#32. Roast marshmallows.

#32. Roast marshmallows.

The group roasting our mellows over the fire! 

Marshmallows and s’mores are a staple in the summer lifestyle. For this item on my bucket list, I shared the experience with some international friends. After coming back from the Girls’ World Forum, we had some guests from Taiwan stay with us at our local Girl Scout camp. They stayed with us for about 4 days and it was great to get to know them and become friends with them. It is a tradition at camp that every Thursday night, there is a campfire and all the girls overnighting for the week come and sing songs. Before the campfire, my friend Annie and I cooked with our new friends. It was a rough night to try and cook outside because Mother Nature insisted on having dark gloomy skies that threatened rain. Annie & I’s fire building and starting skills were awesome, so we had no problem starting the fire. The menu for the night consisted of pie iron pizzas (if you have never tried them before, you must!). For dessert we roaster marshmallows over the fire and made some yummy s’mores. Our guests had never had s’mores before, so this was going to be a real treat! We taught them how to make the perfect s’more and let them explore the difference between burnt and golden brown ones. There were smiles all around, so I think the s’mores were a hit.

Tasting our yummy s'mores! 

{Peace&Love} Jenny 

#29. Do something illegal?

#29. Do something illegal?

Now before you judge me or give me a lecture on how doing illegal things, let me explain. When I say illegal, you have to put it in perspective of me and my personality. I am not the type of person to cause serious trouble, just good fun. J

Matea, Ruthie & I with the mighty mustang! 

The first weekend I got back from school, I hung out with some friends. We were bored and wanted to just roam around town. The 3 of us were on our senior’s class board in high school and we wanted to go check out the new mascot statue that our class sponsored to be put up in front of the school. My high school’s mascot was the mustangs. At the end of the school year, we had some money set aside for a gift to give back to the school. So my senior class decided to have a bronze statue of a mustang be sculpted and put in front of the school. There was a sign by the statue that clearly stated that you weren’t allowed to climb onto the platform and stand in the little planted area. Obviously being the rebels that my friends and I are, we stood up there for a quick picture, before hopping into our getaway car. It was quite an adventure. 

{Peace&Love} Jenny 

#27. Go to the beach.

#27. Go to the beach.

One of the definitions of summer is to spend endless amount of time at the beach. It may not be in the Webster dictionary, but it is in mine. J My adventure to the beach was paired up with an amazing weekend of fun. During one of the last weekends of the summer, I spent it camping with some of my friends. During the day we went kayaking and at one point we found a little alcove that had a beach. All of us had sore arms and were ready to dive into the water for an afternoon swim. I parallel parked my kayak on the shore and ran into the cool water. It felt great! We had a tour guide from the company that we went kayaking with, so we were required to wear our life vests. The water was only as deep as a bathtub (okay, that might be an exaggeration, but you know what I mean). Being the crazy college girls that we are, we did discover that life jackets don’t like it when you lay on your tummy. They always insist that you are floating on your back. We all spent some time trying to fight the force and float on our tummies. It was quite hysterical. 

Us being our silly selves.

Our tour guide also told us that there were muscles that liked to burrow in the bottom of the lake and that we could look for them if we wanted to. I thought it might be fun, so I tried it out and started looking for the creatures of the sea! I will be honest with you and say that it was a bit creepy at first. The water is dark and your just supposed to run your hands or feet along the bottom of the lake and stop when you feel something poking out of the bottom. I don’t know what the heck is down there or what could possibly eat my hands or feet! It was still fun to find the muscles and then throw them back into the water. My friend made the mistake of trying to pry open one that was still alive. The muscle was kind of upset and started to close on her finger. It freaked her out and needless to say, she didn’t help us look for any more. It was a great refreshing time at the beach. The best part was that it was a private beach just for us. We were one of the only people that was chilling out, enjoying the water, and soaking up the sun. It was great fun to spend the day with awesome friends. 

The group of gals at the beach! 

{Peace&Love} Jenny 

#22. Go to the farmers market.

#22. Go to the farmers market.

Every summer my town has a farmers market. It is a very popular event and a lot of people go on Saturday mornings. I personally love going to my town’s farmers market with my dad. It is so fun to walk up and down the aisles of the market and look at all the fresh food from the local farmers. Sometimes there are local crafters that come and sell their homemade goods. On this particular day, my dad and I were on a mission to find some good fruits and veggies. I knew the mission shouldn’t be too hard because there were so many different options! So my dad and I walked up and down each aisle and tried free samples until we found what we were looking for. At the end of the morning, we ended up getting some ears of corn, green beans and a whole TON of raspberries. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a ton of raspberries, but we did get enough to last us for a while.

{Peace&Love} Jenny 

#19. Stargaze.

#19. Stargaze.

I come from a town where the stars can’t always be seen fully and clearly. I can recall those times when I was a kid where I’ve seen all the stars in the sky. One time was when I was with my parents on vacation. I remember sitting under the stars on one of the late nights with my dad, just staring up into the sky. As a kid, I wondered how there could be so many stars in the sky! It still does come in my mind and when I have the opportunity to be surrounded by mass amounts of stars, all I can do is smile.

There were two times this summer where I found myself standing in awe of the great picturesque sky filled with stars. One instance was at Girl Scout camp. I was walking the girls in my unit back to our cabin and everyone had their flashlights paving the way ahead of us. About half way back, I had everyone stop and turn off their flashlights. Some of the girls were a little bitter because they were tired and just wanted to go back to the cabin. Other girls were convinced the bears were going to come and eat them if I had them turn their flashlights off. Nonetheless, I had all the flashlights turned off and we all gazed up into the sky. You could literally see every star in the sky, and it was truly amazing! We stood there in silence, taking in our surroundings, for several minutes. The quiet, peaceful time was short-lived, but it was great while it lasted.

As I am writing this, thinking about the night sky, it made me think of a line from a song. The lyric goes like this: “The same God who put the stars in place, gave each one of us a place in the kingdom of God.” This comes from a song sung by the Mwangaza Children’s choir. I think it does illustrate how amazing the Lord truly is.

{Peace&Love} Jenny