Good grief, I think I've been home all of 3 weeks this summer! Yesterday Mom, Sam, and I went to a cabin of my mom's boss's for a night. It was really nice; they had such a cool stream in the back yard! It was only an hour and a half from here, too. We were right one of the rivers around here... I'm not sure which one it was, exactly. But anyway! I came here to finish about my trip to the coast! (Finally! :) ) Where did I leave off, though? I guess I basically just talked about driving there and a little of the people. So! Here goes.

....After [shopping] we drove 2 more hours to the coast. Woo-hoo! Of course most of us went to the beach, while some of the adults and the older guys helped set up tents. The beach was sooooo cold!! The wind was blowing and the water was, like, 40 degrees. It hurt to leave your feet in the water for more than, like, 60 seconds! Brrrrrr!

Finally we got settled into our tents and ate dinner, and then Steve gave us a short devotional before we all headed for bed. Man, it was cold that night! But the next day it was much warmer. We spent the entire day at the beach, I think, just hanging out and relaxing. That is what we did a lot of the time there. Was it ever nice just to be in the midst of nature and relax with nothing to worry about! Wow.

Wednesday, I think, we hopped into the vans and drove into a little seaside town to look at the little shops and stuff there. That was fun! We did that twice on the trip, actually. I didn�t get anything the first time.

Thursday (?) we got in the vans again and headed to the place we stayed on the last Coast trip, 2 years ago. I just call that place The Dunes! They have humongous sand dunes there!! :O We stayed shortly at a little freshwater lake nearby and swam and �sandboarded� and stuff. I love that lake! It�s gorgeous. The water is even warm-ish! :D

Anyway. Every night we had campfire time, where Steve gave a devotional and we sang fun songs and afterwards roasted marshamallows to make s�mores. Mmmm! They smelled sooooo good... I never did have one, though. For two reasons: #1, I'm no good at roasting 'mallows till they're golden brown like they're supossed to be, and #2, I was kinda worried about eating them with my braces. Everyone says I'm way too conservative about what I do and don't eat with my braces. "You're weird! Everyone else just eats whatever they want!!" "Who cares what the orthodontist says?� they say without saying. I have to say, it reeeaaally starts to get on my nerves. Grr.... DON'T CALL ME WEIRD FOR OBEYING RULES! I wanna yell. >:( Geez... Isn't a person every allowed to be sensible?! Especially a person who once had 14 cavities at one time! My teeth are horrible; they are just stupid and cavity-prone. Why can't I have normal teeth??

Whoa... Anyway... How in the world did I get onto my teeth?? Yeeaahh... Moving on.

I got pretty sunburned there. I was dumb and forgot to bring a hat, so my part got scorched. :( NOT fun! My forehead got burned one day when I forgot to put block there. The last day my whole face got burned, and then we had campfire on the beach, and we sat too close and the heat from the fire made my burn and some others� even worse. :( It didn�t hurt, really-- my face was just seriously RED, and very hot. It�s better now. My part's peeling majorly now, though. It�s so gross!

The drive to "The Dunes" was absolutely incredible! I've had conversations with Beth and Liz over our differences in how we view the ocean. They both said they just absolutely love it, and commented on how peaceful it was and everything, and I was like, �...Huh? What's so great about the ocean?" But on the drive to that huge, sandy state park, I suddenly saw why everyone loves it so much. The road itself was just...Incredible. So beautiful! So much green-- trees and vines and ferns and wildflowers all over! And then the trees on my right parted, and before me was an unforgettable scene of huge, majestic rocks towering above the ocean with the giant, rolling waves crashing against them and into sprays... I was just awestruck. As I stared out the van window at the tallest rock, my mind rushed me to the top of it, throwing out my hands, closing my eyes, and all alone, just singing out praise to God over the noise of the waves. It was so cool. Looking out the window, I decided then and there that I was moving to the coast when I got old enough! :D

Hmm.... You know, I think I have just about everything covered. YAY! There's still the drive back, but there's not a whole lot to tell there. I rode in the hot van for a while (no A/C), then I switched at lunchtime into the Stinky Van, as it soon got its name. It was full of...boys. Boys who love to stink up places. Oh my goodness. Every 5 minutes--no joke!!--you'd suddenly smell it. "Oh, ewwww!" us three girls cried out. "Open the windows! Open the windows!" "Oh, you boys!" Mary told us.

Of course the boys practically died laughing and hooting and hollering. Sometimes they got applause. Eventually we got some van deodorizer from Steve's wife, who was driving our second van (we had three). That helped a lot! But the guys still kept at it. My word. Teenage boys are so immature.

Okay, I'm done!

-Stephanie