Fall Break and Exciting News!

This past weekend was fall break for me, and I took that opportunity to go home. The 4-hour+ trip was long and tedious, but it was all worth it when I got home to a happy puppy who was way too excited to see me.

Saturday, on the trip down, Caleb and I went to Wendy's halfway through to see some of my church camp friends. The meeting was too short, but still very nice, especially since I only see these people once every year.
Sunday was a nice day of relaxation and seeing friends at church, one of which recently had an iron infusion, so keep her in your prayers! After church that night, I had dessert at classic Cracker Barrel with one of my best friends from high school. The conversation drifted to The Hobbit, and naturally, I also had to throw in my plug for Doctor Who (my favorite show).

Monday was mother-daughter shopping day. Ma and I found some good deals for some good clothes and crafting items (leather strips for $5-the possibilities!) When we got home, I made a guitar strap for dear Caleb, which turned out to fit him perfectly!

Tuesday was the sad day of departure.

I headed up to college and made a pitstop on the way to see my most recently engaged close friend. She surprised me with a box containing a ring pop asking me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding! It was very cute, and of course, I said yes.

The next day came the super exciting news...
I'm going to be an aunt to a sweet little girl! My siblings found out that come March, they are going to have a daughter. And I am going to spoil her rotten thanks to pinterest's plentiful ideas.

More pictures to come from the gender reveal photoshoot in its own blog. Here's a candid shot of me trying to fix the blocks.

Burning Out/Highlights

My first few weeks of my junior year of college have been anything but calming. I've stayed busy, barely have time to eat lunch most days, and unfortunately...I've been writing so much that blogging and journaling just haven't come very easy. I'll be lucky to blog once every semester.

I thought I'd share the cool highlights of the past three weeks.

1. Started my job with The Arkansas Traveler. I've been writing and copy editing for the sports section. This means I attend games, interview people, and the like. It definitely keeps me busy. But I love it. If you haven't checked the paper out, here's its website: uatrav.com.

 2. My puppy is adorable. We took her to be with my parents this weekend, since I can't keep a dog where I am living. Besides, I couldn't give her the attention she needs while I am in college. In a few years, though, hopefully I can have her with me again! The trip down to and back from home was fun, with four people and four dogs in tow. Lots of fur on my clothes. Oh, and doggy vomit.

3. I ran into Tyler Wilson, the quarterback for the Razorbacks, at Walmart the other day. My boyfriend knows how much I want pictures with all of my favorite athletes, so he was bold enough to ask for one. That was exciting.

4. I've grown quite fond of Doctor Who. Didn't think I would, even though I know I like sci-fi. (Not the channel, the genre.) I am fairly partial to the ninth doctor (Chris Eccleston) but the tenth doctor (David Tennant) is catching up. I've resolved to not give ninth doctor up.

5. Finally, and probably most importantly....one of my dearest friends, Cori, got engaged this past week. I've never met her fiance (crazy, right?) but I've only heard wonderful things about him. So I'm very excited for their future together, and interested to see their wedding! Lord willing, they will have a long and happy life together.

(I didn't take that picture, nor was I there...so I stole this from her facebook. Sorry! :) )

There is my month in a really small nutshell. Enjoy!

Barton Bible Camp

This is the place to go when you’ve been having a bad year, a bad week, or just a bad attitude.  Barton can help clear that up real quick.

I always get nervous when I go into Barton because there are always so many new faces that mix in with the old.  It’s hard to give 60+ kids all the attention they need and deserve at church camp, but the counselors sure do try.

There are a lot of stories I could tell you about this week, but I’ll try to keep it short(ish.)

First, there’s one camper who just made me smile every time I saw him.  He got baptized that week, and won second place in the Bible Bowl (it’s like quiz bowl, but with Bible questions.) The look on his face when he won second was even more excited than the first place winner.  He was one of the sweetest kids I’ve met.

There’s also always the Battle of the Barton, where kids take bottles of shaving cream and silly string and run around on a tarp covered in water and cooking oil.  Sound disgusting?  It is.  I had the chance to hold the water hose and hose off all the slimy kids when stuff got in their eyes.  It’s the most demanding job I’ve ever had.  Kids constantly yell your name and fling grossness on you.

Nasty.

There were quite a few baptisms that week, which was great!

Of course, the counselors were also fantastic (at least in my opinion.)  Friendships that started last year became stronger this year.  A few really helped me out without knowing it.

I wish I would have taken more pictures with more people, but…I didn’t.  I was glad to get to know these people better, and glad to spend time with old friends too.  Seriously though, at Barton, you can find the best friends you may ever have.  I sure have!

fRecipe fRiday! (It's back...for now.)

It's been a while since I've tried to bake something new...and it's been even longer since I've done my recipe blog. 

Lately I've been fascinated by crepes.  They seem to be everywhere (in reality, I just know of one family who has opened a creperie.)  Either way, I decided to make my own crepes.

I found a pretty easy recipe online.  I thought crepe-making was going to be really difficult, but if you aren't set on perfection or high-quality crepes, it really isn't too hard.

So here's what you need:
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of butter (melted)
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons white sugar

First you'll want to whisk all of that in a largeish bowl until it's not very lumpy.

Then heat up a medium/large skillet on medium heat and grease it with some butter.  Not too much like this, though:

Because then your crepe won't even touch the bottom because all that butter is going to melt right to the bottom.  The after-math of that:

Thank you, Caleb, for drowning that skillet.

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the skillet once it's heated and try to tilt the pan so that the batter spreads out evenly.  I discovered tonight that my oven is tilted.  Here are some of the best artsy crepes, as designed by the stove:

Lovely.

Cook the crepes over medium heat for about 1 minute on each side or until light brown, then flip.  Treat them like pancakes, especially since this recipe makes them pancake consistency.

Most likely you'll want to add something else to make the crepes taste better.  My choice was strawberries and bananas!

Fill them with what you want!

Add powdered sugar, of course.

And there you have it.  Pretty tasty!

Audubon Ecology Camp 2012

Like every other year, I headed out to Audubon Camp for two weeks this summer.  I always know it will be the highlight of my summers, but after this past year, Audubon Camp couldn't get here fast enough.

I'm about to lay out a really photo-heavy blog for you. Lots of names, lots of pictures, lots of stories.  Be prepared to invest yourself in reading today's post.

FIRST WEEK

Here's where I got to reunite with so many friends of mine.  I arrived at camp to find Emile, a former camper with whom I used to be very good friends, working there.  Fortunately, we had facebook stalked each other enough to pick up where we left off.  Another former camper, Erin, was there, and I'm not sure why we hadn't been friends before, but we best friended it up.  Seriously, we are long lost sisters.

My co-teacher for Aquatic Biology is Matt, also known as AquaMatt, to whom I am PlankTam, and we are a small portion of a large group of Eco-Avengers.  We've known each other for (I think) five years now, during which we have become really sassy friends.

Little froggy, seining camper, AquaMatt and lizard, Still on the Hill, hammock sitting, and Andy.

Andy and I have also been buddies for a while, typically running in to each other at thrift stores, if you couldn't tell by our taste for vintage style clothing.  And Still on the Hill is a duo that is based in the Ozarks but is internationally known.  They even have their own Pandora station now, so go check them out!

AquaMatt and PlankTam

I don't have an insane number of stories from first week.  They were generally good kids.  Emile, Erin, I, and a senior camper named Penelope even made a list of plans for the rest of our summer, including making dresses, tyedyeing shirts, and visiting Still on the Hill's Ball Museum!

SECOND WEEK

I got a new brother this week, thanks to 11- and 12-year olds thinking that my new friend Mitchell and I looked alike.  So I'd like to introduce you to bro Mitch now, a recent high school graduate who this past year (Jan-Dec) saw 311 species of birds in Arkansas.  If you aren't impressed yet, read this article. 

This is our family photo.

At one point this week, a senior camper noticed me getting on to some kids, (maybe I yelled a little) and said to Mitchell, "She seems to get mad a lot, was she mean to you when y'all were kids?"  To which he responded, "Yeah, she'd get mad because I'd beat her at everything."  Thank you, Mitchell.

Alligator,  little kid helping sein, happy fake family, Pablo and Pike, Halo and helgrammite, me painted with shale, and Chloe with water sample.

AquaMatt and I were in charge of the water game, as you can see by the bottom left picture.  I always enjoy watching kids fall into the water as they try to race each other.  And most of these pictures are from the last day of camp, also the saddest day of camp. 

If you would, notice the dark picture of me and my cabin-mate, Lori, as we prepare for the bear prank that night.  Since the kids thought Mitchell and I were siblings, I told them Mitchell had gone up the hill to call our ma one night.  When bear calls started coming from that direction, my ladies freaked out, and from then on, every flashlight they saw brought on cries of, "MITCHELL?!?!  ARE YOU OKAY?!"

We got to hold a gator this week!  That's pretty cool, right?

AquaMatt and I had a pretty good track record this year of no canoe flips in class...until the last day, when crazy children thought standing and rocking was a good idea.

We also took a little boy, Thorin, to one of our classes.  He rode in my canoe on the way back, and some campers tried to pass me in canoes, which is against the rules.  I yelled, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"  Thorin looked at me and said, "You just Gandalfed them!"  Which was probably the cutest, most intelligent thing I've ever heard a five-year-old say.

Anyway, here are some of the people that I owe retaining my sanity to:

Erin B, Erin S, Emile, me, and Mitchell

PlankTam and AquaMatt, BIFFs for life.

The besties. 

Dad doesn't take many pictures, but he'd be on this list too if he did.

In my opinion, you'd be hard pressed to find a camp better than Audubon Camp.  It's a beautiful place with beautiful people, all working toward the goal of educating kids about the earth on which they live and how to take care of it.  Classes include Ornithology, Herpetology, Mammalogy, Aquatic Biology, Entomology, Geology, and Botany.  We encompass everything you can think of in terms of earth science.  The games we play teach about relationships between animals and their habitat and our impact on the world. 

I can't say enough about how wonderful this camp is, but I have to cut myself off somewhere, so I'll leave you with this:

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."-The Lorax