Archive for May 2012

This marks my fifteenth summer. My fifteenth plunge into the depths of blasting heat. My fifteenth escape from the constraints of the world. That's a lot, at least it seems so to me, so over the years the memories have kind of blended together in a blur of various excitements. But, however hazy, I know that none of those times left me quite as pumped up as I am this year. I blame it on high school- not that I don't like it or anything. I'd just call it a roller coaster, with ups and downs that give you a major adrenaline rush and make you unsure of whether you want to laugh or cry.
The minute the last bell rang, screaming could be heard throughout the entire school. It was like we had all become little kids again. I didn't scream, but that was only because I was under the spell of complete and utter shock. Not a second was wasted for me to hop in the car with Mom, and then we left to pick up my siblings from the elementary school. The screaming heard there only confirmed my previous statement. While the kids said goodbye and Eric bragged to all of his friends that his big sister is now a sophomore, I visited some of my old teachers- some of which have taught several Lundgreens- just like I visited my spectacular eighth grade English teacher, Ms. Turilli, last Wednesday. It was really funny to see these people, to bring back old memories of slightly more relaxing days, to share hugs with those who helped me grow. They all exclaimed at how much older I looked, though I don't think that included a major height difference.
Anybody who has ever been to Arizona knows that you can't stand around too long without melting. So I quickly met up with my friends at Bryan's house to swim. You know, I think we are all insane. I love it! Though I'm not quite positive that that that's a good quality to combine with a pool; I'm surprised we haven't managed to drown each other with our wonderfully psycho ways. Wrestling on the top of the waterfall, guys vs. girls steal-the-volleyball competition, watermelon fights... Bryan's dog would probably have gotten sick from cleaning up the patio if his mom hadn't reminded us that the fruit was for us to eat. Oh my, and his little brothers were so adorable when they came to us with a crayon-drawn menus, took our orders, and made us lunch!
Considering the fact that I had taken finals earlier in the day and I forgot to wear sunscreen for several hours worth of summer, I ended up quite worn out. I planned on spending the rest of the day lounging. But Rachel and I were invited to hang out with a different group of friends that evening, so what could I do? And once we got there, there were no regrets. These girls were similarly wearing swimsuit cover-ups, no shoes, no makeup, and natural hair {apparently everyone hates me now, cause my hair dries stick-straight. it's not like I can help it!}. We walked around the neighborhood like this, careless as could be, happy to just be ourselves, before going to Paige's house. That chick is so cute! Immediately she began to plan out a "tea party," and soon enough we were trying on all her sisters' prom dresses, then modeling for her family and nibbling chocolate chip cookies dipped in milk with an adorable Hello Kitty tea-set from Japan. I felt so girly! Once again I wondered if perhaps Colonial or Victorian times would've suited me better. Despite the late hour, we were still erupting with energy and settled on strolling through the community some more, this time "chalking" some of the boys in their ward. I wonder what these guys thought when they walked outside in the morning to find their driveways suffocating in notes to them... At least another hour after that we spent at the other Katie's house, flipping through the yearbook {they spelled my last name with only one e, those losers!} and being not quite sure what was coming out of our own mouths.
That was only one day. One day out of the many in the adventure called summer to come.

*This post is under Monday the twenty-first, but really it's for Sunday and I'm just writing it after midnight. Hee hee.

I've felt like someone's snuck up on me and chucked a thousand pounds of weight on my shoulders. I have been so stressed out as I try to study for finals, finish my online class, etc. And the worst part is, despite this being the time that I need it most, my attention span has been zapped to ashes.

Today Dad left on a business trip in Utah. It turned out that the Camac's dad was gone for work too, so our families decided to hang out. At first I wondered if that would be bad due to my tight schedule, but when they got there I realized it was the best decision we could have made. No, the weight was not lifted from my shoulders, but this was basically like someone pumpin' up Eye of the Tiger on the stereo, max volume.

After a yummy dinner of lasagna {proudly produced from the freezer} with salad, garlic bread, and lemonade, Kenzie told us that there was supposed to be a solar eclipse today and tomorrow. I was so excited to hear that; I've been dying to see one since the third grade when I first learned about them. Sure enough, we walked outside, and the lighting was totally off. It wasn't like I imagined, with the day as dark as night, but this abnormal tint to the evening was enough for me. And even just glancing at the sun for a moment {sorry doc}, it was obvious the the moon was sitting smack dab in front of our big ball of gas.

We didn't want to go completely blind by comtinuing to look at the sun straight on, so we stacked five or six pairs of sunglasses as a way to see clearly. Amazingly, it basically looked like a bright, giant circle with a smaller circular chunk hole-punched out of it.

Another method of seeing the phenomena was by taking two pieces of paper, poking a tiny hole in one, and then lining them up so that the reflection of the sun goes through the hole onto the other paper. Do you see in the middle? I apologize that these pictures aren't really showing what we could see.

Once the sun was hidden behind some houses, we just screwed around. The camera probably never felt so loved as now when everyone snapped shots of each other, and then we started to play games such as Balderdash, Scattegories, the random name game, and the hilarious game where you can't show your teeth and have to hold your lip over them completely while you talk. The boys made a movie, so we also got to realize just how funny of brothers we have. And of course, there's the chatting that happens between really wilded-up moms and older daughters... We probably told each other too many embarassing stories.

Oh, and we played with their little kitten. He was so cute and playful.

I'm seriously not kidding, though, when I say that it was so much fun. Seriously, I love my these friends, and it was great to be a rebel and hang out with each other till eleven, even though it's a school night and there's little kids and our dads would've been so mad if they were there. With Girls Camp, Trek, everything, we'll definitely have to party this summer.
Speaking of summer... less than four days to go!

It's too bad that four of the world's most perfect guys lived a couple millennia ago. Their names? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I mean, not only were they were chosen by King Nebuchanedzzar as some of the finest in the land and also could've known the equally-great Nephi before his family left Jerusalem... these guys were FAITHFUL.
~Side note to any boys out there: Notice how the word "faithful" was capitalized?~
Anyway, these YM knew what they were doing. While I've been reading this story in Seminary, I've also been studying the one hundred scripture masteries {and got my Centurion today by writing down all their references in ten minutes!}, and it's like they did that too. Okay, so-

Before they could even be thrown into some kind of trouble to show their true character, they were simply bright. Why else would Nebuchanedzzar have taken them to his palace in Babylon? Maybe they were young, but they learned wisdom in their youth {exactly as it says to do in Alma 37:6-7}.
They turned down the feasts of the king in order to obey the Lord {think D&C 130:20-21} with their Word of Wisdom {D&C 89:18-19}.
And then the king had this dream. The kind of dream so great that it created another scripture mastery {Daniel 2:44-45}, so great that you really don't want to forget it. Except he did. I know from personal every-night experience that that forgetting a cool dream is not fun, so of course he called in all of his priests to remind him of what his dream was, then interpret it. The so-called "priests" were in it for the money, and he knew it, so what he basically told them is that, unless they were able to explain this forgotten dream as they signed up to do, he would kill all of them and their families and throw their bodies in the sewer. Guess what happened to those priests? Yep. But when Daniel heard about this, he decided that he must do something. With his three friends, he spent the day fasting and praying {D&C 10:5}, and then he went to the king and was able to, of course, figure out the dream. Nebuchanedzzar was reminded how scary the dream was, with this giant stature of a king made of different precious metals that towered over all, and then this stone was cut out of the mountainside without hands and began to roll, getting bigger and bigger and then crushing the statue to pieces. This dream represented the latter days and the Second Coming {2 Thessalonians 2:1-3}, with the statue being all the great kingdoms of the world and the stone being the gospel spreading everywhere. Of course, Daniel was spared, because he trusted in the Lord {Proverbs 3:5-6}.
Everyone was so pleased with these boys from Jerusalem that they decided sthey must be moved to a higher ranking. That's great, but they wanted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to join them in worshiping these idols. Ah! Immediately they turned it down, because they knew that only the God of Israel was the true God {John 17:3}, so how could they serve two masters {Matthew 6:24}? This ticked the king off. Solution? Toss them in the fire. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego basically said "whatever floats your boat" and told him that they weren't about to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ {Romans 1:16}. They knew that God would deliver them if he wanted, but if he didn't for reasons of His own {Isaiah 55:8-9},He would still be God. That was acting in faith, proving to the Lord that their testimonies were not just words, but that they would die for Him {James 2:17-1 & Alma 32:21}. This only made the king angrier. So he threw them in the furnace and made it seven times hotter, so hot that the servants who put them in the fire all died. But then the king could see four figures standing right in the middle of this inferno. "What the!?" he said. "Didn't we put three guys in the fire? " Yessir, you did, and someone else joined. After a while Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego must've gotten bored of the color orange and decided to join the king and his crew once more. The look on those people's faces must have been downright hilarious as they realized that not only were the three alive, but they didn't even smell like smoke, and the other figure in the fire was Christ.
At some point it was outlawed for people to pray to the God of Israel. But Daniel, that fine fellow, couldn't have cared less. With his windows opened wide, he continued to pray {2 Nephi 32:8-9}. Solution? Throw him in the lions' den, since apparently the burning method doesn't work. Once again the Gentiles, who failed to realize that wickedness never was happiness {Alma 41:10}, were turned into complete fools as their choice of weapon turned into nothing more than giant tabby-cats.

Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego demonstrated their devotion to God in many ways, including ways to listed here. But this is enough to show that they were pretty amazing.

I learned a lot of things today. This morning, I learned that:
      1.there's a lot of people in this world
because
      2. there's a lot of corn in this world.
Yeah, hundreds of empty husks and a few sore fingers later.... We got up at six something and went to volunteer with AYT at the Market on the Move, which comes once a month after going around the southwest to collect all the produce farmers don't deem worthy of the grocery store. Most of the stuff is actually pretty good, and today's selection included tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, watermelon, and corn. All the corn was so nasty that their husks were speckled in rainbow polka dots of mold, but on the inside most of them were totally fine. So me and Rachel's job was to shuck the corn so that people could see their true quality. Trust me- it definitely worked! The line was insanely long and moved so fast that we competed with a pair shucking corn at another table to see who could shuck more faster. It was simple enough and a fun thing to do for service time, but after a few hours... The corn we brought home better taste good!
   Later in the afternoon I also figured out that
      3. I'm pretty dang good at sneak-pushing people into the pool and accidentally/purposely bopping people in the head with volleyballs.
As a result of this, I'm pretty sure that all the trust and reputation of innocence I've managed to build up over the past while were completely crushed under my own foot. But I also gained a new nickname, their "buff one," since it was a real struggle for Bryan to wrestle me into the pool from the top of the waterfall, despite being able to get the other girls easily. I still deny that it counted, since I'm way smaller than him, he had to get help from his brother, I had to be careful so none of us slipped off the wrong side and cracked our heads open on the rocks, he fell in the pool with me, and it just took too long. At one point he started to tickle me, also because he does it to the other girls and wanted to see how I'd react in comparison, since they either scream or sound like dolphins. But the only thing I did was flex the second his fingers touched my stomach. I just do that automatically, since that makes it way easier to get control and not laugh. And then of course he freaked out and started yelling, and then a bunch of people were poking my what-they-called-"steel" stomach. Apparently my little ab workouts do work!
This night, I learned that
      4. I've finally reached that age that I awed about as a little kid.
Today was Kendall's sweet sixteen. Her birthday's not till the fifteenth, but my dear cuz chose a lovely night to celebrate early with a DJ, a pool, and lots of people. I recognized a lot of her friend's from school {go Hawks!}, but I didn't really know any of them that well/at all. So I got to spend most of the night with the other Katie, as well as Rachel and Paige. With the beat of the music pulsing through not only my ears, but my steps, my hair tosses, and the houses a few blocks over, it was cool to realize how fun it is being a teenager.

Pages

About Me

Popular Posts

Search This Blog

Blog Archive

Recent Posts

Instagram