Rafting Down the Illinois River

On Saturday (the 11th) the Honors Scholars Program here at JBU took all the new freshmen and the Honors Orientation mentors rafting on the Illinois River! I’m typing this up today (9/12) so I won’t forget anything, but there are a few other things I want to post about on my blog before this actually goes up.

Anyway, we all (I think about 85 of us!) met at the Honors House at 9:00. Yep, it was a bit early for college kids on a Saturday. Then we all piled into a long caravan of a couple JBU vans and lots of personal vehicles. Thankfully it wasn’t a long drive. It took a while for everyone to get into the river. The rafts had six people each, and most rafts had one mentor and all the freshmen in that mentor’s group. I have four girls in my group, and then we had another girl from a group who had too many people to fit in a raft.

Here’s a picture of me and the girls I’m mentoring!

We weren’t doing anything near white water rafting. Just down river of the drop off point there was one little part that had a bit of rapids. I was sitting on the front seat and promptly tumbled off the seat into the girls behind me when we went over that bit, hehehe…. Not long after that we got stuck on some driftwood stuff, so I decided to hop out and pull the raft off. I managed to do that, but then of course the raft got away from me a bit and so I had to catch up to it and then try to climb in – and I made a grand fool of myself :D But I had fun doing that! J

We went around a bend in the river, and enjoyed some nice scenery – high buttes overlooking the river and things like that. It was nice and peaceful, and we enjoyed floating down river with the current. (We did have 4 paddles, but sometimes we didn’t row and just floated.) A couple times we made ourselves go round and round and round in circles – and that was really fun :D

All the rafts (I think there were at least 14 rafts, plus several 2-person canoes) were really spread out, so we weren’t really near any other people for most of the trip. After about an hour (maybe?), we got to the place where we were all pulling off to have lunch. Our raft was in the second half of the pack, so by the time we got there the boys from the rafts ahead of us had gotten the “bright” idea of stopping the rafts and pulling or making everyone jump into the water. Not that I minded getting wet – but I’m independent enough I didn’t like being forced to, so I tried to “defend myself” a bit :D

Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch. There were lots of butterflies landing on people, a cute little tiny turtle (only a little more than an inch in diameter!) and a not so cute baby snake…the snake was probably about a foot long, and it kind of slithered over one girl’s leg, then went around and tried to hide in a life jacket that was lying on the shore, and then swam off right in the middle of us all. Yep, a lot of us were a little freaked out about it!

After lunch all the rafts and canoes headed on down river again. Some of the other people decided to just swim/float down river rather than riding in the rafts. Our raft was doing just fine, but then a couple of the floating guys decided to come “attack” us. We tried to paddle really fast and get away…..but it didn’t work. Two of the girls went rather willingly into the river, but the other four of us held our ground. J We lost one of our paddles though :/ So there were only four of us in the raft, and we only had three paddles. And we were rather disoriented. There was the really low hanging tree, and we tried to stay away from it….but no, we went under it. We all ducked and screamed a bit, but we made it under :D A couple of the girls said that was their favorite part of the ride….. J Well, we went a little further and then I grabbed onto a tree trunk so that the other two girls could catch up to us and get back in the raft. A little further downstream there was a bank about 10 feet high, maybe? And the water below it was about six feet deep. So five or so students were taking turns scrambling up the bank and jumping into the river. Yep, it made me pretty nervous, and I certainly didn’t do it! But no one got hurt.

We were the last raft, and there were a couple canoes near us. So the four or so people who had been floating/swimming decided to join us on our raft – at least it wasn’t for very long! We went a little further downstream and then we could see the place where we would get out of the river. There was a boat jam there of people trying to get out, so we hung back and floated around really lazily for a little while – the more adventurous ones went and climbed on a big tree that was sitting partly in the water. Lauren, one of my girls, did a neat flip to get out of it :D Eventually, the people downstream hollered at us that it was time to go, so we went the rest of the way down, and got out of the water.

And thus ended our epic boating trip. It was a great idea for a bonding time between mentors and students, and I had a blast. J Of course, today my shoulder and hip are really sore, but it was totally worth it!

My Labor Day Weekend!

[If you want to hear about what I actually did for most of the weekend, go to this post on Nathan's blog. If you want to hear about the long process of how I got to Colorado Springs, this is the place to be!]

At JBU we don't have classes on Labor Day off. Last year I had stayed on campus, and there was basically no one around. But, it's so close to the beginning of school that it seems silly to go home. Anyhow, this year I had a much more interesting weekend! Labor Day weekend is Parents Weekend at USAFA (U.S. Air Force Academy - where Nathan is going to school!), so Dad and Mom drove up on Wednesday to spend the weekend with him. Nathan knew they were planning to come, of course. What he didn't know is that we'd been planning a surprise for him, even since before he left Dallas in June! The surprise? That I would fly to Colo. Sprgs. so I could join them for the weekend! :D

Anyway, one of my friends here at JBU lives in Colorado Springs, so when Dad and Mom and I came up with the idea I messaged her to see if maybe we could fly together! Her name is Cassie, and we were able to fly together - it was nice to not be by myself :) And, it made the surprise part much easier, because her parents could pick us up from the airport. We were able to find some reasonably priced tickets (flying into Denver instead of Colo. Sprgs.), but the flight that we had to pick wasn't the most convenient :/

On Friday (the 3rd) we both had class until 4:00, so we had to take the last flight package of the day from Tulsa to Denver. That made us go from Tulsa to Phoenix and then from Phoenix to Denver. Talk about the long way around! So we found a ride to Tulsa, since neither of us have a car. [Important note - we left JBU at 4:00 p.m. CentralST - remember that!] On Thursday I got really worried because I had seen that it took an hour and a half to get from JBU to Tulsa, and I didn't know what traffic or airport lines would be like, and our flight left at 6:20! But, that all worked out perfectly fine. I think we were sitting at our gate by 5:30, because it only took one hour to get to the airport. We eventually boarded our flight, which left on time, and that is when our adventures began! (Cassie and I had hoped to sit together, but there weren't any seats together when we boarded)

Our itinerary said that we would land at Phoenix at 6:50, and then we would have an hour lay-over until our flight to Denver left. I hadn't looked at a map recently to see just how far it was from Arkansas to Arizona. So I glibly thought our flight would be 30 minutes. 3o minutes into the flight, the pilot had just announced that we had reached cruising altitude, and the attendants were just starting to pass out drinks and such. I hadn't thought about the time change. Phoenix must be in MountainST. So it would be an hour and a half. No big deal. I changed my watch and settled back into my seat to get some reading done for school.

7:30 MST came around, and we had just started our descent. I started getting worried about then. Was our flight that much behind schedule???? Cassie and I had to catch a flight at 7:50! I even checked a map in the plane magazine to see if Arizona was in PacificST. It wasn't. We landed right at 7:50, and I was so sure we were going to miss our flight. We were in the back of the plane, and I knew there was no way we were going to get off that plane, find our gate, and get onto the next plane in time. Cassie tapped me on the shoulder and said "we are going to have to book it!" I checked my phone, and it said the time was 6:50. I did a double take, checked my MST-set watch, and then a light dawned. I told Cassie to check her phone. She did, and it said 6:50. Then I realized what had happened. Silly little AZ doesn't do Daylight Savings Time. So for half of the year, it is in MST. For the other half of the year, it is in PST. We weren't going to miss our flight. We had landed right on time and had an hour to relax.

So we got off the plane, got some food, and then lay across some seats talking. We also talked to this really cute little boy (about 6 or 7 years old I think) who wanted to tell us all about the kids show on the TV :) At 7:30 or so we headed over to our gate for our next flight. Our plane was a little late coming in from LAX. The people who had been on the plane got off, and then the boarding process started.....and then suddenly stopped. We had no idea what was going on, the line just wasn't moving at all.

After a few minutes, two girls (well, they were probably a couple years older than me) came off the plane and were standing against the wall complaining about someone being rude. A couple more people boarded the plane, and then the line stopped again while the guy doing the boarding went to the airplane and got someone for the girls to talk to. They were apparently complaining that a flight attendant had been rude to them (I still think they were taking advantage of the two situations with flight attendants that have happened recently), while the attendant was saying that the girls hadn't done what she asked them to do, or something like that. Anyway, those two girls did not get back on the plane. I think they were basically kicked off the flight. So because of all that, our flight was at least half an hour late when be finally pulled away from the gate at about 8:30 PST.

It had been announced that it would be a full flight, so Cassie and I knew we didn't have a chance of sitting together. When we saw that both front rows had an empty seat we immediately took them. So we were in the first row - which made it nice for getting off the plane! We finally landed in Denver at about 11:00 p.m. MST. Cassie's parents met us at the baggage claim area. We waited a while at the carousel that had our flight's info, and then it was announced that our flight's baggage was at a different one. So we finally got our stuff, and then we started driving to Colo. Sprgs.

Since I was trying to surprise Nathan by just showing up at the hotel where he was staying with Dad and Mom, I couldn't call to let them know the flight was late. They had all gone to bed at about 10 (I think) anyway. Mom called me at about 12:30 a.m. MST, and I told her then. A little before 1 a.m. MST, I finally got dropped off at the hotel. Mom had told me on Thursday what room number they would be in, so I went up and Mom let me in. Nathan was sound asleep, so I shook him awake. He looked at me and was like "hi" with his sleepy smile. Then his facial expression showed his mental realization of "wait a minute, what are you doing here???? You're supposed to be in AR!" It was funny :) So then we all got settled back down and went to sleep.

So it was 1 a.m. MST by the time I arrived at the hotel - 2 a.m. CST. TEN HOURS after we had left JBU. I was definitely tired, but it was SO worth it!

The trip back to JBU on Monday the 6th was much less eventful. There was a male flight attendant who used the safety briefing as an opportunity to show off his beatboxing skills - so that was funny :) We were able to take a direct flight from Denver to Tulsa, which was nice. Another girl who goes to JBU and has a boyfriend at USAFA flew back on the same flight as us (she had been able to get an earlier flight on Friday), so one of her friends tooks us from Tulsa back to JBU.

And that's the end of my long story :)

Bluebonnet - the best little birdie ever!

This post is dedicated in honor of my pet budgerigar, Bluebonnet. This summer sometime (probably in July), he turned five, and August 25th was the 5th anniversary of the day I got him from the pet store.

My grandma and aunt were visiting from Sacramento, and they wanted to give me an early birthday present. So we were sitting out in the living room talking about it, and Mom was like "Why don't you get a pet bird?" I, of course, loved the idea, because I love animals and especially birds. I just wouldn't have guessed that Mom would be willing for me to get one! (And I would guess that sometimes she wishes she hadn't suggested it! ;-) )

So we got on the internet, did a little research, and discovered that budgerigars, also known as budgies or parakeets (they are actually a type of parakeet) make good first time pet birds. The next day we visited two pet stores, and I fell in love with a cute little (he really was littler than the other birds!) blue budgie. We brought him, a house (what I call his cage), food, toys, etc. all home, and that evening got him situated in his new home. The poor little guy was very scared, understandably!

Two days later we were already taking him out of the cage and having him sit on his playground. Much later, I learned that you should ideally go much slower than that when trying to tame a budgie. But I didn't know better, and thankfully Bluebonnet was very young and so he did great. I remember how we would give him spray millet on the playground so that he wouldn't immediately fly back to his house (I guess his wings weren't clipped very short!). We had to get a few things straightened out right off the bat. He did not eat pellets like they said he would - he wanted seeds! I also had to get him a different water bottle. But once we got those things switched around, he was happy.

We put his house out in our den where I spent most of my time doing schoolwork. Whenever Nathan or I walked in the room, we would tell him "Hi!" We talked to him a lot too. I don't remember too much more about "the early days." In November he had his first molt (molting is where a bird loses a lot of its feathers and new ones grow in). I did a little research and discovered that a bird's first molt is typically when they are 3 months old, so that's how I know about when he hatched. I think it was also in Novemeber that he said his first words: "pretty birdie!" He also soon learned how to say "Hi!", so whenever any of us came into the room he would greet us :)

[I'll add more to this later - I've got to go for now]

The last couple weeks of summer....

After our quick trip to Colorado for Nathan's Acceptance (into USAFA) Day parade (see these two posts on his blog to read about that) on August 2nd-4th, I nannied Christopher for one day and then they went on a family vacation. During the week they were gone (Aug. 9th-13), I was able to spend time with friends and put in 2-3 full days of work for Mrs. Stewart (my high school teacher - I'm her assistant when I'm in town), so that was really nice. I was also supposed to work on packing during that week. I think I did a bit, but not much. Oh, and before our Colorado trip I had taken Christopher back to the pool for a birthday party. That time I had my swimming suit on, so I was more willing to get wet - and so he did better than the first time I took him!

Anyway, the last week before coming back to JBU (Aug. 16-20) I nannied in the mornings, and one afternoon I think. I finally had both boys again, which made me happy :) I hadn't seen much of Brian for about five weeks, and I was missing him! (Mom kind of made fun of me for that - but I really do love those little guys!) During that week, we went back to the Museum of Nature and Science, and we also went to the Zoo again. On the other days, we would often go to the park and to Barnes & Noble. If I remember right, Brian asked me one time why I had to go back to college and why I couldn't keep coming over to spend time with him...but I promised him I would come see him when I'm in town :) Hopefully Christopher will remember who I am - I'm relatively sure he will.

On Saturday, August 21st, Dad and Mom and I packed up the van with all my *stuff* for college and headed out for a couple days of camping. We stayed at Devils Den State Park. The first night it was *really* hot and muggy, but the next morning we were able to get out early and do some hiking. We went on several *long* hikes, and in the afternoon we enjoyed some air conditioning at a place that had a beautiful over look and *lots* of hummingbird feeders! What's more, the owner of the gift shop had recently gotten a beautiful cockatoo, and I got to hold him! :D

Then on Monday the 23rd we came over to JBU and Dad and Mom helped me get moved into my room - the same room I had last year! My wonderful room mate Jessica arrived a little later in the afternoon, and we spent the next couple days arranging/unpacking.

And thus ended my wonderful summer at home - It's so odd living two different lives in a sense. I slip so easily from one to another now! I really haven't been homesick a bit...although I do miss Dad and Mom and Nathan and Bluebonnet. But at the same time I'm so glad to be back at JBU - it really is a second home.