today i:

- woke up at 9 am, which is way off my usual routine, and felt oh-so good.

- breakfasted on a homemade banana muffin topped off with Nutella hazelnut spread

- did a refreshing Pilates workout my the basement

- straightened my hair... also an odd thing for me (dad hates my hair straight. he thinks it makes me look older, which makes him feel older. i'm not getting that connection?)

- played with my little sister "hey!! left foot? what do you do? oh... i guess he not gonna answer." (i love my girly!)

- took an AP Bio test (neurons, sodium and potassium ions, somatic motor nervous system, non-ciliated ependymal cells), and completed a lab

- laughed at this picture aboo drew on her dry-erase board:

it says "bays antill crismes" (days until christmas). i love her enthusiasm annnnd her spelling.

- texted good friends about random things

- cleaned my room, freshened my desk

- checked up on blogs, liked things on etsy, subscribed to Elise Blaha :: enJOY it, which apparently i had somehow gotten unsubscribed from in the past year. (great blog, check her out!)

- made yummy French bread pizza for all of my younger siblings while my parents went out.

- babysat for a family in my church ("where's my llama book? i neeeed my llama book to go to sleeeep!" and "ok, i'm going to make popsicles in bed, in my microwave.")


all instead of prepping for finals. they're inevitable, but somehow i continue finding more wonderful reasons for putting of my study time. THURSDAY, DIE.

never grow up

long post alert.

last week, i was babysitting for some little girls (ages 2, 4, and 6), and it brought back the best kind of memories.

= the way the two older girls interacted...

= the way the older one tried to "take care" of the younger one in a motherly way...

= the way the middle girl listened to the older one with huge eyes...

= the way that they all said goodnight to each other, and i knew that forgetting to say "i love you" would have been the thing to make them cry themselves to sleep that night...

= the way they danced around while they sang 3 different songs, with each of the older girls "leading" a song (even if they didn't know the words)...

= the way they all stared at me during dinner and tried to sound old and mature...

... it was all a little surreal. because last time i checked I was the one trying to take care of my younger siblings, and they were looking up at me with huge eyes... I was the one who cried if my mom didn't sing that one certain special song, actually convinced that i couldn't go to sleep if she didn't... I was the one staring with awestruck eyes at the idolized older girl babysitting me...

at one point, all of the girls were playing hide-and-go seek, and the izzy, the youngest one, was the one "hiding." we're all waiting for her to call out "ready!" when all of a sudden she bursts around the corner on her wobbly, fat 2-year-old legs and yells "YOU FOUND ME!!"

the oldest one looked at me with a wise, big girl look. she explained to me that izzy didn't understand the game, really, but that "we should just pretend that she does." she looked up at me hoping for some kind of mutual, big girl understanding between just the two of us.

that is just the kind of thing i did with my babysitters... it felt beyond weird to have the roles reversed. what on EARTH happened?

later on in the evening, all the girls were dancing in that cute little way girls do... jumping back n' forth from one foot to another really fast, sliding across the floor in their sock-ed feet, looking down at their legs. from their expressions, they thought it was really cool, that they were really good dancers.

of course i danced with them, and i felt TALL.

i felt like i was their age.

i felt like i should be their height.

i don't know how to describe it, but i was definitely having "a moment."

you know how different things trigger memories and feelings of nostalgia in different people? i can't even describe how, but it suddenly hit me how OLD i was. after they went to bed i sat down on the couch, just remembering (and maaaaybe crying a little?).

where did my life go? where did my childhood go?

life just keeps accelerating, time passes by faster and faster.

my guess is, it'll only swirl past more quickly as we get older.

i am reminded of how fleeting life is, how little time we have on this earth.

it's so easy to forget, but i want to start living by a more eternal perspective...

thankful [2011]

today i'm thankful for...

* family
parents who always want the best for me, and the most amazingly crazy siblings in the world.

* friends
honestly, i am convinced i have the best friends in the world, who point me to God constantly.

* health
so thankful that almost all the signs of mono have left my body.

* warm houses
hahaha, imagine if we had to sleep outside?!

* my puppy
can't believe i'm saying this, but a cuddly dog just makes life better. it's true!

* sunshine
iiii could not live without it...

* music
 what is it about music that warms you up, or energizes you, or provides the perfect background for midnight studying?

* the season of life i'm in right now
i'm trying to really relax and focus on how blessed i am in this current season of life. i'm living at home with my family right now, and just trying to really slow down and enjoy them.

* the excitement of what's to come
at the same time, realllly starting to get excited for what's coming next as i start college and embrace all the new and unknown.

* the Bible
God's word is sooo refreshing, how it reaches out and speaks to me. every. time. so amazing!

* my Savior
the fact that he came down to earth and gave himself up for me, so i could enjoy him forever continues to grow more precious to me every year. he is my friend, my comforter, he loves me, he died for me, shedding his blood on the cross to save me.

siesta key!

well hello everyone. :)

its been a while since i posted here, and i've been meaning to do a post on our may vacation for many months now. oops. you see we came home in may, and it was graduation party after graduation party. then summer celebration. and then (yay!!) i got baptized on sunday, at our church, which was very exciting! :) after that it was local missions and then i had an internship last week... plus babysitting, finishing up school work from last year... ok, you get the picture.

but here it is, our third annual trip to siesta keyyyyyy! in sarasota, florida.
(on that same vacation, we also spent a week in st. augustine... that's coming later.)

i still can't believe how amazing and gorgeous and tropical this place is.

umm, pretty sure this was a cell phone picture snapped in a moving vehicle.

the soon-to-be marine biologist.

 the colors are so amazing.

cell phone pictures don't do it justice. 

 

the sunsets there... i have no words to describe them.

 "keep our beaches beautiful!! ...nudity prohibited."

mhhhhmm. naturally. winning.

coming up... week #2: st. augustine, florida.

bekah

sooooo basically, one of the main reasons i'm super excited about my senior year,

starting with the youth retreat, and then all the way through the school year...

is that my last year of highschool overlaps with my sister's first year.

its going to be so fun hanging out with her,

and doing what we do best together

with all our friends...

getting randomly excited about things, being weird, laughing about things that don't make any sense, etc.

bekah is like super cool.

she dresses really artistically and funky,

she's really bold and she has a lot of fun, no matter what she's doing.

she was a cute little girl.

 and. she likes sunglasses.

and chickens.

and photography.

 and she's also drop-dead-and-fall-on-the-floor gorgeous.

did i mention she's a weirdo?

oh yeah, that too. 

 i'm of the opinion that little sisters are the best thing ever.

she's one of the most joyful people i know.

which is saying a lot, because the more time you spend with someone, the less joyful they normally seem.

bekah is cheerful, and she has a ton of energy and spunk.

we've been best friends our whole lives,

from having our barbies kidnapped, hung from ceiling fans, and otherwise brutally treated;

amputating their legs and chopping off all their hair,

drowning them in swimming pools,

fighting over who's barbie had to marry the headless man...

to the present day.

we stay up late talking and laughing about random stupidity,

share writing ideas (including this totally awesome story we thought up about peeps living inside a hallow volcano and meeting some weird gingerbread men who live in a little village on a rock at the edge of a waterfall... yeah, i'll tell you about that one later),

we steal each others clothes,

tease each other about everything,

giggle to the point of tears about... big bird? haha, yeah.

basically our friendship -and sistership - is the best thing ever.

so this upcoming year, we're just gonna rock highschool together. :)

its going to be superduperuber much fun.

love you bekbekss!

online dating service.

my father walked into the room where i was listening to grooveshark.

there was an ad on the side for some sort of muscle-building pill or other,

with a picture of some freakishly photoshopped, huge, creepy guy.

dad looks concerned and asks,

"hey hannah, why is that guy trying to g-chat you?"

hahahaha... we need to teach daddy some technology interpretation skills.

2010 [may]

2010 [mrch.aprl]

up next on the recap of '10: marchy and apryy.

aaaahckkkk!!!

i love the smells and colors and breezes of spring after the dull, gray skies of winter.

easter.

this is pretty much the story of our lives,

so i'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

HAAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAA!

also in april, we went up to the probe's farm in mount airy.

shooting guns, flying around on four-wheelers and dirt bikes...

pretty much my kinda life.

HA! that's a joke.

if you've yet to hear the story involving my first time on a dirt bike... ask to hear it. you will not be disappointed. i promise you.

funfun with the adameks, tvardziks, laymans, brewers, and cooks... :)

beks turned thirteen! :)

happy first official teenager birthday! :)

next year we'll be going to the youth retreat together.

my last and her first.

i cannot wait. words cannot describe.

but maybe this can: (!!!)

we went to old town alexandria...

everything was awesome and old.

now just look at the pictures.

cobblestone road.
retro bus.stairs.

red door.

ducks! ha!

it was a lot of fun.

alexandria is an town in virginia, just outside d.c.

it was the perfect family day trip...

many, many memories that will not fit in this space.

may comin' up tomorrow. :)