Weekend Update: Homecoming and Parents' Weekend!

Watch out Azusa, James and Suze are coming in! 

I had the wonderful gift of having my parents here this last weekend for Homecoming/Parents' Weekend. It was so great to have a little piece of home here (plus, ok maybe possibly I might have kind of missed them a little bit). 

They arrived on Thursday where I went to go pick them up from LAX, a complete adventure in itself as their flight got in an hour late resulting in me circling the LAX arrival terminals for a full hour while listening to Taylor Swift. 

From there, we drove straight to their hotel in Pasadena (one of my new favorite cities), had a late lunch at Jonny Rockets (classy), went shopping in Old Colorado and headed back to Azusa for the Battle of the Bands event that was going on there, after a late-night snack of Applebee's (I know, also so classy), the parents went back to Pasadena while I stayed in my dorm to finish up on homework for my classes Friday.

On Friday, we met for chapel where the speaker was coincidentally from West Michigan, now living in California and a good friend of my home pastor. What a small world. In a pretty crazy day, we hit up Target, Chipotle, my trainer's house to bake cookies for the football players (the life of a cheerleader), and practice. After practice we went back out to Pasadena and had dinner at Trattoria Neopolis - delicious food, weird waiter. 

On Saturday, we woke up late and drove back into Azusa for lunch at a BBQ lunch and I spent the afternoon getting ready for the game and rallying through the Homecoming activities promoting the game. And then my parents finally got to see me be a college cheerleader! 

Tails of a College Cheerleader

Got all my cheer gear! We're completely
Nike'd out with backpacks, shoes and clothes.

Well, who knew Hunter would actually grow up and go to college?

Ok, probably everyone due to the fact that college has been my conversation topic of choice since I was two.

Dad and I moved the majority of my stuff into my dorm on Tuesday, August 21 so I could be (mostly) moved in by the time cheer camp started the next day - Wednesday. I dropped him off at the airport on Wednesday morning, got breakfast with some of my new freshmen teammates and ended the day with a meeting and team dinner for the first day of cheer camp.

Speaking of cheer camp....

Camp was probably one of the roughest things ever to hit me mentally and, more so, physically. We started actually working on Thursday morning where we started it off light - yeah, right. Our personal trainer, who I have a love-hate relationship with because the workouts are tough but she's one of the coolest people I've met so far, kicked all of our butts with a 6-mile morning run to start off the season followed by a little more conditioning. We continued the remainder of the day stunting with an amazing stunt coach - John Blake - who didn't just kick our butts, he kicked a little bit of everything with the most intense stunting sessions I've ever been apart of in my life.

The freshmen on the team! 

Before lunch, due to a little lack of food and my weird blood sugar issues, I slyly threw up in a nearby trash can on the way to lunch without anyone seeing (score!). After dinner, we ended the day with team bonding games and what we liked to call Story Time, where Coach Rosie put 10 minutes on a timer and one at a time girls shared about what makes them...well, them - their life story, their faith, their cheerleading history, etc.

Friday ran very much the same minus the puking, plus a black eye.

Just a few bumps and bruises from cheer camp.

Saturday, we stunted early in the morning instead of working out. And then, my favorite part of cheer camp, we all loaded up into cars and drove out to Hermosa Beach to do beach workouts with our trainer Bri. On the beach, we literally had a crowd watching from the pier as 20 cheerleaders in sports bras and Nike Pros worked out on the beach with their trainer blowing a whistle. After the workout, we had the day to enjoy the beach (my first time in the Pacific Ocean!).

Cheer camp lasted until Sunday, August 26 and ended with the whole team attending church together.

What's Going On Now:

At this point my mama flew in to LAX and I'm currently in the midst of running errands (more dorm supplies) and shopping with her! I'm so happy that she could be here and she'll be staying through orientation. So, that's what we've been doing so far! Orientation starts on Friday and that's when all the fun and activity will start. And when my really quiet hall of just me and my RA will fill with a ton of girls moving in.

I'll keep you posted on more! Keep praying for me!

About Me!

As of late, I have been incredibly inspired and it has been suggested by a few close friends that I should start a blog. So, here goes nothing!

My goal in blogging is to work on my writing on an almost daily basis, to share ideas, to inspire others, and hopefully learn a little something about myself and my life through it.

So for my first entry, I'll tell you a little bit about myself:

1. I'm a cheerleader to the core. I've been cheering since fourth grade and now have the amazing opportunity to be a college cheerleader!

2. I have worked for three summers on staff at a Christian youth camp called Hiawatha Youth Camp in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I was a camper there for six years as well, so it has been my summer home for most of my life.

3. During the fall of my junior year of high school, I was able to study abroad in the Bahamas at a semester program called The Island School. Many of my blog posts will be centered around this experience and it will be explained more later.

4. I graduated this year! Yay class of 2012.

5. I will be attending Azusa Pacific University (located in southern California). There, I will be studying journalism and cheering for the APU Spirit Squad.