A Farewell to Summer

Well, another summer has come and (almost) gone. I'm heading into my Junior year, and although the perfection of summer was slightly tainted by AP Calculus, AP Chemistry, and Language Arts III Honors homework, it was still amazing. And on the positive side, I managed to celebrate the end of summer with a bang.

If you know Natalie Mancuso, she was a former student at Rocklin High, and she moved to Texas in the middle of the year because her father was given the opportunity for a job promotion. I've been missing her a lot for the past six months because she's one of my close friends, but she flew out from Texas in the beginning of August and stayed at my house for an entire week.

That one week was like a reunion for all of our friends; all eight of us together again, the complete "octet". We celebrated Natalie's return to California by throwing a pool party, complete with tons of food, and then going out to dinner at the best restaurant in the world: Chili's. The next day, we lounged around and hung out at my friend's house and discussed politics, interestingly enough. And on Friday, we went to Roller King. Roller King is officially the new place to be, even if we were some of the only teenagers in an old wooden rink swarmed with small children. The snacks are super cheap, you can request whatever song you want (if they have it), and plus, rollerblading is ridiculously fun.

On Saturday, I stole Natalie away from all our friends, and we went to visit my grandma's house instead. Even though I've been to my grandma's house more times than I can count, this time was really special and interesting. We got to pick the fruit of the trees (which was very unsuccessful, seeing as most of them were eaten by birds, rotting, or still green), have dinner, and play old games such as Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land with my younger cousin. It was that kind of homey, reminiscent feeling I haven't had in a long time.

Sunday was fairly uneventful, although we did go to AMF bowling and play the games along the back wall like they were slot machines (Natalie wasted a handful of quarters trying, and almost succeeding, to win a new mp3 player). We also went to our church, Saints Peter and Paul, where Natalie caught up with our church family that have missed her as well. We had dinner at a friend's house afterwards and scoured local stores for fanny packs (which apparently are too old to be even sold anymore) for a trip we were going on the next day: Six Flags!

Six Flags was amazingly fun, even if when we got there it was freezing cold and I had a terrible stomach ache. But after riding the Medusa first thing and taking pictures on the rides (I took my camera on practically all the rides that day), I felt much better. In the 70 degree weather, my friends and I rode the log ride three times in a row, completely soaked and freezing by the time we were done. We also met a bunch of employees that day (named Sonjay, Ryan, and Marcus), who were extremely entertaining while waiting in the long lines. Sonjay and Ryan even came with us on rides after they were off duty, and Sonjay gave me his employee discount when I wanted to get a Henna tattoo. So I guess it's safe to say that picking up random employees at theme parks is a good plan of action.

Tuesday was a complete drag, as Natalie was leaving that morning. It was another sad goodbye, but the fun times we had completely overshadowed the only sad moment. Now as we are quickly approaching the school year, and I will miss the late summer nights,the relaxing vacations, and my good friend. But I guess I'll just have to wait until next summer.