~Independence Day Norway~

“…And if you get lost coming back, just ask for directions to the park with the naked statues… everyone will know where that is...” And then we were off… let lose to wander the streets of Oslo for the next five hours, on this the 17th. of May – Independence Day Norway.

We had parked in a nice shady area, adjacent to a scenic wooded park. The path we took led us through a grove of lush green trees – sunlight filtering through the leaves… I couldn’t help by skip a little in anticipation of what lay ahead. My senses were enthralled as I attempted to absorb all the beauty around me.

As we approached the end of the wooded path and the trees began to thin, we were given a glimpse of our first soon-to-be European culture-shock experience… the naked statue park. To our right was a stunning, massive fountain, supported by multiple naked bodies; directly behind of which was a tall, conspicuous pillar, carved entirely of… well… naked bodies. Thankfully we did not need to go in that direction. Instead, our path took us to the left… in the direction of what looked to be a beautiful bridge. As we approached, my thoughts ran as follows… “Oh cool! What a neat stone bridge!...wonder what all those tall green statues are… kind of look like… uhh… oh no…” And indeed they were… Over a hundred of them I’d guess, lining both sides of the bridge… all striking their own unique pose, perfectly unashamed of the fact that they were standing there… stark naked. But I suppose that never did faze a statue before… so needless to say, I think we were the only ones fazed by it. : )

As we made our way through the disconcerting exhibition, my eyes were more agreeably engages, observing the reaction of my fellow Americans to this brazen display of European art. Some were intently studying the pavement, glancing up occasionally to avoid possible collisions. Meanwhile others were staring straight ahead, seemingly fixated by the wide patch of grass at the far end of the bridge. And then there were those that were gawking outright in wide eyed disbelief. Needless to say, I’m sure the Europeans must have been getting a kick out of observing us. ;-)

Upon arrival at the far end of the bridge, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief… we had made it. Now it was on to the palace to see the king and queen!

We wound our way through the streets, stopping occasionally to make sure we still had everyone in our group. The flowers along the way were absolutely gorgeous!… tulips everywhere!... all sorts of different types and colors. I had this insatiable urge to go a pick a whole armful… but seeing as they were all in planters, I refrained myself. :P

After about a half hour, we arrived at the palace. As we had gotten closer, the crowds had been getting thicker and thicker, and upon arrival I was pretty surprised by the amount of people that were there. Hundreds of people everywhere, were all decked out in their native Norwegian costumes… it was pretty cool.

At this point, some in our group needed to use the water closet, so we walked a few more blocks over to the Renaissance Hotel to use some free bathrooms (I miss America…), and then we came right back to find a place to stand as close to the palace as possible. Now seeing as we had tickets, we were able to go in a special gated area up close to the palace. We stood as far forward as possible, and then waited for the parades to start. Not long after, the first group of people came by… At the front there was a horse drawn wagon decorated in birch branches and flags, followed by a large group of people all dressed up in their cool Norwegian outfits, doing traditional Norwegian folk dances! (Now what I found ironic was the girl sitting at the front of the wagon, in her Norwegian dress…talking on her cell phone! lol Very authentic.)

A group or two more went by, then the band struck up a tune… and out onto the second story balcony, walked the King and Queen, followed by the Crown Prince, his wife, and their little daughter. Now at this point, seeing as this was like the king and queen, I was half expecting the crowd to go wild… but no… we all clapped politely and a few waved their little Norwegian flags… “ok… well maybe later?” I thought... And then the band struck up “God Save the Queen”, better know to most of you as, “My Country ’Tis of Thee” :P I couldn’t help but chuckle as I sang along… until finally Martian told me I should probably be quiet or someone might hear me… lol Next they struck up the Norwegian National Anthem…”Ah, ok… this is it…when this is done… then we all cheer really loud…” The anthem finishes… I wait…once again we all clap ever so politely, wave our little flags, and maybe dab a stray tear away from our eyes… “Hmmm… ok, so maybe we Americans generally are a bit louder than your average Norwegian…” Not saying they weren’t patriotic... they were VERY patriotic!... just… very politely patriotic... But who’s to say there’s anything wrong with that? : )

After watching the parade a bit longer, we decided to head over to the palace bastille. (one can only stand watching the king and queen wave for so long…)

As we made our way through the crowds, I couldn’t help but stare at some of the people we passed by. lol European fashions are very unique… something you only see in the magazines in the USA… and yet, here I was walking right past one of the strange cookies! Kind of made my skin crawl… Then there is the Norwegian senior tradition of wearing these funny bright red overalls, all uniquely decorated… they were everywhere too! lol

We arrived at the bastille, and had a great time wandering around looking at the different buildings. From one point, you could see the whole bay… and we stood there a while watching the boats. Besides the regular boats, there was a massive cruise ship in the bay! Guess they said there’s almost always one there on the 17th of May.

We continued to wander the bastille… and as we rounded one corner, what should we find to our great joy and amusement, but one of those awesome guards that has to stay perfectly motionless and serious! What fun! Fortunately this one could talk, so we did get his permission before taking a picture with him. : ) I’ll never forget that look on his face… I’m pretty sure it was almost a smirk… bet it was all he could do to keep from cracking up… One thing’s for sure… I know I sure wouldn’t do well at that job! lol

Then Matt (who was wielding Alex’s camera), spied a canon not far away, and insisted I get a picture with it… something about needing a picture of “Shannon and cannon”… personally I thought the whole thing was pretty cheesy, but seeing as my little brother had requested pictures of solders, and dungeon, and such… I though he might enjoy a picture of a cannon (with his Shannon on top of course…) :P

Our group had a fun time checking out all the different old Norwegian buildings, observing the people, and taking lots of pictures. I’m sure we must have looked like a bunch of American tourists… but that’s ok seeing as that’s exactly what we were! : ) I had been teasing some of the Norwegians a few days prior to this trip, threatening to bring along my American flag, or sing the US Anthem… but for once I actually listened to my better part of wisdom, and remained a subdued little American the majority of the day… I even carried a Norwegian flag around part of the time! lol

Pretty soon our stomachs started complaining, so we found a nice shady spot right outside the bastille, to eat our sack lunches. We were happily munching away on our sandwiches and apples, chatting about the different things we had seen thus far, when all of a sudden… “KaBOOM!!!... KaBOOM!!!... KaBOOM!!!...” Boy howdy did I jump!... never mind the fact that I nearly bit off part of my tongue with the apple! It was noon, and they were shooting off the cannons in the bastille right behind us… I think we counted twenty shots!!! And it wasn’t until about the last two that I was finally able to stay seated firmly on the ground. :P

After finishing our lunches, and just chilling for a bit, we decided that we should probably start heading back since we had been told to meet at the cars at 2:30… and we weren’t exactly sure how to get back. :P

We started heading down the street, and it wasn’t long before we came to the conclusion that the crowd had been growing substantially since we had made our way there that morning. It was all we could do to keep together, and not lose anyone! And to make the situation more interesting, just about every street that we came to had a parade going down it!... So we couldn’t cross over! It was like one of those tricky mazes with all the road blocks and dead ends… we’d come to what we though would be a good place to cross, only to discover a fence blocking us from the road!... not to mention the parade marching down it… I think we ended up wandering the streets of Oslo for close to an hour trying to find our way out of downtown!... (we joked about just falling in line at the back of one of the parades, and slowly inching our way over to the other side… ;-)

Finally we found a road crossing where there was no fence set up… and when there was a break in the parade, we made a dash for it! lol After what had been probably an hour and a half of wandering Oslo, we made it back to the cars… and we were on time. :)

Our next destination was a Norwegian museum. This wasn’t your typical museum though… seeing as it consisted of buildings, and it was outdoors. We walked through the entrance way and around a corner… and suddenly I felt as though we had stepped back in time. There if front of us was a whole little Norwegian village of tiny huts with grass growing on the roofs, old stables that still smelled of hay, and stabures with the cutes little windows. We wandered from building to building, admiring the architecture, peeking through windows, and taking pictures… it was neat. At one of the houses, they had a bunch of old wooden stilts sitting out front, so we had a blast trying to keep our balance while walking around on those things.

As we walked down the path between the buildings, it felt strange to think that these houses had been around for hundreds of years… that these very logs had been carved by actual people back then… and now I was standing here touching them… wow… it was a cool feeling… just took you back in time… : )

It was getting close to time to go, when someone told us that we couldn’t leave without seeing the stave church… so we found it on the map, and headed in that direction. Boy, were we ever in for a shock… That thing was incredible! Generally speaking, I think these stave churches are made entirely out of wood… all the way down to the nails! I’m not sure if that was the case with this one, but it definitely looked like it could have been! We stood there just admiring it and taking pictures, until someone finally noticed the time and decided we needed to head back.

As I crawled into the car, flopping back in my seat, I slowly began to realize how tired I actually was… It had been a long day, and we were walking almost the entire time… but knowing me and my ability to fall asleep just about anywhere, I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before I was gone… ;-)

-Shannon

Twins!!!

May 7, 2004
Around 12:30 pm.
Boy: 0 lbs. 2 ozs. and 2 in.
Girl: 0 lbs. 1.75 ozs. and 2 in.

Now before you go into shell-shock, let me eggsplain myself... You see, this isn't your typical set of twins. No... these twins definitely crack the mold. They have made life eggceedingly more difficult as of late... my whole daily routine has been thoroughly scrambled. No eggceptions, these two have to be accounted for at every moment of the day... otherwise I will be deep in hot water! Thankfully the school is providing some eggcellent day-care accommodations for when I have to be out at work... (wouldn't want to be "baby" sitting all day long!) So, henseforth I will be eggstremely preoccupied... at least until these two have flown the coop...

-Shannon

(Authors note: As I'm sure you have caught onto by now, these twins that I have been entrusted with are indeed... eggs. Ok ok... you can stop laughing now... yes, I know this may sound silly, but seriously it's a project that we were given for our Relationship class with Elie and Erin... so yeah, this was their clever idea to teach us responsibility and teamwork. You see, I do have a partner in this project... [thank goodness!] ... that way I don't have to take care of the little veggsations all the time! :P [don't get me wrong... I like kids and all a LOT, but when it comes to me carrying around those two fragile little eggs... raw, mind you... Oooo... it's just an accident looking for a place to happen!...] I guess if nothing else, this will help me improve my lady-like skills... [no more jumping down stairs, flying around corners, leaping across the parking lot to the dorm... sad. I hope parenthood isn't this bad!... ] Thankfully this whole catastrophe ends this coming Friday... we'll see if I can make it until then... [or the eggs, I mean]...)

~~~

Timmy & Cloe

Once Upon a Certain Hike...

“Boy, my car sure is driving a lot slower with all these Americans in it!”… and thus began another Sabbath afternoon hike with Robbie...

Sabbaths here at EBS generally consist of church, a great meal, and inevitably… a hike. Seriously…what would Sabbath be without a trip into the great out-of-doors?! (…boy I love that word… “out-of-doors”… it just sounds so…liberating… ;-) So far, every Sabbath that we have been here at EBS, a small group of us have managed to get out on a hike up some mountain…

First it was the mountain behind the school - A brisk, up-hill climb, following no trail in particular…(at least as far as I could tell…). To enhance the viewing possibilities from the top, a few of us climbed up some trees… thus providing the ideal target for some well aimed snowballs, (your’s truly receiving a sound smack in the head by one from Robbie…).

Coming down the hill was a blast! There were still large patches of snow on the ground; so as Robbie and Ricky led the way, leaping as far and as fast as they could, I ran along behind, trying to land in their footprints… ending in catastrophe on more then one occasion. (…ever tried making a snow angel face-down?) :-P At one point when I was in the lead, I came running to a small cliff and without thinking, leaped off. (Note to friends: It is seldom if ever wise to put Shannon in the lead… some of you already know this from experience…) The somersault and landing that ensued from my un-calculated leap was phenomenal… I’m not sure how far I slid, but when I finally came to a stop I was laughing so hard I had trouble getting up for a second, (I wasn’t the only one laughing of course… Ricky and Robbie were right behind, and had witnessed the whole event...).

The next mountain we hiked was up near Fredheim; at the top of which was some sort of cell phone tower, (which to me looked more akin to a Chinese Pagoda). This mountain too was covered in large patches of snow, ideal for leaping into. My only dilemma was that, as the hike progressed, I somehow managed to acquire a reputation for finding the path of most resistance. While the others were sinking only a few inches into the snow, I would take two steps and then sink up to my knee in a hole! After one such occurrence, Martina put it nicely by saying, “I love following you Shannon, because I know exactly where NOT to step!” ;-)

As usual, from the top there was an incredible view… you could see for miles. After exploring around a bit, we found the climbers log and wrote our names in it - “Shannon T. was here from GA, USA! ;-) ” Then it was back down again.

Once more, we searched for as many snow-leaping opportunities as possible. Cliff after cliff saw us go flailing over the edge, into the snow below… and while the others managed to land in fairly shallow spots, due to form Shannon would land in the deepest spot available and sink to her waist nearly EVERY TIME! (don’t ask me how I managed…) FINALLY Allie came leaping off, after one of my sinking episodes, and sunk almost to her armpits!!! lol (he who laughs last, laughs best…)

Our next hike was up a mountain not far down the road from the school. The trail started out as a nice road, slowly winding its way up the hillside. Then we broke off the main road, and began making our way up a narrower path… then we broke off the narrower path and began forging our own trail… and eventually we ended up bouldering the last little bit. Upon reaching the top, we found an interesting looking tepee shaped thing, and a big post with the climbers log attached to it. One more mountain – “Shannon T. was here from GA, USA! ;-) ”

Now bear with me, but we’re going to take a little detour from the hiking theme here for a second… because you see, that night after we got back from the hike, something monumental occurred in my life… for the very first time ever, I tried brown cheese…. and OMW!!!!! THAT STUFF IS INCREDABLE!!! I don’t know how on EARTH I survived these…what… nineteen? years of my life without it!... well, I mean, I do know… but still… I never would have guessed that goats could make something that tasted that good! (for those of you die-hard vegans who nearly passed out, yes – brown cheese is made with goat’s milk, and yes – Shannon ate it…[don’t worry though, she’s still mostly vegan… and besides… we don’t have brown cheese in the states…].)

That first encounter with brown cheese opened up a whole new world of tantalizing opportunities for my taste buds – brown cheese plain, brown cheese on crackers, brown cheese on toast, brown cheese with jam, brown cheese with honey, brown cheese with honey and peanuts… the possibilities were endless… (ok, so maybe the brown cheese and Marmite did serve to be pretty conclusive… “yuck”…) Anyhoo, I must say, the Norwegians have it made… and if you ever come to Norway you have GOT to try some of the stuff…either that or come to my house right after I get back… (I plan on bringing home a block or two… or three… ;-) … now back to the hikes…

(boy, do I get sidetracked easily or what!...)

Our last major hike was two weekends ago. Robbie had invited Ricky, Allie, and me up to his parents house for the weekend; so on Friday afternoon, along with Martina, we loaded up the car and took off. The ride was fairly uneventful, (I say fairly due to the fact that Robbie was driving…), and we reached his place in one piece by mid-afternoon. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting a tour of the buildings and property, and then going in for a yummy supper; after which everyone pulled out their instruments for a fun song service.

The next morning, after another incredible meal, we packed up some sack lunches (brown cheese and raspberry jam sandwiches for me!) and our gear, got in the car, and took off for our next mountain. This mountain has supposedly the best view in all of Norway… From the top you can see 1/6th of the whole country.

We arrived at the base around eleven am. and started climbing… or post-holing I should say… there was still a good amount of snow on the mountain. Once again my incredible honing skills came into play… “step… step… sink. step… step… step… sink. step… step… sink…” I was beginning to see a pattern… or maybe that was just my imagination… Anyhow, I was doing pretty good, discovering one deep hole after the next, (don’t ask me how I managed it… guess it must have been one of those hidden talents… wish it could have stayed that way…) Then, as if to spite me, Mimi (Robbie’s dog) would go prancing gaily by on all fours… “hmmm… I wonder if four legs would be more effective…‘sink’… never mind… two’s about all I can handle…” I can honestly say that was the first time in my life I ever wished to be a dog… (don’t worry, the feeling didn’t last too long...)

As we continued on up the mountain the view grew increasingly spectacular. I was amazed by how far you could see! The snow-capped mountains looked as though they were straight out of a picture book… it almost didn’t feel real… The climb grew increasingly steep, and at one point you had to jam the toe of your boot hard into the snow and lean into the hill-side to keep from slipping backwards. This I managed to accomplish without too much in the line of catastrophes.

Upon nearing the top, I was amazed to see how many people were up there! Someone commented on the fact to Robbie, and he proceeded to inform us that for about $60 you could take an elevator, that went inside the mountain, up to the top… my calm reply went something along the lines of, “a WHAT?!?! You’re kidding me!…You mean to tell me they have an ELEVATOR that goes to the top of this mountain?! What’s the world coming too?!?!?!” (Just you wait… next thing you know they’ll have one going up Everest - $1,000 to ride the elevator to the top of Mt. Everest… people these days…) Yes sir, not only was there an elevator at the top, as well as the big tower thing that you could see from the bottom of the mountain; but there was also a gift shop where you could purchase hot drinks, junk food, and touristy knick knack’s to carry back down with you. They had thought of everything… even to the outhouse that you had to pay 10 kroners to use. I guess a lot of people come to this mountain to ski and snowboard, so instead of hiking to the top, they just park at the bottom and take the elevator up. Either way, it was still weird to be standing on the top of this mountain in all your winter hiking gear, and have someone walk past you in their tight little jeans and high-heeled boots, smoking away on a cigarette… There was this urge inside of me to go up to someone and be like, “Excuse me ma’am, but are you lost?” Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t speak the language…

Anyhow, the view from the top was phenomenal… I wouldn’t question that you could see 1/6th of Norway from up there… (and no, that was not a derogatory comment about the size of Norway… you really could see for miles… ;-)

The hike… or I should say – slide back down was ten times as much fun as the climb up! Most of us had on slick, waterproof pants… and if that wasn’t fast enough for you, Robbie had brought along some plastic bags. We would trudge through the snow to a nice long, unobstructed run, (..there were multiple large patches of exposed rocks to avoid…) and one by one we would sit down and shove off, flying down the hillside…

This had gone on for about half an hour, when we came across the most incredible run… it was actually a cliff, (covered in snow of course)… but when you stood at the top of the run, you couldn’t see over the edge! We had come to the conclusion that the first person to go down a run always went the slowest, (the path would get slicker as more people went down it), so seeing as Allie wasn’t to hip on going down at all, Robbie volunteered her to go first... He took her back a little ways from the edge, and sat her down at the just right distance (like I said, Allie wasn’t too hip on going…). Then he proceeded to push her, so that she could get up enough speed… lol The take-off went something to the tune of, “Ok, that’s fast enough… that’s good now!... Robbie slow down!!... No more Robbie!!!... ROBBIEEEeeee…” and then she was gone… over the edge. We were reassured that she was still alive by her screams that were echoing across the hillside… but still… she was one of my best friends… I crept cautiously over to the edge, just verify… Sure enough!… there she was, blazing down the hillside! (so much for the going slow part…) As she neared the bottom, she glided slowly to a stop… nice choice... (wouldn’t want to run into that big rock pile just beyond…). Then it was Martina’s turn, then mine, then Robbie’s, then Ricky’s… then some of us decided we just had to do it again… so it was back to the top of the run, (Allie stayed down at the bottom to video us…) This time, seeing as I thought I could handle a little more speed, I decided to use a bag… (this would again prove to be one of those leap before you look decisions…)… Martina went down first, and then it was my turn… “You want me to push you?”, Robbie asked, as I trudged over to where the run began… “Um, sure…maybe not quite so fast since I’m using the bag this time…” Unfortunately all I think Robbie heard was the, “Um, sure” part… and before I knew what was happening, I was rapidly approaching the edge… then I was gone... The ride that ensued was unbelievable… Combining the slant of the hill, and the speed at which I was going… physics came into play, and my body ricocheted off the snow; sailing up in the air, and then slamming back down again (so much for the bag… suffice to say, my speed was sufficient without it at this point...). Steering kind of went out the window as well… (there was so much snow blowing in my face I couldn’t see to steer…never mind that fact that my body wasn’t on the ground half the time.) …and the scream?... it was lodged thoroughly in the back of my throat… didn’t come out until I was nearly at the bottom. As I glided slowly to a stop, my scream morphed into a fit of hysterical laughter… I just lay there for a while…(Later I found out that Robbie and Ricky had watched my whole descent from up top and were dying laughing the whole time…)

After the others had made it to where we were waiting, we continued on down the hill, sliding whenever possible. The bags were proving to be pretty effective, except for the fact that occasionally they would slide out from underneath you… so Robbie had a genius streak and created… the diaper. This was where you tore two holes in the bottom, opposite corners of your bag, and stepped into the bag, putting your legs through the holes. Classy huh? Robbie and Ricky stepped into their bags with no problems, and took off down the hill… Then it was my turn… but I was having difficulties with my bag… Allie and Martine giggled as they watched me struggle… “They obviously don’t have hips…”, I dryly remarked as I strained to get my bag pulled up without ripping it. The resulting fashion statement was one I highly do not recommend trying, and it was with great relief that I found my bag mostly ripped apart by the time I slid to a halt where the guys were waiting.

Seeing as our downward course had taken us in a slightly different direction than that of our upward course, we ended up coming out on the road nearly a mile from where we had parked. This was okay though as Robbie and Mimi both have an endless supply of energy… :-P so while they took off running to get the car, we started slowly down the road. With each step we took, I could feel the water sloshing around in my boot…we were soaked through and through… but by the looks on our faces, anyone could tell that we were also very satisfied… there’s just this feeling that you get when you conquer something like that… I don’t know how to describe it, but if you’ve ever done something like that then you know what it feels like.

We drove back that afternoon, and arrived to find company at the house waiting for us… KIDS! YES!!! Boy, did I ever feel right at home… The rest of the evening we had a blast chatting, looking at pictures, eating supper, playing instruments, singing song, having tickling wars on the living room floor, etc… it was great.

The next morning we got up and took off on another hike. (we were determined to make the most of this weekend away! lol) Today’s hike was not necessarily up any one mountain in particular, (although we did eventually come to the top of one and call it good), but around and over and up and through a series of connected hills. The weather, unlike the day before, was bordering on hot… thus making life pretty miserable for some of the more intelligent ones amongst our group who had chosen to wear all black. So when half way up the first hill, we came across a waterfall with a nice pool below… the boys were like, “Alrighty everyone! We’re all going in!!!” Robbie and Ricky went first… waded in the pool, ducked under the waterfall, and came flying back out making a whole bunch of noise! lol It was pretty funny… but then it was my turn. I took two steps into the water… then turned around and jumped right back out! “BOY this water’s COLD! Where’s it coming from?” To which Robbie replied, “Oh, it’s basically just freshly melted snow from up in the mountains…” “I guess SO!” Then with a few quick steps I jumped back into the pool, swam under the waterfall, and came flying back out. lol It was exhilarating to say the least.

After that, I was very thankful that I had chosen to wear all black that day. ;-) I was also very thankful that our hike had just begun, and we had plenty of time to dry out.

We continued on up through the hills, coming across occasional patches of snow here and there. We also discovered some of last years berries still on the bushes that grew all over the ground, but from the smell of them I ventured to guess that they were probably not the safest things to be eating… one could end up pretty soused. They did leave pretty pink track in the snow though, when you walked over them.

We finally came to this one hilltop where you could see the mountain we had climbed the day before, as well as the one we had climbed at Fredheim. We decided to call that good, seeing as it was already two in the afternoon, and we were getting hungry. We found a nice little alcove in the rock that was sheltered from the wind, but facing the sun, and sat down to eat lunch. Robbie had brought vegan vanilla pudding, trail mix, apples, and some kind of candy that I had never had before called marzipan. It was all very good… By the time we finished the wind had died down, so we decided to go lie out in the sun and take a nap. The sun felt soooo good, and the ground was not all that bad, except for the fact that you had to be somewhat cautions when moving around for fear of being dyed with potent pink berry juice.

Before we knew it, an hour and a half had slipped away thus pleasantly occupied. We grudging decided that it would probably be best if we were to start making some effort toward the general vicinity of the car…

The trip down was fast and fun. We ran the whole first steep section, leaping madly down the hillside. (it’s a wonder no one sprained an ankle…) Then as the trail evened out, we slowed down our pace.

Next the boys came up with the terrific idea of trying to see how many times we could cross over the stream that followed alongside the trail… so we went back, and forth, and back, and forth, trying to find one good crossing place, and then another to go back to the very side we had just come from…(the whole thing seemed pretty pointless to me…) This continued on until someone finally noticed the time and decided we needed to quit goofing around. Then it was back on the trail, and not long after we reached the parking lot.

As I sat in the car on the way back, contemplating our journey; I couldn’t help but feel that same sense of accomplishment. I had done something today that I had never done before… and it hadn’t been easy! lol We were all pretty drained. But still… it was that feeling again… that feeling where you’d do it all over again despite the scratches, and bruises, and sore muscles, and bright red sunburns… that feeling that I just can’t seem to be able to describe… but that you know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever felt it. ;-) This is why I keep doing it… I mean, why else do we kill our bodies if not to make life a little more enjoyable?…

-Shannon