birthdays!

i'm so sorry to kim and emmy for slacking on this post...school is hard!


anyway, here we go......
i can honestly say that birthdays are my favorite holidays. without a doubt. i love celebrating people, making them feel loved and special. and a good meal is always legit. there are so many birthdays in march to celebrate.
half my freshman hall has a march birthday, which was exciting now that we're all turning 21! 
my birthday was at the very end of the month, and happened to be on the first day of our spring break, and we were in napa for it!
my dad and stepmom met us from oklahoma, and two of my roommates came up with us. it was fantastic! the wine was absolutely delicious. i don't have many pictures, but i'll share what i do have.

airport birthday coffee!

birthday shopping in san francisco!

birthday dessert!

one of the most beautiful wineries. ever.

cave tour!

it was kinda rainy one day.

we found a love for riesling while we were up there.. thanks jenny!

castle winery!

lynette has more pictures, i think she'll be sharing them on her blog, luscious confections. which you should look at anyway because it's delicious. 


next week is dead week, then we have finals. i'll try to keep up!

extra long weekends!

i know it's been a long time since my last post. i sincerely apologize to all my readers (aka emmy and kim!). 
school is so time consuming this semester. it feels like when you're at the beach, and you get stuck in a set of waves. you hardly get up for air before the next wave (or book to read, or paper to write) knocks you back under. there's a little lull between sets (aka the weekend) before it begins again.
that's my school illustration, and the reason why i haven't been posting more. i just spend all my time reading all the time.


but a few weekends ago i was able to take a long weekend and go visit my oklahoma family. emmy came with me, as did two of my cousins. we had the greatest time! 
we did fun activities (frisbee golf, clay shooting)
ate a lotttt of great food (homemade gluten free, soy free everything!)
and enjoyed hanging out! (even kim came up from dallas to visit for two nights! a
here are some pictures from our sweet weekend!

leaving....on a jet plane!

gluten & soy free soy sauce!

gluten & soy free red-velvet cheesecake brownies!

freezing frisbee golf with hanni!

katie donut holes too!

valentine's day nails!

walmart scavenger hunt!!

gettin some shooting in..

snow! and a best friend!

and a cousin!

the backyard was narnia the next morning!!

my prayer for you is that you're lulls are longer than the sets of waves in your life. and that you enjoy the ride from the waves? or at least feel god's grace and provision in them!

a quote

here's my quote for you from that book i'm reading for christianity and creative thought. or something like that..


"If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own." (L'Engle, 62)


yeah, that's right. cited it in mla. 
the book is called walking on water. and each chapter i read i have to pick out 2-3 quotes or ideas that stand out to me, challenge me, encourage me. whatever. like i said the other day, there are so many! this is one of my favorites though. it's full of great things. number one, it's outright saying we're not qualified. what a great reality check for big heads like mine. two, it implies great things are being done by god. and they are! it's just easy to forget sometimes.




and two cool rain pictures from the weekend while i was studying. because i wasn't qualified to take my exams! (see how i connected it back there?)

the clouds. were crazy.

rocking the new rain boots! they kinda cut off my circulation, but it was worth it.

little breaks.

i think after finals week, all things school-related stopped for me. and because my blog is written on my computer (which had just completed over 30 pages of writing in less than a week), i couldn't have anything to do with it for a few weeks. 
but now, we're back at school (only 15 weeks until summer!) and i'm back at my blog. really, what's a better procrastination technique anyway?
since not much has happened in this week at school- the first week is usually the week i'm inundated with syllabi- i'll give you a quick recap of my break.


i spent week one in california. that included christmas parties, a quick trip to el nino, mexico, catching up with home friends, and christmas day with my family!

god was right there with us on our drive down to mexico, blessing our morning even as we were beginning!

one of my best friends kim turned 21 right before christmas! we celebrated  in style- made our own pizzas, had ice-cream (and brownies for them), and watched the help. love my kim, and loved celebrating with her!

the best looking present i wrapped all season long!

kim and i on christmas eve, celebrating jesus' birthday this time!

week two was in oklahoma. emily and i left december 26th. we had christmas round two, and participated in some cooler weather activities like snow tubing, ice-skating, frisbee golf, and going to the outlets!

oklahoma brings it on the christmas lights. no joke. this is normal for a tree in oklahomer..

wise words from the oklahoma countryside!

emily, lynette and i worked on these cupcakes. well. they worked, i decorated the trees with their ornaments. 

the gluten/soy/nut free "katie counter" at the new year's eve party!

and week three was in idaho. i left oklahoma january 2. flew to phoenix, and santa ana, stayed in irvine for a great lunch with some of my best friends, and got on a plane again, to fly to oakland then boise, and surprise one of my roommates. it worked! and we had a great week just hanging out and being crafty.
somehow i ended up without pictures from idaho...but it was so good! and when we got home, we went from the airport to the beach. just how elise likes it!

it's kinda far away, but they were shooting a pirate movie! 

california love!

and i'm currently reading a book for one of my classes (art class- christianity and the creative process. it's a challenge. notttttt!) that i thought was going to be kinda lame, but is turning out to be really legit. i'll share some thoughts it's brought up with me soon- maybe even tomorrow!
but my prayer for you tonight is that you had a restful, beautiful holiday season as well, and quality time with loved ones where you were able to just breathe!

post dead week, pre finals week.

what can be more draining than dead week? finals week of course. it's weeks like these that make it difficult to remember how much i appreciate the opportunity to be getting a higher education, and value my time at apu. 


last weekend was good though. i had some of my high schoolers from home come visit me. we stayed up late, played monopoly, ate an excessive amount of tortilla chips and gummy bears (strange combination, huh?), and they caught me up on their lives. saturday morning we went for a hike that was a little more tedious than they'd bargained for. but they made it, and sang miley's "the climb" on the way up. it was worth it! they are such sweet girls, and i really loved our 24 hours together!

love my katie, jen, emmy and lizzy! and our clear, beautiful view!

then it was back to real life though. however, i heard a little question a while ago that's been stuck in my head since, and today feels like a good time to share it. so, here you go..
how does it feel to be escorted through life by the king of the universe?
i obviously don't have time to do this question justice. i mean, i have 19 pages of writing due tomorrow at noon. but it makes my heart happy to acknowledge that thought. especially in this crazy, stressful time of finals, and friends coming home, and a wonderful holiday season that we're nearly in the middle of. i wanted to share it with you too though, so you can remember who's walking by your side in the midst of craziness! 


and so, after 4 more papers, 4 exams, and 5 days, i will be done with yet another semester, more than halfway done with my undergraduate career, and onto colder winter activities, like oklahoma and idaho.
my prayer for you this week is that you rest much more than i will, and are aware that the king of the entire universe (seriously. the whole thing.) is walking with you!

november pictures

the promised pictures from november!

one night we just decided to build a sweet fort in our room. a little study break. it was legit.

my friends. are the best. we loved our fort.

it's a long story, but we also caught a pillow on fire in our room. it was such a process to get it out. like a three hour one. and our house smelled horrible, like burning memory foam. for days. it was rough. we slept on the floor in the living room with all doors and windows open.

we also had to do homework outside..

pillow leftovers. after it burned for hours, was doused with a lot of water, and we used basically an entire fire extinguisher on it.

we went out to glendora one night too. it was my friend maria's birthday, so we took her to celebrate. we just happened to go on the annual christmas extravaganza, which was kinda cool to see. 

i kinda did a bad job capturing this, but the trees were magical. 

thanksgiving was good too. i already wrote about it though, so here are the pictures!

early morning huntington beach run!

clearly i'm not really a fan of the cold fog at like 8am on thanksgiving..

all of the cousins!

celebrating hanni's birthday!

it's dead week this week. so you can probably expect a post or two. they're good procrastination activities!

thanksgiving weekend

this break that we've been waiting for- it finally came!
i started my thanksgiving holiday early. i skipped shakespeare tuesday night, and was home and in bed by around 9. it was the perfect beginning to a delicious weekend!


wednesday i spent the morning looking for a cheesecake pan. literally 3 hours of digging through boxes in the kitchen. it was horrible! but i had to find it so i could make a gluten free cheesecake for our dessert night at the vandewydeven's. i eventually did find it, and made a pretty good cheesecake with it. it was actually real good for a first try! my favorite church service is the thanksgiving eve one. i love the thankful pumpkins, i love the beautiful cornucopias, i love how predictable the service is, i love the little ones who tell you they're thankful for their kitty, or their sister. and i love love love that everyone comes home. sitting in the back of the sanctuary with 10 people i love and rarely get to see, getting looks from parents to quiet down...nothing can beat that!
our family also participates in a little pre-thanksgiving dessert feast after church. we usually host it, but because of the move, the vandewydevens had it this year. basically, it's just 5 or 6 families getting together with so many kids (except we're all college students and almost adults now) and a ton of dessert. like 4 pies, cheesecake, brownies, fruit cobbler, cookies, and other desserts i already forgot. we just sit and chat it up for hours. so, so good. miss.kristen and i chilled together most of the time. it was wonderful!


thanksgiving is always spent at my aunt's. this year lynette and i did something new though- we ran a 5k turkey trot in huntington beach thanksgiving morning. it was for a cause my cousin hannah is super passionate about- clean water! so good! our run alone gave 4 people clean water for 20 years!! my brother flew in around lunch time (i am beyond thankful he got to come back!) and we all met at my aunt's. just like we do every year. we sat and watched one of my younger cousin's football film, shared ridiculous roommate stories, and played games. we ate. and ate. i had dinner at 4, and again at 6:30. and we celebrated! hannah and em have birthdays right after thanksgiving, so our day always includes birthday cake and presents too. i had a thankful post already. but i am so blessed, and am so thankful for those blessings! each day, not just thanksgiving! 


yesterday was hannah's birthday. happy birthday to my sweetest, most soft-spoken, loving, full-of-faith, beautiful cousin! i love you hanni!
we celebrated her last night with traditional italian pizza. except i had soup. but i still celebrated. and it wouldn't be an outing with the lew part of my family if we didn't get dessert. so we stopped for donuts and ice cream on the way home. so delicious! thanks for having a birthday hanni!


today is my sister's birthday. i'm celebrating her all day! (currently celebrating from peet's, where i'm supposed to be doing homework..) we're having birthday lunch with her at my mom's (paninis and potatos, with brownies) and birthday dinner with my dad (lucille's!). i'm so thankful for my little sister! thanks for having a birthday emac!


tomorrow's going to be an uneventful day. well, that's what i'm predicting. which is why this post happened today. i don't think there will be anything blog-worthy tomorrow. just some church, sushi, and picking up my best friend from the airport! lots of homework and housecleaning too..
my prayer for you is that you had such a thankful thanksgiving, full of family, friends, and delicious food.


ps. i'll post november pictures during a homework break sometime this week! i have lots to share!