Summertime!

The last week of school was a sad time for me. I've never felt like this about school before. I have made many friends through the ORCA program. This program is nice because we become so close. However, the last week of school was also a busy time for all of us. On a couple occasions during the last couple weeks of school I've had to survive on no sleep. On Monday our history papers were due (I didn't get any sleep the night before), on Tuesday we had our zoology final and on Wednesday we had our math final. On Wednesday, after our math final, we had a potluck. ORCA has one of these at the end of every quarter. Everyone brings a dish to share and we eat and play games all day. A group of about 10 of us played apples to apples. Others played frisbee and soccer.

On the last day of school (June 12th) ORCA went on a whale watching trip. We met at Everett Community College at 9:45 in the morning. Once everyone was there we boarded vans and the teachers drove us down to the boat. The cruise was so much fun. We played games (apples to apples) and just hung out while we scanned the ocean for whales. Fortunately it was a very good time to spot orcas. At about noon we spotted j-pod. J-pod is composed of about 25 orcas and we were fortunate enough to see many of them. We saw Ruffles, Granny, Oreo, Cookie, and many other orcas from j-pod. Granny is currently the oldest orca in the world. She is 97 years old. I was excited to see them. In class we always talk about Ruffles and how it is is easy to tell him apart from the rest of the group (the outside edge of his fluke looks like a ruffles potato chip), but it is more fun to actually experience this. The picture at the top of this blog is of the fluke of one of the orcas we saw. They also breeched (jumped out of the water) but they were too quick. I couldn't take the picture fast enough. We were in Canada when these whales were spotted. Once the first whale was spotted everyone moved to that side of the boat and it felt like we were going to flip over, but we didn't.

Our school has grown really close. We've already decided to have a lot of ORCA parties. The Saturday after school got out we went to my friend Andrew's house and we had a BBQ and hung out. Everyone brought food to share. After we were done eating we walked over to Forest Park and played capture the flag in the woods. My team won! A group of kids from my school are planning on going to the drive-in movie theater in Snohomish on Friday. However, I can't go because I have other plans. The party on Saturday was really fun...hopefully more parties are being planning for the Summer.

This weekend I am going to Youth Conference with my church. I am on the committee so I get to go up tonight (one day early) so we can set up before they get there. I am on the dance committee with 2 other youth and a leader. It should be fun. We went up to the camp a couple weeks ago to look at the lodge and it is really nice. We have a lot of ideas on how to decorate it. At youth conference there is going to be a dance, activities, a testimony meeting and a service project. I'm excited because I get to see some of my friends from the stake that I don't get to see on a normal basis.

On the Monday after we get back from youth conference I have to get two of my wisdom teeth out. I'm not looking forward to that. However, I want them out because they are coming in already and they hurt really bad. Then the next day I have to drive to the airport with my mom to get Tanya (she's coming up for a week). I am getting my haircut and my mom doesn't want to drive all the way home to get me...she just wants to go to the haircut on the way home from the airport.

In July my mom's side of the family is going to Island Park, Idaho. We are staying in a big house all together. It should be fun. I am really excited to see everybody. After we drive to Idaho, we are going to complete the drive to my grandma's house. We will stay at her house for a couple weeks and then drive back to our house in Lake Stevens, WA.

I think I have other things going on this summer but I will update on those things at a later date. Thanks for reading my blog.