Scenes from Spring Break...

Just a few pictures from my break a couple weeks ago.I did quite a bit of driving, but the weather was perfect for traveling!
I spent HOURS on this project. It took forever!!! It made me hate my life. For real!

A very special baby turned 1 YEARS OLD!!! I cannot believe how quickly one year went by!

This year's ceramics...I think they're definitely better than last semester's mugs and bowls!

photo from my little jaunt to Harper's Ferry...

My cereal bowl with a handle...I love having a bowl with a handle! :)

Flowers just make the whole house seem so cheerful.

When I got back to school I was surprised to see that everything had bloomed while I was away. It was gorgeous! My roommate and my friend and I all went down to a local trail by the river to walk around. It was such a nice way to end the week.
I still have pictures from the Pre-NCECA conference that was held at my school that I'm waiting to get my hands on! Can't wait to post about it. :)

Sunday, Sunday...

So far we have been surviving our cold, snowy weather. I am seriously not used to this much snow. It snows every day it seems. And the roads are getting all messed up. My little car doesn't like it very much. And our city won't scrape the sidewalks which the students hate! snow

I went to church today with my friend. I only started going to this church since the beginning of this semester and I can't say how much I like it there. The teacher is really good and I come away with a lot each week. I feel so blessed to go there. It seems like a young church. It's small and they meet in an old theatre downtown. A lot of people from Campus Crusade for Christ go there too so I was pleasantly surprised when I visited and recognized or knew quite a few people. I go to a small group Bible study that meets in the home of one of the couples and in just a few weeks I feel like I'm already a part of that body of Christ. It's a blessing.

After church my friend and I went across the street to a little restaurant called Madeline's. We go there occasionally after church for lunch and it's a cool little place. It seems like everything is home-made, not heated out of a package which we all appreciate. :) I enjoy places like that much more than a chain restaurant.

Ha ha, I included this picture of the ladies' restroom. It's kind of an intense room...so purple and cheetah-ey...it makes me laugh. We are considering finding a guy friend to go into the mens' restroom to take a picture so we can tell if it is as wildly decorated. We are curious. Hee hee.

So it's Valentines Day. On Friday nights I go to a Women's Bible study that is through Campus Crusade for Christ. It's awesome. I love ladies' Bible studies. So on Friday the guys' Bible study gave a big bouquet of roses to the girls at the womens' Bible study. I don't really buy into this holiday. I think it's kind of silly. But I know I wasn't the only girl who thought it was really sweet of them. :) Nice move, guys! On the subject of Valentines day so many people I know are bummed because they don't have dates. It is kind of funny actually. Some years I am bummed too, but this year I don't really mind not having a date or valentine. I'm going to my friend's house tonight with my roommate to watch chick-flicks and hang out (I'm sure chocolate will be involved *smile*) for the holiday. Whether or not I have a special guy friend for Valentines day I feel so incredibly loved by my family, dear friends and especially by Christ. I can't say enough how amazing it is to me that He loves me. This semester I have become more aware than I ever was of how greatly He loves us. I mess up so often and am so selfish and act in what I think are my best interests and He always forgives; always takes me back, builds me up and then gives me another chance. Who else does that?

I hope your Valentines day is full of love from the people around you. Have a marvelous day!

Snowstorm!

We had a snowstorm here! School is closed tomorrow...we never close! This is so exciting! It's my second snow day EVER! We got about 15 inches of snow here. Back home they have about 3 feet! 15 inches is enough trouble to maneuver in. I've never even seen three feet of snow.
(layering up on our gloves...next item to buy: insulated gloves! I didn't even think to get any until this storm hit!)

Anyway, I usually hate snow. I complain about it and say how terrible it is. But I think I like snow up here. This past weekend has been fun! My dear friend got stranded at my dorm with me and my roomie (who also is my dear friend) for two nights and we had a blast together! We got Nutella and pretzels and Reisens and played outside, listened to music, watched youtube videos of Christian 80s rock bands (their hair is hil-hair-ious), veggie tales silly songs with Larry (who knew there were so many?), made awesome dinosaur sandwiches and talked...talked...talked. I also got to see my sister and her husband and my niece who were traveling back home this weekend. Thankfully they made it back safely!

Here are a few pictures from the weekend! I'm so glad I don't have to go to classes tomorrow! It's so exciting!Cleaning my car. My RA was kind enough to lend me his scraper so I could get the snow off my car so I could get into my car to get my scraper. I'm wearing my new $3 hat! It's totally awesome!

Beautiful snow-covered branches.

The little seating area outside our dorm.

Our Resident Faculty Leaders brought food over from the dining halls and cooked a bunch of hotdogs for us so we wouldn't have to walk down to the dining hall for lunch. They also hosted a pancake dinner for us.

This is one of the guys from my dorm. He and his best friends who live here are sort of like a "breakfast club." We've got the smart guy, the jock, the quiet one and the clown. They come to our dorm Bible study and they're hilarious. This guy was running around outside WITHOUT SHOES!!!! I told him to "get thee inside and put some socks on, fool!" These freshmen (shakes head)...We made a trip to the store to get...um...provisions. Of candy and such. Well, we like to be prepared!We went outside at night while we only had about 6 inches.

Boy, do I look 80s here or what?

Some of the people from my dorm went sledding down one of the big hills. They were having so much fun! We opted out of sledding, but we still had fun too.Cold!

Unfortunately, you can't see it here, but it was so sparkly and it looked like glitter. Or a giant opal or something.
Okay, these dinosaur sandwich cutters are quite possibly the best 3 dollars I ever spent, (besides my new most favorite hat in the world which was also three dollars it has ear flaps and is lined with fleece. And it's fairisle...completely amazing!). Lunch is so much fun now!
And the next day the sun came out for awhile. It was so pretty to see the blue sky! It went away pretty quickly and it even was flurrying again today. We sure have had a cold, snowy winter this year! I can't say it enough, I'm so excited to have a snowday tomorrow! The gym will be open and hopefully the studio will be too. If so, then I think tomorrow is going to be a really fun day!

It's beginning to look a lot like autumn!

Everywhere I go!

I love love love this time of year! Even though it's very cold, it makes me so happy!

A trip home!

I went home this weekend because I needed to get my car inspected. And I needed to get my big girl license, as one of the guys from Bible study put it (I turn 21 in less than a month!). And I needed to figure out my life because I'm changing my major and I need to pick out classes for next semester and I had NO CLUE as to what to do. In the end I got my car inspected and have some idea of what to do next semester...but unfortunately I didn't have much luck at the DMV. Social Security is down till Tuesday so they can't do anything with licenses until then. Oh well, I'll have to do it some other time. Two out of three isn't bad!

In addition to doing those things I just needed to see my family. And I needed to have my retainer adjusted, which I got done on Friday afternoon when I got into town. Not that anyone wants to know that. :) After that my family went to a hotdog roast at my sister's in-laws' house. It was a lot of fun and I got to see friends I haven't seen in quite awhile! The next evening I went to my sister's house for dinner and got to see the Bible study guys and my dear friend Becca for awhile. The visit was not nearly long enough, but at least I got to see them. :) The rest of the time this weekend was spent with my family talking, going to the store, snuggling with my niece, watching The Jungle Book and carving pumpkins. Seriously, we didn't buy the Disney's The Jungle Book OR carve pumpkins until I was 19. I'm catching up on all those kiddie activities now that I'm 20. :) It's great fun!
Here are pictures of the weekend!

I carved the smiling one with the teeth...I think the reason mine got teeth is because I worked for dentists for 2 years. :) Adam carved the one with angry eyes. >:
This little puppy is Abby. She is our other Havanese (Jude's girlfriend) and she is a ball of energy. She's a riot!
And she LOVES pumpkins! She and Jude kept running over and eating the pumpkin guts (I just had to call them that, lol). They couldn't get enough!
I make the weirdest faces when I'm concentrating on things. When I was younger I did ballet and made the funniest faces while dancing. I find that I bite my lower lip while I'm doing ceramics too. Does anyone else do stuff like that while concentrating hard on something?
My *not-so-little* little brother. He came out and carved a pumpkin with me. :) Thank you, Adam!
Holly preferred to just document the whole process on film. She is actually taking a photography class and was doing homework for it. So she missed out on the pumpkin carving fun. :( Maybe next time.
I love going home. Being away makes you appreciate your family and friends and hometown more. I am so glad I live close enough to go home every so often and be with my family.

Oh summer...

Well, I don't think this summer is going to be the kind where I get to sit lazily in a hammock and breathe honeysuckle air and just take in nature in general. No. Not for awhile anyway. I'm very busy these next few weeks. I'm working 5 days a week this week and for the next 2 weeks at the dentist office so most of my days are filled with with dental assisting. I have been working on some fun stuff but our computer isn't letting me upload pictures so it will be awhile before I do any posting. But I am planning to do some posting on the things that I've been up to lately including journaling, gardening, sewing (hopefully), stamping...I'm also hoping to go to a craft fair this weekend and I'm sure I'll have pictures of that!

In the meantime, enjoy your summer!

Spring has sprung

Spring is definitely here in all its glory. Things are blooming and my car is a lighter shade of green thanks to the dusting of pollen all over it. Oh, and I am sneezing, my throat is sore and my eyes are swollen and red (which makes me look like I've been crying although I haven't been) thanks to all that light green pollen. I went to the doctor today to have all of my allergy prescriptions refilled. I hope it helps. That way I can be outside and enjoy all the beautiful pink and purple and white trees that are literally bursting or dripping (depending on the variety of tree) with flowers. I love it!

This was taken on the road to our house. Yes, it is gravel. This makes my dad crazy! The road was supposed to be paved at some point but so far it hasn't been. In addition to those purple trees there are tons of honeysuckle bushes all along the side of the road. During the summer it smells gorgeous down here!

Scenes from Winter 2009

Fall Fest

The weather around here lately has been absolutely gorgeous! Yesterday's weather was practically made to order. It was cool and the sun was shining. It really was a perfect fall day.We went to a local farm for a Fall Fest yesterday. The farm was just beautiful! You could tell that whoever owned it took very good care of it.
There was a corn maze and pumpkin patch and apple picking and hayrides and if you felt like going late at night you could do the corn maze in the dark and then go to the House of Panic afterwards. We didn't stay for that. The farm had beautiful buildings and flowers and orchards and they had also set up a sort of store near the house. They sold gourds and pumpkins and apples and apple butter and soap and all kinds of stuff including lots of products from India (not sure what that was all about, but there was a lot of beautiful stuff there!).

The corn maze was fun and in certain places the corn was really tall! We've had a lot of rain here this year so the crops have done very well.

Here are some pictures of the little store they had set up. This was the outdoor part.



This was the indoor part.These guys were so cute! These little alpacas are just a year old. The darker one was named Sterling and the lighter one is Cleave. I loved their faces and the expressions they had. It made me want one.
They look like they're talking to each other or something.
I couldn't resist getting a picture here. My godmother was a good sport and got her picture taken with me. I love those things where you can put your face on a funny body or into a sign.

I just love fall!