The Silly Saga of an Epic Enterprise (Part 4)

Now this. This was a morning to remember.

I woke up earlier than usual, and started reading Pride and Prejudice (which was my entertainment of choice as I waited for Mike and Eric to wake up). I got ready for the day, and soon after, Mike and Eric rolled out of bed. Eric grabbed his guitar and made his way to the top of the stairs to play around. I sat there listening and reading with Ruffles (abandoned by Devin) crawling all over me. I grew up in an atmosphere of constant music, and starting the morning like this was quite wonderful.

Shortly thereafter, I folded up our blankets, and took them upstairs to put them away, and as I walked back down, I glanced over the balcony and saw one of the funniest sights my eyes have ever seen. I told you Devin was the bird-whisperer, right? Wellllll, I looked down the stairs and saw him practicing hymns for Sacrament Meeting. There he sat, astride an organ bench, playing away with the expertise of a champion. And then I noticed that his right foot was at a rather odd angle. As he played, he was holding it out to the side, and there, perched on his toes, sat Ruffly-Bird just as content as could be. It made my morning. :)

This was the day Bryce, Hillary, and Carissa were to join us at the beach for some sand, sun, and surfing lessons. However, they’d had a very late night at Disneyland, and they were wiped. And not ready yet. But they needed to be. Because we needed to go to the beach. ;) Therefore, Eric, Mike, and I took it upon ourselves, naturally, to get them up and running. We jumped into Roger, and drove over to Bryce’s. We snuck into his house (I won’t tell you how because its a secret), and right as we were slipping silently up the stairs (Mike and Eric were to jump on Bryce, and I was to go wake Hillary and Carissa), lo and behold, Bryce comes around the corner, and stops us in our tracks. He had evidently just woken up, and had (in his groggy, yet sensible mind) found the sense to stop our brilliant plan before we could even begin to carry it out. Blast! :]

Well, we made sure that they were all completely roused from their beauty sleep before we left them with instructions: don’t bother showering, get in your swim-suits, eat breakfast, and high-tail it over to Eric’s. Simple plan. Or so we thought...

Well, we headed back to Eric’s abode. As we knew would happen, we were all dressed in our beach-stuffs, and packed everything we would need for the day long before the other three had, so we sat down on the couch to finish The Road to Eldorado. We did...and they still weren’t ready. So we went outside and wasted time...

....and they still weren’t ready... Little did we know, they were putting together a full-blown dinner for us to have later that evening. (Thanks guys!) Well, we eventually left--Mike, Eric, and I in Roger, and Bryce driving everyone else in the Tahoe because we had to have room for the surfboards. Yippee!

Off we went to San Elijo! We were headed for another day at the beach!....another (unexpectedly) SUNNY day at the beach! Eric has changed me forever...well, he’s changed my style of driving forever. When he isn’t on the freeway, he drives around with all the windows down and his music playing. :) It’s the best way to enjoy the warm weather. This day, instead of his normal Anberlin or whatever he listens to, he put in his beach music. That’s right. We listened to Jack Johnson the whole way there. :]

There’s nothing quite like a sunny, happy, warm, fun, fantastic day at the beach with all your best friends (except for Ali. We missed her a lot.) We played in the waves, and boogie-boarded like crazy people.

Bryce and Mike made an arch.

Hillary, Bryce, and I made a moat. Aaaaand all o’ us (but mostly Eric and Mike) made a pyramid that rocked.

So much so that people would stop and take pictures of it all day...

Eric’s goal for the day? To teach us all how to surf. Accomplished? Well, I know how to, but the ability is lacking. Mike tried...

and is not defeated yet. He’ll get the hang of it someday. As for me, I lack the coordination and strength needed. I am determined, though. I will try it someday, and I’m almost completely determined to ace Eric’s face with my skill. That’ll prolly take at least a semester of BYU-Hawaii to accomplish, though. But hey! I wouldn’t mind! :D

Eric decided to surf for a while by himself,

and there were enough boogie-boards for the rest of us, so we spent a lot of time riding the waves and avoiding the abundance of seaweed together. There was so much, and it made our experience rather comical!

We tried water-bending the waves to do what we wanted (none of us have sufficiently mastered that art...yet)...

We were silly as could be. Later, Bryce left to take pictures, and Eric finished surfing to join us. He taught us one of his family traditions. When a good wave is coming, he and his cousins (Jaden and Brendan) shout to each other, “Take it Gandalf! You must take it!!!” Hahaha! It cracks me up to think of those fantastic boys, and the phrase makes me grin as I type this. Pretty soon, we were yelling it at each other, and it was grand! :)

PARTY WAVE!

The day was finally ending,

and the water was getting cold, so we rode a few more waves, laughed a lot more, and left the water to clean up, and watch the sun set. Most of the time it was behind the clouds, but when it came out it was absolutely lovely.

We packed up and left to visit my fabulous Chumbley family where we visited with the whole clan, sat around a warm fire, ate both organic and inorganic hot-dogs with J-Dawgs Sauce (the only way to eat them), laughed, visited, skewered more water-bottles, quoted movies, and thoroughly enjoyed this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

>sigh< It was such a wonderful evening, and I couldn’t love all of those people any more. It’s just not possible. Mama Chumbley has a “Do not watch TV” sign that cracked me up!

Alas! The night had to end (very late), and we regretfully went our separate ways once more....

It has now come time to tell you just how muchI love these people. And after I’ve told you, you still won’t be able to fully understand. They are absolutely wonderful. Someday, I will write about the practically-sealed FHE family of Fall 2010. Let me just tell you that I love them so much. All of them. They are each such beautiful, strong, loving, kind, wonderful, talented, amazing people. They have made my college experience the best it could have ever been. I have never been that close to a bunch of people I wasn’t related to. I love them so much, and if you ever meet them, treat them well because they are fabulous. These are the people that have made goodbyes (even temporary ones) almost unbearable to me. I miss them so much when they are gone. Eric can attest (Mike was asleep) to this. As soon as we got in the car and headed off, I missed my Alissa Fred like crazy. I just love them all too much, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Oh well! :)

The Silly Saga of an Epic Enterprise (Part 3)

(Continued from previous post...)  :]

The next, wonderful day, I awoke to a foggy morning and a report that it was supposed to be cloudy/slightly rainy at the beach--which was our plan that day while Bryce, Hills, and Carissa went to Disneyland.  I had been hoping for a sunny day because I had never been to the beach when the sun was out.  Still, I was not to be discouraged!  We were going to the beach, and it was going to be wonderful!  Haha!

We got all ready, and drove to Escondido (we were happy we could find it!) to get my beloved roommate Alissa Fred-Anne.  She's so wonderful!  We barged into her home, and visited for a little while with Ali and Mom (her mom, this time.  I have a lot of parents :)  ) before kidnapping her and taking her to Oceanside Beach.  Guess what we saw when we got there.

SUNSHIIIIIIIIIINNNNNE!!!!!!

Sooooooo much sunshine!!!! :)

If it had been possible, I would have been even more excited to be at the beach! :D Due to the amount of glorious, heavenly sunshine, we slathered ourselves silly with sunscreen, and while waiting for it to dry, Alissa Fred and I painted our nails with Del Sol color-changing polish.  It's wonderful!  My clear polish changed bright red in the sunshine, and I loved it!  Oceanside is a wonderful place to just swim and play in the waves, so we spent hours swimming, dodging waves, and body-surfing.  Eric brought a couple of boogie-boards, and Mike and I learned how to use them.

Yeah.  They're champions. :)

I'll be honest, I struggled with the boogie-board.  A lot.  I live 14 hours away from the nearest beach, and it takes me a while to get used to it.  I did figure it out, though, after a long time of trying, and I found it to be rather fun.  After a long while playing in the splendid water, we went to bask in the glorious sun, visit (Mike fell asleep...again....), and be warm.  It was soooooo warm there!  Eric tried to teach me to play catch with my left hand.  I've never struggled so hard in my life!  Re-learning to throw a football was hard enough, but left handed?!?  That's just ridiculous!  :)

This girl.  She's amazing. :]

After spending hour upon wonderful hour at the beach, we decided to leave and find food.

Mike and Ali modeling our beach stuffs.  Mike truly was blue! :)

We went to a little Mexican restaurant there called Colima's.  It was so good!  Eric, Mike, and I got California Burritos and they were GINORMOUS!  People walking down the street would double take at the size of them, and we could hear people talking about them...and us....awkward.... ;)  Hahaha

Afterwards, we headed to....someplace....I don't know where it is.  Prolly because it's a secret.  Anyways, we went to a place where we could actually get a fire pit.  Mike and Eric, being the men that they are, chopped wood with the hammer (weird, right?) and built the most sufficient fire I have ever seen.  

And then we roasted marshmallows!   And put them on the only thing we had....OREOS!!!  So good! Try it!  I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before!

We had so much fun visiting and being silly.  Ali was the brilliant person who led us to this place.  Brilliant, I tell you!  She planned it so well that when the sun went down, this was our view...

(Sorry it's blurry…)

The beautiful San Diego skyline.  It was wonderful!  We stayed there for a long, fantastic time eating, chatting, laughing, inventing stories of kidnappings, mutilating water bottles with red-hot skewers...

...and burning gasoline.  Yup.  There was a family of awesome people that needed to get rid of some water-tainted gas, and they asked if they could use our fire.  It was the biggest, awesomest fire ever, and they were such funny people!

Ali was oh so correct when she said I would be wiped out after a day at the beach.  Eric and I visited all the way home while Mike slept, but when we arrived and sat down to watch The Road to Eldorado, I couldn't keep my eyes open.  I was so wonderfully, delightfully, sublimely exhausted.  Besides....I had to be ready to do it all over again the next day...

:]