Adventures in the Outdoors

Last week I had the awesome opportunity to facilitate Outdoor SOAR. It's our four day long, outdoor adventure orientation session. It was sooo much fun and I enjoyed the students so much! They were all really outgoing, fun and just excited to be there and to become a part of Utah State. That change in attitude from the bored, "I don't want to be here" attitude we get at normal SOAR days makes such a difference! Here are some of the activities that we participated in:

• Picnic at Tony's Grove
• Volleyball Games
• Tin Foil Dinners
• Minnetonka Caves (so cool!)
• Beach Party
• Met the very drunk wife of the owner of all the Flying Js. She had a babysitter for herself. haha She was VERY friendly!!!!
• Dutch Oven dinners and scary story time!
• Hike the Crimson Trail in Logan Canyon. I was the leader and the beginning of that hike is soo intense! I had to make the students stop like 4 times so I could catch my breath. haha But it was so fun! I love that hike.
• Picnic at First Dam
• Ropes Course. Technically, I just watched. But it was still fun.
• BBQ the last night.
• Made lots of new friends. Those kids were great!!!

I am so grateful I had the opportunity to participate in Outdoor SOAR. It was definitely more like playing than it was work. I am such a lucky girl to have a job that I love and makes me feel like I'm making a difference in the lives of these new students.

Random Glob of Thoughts

Random Thought #1: Today I was in Kohl's. There I saw a mother notice that her little boy was about to run out the front doors while she was talking to another lady. The mother asked the lady to hold on a minute, turned toward the escaping little boy and said in a sweet, calm voice:

"Thomas! Thomas! The Boogie Man is going to get you!"

It took everything in me to not burst out laughing. What on earth does the Boogie Man have to do with staying by your mom in a department store?! That's a scare tactic if I ever heard one!

Random Thought #2: On Saturday night, I saw 4 shooting stars. 4!!! I remember growing up always having the people around me see them, but I would always look a second too late. But I saw 4! In one night!!! More like in 2 hours of one night! That has to be lucky in some way, right?

Random Thought #3: The pool in the back of my house is disgusting. We joke that it's radioactive and producing West Nile Virus. After almost two months of looking at it and having my roommates call our landlord to complain, I came home today from an exhausting morning and found some men draining it. They are FINALLY cleaning and fixing our pool!!! Hooray!!!

Random Thought #4: Today I begin my journey in the world of The Olive Garden. This morning I spent almost three hours running around Logan to every store imaginable looking for the correct articles of clothing to make up my uniform. That's right. They give me the apron, I have to find the rest. My uniform includes black slack w/no exterior pockets, a white, long-sleeve, button down dress shirt (the hardest piece of clothing to get a hold of!), a black belt, and black, non-slip shoes. Not cheap! I spent what will probably be about half of my future first paycheck. This seems wrong.

Random Thought #5: My roommates are convicinced our house is haunted. A couple of them have had some creepy experiences. However, I do not believe in ghosts. So I guess we'll have to see about the haunted thing. It does open the door for some awesome pranks though! ;)

Trading Cards and Fame

So for A-Team, they made us these little trading cards to give to our students that have our pictures, our email so they can get in touch if they have any questions, and some little facts about us. To be honest, they're kinda cheesy. But funny all at once. Here are some of the pictures they took at that shoot. This marks my third photo shoot for the university this year. I'm pretty famous. haha NOT! The first picture is the one they used for my card. Not my favorite, but it's ok.

Also! Here is the product of my very first photo shoot! They put my on a flier for a scholarship I'm not eligable for. Funny huh? But yeah! There it is! Me, in print!

A Trip Home and a Graduation

So I went home for about 10 days and it was great! It was the longest amount of time that I have been home in about two and a half years. Crazy!!! But what's even crazier, is that my little brother Christian decided to graduate from high school. So he did. It was fun to watch him graduate and I am so proud of him! What a great kid! Love you brother!

My mom, me, my sister Emi

Christian on the big screen preparing to graduate!

Christian with our parents, all graduated and stuff!

Emi, Christian, and me! We are cute. Go Christian!!!

And there we all are! Best lookin' family around!!!

A Team Retreat 2009!!!

This past Thursday through Saturday was our second A Team retreat for the year. It was sooo much fun! (as always!!) I decided to make a list of some of the fun things we did!

• A Team Bowl competition



• A Team Olympics (unfortunately my team came in last. i think it's a humility lesson since my team smashed everyone last year)



• Watched John Tucker...I don't think the boys liked it too much. shocker.



• Cheered on the Rockets in the hopes that the Lakers would lose (they did the night we watched the game)



• Told really scary stories...I refuse to ever go to Green Canyon now.



• Made tin foil dinners.



• Breathing Orange Fire



• Ate more food than seems humanly possible



• Played LOTS of volleyball



• Learned about our personalities. I am an ISFJ! Look it up if you want to know what it means.



• Sculpted blocks of ice cream



• Had dutch oven cobbler



• Played with a massive glitter bouncy ball until it literally exploded



• Impromtu guitar playing/singing (I just watched haha)



• Shower parties (seperate stalls. we don't bond THAT much!)



• Had a dance competition (hilarious!)



• Bonded and shed tears of love



• Grew a little sick of each other (bound to happen when people spend that much time together)

That's about all I can think of right now. But I love this year's A Team and can't wait for SOAR to start!!! It's going to be fantastic! Trying out for the A Team is seriously the best decision I've made since I've been to college. It has totally changed and enhanced my college experience.

My mommy is the BEST!!!

I know this is kinda late but I haven't been by my computer all day. I need to pay tribute to my amazing mom!

Quick Bio: Lelani Pickett Craig. Born January 25, 1965 and shares this great day with her dad and oldest daughter (ME!). She was born in Argentina and grew up in Idaho after moving there at the age of 12. She attended LDS Business College as well as the University of Utah. She was widowed at the age of 33 and showed more strength and courage and determination to provide for me and my siblings than I could ever muster up. She remarried to my dad, Dain Craig, in January 2000. She owns her own language company, CommGap.

My mom is such an Adventure Girl!!! She has gone scuba diving (many times, including with sharks!), sky diving, race car driving, parasailing, cliff diving, figher plane flying (and fighting!), skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and probably some other things I can't remember. I am the total opposite of her in this sense. I am such a wimp and would NEVER consider doing most of these things she has done. But I think it is fantastic that she is living her life to what she considers to be the fullest.

My mom is so special. She is patient, kind, understanding, loves to laugh, puts up with our love of board games and card games, sets such a good example of a healthy lifestyle, is always willing to listen, goes out of her way to help me, is super silly with her college best friend (oh the giggling!), incredibly positive and optimistic, loves to try new things, is NOT a picky eater, so intelligent, very encouraging, all about girl power!, more into technology than I am, addicted to her Facebook and Twitter, loves her husband and kids, is a very happy person overall, and someone I look up to very, very much!!!

I LOVE YOU MOM!!!!!!! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! I wouldn't be who I am without you!

P.S. : on a side note, I am feeling much better about life than I did last night. I have a much more positive outlook on everything and even bonded with some of my roommates tonight. Things are looking up. Thank goodness!!! :)

Life S.U.C.K.S!

So right now I am sitting in the pile of junk that is my new room and all my earthly belongings. I feel so discouraged right now and don't even know where to start as far as putting everything away goes. I hate moving!!!
I met two of my new roommates and by the looks of it, this is going to be an interesting year. We are totally different people and pretty sure we have very different beliefs and outlooks on life. I am not excited about living with them.
I am kinda having a downer day. I'm not feeling positive about my new house, roommates, or job potential. I am supposed to find out today if I got a job or not. Why they couldn't tell me at the interview is beyond me. and playing this "if you get a call you got the job, if not, too bad" game is awful and has had me anxious all day. This summer better get better soon or else I'm going to flip.
I can't wait to go home in a couple weeks.