parent weekend!

it finally came! 
parent weekend was this weekend. and it was so good. it surpassed my expectations. probably because i was worried how everything would work out. but it did, and i'm very thankful. i think my roommates loved it too!
i won, with the first family in thursday afternoon. my dad and lynette came in earliest. but elise won with seeing her parents first. they came home thursday night while i was sitting on the couch watching greys anatomy and knitting. it was pretty funny! and i loved seeing my idaho parents, even though it was only a short while together. friday morning was amazing. we surprised brianna with her parents, and her younger brother bryce. bo, morgan and i pretended we were just hanging out. when she came home from her midterm, they were hiding. she didn't even notice until bry came out and hugged her! it was so wonderful! she was so happy. one of the best birthday presents i've seen!! but more on brianna for her real birthday tomorrow!
we had a family dinner last night (edmunds, mckinnon, and aebischer dinner). having our parents there added to the crazy funness (doubt that's a word...)
we didn't take pictures though. sorry there isn't photographic documentation of last night to break up all the text!
saturday afternoon we had a family lunch for my nana's 70th birthday. i had cousins come down from sacramento and cousins from lakewood come surprise her. it was a dream! but more on her for her real birthday on tuesday!
tonight i got to have a good little chat with my home/far away best friend kim, who's in texas for school. i love her so much. we live life through each other! it's sad we're far away, but i love her and love talking so much. she is such a blessing in my life! talking with kim gives me time to just breathe. which is so necessary! and i promise i'm not saying that just because i know she'll read this. it's true!


this week is low stress, and high celebration. my prayer for you is that this week gives you time to just breathe also. and that you're able to find something to celebrate each day, because we're so blessed and have so much to celebrate!


i do have a few pictures to share..

i did em's hair for her wednesday chapel performance! she has beautiful hair!

our front door! everyone who visits decorates pumpkins! we didn't have our parents' pumpkins up yet. we do now though!

this week was such a clear week in azusa! it was beautiful!!

emmy made nana's birthday cake! she rocked it!!

the weekend.

this weekend was good. it was productive, fun, spontaneous, and even a little bit restful!
and there was joy, which was my prayer for the weekend!

elise, court, and i watching em sing! 

we ended our weekend with one of emily's concerts. always a joy! i love that i can hear emily every time we're at an event. regardless of if there are 10 other people signing or 60 other people singing.
christina came over for lunch and homework today. we decided we needed to be responsible and productive. although color me mine would've been so fun. we had some good talking time. discussed life after college. the gre. worked on theology and english literature outside on the balcony. it was pretty good for homework time!
last night we celebrated bo (brianna's older brother). complete with a mariachi performance, chips and salsa, and a dora pinata. what a special 23rd birthday!
yesterday afternoon i sat in our amphitheater (created as of last year) and did some light reading. diary of a whimpy kid to be exact. i had to read it for children's literature. and it was such a nice day, i just had to be outside.
friday night i was really wanting some good baked goods. elise agreed to go to whole foods (the closest one is pasadena) with me, and get some good cupcakes or something. halfway there we realized we were going to be real close to our favorite sushi place, it was dinner time, and there was a lot of traffic. so we went! it was a great little spur-of-the-moment-roommate date. we also stopped at gap because they were having a sale. we got some super cute, slightly 90's, cable-knit sweaters. they're amazing.


it was a good weekend. and tonight we changed our countdown again! we are getting so close!

we love school. but we also value and appreciate our time off!

gottttta get down on friiiidayy

it's finallyyyy friday.
i don't know if you guys have this feeling often. i really don't. but this week, i definitely do.
i had papers and midterms and thus, sleep was elusive. maybe even more than elusive. completely nonexistent. but i made it.
we made it.
my whole apartment had a long week. you can tell. it's a little messier than usual. even i left laundry around, and that is so, so rare. 
but it's the weekend and for that, we are excited. 
em's friend, (our future roommate!) courtney's visiting for the weekend. she drove all the way from spokane!
family weekend- with our far away parents visiting! is just one week away! it is a dream! we're so excited to see them. elise and i have had a parent weekend countdown on our white board for like three weeks. maybe more. 
we're also celebrating bo (brianna's older brother) this weekend because his birthday was yesterday and our apartment is a fan.
i have a date planned with one of my old roommates, christina. we're going to color me mine, and i can't wait to spend good, quality time investing in each other! and crafting..
it's going to be so good!


we have a lot of space to find joy in our weekend this weekend. and my prayer is that my apartment is encouraged and rejuvenated by that.
i hope your weekend is full of joy too!

a lot of irvine. some tests. you know.

right now i should be writing a paper on the victorian era. or the satire in alice in wonderland. filling out shakespeare charts for king lear. studying for a literary criticism midterm. reading some poli sci textbook. even cleaning the bathroom. but since i'm not doing any of those things and thus, i have free time, i thought that i'd write you about my week.
i spent last weekend back home in irvine. i took one roommate (elise) and our neighbor (chelsea). emily went home too. it was a weekend full of laziness. home food, early nights, late mornings, peets afternoons. it was so good to slow down, even if it was for just a few days.
i got to have my kristen vande over for dinner too! (she said i made her a bomb grilled cheese. just fyi.) and em and i got to hang out with the high schoolers sunday morning. i forgot how much i love them. and had missed them. they make me smile all the time. even the sophomore boys who are barely awake and are sitting in the back not moving. at least they weren't talking! we had a great lunch after church too. with kristen again! she is seriously a doll. and so funny.
anyway. wednesday was a study day here, which means all classes except nursing were cancelled. along with chapel. usually it's a beach day. or pool day. and the weather actually has been making that so possible. it was in the 90's this week. but i had service learning, so i got to hang out at stonegate with my little sister and her classmates. for two years i've been saying the only thing i don't want to do with my english degree is teach. and guess what? i loved it. perfect. because what i really needed was to be more confused with what i'm going to do with my life! in all seriousness though, it was pretty eye-opening. then i had a little after school meeting with one of my favorite people; mrs.crowley. she just confirmed my thoughts about teaching. she actually said, "i don't know why you keep trying to ignore something you love and are so good at." no worries. i'm not having some junior-year-life-crisis. i'm keeping my english major. and am currently looking into credential programs. so if you have ideas or recommendations, let me know! but they have to be in california because that's where i'm going to teach.
i randomly ran into my kristen at lunch on wednesday. i know, it's like we were stalking each other or something. but i really loved being in her life those few days! my sister and i also randomly saw a part of the thibault family while we were getting bundt cakes- no surprise there! irvine is always a fun little adventure of who i'm going to run into, and it didn't disappoint! 
after wednesday my week kinda just went. today was filled with weekend chores like target and trader joes runs, and cleaning. not the most productive, but not completely wasteful either. 
i hope you've been enjoying your weekend and that you got to check a few more things off your list today than i did!

september highlights.

with school starting, work starting, and figuring out how to live with roommates and without my momma, balancing homework with rest (really important for me since i am back in the environment that caused my year of sickness..), and learning how to love on people important to me from far away, updating my blog has sounded more like a check list task than a fun debriefing thing. hence the 3 week hiatus.
but hopefully since we've essentially established a routine around a16 and there is finally a rhythm to my week, this blog will find its way back into my time.
so many important, blog-worthy things happened in september. this post has to be organized.


in a16..
we moved in. everyone is situated. boxes are gone, beds are made, shower shelves still aren't sticking to the bathroom tile. our picture frame wall is sloooowllyyy being filled. (and i mean real slow. like we put the first two pictures [out of 17] up yesterday..)
our schedules are on the door. we hardly see each other until midnight each night. and on weekends you can find us doing our homework, sprawled about the living room/kitchen. yesterday this was happening, and it was so funny. we were all each studying so much for our major, it was perfect. em was reading world music, elise was learning about hearts or lungs or something, i was reading frankenstein (wouldn't recommend it. but then again, i'm not a huge romantic english literature fan..)
we are not living in a dream though. we are real college students. 
we make dinners from strange leftovers (think salami, cheese, crackers, and rice). we have to call our moms to ask how to defrost chicken bricks, and bread chicken gluten free style. 
i get mad when it gets too loud and can get a little rude and leave. but i really love my roommates, and am so thankful i get to spend this year with them. 
we went to vegas last weekend to celebrate elise (she turned 21!) and meet my dad, lynette, and andrew. it was pretty fun!

fountain outside the monte carlo. no, we didn't purposefully match! and our 5th "roommate", morgan. we love morg so much!

our "going out" night. we went to tao to celebrate the birthday people, and saw cirque du soliel! 

classic vegas picture! yes, we were just strolling down the strip!

vegas was fun. we came, we saw, we conquered? and went home quickly. it was good for a weekend, and that was it. 
emily sings in chapel. we love listening to her! we're so proud. here's a solo she had last friday..

she is so gooddd!
and we make gluten free all the time here. resident baker/chef/dream roommate elise made me cinnamon rolls last night. not cinnabon, but they definitely satisfied my cinnamon roll craving!

i ate three.. and one for breakfast.

in irvineland..
september also brought my sweet kristen vandewydeven's 15th birthday. she is such a love, and has some great sass!

i stole this from her facebook, but she won't mind. it's just too perfect of a missy picture to pass up!

i've had some good talks with my maddy, and can't wait to see her when she comes home for fall break this weekend!

love this sister girl.

this is going to be a long week, i can already tell. prayers for strength, productivity, and brain power would be a dream. 

i hope your week is less stressful than mine is promising to be!

wisdom and back at apu!

school started again! i was ready this year. my brain had officially turned into mush. i needed to start thinking or i'd begin irreversible damage.

first day of school outfits! on our 15th first day of school!

i'd forgotten how much apu really does live by our motto of 'god first'. (trust me, i'm going to relate this to wisdom!) my first "class" of the day was chapel. they introduced our campus text of the year, which is something in the book of proverbs. don't worry, i wasn't completely focused..
then thursday morning in my first two classes, my professors started our class with scripture and a prayer (which is something i love more and more. you couldn't get that at a uc!!) both scriptures were about wisdom (psalm 1 and proverbs 3)
thursday night i went with emily to meet jeanine for women's worship night (another event uc students miss out on...) it was much better than i expected, and even though i wasn't even that tired- i mean, it was only day 2, it was really rejuvenating. but our scripture there was proverbs 8. which is just a whole lot about wisdom. and it is so encouraging to me! i always am envious of people who seem so wise. like my meredith. but wisdom isn't just a gift. according to proverbs, the more you seek and desire wisdom, the more you find it. it reminds me a lot of having a relationship with christ. and something about that is just so cool!
read proverbs 8. it's real good. 
one more thought about wisdom: in greek the word for wisdom is sophia. so legit!


the passage i'm challenging my apartment with this week is along these lines too..
"seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
don't be impressed with your own wisdom.
instead, fear the lord and turn away from evil."


join us in living out this passage this week!




for your enjoyment.. some funny pictures from move in day!

our moms cleaning our door!

emac being suuuper helpful! hah!

mexico.

i spent last weekend in mexico with ipc. i was really unsure if i should go- the apartment at school needed unpacking and there were things to do at my irvine house as well. but after some sound advice from a friend, i decided to go.
we spent the morning with the ipc families delivering backpacks to our sponsored kids. so cute! then we had a carnival for them. it was craaaaayyyzzaaayyy! i've never seen people so excited for our little homemade booths- even the parents were participating!

kate face painting! she was an expert.

college students rocking the carnivalll!

after the carnival, we went and visited a house the high schoolers had built for during their spring break the year before. it was really fun to meet them, and see how well they'd been taking care of their home. we prayed for them, and played with them. then we went to the market and got them some groceries. we each got to spend $5 on whatever we wanted for them- it was so fun! and crazy to see how far our money went. kent and i decided that since everyone was getting them good food that would last, we'd get them some desserts and stuff. so great! and it was a dream to spend some good shopping time with my kent.

yeah, kent, jeanine and i matched on purpose!

outside the local market!

after delivering the groceries, we went to the church we stayed at, and talked with pastor daniel. he's an old friend (after over 30 nights in a country, the locals become "old friends") and he invited us to their mission service that night. something that caught me off guard was the fact that they were having a mission service at all- all their offering went to building new churches and supporting their church plants. it was crazy to me how giving they are. i mean, we're supporting them with our mission services. they're barely making it. but they want to take everythiiiing they have that isn't completely necessary and do work with it in jesus' name. so rad. i mean, we're all called to do that. but why do the people who have so little do it so much better than i do? it was really convicting, and that was so good for me.
we hung out, made dinner, and went to the worship service for a while. then we played with some of the kids who were also getting bored and hot at the service (imagine at least a hundred people jumping around in a small room with no air conditioning, and you'll kind of understand what was going on)
i was particularly impressed with one of our high schoolers. i want to share her with you.

this is taylor, my love. and one of her friends she played some mean soccer with!

taylor signed up to go to mexico without talking to any of her friends first. she didn't want their decision to go or not go to affect her's. and she knew she wanted to go. taylor had never been to mexico on a mission trip. she had no idea what she was getting herself into. and she rocked it. i mean, this girl threw her whole self into the kids, the families, and the experience. as an almost-senior-in-high-school, tay could've been doing a thousand other things with her weekend. but she voluntarily choose to love on our el nino family. and she made new friends. what a girl! i'm so proud!
the next morning we had some good time with jesus and enjoyed watching the community wake up. then we continued our journey of hanging out with our old families and just loving on them. 

krissy and i just hanging out!

standing on the curb of el nino's major freeway. hah!

it was a great weekend. i loved being with some of my friends, and still getting to spend time with my high schoolers. i'd been missing them! and of course my favorite leading couple, eric and jeanine. i'm so thankful for the community we've developed in el nino, and the opportunities i get to be there and be with them!

god is so good- our boarder wait time was less than 10 minutes but we still managed to get our churros! and make friends with the mexican boarder patrol!!

these sweet faces. they're why we go!