Rainier Stake Youth Conference 2009

The photos have come back from my youth conference that took place in June. Our theme for the conference was S.T.A.N.D. (Stay True and Never Doubt) , based on the mutual theme for the 2009 year (Be Thou An Example). It was an enjoyable two days, especially since our stake hasn’t done a youth conference in a while.

The first day we spent the afternoon doing a service project. That was followed by a dinner, brief fireside from our stake president, and a dance. The following day included various games and activities, along with classes from various adults in the stake, as well as some guest speakers. That night we dressed up for a formal dinner, and had a presentation where we viewed short films that each ward had made to illustrate different topics found in the For Strength of Youth pamphlet. I think that our ward had the best one by far. The conference ended with a great testimony meeting, and had all the youth already looking forward to next year’s.

A Day at the Beach

Since it is summer and the sun is shining, we decided to spend a day at the beach, one of the advantages of living on the Oregon Coast. I took a few pictures while I was there, and also saw a few things that I had never seen before.

We occasionally  have sea life wash up on the beach. I’d never seen anything that large until this visit. We saw a washed up sea lion. It looked like it had been there at least a day, do to the fact that it’s head was already a skull. Once in a while we will have a whale wash up too although I’ve never seen one.

  Like I said earlier, it has been great weather for awhile. There has still been a breeze at the beach, but with a jacket it is perfectly comfortable.

I took this shot because this I thought it looked kind of cool. I don’t know much about professional photography. 

We have some bald eagles that live near our house and there is a good sized population in the area. Two decided to use the sea lion carcass as a snack, so they got fairly close to where we were. They are fairly large birds and are an experience to see.

One in a million (Or thousand or even hundred.)

You always hear about those stories where people find a fifty or hundred dollar bill just laying around. You never think that it will happen to you, but you never know.

I had something somewhat similar happen to me. My bank, TLC Federal Credit Union, has a program for teens that use the bank called Free 2BU. What it basically entails is that every time you deposit money into your savings account you get entered into a drawing. The prize of the drawing used to be an iPod, but recently they switched it to a $100 VISA gift card, good to use anywhere that VISA is accepted. Since the bank covers three different counties, (Tillamook, Lincoln, and Clatsop), the chances of winning aren’t too great, unless you make quite a few deposits.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the bank saying that I had won the card. I didn’t even know then that the prize was a card, but I was excited to hear about it.

I picked up the card when I made another deposit. It looks just like a normal card, and while I haven’t rushed out to spend the money already, it will be nice to have some more spending money for whatever I decide to spend it on.