
I always have to be careful with summers, because they can easily disappoint me. There's nothing like spending 2 weeks straight waking up at noon, mindlessly roaming around the house and having your eyes overstimulated by 5 hours of video games that gets you off to a great start for summer. Your two weeks down and you feel like your in the negative in terms of true entertainment levels. That's always fun... I've had about enough of those kind of summers.
I will always remember last year's opening weekend of summer; I don't think I will ever top it. It was my first year of taking duel credit ACC classes and, although I did very well, I was running on fumes as the school year ended. So as I handed in those last term papers the family packed up for a weekend trip to San Antonio's newest resort. Although those timeshares are about the biggest con-jobs in the world, they do provide some great accommodations for their presentations; no strings attached. Its a routine for us now, the parents drive us all down and sit through an hour long presentation while we enjoy whatever we can and then we say no thanks, swim in the pool for a while and take home our free toaster or whatever.
This time, we got a weekend stay and it was just what I needed to kick off the summer. Whether it was sleeping in, swimming in the many pools, splurging on ice cream, or napping in a hammock for hours in the afternoon, it was paradise.
I couldn't quite top that this year, but its not like I was disappointed. "Leave" was a great way to start this year's summer, although it wasn't exactly what I expected it to be. After busting my toe open in the first mud activity, I was rendered slightly immobile for the rest of the week, but in the end, I think it was good for me. I didn't have to worry about doing as many activities as possible and I merely enjoyed hanging around the snack bar and bringing the glorious game of scum back from Faith Franklin's banishment. It was an interesting adventure in my ultimate power over my own emotions and feelings, but that could be a whole other post. It was also good to get to know some of the guys better. We had some good conversations about the future of this youth group, but more about that later.
After getting back, we had a few weeks off before our family went travel crazy. I can't tell you guys how sweet it is to get out of the house often and do whatever. A car automatically boosts any summer to a whole other level. Me and my cousins went down to San Antonio and Fiesta Texas before me and Lydia snagged two seats for NBA Finals game 1. Oh and my Spurs won the Championship by the way; put that in your pipe and smoke it Jason. Fun fun fun...










We did spend a day on Maui at the Westin. All I can say is that I like hot tubs. However, us kids were soon on a plane back to Austin for some rest before Boot Camp. Camp was great and I can just tell that my team will be awesome. More than anything, it was good to see the youth come together that week. Boot Camp does things to people and this year was no different. I've been around this youth group for a while now and I've seen times of growth and of uncertainty and I've wondered what will happen to you guys once I'm out of here. It was really good to talk to the "next generation" and pass on some advice and help set the tone for the summer. I won't talk too much about that because I'm not going to permit myself to. But I can see that this group of kids is heading in the right direction and its because enough of you know who's really doing the directing. So I'll call that an update and maybe, just maybe, I'll keep this blogging thing up.