Summer 2016: A Very Eventful Summer

My first summer as a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah is now coming to an end! I have one more day of vacation and then starting Friday, August 19th, I have 7th grade orientation at Hillside Middle School. I am really excited to begin a new year with the Hillside Huskies. I really enjoyed working here last year (even though I was only there the last couple months of the school year), and am looking forward to the experiences and life lessons I will be learning this year as I progress toward my goal of becoming a Special Education Teacher.

One thing I can honestly say about this summer is that it was probably the most eventful summer I have ever experienced. Most of my life's summers were a bit of a grind for me. I get done with school, I enjoy a couple weeks of vacation and then I get relatively bored and feel ready to get busy again. That was not the case this year! At the moment, I am ready to get back to work and get educated but overall, I was actually able to enjoy this summer. Do mind, that during my grade school days, I was a pretty picky and stubborn guy. If there was a trip planned, I often chose to stay home and do my own thing. Now I have grown out of that phase and choose to enjoy more things. I am way more flexible than I used to be. That could very well be the reason I make friends a lot easier now than I used to.

 Every week had something to look forward to. With very little work doing the extended school year program, I had  a lot of free time.

Some highlights include: going out fishing once a week with my good friend Colter, a grueling backpacking trip to White Pine, Hemlock with friends Landen and Trevor, and a fishing trip at Lake Fontanelle, Wyoming. I often told friends that the Wyoming trip was going to be the highlight of the summer because I was excited to explore a state I have never been in before. However, now that it has happened, the highlight honestly had to be my brother J.J. (Jenson) returning home from his LDS mission in Mexico City. This was a moment that I will embrace in my memory for quite a while. Not only was it amazing to hang out with my youngest brother for the first time in 2 years, but just seeing the family emotions, especially Mom and Dad made it a truly incredible moment. I really loved when the 3 of us Walters boys hung out at a hotel with Dad and we were so excited to all be with each other, that we couldn't sleep the whole night. J.J. claimed to have gone a few days without sleeping, and even he could barely sleep.

After hanging out with Dad, it was Mom's turn. I got to see her new house, which I have to say is really impressive compared to the house we grew up in. That house will always be full of memories but this house just looks like a step up. The backyard is bigger and nicer in my opinion, and the interior of the house looks a lot richer, especially the kitchen.

After spending a couple days at Mom's house, we then had a Summerhays family reunion at Bear Lake celebrating J.J's return. The lake was beautiful and Uncle Josh and Aunt Nicole who own a little hut up there provided a lot of fun activities. I really enjoyed riding the boat and holding onto the tube for dear life. Another highlight came at this moment and that is my other Walters brother, Brennan proposed to his girlfriend, Mars on the boat in the middle of the lake and he did it in a very classic Brennan fashion.

I do have one more event I am looking forward to before I start becoming truly busy and that is going to see Rebelution with my friend Samantha. I am really excited about this. I met Samantha working at Danville last summer and we still have a good bond even after me living in Salt Lake for a year. I am still amazed that she is willing to drive from St. George to go to a concert with me. It is going to be a blast.

I have been making some personal goals to work on this year. One goal is to cook more, and eat out less. I admittedly ate out quite a lot last year. There were some weeks I did not even eat at home. It was the Freshman 15 all over again!! There were so many places I wanted to try in Salt Lake City, and I still have some places on my list, but not near as many. I have found a renewed love of cooking this summer. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos (some favorite channels include HellthyJunkFood, and Brothers Green Eats) and food network (I love Alton Brown) to inspire me. Cooking is becoming something I look forward to because I can imagine a certain food I am really craving at the moment, and truly make it my own. My favorite thing I made so far was my own version of Taco Bell's Beefy Crunch Burrito. I made it spicier and meatier than taco bell's and it was so worth the extra time and effort to make.

I also am trying to drink a lot more water, and hopefully even give up carbonated beverages for good, except on special occasions. I got this new water bottle that I will carry around with me and that should help me with this goal a lot. The plan is to drink so much water, I won't even be thirsty enough to crave a soda. My fluid intake is going to be limited to water, tea, and coffee.

The rest is obvious. Continue doing well in college, gain a lot of experience and ideas through my job and just simply enjoy life. I have some fun plans this year and look forward to telling you about them on the next blog entry which will be around Christmas time. Thanks a ton friends for following me and I hope you all have a good Fall 2016!