Current location:	Home.
Current mood:	anxious
Current music:	tv

And again...returning regularity?
As the summer begins its slow curve towards autumn, and Lethbridge and school loom ever nearer, I take a moment to consider the coming changing of seasons in my own life;

wasn't that poetic? I'm not sure where to run with it though, so I'll just recap and blab.

I don't remember where I left off in my summer, but I'll just start with last weekend and be done with it.

I took what turned out to be a really nice trip out to BC with my dad, Clayton, Karen, and her kids Zack, Leah, and Brittany (room-mate-to-be), as well as Leah's ex, Jeff. We spent a week in Kelowna, renting a gorgeous house on the west side. It looked like a show-home, it was really beautiful inside, and there was a lovely pool in the backyard. The yard and pool were still partially under construction, but still; we only had the upper floor though, and the agency we rented the home from failed to mention while we were there there would be an elderly man (the owner's son) living in the basement and working on the yard the whole time. Haha.

Mmmm, so what did we do?

We went shopping a few times, Lauren managed to weasle enough money out of dad to buy a pair of jeans, and also got some cozy sweat capris and a couple t-shirts (courtesy of karen), and the other girls got some stuff, Jeff got a white straw fedora, much to Leah's annoyance, and Clayton and Zack both snuck off one night and spent something over three hundred dollars on designer clothes at an upscale store a friend of Karen's ex, Chuck, owns. We later got to sign the floor of the store with marker. Heehee. We rented a boat for a couple days too, and took it out on the lake and went tubing and wakeboarding (not for lauren); it was so much fun! My dad even tried tubing, but it ended up screwing up his back, poor man. Chuck even came out to visit for a few days and came tubing with us. I tell you, its a strange sight to see your dad, his girlfriend, and her ex husband all chilling out with the mingled kids. I tried picturing my mom being on the scene and couldn't do it without picturing her foaming at the mouth. Chuck joked about stealing my dad away for himself because he liked his cooking. :P

Us kids also went minigolfing, and we were going to go parasailing but it didn't end up working out. We took a trip out to a little beach with a friend of Britt's (Dave) and one of his friends, looking for some rocks to jump off, but the water seemed kinda shallow so we just hung out for a while. On the hike to and from the beach though we found a snake (just a small harmless one that clayton accidentially partially squished) and some HUGE freaking spiders.

Brittany and I went out with Dave a few times while there. The first night we went to meet him at a stripclub, where we mostly avoided the stipper area. He was there with a friend of his who'd just gotten out of a relationship and was hammered off his head. He philosophically informed Dave, with a serious face and tone, that, "the only person who will ever be attracted to you, is you". Oh, burn! We think he meant something more along the lines of, in order to love and be loved, you must first love yourself.

We also met a random man on the street who approached us with arms wide open and slurred, "Kelooooownaaaa!"

Later walking on the beach, Dave decided to climb up on a ferrie in his boxers and dive off, only to be scolded by security. A few days later however he not only mentioned to climb back off and dive off, but got a guided tour through the boat by someone who was aboard. Then we all went to another part of the beach and went for a swim, most of us in our underwear (there were five of us) except for Dave's friend Matt, who had thrown his boxers in the lake back at the ferrie for a reason no one could fathom and thus skinny dipped. Dave and another girl made failed attempts at climbing up on a bouy, which flipped and dipped into the water with all the grace and obstinance of a floating rubber stick.

After Kelowna we took a three day trip to Tulameen, BC (minus leah and jeff). Never heard of it? No surprise; its a tiny community just outside of Princeton with a population of less than sixty people. The town motel has six rooms, and town has one all purpose general store, about the size of any regular convenience store. It includes a liquor store and a restaurant, the only one in town. We were there for a family reunion with a whole bunch of Hassells no one had ever met. It was short and sweet. My aunt Kathy and her son Josh ended up coming too. We had a pancake breakfast, softball game, there were horseshoes and hotdogs, and a buffet dinner, shortly after which we left for our cabin to pack for leaving the next day. We also had some surprisingly awsome sushi in Princeton. In Tulameen we stayed in a pretty log cabin, also cricket-infested. I stayed up almost all night the last day there watching for a meteor shower that never turned up.

This trip was great because I got to spend a lot of time with my family, which is important to me, and although I didn't get as much time with my brother as I would've liked, I did get to talk about a lot of things and get to know Leah a lot better and spend a lot of time with Britt, and I'm looking forward to living with her. Leah's moved to Lethbridge too.

My own move is tentatively planned for early next week. I'd come back for a while after I've got some stuff down there, but its time to start getting things from point A to point B. I'm nervous though, about leaving home; just as I feel like I'm starting to connect with my family, (well, sadly not so much my mother), I'm leaving them all and I'll really miss them. I don't know if I'm really ready to be gone completely and not move back in with them ever, I didn't think about that. I'm wondering if I want to bring all the things out of my room and all my pictures and de-personalize my room here, but then what if I come back to visit and nothing is here to mark that I belong here as more than a guest? I need to feel stable, and my only consolation is knowing that my dad won't live in the condo much longer anyway. That does help. He's planning on buying a house in the next year or so. But will there be room for me to live there or am I expected to live in Lethbridge year long until I graduate and find my own place elsewhere after? I guess that makes sense, but am I ready to make that decision, to leave home forever already? Do I want to go from seeing my family every day to seeing them every now and then for the rest of my life? I know that I need them and I don't want to lose my barely forged connection with them. I feel like I'll lose them. I like to know they're always nearby. But I guess while I'm in Lethbridge, they're only a couple hours away. Wish me luck getting my license;

Peace