My Life is a Roller-Coaster

Well hello there!
It's been a while since we've talked. I found this poem floating around on my computer that I would like to share with you. I wrote it about a year or two ago. It's nothing special, but shows something of my life in college.


My life is a roller-coaster.
Some days I can't abide sweets and I want veggies.
Other days I crave chocolate and other goodies.
I like to exercise,
I like to relax.
Studying is fun,
Studying is hard.
I love to learn,
There's too much information.
I'm happy.
I'm sad.
Four years of my life.
Who will I become?

2012 through Pictures - Part Two

Alrighty folks, it's time for round two of 2012 through pictures!

On March 24, my cousin Nicole was married to Jordan Lesausky.  It was a wonderful wedding and we had so much fun seeing family again!

This is my dad being all professional as the President of the Kansas Choral Directors Association.  

As it was 2012, the Summer Olympics were in London this year.  We are not the biggest sports fans, but when the Olympics are on, we get very excited!  Carol, the expert nail artist in our family, painted her nails to celebrate and I make a fruit pizza with the Olympic rings.  It was very tasty.

 Sarah went to the zoo several times and enjoyed herself very much! She really liked to get close to the animals.

This year I moved back on campus and got an apartment with a kitchen! Needless to say, I was pretty excited to get new kitchen supplies.

At the beginning of September, Carol and I took a road trip down to the Dallas area in Texas to visit her very good friends Shell and Alan and to see the A Capella group Pentatonix.  It was great to take some time off and Pentatonix was, of course, AMAZING. 

A beautiful small town street in the midst of fall.

When our family carves pumpkins we usually go all out and this year was no exception.  Sarah/Mom carved a cat, Anna carved an owl, I carved the Mocking Jay pin from the Hunger Games, and Carol carved the Lizzie Bennet Diaries logo (the LBD is a modern setting of Pride and Prejudice as a web series. I would recommend watching it! http://www.lizziebennet.com/). She posted a picture of the pumpkin on Twitter and it went viral in the LBD fan base after the LBD retweeted the picture.

Annelise and I performed Thriller for the SC Basketball game right before Halloween. It was a blast!









I made some more soap this year, but I've been so busy I haven't had much time recently to make or sell my soap (although if you're interested in buying some, just talk to me and I'd be happy to help!).

Here is some proof that my mom does indeed spend time with Sarah (quite frequently I might add) despite her busy schedule.

Thanksgiving:

This year we had the Sizemores over for Thanksgiving.

Sarah turned 6 years old this year!! 

Here is my newest venture in the snowflake cutting world.  Snowflake ballerinas! My friend Glynne and I had a great time making these.

Jasmine Jackson has been living with us since the fall and we have really enjoyed having her in our family!

This semester, dad had three of his daughters in his choir! It's been so much fun singing all together. (Mom joined the Christmas concert to sing Handel's Messiah)

And here is our official family Christmas picture:

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."
Psalm 46:1

2012 in Review Part 1

I hope all of you have had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's, I certainly enjoyed the time I spent with my family!

Since it's still close to New Year's Day, I thought I'd post a review of the
year through pictures.  I have a number of pictures, so this might take a few posts!

Here is a picture from New Year's Eve in 2011.  We're eating the traditional Gardner cheese fondue to ring in 2012! That stuff was amazing. Seriously.

I got new reading glasses for college! I was getting pretty bad headaches while doing my homework, so I was very excited for these (now I have no excuse for not studying...).

Our wonderful friends and my parent's mentors from Tucson, AZ came for a visit while in the Midwest.  It was great to see "Uncle" Tom and "Beautiful Aunt" Barb again!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Carol's graduation from Southwestern College.  Dad even got to hand her the diploma. She is now working towards her Master's degree in business administration at Southwestern.

For Carol's Graduation, Grandad and his wife Margaret, and Grandma came to visit.

May is always an eventful month and this was no exception with Carol's graduation, Annelise's dance recital, and Dad's 50th (I mean 30th) birthday.  Mom put on a beautiful party with over fifty guests and two huge cakes.  Many lovely things were said about Dad and the whole party was a success.

 These pictures were too cute to leave out:

Sarah enjoyed taking swimming lessons in the summer and Annelise is growing up too quickly! She's already 16 years old.

I've been enjoying experiencing with different kinds of braids this year, here are a few!

Sarah lost her first tooth! And many more teeth after that, she is currently without her two front teeth and it's pretty adorable.

More to come later!

"The joy of the Lord is your strength"
Nehemiah 8;10

Concerning Tutus

Hello World!

Last week, I had an interesting lab experiment for General Psychology.  I had to break a social norm.  As some of you know, I'm a pretty introverted person and tend to stick to all the social norms.  Social norms are the unwritten rules that most people follow. For example, you don't just go sit next to some stranger in a movie theater if there are plenty of empty seats.  Or you wouldn't wear your pajamas to class in the morning.  Wait, never mind, a lot of college students wear their pajamas to class.  You wouldn't wear a prom dress to class in the morning.  People would give you a weird look.

For my assignment, I was going to stand very close to someone and just kind of trail them, but then I remembered that I own a plethora of tutus and I am currently taking a Ballet class.  Yep.  I wore a bright red, obnoxious, fluffy tutu to Ballet.  I originally wore that tutu as a Spanish Dancer in The Nutcracker. Three  different years.  I even wore the hair piece and the classic Ballet bun.  I'd say that was breaking a social norm.

So, as I walked into class impersonating a Spanish Ballerina, I got some pretty weird looks.  It was hilarious! People just stared when I took off my coat and said good morning like I normally would.  I couldn't tell them it was for a Psychology experiment quite yet so I just said I wanted to get my money's worth out of the costume (they cost like 80 bucks normally).  It was hard not to burst out laughing.  Throughout the class people kept glancing over at me when they thought I wasn't looking and I just about lost it a few times.  When the class ended I did end up telling them it was an experiment, so people don't think I'm just a weirdo who wears tutus to Ballet.  I knew people would want to see what I looked like, so here is a picture of me about to go outside in the freezing weather in a tutu.

  

I hope you all have a good morning, afternoon, evening or night.

2 Chronicles 15:2
"The Lord is with you while you are with Him.  If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you."

The Start of Autumn

It's getting to that time of year where the air starts to get crisp and cool (doesn't get above 100!) and the leaves are starting to change (nearly).  A lovely time to go for a nice walk and enjoy the fall air or sit in a coffee shop drinking a pumpkin spice latte and eating some warm pumpkin bread.  Or, if you're a college student, it's a great time for study, study, and more study!  Mid-terms are almost upon us and we're right in the thick of classes with a test or paper around every corner. (I had three tests in four school days a bit ago!)   Even so, I have found that a short break to take a walk  can be quite refreshing on the brain.  Students can only concentrate for so long.  My sister Carol keeps reminding me of this when I get stressed out about a test. (Thanks, Carol!)
Oh, I nearly forgot, this is also the time of year when colds and the flu are invading the campus like the ants invade our kitchen in the summer.  I'm taking a microbiology class this semester which is making me very aware the of gazillions of bacteria surrounding us.  Here's a little advice to try and stay healthy for those tests: wash your hands frequently (you wouldn't believe the bacteria we found on door handles), carry tissues so you don't wipe your nose with your hand, this spread germs and you can wipe germs onto your nose, take vitamin C, and last but not least, SLEEP!  Some college students think that sleep is overrated, but it is definitively not.  Without enough sleep, our brains don't function at their full potential and we can get sick more easily because our body is not rested.  In my Psychology class today, we were talking about sleep (what a coincidence...) and our teacher mentioned that cramming for a test by staying up the night before is really the worst thing you can do.  Lack of sleep affects your memory and if you will have a better chance remembering things if you have more sleep.  Also, an interesting fact I learned in the same Psych class, we have a built-in time in  the afternoon to take naps. It varies from person to person, but 3-5pm is a general time when people's brains are the slowest in the day.  This is why my Mom always says never to get a haircut at 4:30, because it will almost never be a very good one.

On that note, I am going to close this post and snuggle up in my warm bed.

"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe."
Psalm 4:8

Pentatonix!

I just got back from a Pentatonix concert!!  It was completely amazing, of course.
For those who don't know, Pentatonix is an A Cappella group who won the Sing Off.  The started as a trio from Arlington, TX (Scott, Mitch, and Kirsty) and added Avi and Kevin for their bass and beat boxer when they competed in the Sing Off.
I've been pretty busy lately and have not had any time to post about going to see Pentatonix before now.  Even though school just started, I've already had a few quizzes and my first big test coming up on Tuesday. So, right now, Carol and  I are in Saginaw, TX, staying with her best friend, her husband and little girl. The ride down was fairly eventful so I may post about that some other time.
Back to Pentatonix,
Pentatonix sang at the Levitt Pavilion in Arlington for their opening concert on their tour.  It was an outside concert, and the best part about it: it was free!! We were originally planning to get to the venue at least one hour before the concert started to try and get semi-decent seats, but one thing led to another and we didn't get there until 20 or 30 minutes before the start of the concert. It was a pretty small venue and there were a million people there. Well, it seemed like there were a million, but it was closer to 12,000, which was still quite a few.  We searched for a place to put our lawn chairs, but the only place we could find was way off to the side in the back and we could only see the front part of the stage.  You could still see the performers, but Carol and I wanted to see the whole stage and I wanted to get closer to get some pictures.  It actually turned out okay because Carol and I walked around until we found a pretty decent place to stand. I thought I'd mind standing for the whole concert, but it really wasn't bad at all. Of course, I took lots and lots of pictures and videos. Too many, I'm sure, but hey, there have got to be some good ones in there somewhere!
Any problems in getting there were completely forgotten once Pentatonix picked up their mics and took the stage.  I couldn't help but smile at their first note.  Carol and I got a little fan girl crazy when Avi started singing bass, I can tell you that much.  I love to sing A Cappella music in choir, so it was great to hear Pentatonix singing live.  What they do is so difficult, but they make it look easy!
I'm getting super tired, so I should probably go to bed before I start typing gibberish. But before I bid adieu, I will post some pictures!

Good night to all, and to all a good night!

Psalm 98:4

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music."