Tessa's Tales: Alaska

Well folks, I'm back in the lower 48, reunited with my family, and I'm really happy. I have met my new niece and nephew and my brother got married and I saw a bunch of my favorite friends and I got a sunburn while I was rafting the Snake River! Wyoming is so beautiful! It's browner and it's hotter and it's a lot harder to breath when I'm running, but it's good to be home.

But honestly, Alaska was about the best experience of a summer I've ever had! I had so much fun and I really feel like I'm coming home a better person. I learned a lot of things that I needed to learn and I used my own brain a lot. I experienced some things that were totally new to me and I learned that I like them. For example, I went wake-boarding at Devin's... well, Doug and Julie's cabin on Beaver Lake and I crashed hard lots of times and then gave up. But I went back the next week, and I got up! It was so exciting and so fun! I would so love to do that a LOT and get good! I also played pick-up basketball with some older men and I have always been terrified to play basketball with anyone that's not near my same age, but Sadie took me and it was so fun! I learned how to plant and harvest a bunch of stuff and had to use my rusty math skills. That was fun and I am not turned off to gardening. I'll definitely have a garden when I grow up. It's so cool to watch things that I planted grow up to the point of harvest and then take them to market and people like buy them and are pumped! I ran a lot too this summer. I can't say that I learned how to really enjoy it, but it kept the weight under control and gave me lots of good chats and a good opportunity to get to know my Aunt Lila really well.

With like 2 1/2 weeks left in Alaska, I made an end of summer bucket list. I put on a lot of things and I had to edit it once when I realized I couldn't quite get everything done, but I still did a ton! Those last few weeks were jam packed with not much sleep and a lot of good clean fun! Sadie was with me for everything that we did and it was great! I also had a lot of good friends that helped me check everything off. It was a good summer.

This last Monday, we had a big family party and roasted hot dogs and I taught the kids how to play kick-the-can and we took pictures and it was just a really good time! I love my family up there and how they treated me so well and just took me in. I especially wanna thank my Grannie and Grandpa for letting me stay with them. They fed me and let me sleep in their house and let me borrow their car and just loved me. I love them so much and I'm so glad that I got the chance to have this summer with them. And I wanna thank Aunt Carol for being such an awesome boss! She never yelled at me and we had good chats that got me thinking about a lot of stuff. It was fun to work with her. And Aunt Lila for running with me and encouraging me all through the training and keeping me going and for letting me play at her house a lot. And all my other family too. It was just an awesome summer! Definitely in the top best summers!