Monday, October 30, 2006

Trick or Treat

This weekend fall and the festivities were fully out.


Grace and I took some pictures by the trees at Spalding Elementary.



Pre-Costume party we had tons of fun blowing up fifty billion balloons. I just wanted to sit in them. I was pretty dizzy anyway.



After years of desperate search, I've finally found my man! Only problem is that it looks like I might have a little competition.


Hands down, my favorite costume of the night. Only Caleb...


Doesn't Landon make a wonderful girl?



Well Robert was better... This guy went totally ALL OUT. Tell me his cleavage does not look real. He even went for some major heels AND if I remember correctly, shaved his legs. Honestly, he was just scary. I wanted to run away.

By now you may be wondering what I looked like.. wouldn't you love to know!? I can't get the good pictures off of my phone so... oh well. I was rather scary myself anyway.


Sunday night was SA Fall Festival and this was my station. Pumpkin Carving! I cleaned like 30 of those suckers out and I'd have to say that I got pretty good at it. I am the pumkin carving pumba! Can you find me in that picture?



Grace, me, and Laquina eating some of the AMAZING refreshments. Laquina is having a baked potato. Yeah that was all me. (ok and a few other people) We prepared like 500 of those things that morning. My favorite part was the fresh apple cider. I have never had something so good in my life.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Thoughts from a tired mind.

Sometimes I find myself counting wasted time in minutes. If I'm standing in line too long, I'm thinking about how much homework I could have done instead. If I eat lunch fast enough I can have it done between the cafe and my room. yahda yahda yahda. And then there are the times when I have so much to do but I get in my own way. For instance....

Mission was to get to my sisters to drop off my laundry. I'd just gotten off work, lunch was nasty so I thought I'd go to CK's. I get in my room can't find my book bag. I'd left it at work. Walking out through the main lobby to my car, I realize that I'd forgotten my keys. Go back to my room grab them and some CD's for my sister. After walking halfway out to my car I remember that I had decided that I'll go get my book bag first which was in the other direction. Half way to work I remember I didn't get my laundry which was the whole purpose for this trip anyway! 30 minutes later I'd finally made it to my sisters.

Then there's just the long days. Today was a 6:45-11 day. AKA long. to give you more perspective I took probably about an hour total of time off. It was work by eight, study, class, quick lunch, study madly for a test, classes, back to work. Work was soooo busy. I wanted to shoot myself. Because of a few issues that we're dealing with I ended up in a meeting (getting nothing done) and we're going to have another one tomorrow. Forcing myself to leave things undone, I left work by five and ate lunch as I walked to my room. stared at the cealing for 5 minutes and then to Jaclyns to do laundry and homework. 6:30 went to committee meeting number one. 7 senate started. After senate I walked between three committee meetings trying to catch the main points of each. I think I did pretty well. Up to my sisters again to grab my books and then to the music building. I'm required to listen to music for an hour for each period of music. Great! I can do two things at once. Fill the paper out as fast as possible and then read other homework while the music is playing. Back up to my sisters to grab laundry, go to my room to put it away and then I'm off to worship to get some credit. Oh great she says it's going to go long. And it was. Almost and hour instead of the usual thirty.

Where am I going with all this? I promise I'm not just whining. As it turned out the speaker was GREAT. For a brief moment she touched on making things our idols. We've all heard it before, but after today it struck me a new. I talked to God for about 5 minutes today. Somewhere in between classes probably. Oh and I probably yelled at him for help with my spanish test. The world would say that I'm doing great. Being really prestigious. I signed up for three service things today! Ooooh brownie points to me. But really I've lost sight of what truly matters. It's so easy to get off on what the world expects because its right infront of me. And even if it weren't, I'm such an over achiever. A good friend once said to me "I'd talk to you (on MSN instant messenger) but you are always set to away!" Those words kept running through my head today since the worlds "online" hardly saw the light of day. Why isn't taking time for ourselves allowed? But more importantly, why don't I give my day to God and let him fix the mess that has become my life?

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Together Again

I have a large family. Mom says its about 65. This weekend, quite a few of us got together at Prince William Forrest. When one says that they are going to a family reuion there's an imediate stigma of "yuk." But really this had to be the greatest family reunion ever.












Jaclyn and I drove the 8 1/2 hours from TN to VA. Got a little bored, and even stopped to see the view but made it faster then the predicted mapquest timing. Is that bad?




The facilities consited of a big mess hall and quite a few cabins. The kitchen was huge, which we needed for such a large group.




Mom and I take on the English Muffins. It's called toasting in bulk.












This is my Uncle Kit witha slight Mohawk. Note to self: never give him a bell to wake everybody up MOM, he might not stop cause he enjoys it too much.

New favorite family memory-Jumping over a wall with him, my aunt and my cousin to get to our car in a possessed parking garage.


















These were the cabins. No way of keeping the absolute fridged air out. Very primative but TOTALLY cool. Despite the mice in the wall... I wanted to be a kid again cause my imagination was running wild. But did I mention it was cold? At time I thought I might freeze. Showers were the utmost torture. Probably cause I always got up too late to get a warm one. The fire in the mess hall was the best place to be.



Lindsey and I won the family tree contest. Reward= getting to tell everybody else the answers. (for the record, WARD CHEATED OFF OUR PAPERS!) As you can see we had a little bit of fun with it.







Here are the first cousins... Well a little over half of us anyway. I find it really sad that I don't see these people very much. When I spent time talking with them I remembered just how wonderful they really are. Lindsey and I were instantly inseparable again, just like when we were little. Ward kept saying, "here come the twins." Which brings me to another new favorite memory-Lindsey and I pushing him in a wheel barrow and then visa versa. Oh, and did I mention I got Brent to drink carob! Muah ha hah! It was SOOOO hard to say goodbye cause who knows when I'll see them again.



Uncle Ronnie ran the games. This particular one we were supposed to untangle ourselves. It was really the easiest thing in the world to do except that Dale thought it would be funny to tell us we had to spin clockwise twice and make loops. Yeah whatever. I TRUSTED YOU! This was a moment of exasperation. Am I crying or laughing? Probably both.






Then there was the mummy wrap. We SOOO won. It was rigged because the ref was the grandfater the of the team that won.


I had so much fun I can't begin to describe it all on here or even if I was talking to you. I love my family I do. I love that it's big and I love the people that make it up. I just wish Grandma was still here to see it.





So anyway, there's a few in short cause I've come back late to undone homework. :( Plus I'm missing quite a few pictures that reside on Dad's camera. So maybe I'll get those on here later. Don't laugh, it's not impossible, even for busy me.

Missing Pictures

I admit it... I have been horrible at keeping up with this thing lately so here are a few pictures from a few weeks ago (Oct. 7 I believe) that got neglected.


To spit the juice all over her or not to spit the juice all over her... THAT is the question.




Yes, we really do love each other.




The guys conquer the rock wall. (for more pics, I'm sure you've already seen Jaclyn's blog)





Absolutely beautiful...

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Relaxation Exercises

For this weekend's activities Grace, Tanya and I went downtown to Coolidge to meet one of Tanya's friends. We headed out early to just relax and read before he showed up.



Cruisin along on the highway with the windows down and Tanya as our DJ. It was SUCH a nice day.







We stopped to pay tribute to the statue dumbed "Our Tribode" by Tanya and Caleb. What you don't know is that it is even equipped with cable and running water.





Grace hides her eyes behind the big chic glasses. I just lose mine somewhere in my cheeks.












Tell me that is not the most perfect place to read and relax on a sabbath afternoon. Not a cloud in the sky. They were having row boat competition on the river. Some of the the guys took time out of their racing to blow us kisses. How considerate.