Wild Canyon Games

Go shorty, it's your birthday. We gonna party like it's your birthday. We gonna sip bicardi like it's your birthday. And you know we don't give a WHAT 'cause it's your birthday!

The boys I was babysitting wanted to show me the new song they had downloaded that day. It just happened to be one of Lauren's and my favorite songs growing up. I smiled and shook my head, thinking about the time LaurLaur and I took a hip hop dance class and failed miserably.

Some days, the memories of Lauren are crystal clear. I see a bag of guacamole chips and I just want to go back to surf camp, dancing to Lionel Richie, eating guacamole chips and mangoes, taking photos of the token surfer guy and having to pay to use the restroom. I think about our tickle wars, where instead of tickling me, she would just bite me. Swimming in the pool reminds me of the trip we took to the coast where we buried hidden treasure. Every memory just makes me smile. Lauren was so full of love and life. She was by far the most beautiful girl from the inside out.

But she is gone and that kills me. Last night, Thanittha, Amanda and I went out to dinner to celebrate all the great things happening in their lives. It was a lovely evening and we had a wonderful time. Then I came home. I don't even know what started it. There was absolutely nothing that sparked it, but the tears just came. Just like they came the moment I found out she was gone.

It was the last weekend of March/first weekend of June. I was on my way to kayak with Amanda when I received a few texts from Ashley, Monica and Kim if I was okay. That was how I found out. I pulled over on the side of the back country road and let the tears flow.

There were five hours left until I would climb into a car and make my way to Washington Family Ranch. That weekend, I had the pleasure of competing in the Wild Canyon Games with the YoungLife team. I was not sure I had the strength to compete that weekend, but I didn't want to bail on the team the day of the race. I had no energy. The entire drive out to the ranch, I slept. My mom was hesitant about me driving out there since there is no cell service out at Wildhorse and since it was the camp where Lauren and I had spent so many weekends and summers. It turned out to be the best thing for me though. Not only was I surrounded by awesome memories of my best friend, I was constantly in competition mode so I didn't have time to think about the fact that she was gone. Not having service was perfect, too, because I didn't have the constant reminders.

Wild Canyon Games were incredible! The first evening was a big celebration at the pool with food booths. The next morning, we woke up at 5, ate some breakfast and waited for the games to begin. I was on a team of 7: One person swims 1 mile, one person mountain bikes 25 miles, one person runs a 10k uphill and two teams of two people geocach. I was a geocacher, which required running for over 4 hours straight while searching for caches. As soon as we completed the hunt, our team came together and participated in a competition to see who could do the activities worth the most points in the shortest amount of time. We ended the day in 7th place.

The next morning, we woke up and competed in a relay. I did the blob portion of the relay. Our team kicked butt! At the end of the weekend, we finished in 9th place overall.