As much as I want to write about cool summer vacations all over the world to different continents (including Atlantis), discovering a new species of frog in the Amazon rain forest, exploring caves and finding ancient alien robots, or teaching the Aborigine people of Australia to dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, I can’t.  I can’t write about these things because all summer long I’ve been pretty much limited to Pinetop.  And Flagstaff.  Pinetop because it is where my house is (where I’ve been confined to) and Flagstaff because my family and I went to yet another softball tournament (Flagstaff was the host).  So all of you who are expecting some great story about how I went to Africa and somehow cured AIDs, I’m sorry to disappoint.  All I’ve done this summer is play sports, clean my room, and drive my siblings around to wherever they need to go.  I’ll work on it though.

I was basically forced to drive to Flagstaff to get “practice” for college.  By forced, I mean physically shoved into the driver’s seat with the keys thrown at me through the slightly rolled down she’s-gonna-explode-if-I-open-the-door window.  Not that I don’t like driving…I drive all the time.  Just not two and a half hours worth where I can’t look anywhere but the dizzying yellow and white lines on the road in fear that a semi will suddenly tip over and fall on me.  I-40?  Not fun.  Too many big trucks with too little mirrors.  Wow…I’m gonna have conniptions on my trips to and from ERAU!  But back to our trips.  We always arrived just in time to get roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s (which, according to my sister, were the magic keys to winning games.  We had to stop there every day after that.  Which was just fine with me).  We would proceed to drop Lexie (my sis), my dad and my brothers off at the ballfield while my mom and I went to Target or Michael’s or JoAnn, none of which are available in Pinetop.  My mom was like a kid in a candy shop!

In Flagstaff,  Lexie and her team played many games to advance in the bracket while I sat in a lawn chair, with my sunglasses and iPod, watching.  Let me tell you – watching is WAY more difficult emotionally than is playing the game!  When you’re playing, of course it is difficult to have the mindset you need to win and to get the job done, but there is always the option of being able to act, to DO something about how the game is going.  When you’re sitting there, in your lawn chair with your waterbottle in your hand observing, you’re powerless.  And that powerlessness settles in your stomach when something in the game goes wrong, like a big rock just sitting in your gut.  I always teased my mom about having to leave in the middle of my State Championship game due to the pressure, but I never guessed that I would have to do the same thing in my sister’s Little League game!!  Karma, I guess.  Stupid karma. 

While we were in Flagstaff, I was able to meet up with one of my close friends from high school who moved to Flagstaff a few days after graduation so she could get a head start for NAU this fall.  Ever since we took both classes of Sign Language together we’ve been close friends, who would sometimes, in other classes like Math and English, even sign to each other so no one else could see what we were saying!  Only a real friend would talk to you in another language in front of everyone else in the class and not be embarrassed. 🙂 Facebook chatting just wasn’t cutting it, so we got a hold of each other and were able to hang out!  I was so happy to finally see her.  It’s only been a month, but in my opinion that is way too long.  In the dog park next to the softball field, Robin and I watched her dog run around with my eight year old brother and filled each other in with the events that occurred since the summer started.  It was great.  I got to see her house and we went to dinner at Coco’s after the game. 

This is Robin and I in math being baffled at a Rubic’s Cube that one of our friends fixed after five minutes.  After much effort, frustration, yelling at the cube, and a good twenty seconds, we gave up.  Good times. 

Prescott isn’t all that far from Flagstaff, so hopefully there will be many more visits to come. 🙂

“Today was good.  Today was fun.  Tomorrow is another one.” – Dr. Seuss