tomorrow.

this past week i said goodbye to many family and friends

and packed lots of clothes and bandanas and towels and sheets and aloe and photos

into two suitcases and a carry-on.

 

because i'm leaving for mexico tomorrow!

 

and i put the rest of my belongings into cardboard boxes and taped them shut

because when i get back from mexico my family will have probably moved to a new house

without me.

 

when i get back i'll get to see their new house

and then i'll gather everything up again and move in with a friend who lives closer to school.

 

but in between the leaving and coming back

i'm going to meet a whole bunch of little Mexican people

and share God the Father's love with them.

 

i'm going to run around with new friends

in the dust and sunshine and thunderstorms.

 

i'm a little scared -

a new place

a new country

a new language.

 

but i'm mostly exhilarated and expectant

because of what i think God's gonna do in my life during this time

and in the lives of lots of other little people.

 

i think it's gonna be a good summer.

tiring and sunburnt and happy and exciting and new and memorable.

 

see yah tomorrow, mexico! looking forward to our meeting!

i love, i hate.

i love the rhythm, the schedule that fall brings. there's structure and certainity.
i love going to bed at night after a mentally and physically exhausting day.
i love that the cross country season is well under way.
i love the fall weather that's coming soon, and all the holidays and yummy, warm junk food.

i hate sitting inside at my desk all day, memorizing the definition of moist stratified squamous epithelial tissue.
i hate not going to the beach, going to the pool, and having all this free time to read good books.

i love that soon i'll soon be going on bike rides around d.c. on clear, sunny, breezy afternoons.
i love that school is strechting my mind, getting me mentally back in shape.
i love going to my county college and getting to meet new people and listen to new professors.

i hate that soon the sky will be gray instead of blue and that all the vibrant colors of summer will fade and become drab and dull.
i hate knowing that i will soon have to be trapped inside, that it'll be too cold or slushy outside.

i love the new things in store in this next season of life, coming oh so soon!
i hate that all the old, amazing things are coming to an end- summer, childhood, sunshine, pools, beaches, vacations.

i love that fall is coming, i hate that summer is going away.

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.

deep creek lake

last week i went to deep creek, up in western maryland. :)

uncle tom, aunt julie, jojo and i drove up sunday afternoon, and stayed until saturday.

pretty much we just hung out, ate food, watched movies, read books.

one day we went on a hike at swallow falls, and we tanned on the beach three or four of the days.

it was really relaxing and fun. oh good memories. :)

here are the pictures we took!

 this was a sign out front of a church there.

we were driving past and had to stop and get a picture. :) hahaha!

 henna tattoos, just because we're that cool.

i might get his one for real some day. :)

shoppinggg! :D

 so stylish.

haha!

 we are cave explorers!!! or... something.

i like the lady's blurred head behind us. :)

ee-sun-ee-gass-es.

on thursday uncle tom took jojo and i to swallow falls.

we hiked the trail and splashed around in the water a little.

there was a giant waterfall, with no guardrails or caution signs or ropes or anything.

i kinda had to lean over the edge a little :) 

the rocks were kind of too slippery :) we chickened out...

beachhh :)

putt-putting on fridayyy :) haha, i came in 3rd... out of 4.

so not too bad i guess?

haha, i think mini-golf is always very entertaining :)

 i love me some jojo.

except that she is more photogenic than me.

but i forgive her :)

 ohhh so much fun :) it was a really cool, relaxing vacation...

so glad we could go and get a tan! which was the whole point :) haha.

thanks soo muchhh for letting me tag along on your vacation you guys!
loves!!
"your water bottle needs to be filled" ;)

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!

summer celebration

i had SUCH a fun time last week volunteering at summer celebration, our church's annual kid's camp. i really became close friends with some of my ten-year-old girls, and i loved dancing to the songs and playing outside... i wish i was a kid again. :)

i'm really looking forward to the rest of the summer, with local missions coming up soon, (hopefully) starting my job at lakeforest mall, the youth retreat, and then the start of my SENIOR year of high school, including some classes at the community college. ahhhhh. ican'tbelieveit.