ELEVATION 2007!
7/3/07
I don't even know WHERE to begin. I've never really blogged about an Elevation before, and I have a feeling this is going to be a reeeallly long blog that I'll have to work on over the course of a few days.
Let me start out by saying that this trip was easiliy the best and most amazing (you're going to hear me using this word a lot this blog, get used to it) week I've ever experienced.
If you went on Elevation, you're probably experiencing the same post-Elevation depression/withdrawl that I am. I've been on three retreats, and it never gets easier/better. I still always cry the first night I get back because I don't want to be home and I want to be with all of you, haha. And I still read my e-mails over and over and over and over again, and paste them and my pictures to my closet door, so that your beautiful faces and words are the last things that I see when I go to sleep and the first things I see when I wake up =)
I have probably never missed you people more than I do now. I find that talking my fellow Elevationers helps, because we're all feeling the same crummy emotions. Drew Troller randomly texted me this, which basically sums it all up: "I've come to the conclusion that the post-elevation depression is there because it's impossible to go from non-stop action, non-stop hangout with friends to boredom in the blink of an eye. I miss it so badly. I miss the sound of gravel against my sandals, the random junior high girl laughs that filled the dining room. the stillness when someone began a prayer, the feel of the e-mail paper as i frantically ran a sharpie across it. But more than that...I miss the people. I miss feeling for seven days like I had sixty friends just waiting to make me feel like I was worth something." Basically, I think that's me in a nutshell. But I'd also like to add that I miss the way we all felt like family, the way we laughed alllll the time, but also cried together. The way we weren't afraid to show our true selfs, and just be downright crazy and insane. The way you could just go up to anyone and give them a hug and they'd be totally cool with it. The way you could just be sitting with someone and you didn't have to say anything, but it wasn't awkward. And how you could completely fall asleep on someone on the bus (just ask Acheson, I slept on his shoulder pretty much the whole way home), and it was totally okay. How I only slept alone for two out of the six nights of Elevation (I slept with Katie for 2, because she was scared of the ghosts...hahaha, and Slon and I fell asleep talking one night, then Alexis joined us the other night. I woke up on the last day and Alexis was totally curled up against me, it was so funny). How, after the nasty chocolate sauce folly (you don't want to know), all sixty of us jumped into the lake, had lots of splashing/dunking fights, then got out and left the water looking a really nasty brown, ahhaha.
I don't think you people realize how incredibly amazing and special to me you are. You make me laugh more than anyone else can (ok, so it's not that hard to make me laugh, pretty much anyone can do it, but that's beside the point), and I love being around you.
*******
7/11/07
Allright, so I wrote that section of the blog about a week ago. My post-Elevation depression was preeeeettty bad. But now it's definitely much better now. I'm a pretty happy person, and it's hard for me to stay sad for an extended period of time, haha. Sooo I'm writing you from my grandparents' house in Walloon Lake Michigan. It's really close to the place we went for Ski Retreat this year, in fact we drove right through the town where I stay on our way to Nubs Nob this year. Anywhoo, it's really windy and chilly today, and not an ideal day for being on the lake, so I decided to use my grandma's ancient computer and blog. Not only is it cold today, but my family is currently all sleeping. Did I mention that it's 2:00 in the afternoon? It is. And everyone but me and Julia are completely asleep. My family went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night at midnight (the movie is pretty much AWESOME, and I absolutely loved it), and we didn't get home until three a.m. Yeahh, I'm kind of a Harry Potter dork, haha. But not as much as my dad. He was definitely more excited to see this movie than my sisters and I combined, hahaa. But I thought wrong when I believed that my dad was the biggest Harry Potter fan ever. Because trust me, you see some hardcore fans at the first midnight showing of the movie. There were lots of people dressed up. In fact, there was this one guy who dressed up as Dumbledore, with the robe, beard, and his pet bird. He even had iPod speakers shoved into his robes, and they played the Harry Potter theme music non-stop, so you'd just randomly hear it as he passed you. I found this hilarious, personally.
Allright, so I suppose I should blog a little about Elevation, since I have yet to do that. It's really difficult for me to know where to begin. There was so much packed into this week, and it was definitely the best retreat we've ever had. They just seem to get better and better =)
Before I move ahead, I'd like to take a moment to speak about/to my family. You can read this if you weren't in X-Rated, but I don't know if you'll really care or not, hahaa.
X-RATED: Sorry, that was the best pink I could find. They don't have our trademark hot pink as a color option, haha. So basically, you guys were absolutely amazing. I knew I was going to have an awesome time with you when,at our first meeting, we got distracted and started doing one-handed push-ups, to see if they were really all that hard/how many we could do, etc. Dustin and Wiggers, you were pretty much the best parents ever, and I had so much fun getting to know you this week =) You got competitive and pushed us all, but you never got angry or yelled at us, and you both were so sweet to the whole family. And Dustin, I pretty much loved our catfight in our skit...most definitely was a high point of my week! We pretty much had the BEST family ever. All of us got along so well, and family meetings turned out to be more of hangout sessions than time forced to be with each other. You all made my week so special (not to mention insanely fun), and I was so upset when retreat was over and I didn't get to see all of you every day, because by the end, you seriously felt like my family, not to sound cliche or anything, haha. To be brief, thank you all for everything you did to make this week so sweet, you guys were the best family I've ever had, and I had so much fun with every single one of you. I LOVE YOU GUYS!
Okay so I'm not going to go into specific detail about every day like Katie did, because frankly I'm not that patient. So I'll just do some highlights, k?
Monday/Tuesday:
--The ride down was a typical busride. Katie K and I ate pita chips and these caramel chocolate things, and we had fun reading the little words of wisdom on the back of the wrapper, hahha. Around four in the morning or so, I fell asleep for about two hours. Then Katie woke me up and insisted that we were stopping, though we were still moving and no one else was up, hahaa.
--We got there and I was rooming with Stacy P and Maddie B. Maddie had to help me out with the pull-out couch, because I seriously took forever to try and get it out, and then she comes and just whisks it out easily. So not fair. After that was the quizbowl. X-Rated took third. Heckk yesss :)
Wednesday:
--I was on Dustin's boat with Slon, Katie, Maddie, and Joe. Katie and Joe did most of the tubing. Joe had the biggest wipeout I've ever seen. I'm not joking, the tube flew at least 15 feet into the air, flipped upside down, and Joe fell out. It was SO cool! Katie said something crude about how tubing made her feel, but I'll let her share that lovely sensation with you, I don't want to type it.
--Maddie Barnhill drove our boat while Dustin was in the tube. No comment on that, just let me say that it was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. Let's just say that Maddie likes speed and turns.
--We had a sick nasty chocolate sauce folly during lunch on the lake, and all sixty of us jumped in the lake after, it was so much fun :)
--After some more tubing, we met up with Acheson's boat and went to this little cove thing and decided to go swimming. We ended up having some pretty intense chicken fights. The teams were Katie and Dustin, vs. Slon and Corey, vs. Chris and myself. Three way chicken fights are pretty darn hard, but Katie and I took Sloneker down, ending the first round, and then we had to fight each other. Now, the two of us are pretty good friends, so it was kind of funny to actually fight each other. Most of the time we were laughing too hard to actually push each other down. Acheson kind of walked off the dropoff backwards and fell into the deep part in the second round, so that was kind of bad/hysterical. In the third round, Katie and I are kind of having difficulty actaually pushing each other off, (we're not that strong, hahaa). So then Chris randomly yells: "Gaburray, kick!" Being a fairly obedient person/not really thinking it through, I kick Dustin in the crotch (I still feel bad, I'm sorry Dustin). But then Acheson and I ended up WINNING. Hecckk yessssss. :)
Thursday:
--This was the service project day. We went to this couple's house to paint the husband's tool shed. They were the cutest people I've ever met, their names were Linney and Sherry, and they were soo sweet to us, always telling us to get drinks and take a break, offering their bathroom, and thanking us for all we did. They took picutres of all of us, and they took a picture of the back of my shirt (which Maddie had so beautifully decorated with an X, our family's symbol, haha. Btw Maddie, it didn't wash out and it's still on my shirt). They found it hilarious that I was covered in paint, hahaha. We had this man named Ernie helping us out with the painting, and he had this motto that Rachel and I found funny, because he kept repeating it over and over and OVER. He'd tell all of us: "Put more paint on that brush! You won't get anywhere without more paint!", haha. I guess it was one of those "you had to be there" things. He was a very nice person though, and I'm glad we got to work with him.
Friday:
--White water rafting day! I had never been before, and I was extremely nervous. But we had a super-nice guide named Patrick, and he was very tolerant of our screams. My boat consisted of Katie K, Stephanie, Stacy, and myself. I had SUCH a great time, and I'd do it again in a second. I loved body surfing, as well as jumping off the enormous rocks =)
Saturday:
--This was basketball/cornhole tournament day. X-Rated knew that they didn't have much of a chance in basketball, so we decided to just ham it up. We had a team of all girls, and we became the Spice Girls. I was Scary, Maddie was Posh, Rachel was Baby, Erin was Ginger, Wiggers was Sporty, and Paley was "Old Spice". She even had a deodorant necklace. It was SO much fun, even though we kind of stunk, we tried really hard, hahaa. And we had a sweeeeet intro dance! X-Rated DID win the cornhole tournament, Tyler and Hayden were pretty much awesome =). My personal highlight of the day was when everyone just dumped their shoes and jumped into the pool with their clothes on.
Sunday:
--Obstacle course day! It didn't seem as hard this year, but it was definitely very fun. I liked the challenge where we had to build a raft and swim across the pool. X-Rated attached a rope to a container, and Sarah jumped in with the container and swam across the pool, and we pulled ourselves along the rope. Digging in the sand for the treasure chest was also fun, as was jump rope (Hayden pretty much saved our team, he did over forty jumps in a row), and untangling the hoses. Our team did really well, and we had a ton of fun too =)
Monday:
--This was the sad day. We cleaned up (which was hard for my room, we were so messy!), and had a fun awards ceremony, then got on the bus home. The bus ride actually went really quickly, and I even got to sleep. We got our E-mails, which happen to be one of my favorite parts of Elevation. I keep mine every year, and read them when I need cheering up.
After the bus ride, I went to Chipotle with my family (on the service day we discussed what we normally get at Chiptole and decided to go there right after we got back to Cincinnati, haha) and other people and then went home and was really sad. I always hate the night you get home from Elevation, it's so sad and lonely!
I don't think I mentioned how awesome worship was this year. The band was absolutely fabulous, and we sang a great mixture of new and old songs. I seriously grew in my relationship with God, and it was just...amazing. Such an overused word, but oh well :)
Ok, my hand hurts from typing. I think I'll get some lunch, it's close to three thirty. I've been blogging wayyy too long, hahaha. I'll see you guys when I get back on the 15th, can't wait to see you!
Love you so much,
<3 Annieee
I don't even know WHERE to begin. I've never really blogged about an Elevation before, and I have a feeling this is going to be a reeeallly long blog that I'll have to work on over the course of a few days.
Let me start out by saying that this trip was easiliy the best and most amazing (you're going to hear me using this word a lot this blog, get used to it) week I've ever experienced.
If you went on Elevation, you're probably experiencing the same post-Elevation depression/withdrawl that I am. I've been on three retreats, and it never gets easier/better. I still always cry the first night I get back because I don't want to be home and I want to be with all of you, haha. And I still read my e-mails over and over and over and over again, and paste them and my pictures to my closet door, so that your beautiful faces and words are the last things that I see when I go to sleep and the first things I see when I wake up =)
I have probably never missed you people more than I do now. I find that talking my fellow Elevationers helps, because we're all feeling the same crummy emotions. Drew Troller randomly texted me this, which basically sums it all up: "I've come to the conclusion that the post-elevation depression is there because it's impossible to go from non-stop action, non-stop hangout with friends to boredom in the blink of an eye. I miss it so badly. I miss the sound of gravel against my sandals, the random junior high girl laughs that filled the dining room. the stillness when someone began a prayer, the feel of the e-mail paper as i frantically ran a sharpie across it. But more than that...I miss the people. I miss feeling for seven days like I had sixty friends just waiting to make me feel like I was worth something." Basically, I think that's me in a nutshell. But I'd also like to add that I miss the way we all felt like family, the way we laughed alllll the time, but also cried together. The way we weren't afraid to show our true selfs, and just be downright crazy and insane. The way you could just go up to anyone and give them a hug and they'd be totally cool with it. The way you could just be sitting with someone and you didn't have to say anything, but it wasn't awkward. And how you could completely fall asleep on someone on the bus (just ask Acheson, I slept on his shoulder pretty much the whole way home), and it was totally okay. How I only slept alone for two out of the six nights of Elevation (I slept with Katie for 2, because she was scared of the ghosts...hahaha, and Slon and I fell asleep talking one night, then Alexis joined us the other night. I woke up on the last day and Alexis was totally curled up against me, it was so funny). How, after the nasty chocolate sauce folly (you don't want to know), all sixty of us jumped into the lake, had lots of splashing/dunking fights, then got out and left the water looking a really nasty brown, ahhaha.
I don't think you people realize how incredibly amazing and special to me you are. You make me laugh more than anyone else can (ok, so it's not that hard to make me laugh, pretty much anyone can do it, but that's beside the point), and I love being around you.
*******
7/11/07
Allright, so I wrote that section of the blog about a week ago. My post-Elevation depression was preeeeettty bad. But now it's definitely much better now. I'm a pretty happy person, and it's hard for me to stay sad for an extended period of time, haha. Sooo I'm writing you from my grandparents' house in Walloon Lake Michigan. It's really close to the place we went for Ski Retreat this year, in fact we drove right through the town where I stay on our way to Nubs Nob this year. Anywhoo, it's really windy and chilly today, and not an ideal day for being on the lake, so I decided to use my grandma's ancient computer and blog. Not only is it cold today, but my family is currently all sleeping. Did I mention that it's 2:00 in the afternoon? It is. And everyone but me and Julia are completely asleep. My family went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night at midnight (the movie is pretty much AWESOME, and I absolutely loved it), and we didn't get home until three a.m. Yeahh, I'm kind of a Harry Potter dork, haha. But not as much as my dad. He was definitely more excited to see this movie than my sisters and I combined, hahaa. But I thought wrong when I believed that my dad was the biggest Harry Potter fan ever. Because trust me, you see some hardcore fans at the first midnight showing of the movie. There were lots of people dressed up. In fact, there was this one guy who dressed up as Dumbledore, with the robe, beard, and his pet bird. He even had iPod speakers shoved into his robes, and they played the Harry Potter theme music non-stop, so you'd just randomly hear it as he passed you. I found this hilarious, personally.
Allright, so I suppose I should blog a little about Elevation, since I have yet to do that. It's really difficult for me to know where to begin. There was so much packed into this week, and it was definitely the best retreat we've ever had. They just seem to get better and better =)
Before I move ahead, I'd like to take a moment to speak about/to my family. You can read this if you weren't in X-Rated, but I don't know if you'll really care or not, hahaa.
X-RATED: Sorry, that was the best pink I could find. They don't have our trademark hot pink as a color option, haha. So basically, you guys were absolutely amazing. I knew I was going to have an awesome time with you when,at our first meeting, we got distracted and started doing one-handed push-ups, to see if they were really all that hard/how many we could do, etc. Dustin and Wiggers, you were pretty much the best parents ever, and I had so much fun getting to know you this week =) You got competitive and pushed us all, but you never got angry or yelled at us, and you both were so sweet to the whole family. And Dustin, I pretty much loved our catfight in our skit...most definitely was a high point of my week! We pretty much had the BEST family ever. All of us got along so well, and family meetings turned out to be more of hangout sessions than time forced to be with each other. You all made my week so special (not to mention insanely fun), and I was so upset when retreat was over and I didn't get to see all of you every day, because by the end, you seriously felt like my family, not to sound cliche or anything, haha. To be brief, thank you all for everything you did to make this week so sweet, you guys were the best family I've ever had, and I had so much fun with every single one of you. I LOVE YOU GUYS!
Okay so I'm not going to go into specific detail about every day like Katie did, because frankly I'm not that patient. So I'll just do some highlights, k?
Monday/Tuesday:
--The ride down was a typical busride. Katie K and I ate pita chips and these caramel chocolate things, and we had fun reading the little words of wisdom on the back of the wrapper, hahha. Around four in the morning or so, I fell asleep for about two hours. Then Katie woke me up and insisted that we were stopping, though we were still moving and no one else was up, hahaa.
--We got there and I was rooming with Stacy P and Maddie B. Maddie had to help me out with the pull-out couch, because I seriously took forever to try and get it out, and then she comes and just whisks it out easily. So not fair. After that was the quizbowl. X-Rated took third. Heckk yesss :)
Wednesday:
--I was on Dustin's boat with Slon, Katie, Maddie, and Joe. Katie and Joe did most of the tubing. Joe had the biggest wipeout I've ever seen. I'm not joking, the tube flew at least 15 feet into the air, flipped upside down, and Joe fell out. It was SO cool! Katie said something crude about how tubing made her feel, but I'll let her share that lovely sensation with you, I don't want to type it.
--Maddie Barnhill drove our boat while Dustin was in the tube. No comment on that, just let me say that it was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. Let's just say that Maddie likes speed and turns.
--We had a sick nasty chocolate sauce folly during lunch on the lake, and all sixty of us jumped in the lake after, it was so much fun :)
--After some more tubing, we met up with Acheson's boat and went to this little cove thing and decided to go swimming. We ended up having some pretty intense chicken fights. The teams were Katie and Dustin, vs. Slon and Corey, vs. Chris and myself. Three way chicken fights are pretty darn hard, but Katie and I took Sloneker down, ending the first round, and then we had to fight each other. Now, the two of us are pretty good friends, so it was kind of funny to actually fight each other. Most of the time we were laughing too hard to actually push each other down. Acheson kind of walked off the dropoff backwards and fell into the deep part in the second round, so that was kind of bad/hysterical. In the third round, Katie and I are kind of having difficulty actaually pushing each other off, (we're not that strong, hahaa). So then Chris randomly yells: "Gaburray, kick!" Being a fairly obedient person/not really thinking it through, I kick Dustin in the crotch (I still feel bad, I'm sorry Dustin). But then Acheson and I ended up WINNING. Hecckk yessssss. :)
Thursday:
--This was the service project day. We went to this couple's house to paint the husband's tool shed. They were the cutest people I've ever met, their names were Linney and Sherry, and they were soo sweet to us, always telling us to get drinks and take a break, offering their bathroom, and thanking us for all we did. They took picutres of all of us, and they took a picture of the back of my shirt (which Maddie had so beautifully decorated with an X, our family's symbol, haha. Btw Maddie, it didn't wash out and it's still on my shirt). They found it hilarious that I was covered in paint, hahaha. We had this man named Ernie helping us out with the painting, and he had this motto that Rachel and I found funny, because he kept repeating it over and over and OVER. He'd tell all of us: "Put more paint on that brush! You won't get anywhere without more paint!", haha. I guess it was one of those "you had to be there" things. He was a very nice person though, and I'm glad we got to work with him.
Friday:
--White water rafting day! I had never been before, and I was extremely nervous. But we had a super-nice guide named Patrick, and he was very tolerant of our screams. My boat consisted of Katie K, Stephanie, Stacy, and myself. I had SUCH a great time, and I'd do it again in a second. I loved body surfing, as well as jumping off the enormous rocks =)
Saturday:
--This was basketball/cornhole tournament day. X-Rated knew that they didn't have much of a chance in basketball, so we decided to just ham it up. We had a team of all girls, and we became the Spice Girls. I was Scary, Maddie was Posh, Rachel was Baby, Erin was Ginger, Wiggers was Sporty, and Paley was "Old Spice". She even had a deodorant necklace. It was SO much fun, even though we kind of stunk, we tried really hard, hahaa. And we had a sweeeeet intro dance! X-Rated DID win the cornhole tournament, Tyler and Hayden were pretty much awesome =). My personal highlight of the day was when everyone just dumped their shoes and jumped into the pool with their clothes on.
Sunday:
--Obstacle course day! It didn't seem as hard this year, but it was definitely very fun. I liked the challenge where we had to build a raft and swim across the pool. X-Rated attached a rope to a container, and Sarah jumped in with the container and swam across the pool, and we pulled ourselves along the rope. Digging in the sand for the treasure chest was also fun, as was jump rope (Hayden pretty much saved our team, he did over forty jumps in a row), and untangling the hoses. Our team did really well, and we had a ton of fun too =)
Monday:
--This was the sad day. We cleaned up (which was hard for my room, we were so messy!), and had a fun awards ceremony, then got on the bus home. The bus ride actually went really quickly, and I even got to sleep. We got our E-mails, which happen to be one of my favorite parts of Elevation. I keep mine every year, and read them when I need cheering up.
After the bus ride, I went to Chipotle with my family (on the service day we discussed what we normally get at Chiptole and decided to go there right after we got back to Cincinnati, haha) and other people and then went home and was really sad. I always hate the night you get home from Elevation, it's so sad and lonely!
I don't think I mentioned how awesome worship was this year. The band was absolutely fabulous, and we sang a great mixture of new and old songs. I seriously grew in my relationship with God, and it was just...amazing. Such an overused word, but oh well :)
Ok, my hand hurts from typing. I think I'll get some lunch, it's close to three thirty. I've been blogging wayyy too long, hahaha. I'll see you guys when I get back on the 15th, can't wait to see you!
Love you so much,
<3 Annieee
6 Comments:
dude...
seriously, this blog was lengthier than some of my summer reading books.
haha, glad you're having a great time. hope to see you soon!
Your blog made me laugh, it made me cry; it made me realize what it feels like to be a woman in today's world.
Ok, I totally crack myself up. I can't even continue with that line of thought. I'm freakin hilarious. Anyway, seriously, this blog was long as balls, but it was also awesome. Took you long enough to post it though! (for the record, I'm being a rebel and not posting an elevation blog).
<3 Ach
No comment on that quote. I don't really know how to respond to that one, though it did make me laugh out loud.
You need to update your blog and not be a rebel, its been practically a month! Tear.
This trip was basically amazing...as Annie said. I cant wait for next year! Thanks to all of you who came and made it so incredibly wonderful, love you all <3
whoa whoa whoa. time out. your comment on trey's blog says that his ideas are "intelligent and insightful, unlike the other ones." despite the most recent entry on my blog about semi-amusing animals, most of my ideas are profound and groundbreaking. anyone who says otherwise will lose one of her 4 bloh viewers. that means YOU
Gaburrrrayyy.
Come back.
:(
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