when you're supposed to be studying

When I came back from my year away I was thrown out of my social work class and into the one behind it. He had been soooo close and I didn't know any of the new people and I hated it. But now, I LOVE it. I love the people in my new class. We are all together all Thursday afternoon. After getting out of a class early we all hit up KR's and got smoothies before the next one. We were laughing so hard the teacher couldn't get us quiet. Somewhere in one of those classes we started talking about hair and new styles so we decided to have a hair night.

Me showing Kaitlyn how to use the diffuser

It is student missions emphasis week this week so we were all supposed to wear our t-shirts. Grace and I even pulled off the long sleeve shirts together.

Sarah and Kaitlyn had to double team Tricia her hair was so incredibly thick!

I unfortunately couldn't just relax. I worked on my paper while Sarah straightened mine.

I was going to get Kaitlyn a drink after the other girls had left when I discovered how incredibly slippery our kitchen floor is. Kaitlyn and I had some fun with it and then when Tanya got home I showed her the fun. 11 o'clock fun. There's nothing like it.

Horse Packin in Action

I got my camera back today so I thought I'd put up a few of the videos I took.

This is a group of us leaving. The only ride I didn't go on.

Part way into the all day trip we took. This was probably the best part of it. No rain and we were seeing a little bit of sun!

Then we got below the clouds and saw the view. Sorry these are kind of jerky. As you will hear me say, Dakota wasn't staying still so it was hard to get a video. Some of them are so bad I couldn't put them up.

Religion: in answer to your comments

I would like to take the time to respond to the comments that I received regarding my blog on religions. First of all let me just make mention of my shock in seeing that so many people had come across it. I would be interested in knowing how this was done. Furthermore, it was not my intention to offend, however that in itself is a dumb statement. How could it be anything but offensive? I therefore apologize for poor judgment on my part. For those of you that were kind enough (and I do mean kind enough because I truly appreciate your comments) to leave me your thoughts, I sincerely hope that you will take time to read my further comments—a clarification if you will.

First of all, the thoughts and opinions stated should be in no way traced back to my professor or my university. He has given a comprehensive summary of the religions of the world and has never uttered, and would never utter, an opinion as to the rightness or wrongness of a religion, though it has been somewhat compared to our own religion in a measurement of differences and similarities. All conclusions were left to the student.

Please understand that I could write a blog equal to the previous one on my own religion. My church and the people in it are normal, sinful, human beings with their own idiosyncrasies, many of which do not make sense. As one of you pointed out, yes, we have October 22, 1844 as a significant day in our history. Yes, an extremely embarrassing moment as it would seem. But without getting into extreme detail let me just say that we had the right date, but the wrong event. The world did not end on October 22

I DO NOT TELL YOU THESE THINGS IN AN ATTEMPT TO CONVERT YOU BUT IN AN ATTEMPT TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHERE I AM COMING FROM. Please take or leave my opinions as you will.

I am a follower of and a believer in God. This has nothing to do with my religion, though my religion has everything to do with it. Allow me to explain. In my life time I have had access to the Holy Bible. I am an analytical person. In my study I have found that the stories in this book can be proven to have actually occurred by historical artifacts and writings, not only in the religious world but in the secular one as well. Therefore, if I am able to prove its validity then I can further conclude that all stories in the bible are factual and that all writings in the Bible are to be believed and followed. This is not comprehensive in any way. However, I am trying to be somewhat concise and would welcome further questions and comments if you have them.

The Bible portrays God as being the creator of the world, which again, though all may not look at the scientific facts as I do, can be proven. I personally find comfort in knowing that my beliefs are based not only on a founder, but on the author and finisher of my life. Not only is He my God, someone to be revered and worshipped, but He is also my teacher, comforter, and personal friend. He is the end of all suffering.

These beliefs require some belief in the supernatural as well. To explain how I understand it to be in existence would be quite extensive, but I will answer it in this way. God says through the Bible many times to search Him, ask Him questions, observe his miracles and know that He is God. I have searched and asked many questions, and have found without a doubt, that He is God.

It comes down to this, I have fallen in love with my God. To explain the reasons why would take books. It is because of my love for Him that I endeavor to follow the Bible—His instructions for my life. This, is why I am a Seventh-day Adventist. Because I believe that they follow the Bible closer than any other religion I know. Through this community of believers we study and learn together. But in all honesty, if I feel that my church goes against ANYTHING that I find in the Bible, I can promise you that I would look to God first, and my religion second.

It is for these reasons that I have come to love my religion as well as my God. In my comments on Judaism, let me just say that, believe me or not it is a religion that I have come to love. Their ways and beliefs are God inspired and good. What I was trying to say is that my God has freed me from having to go through sacrifices that were once necessary, and I personally cannot thank Him enough for His sacrifice. I do not mean to condemn if your belief is otherwise. If you felt like I was implying that Jews were not going to Heaven, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I have NEVER thought that. In fact I believe that there will be many peoples of many religions in heaven. In my studies of Judaism I have read that they believe that the Jewish Messiah will bring them back together as a people in Jerusalem where they can return to sacrifices, in contrast to the Messiah I know that ended sacrifices with His ultimate sacrifice, and will bring us to heaven. I also understand that the Jewish people believe in a form of heaven but this I was not completely clear on.

This blog was not meant to be a blog to the masses in which I downed everyone's religion. I was simply sharing how glad I was to be a member of my church but unfortunately my method was very faulty. The class that I am taking would have to be one of my absolute favorites, not because I can sit and laugh at them, as you may be thinking, but because I find them to be fascinating. My religion, based on the words of my God, has given me a peace and a joy for life that goes beyond nothing I have ever experienced and it is my sincere hope that you find a joy equal to my own, and if it be in another religion or no religion at all, then so be it.

mental

So I did my first mini mental today. It's an assessment tool that Social Workers use to see how competent and/or depressed their patient is. I can't tell you how nervous I was. They prepare you for everything that could go wrong and by the time I actually got to my patient's room I was scared spittless but had to rustle up enough saliva to talk somehow.

I introduced myself and what I was doing there and she looks at me and says "I just can't stand you people!" The world stopped. Pull yourself together Stephanie. You know what to do. Alright... I was prepared for this. I opened my mouth to give the "well just give me a try speech" when she repeated what she had said and this time I heard "I can't understand you." I about fainted in relief.

Turns out she was quite a nice lady. Her friends who were busy watching Oprah, thought I was fresh out of ABC ready to make their girlfriend a movie star since I had to video the whole process.

I can think of 800 mistakes that I made but well... it was fun. I love my major even tho I decidedly don't want to work in that particular area. We're really getting into the blood and guts of the whole thing and it's great being able to spout off terms to fellow SW majors and nobody knows what I'm talking about. Makes me feel smart anyway. lol But you kind of have to be able to appear smart and competent so people will take you seriously. You go walking into the unit, clad in your professional garb, armed with your name badge and clip board, put in the key code for the door way and sit down in front of the client like you know what you are doing. "Hi I'm Stephanie Ford, Social Work Intern!" Except what you really feel like doing is turning tail and running out of the building which would probably result in standing their pulling on the door in desperation to no avail because you forgot the passcode. Obviously not ideal. I'm supposed to be able to walk behind the nurses station and go through records and prior assessments, but I haven't gotten up the guts to do that as yet.

But whatever. I did it... Thank goodness it's done. Yay for me!

Horse Packin

Every summer NOSOCA has a horse pack trip during one of the weeks of camp. I expressed my desire to go one year to our director Rick Faber and his response was something along the lines of "why would you want to do that? It's too hot to camp. We go during the winter to scout sometimes, we'll put a trip together for yah." So he did and I found myself if Virginia for October break!

Disclaimer: due to heavy fog and prevalence of taking pictures on moving horses some of these are not of extremely good quality but I hope you enjoy none-the-less.

We drove in Wednesday around 7 pm to find camp already set up for us. This is base camp. The barn and bathrooms etc are behind me. To the left is another tent just for warm clothing.... it got extremely cold as I will explain further in a minute. There were twelve us us til friday night when Brent came and made our number 13.

If there was a fire going, somebody was always making stick bread.

Thursday morning feeding up before the morning ride.

Maria made sure to observe the "all dogs must be on a leash" law. This dog is crazy amazing. She and Austie which you will see later are EXTREMELY well trained cattle dogs.

First ride... Turned out to be a crazy one. We were climbing over rocky cliffs. Ever seen a horse slide down a rock?

Thursday afternoon another group went out for their first and only ride. They weren't as die hard riders as some. We only brought six horses.

The rest of us stayed behind and played slave and thump thump.

Supper prep for campfire stew. You put veggies and mushroom soup and fri chic in tin foil then stick it under the coals.


Josh wanted to make sure that we knew which one was his.

The Mountain Man and his Wife cook breakfast...in the rain...and it stayed rainy pretty much all day.

We were able to rustle up a beach umbrella to keep the rain off our food. Very campy I know.

While some went golfing and the rest of us took an 8 hr ride to Elk Garden.

Me and my noble steed Dakota. He's a great horse just a little dumb when it comes to water and getting over rocks. At one point he ended up on his knees. MY knees are covered in bruises because he has an affinity for trees as well. Otherwise he was a perfect ride and a lot of fun. I was stylin the chaps that day for which I later became very grateful.








I think they said that there were something like 160 wild ponies. Aren't they cute? There were some babies in the pack too. They were very unafraid of humanity.

Up at the top of the mountain, visibility was about 50 ft. I felt like I was in a western movie the whole day. I wish you could see Loren's horses' eyes. They are white, which sounds scary but it's actually really pretty. We had quite a bit of trouble with him on this trip tho. He bucked Loren 4 times. It was rather exciting.

Dakota and I take a lunch break

Up in the caves... This day was SOOOO cold and windy and wet. It was more fun then it was miserable but it was pretty miserable at times.

We finally got below the clouds and got to see some of the view. The mountains were in peak but due to the high winds were loosing leaves at a high rate of speed. See the Christmas tree farms? They were everywhere; sometimes right along the path. Made me very ready for Christmas

At the end of the day, everybody was exhausted. Even the dogs.

Saturday morning, incredibly not so saddle sore, we saddled up for our last ride out to the scales. That's me in the big gray coat that I stole from the stash in the closet. By this point it was down in the thirties.

Dakota and I hit the trails again.... can you tell I'm freezing? Even after saddling.

But it was the first day that we finally got to see the sun!!!!

As usual the trails were GORGEOUS!!! I wish I could capture it on camera. Everything was perfect... well except for the fact that I was freezing.

Brent was styling in an attempt to keep warm. I had a scarf wrapped over my head and under my chin to try to keep my ears warm

Nick and I. The horse he's on is named Dancy. She is a really good cattle horse. The Wrangler, Loren, pictured below (can't miss him, he's big and purple) used to be a cattle rancher.
Judy and I crossing the stream.

Dancy got hurt so we had to pony her for awhile. They were all getting tired and not picking up their feet so a few of them got some sizable cuts.

Remember I told you that Dakota hated water? I had been off walking beside him because of the fore stated issues, and he started flipping out because we were in a rocky creek bed, spinning around in circles. Being the round horse that he is, no saddle stays on him very well so between that and his spinning, when I tried to get on him the saddle fell off and well, I ended up soaking wet with mud sprayed up on me. Can you see my wet pants leg? I don't think I got warm again for the rest of the weekend. Dakota never walked through muddy water again. He preferred to jump it instead. The first time of which I was totally unprepared, with my feet out of the stirrups. But like I said he was just enough trouble to be fun. Don't want a boring horse!


That afternoon we all headed out to go on the Virginia Creeper Trail. When we went to rent some bikes they said it was closed however because somebody had put tacks all over the trail and people were coming in with flats. Apparetly some smart one does this 6 or 7 times a year to get back at the government.
So we stopped in the little town of Damascus instead. This is before the apple fight broke out--one of my personal highlights.

But then we found out that the trail was open at least part way so we traided off on the six bikes that we had and rode part of it.

That night a mixture of hunger, cold, and exhaustion hit us and it was Saturday Night Live by the campfire. I wish I could have captured the moment for you. I haven't laughed that hard and that much in ages. This is garlic bread making. I wasn't able to try it myself but I hear that it was so garlicy that with each breath, garlic cloves were reforming in the air. Smore making contests were also part of the nightly events.


Poor Austie was shivering so I put her up on my lap to try to get both of us warm. I think it got into the twenties that night. I was told before I left that you should sleep in as little as possible in mummy sleeping bags because they work off of body heat. On previous nights I had found that to be true but this particular night, the thought of taking off all my layers (can you tell I have more then one pair of pants on? I swear my legs aren't normally that huge) and waiting to get warm in a place not by the fire sounded dreadful so I chickened out and went and crashed in the motor home.

Packed up and ready to go home.

Leaving was definitely bitter sweet. It took me over four hours to finally get warm after we left Sunday morning. Even when I felt warm I was getting cold chills every 5 minutes. If I make it through this week without getting sick I'll find it to be a miracle. I have never been so incredibly cold in my life. However, I have also never had so much fun in my life. Can I go again?

Photo Shot

Tanya got a new camera and is really getting into the photography scene. A local photographer is going to let her work second at some of his weddings. She's been trying different things with her camera and I get to be her model so you may see more of these in the future. ;) she's pretty good eh?

And this was earlier... trying to catch some sleep before the all night soft ball. It didn't work very well.