Quote to Sum Up My Quarter

Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own
record from day to day, and you are a success.


This is what I had to do in order to push myself through and accomplish the tasks and skills on my own!!

It's All Over Baby!!!!!!!

On Tuesday and Today I finished completing my skills testing that we needed to complete Movement 3! After all the whining we did at the beginning of the quarter I am so proud to say that everybody in our cohort passed and is on their way into the future!! From Circus Arts, to Rock Climbing to Mountain Biking we did it all and it feels like a huge weight as been lifted off our backs! I want to thank Leanne and Doc for pushing us the extra mile and being there for us to test with. Today was definitely a happy day but at the same time it was also a bit bittersweet as we realized this would be our final Physical Education class together! I am proud to say that I am a member of THE Cohort and wouldn't have wanted to spend the last two years with a better group of people. I love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.diabolotricks.com/

The Epic Rock Climbing Adventure!!!!!!

Today I did something I thought I would never be part of in my life, due to me never really having a real desire to outdoor real rock climb. We arrived at Peshastin Pinnacles State Park and when we got up there me and my friend Allison teamed up together and we took on the day together. We had similar feelings about the situation and the challenge and worked our way though our climbs. I think what made it so challenging is that it is so hard to simulate rock climbing at Ellensburg High School with their rock wall where you have many many grips up the wall where as in Peshastin there was just a big rock with little holes and grooves that you had to work with. Also I had no idea how to repel until I got to the top and Fred Stanley taught me on the rock and just lowering overall was completely different then at EHS. I actually enjoyed repelling more than the climb! Overall we challenged our selves with everything we did that day and got to feel proud for what we did and we completed 5 climbs and repelling and got advanced in both categories for our skill testing! We got dinner afterwards with the volunteer climbers and professors at Gustav's in Leavenworth. All in all I would say that it will be a day that I will never forget and I'm glad that I got to participate in it.
http://www.washingtonclimbers.org/Climbing/peshastin.htm

Hiking the Ridge!!!

On May 26th, half of the class went to the Manastash Ridge and for me it was my first time going there. It actually was my first time doing hiking of any kind before! The walk got steeper and steeper and higher and higher as we went which meant the more exhausted I got! It got to a point where you kept thinking the top has to be right around the corner and just would never come and because I had never hiked before it had me a little worried. Luckily I had a bunch of my friends to keep me company and we were chatting all the way up and all the way down! Needless to say the down part took a little less time to complete then the uphill climb but all in all it was a lot of fun and it was a great way to take in the view at the top which was breathtaking!!!!!!!!
http://nwjeepn.com/ManastashRidgeRoad.html

Climbing the Wall at EHS

May 21st was a prep climbing day for the rock climbing we will be doing in Peshastin next Thursday. A man from up there by the name of Fred Stanley came down to help us out and prepare us for our trip next week. We practiced climbing, tying knots and belaying today all which is crucial when climbing and which we will need to do on our trip next week! I had a lot of fun and it was a new experience for me because I have never rockclimbed like that before and it made me get a little pumped for the Peshastin climb!

Pirates of Lake Wenatchee: The Quest for the Chest

So the camp was a huge success! I feel like Shane, Mary and I did a great job with the kids and that they enjoyed our session. The Quest for the Chest worked out great and most of our students said that it was their favorite of all the activities! We did have to make adjustments since we had never been there and didn’t know exactly where we were going along our stops along our treasure map. With our session we got to learn about the student’s and connect with them for the amount of time that we had with them. Each group was definitely different, but they were all unique in their own certain ways!! But for the most part we accomplished what we planned for and it worked out.We got to participate in the camps skits and the one I got to participate in was the amazing disappearing act! Shane and Aaron made me dissappear! Im not kidding! The trick to the disappearing act was to create a distraction. Shane had Limwell and Jason get into a “fight” behind the audience to draw all of their attention by them fighting and having the girls scream and pull them off of each other. Meanwhile I ran off stage from behind our sheet that was supposedly "covering" me. Once we gained the audiences attention again Shane and Aaron dropped the sheet to show that I was gone! It fooled many students and worked out very well!The Cabins were that great. They were freezing cold at night and the bugs seemed to really enjoy their stay with us! I did end up being grouped with the same group of guys I roomed with in our hotels in Tampa for the AAHPERD conference so it was no problem. The meals were okay pretty much what I expected. The 80’s dance was a fun way to be able to dress up in ways that we never do, dance and listen to some 80’s music with the 8th graders and have a great time!
Overall it was a great weekend spent with friends while also being able to work with students in a different atmosphere then a classroom(the scenery was gorgeous!) while going though the whole camp experience with skits, campfire, cabins, trip to the Lake Wenatchee beach, and the dance to create a great weekend and experience that I will remember.

Geocaching

On May 12th, we we got to learn about the world of Geocaching! (http://www.geocaching.com/ ) Geocaching is a HUGE scavenger hunt which spans the globe where there is nearly 800,000 Cache's out there which are are all placed by coordinates and the information about the cache is posted online including the GPS coordinates. We got to take our own item bag in groups of 3 and travel across the campus and place it where we want marking the coordinates then we meet up with the group again to share our info, talk to the recreation students, and have some lunch. After that we dispersed around campus again to look for our classmates caches which we had much success. I was paired with Mary and Limwell and we hid our cache in a tree in the Donald L. Garrity Japanese Garden. From what I was told it was one of the hardest ones to find. Overall we learned a lot about the world of geocaching and got to get out in the sun and of course the strong winds of Ellensburg and try it out a little.