Two Eventful Weeks

The last two weeks have been rather eventful to say the least! I had the mind-blowing experience of going to yearbook camp two weeks ago. Talk about a lot of computer time and a lot of skipping class! I don't think that I have ever skipped that many classes, and I hope to never skip that many ever again. But don't worry, I was doing something productive. The other "yerds" and I from my school were either taking pictures in a slightly dangerous way, or working on planning and creating different things for this upcoming yearbook. We got a lot done and should have a "legit" and exciting book. There are going to be some features this year that are just mind boggling, but I can't share those top secret details with everyone.

Last week I was at a completely different kind of camp: girls camp. There isn't much that can compare with this. Stinky, smelly, giggly girls who haven't showered all week, lots of braids, and many tears. Why tears? Well, testimony meeting is very emotionally/spiritually moving. On top of that however, all of the girls that went on the canoe trip were quarantined. Three girls on the trip got sick, and the leaders didn't want to expose the rest of the camp and repeat a disaster that occurred five years ago. That year, almost every single person got sick and was puking. They had to end camp early that year because everyone was so miserable and most of the campers had to go home early because they were sick. Luckily though, that didn't happen this year! The quarantine was a heartbreaking experience, but we all understood the reasoning behind it. With a camp full of hugging, it was extremely difficult to try and not hug all of the wonderful people that were quarantined. Yes, there were rule breakers, but in the end it was all successful. I had three lovely girls to be a YCL for: Cate, Ahzhanae, and Emmah. We got to know each other so well by the end of that week, and because of that, we all had a few shoulders to cry on during and after the testimony meeting. I miss those girls already, and look forward to seeing them in the future.

Since then, I have had the wonderful privilege of meeting some new family members. My cousins Caleb and Emma came to our house yesterday along with their dad and new "bonus mom" and "bonus brothers". I consider all of their bonus family members to be my cousins and aunt already. They are amazing people, and I couldn't have asked for anything better for such a great family of mine! When they came, we got to have another treat: pizza with the pizza oven. My dad has been building a beautiful brick pizza oven in our back yard. It is finally done, and the pizza that we cooked in it tasted INCREDIBLE! We are going to have to be the party house from now on for sure!

One more thing... while at yearbook camp, I took a couple of photo classes. I learned quite a bit about all of the different settings on a camera and how to set them for a particular purpose. I was messing around a little bit with that yesterday and this morning. It is quite fun once you barely know what you are doing! Just a little bit of knowledge and a lot of messing around can go a long ways. Here's what I mean:

I learned how to do funny things with the shutter speed! This picture was taken at a fairly low shutter speed to get a pretty cool exposure. It totally looks like my brother Sam is a ghost, but he is really just walking around in the kitchen. I also had some fun just snapping other random pictures.

I took this picture while sitting inside on the couch around six this morning. I was already awake, and the sun just looked beautiful.

I was just sitting at our computer, and we have pictures of various temples rotating through as our background. Sorry the Picture is pretty blurry, but it's the best one that I can see myself with the temple. Not that I want to just see myself, but the temple is a really important goal of mine, so I want to see myself there someday, so this kind of helps to envision that.