Acts - The Musical [2012]

i'm so thankful that i got to be apart of our church's drama production retelling the story of Acts. it really was a great experience, filled with much laughter and prayer, and the friendships that i have built from doing this show are awesome. so many godly, awesome people :)

{this post is for rachel, since she didn't get to come down and see it in person. bekah and i missed you! heart heart!!}

this is at an early on rehearsal...

we started working on this show at the beginning of the school year.

then at the end of april, we did four shows over two weekends.

 getting ready included lots of stage makeup and some fun and bright costumes.

 there were lots and lots of mics for all of the actors and actresses.

 after we were all dressed and made up, we'd sit around downstairs waiting to get called.

this is the front of the program.

... and the inside. my name is on the bottom.

i was a greek widow and a crowd member.

and here's rebekah's name in the program under "production assistants"!

she was a huge help to our stage manager.

the opening scene was filled with so much joy every time.

all the disciples praying for and baptizing the crowds who came out to hear them speak.

these next photos are from "Walk By Faith," taken from Acts chapter 3.

 the crippled man jumping and dancing.

i never realized how cool this song's choreography was until i was able to see the pictures! 

 Barnabas, the dashing heart throb, hugs one of the widows, while the rest look on shocked. haha!

 hahaha, we're not happy.

but it turns out they're cousins. so everything's good then.

 then we have another drama unfold between the widows...

based on Acts chapter 6, where the Greek widows aren't getting enough food.

we even got a little mini cat-fight goin' :)

then us cool uns went downstairs to chill during the intermission.

the asian philosopher in Athens, city full of idols.

and the finale. SO. GOOD.

after and during all of the shows, we took lots of pictures with lots of friends and family members.
haha, sorry there were hundreds taken so the ones i have here are mostly ones with me in them. haha!

me with bethan, our lovely designated person-with-a-british-accent :)

BAHAHAHA. david, daniel, and i.

 rachel and i. lovesss her!!

me, jenna, noelle.

me, noelle, debbie, jenna, allie. love you girls!

aww, my lovey ellie! :D

 all of us seniors.

we're a crazy crew :)

 the whole cast.

 out in the lobby afterwards, a lot of little kids wanted to get our signatures. it was so cute!
this is me with hannah joy keeler! :) yeahhhh hannah power!

bekah and i! oh yeah and cole... haha.

 on the last night, we had to take down the set and clean up everything.

as you can clearly see, we had so much energy. we were so glad to help.
we actually should have won an award for "most helpful."

it's been fun. :) miss hanging out with all my acts peeps every day!

such. is life.

recently, i've been realizing i might be trying (and epically failing) to keep up in too many areas.
- i am now juggling: facebook, tumblr, pinterest, flickr, this blog.
- i also check regularly: three email addresses, google reader, etsy.

- and school is picking up: psych at mc, en102 at mc, ap bio at mci, teaching a middle school lit class.
- dyi & projects: in the middle of painting my room, decorating, organizing my desk, moving my stuff to a new bedroom & bathroom.
- senior stuff: more scholarships (DONE applications!), senior pictures, trying to pull together some old photos, senior trip planning committe.
- work is thankfully slowing down: only tutoring one elementary school student once a week.
- misc: parties, getting in shape (figure out gym schedule for mornings at mc), having quiet times every morning, i really need to clean my bathroom, i should make more granola, cook one family dinner a week, etc.
- and i know there's more, i just can't remember everything. there's a hundred little things floating around in mid-air which i know i should be doing, but they're too tiny and they slip through the cracks in my mind.

i want to scrap at least one of the social networking sites listed in the first catagory. i mean, do i really need a blog and a tumblr? do i really need a flickr? i've already gotten off flickr, but i'm trying to decide what to do about my blog/tumblr situation.

i think this blog is going to become my personal, reflectory, long, wordy post place. my tumblr... everything else. sound good? ok.

:)

until you came along || jj heller

I tried to live this life on my own
But emptiness was beating down the door
Yeah it rose up like a flood
Until my dying days were done
They are no more

Nothing makes sense without you
It's like waking up in the dark
I didn't have a song
Until you came along

Falling in love with you was easy
You were always meant to have my heart
I was broken all to pieces
You were there to be the missing part

Nothing makes sense without you
It's like waking up in the dark
I didn't have a song
Until you came...

And I never wanna go back
To the way things were beforeYou saved me and you made me yours

Now nothing makes sense without you
It's like waking up in the dark
I didn't have a song
Until you came along

Now nothing makes sense without you
It's like waking up in the dark
I didn't have a song
Until you came along

onlyyy during finals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGjHK5X8mzE&feature=player_embedded

i watched this twice, and i am crying HYSTERICALLY.
trust me, it's worth a study break. WOW, stress reliever.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

my baby

just in time for finals. :D

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...