My Premium Parking Pass

Here is a picture of my college campus which accommodates 31,000 students. As you can probably imagine parking could be an issue if they did not handle the situation properly. Now at my last school I was Parking and Safety chair for SGA so I have had a little experience with the inner workings of the system that they call "parking." To avoid all of the hassles that I have experienced in the past I decided to spend the extra money and get a premium parking pass.

Much to my horror, I spent my first day on campus missing my first class and driving around for the duration trying to find a place to park. Not the way I wanted to start off this semester! I decided that it would get better as soon as everyone was settled into their classes. After all, I did buy a premium pass!

The next day that I went to class I drove around for 40 minutes and finally saw a guy pulling out of a parallel spot. Unfortunately he was heading in the opposite direction that I was but I jumped in anyway and promptly got a ticket.

The next parking adventure I drove around for 30 minutes and finally resorted to metered parking. I spent 4 dollars parking in a metered spot despite my premium parking pass.

I found out that premium pass holders can also park in general so when I went to class on Tuesday, again, I drove around for 20 minutes and finally decided to just go park in the general parking area. When I got over there I was horrified to find that there were no open spots at all... or so I thought!

I continued driving further and further away from my classes when I finally came upon a patch of about 8 open parking spaces... on the other side of the football field. If you will glance at the picture of my campus, the football field is towards the bottom left hand corner of the map and is represented by an oval. Now if you will look again at the upper right hand corner to the building the furthest away you will find my first class!!! I don't think that I could walk further if I started from home!

I have since found out that the bookstore sells as many "premium" passes as students will buy. In other words there are about 10,000 students trying to park in 3,000 spaces!

So while I find this situation only slightly humorous, I will continue to attend school and park in a not so premium parking space with a good attitude because... what else can I do?!!!

Labor Day Weekend

I am just now getting a chance to blog about this past weekend! We had such a blast. Jimmy, Summer and I went to Georgia so that we could be there when Morgs got engaged!!! We left on Thursday night and on Friday we went skydiving. It was definitely one of the most A-mazing experiences of my life. I wasn't nervous at all which really surprised me. Jimmy and I are talking about getting certified so that we can jump all of the time.

We were supposed to jump early in the afternoon but didn't actually get to go until around 5:00. The boys (Dave and Doug) had to go first because we couldn't all go at the same time and the girls wanted to go together.

While we were waiting beside the plane we started talking to the guys that we were jumping with. I told mine that he could feel free to mess up because breaking my leg is also on my list of things to do before I die and that I could kill to birds with one stone... he told me I was psycho! Summers dude made a comment about impending death (he probably didn't word it that way but whatever) and I told him that there was no problem because we were going to heaven anyway.

When we got in the plane I kept anticipating that funny feeling in your stomach, slight shaking and in my case, teeth chattering but they never came. My little dude told me that when the doors opened that I needed to scoot forward and throw my legs through the doorway and then whenever I was ready roll out... so I did. We flipped around a few times and then stabilized for a 30 second free fall. It was freezing but A-mazing!!!

When the chutes were all pulled Summers guy pulled up next to us and we got to talk while falling in the sky! It never crossed my mind to be concerned about the approaching land once we had left the plane.

The next day, we all knew what was happening except for Morgan, we went rock climbing. Or more like bouldering because we had no ropes and the rock faces were only 30 feet high. We would stand under the people climbing so as to break there fall if need be. Twenty minutes after we got there Dave followed Morgs up the rocks and walked out of earshot to propose. I would tell you all that was said but... not really my place!

After that we all went back to the trailhead to surprise Morgs with an engagement picnic with family and friends. She had no idea that people were there other than our group. Then we went back to climbing... a little more carefully for Morgs because of the ring!

That night Kenya came and stayed at the Marietta house with us because we were going to Six Flags the next day. While the girls were downstairs talking the boys somehow snuck upstairs to worship. They didn't know it but we sat at the bottom of the stairs and listened and worshipped with them. It was awesome! They had 4 instruments going and they were singing their hearts out for several hours.

Kenya and I went outside to talk in the car because it was the only place with any privacy... until everyone joined us! Jimmy came out first and dove into the backseat. Next came Doug who joined him. Then came Summer who hopped in my lap in the drivers seat followed by Dave in the middle seat in the back. Last but not least, Morgs jumped on Kenyas lap to conclude a very squished car. Both seats were leaned back and there were 3 guys back there (in the Echo) that are over 6 feet. We accidently bumped the horn a few times and decided to get out since it was 3 am and they have neighbors.

The next day was awesome at Six Flags! We rode all the major rides that were open and just had a blast.

It was definitely an awesome weekend and I am so happy for you Dave and Morgan!!!

The Wonders of a New House

So moving in to a new house, just built, one would expect a certain level of standards such as water pressure from the shower head.

Summer and I are sharing a bathroom in our new house in Texas. The first time that I took a shower in, what was expected to be, my awesome new bathroom the water pressure was anything but what I expected. At first, the water came out normal but soon turned to a mere trickle down the wall. I turned the shower head off and on several times hoping that it was just new pipes that needed to fill and pressurize. Soon the shower head started working again but was barely dripping on me for the rest of my shower.

Summer took a shower next and later the subject came up of the quality of our showers. Hers, just like mine, was anything but normal. She didn't even get the half dripping squirts that I got. After smooshing her head against the wall trying to rinse the shampoo out of her hair, she finally gave up and just bent over and washed her hair out of the faucet. Needless to say, anything but pleasant!

My kind and wonderful brother came to the rescue to solve the problem. After jiggling and wiggling the shower head he decided to unscrew it and see what he could find. In the words of Maggie Griggs, he discovered a fresh mound of "bugots!" Yes, that would be bug guts in our shower head. Jimmy informed me that not only were their bugots their were also whole bugs and several unidentifiable parts and species as well. Not only could we not fully rinse the shampoo from our hair we had a fresh supply of bug guts in our hair to keep it silky and smooth all day long.

Kayaking

This morning Summer and I took the kayaks to the lake down the street for some exercise and fun. We went about thirty feet and stopped for water. It was so hot that we were practically falling over within minutes. So I am exaggerating a little... but it was hot and paddling is harder than I thought it would be. We saw some odd looking creatures on the other side of the lake and decided to go check them out. At first we thought that they were horses which we very quickly changed our minds to cows. As we got a little closer I said that I thought that they were donkeys. Sure enough... they were donkeys. After deciding that we were super cool in our kayaks and that we were sure that the students at the college overlooking the lake wanted to be us... we headed back! What a fun way to exercise! I am sure that we will continue to do so in the future.

Ride Home Continued

The next stop that we made was in New Jersey on the New Jersey Turnpike! We pulled into one of those huge stopping places with food, gas, coffee, shops and icecream. As we got in line for our (rather disgusting) pizza, two guys stepped in line behind us. Brekken was wearing a basketball shirt so one of the guys asked where she played. She told him that she plays at a small school in Georgia. He proceeded to talk about how nice the South is. Brekken was agreeing with him when I blurted out "actually we hate the North and we are trying to get down there as quickly as possible!" I don't know what came over me. Noelle thinks that subconsciously I wanted to get shot. After all, we were in a Northern state, surrounded by New Yorkers and they are definitely not known for being nice in the first place! The man in line in front of us stiffened and side glanced behind him but there was not a bad reaction from anyone else. In fact, the two men we were talking to proceeded to agree with us and laugh.

We continued on our way. Soon after I saw a sign for Taco Bell and proceeded to scream and yell and jump up and down for joy. Finally, hope for the near future of hitting a Southern state. Can you tell that we like the South?!!

Next we stopped for gas and icecream... it was 4:00am by now! The gas station that we stopped at did not have any icecream and by this time I was determined to find us some. We stopped at the next 24 hour station where there was a DQ inside. Of course it was closed but they had take home tubs in the freezer. Unfortunately the smallest size was a quart. That is a lot of icecream!!! We got two spoons and vowed to finish the whole thing. After 13 bites I told Brekken that I was through and couldn't eat anymore. Then I told her that she had to finish the whole thing because we had vowed to finish it and I wanted to blog it. She kept eating but made me have a few more bites. The only way that I convinced her to finish is because I told her that I would blog that she finished almost the whole thing and I really can't take credit for it at all.

I have decided that Brekken and Jimmy are getting married so I nag about it all of the time. So as soon as Kenya finished her icecream she said "if this doesn't make Jimmy fall in love with me I don't know what will!" I almost ran off the road because I was laughing so hard.

By the time we made it to SC we were both exhausted and so ready to be home. When we stopped at gas stations we thanked people for being Southern. It was so nice to see people that were just naturally kind. We don't appreciate the South as much as we should and I am glad that I got the chance to do so again. We then wrote a sign about how much we loved the South and taped it to the window!

Trip Home

I just spent the last 26 hours in a car! To say the least I am exhausted. Yesterday Brekken and I left camp at 12:30 to head back to the good ole South! We decided to drive straight through instead of stopping this time... we both really wanted to get home. Here are a few highlights of our trip.

1. We decided to play the license plate game but we only got 27... we saw a plate from Nova Scotia though!

2. We heard a Veggie Tales song that was really fast and decided that we would learn the whole thing before the end of the trip. I have now heard that song 6,000 times and still can't say all of the words in order.

3. In New York we were bored to death because of the traffic. We only traveled 3 miles in 2 hours. We decided to find something so as to entertain ourselves. While at camp, Brekken and I played chubby bunny so we decided that we would change a few rules and see how many pretzel sticks we could shove in our mouths. The rules were that you could not chew and you could only break each stick into two pieces. We started the slow process of breaking, counting and strategically placing. As we passed thirty I started to get the inkling that this was not such an amazing idea after all. We were gagging and laughing at the same time and I think that all of the people in the cars around us were probably scrambling for their phones to call someone to get the drunk people off the road! I stopped at 52 realizing that I could not force another granule of salt in my mouth much less a whole pretzel stick. I started the slow process of chewing the massive amount of white paste. Suddenly it occurred to me that Brekken wasn't slowly chewing but still cramming the little guys into her mouth... 60, 61, 65... she stopped on 72!!! I was ecstatic and horrified at the same time. Needless to say, when she tried to chew her mouthful of 5 SERVINGS OF PRETZELS, she soon realized that the task was not attainable. At this point we still haven't moved in about 10 minutes. To my horror, she promptly spit the entire wad into her hands... it filled them up all of the way. Having already finished mine I tried to help her figure out what to do. As I started my mental list of intelligent ways of disposing the mound, Kenya turns and dumps it on the highway... brilliant! Since we were still not moving we took a picture of the death of first place for Kenya had not chewed and swallowed thus disqualifying mound 72 and making me the winner.

4. Soon after the last incident, three guys in a little car were merging into our lane... or should I say into us! He wasn't even trying to cut us off he was just slowly moving us over. I don't know where he planned to move us but he was trying hard. Since the windows were down in both cars Kenya leaned out and politely asked "would you like to get over?" A look of complete shock crept over his face. He replied with "uh yeah." Then Kenya asked him if he would like any pretzels. Still appalled he said no thanks and the Kenya said "are you sure cause we've got pretzels!!!" I don't think that he could fathom Southern hospitality or humor! He looked at us like we were aliens and then proceeded to almost hit us as he moved in front of us!

This all happened by 7:00pm yesterday (Saturday)!

To be continued...

Lack of Postage

So I know that I have only posted like three times this summer and I am sorry! I will do much better when I get back and have access to a computer...I promise. Things are still going really well but I am definitely ready to get home soon. I have until Saturday at 12:00 and then Brekken and I will be driving straight through to GA. Hopefully we will be there by around 10:00am! I cant wait to see all of y'all!!!!!!!!!

Right now camp is in the midst of Color War which is where the camp divides into 2 teams and competes in every sport and activity that you can think of! I have not seen my girls in days!

The Purple team (counselors) are in charge of running the games and for designing banquet. We are doing Merriwoodopoly. We have to paint huge sheets of paper and cover all of the walls in the dining room with "spaces" on the board. The idea is to make it a little world of Merriwood Monopoly. I will take tons of pictures and put them on here so that y'all can see the hours of slave labor that has been put into this one night!

See you soon!!!

Camp

Well... I am back at the Dartmouth library and it isnt closing for awhile! When we went to Lake Placid we got to sign in and register all of the athletes for the race. We had so much fun!!! They were all so nice and very appreciative of the volunteers. I have never been in a room with so many beautiful sets of calves! It has inspired me to workout a little more!

Things have been going so well at camp! I am having such a great time and this week is an especially fun one. I am going to have the night off tomorrow night with my co-counselor which is a first. She is from Australia and has definitely become one of my dear friends.

My girls have been A-mazing all year and I love them to death (or heaven just for you Mom)!

I have been going to a really small church up here that is, to say the least, a little slow. It is nice to go to church though and to be around other people that have the same beliefs as I do. Brekken, JB and I are the only Christians at camp!

My classes have been great and some of the kids are really motivated to actually learn something and it is nice to know that I can teach them a few things. I have learned that I LOVE coaching and I can understand why mom cant get away... like mother like daughter!!!

Last week I was so sick that I couldnt get out of bed for three days! It about killed me to not be able to work and be out there with my kids. I think that it also made me appreciate camp a little more.

Thank you for all of your prayers!!! Things are going so much better and I am having a blast!!!

Really Quick Post

I am in the Dartmouth library and it closes in 6 minutes so this will be really quick! Today I went to Lake Placid and volunteered at the Ironman competition. We got to register competitors and set up for the banquet. Its closing early just kidding!!!!

Hey all!!! Well I am still alive and kicking. I hope that every one is doing well and I miss all of you heaps!

Camp is going well and I have stayed really busy. It has rained almost every day since I have been here but it is fun anyway! I am going on a trip at the beginning of next week. We are going whale watching which will be lots of fun. We are going to Portsmouth... don't ask me where that is! I am going with the 12 year olds which promises lots of drama!!!

Sorry this is so short but I don't have much time to post. I love everybody and miss y'all.