Despite All Obstacles Part IV

The Beautiful Hundred-Acre Woods

BARBARA'S STORY

After we're done supper, the sun's setting. My iPhone's in my pocket. I take it out and it's 8:14PM. Dang, time went by fast.

All five of us are hiking. We take pictures of each other in the woods. We start imitating animal sounds, laughing and joking about each other's imitations, even Matt's starting to join the fun. Now, we see the other side of the hundred-acre woods.

"Last one is a donkey's butthole!" Matt teases and starts running, leaving us all behind. The rest of us start racing behind him. The boys are fast, and Shortcake's faster than me.

We finally make it to the other side. Patt and bro are tied in second. Shortcake's third, and I'm last. Matt's the winner. This side is beautiful.

"Whoa!" We all say in awe. I quickly take my iPhone out to take a picture of the view. The sky's salmon, the clouds are lavender, the sun's orange and looks bigger, the river's streaming, the eagles, hawks and ravens are flying over the river, and I also see a curve line of palm trees with parrots on them, and I see the rocky mountains above them all. Now, this is paradise.

While I'm taking dozens of pictures on my iPhone, everybody else does, too. After taking pictures of the view, we take pictures of each other in front of the view.

I take a picture of The Three Stooges (Patt, bro and Matt).

I take a picture of us girls (me and Shortcake).

I take a picture of all of us together.

I take a picture of the Heterochromian twins (Patt and Matt). Yes, I think I finally say it right.

I take a picture of bro and Shortcake because I think they look cute together. I think they may become a thing, one day.

I take a picture of the A.P. crew (Matt and Shortcake).

I take a picture of the Honor's crew (Patt and bro).

And last, but not least. I let Patt take a picture of me, myself, Barbara, Gracie, and I.

I'm definitely posting these on Facebook tomorrow.

"Barbara, let's take a picture together," Matt gladly says. This makes everybody else look at each other surprised and confused, including me. He stands beside me. "Hanging out with a new member of our crew, Barbara," he gladly says and takes a picture of us both. I awkwardly smile.

"Matt, take a picture of me, Patt and Shortcake. The band geeks," bro insists. He happily shrugs and takes bro's Samsung. He shrugs just like his brother, but not as much as him. I also take a picture of "the band geeks". Matt and I do it together, side-by-side.

"1...2...3," Matt counts up and we both catch a picture of them together. I look at my picture. They all looked at the camera. Matt sees it too and lets me look at his. They were looking over his left shoulder, where I was standing. Once I look up at Matt, he walks to them.

I'm starting to think Patt, Shortcake and bro are losing touch with Matt, because Matt's too busy tryna stay popular, which can be why they unintentionally looked at my camera instead of his. The sad part is, he knew them for years. I only knew them for two weeks now.

After taking photos, we lay down on the grass. I lay between Shortcake and Patt. Matt's lying beside Patt and bro's lying beside Shortcake, so I'm in the middle. We stare at the stars forming in the sky that's turning indigo.

I take out my iPhone. It's 8:26PM. The sun doesn't go to the other side of Earth until eleven minutes. We just lay back, chill and relax.

Once the sun finally goes down, we all get up and see the fireflies. I love these bugs.

"That was fun and relaxing," bro compliments nature. We all agree and start walking back to our spot before it gets real dark.

Once we finally found our spot, bro gets to the log and sticks to start a campfire. Matt walks into my tent and brings out the graham crackers, big marshmallows and Hershey bars.

"S'mores!" Shortcake and I cheer, like Loca from That's So Raven (love her). I love me some s'mores. This'll be my first time roasting marshmallows, too. I'm so excited that I'm squealing and screaming inside.

Bro finally creates a campfire, with no lighter or fuel needed, like at all. He stands with pride. "Now, that's how you make a campfire."

"Bravo, bro!" I cheer him on. Everybody claps.

"Who has games?" Patt asks. I wanna play.

"I do!" Shortcake and bro answer. They both race to their tents.

"Hope it's not that Skip-Bo game," Matt says. I agree. Hope it's UNO.

"Same," I shyly agree to Matt, and then peek at Patt. He has a wondering look.

Shortcake and bro came back with games.

"I brought cards. We can play hearts, spades, poker and go-fish. We can even make UNO out of these," Shortcake ecstatically says.

"I got a checker/chess/backgammon board game, but I'll go with the imaginary UNO," bro votes.

"That's not a bad idea. We're all lefties. We can make up anything," I brag and vote for UNO. There's a stereotype about lefties being smarter and more creative.

"Yeah, why not?" Matt agrees. Patt shrugs. I'm starting to like his shrugs even more.

"That's four against one. I was thinking go-fish," Patt opposes and goes with it. We start playing our made-up UNO.

Six games later, it's completely dark out. Shortcake wins all games. I knew that you had to use the same numbers and colors like UNO (you can stack a black queen with a red queen, a red heart over a red diamond), but it was more complicated. I knew she oughta made up that game. Laughing like a maniac, making it rain.

"Yeah, yeah, Shortcake. Game-maker," Matt teases Shortcake.

I shake my head, laughing to myself. I'll make up another text acronym right now: SMHL2MS

PATTHEW'S STORY

This evening is awesome. San Gabriel Valley's Hundred-Acre Woods is still beautiful. I remember how beautiful it still was when I first went camping here with bro.

All five of us saw rabbits, piglets, grasshoppers, deer, wolves and bears while hiking. I took pictures while they walked pass us and we watched them go on with their business. I really wanted them to come up to us and at least say hi. Oh well.

Once, we went to the other side of San Gabriel Valley's Hundred-Acre Woods, the view was still beautiful. I remembered spending a night here with campers of Palm Trees Elementary for upcoming fourth grade. Bro, I and a couple of boys in our grade sneaked away from the group to see the sunset.

We used our binoculars for a closer view at the rocky mountains. I'm glad we came back. Sigh.