College Girl

This is it people!  Megan has offically spread her wings and flown the nest! You know how most country songs are about how girls want to get out of the small town for the big city? My life went the exact opposite. Here I sit in little old Thatcher Arizona. Population, 4,865. Number of stoplights, 4. The "mall" is Wal Mart, and there are an infinite number of tractors. To say the least, it's a little different from home. But so far I love it! I've grown up always knowing that Thatcher was there, but in just one week I have learned a lot about the beauty it has to offer. For example, Mount Graham. Never have I ever seen a mountain and thought that it was beautiful, until I saw Mt. Grahm at Orientation. It sounds so stupid, but I honestly love waking up and getting to see it as I walk to class.

So far I've met a lot of nice people, but I have also met my share of weirdo's... I guess everything is an adventure!  Right now my plans consist of getting my Associates here, then joining the sister program with NAU to get my teachers certificate for elementary education. My week basically consists of the following. Monday, Wednesday, Friday I have class from 8 to 2 with a two hour break in the middle. Tuesdays and Thursday I have two classes at 9:30 and 1. The rest of my time I need to fill with sitting in with local teachers and watching them teach and then taking notes on the pro's and con's of their style of teaching for my "Intro to Education" class. I guess all I can say really is that I'm not dead yet, and Im really excited for what EAC has to offer for me and the people and opportunities that will be presented to me.

Ryan's summer fun

Hey there guys, this is Ryan.  It’s been a while since we last chatted. A lot has happened, I went on vacation, school started back up and my parents got a Jeep that they let me drive! First off, my summer vacation was amazing! I went on a week-long cruise to Cabo San Lucas Mexico and Puerto Vallarta -- too much fun! We went Scuba Diving and zip lining as well.  After we got back from the cruise I went on a Man-cation; basically a man adventure for a week. We went camping in Sedona, Arizona. As part of this Man-venture we went cliff jumping, paintballing, off roading, golfing and hiking.  My favorite part of the trip was by far paintballing.  We found a really cool paintballing arena already set up out in the desert.  We all got guns and had a blast shooting our church leaders.  They weren’t as good as we were so we had to switch teams halfway through just to make it fair.

After getting back from that vacation we started school the next day.   I am now a Junior in High School and this summer I got my drivers licence.  So, now I can drive to school, but there’s only one problem, no car.  I made a PowerPoint for my parents in an attempt to convince them to get a Jeep. I showed them all the used Jeeps in the local area. We looked around and found a yellow one not too far away.  They bought it and it made me so happy!!  I love it so much, it’s a stick shift. I had to learn how to drive stick, which was not too difficult but I did have my fair share of stalls. My record was stalling six times during one green light!  Hah beat that. Anyways, I miss you all! I hope to get together soon and party it up J

Cameron at Girl's Camp

Hi,  Cameron here, so this summer was a blast!  One of my highlights was Girls Camp. It was my first time going to camp. I had so much fun.  We did a lot at camp, like rotations which was really fun. For one rotation we went on the zip-line. It was great.  When we would fly by the group that was on the ground would shoot marshmallows at us. For another rotation we played capture the flag with a water balloon in the middle of the woods.  That was really fun, too.

Since I was a first year we had to go on a hike. The hike was supposed to be a thirty minute hike just up and down a mountain. Sadly, the leaders got lost. The thirty minute hike turned into a three hour trek. We got so lost we ended up in a whole different campsite!  I think my favorite part of camp was the food. The cooks were amazing. I am so glad I got the opportunity to go to camp this year and I am really looking forward to next year.

Jamaica, Land We Love

 

Link to Photos

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/107147437197684801004/Jamaica2012#

Mike and Trish enjoyed another week in Jamaica this summer. We have a group of friends that we meet there each year. Some like to scuba dive, and we all get a group rate. Here are some of the photos from this year’s trip.

One of the highlights was the really big shark that Mike found in a hole in the coral. He took several photos of it, until the flash made the shark mad, and Mike got out of that hole, quick! We are still amazed by all of the weird, beautiful creatures that we encounter under the sea. The coral, too was a nice surprise. At depth, there is very little light, and color goes away. However, when you light up the coral with a flash, you can see its real color. This brain coral was Green, Yellow, and Red. The colors of Jamaica. It was a fun surprise.

The only problem with this trip was that we took it BEFORE we took our family vacation. Next year we think we should take the family trip FIRST, and then we should take our all-inclusive relaxing vacation afterward, to rest and recoup.

Cruisin' the Mexican Riviera

The week before school started we went on a 7-day Carnival Cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We were aboard the Carnival Splendor. We left from Long Beach, CA. There were only 2 ports of call. The first was Cabo san Lucas. We’ve been to Cabo on a cruise before, but this time we were all scuba certified, so we tried diving. The dive site we visited was called “Pelican Rock” but it was not far enough away from civilization, so the visibility was terrible. There were small rays and some eels, and the fish we could see seemed to be very large, but if we got more than a couple of feet away from each other, we were pretty much lost. It was not anything like the Cayman Islands where we took the kids diving last year, so we declined a second dive, and hoped when we got to Puerto Vallarta it would be better.


We had 2 days in Cabo, so the second day we did the zip line tour that we’d done on a past trip. The company is Costa Azul, and the zip lines are over huge canyons. We also got to do some rappelling. We’d recommend Costa Azul to anyone going to Cabo! We did some shopping and had lunch at Sammy Hagar’s restaurant, Cabo Wabo. It was a Rockin’ Place! The food was good, too.

Puerto Vallarta was a new port for us. None of us have ever been that far down in Mexico before, and we were pleasantly surprised at the modern, clean city that it was. The dive company we used is called P.V. Sea Divers. They were all from England; young, fun, and very professional. We’d dive with them any time.

The first site we dove was called “The Arches.” The kids got to do a backward roll into the water, which was new and fun. The water was warm and clear. We were diving along the San Andreas Fault, which was pretty cool. The second dive site was where “Night of the Iguana” was filmed. There was a big pole with iguanas on it.

We saw eels, sea snakes, rays, and tons of puffer fish. There was a pretty big sea horse hanging out on some coral. None of us had ever seen a sea horse before. He was well camouflaged, and we had to have him pointed out for us. We saw octopuses and more puffer fish than we can count. The kids were getting pretty good at finding hidden sea life, and Cameron somersaulted, and flipped, and spun until she burned her tank of air and had to go back to the boat early with one of the dive masters on both dives. We didn’t mind though. If that’s her idea of a fun dive, we’re glad she had fun.

We had 2 days at sea to get back to L.A. Megan, Ryan and Cameron had fun hanging out with other kids on the ship. With unlimited food, room service, (and ice cream all day long) and the freedom to swim, golf, and socialize, without having to be right with their parents is one of the reasons a cruise is not a bad option. The last day was kind of cold and rainy, so they closed the glass roof on the pool area, and turned the Olympics on the big, big screen. It was fun to cheer our U.S. athletes in the midst of an international crowd. Here is the link to the album of photos from the trip. https://picasaweb.google.com/106563589911434999602/MexicanRivieraCruise2012#