08/22/08 Good book

Hi, peoples. Time to actually post...

So, I suppose I should start with the Encampment– Wow, that was a long time ago...

It was good. The Teachers and Deacons went up a day later than the Priests, so that was interesting. -nods- Really fun, though. Lots of stuff to do. Plus, I got to collect the sixteen trading cards of the modern day prophets. XD Good stuff. Although I have to say: the people who started with Joseph Fielding Smith mostly turned out as a bunch of crooks. -shakes head- Selling a prophet, piece of paper or otherwise. Not good. Still, other than that, I was pleased with how the people there were. There were just thousands of them. (No exaggeration)

Next off... Fort Bragg trip? Not much happened over the weekend. We got to visit with D & T, so that was pretty awesome, but as far as going out and doing something, I can't recall anything. Mostly just talking and playing Crack the Case. So, the trip. It was pretty amazing. I'd just like to say right off the bat, though, that just because it was a sibling trip, it's not meaning that we actively wanted for mom to be left out. It was just that through everything that's been going on, with the divorce and all the other odd happenings that have come up, this was a time where we could get together and sort of renew the knowledge that no matter what happens with the divorce, we'll still be siblings and that will never change. Something like this will probably not happen again for years. I mean, we might still get together for a night during a visit, but over all, the majority will be spent together with everyone. It's not that we didn't want parents, there. It's just that that isn't our only relationship. We're a family, with relatives who care about us, but we're also brothers and sisters. And even though we have our own opinions about mom and dad, we wanted to have a chance to look at our relationship without worrying about how the divorce changes things and know that it won't change us. So, I'm sorry that it was hard for mom, but I want her to know why it happened like this, or as far as I can tell through my opinion.

Now that that's... settled? I suppose I should talk about how things went. It was pretty cool, both the experience and Fort Bragg itself. We got to check out the town, and some of Mendocino, too. But of course, who goes camping for window shopping? (Please don't answer that. I seriously do not understand it...) We got to go to several of the beaches, check out the tide pools, and there were loads of good climbing trees. Now, what we did was very fun, but I'm not sure if I've been on many campouts were we ate as good as we did there. Good stuff all around. And yes, Sariah, I gained back seven of the ten pounds I lost while I was sick, five of which I'm sure were from the campout... (But we all know it's mostly muscle. -nods-)

I don't know how to condense it. The stuff we did and the food we ate were great and all, but it just felt really nice to have everyone there so we could talk openly about anything we felt like. Whether it was the divorce or odd things like the Mole. It didn't matter. So yeah, this might happen again in the future, but as far as I can guess, next up will be everybody. (Well, except maybe Andrew, but he'll be doing more important things.)

That basically catches things up. Sorry if this a a little... short? I dunno, I figure there's not much chance in capturing the whole thing in detail, so this is as good as I'm going. It occurs to me, though, that I completely forgot to mention the speakers at the Encampment and that I got to say hi to John Bytheway while he was arriving at the ranch. (How could I miss that? :/) So, now you know, it was nice. The speakers were nice... Hurrah for Israel! Yeah... that was fun...

Tada! Le end, good luck with... Life. Bye!