From my eyes…

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this until now! I have the most fabulous adventure scheduled for the first two weeks of August. Back at the beginning of the month a co-worker sent me an email detailing a trip she was asked to go along on. She was to be the adult female leader for Venture Crew 402’s summer cavalcade at Philmont Scount Ranch, but has broken her ankle and can’t go.  Another lady was set to go, but has thrown out her back. They really want their daughters and the other girls to go, so they invited me. The parents want their daughters to go so badly that they kept their money in the pool, so that I only have to supply my gear (which I’m mostly borrowing). 

How it happened:
It really was a bit unbelievable the day I opened the email asking if I could go. I reread it many times before calling Kathy to tell her I was interested. Then I spoke with the family funding my trip and the man in charge of the group going. It all got worked out and I am all signed up to go!

What it is:
Philmont Scout Ranch is the main Boy Scouts of America high adventure camping spot. It is located in the mountains of New Mexico. You can read more about its history here. The trip I’m going on is the horseback cavalcade. There will be 14 of us - 2 adult men, 1 adult female (that’s me!), 3 girls, 8 guys. We will leave IL on August 1st and travel to New Mexico via Amtrak. I’m really excited about that seeing as I’ve never been on Amtrak and love trying new things! We should arrive in NM on August 2nd, where we’ll catch a bus for the hour long ride to the base camp. It’s been mentioned that there is a Boy Scout museum on the way that we may stop at on our way to camp. We’ll stay at base camp for two days. In those two days, we’ll participate in a few scout traditions like campfire and we’ll get checked in by the physician. We’ll also meet our horses and get a review on how to saddle them up and pack them properly. We’ll also get a “shake down” of our gear - which is where they will tell me I have to leave my extra underwear (they want us to bring two, I’m packing 5) and face cream (sunscrenn onmy face is disgusting, my face cream has SPF anyway) behind Don’t think I’m not going to at least try to get them in my pack. 
Once we are set to go, we’ll fill a locker at basecamp with a fresh change of clothes, our cell phones, iPods, and other miscellaneous items we brought for the travel portion of the trek.  I will be leaving a full sized towel (recommended by another adult who’s been 10 times), shampoo, smelly good body wash (can’t have any smelly stuff on the trail) a fresh change of clean clothes which will probably include flip-flops.
When we start heading up the mountain, we’ll be on horseback. We ride from camp to camp taking in the landscape. I’ll be taking lots of pictures - though from what I can tell it looks like northern AZ. Maybe I’ll take cool pics of my horse! I hope I have a great horse that is my BFF while we’re there. I’m nervous about getting a boring horse with no personality. Anyway, we ride, then camp, then pack up and ride to the next camp. There are stops along the way - one of which sells root beer. I’m sure I’ll be ready for a mug or two of that. We will cook our own food, wash our own clothes, pack our own horses. The kids are supposed to do all of that. I’m just along to make sure there aren’t any cat-fights. I’m sure I’ll help. I’ll be bored if I don’t, but it’s their thing to do.
I think there is one day were we do a service project of sorts - rebuilding a trail maybe? I don’t really know the details. I figure I’ll find out when I get there.
The day at the top we get to chose an activity - things like hiking, shooting, ropes courses, rock climbing. I think that will be fun. I just hope I have energy (and patience) left to do it. I think I will.
Once we get back down the mountain, we’ll stay another day at basecamp before returning home on August 12th. I’m just hoping we don’t miss our train. I’m sure I’ll be ready for a real shower, real food, and my own squishy, not on the ground bed by then.

Getting ready:
To get ready for this adventure hasn’t been too much of a big deal. I went horseback riding once to get used to being around horses - and make sure I was comfortable. I was (didn’t think I wouldn’t be, but still).  The Venutre Crew set up that riding session. It’s very close to my house (on the same road actually, benefit of my subdivision being in farm country), so I may go again before we leave. I’m sure no matter how much I ride or condition now, I’ll be sore then.
I had to go get a physical…and a tetnus shot. Ugh. The shot was actually not bad at all. It was the days following that were a bear.
I had to buy Western Riding Boots. I struck out in IL, so when I was in TN for a family party I roped a cousin into taking me boot shopping. I thought I was going to strike out there, too. But before I could flip out too much we found just the most perfect pair. I love them and can’t wait to wear them (we’re doing a mini shake down on Wednesday and I’m totally wearing my boots! ;)).
I’ve had to organize who I was going to borrow equipment from and make sure that it as stuff I’d be happy with. I still have quite a bit of shopping to do for small items and some clothing I’d like to get especially for this trip. Other than shopping, I’m ready to go.
Oh, and I have to go do an online class for youth protection and one for being a venturing advisor. I don’t think they’ll be too hard. Just give some basic tips on what to do in an emergency. I’ll be a certified adult leader for scouting

Venture Crew 402:
So the group itself is made up of youth/young adults (are they really young adults? I am a young adult and supposed to be the leader, so how can they be young adults…..maybe at 29 I’m just a plain ol’ adult now. Shudder). The youngest are about to start their junior year of high school and the oldest are about to start sophomore year of college. I think the actual ages you can be are 15 (graduated 8th grade) - 20. They have a handbook just like boy scouts / girl scouts, but not all of the venturers (?) are interested in earning badges. Some of the boys are still working to earn their Eagle Scout recognition, so they are the most active. I’m still not too sure how I fit in with this crew. Though it was a nice surprise when I learned that one of the girls was an old student of mine (and Mike’s). I love her, but the the rest of them I’m still feeling out. They just seem to be a little different breed than me - more serious maybe. I’ll break them in. They’ll be trapped with me on a mountain soon…muwaahhhh. 
I’m thinking when I get home that I’ll stay involved with this group and hopefully have the opportunity to go on other adventures with them in the future. The one they did before this was a cruise….SWEET! Mike may get more involved with them, too. He likes the ideas of these types of exciting trips, too.

So there it is. This has been the focus of my summer. I plan to journal while I’m there and post each day when I reutrn. And of course, I’ll have some pictures to share. I’m just so grateful that I was asked to do this and that I’m able to do it! 

We passed on a hike with friends yesterday. We should have gone. It was a beautiful day to be outside. We just weren’t sure if we’d be getting up early enough to go or not. We hung out with our neighbors late into the night on Saturday. Anyway, though it wasn’t as great a nice hike with water fountains and all, we made the best of our new fenced in yard and some dog toys. All four of us headed to the backyard and played some soccer. I took some pics. Here are two of my faves. You can see the rest of them by clicking on NEW PICS in the sidebar to the right. 

 

Even though gas prices in my area have gone down a few cents in the past 48 hours, we are still around the $4 mark. I don’t know about you, but our household is starting to feel the squeeze from the current economy. We’ve started clipping coupons to save money on groceries. We’ve stopped senseless spending. We share meals on the off chance that we do go out. I bought ant $8 tire pump, so that I can get the bike ready for August when I will peddle myself to work. We’re really trying to stretch the dollar at this house. So when I came across this little site of helpful gas tips, I thought I’d share. You’ve probably seen or heard many of these tips, but a reminder is always a good thing.

Click the link below to view the gas saving tips.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/energysavings/savegas/flash.html 

I read a friend’s blog this morning and she had a beautiful poem about herself written there. At the end there was link to another site that had the template for it. I thought it would be fun to fill it in with my own personal info. Gayle’s is much more poetic than mine, but I’m sharing anyway. I may re-write it in the future, but for now this is what you get.
I’d love to read a poem about you if you’ve got time to create one! Give it a try

I ordered the SUnday paper. It came. We clipped. I’m moderately pleased with what we found. I’m going to look onlin for even more stuff that we use in this house. I think the real fun will come when I see how much money we can save!

Lately it seems that Mike and I are spending money on things we can’t even recall buying. We’ve been trying, for all of 2008, to be more deliberate in our spending on things around the house. Groceries included. We bought a freezer so that we can stock up when there are sales. We’re really great at only buying items on sale. We pride ourselves in finding deals and taking advantage of them. However, we’ve never been able to use coupons properly. We keep a few here and there and then find them months later, after they’ve expired.

Now, since the cost of living is rising with no sign of slowing, we’ve decided to put everything we’ve got into using coupons and getting the most out of our money. We bought a coupon file folder in the dollar row at Target. It’s pretty blue and has 13 slots to sort coupons. Today, we sat together and decided what the categories should be for the 12 slots - the first one is for coupons that we are positive we want to us that week, and it also didn’t have a tab to label. We did a good job. And we sorted the ten or so coupons we had. I also signed up for the Chicago Tribune to be delivered on Sundays. It’s only $1.25 a week and my neighbor says it’s loaded with coupons - ones we’ll actually use. I know, because I eat lunch with her everyday (she’s my co-worker also) and discussed food and healthy eating with her regularly to know that we choose similar foods at the market.

I’m super excited about this coupon challenge (I hope the motivation of saving money keeps me going!). Sunday, I’m meeting up with Emily to coupon clip and get some pointers - she’s the queen of saving a buck on grub.

Do you clip coupons? What are your tips and suggestions for me?

Howda’ Folks,
 I just got back from a weekend in TN with my family. It was a good time. Mostly spent sharing old family stories and memories of each other from years past over a meal. I rode down from IL with my Aunt & Uncle who live here. I read most of the way down, but occasionally have to pick my head up to watch the rain and lightening show out the window. It was crazy how much it rained on our drive down. I loved it! We rolled up to the house just after my parents arrived. They’d flown in from AZ and rented a car. It was nice to see them. It would have been cool if they could’ve come back to IL to stay a little longer, but I will see them again real soon (my mom is coming in July possibly and I’ll be in AZ in Oct for a few days). 

Like I said we mostly sat around my Aunt’s house chatting about the good ol’ days and watching my cousins’ children play. I really enjoyed getting to know my cousins and their children all over again. Finally, I’ve reached an age where I wasn’t banned to the floor so adults could sit on the couch or asked to eat with the little ones. There were new teenagers, my cousins’ oldests, who took up that role, leaving me free to include myself in adult conversation. Finally, there isn’t such a huge gap betweeen my older cousins and me (my dad is the baby by 9 years I think it is, so obviously, his children, randy and me, are the baby by lots…it happens to be 12 years - i’m closer in age to my cousins kids than to my actual cousins). IT seems 29 has a few operks afterall.

We went to TN to celebrate my Aunt Jackie and Uncle Ken’s 50th Wedding Anniversary. FIFTY YEARS! Can you believe it? I think it’s amazing. My aunt was married at 19, which just seems absurd to me now, here in 2008, but then it was much more common. The party included a slideshow that started with picture from their wedding. My 8 year old father managed to squeeze out of all the pics, but ironically enough it seems as if he gave my aunt away! Bizarre, huh? Well, now I finally see that my dad truly does look just like my grandpa. There were tons of pics of my cousins growing up, and some of the grandkids. It was really neat.

I appreciated seeing the results of genetics all weekend. I spent a lot of time hanging out with my cousin Jeff’s oldest, John. He is very outgoing and simply a hoot. He has a southern drawl and sounds like his dad when he talks, but he talks a lot more than his quiet father. He reminded me of my brother in a million ways, not just physical (tall and thin), but facial expression and body movement to a T match my bro. It was crazy. There were pics all over the house, one showed a little boy who looked so much like my dad….it was my cousin. I looked around often observing similarities. I’ve concluded one again that while most people think I look exactly like my mom, I certainly do have some of my father’s genes as well. I hope I got the good ones

I knew that my cousin Jeff and his wife live on a farm in. John, and his sister Hannah, are raised on the farm. They have horses. I figured no better person in the bunch to take me boot shopping! I needed to get a pair of Western boots for my trip in August, so I asked and he agreed! John and my parents went along with me to get boots. We struck out at the first place and I was becoming frustrated, but the second stop proved to be the jackpot. Not only did I grab a pair of Justin boots (big name, great quality), but they were only $40 - unheard of low! AND they were broken in. Jeff told me that’s just how ya want them. I’m super happy with my purchase.

I had a great weekend visiting with family, though it was tiring. I think we did pretty well together. I think it’s a lot to ask 15 adults, one of whom went into labor (then she put her feet up and drank some medication to hold off until her c-setcion Monday), and 12 children to all get along for 72 hours. There’s just this thing about people with their families, where we all think we’re allowed to say whatever it is we want to each other, even if it’s something we’d never say to a nonfamily member. Why is that? Anyway, I don’t think there was much in the way of hurt feelings or getting irritated. Some, but not lots and it was a great weekend.

You can check out the pics by visiting www.picasaweb.google.com/kbennett807
There is a link on the right that you can use for the photo site in the future. I plan to put more stuff up throughout the year.

While I was away in TN at my aunt & uncle’s 50th wedding (seroiusly, FIFTY YEARS!) anniversary party, Mike stayed home to go to a baseball game with his friends for his birthday. He had planned to go with me to TN, but the weekend ended up being different than we’d planned and he’d already gotten the game tickets. He’ll go along next time.
Instead he celebrated his 29th birthday tailgating at the White Sox game. He had a great day. I’m looking forward to next year when we’ll celebrate our 30ths together.

I just got home from Barnes & Noble. Love that store, but always feel silly once I’m there because I could be getting new books FOR FREE from the local library. Thankfully, today I had a gift card to use up. I had a nice time browsing the aisles looking at all the choices. I even got a small Starbucks drink and a pretzel and sat to read one of the books I’d selected for a bit before coming home.

But the whole time I felt like something was missing from the trip, and then I realized something was missing from my day. It dawned on me that the whole experience would have been that much better with a child or two to look through books with me. Not even necessarily my own children, but any child.
It was then that I realized how much happier my life is with kids around. How complete I feel with what I do with my life each day. It’s been two weeks since I last had herds of youth to coral and lead. I miss them and I’m not quite sure what to do with my days without them in it. I don’t miss any particular kid, but just not having ANY child in my daily life leaves me feeling a little confused, lost.

Don’t get me wrong, I have thoroughly enjoyed these past two weeks of sleeping in, reading on the patio while soaking up a little sun, walking the dog, enjoying the evenings out front with the neighbors without the thought of the morning alarm in the back of my mind, enjoying Mike’s softball games without worrying how late we were staying out. I’ve loved each minute of it. I even loved today. I’m just saying that while my day was fabulous, it could have been a tad bit better if I was able to share it with a child. The good part about this little pit of longing for kids to be around is that I once again have reaffirmed that there is no better career field for me. That. Is amazing.