Memory #16

Meeting Nick--Fall, 2002

I do not remember the first time I met Nick.  That is because he was a sophomore and I was a senior, so obviously I was way too cool to notice him.  But, my roommate, Brittney was hanging out with him and his friends more and more, and soon everyone I lived with was hanging out with them except me. That changed one night when my roommates and I went to have dinner at the Biola caf and Nick and his friends were eating there too.  We ended up all eating together, then going over to the SUB to play a game.  It was that night that sparked my interest in Nick.  I started hanging out a lot more when the guys were around after that.

Over interterm that year, a group of us took a class together at Fullerton College.  This is where Nick and I really got to know each other.  We made a bet one day when we were taking a test that whoever finished the test last had to take the other one out for ice cream.  I won, and Nick took me to ice cream the next week.  So, technically that was our first date, but we don't really count it as the first date.  There was also an unofficial date where we went to the park to play frisbee.  That whole date is on video, thanks to my lovely roommates who showed up with the video camera to spy on us.  We knew they were there when we discovered their car parked right by the park.  After that, it felt like forever before Nick finally asked me out on our first real date (which is also on video...man, I have a lot of videos to find and post on here).

I do have to give Brittney and Esther some credit for my relationship with Nick.  They spent a great deal of time talking to him about me while standing at the window of his dorm room (because they were girls and he was a boy and this was Biola and girls were not allowed in boys' rooms...it's a good thing he was on the first floor).

So, we went on some dates, we kissed, and we made it official.

The rest is history.

I love him!
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Today's Wish List Item is...
Cute Dish Towels

                                                                                             Source: worldmarket.com via Mindy on Pinterest

                                                                                         Source: worldmarket.com via Mindy on Pinterest

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Memory #15

Family Parties

I really think I have the best family.  The times that we have all spent together are some of the best times of my life.  We have had many many parties and have so much fun together.  These are a few of the parties that happened during my twenties.  There were more, but these are what I have pictures of at the moment.  I thank God every day for letting me be born into this family.  I love them!

Grandma and Grandpa's 55th Anniversary Party

Western Theme

Grandma and Grandpa's Birthday
Grandma's 75th and Grandpa's 80th

Hawaiian Theme

For this party, the grandkids spent a long time preparing a skit for Grandma and Grandpa that went through different stories about them throughout their lives.  Each little story had some narration, but ended with clips from different songs that went with that particular story.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  There is a video of this skit somewhere too, so I will have to post that one as well when we find it.

This scene was a story from when Grandpa was a kid.  He and some friends hid behind gravestones at night in a graveyard and scared people.  We made gravestones and acted it out, then all the grandkids did the thriller dance.

Amy, Kristina, and I were backup dancers for the Candy Man song.  This skit told the story of Aunt Karen throwing rocks at Aunt Betty.  She then hid in a closet to avoid getting in trouble.  Grandpa bribed her with a candy bar to come out.

Amy is acting out Aunt Sandy in this scene.  She always got to sit in the front seat of the car because of car sickness, much to the dismay of the other 7 kids in the family.  Amy was the perfect one to play this role because she too always claimed sickness to get to sit in the front.

Grandma and Grandpa in their older age.

There are so many more pictures, but they have to be recovered from an external harddrive.  This skit deserves a post of its very own, so when I get the rest of the pictures and the video, I am going to have to do a whole new post of it.

Grandma and Grandpa's 60th Anniversary Party

We had Hilmerson Photography come take pictures for this party, so all these pictures are courtesy of them.

Grandpa was always an entertainer.

I miss him every day.

The whole family:

The grandkids (and great grandkids):

We made a slideshow of pictures from throughout Grandma and Grandpa's lives for this party.  It was such a cool thing, and they both loved it.

This is the slideshow.  It is about 30 minutes long, so I do not expect everyone to watch it.  I am putting it on here more for the sake of my family so that they have a place they can watch it when they want to.  It was originally supposed to be to music, but we ran into some technical difficulties, and because of our procrastination problems, did not have time to get that part figured out before the party.  We just played music on a stereo instead.

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Wish List Item Today

Source: World Market

Amy and I saw this when we were shopping at Cost Plus last week.  I would not mind having one of these in my backyard (or two or three).

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Memory #14

Montana de Oro--Spring Break, 2008

During the second half of my spring break, we took a trip up to San Luis Opisbo to camp and do some mountain biking.  It was beautiful and cold, which was perfect for mountain biking...not so much for camping though.  This was by far my favorite place to mountain bike.  The trail we rode was so much fun.

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Today's wish list item is...

Source: Young House Love

All sorts of white frames so that I can make a wall like this one.

 

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Memory #13

College Adventures

College was so much fun.  Not like the kind of fun you have at an amusement park or going to a baseball game. It's a more painful sort of fun.  Because, it's a fun you only get to experience for those 4 years of your life, and then it's over.  It's over so quickly.  And there is nothing else like it.

I loved every part of college.  Dorm living, cafeteria eating, football playing, class skipping, homework procrastinating, staying up until 3 in the morning, sleeping in, and living with friends.  Friends were the best part of college.

Our group of friends loved having all sorts of adventures in college.  Our senior year, we even had an "adventure board" in our apartment where we posted pictures from our crazy adventures.

Our apartment did not always look like this.  This was when we were in the stages of packing up and moving out at the end of our senior year :(

 We took this job seriously, and there was a great deal of preparation that went into these adventures.

We thought of any and every adventure...

We dabbled in some toilet papering.

On this toilet papering adventure, we were caught.  A high speed chase ensued, as we made our escape attempt in a borrowed minivan.

We also enjoyed becoming pantyhose silly stringers.

For this particular adventure, we covered our faces with pantyhose, then came in the middle of the night to knock on some of our friends' windows (Nick being one of them...before we were dating).  When they opened their window to see who was there, we sprayed them with silly string.  Only, when they opened the window and we tried to spray them, nothing came out.

We became cone thieves, and put the cone in random places for people to find.

We did our fair share of prank calling.  This was one of our favorites.  Just pick up the phone and dial a random Biola extension.

If you ever need an idea for a prank call, just let me know.  We tried tons of different things.

.

We did a bit of sumo wrestling...

Somewhere, there is a video of this, and when I find it, I will post it.  Esther and I wrestled, while Brittney served as the videographer and announcer.

We had the brilliant idea of making ourselves look really tough by putting duct tape on our hands, but we didn't want it to hurt when we ripped it off.  We thought it would be smart to put it inside out to avoid the pain of ripping skin.  None of us really stopped to think about the fact that when our wrestling match started, the sticky part of the tape was facing out.  It would have been far less painful to rip the tape off our hands than it was to have our hair ripped out of our heads when the match began.

When the match ended, Esther and I dared each other to walk around our apartment compex in our sumo attire.

There were drive thru adventures....ordering hot sauce in a sexy voice.

And there were dance parties.  Lots and lots of dance parties.

We were so mature.

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Today's wish list item is...

Source: H&M

Source: H&M

A hat for my summer beach trips.

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Memory #12

Becoming a Teacher--August, 2005

My journey to teacherhood was quick.  I changed my major about 500 times in college, but finally landed on Sociology.  This was in part (like 20%) because I had some interest in becoming a criminal investigator, and in part (like 80%) that it was the end of my junior year of college, and this was the major that required the least amount of units and would allow me to graduate on time.   So, all that to say, I did not become a criminal investigator, and I instead went to work for my parents while I pondered what the next phase of my life would entail.  And that lasted until summer. 

Summer and reality hit at the same time.  Real people in the real world work during the summer.  This was a new concept for me.  I was one of those priviledged (not spoiled) kids who never had to have a summer job.  This whole working in the summer deal was not my thing.  So, I reflected back on all the careers I had considered throughout my life, and only one of them gave me my summers off...Teaching.  Teaching was not some random thing I just decided on because I didn't want to work in the summer.  In fact, education was one of my 500 majors in college.  But, summer was the motivating factor that made me get my butt in gear and go back to school to get my credential.  I started that summer, and the following summer, I was a credentialed teacher trying to get a job.

My jumpstart into teaching may have been summers, but God was confirming that it was the right decision all along (so really it would be more accurate to say that God was the jumpstart and he used summer to motivate me).  Things that never should have worked out for me worked out so that I was able to get my credential quick and start teaching the following year.

(Moving into my classroom.  My family came and brought me tons of supplies as a gift and then helped me decorate my room.)

I remember so clearly the day that I got my job.  When they called me for the interview, I actually considered not taking it.  I was supposed to be on vacation with Nick's family and really did not want to miss it.  I prayed a lot and drove by the school.  It looked so cute and I felt God pushing me to take the interview.  So, I did.  I didn't feel great about it.  I even told my mom afterwards that I don't think I interview well.  I headed straight for the airport from the interview and hopped on a plane to fly up north to meet up with Nick's family for the last part of their vacation.  When I got off the plane, I had a message on my phone from the district office asking me to call them back.  It was after 5, so I worried that they would not be there, but tried calling anyway.  Sure enough, she answered the phone on her way out the door and told me that they wanted to hire me for the job.  I was shocked.  I was not expecting to hear back so soon.  It was a very exciting time.  I spent the next several nights not able to sleep as I thought about all the different things I would do in my classroom.

And to top it all off, through the whole process, I had prayed that God would give me a classroom that had carpet in it instead of tile.  And, he did.

And I also get to do some pretty fun things for my job:

Like race tricycles....

...and do crazy dances.

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My wallet broke, so my wish list item for today is a new one.

Here are a couple that I like:

Source: Target

Source: Forever 21 
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And now I must apologize to you, my loyal followers, who wake up every morning and check my blog (mom) that I will have to take a couple days off from this little blog, so that I can work on the ENCHANTED FOREST that is evolving in my backyard.  I will be back after Saturday to catch up on my twenty memories.  Until then, I bid you adieu...

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