Goodbye Summer Time

I can't believe the summer is over now.  It feels like yesterday I was finishing up school at USC and looking forward to the summer months.  It's September now and summer is rapidly ending.  It feels like the last few months went by relatively quickly and I have done a horrible job keeping tabs on what I've been up to.

I wrote a ton of stuff, deleted it, wrote some other stuff, and the decided to delete that too.  I couldn't word a lot of things the way I wanted to, so I decided to write a few phrases here and there and append some pictures to make it seem cool.

I think I'll try to do these in the sequence in which they happened.


Middle of May - Redondo Beach
Alfred and I needed to move places from our previous housing arrangement.  The owner of the condo wanted to sell the unit after our lease was up, so it was time for us to go.  We packed our bags and moved all... 4 blocks away.  One block south and a few blocks east.  Goodbye Catalina.  Hello Francisca.

Memorial Day Weekend - Denver

I made a trip out to the Mile High city at the end of May.  We had a pseudo-planned weekend filled with random things.  It was good seeing some college friends who I haven't seen in a while.  Hiking (one solid thing that was planned at Rocky Mountain National Park), lots of lounging around and just bumming, and exploring the city of Denver. [I remember saying that I wanted to live in Denver because it was a gorgeous place.  It still is.  But the altitude was killer.  I was completely winded after playing a game of basketball.  Perhaps that's just an indication that I need to get better in shape...]  There was this art fair deal thing going on that weekend so it was pretty sweet to check out.  I still have yet to sort through all of these pictures yet.  Fail.

End of June - Michigan

I went back to Michigan close to the end of June to attend Margaret's wedding.  The wedding was really cool because I thought it was very God-centered.  There was a small sermon given during the ceremony (with the pastor even playing guitar!) so that was very unique.  Afterwards, there was a talent show put on by some of Margaret and Hyden's younger siblings.  It was way cute.  I could tell that there was a lot of love and care at the wedding and that was encouraging.  I've only been to a few weddings in my life, but this was the first one that I've been to where the groom (Hyden) cut every single piece of cake for the guests.  That was way cool.  I guess it's pretty common for the wedding to be all about the people getting married, but this one seemed like it revolved a lot around family and how everyone was going to be in this together.  It was fun :) I was indeed at Hyden and Margaret's wedding.

July 4th - San Diego
I went down to San Diego for the 4th of July weekend to catch up with some friends.  Seems like this summer has been filled with Michigan people all over.  There were a good handful of us Michigan folk down in the SD area, some I haven't seen in years.  We played a lot of Bang.  I think that's all I remember.  Just kidding.  I remember more.  But seriously, we did play a lot of that game.  It was good catching up with people down there as well as the other folks who made it all the way down to California.

Mid August - JH Ranch
JH Ranch is a retreat site that our church [college and young adult] goes to once a year.  It's up way at the tip of California (almost bordering Oregon) so it's like a 10-12 hour ride (depending on how many people need to pee on the way up and how long we stop for food).  It was a good break from work and to be able to get out there and spend time in some church community.  The camp is a beautiful area with lots of trees and I like nature stuff, so that was pretty awesome.  Mr. Kenny was out there too so that was a big bonus.  The week was good.  Lots of fun activities that demonstrated a lot about team work and how we aren't able to do things by ourselves.  It was a needed message and it helped me feel more involved at church.  I think it was good for me to go to a retreat like this because it helped foster deeper relationships, deeper ones than the ones that I could develop on Friday nights or Sunday's at church.  So that was good.  It was here that I was deemed SR [Sensitively Reserved] by Madeline.  Hmm.. interesting.  This was also the first time that I've done a lot of jumping into water from high places and swinging from crazy things into water.  That was fun.

Mid August - YK2
YK2 is a smaller retreat that is designed for the younger kids at church.  I think it's focused on the junior high and high schools?  Maybe?  This retreat was a lot different than the previous one (see above) because I was able to be a small group leader and help facilitate a lot of discussion.  The beginning of this retreat sucked like whoa.  So JH Ranch was an intense week filled with a lot a lot of activities back to back to back.  I came back from JH and after taking a week off of work, had a lot of catching up to do.  This resulted in me putting in a ton of hours right before YK2.  End result was me getting sick.  So the first half of YK2, sickness combined with some other things going on, I felt miserable and didn't really want to do much.  It got better the second half and I was able to enjoy being there.  This retreat proved to be encouraging to me because it talked a lot about church family.  It's weird because I guess I consider SBECC my church family now... even though at times it's still kind of hard to do that.  I felt a lot more integrated so that was good.

Beginning of September - College Football
A good indication of summer ending is with football starting.  Michigan is off to a good start at 3 wins and 0 losses.  I hope this trend can continue.  Go blue. [no picture necessary]


So as the summer ends and poor Alfred starts back at USC and has to study and watch lecture, I do not.  For the first time in my life since way way early, I don't have school, don't have homework, and don't have to study for tests.  That's a good feeling.  However, I hope to start doing somewhat productive stuff to keep myself busy.  We'll see how it goes.


I can't believe the summer is coming to an end.  2010, you are going by so quickly.  Slow down please.