Heyo! I'm back from Wyoming, where I went to the Teton High Adventure Base for our Stake Varsity and Venturing Scout Camp! How's that for a first line? Anyway, it was really fun. First, we got there after a 5-hour drive and had a River Orientation. Then we had Lunch. They had surprisingly good food there. We had Chicken Sandwiches, Hamburgers, Meatball sandwiches, Egg Rolls, French Toast, Steak, (This was over the course of three days, not one meal!) and more. After lunch we went to White Water Rafting. That was fun! We had eleven people in a raft, 8 rowers, one guide, one person that just sat in the middle, and one person that got to sit on the very front of the boat and take all the rapids head-on. (Or Legs-on, as they were the parts that hit the rapids.) We all took turns doing that. We had a really cool guide. We called him Captain Jack. One part of the Rapids was called the Champagne Rapids. There were all these bubbles in the water after them, and he told us it felt cool to stick your feet in. 3 people did, and then he snuck up and pushed them off the edge of the boat. It was really funny, especially because one of them was someone we were trying to get to get in the water anyway. We all jumped in of our own accord except him.

The next day we did what was called a C.O.P.E. Course. (Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience, I think.) First was the Lower Cope course, which included this one challenge where there were ten tire swings between two platforms, and we had to get 20-something people across, but at one point we had to have everyone on a tire. That meant that we had to have 3 people on most of the tires! It was difficult, but it was fun. Then there was the High Cope Course, which was a bunch of metal wires strung between tall, wobbly poles, and we had to go across each of the different challenges on these metal wires. Did I mention that the wires were 50 feet in the air? (Honestly, That's a guess, not a fact. They were pretty high.) That was way difficult. But I had fun doing it, even if my legs couldn't stop shaking... My mom asked me if I learned anything about myself on the Cope Courses. I said "Yeah, I have almost no Upper Body Strength!" I guess I'm more of a kicker than a climber... I can kick a football or a kickball pretty far, but I can't climb up a pole! And apparently we now have a motto. Every once and a while Brother Astel (??? on spelling) would say something like "If you had died, it would have been a glorious death!" And then we'd all yell "Glorious Death!" It was funny. I changed it a bit to make a summary of the camp. I got the first part from the guy who did Orientation, and though he never said it, he might as well have.

"Fifty Percent of you won't come back alive. Fifty percent of those won't even come back dead. But If you die, it will be a Glorious Death! Glorious Death!"

The last day we got up early to go to Canoeing. That was fun, but it wasn't my favorite. We had to kneel in the boats for maximum stability when going through the rapids, and my legs were really, really sore by the end. I was also deathly afraid of falling or swamping into a rapid, so I was freaked out. One of the other groups went through a big rapid, and their boat filled with water. I looked and thought "Two boats swamped on that one... Wait... Calvin and Brother Nelson are still in their boat!" It was funny, their boat was totally submerged, and they were still sitting in it. Kenyon and Marshal hit a rock and knocked one of their screws loose, so they had a small hole in their boat the entire way. Good thing we brought out own Bail Buckets!

That afternoon we went on a hike, which was pretty boring considering what we had done the past two days. On the way down, we met a guy in a wheel chair being pushed and carried up the rocky trail. We helped him up the next ridge, and then continued. We knew with all the steep rocks, he probably wouldn't make it to the top, but we didn't want to tell him that, did we? Too bad we didn't meet him on the way up, then we could have helped him to the top.

So all in all, I had a lot of fun.

Random Quote from Camp! (Read with a french accent)
"Twenty-Nine people go into ze water... Twenty-Two people come out of ze water... Ze ice-cream man, he gets ze rest..." -Adam

~~~
Atra ilian tauthr ono.

Saturday, July 18th: We went and saw Harry Potter 6 today with my grandparents. It was really good. I thought it was funny, and my mom laughed through the whole thing. They left out one of the coolest parts, where Dumbledore's Army and the Aurors come to Hogwarts and Fight the Death Eaters! They just had the Death Eaters show up, kill Dumbledore, and leave. It was kinda lame.
I almost missed the first part of it, though, because I was so excited for the Lightning Thief Movie!!




I loved that book! I recently read The Last Olympian, and then my friend Brielle asked if she could borrow it (and then return it to the library). I took it over to her house, and then later that same day, I got a call from Sister Michaelis asking if she could borrow it! "It's a wanted book." She said after I told her Brielle had borrowed it. (If your name is spelled wrong, sorry.) I can't wait for the movie. Another funny story: The other day, I told Brielle about the movie, and the first thing she said was "They better not mess this one up!"

Okay, so I have done a horrid job of blogging Because of the California pictures. But I'm going to try to pull it back up. This post was actually written a week or so ago, but It's just being posted now.

Saturday, the 11th of June, I had the privilege of seeing my good friend Aerin's Baptism. (And her sister, Steph, who I kinda know.) I was really excited for it ever since I learned she was getting baptised. (I keep wanting to spell Baptised with a z...) It was kinda funny when so many of her friends from Midvale showed up they had to move us into the Chapel. Besides me, Trevin, Luke, and Riley, showed up, along with a bunch of ninth graders that I only know as faces and names. We took up a whole pew.

It was really spiritual, even (and especially) when Steph couldn't think of what to say as she bore her testimony. Afterwards a line formed as Aerin gave out hugs and received gifts. I held back to wait until there were less people, and by the time I got up to her, she had so many gifts she could barely hug me and take mine. But she did, and then kept receiving people. I followed the other Trojans to the other room, thinking she'd be behind us. Five minutes later, she had barely moved five feet! Later she said that was because "Everybody wanted pictures!"

So I'll do another tribute here. Here's to Aerin!


Thanks for being such a fun friend! Thanks for your testimony, and your excitement, and the spirit you bring, especially when you sing!
And Thanks for the new motto. This is something I think I knew all along, but you helped me realize it.
Purity is

BEAUTIFUL

All right, here's the last of them.

Well, the next day we went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. We were afraid they might be closed, since it was Forth of July, but just the contrary: They were having a huge celebration! I'm not going to put too many pictures because I'm getting sick of uploading them all.

A piece of the Berlin Wall

Air Force One

The Next few days we spent with the entire Kingsbury Family.

The Kingsbury's
The Norris's

Traci, Jared, Colin, and Ian
So all in all, I had a really good time. Thanks again to Grandma, Grandpa, Tami, Scott, Traci, and Jared for being willing to put up with me!

Okay, I am really sorry about how long it's taken me to post the second half of my trip to California. But I'm here now, and here it is.


Let's see... Tuesday was when we drove up from Tami's to Traci's (every one of my dad's siblings' names start with T, by the way. That's where the T in JT comes from- my dad's name, Timothy, is my middle name.) We hung out with Traci and Ian and Jared and some friends of theirs.

Ian showing off his cool moves on his scooter.

Jared pushing Ian on the Swing Grandma, Grandpa, and ColinAnd one of the best pictures of Colin I got. Isn't he cute? The next day we went down to Hollywood to see UP at the El Capitan theatre. Before we went to the movie, though, we went through Hollywood!

Ian playing in the water The Hollywood sign.Some weirdos who grabbed me and got my grandma to take a picture of me with them.
We saw all the stars, and we were right in the middle of the Micheal Jackson craze.

Here's all the junk people left near his star.Here's his star with Candles and Wax all over it.Here's the view from across the street.Then we went to the Disney Soda Fountain, right next to the theatre.Here's Ian.And Ian and Traci And here's the bar.And here's the Organist of the Year, playing the warfloncontraption idon'trememberwhatit'scalled (Sorry to all you organ fans. I didn't even know there was a Organist of the Year) before the movie

The next day we took Ian miniature golfing. He putted the ball into 18 holes for a total score of exactly 100. Grandpa won, then Grandma, then me.
He had taken to calling me "Uncle Jarom" by this point, even after grandma pointed out that I wasn't that old. Even my 4-year-old cousin thinks I'm older than I am! (He also followed me everywhere. It was fun sometimes, but sometimes I took to hiding from him.)
Here's me... and grandpa in the foreground.

Here's Ian Golfing.

That night we had Grandma's Birthday Party.

Traci got her this purse. When I saw it, I thought "That just screams Grandma Norris!"

We also went to the Bounce house, but I won't put any pictures of that. Needless to say, Ian wore me out. I'll cut it here.

I'm Finally back from California. I had a blast! Before I start telling what happened, I want to say THANK YOU to Grandma, Grandpa, Tami, Traci, and everyone else who helped make this happen.

Okay, so day one, Friday, we drove up all day. Boring. Tedious. I did finish my Ender's Game homework though. And I played Gameboy a bit. And that's about it. We got to Tami's late that night and talked about what we would do, and Connor showed me all his stuff and the house and all, and that's about it.

Here's Connor's Office. Don't we all wich we had a space like that?

Here's their Dog, Teddy. Named like the Teddy from the Magic Tree House series

Day two, Saturday, we went to Sea World. It was awesome, and we went and saw all the shows, including the Pet's Rule show and the Sea Lions Tonite show, which made fun of all the other shows, but I didn't get pictures of those ones.

We saw the Sea Lions beg for food.

They were really funny.

And we saw the Dolphins

(It's looking right at me...)

And then we saw the Dolphin show.And the Polar Bears.And the Beluga Whales

(He's Glowing!)

And we saw the Shamu Believe Show. That was cool.

We went on some rides.

And to top it all off, we saw Shamu Rocks. It was this big light show with music and Killer Whales!

Next Day, Sunday, we just hung out most of the day, went to church, all that good stuff. After dinner I went to see Geoff and Anna and Lincoln and Hari.

It was hard to get good pictures of the two.

Big Happy Family!

Next Day, Monday, we went to the Zoo! You already saw most of the good pictures from that, but here's a few I wanted to add:

The Cool Hedge out front Tami and Connor

I call this one "A Long Days Work"

And aren't these the cutest?

I'm just weird like that.

This is funny
Tami's ward does every other FHE at the beach, so we were able to go and do that.And I got pictures of the beautiful San Diego Temple.

And I'm going to end this post right here because it's getting to hard to manage the whole thing with all the pictures.