day 095. [mizuno]

Meet my volleyball shoes. Muzzy that is, haha. They were with me for a season and they're putting me through another season ;)

I love my shoes. Sorry for the short posts. Can you tell that school has gotten the better of my social life?

Also, sorry on not blogging yet on the library blog. It'll happen. Trust me :)

Just bare with me, maybe my weekend posts will be a bit more detailed, bahaha.

Love you guys!

day 094. [classes]

With school ahead of me. That means a lot of things:

• classes
• homework
• lack of social life
• running two blogs: Project 365 & The Adventures of Rick & Tarra
• shorter posts

I can't guarantee such elaborate posts from here on out, which might be a good thing for you and me. Occasionally though I feel like there could be a good elaborate post that gets thrown into the mix of short ones. For now though, this is what you get for today because I've got homework that I'm still working on ... DAY 002 TOMORROW!! woo-hoo!!

day 093. [drum squad]

It's another Sunday. The Sunday that wasn't spent with Living Word or LYC :(

I gotta move on though and get used to the fact that I see my church family from home when I'm well ... there, ha. I'll get used to it though once the year gets going.

Anyways, moving on from the whole church thing I think the most exciting thing from today was the fact that there was a women's soccer game going on as one of the last things during orientation. If you've ever been to a soccer game here at the University of Portland you'll know exactly that a soccer game isn't complete unless the Villa Drum Squad is there! In fact, I'm pretty sure that aside from the winning that our soccer team does, the drum squad is what makes UP as known as it is, haha ;)

If you want, check out some of the other photos from today's game at my flickr.

We ended up winning the game, except I actually don't know what the score was because I ended up leaving right before we won. I left to visit a friend who was living in Shipstad. Again, coming back to campus has just been a ton of fun because it's honestly been reconnecting with old friends while trying to make new ones too. But seriously, between trying to read for a class on Tuesday and just making some final touches on my room I've been hanging out with friends and just having a good time.

In fact, for dinner we went to the Commons, which has had some major work done to it. Being in the new commons made me feel like a freshman because it was all so new to me. It seriously is what senate had envisioned last year when we were talking about it in meetings. One of these days I will probably make it the picture of the day for the blog, ha. I'll just have to figure out one of the days that doesn't have much going on! Even the plates have been upgraded!

Aside from that though another big event that happens on Sunday's is Sunday Night at the Races. That will probably be another picture for the blog one of these many Sunday's I spend here in Villa and the University of Portland. It's pretty fun and as a Villan you just get all rallied up for your wing! Good job today though 2_C!!! [Inside joke as to why the underscore is there, haha].

Well, I hope you all had an awesome Sunday. For those that start classes tomorrow ... GOOD LUCK!!

I know for a fact though that University of Portland is starting tomorrow. Time to get ready for classes and bed!! Night everyone!!

day 092. [villa maria]

I'm going to keep this short because I still have stuff to do in my room, but it feels so good to be home!! By being home I really mean being back in my dorm. You guys have no idea how good it feels to be a returner.

Honestly, today though has been an awesome time because it's been a lot of hanging out and catching up with friends that have come back as well.

Word's cannot describe how awesome this day is! It's been such a fun day. I think I'm going to end it here because I've got other things to catch up on at this campus.

If you want my mailing address though send me a facebook message :)

PS. I live on the best dorm on campus. There's no denying ;)

I'm pretty sure you're jealous :P

day 091. [memories]

It's official - Summer 2010 is OVER. I'm about to head out of Oak Harbor for the glorious Portland. I unfortunately won't make it to the soccer game. To top it off I also won't be in the dorms tonight :(

I'll be with my parents for one last night. Part of me is cool with that, but the other part of me really wishes I could be on the campus tonight. That would be SO MUCH COOLER. I guess that's the part of growing up that really has taken a hold on my life. I've finally become independent of them, kind of, ha.

Anyways, this summer was such an awesome summer. It wouldn't have been the summer it is without the help of my friends :)

Man, I don't know where to start, so I guess I'll start with the smaller things from this summer and make my way towards the bigger stuff!

Summer's in Oak Harbor are not summer's unless you do the following:

• Random Donut House runs at the latest hours possible
• Staying at the Donut House for hours on ends just talking and chatting with friends
• Watching the sunset at West Beach. With or without friends. Either is just a pleasurable
• Starbucks meet ups, but I guess that one is anywhere you go
• Random drives down to the South End of the Island
• While in the south end, you realize that the the north end is much more exciting, haha

I guess that's it, I thought there were more, but that's about it, ha. Some of the bigger things that I did this summer, and that made summer A HELL OF A LOT MORE FUN, was:
------------------------------------------------------------
1. Summer School
I had the opportunity to take two courses back at the University of Portland campus. I took a history course and BibTrad. I had a lot of fun because my friend Melanie was there taking courses too. It was an extra six weeks that we got to hangout because she's going to be in Salzburg in less than a week! What was also fun was I pulled off a 4.0 this past summer semester. Yeah, I got an A in BibTrad!! WOOT-WOOT!!

Going back to having Melanie there, it was fun because we were able to go out more this time compared to a regular school year. I mean we went off campus a few times to go eat. We also just went off campus at random times and we were always blasting Glee Music, haha. When I was sick Melanie even took care of me because that's what friends do!! We would always watch The Simpsons or pop in a movie when we were doing homework because we both realized that we actually work better with distractions. We even played tons and tons of Guitar Hero. That's just how cool we were, haha.

2. Kid's Camp
All I can say is read my posts about Kid's Camp because it was such an awesome week. I'll say this though, for the first time I really felt like I was doing God's Work during Kid's Camp. I really was leading that week, but all by the grace and glory of him. Couldn't have done it without him that week. I wouldn't have survived that week either if it wasn't for him and the prayers of other leaders. Same goes out to those guys. To top it off, I made some pretty awesome friends, with other leaders of course, during that week of Kid's Camp. If you really want a funny read, check out my blog titled "Remember When" and it'll give you a good recap of some of the funny/scary/anxious stuff that happened that week. It's some good stuff, so just read it!

3. High School Camp
Again, read my posts about High School Camp. It was amazing week where God not only spoke to me, but moved in me as well. It was an amazing week that I can't let go of because of how powerful it was in regards to my own life. I can only hope that you guys could experience the same things that I've experienced.
------------------------------------------------------------
Anyways, there was definitely more that happened this summer, but it's time to go! I love you guys so much. Keep in contact. Some of you have been tagged in a note that has my mailing address in it, so I better get some mail from you guys this year. Trust me, I'll return the favor, just as long as you send something too :)

It was an awesome summer. A lot of growth definitely happened, and I'm ready now to go back to the University of Portland and start some of the work that I've been called to! Prayers would be awesome. I'm going to miss you guys so much!


Remember, I'm only a phone call away guys :)

PS. Today marks the 1/4 mark of this whole project. CRAZY!!

day 090. [welch boys]

I can't believe that today came just as fast as it did. If you're out there wondering what I mean by this, I'm talking about the fact that today was my last real day in Oak Harbor. Again, if you haven't been paying attention I'm leaving Oak Harbor to head back down to Portland for school. I'm so pumped and ready for this school year, but I'm realizing that I'm going to miss Oak Harbor.

So since most of you have read my encounters with the youth group and the church I'm realizing that I would love nothing more than help out with the youth here in Oak Harbor. Obviously though it's not my calling. I've been called to do some work in Portland! That's what I'm going to do this year. Some honest to God, God work :)

Anyways, to what I did today on my last day in Oak Harbor. I ended up going to bed pretty early last night because my head was throbbing. With that though I woke up around 6 this morning. So I had a pretty early morning. I did my devos and I was also able to catch an episode of Pokemon. Even though I woke up that early I took a nap before noon.

When noon rolled around I headed over to the intern apartment to pick up my buddy Sean Welch. I've had different hangouts with him this summer, and I'm sure you've read them. We went out to China City to eat. We just talked about camp and what God had done through me. It was nice to get to talk to him about it. We also just talked about this upcoming school year. It's so important for me to be back down there. Not just because I'm going to school there, but I was called to be at that school. This seriously might sound weird to some of you guys, but it's the truth - I was called to be at the University of Portland. God had something in mind for me when I chose that school. I've gotta work it this year. I'm so excited!! AHHH!! TOMORROW!!!

Afterwards I knew I wanted to say bye to the Kingma's. So we went over there hoping that they'd be home. With our luck ... THEY WERE!! Well, all of them [Mrs. Kingma and Jordan] with the exception of Mr. Kingma. I love that family so much. Such an awesome family. Sean and I were there for a few hours just catching up with Jordan and Mrs. Kingma. It was so good to see them. To think the last time I saw that whole family, let alone go over to their house, was during senior year. That was two years ago! KRAZY!! O_o

Sean had to get going so I dropped him off home. When I got home though I finally found it in myself to finish packing. Also my last two books finally came in. Around 8 though Sean's little brother ... Steven came by so we could hangout on my last night. On our way to where we were hanging out we picked up Sharmaine because she wanted to hangout with us, haha. We pretty much treated her like the little sister she is. We were just flat out RUDE to her, but in a loving way :D

I could tell you where we went, but ... I won't. I mean I'll tell you we went to the beach and then Safeway, but what good would that do you? Once we got rid of her (haha) Steven and I went to the Donut House to get DONUTS!! We also got Sharmaine one because she made us pinky promise. Well, Sharmaine I had some of my fingers crossed when we made that promise. If you want to see her donut then you can go to flickr to see what we did to it ;)

Well, that was my last night in Oak Harbor. I leave tomorrow. I'm excited. I'm anxious. I could honestly pee my pants right now because it's full of fluids and the pressure on my bladder is INSANE! bahaha. Love you guys :D

PS. Steven did more damage to it than I did :)

PPS. In fact, if you want to see some of the pictures from today, my last day, just check out the flickr.

PPPS. Also, today is the last day of the third month :)

day 089. [two days]

Like I said yesterday, the realization of me leaving for Portland is starting to sink it even more. It definitely sunk in today when I was saying goodbyes to people after Donuts & Devos. WHICH, by the way was awesome. It felt good to be there with my peeps and just o one last Donuts & Devos before this summer came to an end.

From Donuts & Devos though we went to the skate park to pass out PB&J sandwiches. We were just hoping that we'd be able to do ministry there. It'll take time. You guys at Living Word, keep it up. Just keep working at it and things will eventually come around :)

I had the pleasure of going out to lunch with the Andrukat siblings as well as Katherine. All of which are pretty happening people. They're all amazing. It's a shame that when I come home in October Katherine won't be here anymore :(

On that note, Angel won't be in Oak Harbor either. Saying his goodbye was probably the hardest one of them all. For those that don't know Angel is my Youth Pastor and has been called to Pasco to plant a church. Well, what makes Angel so amazing is that he has continually spoke into my life for almost three years now. There have been people that have "spoken" into my life and eventually just gave up, but Angel was different. He didn't give up on me. He saw something. He saw potential to do some work. If it wasn't for Angel, and the help of others, leading me I don't think I'd be where I am now in my life. That's including all the crap that has been present in my life. Either way, thanks Angel! I hope to be seeing him in Pasco soon ;)

The best part of my day was finishing up the packing. It might seem like I've been doing a lot of packing. In all honesty I haven't. I just chose to not pack as long as I could have. Maybe put one thing away. By finishing up the packing though, I really meant getting everything together so I could pack it later, haha. Maybe I'll finish it up tomorrow X)

Later in the afternoon though I met up with my good friend Bernie. We didn't get to see each other all that much this summer because:

1. I went back to Portland so I could do a summer semester
2. By the time I got back she was on her way to China for a summer dealio with her school

So almost two months since I came home and she left we were able to meet up and just kind of talk about our summers. Our lives are definitely different, but it's good. You can just tell we're college students because we've got different things going on in our lives. It'll be good to catch up with her sometime in the near future.

I can't believe that tomorrow I'll only have one more day in Oak Harbor. It was awesome. It was worth it. I'm excited though to head back down to Portland. There's stuff I'm looking forward to! I also just miss everyone that I go to school with, ha. See ya guys in a few days :)

By the way, I uploaded one of the shots I took at the skate park today. Be sure to check out my flickr for that shot, ha.

day 088. [are you down?]

The days of me being in Oak Harbor have not only reached the single digits, but they've also come to the point where I can count how many days I have on one hand. It's seriously getting crazy having the thought of me leaving home again. I've got so many emotions inside of me right now. I'm scared. I'm anxious. I'm excited. I'm all over the place.

With getting ready for college, there's obviously a few things that I've got to get done before I leave. For example today I finally shaved my face after what had been maybe three weeks. That's actually a long time for me to not shave, but I finally decided to do it. As well as shaving my face was getting rid of the animal looking thing on my head (aka ... my hair). Not only am I packed for school, but I also look like I'm ready to head back to Portland.

One of the things though that I do not like about leaving for school is how the last minute hangouts happen. People all of a sudden start to ask me if we can hang out. As if we didn't have two months prior to me leaving to hang out. Either way, I end up the same way too. I get a little desperate with some of my friends and ask them to hangout at the last minute. Kind of like tonight, ha.

I was originally going to hang out with Brian Dyche in Bellingham, but my sleeping got the better of me and I missed that opportunity. For those that don't know who Brian Dyche is, this is him. Obviously I stole this picture off of his Facebook, haha. I really do wish I got to hang out with him before I left. He's actually one of my many photography buddies from Oak Harbor. I have yet to go out shooting with him, but the day that happens, I'll make sure that it becomes known to the general public.

Anyways, that's enough of Brian, I didn't hang out with him after all so I should just stop writing about him, ha. Who I did end up hanging out with though was my friend Elyse Brown :)

She's going to be a senior this year and she's one of the senior's I did not do senior photos of. Her and I have a song for our friendship. In fact, everytime we hear it on the radio or end up listening to it we either call the other one up hoping that they'll answer, if not we leave a message or we'll send the other a text message letting them know that our song is on. If you're wondering what the song is it's "Down" by Jay Sean. Elyse and I are pretty gangsta' and we know it makes people jealous whenever they are around us. I'd be jealous of us too if I weren't who I am, ha.

In all honesty Elyse and I have a pretty cool friendship. Last summer she introduced me to this really cool game where you run away from the waves as they start coming in. I've made myself promise that I'll play this game with my wife one day.

I can see it now. We'll be running on the beach and when she least expects it I'll push her into the water, haha. Then she'll tackle me and we'll both be wet. Then we'll just go dry off. We'll be cute like that. Fellas I know you're jealous right now because you wish you could do that with your soon to be wife, but I already took the idea. You'll just have to do something else that's cute with your soon to be wife :)

One of the things that Elyse and I have come to do that is tradition in our friendship is to do the quizzes in the girly magazines. We always go to Wal*Mart where we just sit down and read the quizzes. We'll quiz each other. We have such a good memory with our results that months from now we'll bring it up into conversation because it's that cool. I'm pretty sure after reading this some of you are jealous of my friendship I have with Elyse. She's such a stud too ;)

Tonight was different though because instead of just doing the girly magazine quizzes we went out to West Beach and we had a Godly conversation. I'm starting to LOVE my relationships with people where we can just sit down and talk about God for hours on end. Afterwards though we went to Wal*Mart where we bought the magazines so we could just take them back to her house. The reason why we took them back to her house was because I was going to help her with her AP Biology homework. Call me a nerd, but I was quite excited to take my newly college education for a test run.

I was able to help Elyse not just with her homework, but to the point where it actually made sense to her. I think my education came in handy! COLLEGE EDUCATION FTW!!

Not going to lie, there's days where I'll wake up and wish I was as studly as Elyse :)

Elyse, if you're reading this I'm going to miss you while I'm at school! As for everyone else reading this, I'm going to miss you too :D

day 087. [janelle]

First of all, if you've read this blog --> CLICK ME!

On top of that, if you happen to have read Number 4 on the Top 5 Remember When's, you now have an idea as to what Janelle looks like, haha.

If Janelle saw this, which she probably will, she'd kill me because of this photo, haha.

Anyways, today really was a day all about photography and well ... money.

It started off with me having to deal with more things from the bank and cashing the two checks from Steven and James' parents. The money was so I could purchase their senior photos today!

From the bank though I went to have a quick lunch and do my devos as well. I'm about to finish up the book of Amos, for those that are wondering. It's an interesting book. You'd have to read it to fully understand what is going on. In fact, if you plan on reading it, read Hosea along with it because both books are happening during the same time. On top of that both are dealing with two different prophecies about the same king and the fate of Israel. Now that I'm talking about it, you really should just read it when you get the chance ;)

Afterwards I met up with Janelle at the church to do some of her head shots for her ordination. If you've been paying attention Janelle has been moved up to the Associate Pastor of Living Word. It was fun doing her photos because Miss Janelle is probably one of my favorites!! She's definitely a kid at heart. Too bad her personality is going to reflect her office soon. Plain and boring, ha.

Once I was done there I placed the order's of Steven and Jame's senior photos. Both of them together made for a pretty big order, ha. I learned my lesson today though in doing one big order when I could do two small orders.

Either way, they got their photos. Janelle got her photos. I'm exhausted now from today. Too much driving around! I got some of my text books today!! The solutions manual to one of my books, haha. I hope the other books come in tomorrow.

The countdown continues: 004 days until I leave for Portland.

day 086. [family]

At camp one of the things that we talked about heavily and made it an important thing was our church family. Some of the pastors said that if they were to pass away they would rather leave their children with someone from the church over their own family. That's just how important it is to get rooted into a church family.

On top of that, that night so many people gave their lives to Jesus and we were able to welcome them to the family. You're probably wondering why I'm talking about this when camp was about two weeks ago. Well, you see, I leave this Friday to go back to the University of Portland. My good friend Aloysia (she's a college student now) leaves tomorrow morning for college. Devin Tanner & Courtney Tuttle, they leave on Tuesday. Nathan Young leaves on Wednesday.

They are part of my family. They are part of my church family.

So I'm coming to realize that a lot of my post this summer have most definitely been about God. It's what I do. For those of you that didn't see this side of me during the school year it's probably because I tried hiding it. Why I hid it? I don't know, but I don't want to hide it this upcoming school year. But yeah, this is a big part of my life and it's a part of my life that I don't mind sharing with you :)

Anyways, I wish I could remember what was going on during church, but I can't. haha. After church though I went to go play some volleyball. It was good. A LOT of the high school girls were there and it made playing that much more fun because we were actually playing volleyball. Not just passing the ball over back-and-forth.

When I got done with that though I got myself ready for Youth Group. I went to both Jr. High and High School. Why I went to Jr. High tonight? I don't know, felt called. High School Youth Group was where it was at though. Just like in Jr. High we shared our testimonies as to what God did during camp. Some of us even spoke on what God has been doing in the last 18 months. The thing is, I don't know if you can question our testimonies because these were our experiences with God. They were that real.

The hardest part about tonight though was we had to say goodbye to the seniors that were leaving for college this week. Something that was also hard tonight was saying goodbye to the youth group, again. I thought it'd be easier this time around, but it definitely wasn't. There were faces that I didn't say bye to last year because they weren't part of the youth group. There were faces that I didn't say bye to last year because I wasn't close with them. It's funny what God can do in a year. It's funny what God can do in a summer. He brought people to the youth group. He brought relationships in my life that are real and true.

As typical though, the youth group headed over to Applebee's to spend one last Applebee's with the parting seniors as well as those that are just going back to college. It was PACKED that night. Bless those servers who have to deal with is. I say that like we are a burden because we definitely can be sometimes.

Afterwards though Steven and I hung out for about an hour and a half just kind of talking. Like we usually do. I can't wait to hang out with Sharmaine and Steven this week. It better happen!!

PS. So there's a story behind the photo. Corey has a tendency to get pictures with all the Asian girls ... just like that. I kind of wanted a picture with Corey. What better way to do it? haha.

day 085. [packing]

Seeing as I leave on the 27th, all I've been doing this past week is working and packing. Today wasn't any different. The only difference was I didn't have to work today, which meant I slept in for the first time all summer. By sleeping in though, I mean I woke up at 10:30 AM. Yeah, I'm actually not one to like sleeping in unless I'm sick.

So seeing as I woke up "late" I just decided to go on a run this morning; a much needed run, ha. I've been slacking on my working out this summer, but I hope to get it back up during the school year. Once I did my run I decided to just kind of lounge around the house for a bit. I did my devos somewhere in there, haha. Also, I managed to clean up my room seeing as that was getting a little messy too.

Now, since I leave in less than a week I've actually managed to get myself together and pack a week before compared to last year where I packed with only a few days before I left.

Since I did pack most of my clothes already, what was left to pack was my books and other supplies that relate to school. I'm using these crates that we've had around the house for as long as I can remember as shelves this upcoming school year. I'm in the process though of waiting for my other books to come in. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough room in this crate to house the books that come in. As for the other crate that is packed, it's all of my "office" supplies as well as just my other reading books.

When I was done with that though I headed over to the church to meet up with the people that came home from Jr. High Camp. We shared some quick stories and then we were on our way. Seeing as I have no energy to want to go out because I've packed for most of the day, I just plan on staying home for the night and just relaxing. Maybe even pop in a movie while I finish cleaning up my room.

Man, I can already tell that summer is wearing off of me already. I'm seriously in school-mode now, ha.

day 084. [mee-kah]

I can honestly say that I've never been so happy to not have to work anymore. Well, I'm still employed, just it was my last day having to work for Dr. Theis in Arlington. I can now go on and finish up my packing for school.

Right when I got back into Oak Harbor from Arlington I met up with Micah at Starbucks so we could talk about camp. Let me tell you, this was the first time Micah and I were able to get together and sit down and talk ... all year. Everytime I've been home for breaks we didn't get an opportunity to talk about anything. It might have been a good thing too that we didn't get that time because when we talked today it was just a bunch of cans opening to just reveal myself to him.

It was seriously a lot of fun telling Micah about camp. I had honestly been waiting for today this whole week because I was just looking forward to telling him all about it. If you want to know what happened at camp I'll be writing about it on my personal blog, but if you want to get together sometime before I leave for Portland [August 27th] I would love to get together and tell you about it. For those that I'll see in Portland, if you want to know about camp I would love to tell you about it too. It was just a powerful week, ahhh!!

After that though I went to go get some needed school supplies, as in school supplies. I'm not using a code name for clothes, I have enough of those right now. I really meant school supplies: pens, notebooks, rulers, school supply box, haha.

I'm still waiting on my books to come in. Call me a nerd, I CANNOT WAIT FOR MY BOOKS TO COME IN THE MAIL SO I CAN PACK THEM!! Even look at them too :)

Because my days left here in Oak Harbor have been low key I've just been packing and doing things as they come my way. So between me watching Despicable Me with Tasha, Novella, Josh, and Spencer, I was packing and getting some last minute supplies as well.

Let me say something, I LOVED the movie. It was cute, haha. Also, the best line in the movie had to be "Box of Shame." If you went to Kid's Camp you'll know exactly why that line is so funny. In fact, if you were in Cabin 9 that Sunday night while we were eating our Subway, you'll know why it's so funny. Good times.

day 083. [c. tuts & poggie]

As my final days here in Oak Harbor are wrapping up I find that they are very low key. To top it off, some people have already left for their college campuses. So my leaving will just add to the people leaving for school.

The 27th of August is the day I peace out! ;)

Anyways, like I said, things have been low key for me. Just finishing up working and packing above all things. I'm really just at home now for the most part if I'm not at work. I'm trying to get some last minute hangouts together. Especially with people who are from camp and don't live in Oak Harbor. I'm crossing my fingers that Kevin, Steven, and I get to hangout before I leave. I also really want to hangout with Theo, Stephen, and Dan before I leave. Ugh, so many people to hangout with and not enough time to really hang out.

The plus side is that I'll be home for breaks AND my winter break is 4 weeks long this year. That's a whole extra week for me to hangout with people! Let's not think about that right now though, haha. I'm kind of thinking about now and what I really need to bring with me to school X)

As for what I did today though I got to meet up with Miss Laura Nagel. We sat down and just talked to each other about camp. Again, camp was so amazing this year I'm still in the process of working on my [three part] blog on my personal blogspot. I'll let you know when it's up. You can then read it then.

It was good getting to talking about what God did in us at camp. If you haven't read, Laura and I had a very special God moment at camp. Again though, it was so good to talk to someone about what God was doing at camp. It was also just a lot of fun hanging out with Laura seeing as she's leaving tomorrow for Michigan!

I hope you have fun there, and not to offend you Laura, although it was nice hanging out with you I definitely got a kick out of hanging with Matt & Courtney. I should mention that both of them showed up at Starbucks while I was with Laura. I thought it was funny because I was going to spend the next part of my day with them!

So sometime a few weeks ago [I think] I was asked to do photos of Matt & Courtney. I did. That's what we did today actually. It was actually a lot of fun. Gave me a break from doing senior photos where I tend to pose most of the seniors. Also, it was just an opportunity to do something different photography wise.

Obviously though, if you've been looking at my work, you'll notice that I've done portraits before, but having done senior photos almost all summer makes doing couples photos fun. I should mention though that as far as I know Courtney & Matt aren't together, haha.

As Matt said earlier, Courtney and I were being "divas" because we both got really hungry after awhile. So from there we went to Little Caesar's to get some pizza and crazy bread. From there we headed over to Matt's apartment where I finally got to see his Christmas present that Baily made him. Yeah I know, took me awhile to see that present.

The three of us went to go meet up with Ally and Jordan at West Beach where we saw what was left of the sunset. Seeing as summer is coming to an end the sunset is definitely a tad bit earlier than what it has been this whole summer. Afterwards the 5 of us went over to Dairy Queen where we ran into Laura and Caytie. How'd we know that Laura was there? Her car has "Jose" written on the back window. ha.

Overall it was a good hangout day. I really wish I could have hung out with Matt more often this summer. Oh well, haha. We hung out today and hanging out with him once is better than not hanging out with him at all.

On another note. Courtney is leaving on Tuesday :(

I've known her since she was in kindergarten. CRAZY!!

PS. Be sure to check out my flickr to see some of the other shots of Matt & Courtney :)

day 082. [judgement day]

I had the pleasure of getting to head Donuts & Devos this morning. That also meant I had the pleasure of getting the two boxes of donuts, two cartons of orange juice, and a carton of chocolate milk. I should thank Pastor Russ for filling me in on the whole getting reimbursed for these purchases. That's $21.95 dollars I'll get back. In the words of Jordan Otruba this morning, "As a college student, any dollar helps."

College students are seriously the step above homeless. Just think about it. It's so true. If you deny it, you're just lying to yourself, ha.

Speaking of college though, I managed to order my books today. The total came out to $277. Had I bought the books from the University of Portland bookstore it would have cost me nearly $400+. Yeah, not going to happen. Spring semester might be the last semester where I'll buy any of my books from the UP bookstore. Other than buying my books I managed to also do some packing of clothes. I really need to stop being so apathetic when it comes to my packing for school. It's not like camp where I can pack the night before, haha.

Aside from that though I had the opportunity to be a judge today at the 4-H Photography competition. Let me tell you something - this was my first time being a judge for anything photography related. It's a tad different, for those that don't know. I'm honestly used to being the one who enters things in. For the first time though I realized I hadn't entered anything in at all this last year.

I was amazed though with some of the photos. For the age that some of these kids are and the composition of their photos, you want to ask if they really did take the photos. Some of these kids are only 11 and they have better composition compared to people who are around my age. It made me want to go back in time and do better at photography when I was their age. Either way though, I'm good at it now! That's all that really matters.

While in Langley though I got to see Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Hall [both of them are parents are 4-H'ers]. It was nice to talk about camp to both of them. I was fortunate enough to have both of their sons [Stevie & Danny] in my cabin at camp.

Being there at the 4-H Fairgrounds was fun too because I did get to hang out and have some fun. Other than that, that's what I did today.

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day :)

day 081. [senior photos: jordan]

Today I had the opportunity to finish up Jordan's senior photos. Now you guys know who this mystery senior was, ha. I know, nothing special, but hey I wanted to keep her a secret until I finished up her photos.

The main goal today with finishing up her senior photos was getting the volleyball ones done. You can check out what that one looks like if you go to my flickr account. If you look at the volleyball one you'll see that her face is lit up despite the fact that we were shooting in direct sunlight. That's because I ended up making a reflector. You see, yesterday we had a ton of problems with lighting during the volleyball net portion of her photos. Luckily, with a reflector and an adjusted exposure her photos came out really well this time.

I won't lie to you, by the way, today wasn't all that great of a day. It was more on the chill side, I probably could have started packing for school, but you know me - [and every other kid heading back to college] I wait until the last minute, haha.

I did hang out with my brother though today, which was awesome. We went to the Christian bookstore to get my ring fitted. While there I saw Poggie and Courtney. I love them both :)

I actually had a lot of fun hanging out with my brother. For those that don't know, we're ten years apart. Despite the distance in age, we are actually really close :D

I had a good phone date with Calley today! We talked about high school camp and how God rocked me. Seriously, give my blogs a read to get a glimpse of how God moved through me. I'm in the process of writing for my personal blog, so I'll link that when those blogs are done.

Afterwards though I went over to the house that Kristen was house sitting for. While there Greg, Kristen, and I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. It's such a good movie, but it's definitely not House of Ross appropriate. I'm surprised that Greg actually ended up liking the movie.

Anyways, not to end the blog, I'm heading to bed. I have donuts and devo's to head tomorrow. On top of that I have a photography competition to judge! Night guys :)

day 080. [glow sticks]

I'm going to inform you on something. I was not able to finish up today's senior photos due to time constraints, BUT tomorrow I will finish them off, and hopefully the lighting will be a bit more manageable tomorrow morning.

Until then though, today's senior will stay a mystery, but for the heck of it I'll go into detail as to where we went. You'll probably realize that they are places I've taken people before, and that's because:

1. I'm running low on ideas.
2. That's because I took on more seniors than I could locate
3. My car is having break problems and the last thing I want happen is to go off island and have car problems

Yeah, that's actually the reasoning as to why most of my seniors have the same locations. It's really a matter of how they adapt to their surroundings.

Anyways, I took this senior first to North Campus to get that classic look from the bricks. From North Campus though we went out to the marina where there are volleyball nets. I just kind of gave a clue as to who this person is, but I'll let you guys figure out who this senior is tomorrow :)

Anyways, at the volleyball nets the lighting was not being nice at all. Casting too many shadows. Just too bright. Luckily, seeing as we have tomorrow morning, we'll finish off the photos tomorrow. Then you'll guys get to see who this mystery senior.

We took a break because I had some stuff to deal with. Bank stuff if you're wondering. It's all in regards to when I go back down to Portland, which is on the 27th of this month. Thought I'd throw that out there.

Once that was done we headed out to Ft. Casey. Sound familiar? It should because I've taken Allison, James, Caytie, Steven, and Kevin there. Counting this mystery senior that's a total of six seniors that I've taken to Ft. Casey. I've gotten to a point where I won't use a location more than three times next year, haha.

In regards to next year though, I won't have as many seniors as I did this year [crossing fingers]. With that in mind, I hope that I don't have to repeat as many places. Hopefully next year I'll be able to take some of the seniors to other places other than Anacortes.

So if you've been paying attention you'll notice that on the days where I do senior photos I use one of their photos as the photo of the day. Unfortunately, I don't like doing that unless I actually finish up the shots. That is because I usually put some of them on my flickr, which I advise for you to check out because there's a few shots up.

Since I didn't finish up the shoot though I had to come up with an alternative thing to do for the day. Originally I was going to do something like my friend Matt did with one of his posts, but I decided not to just because it would have been a little too close to when he did it. If I were to do something similar I would definitely have them be weeks apart, haha.

Wanting to be a little different, but trying out something I've managed to do other nights, I decided to mess with long shutters at night with lights. Yeah, that's right, I decided to mess around with some glow sticks this time. I really like the neon colors that the glow sticks produce. Also, I bought these glow sticks to do some night shots with Steven. Right now that kid is at Jr. High Camp and I'm a little impatient and decided to just do a shoot with glow sticks without him. When he gets back though I'll definitely have to do something at night with him again, haha.

Be sure to check out that flickr of mine :)

day 079. [cut-off]

It's a Sunday, what else do you expect me to write about?

Well besides going to church and youth group today, I do have to say that it is ... FLIPPIN HOT IN OAK HARBOR!! In fact, it was about 80 degrees in the later part of the afternoon. Talk about flippin hot!

In other news though, church was good. It was definitely nice to see everyone I went to camp with again. It was much nicer because I was well rested and did not have to deal with being on a bus full of people that wouldn't be quiet. Moving on. Russ gave a good message today on how we as a church should be in the middle of this transition. Actually, I should say in the middle of the transitions going on at the church.

For those of you reading and wondering what's been going on at Living Word, this is what's been going on:

• Associate Pastor Andy Mahoney has become the Senior Pastor at New Convenant
• Children's Pastor [K-5th Grade] Janelle Ibaven has become the new Associate Pastor at Living Word
• Children's Pastor [1's-4's] Renee Walstad has become the Children's Pastor for all ages
• Youth Pastor Angel Esquivel has been called to plant a church in the Tri-Cities

A lot is going on, but even in the midst of this the church seems to be holding up. It was a great message from Russ on how the church has to continue to seek God out through what may seem like a storm.

As for Youth Group tonight, Tommy spoke tonight. Let me say something before I go into what he spoke about, I love it when Tommy speaks. God is really using him to speak to the youth that was put before him tonight. Tommy, you are seriously doing some serious God work. Thought I'd let you know, if you're reading ;)

Anyways, he spoke on holiness and what it means to be holy. Talk about an eye-opener. Especially an eye-opener that came from right after camp, ha. Seriously though, God was definitely using him to speak to us tonight. Going to miss him when he leaves for Life. It'll all be good because all of us college folks will be going our ways in the next few weeks!

Afterwards, instead of going to Applebee's with everyone I went over to Tasha's to watch Lord of the Rings. I don't know what I was thinking because I was seriously hungry the whole time and was texting Laura Nagel [who was right next to me] about how hungry I was. Good thing was, Laura was hungry too. She felt my pain!

Before I forget to mention, I have senior photos going on tomorrow.

Senior #7 will remain a mystery until tomorrow!

PS. If you're wondering, it's the day where I do my self-portrait :)

PPS. I'm aware that there's something in my teeth. I was just a little too lazy to want to clean my teeth and redo the picture

PPS. Being gone for a total of two weeks to summer camps has made my face REALLY dark. Like beyond what I want it to be, bahaha.

day 078. [farewell]

Farewell is such a bad word to use. It sounds like I'll never see these people again. That's such a lie! I will see some of these people again in the months, maybe even weeks, to come.

The best part about the relationships I've made from Kid's Camp and High School Camp is what our linkage is; God. Our friendships, as new as some of them might be, go deep. We hit the core of each other because of our individual relationships with God. Our relationships are so much more real compared to some of our other relationships we have. I feel bad for saying that, but it is true for the most part. I feel like I can trust these guys with just a bit more compared to my friends who have yet to start that relationship with God.

If you're wondering by the way, this is my friend Kyleann. Unfortunately she goes to school at Snohomish High School :P

She was a leader at Kid's Camp and my food friend during High School Camp! We ate most of the meals together and I found myself eating off of her plate most of the time. Especially when she didn't like something that I liked, haha. Kyleann is just one of the few people I've had the opportunity to meet and become friends with these past few weeks.

If you don't remember, during Kid's Camp I became friends with Calley (my best fran!) and Kevin (BFF!!). I also met Miranda there at Kid's Camp. I met Chase Weholt there as well. From High School Camp I also got to be better friends with Isaac. I can't forget Regan. That fool, I met him about two years ago - going on three. Time amazes me at how fast it's going, ha. I loved serving with you New Lifers, and I loved being a camper with you guys.

Keep an eye out because I might pop my head in at New Life every now and then ;)

I definitely cannot wait to serve with you guys again!!

PS. These are just a few people I met. I met a ton more of people, haha :)

day 077. [party]

I wanted to punch someone after today's morning chapel, ha. God literally called me out. I'm sure he called out other people, but he honestly called me out with the sermon that Phil gave this morning.

He used Phil to call me out in SEVEN areas of my life that are not only lacking, but are areas of my life that created a covenant with God that has OBEDIENCE stamped all over it.

I felt that God was using this last sermon to just wrap things up for me. Just close out what this life of obedience is going to look like for the years to come. Am I scared? Oh hell yeah! But am I excited? Definitely. Not only will this be a season of obedience, but it will also be a season of trust. That's because for the first time in my life I don't know what to expect from God. I don't even know what to think about how this will all turn out. That's because I'm more interested in what God has to offer me day by day. This really will be a season of crying out to God daily. This is what I want. This is what I'm fighting for now.

As for evening chapel, there was no sermon. It was just straight up worship. But different ways of worship were there. Journaling, singing, painting, praying, and even communion. I think the kind of worship that definitely got to me was the traditional worshiping of singing worship music. Something about worship music and worshiping from the heart is really powerful. Also journaling was powerful for me. I've always been someone to write, but I've held back on it until this past week. God has revealed my old love for writing/journaling. I get a joy and a sense of peace out of it. The one station that hit me at my core was the prayer station. Not because it was a time to talk to God, but it was also an opportunity for me to write down the name of a someone to accept Jesus Christ in their life. I hope you know I'm praying for you.

For such a serious day, and the last full day of camp; how else do you think we ended it? Well, it a dance party and a bonfire. Oh man, I love dance parties. I think I might have gotten carried away with my dancing, bahaha X)

I gotta learn how to keep it Church-Rated, haha.

day 076. [sand]

It was time for the annual Beach Volleyball Tournament. My team got robbed of not only a final championship game, but the title as well. We had it in our hands, ugh. Father's House ... haha. I love those guys though ;)

To continue with the trend of what I've been writing about, morning chapel was about how God will use us if we pray to him about it. Thing is, when we pray to him to use us, it can be a dangerous thing because he will use us somehow.

If you're wondering how this goes along with this call of obedience in my life, it's because when God calls on me to do something, I will. I'll do it because I want to and because he has called me to do something.

I might have said it in my other posts, but this life he has called me too is going to be one of things that I won't expect. It'll be a life of hardship, but I'm so ready for it. Despite how scared I am.

Moving onto evening chapel. Let's just say that for part of it I got a little discouraged. But then for the later part of it I was a little relieved as to what God had to say to me. This was one of the nights where I didn't get a whole lot of out it, to say the least. That was because tonight was the night where people were called up to receive their prayer language. You see, I've been wanting my prayer language for awhile now. It's like a direct line to God, if you want to think of it that way.

I didn't get it tonight.

I was discouraged, but thank you Phil for going up there and explaining how we'll get it when we get it. To be honest with you guys though, I had a lot of stuff on my mind that night. That was possibly keeping me from really being surrendered. Instead of getting my prayer language, I got confirmation that night from the Lord.

He told me that what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I'm studying is where he wants me to be. At the same time though, God called me to Children's Ministry. Not necessarily to become a Children's Pastor, but to continue to minister over kid's. If you couldn't tell from the other week where I was gone, I really have a heart for Kid's. I get such joy out of seeing them come to know their father. It just fits that God has called me to continue working with Kid's :)

Did I mention? He also called me to a year of just him and me. No relationships. No silly bromances. Just him and me. Who knows, it might be more than a year. ;)

day 075. [riley]

Really quick, this is Riley Sullivan from New Life. I hope I typed down the right church, haha.

You see, he prayed over me last night. He prayed over me at the exact moment that God stripped me of everything that had defined me. At that moment though, I felt like I could trust Riley and just let him know what exactly happened at that moment. Hence why I ended up talking to him today about what God did that night.

Anyways, moving on, ha. Morning chapel had something to do with how God is our new system rather than making him part of our old system. In other words, once God is a part of us we don't try and make it so that he has to work with what's already going on inside of us. Instead we need to make him our new system meaning that there's nothing for him to work with. It's a fresh start. I really felt that this was one of the ways God was telling me how I need this season of my life to be now that I'm stripped of everything and have been called to this life of obedience. (I apologize now for using the word obedience throughout the posts of the week, haha).

It was good to hear this because I have fought so hard to try and make God part of my system when he wants nothing to do with it.

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. - Mark 2:22

What kind of wineskin are you? Just think about it.

To be honest, as I look at my notes from evening chapel I draw a blank as to what Shane was trying gto tell us. I do remember the altar call from this night because it really called me out. It was also a special moment between me and a few of my Living Word home skillets ;)

First of all, Shane called the following people to the altar:

1. Those that have had to perform/impress others for their whole lives
2. Those who just haven't felt accepted in their everyday lives

If you can guess, I went up for the first one. I can't even begin to tell you how many people I've had to try to impress in these 19 years of my life. My parents are just a scratch in the surface of the people. Trust me, there's a long list of people. You probably don't even know how many times I've failed to perform/impress for some of these people. The hurtful things that have been said after such a failure. They stuck with me. I let them define me. But God decided that it was the end of that tonight.

God pretty much let me know, through others praying over me, that I'm done. I'm done needing to perform/impress others. I need only to meet the expectations that God has called me too.

What made this night as special as it was, was because God had me pray over two of my Living Word home skillets. I first prayed for Steven Welch, seeing as he was right next to me. Now that I think about it, I didn't pray for him. I just spoke words to him that were from God. How God doesn't see him as another face in the crowd. How God knows him by name. How he is an individual that is noticed. It was a powerful moment between the two of us. I really do consider Steven to be that little brother I never got because my parents didn't want a third child, ha.

The other person I prayed over was Laura Nagel. I really did pray for her, haha. That was another powerful moment as well because my prayer consisted that Laura would stop searching for acceptance because it was right before her. It was in front of her. It was honestly a good moment for us.

Praise Jesus! Praise God! Love :)

day 074. [purity]

This morning started out with a really good sermon given my Katie Barnhart. She spoke on how at one point in her life God called her to live a life of purity. Also, how living this life really changed who she was from when she started high school to when she finished high school.

The funny thing about God calling her to live a life of purity is that during Kid's Camp God had called me to live a life of obedience. Obviously during Kid's Camp had God started to speak elaborately to me on what a life of obedience looks like it might not have stuck. I mean during Kid's Camp my focus was not on me, it was on my boys. During high school camp though God had the ample opportunity to speak to me about a life of obedience and even give me a picture of what that looks like. (I'll go in more detail with the later posts).

It seriously started with this sermon though. God revealed to me in bits what obedience was going to look like.

Later that night at chapel Shane spoke on Grace and how Freedom is attached to it. God tested me that night at the altar call to see if I would really be obedient to him. You see, in past times at altar call when we have an opportunity to let go of things I have a tendency to hold onto a few areas of my life so that I know I'm still in control. But it's not about me anymore. It's about having freedom from the grace of God. It was about me being obedient and letting him strip me of everything that had defined me for the past 19 years. It was weird because I stood there in the presence of God bare, weak, and vulnerable. I also stood before him as Rick Baleros. That's it. Nothing more. No titles. No labels. No judgement. I was just Rick Baleros. Do you realize how good that felt? How uplifting that was?

Let me tell you though, I was clueless as to what would happen from there though. I didn't know whether or not to be overly joyous. I didn't know whether or not to cry. I was just clueless. The thing is, God had a few more days to reveal even more to me what this season of my life would look like ...

day 073. [high school camp]

Disclaimer to my readers: So much happened this past week that if I wrote it all out I would end up writing a novel or two. Because of that though I'm going to keep things short and focus more on what God was doing in me. If you have any questions though, feel free to ask me.

Since I'm writing on what was most significant, my posts might be short, but that's a good thing for you guys reading them! :)

Anyways, on the first day that we got there we obviously all settled into our cabins. What are the odds that I'd get put into Cabin 22, which is double 11, haha.

That night at chapel I wasn't expecting for what Shane brought to the table. He started talking about how this week God will personally talk to us and that we'll have to listen for what he has to say. (I'll go more into that one for day 074's post).

A lot of what this night consisted of was Shane preaching on what makes a church beautiful. But what I wasn't expecting was Shane to call people to the altar who had stuff to let go of before God. Shane also said that God was letting us know that we don't need to look back anymore because there's nothing there. Right away though God put two obvious things in my life that I had to let go of. As personal I would love to get, ask me what those two things were and I'll let you know what they were.

Let's just say that this was an awesome way to start off a week that has so much more in store!

day 072. [growth]

This might sound like a concert review, and the thing is ... it might be, ha. Also, it'll kind of be like a tribute to my good friend Jessica Andrukat :)

So a few posts ago, actually a week ago, I wrote about how Jessica is such an awesome lady who lives for God. How she has so much wisdom in that brain of hers; that brain is almost 20 by the way!

What I failed to mention though was that her wisdom isn't just through her spoken words, but her wisdom comes from her lyrics in her songs. Yeah, that's right, Jessica is a striving musical artist. Give her a listen if you get the chance. Her lyrics are strong and deep.

I've gotten the pleasure to really get to know Jessica over the past two years. I met her during my sophomore year, her junior year, while I was helping out with the choir because it had an oboe part. Thing is, with the time I've gotten to know her I've had the opportunity to get to see her grow as a musician, as a Christian. As did she, she got to see me grow in ways that I would have never been able to grow if I didn't except Jesus into my life.

Jessica, if you're reading this, I love you! You're seriously an amazing person.

Back to her lyrics, ha. What I love most about her lyrics with her songs is that they're deep (I said that already) and they're real. You can just tell that so much of Jessica goes into her songs, which makes them personal. With them being personal, they can be relatable to people. She is seriously speaking into people with her lyrics. Ahhh! I could go on and on about Jessica. I really am blessed to have gotten to know her these past two years.

Anyways, if you're one of my readers or someone new to my blog check out this bonus blog that was written with you in mind :)

Just an insight on some of her lyrics, this is from one of her songs that she sang tonight at the concert:

"We were meant to be much more than we see"

Flippin' amazing if you ask me :)

I forgot to mention, if you want to see pictures from the concert tonight go to my flickr! I will put more of the photos up when I'm back from camp!

day 071. [senior photos: kevin]

Lo and behold, I was able to finish up Kevin's senior photos today! It was kind of a bit rushed, but it's alright because what's important is the fact that we finished!!

Unfortunately though, it was raining ... a lot. In fact, at one point in the day today I had prayed to God that he would at least bring some sunshine to the city of Oak Harbor. Boy does he have a sense of humor, one that still confuses me a little bit, haha. What I mean by that is, when I finished my prayer it started to rain even harder; real funny God.

I'll talk more about Kevin once I do a recap on my day though. I was fortunate enough this week to get at least one of the proofs back from one of the seniors I did [Caytie Matthews]. With that I went to purchase her photos this morning. It was actually pretty cool to finally have her photos in my hands. Physically that is. I then gave those to her. I was really close to just taking a wallet from her, but I'll let her distribute those first as needed, haha.

From there I decided to go to the gym and workout for a bit before I played a few games of volleyball with people who actually know how to play. Not saying that the Navy people don't know how to play, but it can get a little frustrating sometimes when it's just passing the ball over back-and-forth. Trust me, it gets old. After being there though I went home to get ready and waited for Kevin and Devan, his girlfriend, to get to my house so I could do his photos.

Now, if you know me, I've had a meeting with all of my seniors prior to doing their photos. With Kevin on the other hand, I did not get that initial meeting, seeing as I've only known him now for two weeks. It seems like we've known each other longer, but that's besides the point. Seeing as I didn't have that meeting with him I pretty much took him to some of the same spots that I've taken other seniors. Here's the catch though: Kevin doesn't go to Oak Harbor High School. It works out for him to have the same places as everyone else. His photos will look different compared to most people in his yearbook. It works out.

If you're wondering where I did take him, I took him to North Campus, Graffiti Wall, and Fort Casey. You'll notice that he's the first senior that I've taken to the Graffiti Wall. He potentially might be the only senior that I take to the Graffiti Wall as well.

I honestly wish I wasn't as rushed as I was, but with the time I had though we got things done. To add to the rush of the things we pretty much had to choose the photos he wants to purchase, as well as his yearbook photo ... today. I plan on never doing that again, ha. Tomorrow though I'm going in to go purchase his photos. Oh yeah! I'm also going to get Allison's photos done tomorrow too! Yay for finally getting these photos back to the seniors!!

PS. To see more of today's photos, not just Kevin's senior photos, check out my flickr :)

day 070. [breakfast]

Do you guys remember Jordan? If not, read this post. Read it? Got caught up on who he is? Good.

Anyways, this morning both Jordan and I went out to go get breakfast at Starbucks. In fact, we sat in the same spot. It's like what we usually do.

Like in the last post about Jordan, going to breakfast with him is always fun and interesting. We always have good conversations. Ranging from God (almost always) and bringing it to a close about school and how much we love it. Today was nothing short of any of those conversations.

Again, we have had an interesting friendship since we met during our Freshman year. We did not like each other. Looking back, I wouldn't have liked me either, haha. But almost 6 years later look at us! We're as good as friends and we can only become closer friends with the years to come. It's exciting to know that Jordan's got the right things going on in his life. Keep doing what you're doing Jordan!

Once we were done there I had to get home and get ready for work. I used to work in the Oak Harbor orthodontist office, but as of late I've been moved to the Arlington office and am now working for Dr. Theis.

I'm slightly bummed, but the thing is, I'm working with a new orthodontist and that means I'm making more connections that may end up helping me out in the long run. CONNECTIONS FOR THE WIN!!

It'll take some getting used to on my part having to go to Arlington to work, but I'm sure I'll be fine. Unfortunately, I leave soon so I won't have much time left to actually work there. When I come home for breaks though I'll definitely have more of an opportunity to work in the office :)

As for this evening, I didn't do much. I was so exhausted from work today, and having to be up early to go to breakfast, that I decided to just kind of lounge around this Friday evening. Not exciting one bit, but it's ok because everyone needs their rest, and today is my resting day!

PS. Today marks Week #10 :)

PPS. Kevin should be in town tomorrow so we can finish up his photos!!

day 069. [camp buddies]

Do you guys remember me talking about Kevin and Calley in a few posts back during Kid's Camp. If you do, I don't remember really writing about them, haha. I do remember using a photo of us three though :)

Today was definitely a fun day, and if you want to possibly read more about it check out my friend Matt's blog! He caught a lot of the behind the scene stuff that happened today. [You'll just need to make sure that it's up, ha]

Anyways, this morning I woke up to get ready to go and hang out with Calley and Kevin, who I met from Kid's Camp this year. Those guys are so lucky ... Kevin lives in Arlington and Calley's parents live in Mukilteo, which is where we met up and then we all moved into just one car. Unfortunately, for Matt and I we live in Oak Harbor. Instead of driving around, we just took the ferry to Mukilteo and then met up with Calley and Kevin from there.

Like I said, once we met up we all piled into Calley's car to head over to Seattle. While in Seattle I tried to do some of Kevin's senior photos like I said in yesterday's post, that turned into a major fail because the lighting was just not right and he kept getting washed out in some of the photos. I'm crossing my fingers that things work out on Saturday and he can come up to Oak Harbor where I can do some photos here. Another thing on top of doing his photos is that I'm not used to doing photos of someone while there are a ton of people around us. I'm used to having people actually clear out, ha. I guess it'll be something that I have to get used to and work around the next time I find myself in that situation.

Back to doing his photos, I've never been so frustrated doing photos today, it wasn't Kevin at all, it was seriously my camera and me. I should throw out a thanks to Calley though because she was posing him, seeing as she's a model ;)

In the end though I ended up just giving up and, like I said, waiting until Saturday if things work out.

Besides his senior photos, it was honestly us three just hanging out while Matt took some photos of us three. I warned him about our craziness, but he definitely wasn't ready. For reference, refer to #3 in this post. Did you check it out? Well guess what? That happened today. I think what's worse is that there are now photos of this. Want to know something else about those photos? You'll never get to see them.

I forgot to mention that we saw this card magician who did an awesome trick. It was a card trick, but it sure got us. [I'm so tired if you can't tell, which is why I'm quick to the point with what I'm saying].

Unfortunately, the day ended because Kevin and Calley had work, which they both ended up being late to. Luckily for the both of them though they were alright. Yay for prayer! bahaha.

I hope to be able to hangout with them again seeing as I really do like spending time with those two. Maybe when we hang out the next time we'll keep things to ourselves ... haha. Like that'll ever happen ;)

Stay tuned though for Kevin's Senior Photos [hopefully] in the meantime I put up two other shots from today on my flickr. Enjoy it :)

day 068. [shopping]

Steven and I came home pretty late last night and I went to bed pretty late last night. That meant that I missed Donuts & Devos this morning. Funny because I sent out a text yesterday telling people about it. Way to not do as I say, bahaha.

Instead though I slept in a bit, except for when my dad asked me if I wanted to head out and get some lunch. Seeing as I didn't have work nor did I do my internship today I was free for all eternity! Ok, maybe not all eternity, but you catch my drift right?

When we were done with lunch I went with him to go pick out a shirt that I had planned on buying yesterday. My mom couldn't dish out the money, so she made my dad buy the shirt today. On top of that, he bought me two shirts! Two plaid shirts. You'll find out later, if you haven't been reading, why this plaid shirts are so important for me to buy.

I pretty much hung out with Sharmaine today though. I took her to her dentist appointment, which I was excited about, haha. We pretty much just hung out today.

Somewhere in our hang out though we went toe the thrift store just for fun to look at some stuff. I'm impressed with myself though because I can fit perfectly fine into a boys XL shirt. It's sad that I can, and it's definitely sad to know that those sizes are made for kids these days. When I was their age, those sizes were made for boys that were just big. I feel now that sizes like that are made because of the turn that America has taken in food consumption. But hey, I'm not here to point fingers are people.

We eventually ended up at Starbucks where we ran into Jordan, Ally, and Courtney. I love those three! They are amazing. End of story, they are amazing.

I totally forgot to mention though, Sharmaine and I ended up at the dollar store where we bought a few things. I bought a few glow sticks, which their reasoning will be brought out on a later day, ha. I also bought those fun shape rubber bands! I'm excited ... I bought the dinosaur ones :)

Sharmaine ended up back at my house where we watched a little bit of 500 Days of Summer.

That was it for today, haha. I'm so excited for tomorrow. Although I lost two seniors, I ended up gaining two seniors in their places. There is still one senior that is in the dark and will not be named until the photos are done.

As for tomorrow's senior though his name is Kevin Clevenger. He doesn't go to Oak Harbor High School. He actually goes to Arlington High School. I'll give a better story as to how I met him, tomorrow. Although, if you've been reading, you know exactly how I met him :)

PS. What would have been better was if I was able to buy some skinny jeans :(

PPS. Tomorrow should be a fun day! I can't wait :D

day 067. [catch]

Tonight's photo was a third attempt at dealing with lights and what not. I possibly might try something again tomorrow.

Anyways, yesterday was kind of a "blah" day.

To be honest with you, my day consisted of me mainly just talking to people from camp. I definitely miss camp and the other leaders so much that It's just fun to talk to them, haha. If you're wondering though, I'm mainly talking to Kevin & Calley ... mainly Kevin, bahaha.

The real fun wasn't until later in the day, and by later, I mean much later. So I'll fast forward in the details of the day and get to where the fun actually started, ha.

I ended up stopping by Steven's place because I was going to pick up a shirt to borrow for my special day with Kevin and Calley. Well, I was playing with a slime ball and ended up popping it. Got all over my white shorts, my hoodie, my cell phone, and parts of Sammy's rug. Note to self: I can't/shouldn't own anything white.

After that though, Steven and I just chilled before we met up with Matt at West Beach to do some night photography. Steven and I messed with long exposure while Matt on the other hand did some flash photography stuff. It worked out really well. One of the shots [today's photo] was of Steven and me playing catch with a bike light. We had a lot of fun with it, ha.

Afterwards though Steven and I went to the Donut House. At this point it's midnight and I already knew that this post would be late. What I really enjoy hanging about hanging out with Steven is that for the most part our conversations are so God centered. We really just debriefed about Kid's Camp and how amazing it was this year compared to last year. Seriously, if you haven't read any of the Kid's Camp posts get on it! Just reading them though you don't get the full force of what God really did.

We got back to Oak Harbor pretty close to 2 in the AM. We hit up a few spots in Oak Harbor to work on more long exposures. My camera was pretty much dead, so we did all the stuff on his camera. They came out pretty well, but for myself and him it was a lot of practice. We'll definitely have to go out and that again.

PS. I'm aware that I have two photos, but one is to show you how much damage I did to my clothes. To be honest though, it looks pretty cool, haha.

day 066. [ultimate]

I recently had two seniors bail on me today, but you wanna know something about that happening? I'm alright with that. The number of seniors I was going to do was kind of getting overwhelming and I was getting nervous that I wouldn't be able to do their shots and get them the pictures in time. I'm glad though that they've decided to do their photos with someone else though!

Instead of doing senior photos this morning like I had planned I ended up chilling around the house because I'm still pretty exhausted from Kid's Camp. I really can't believe at how exhausted I am from camp this year. I guess when you're really tired you really did invest some serious time into these kids.

Moving on, I really did just chill around the house, I even cleaned a little bit, haha. When it started to get later though I headed over to City Beach to play watch people play Ultimate. Obviously I'm the token photographer of the group, so what do you think I did? Yeah, you're right, I took photos!

I used to play Ultimate with everyone last year, but there's a reason why I don't play it anymore, haha. It's not that I'm not good at it, I'm just not fond of it. I can catch on my good days. On my really good days I can also throw. But take my word, those are on really rare days, bahaha.

Afterwards though I went to Wendy's with Sharmaine [seeing as I was her ride] and Anthony. That kid is leaving for WSU on the 15th and I'm going to miss him. It's all good though because I'll be too distracted by my friends at UP to even realize how much I miss him, haha. That sounds so bad, but if you know what I mean you know where I'm coming from.

Now I'm home watching Shark Week [one of my favorite weeks] and texting Kevin and Steven. CABIN LOVE :)