A Smidgen of an Update

I just got back from being in Colorado for a week, and tomorrow afternoon I leave to go to church camp for a week. As you probably can assume, I'm really busy packing and unpacking and all that jazz, so to tide you over until I get back from camp next week and post a million bajillion pictures, I'll give you a summary of my last week.

Deer Valley Guest Ranch is a guest ranch. It's in the Rockies, right behind (or in front of) Mount Princeton. On this trip, I fell (very unfortunatly) completely in love with Colorado. Crazy, right? I'm completely a Missouri girl.....right?

I have decided that I am going to live in Colorado in the future. I don't care how much real estate is there. I will just have to start saving my newly aquired income now.

So now for the fun part, at least for me...on the 14 hour car ride back, I compiled a list of "firsts" for me that happened at Deer Valley the past week. Without further ramblings....

1. I square danced for the first time. It was oodles of fun:)
2. I ate a bug for the first time. It was a little grasshopper-like thing, and I ate it at the Thursday morning Wranglers Breakfast. I ate it with a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese, so I didn't actually taste it. I was so proud of myself.
3. I was kicked by a horse for the first time. We were on a ride and the horse in front of me was spooked by something, backed up and kicked me. I had a pretty impressive bruise on my ankle for a few days.
4. A bunch of college guys (the wranglers) oohed and ahhed over a pencil sketch I did of the interior of the stable where they work every day. They had me make copies of it so they could hang one up. It made me feel special:) lol.
5. I went whitewater rafting for the first time. It was awesome!
6. I saw a "dip" sign other than the one on the Hike 2. We (the teens in the teen group and the teen leaders) drove over it in a 15 passenger van a couple times every day, depending on what activities the teens were doing that day. Without going into too much detail, I tell you that we did not pay attention to the "Slow" and "Caution" signs right before the "Dip" sign. We floored it. :)
7. I saw 3 baby bighorn sheep. They were the most adorable things EVER.
8. I had chipmunks, prairie dogs and squirrels eat sunflower seeds out of my hand at St. Elmo (a ghost town near Dear Valley).
9. I made up a ballet dance to a Schumann piece a girl was playing; at least, I think she said it was Schumann. She started playing and I started dancing and we both had a jolly time for about 10 minutes.
10. I had an escort of four guys from the Lodge to our cabin....and it was four wranglers. Let me explain.
The wranglers are the tough, awesome guys that take care of the horses, play cards with you and love the Lord. Most of them were about 20 years old, and they were all really awesome. They wanted to see the sketch that I mentioned earlier, and one said "Hey, we're headed that way anyway; let's walk you down to our cabin." All the other girls were jealous...just kidding:)
11. We went to the continental divide and went sledding! There was a ton of snow, and we had an amazing time. The hill we were sledding down was super long and super steep, but I finally convinced my grandpa to go down with me and we both wiped out. It was sooo much fun, especially since I love snow so much:)
12. I fell in love with the area around Buena Vista, Colorado. I mentioned it above, but......yeah. I want to live there someday.

Sorry, I know most of that was really lame and I rambled on for a while and most of it probably made little sense. And there were no pictures, so it automatically was boring:) lol. I promise I will add a billion bajillion million quadrillion when I get back from camp.

Sorry if you've already seen this on Clarissa's blog. This was from the Stanley Sister Sleepover. I love it:)

The only picture I took on The Hike 2

And, technically, I didn't take it. Benjamin did.

I'm going a knit a bag/purse thing for me to use during my upcoming summer adventures. It's going to be awesome.

My New Love!

I've discovered a new passion of mine. It's wonderful. It combines cooking and my inner pyromaniac...or outer pyromaniac. Let's just say it combines cooking and my insane fire-loving side.

Ah...grilling. The sizzling. The smoke. The tasty/yummy/fantastically delicious results. It's like the Fourth of July....fireworks and food...only grilling combines them into one phenomenal experience.

All that said...I love grilling:)

Excitment

Background: When OAT announced auditions for the summer season this year, they didn't want anyone under 16. I was bummed, not because I wanted to be in a specific show (because all the shows have questionable/really questionable/semi-"bad"/what I would consider "bad" content), but because I would miss the people.

So...fast forward to now... the Christmas show this year is "Scrooge". It's basically A Christmas Carol, and it's a musical (yay! Singing! Dancing!). My mother put Scrooge at the top of our Netflix list, and low and behold, Scrooge showed up in our mailbox!

Gotta love those Netflix guys.

I am very excited about this show. It's fun and high energy and there's a bunch of townspeople, which means a lot of friends to work with! Yay for people! I love people:)

Anyway, I'm happy that even if I was disappointed with the summer shows, I'm looking forward to Scrooge...Bah humbug.

Some various pictures that aren't related in any way

I knitted a piece of bread with some butter! It's an inside joke/birthday present for a friend of mine. I highly recommend knitting food... it's quite fun to tell your family, "I've finished knitting the crust!"

Another birthday present for my friend. She likes The Wizard of Oz:)

And, finally, and completely unrelated to the above pictures, swimming has funny effects on my hair. I normally swim with my hair in a ponytail, and if I let my hair dry while still up in the ponytail, all the little short pieces of hair around my face dry in little corkscrew curls. Pictured above is one that I had yesterday...I thought it was lovely. It would be fun if all my hair did that;)

Last Thursday night, my friend Courtney and I went to the movies.

We saw Star Trek.

I had never seen anything remotly related to Star Trek before.

I believe Courtney is regretting it now. She's created a monster.

A short, brunette, Vulcan-nerve-pinching, Trekkie monster.

Courtney is going to lend me Star Trek.

Courtney's mother is a Trekkie, and has some episodes on dvd.

I can't wait.

Live long and Prosper,
Jenna

ps...I've decided that I'm going to marry Spock.

Some recent goings-on concerning the pool

We found a mole in the pool drain! What amazing feet!

Filling the pool...

Meredith enjoys the freezing water.

Great.

I listened to the audio recording of "The Pirates of Penzance." I am SO annoyed with myself for crying like a baby on closing night, because the audio is of the closing night performance, and I sound completely TERRIBLE on the "ah-ah-ah" duet during the finale....It's bad. Really, really bad. Why are girls so emotional? ;)

Forgive me for ruining everyone's audio recording?

Well, then...

I got a new book of flute trios in lessons yesterday. The front of the book reads,

Six Trios for Three Flutes

(Or three clarinets, three saxophones,

or other similar like-instruments)

My first thought was something like, "Ha ha, 'similar like-instruments'. Why not say 'woodwinds'. And then I saw that it specifies that the trios are for three instruments. Wow, a trio for three!!;)

There will be tears...

At the end of my uncoming dance recital (yay :S) all of the dance students (minus Benjamin) are participating in the finale. This year it's a father-daughter thing (that's why Benjamin's excluded) and we're dancing to the song "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. I don't recommend listening to it unless you have a box of tissues handy.

Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUk5SZ18WhY&feature=related

Oh my goodness....I'm sure I'm going to cry on stage...and then Dad'll cry...arrg. Thanks a lot Miss Stephanie.

Oh, mother....

I would warn you not to visit my mom's blog, for fear of the picture she just posted.

But if I did, you would just go and look anyway.

So I can't prevent you.

I am sighing a sigh of exasperation.

-something to ponder in your free time-

This confused me...It says "100% Grated Parmesan Cheese". Does it mean the cheese is 100% Grated, or 100% Parmesan Cheese?
Hmmmm....
Does it matter?;)

Dance Pictures

Hooray ;)

My tap class...the song we're dancing to is "Free to be me" which you might have heard because they play it on Spirit FM all the time.

Awwwww...my sister:)

Me and Becca...Notice I'm NOT wearing the sparkly blue dress!! Haha!! I shall NEVER post a picture of me in that sparkly blue thing!!!

I do have a picture of me in it. I just decided not to post it...hee hee:)