(botanical garden)
day 191
All this week I am taking photos for my church, of our yearly day camp for the neighborhood kids. It's nice to actually get out of the house and explore Alaska while spending zero money and taking photos of people. Today I followed some kids to the botanical garden. The weather was perfect and everything just had a magical feel about it.
Our guide was so excited about the plants. (It reminded me of my brother because he too loves plants and at one point wanted to be a botanist.) He was even taking photos of the plants. Even though he's been through the garden millions of times, it was so sweet to watch him do that and hear him talk about all the things he wants to do with the garden. I'm sure he's seen the plants many times before and yet he still loves to take pictures of them. How can one person be so passionate about something? He really just loves learning. He told us that if he didn't know something, he just had to learn and discover everything about it.
I also made a little photographer friend. Her name was Shelby, I think. I showed her how to take macro shots with her kit lens. I probably won't ever see her after this week and it's so interesting to me how people come into our lives for just a moment and then are gone forever. I wonder how many times I have been just a moment to someone else? I don't ever want to fade from someone's memory, but how can that even be done?
It's amazing to think that humans have their whole lives weighing on their shoulders. I often think of this when I see old people and children, like our guide who was showing the kids the different types of plants. How did he get to be where he was today? What kind of kid was he like? Is this what he wanted to do with his life? And just think of how many days he's lived, how many little smiling and crying moments he's gone through to shape every wrinkle in his face. The same goes for the kids. Just think of everything they are still naive to, their innocence hanging by a thread. I wonder what those kids want to be when they grow up and if they're going to achieve it.
Aaah yes, what a deep blog post. On a lighter note, I received a pretty skirt in the mail today and the letter saying that I passed my AP English exam. Time to party!
I'm taking photos of kids for the rest of this week, so plan on that taking up the majority of the blog. But hey, I love taking photos. At one point today my camera ran out of battery and my mom had to bring me another one, and for the fifteen minutes that I couldn't take photos I felt so useless. Funny to think that three years ago that wouldn't have mattered, but today taking photos means the world to me. I must do my job and capture and preserve memories. I don't know, I just like piecing people together to give them a timeline of their life, so they can see those little moments that lead them to today.
+ 365 photos
(day 188)
Every year my family and our good family friends get together for a weekend at the lake. They have a cabin on their own island on the lake (it's a huge body of water) so they always invite us down to go play with them. So this past weekend we gathered our things, all the important stuff like swim suits and brownies and cameras, and headed to go play in the sun!
The first day we didn't hang out on the water as we got there after dinnertime, so we mostly sat around and talked and played a million games of nertz and chinese war. Thus began the weekend long chinese war game with much screaming and slamming hands and annoyed parents and kids who were having too much fun to care. Seriously, that is the most fun card game around and it can last for hours or be over in an instant. Plus it's intense and the "turntables," as Adam would say, change in an instant (aka the tables turn quickly).
In between the chinese wars, we found time to inner tube. We (my family) donned borrowed wet suits and braved the fifty degree weather to get really wet, driving rain pierced into our skin. It was awesome. I bet animals think we're crazy, riding around on platforms filled with air, skiing along the edge of the water just for the heck of it. Or maybe the ducks just freak out when we try to run over them with the jet ski. Don't worry, they always swim under the water to get out of the crazy human's way.
(day 189)
This picture goes without saying, but everyone's hair ended up looking like we came straight out of a cartoon.
The second night we were there, us older girls (Natalie, her friend Lindsay, and I) all slept out in a tent on the dock. With the waves slowly rocking us to sleep despite all the crazy summer parties going on on the mainland, we dreamed of the next day of adventures. Don't you just love it when you've been out on the water all day and when you close your eyes you can almost feel the back and forth motion of the waves? I love that feeling.
(day 190)
The third and final day we woke up to beautiful sunshine and immediately got to work having fun. More jet-skiing, more inner tubing, more drying off by the fire, more chinese war, it was certainly the perfect end to an awesome weekend.
(Here's the group, minus a brother and the dads and myself.)
I hope you all had a great weekend as well! What did you do?
Hey everyone! I'm back from my trip to the lake, but hopefully you guys didn't miss me. I see blogger did a good job of actually posting my scheduled posts. But never fear if you did miss me; I have returned armed with a bunch of photos to share with you!
Other things that happened this past week:
had a dog stare longingly at me // practiced for a song I'm singing at church // celebrated the fourth of July // went hiking (photos will be up in the next couple of days) // pressed flowers // had a sleepy kitty on my arm // wore a wet suit for fun // had some crazy hair times at the lake // went inner-tubing
Hope your week is fantastic!
