain, I put my shorts and poncho on, and took in the refreshing breath of nature. I spent my last morning of camp hiking through the jaw-dropping shades of green that paint this landscape of Oregon. Spending my first days of Summer out camping was a renewing and reviving way to release myself from the old stresses of school. I plan on spending plenty more summer days with my dear friend Nature.

Lacrosse 2010

Liberty Girls Lacrosse was lucky enough to get a new coach this year. I admit, at first I was a little...actually extremely scared of our new coach. I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that she had been a college lacrosse coach before. I thought she would be the meanest coach and that she would make us work really hard. Well, I was right about one thing; we worked hard...but we liked it.

It's hard to believe but, my new coach made sprinting fun. Before this year of Lacrosse I never thought I could run a whole mile let alone run it in under 9 minutes. Coach taught me that pain is all in the head, and giving up doesn't have to be an option if you don't want it to. She taught me to control my mind and in doing so I could put all I had into practices and games.

My team had a great season this year. I felt like we were a little family. Everyone has their own crazy personality. Sadly the Seniors are leaving and wont be with us next season. Our team went to playoffs this year, which was fun. I cant wait for next season to start up.

My cult initiation

I was invited to join the National Honor Society. I only knew two things for sure about NHS before joining; one, it looks good on a college app, and two, the induction ceremony is ridiculous. I tried so hard to make up reasons not to attend. I couldn't use Lacrosse practice b/c it ended before the event. And what do ya know, it's the first Monday with no Lacrosse game either. Life was punishing me.

I went to the "candle lighting ceremony". I felt like I was being initiated into a secret cult. I had the hardest time not laughing while I had to stand, raise my right hand, and repeat a pledge (I still don't know what I pledged to do.)

I guess there was one cool part of the night though. One of the teachers at my school was there to give a speech. She was also my third grade teacher. It has been nice to have her in elementary as a teacher and now see her in the halls at my high school.

LHS Spring Fling

As I have mentioned before, I love dances. The school dances are too expensive (in my opinion) so I hadn't planned on going to the Spring Fling. But like always, there I am sitting on the couch, the day of the dance, and I cant help but gather up some friends and head to the dance.

Katie and I both rode our bikes to Jordan's house to ask him to go to the dance with us. This dance was casual dress (my fav), so we wore baggy basketball shorts, white T's, high socks, and Vans...(sigh) if only every dance was casual.

Anyhow, Lacrosse having started up, and me sorta kinda being "in-shape", agreed to Katie's suggestion to ride our bikes all the way to Liberty. I thought 'what the heck, it's only ten minutes away'. I failed to realize that ten minutes driving is a completely different story than riding on a rock for a seat attached to a piece of metal with two wheels.

After an hour, we arrived at the school.

Aside from the dead legs, I had a great time at the dance.

(Note: this last picture was taken with a cell phone in the pitch dark. Even photoshop could not save it.)

Portland Rescue Mission

This year I joined my school's Interact Club. For those of you who don't know, this club is basically a service club. One of the events that I just recently went to was the Portland Rescue Mission. Katie and I were the only ones there, but we had a blast.

(Sorry about the picture quality. The lighting was terrible, and I didn't bring my regular camera.)

All of the tubes that you see behind Katie are full of donated clothing, that has been sorted by volunteers, such as Interact Club members.

The guy in the back is my dad. He came to help out. The boxes you see are full of gently used or new shoes. Nike donates their sample shoes to the Portland Rescue Mission too, so there are some quality shoes.

Katie has a thing for cows lately. As we were sorting the shoes into boxes, she found a cow slipper. You don't even know how excited she was.

This is how the donations start out. In that pile there are shoes, shirts, pants, scarves, etc. Then volunteers sort everything into male/female, shorts/jeans, dress shoe/athletic shoe... Because of the amount of donations that PRM receives, they only take the best of the best. We are told to keep only the things that we would actually wear ourselves. The rest of the clothing is shared with other homeless organizations in Portland.

There is a massive amount of food that has been donated my Winco. They donate anything that has been sliced with a box knife. Therefore, PRM has crates full of good food where only one of the hundred packages is cut open.

There are poster boards with homeless people on them around the entire warehouse. The first time I volunteered at PRM, I would turn the corner and jump when I saw a fake person. But now that it was my second time, i got to see Katie jump.

Just a little fun with the barrels.

This guy works at the PRM warehouse. My mind is at a blank and I forgot his name, but he's a pretty fun guy.

"Fall For You"

Once again, LHS Leadership puts together a great dance. Ever since last Homecoming's success, I was determined to never miss a dance after that. Up until 30 minutes before the dance, I had planned on not going. Not because I didn't want to, but because I wasn't too excited about the price. I mean, seriously... 15 bucks for a school dance. I wasn't about to be robbed. After my friends reminded me about how much fun I had at the last dance, I still wouldn't budge. However, I couldn't let my friends go to the dance without taking some pictures. So I offered up my services for the night.

It was 10 minutes before I was about to drive over for pictures, and I think I might as well see if Sarah has any dresses that I can use, just in case I have to go for Yearbook. So I find a dress and I eventually decide to attend the dance...and I got Sarah to come too, BONUS!

Before going to the dance, a group of my friends and I went to Chang's Mongolian Grill. One word yum. It turned out to be a great night, and I thank Sarah for having so many dresses in her closet for me to choose from.