Exciting News!

In the midst of the craziness of finals and the end of the semester, Leah and I have been hard at work preparing our baby. And by baby I mean the blog that we're planning on starting together! Our plan right now is to launch it in January 2013, starting off the year right. I know Leah announced it on her blog a while back, but I decided I may as well make an official announcement on here as well!

So, this is a warning to prepare yourself for January. Get excited, because we are!

A New Holiday Tradition?

For the second year in a row I piled in a car with some friends and drove the 14ish hour drive down to the southernmost tip of Texas to visit my sister. I was excited to go for one, because it's exciting to go anywhere new, and two, because the number of times I've seen my sister in the past few years I can count on one hand. This year it was me, Landon, Jacob, Andrew, Jenae and Martin that went.
We left on Tuesday night after classes were done and they kicked everyone out of the dorms and drove through the night, arriving about 8 in the morning. Our sleep schedules were all messed up so we wandered around Harlingen as Audrey went off to work.
For Thanksgiving I helped Audrey make food and we went and ate with her coworkers/friends. There was so much food and it was all wonderful! On Friday we went to South Padre Island. Its fun, but also so touristy. It was entertaining enough just to drive past all the gaudy buildings. It was a little overcast, so it definitely could have been warmer, but I'm not complaining. It was still glorious. If I just remember to compare the weather to that of the Oregon Coast that I'm used to, even the worst day there (well, aside from Hurricanes) probably would still seem pleasant. The water was actually a decent temperature, which I think I still find it hard to wrap my mind around. I have such a block in my mind against swimming in the ocean from years of wading in the Pacific Ocean and having my feet go numb.






That evening Audrey insisted that to get the real Texas experience we needed to go to a cowboy bar, so we dressed up in our plaids and went to Winks. That was indeed an experience. There was line dancing and it was huge and overwhelming.
Saturday morning we went to the flea market, and I found some nice boots which I was excited about. There was so much stuff to look at, I don't even know how long it took us to walk through all the aisles. After we had ate lunch there, we drove to Progreso to walk across the border to Mexico.



We parked and walked across the bridge into Mexico, where literally all you have to do is put two quarters into a turnstile and they let you in. Nuevo Progreso, which is right across the border, thrives on tourists, so there were so many vendors everywhere. A warning, if you plan to wear boots, just know ahead of time that people will relentlessly ask to shine them for you. I ended up buying a couple blankets, and tried not to spend all of my remaining money on souvenirs. One exciting thing about being across the border was that Andrew and I, the only two under 21, could buy drinks. I decided to make my first purchase a memorable one and bought a pina colada served out of a pineapple. It was great. Once we got back to Audrey's apartment we were all exhausted, and since we were planning to leave at 4:30 am we played a couple rounds of Dutch Blitz and called it a night.
We drove back all day today, stopping in Dallas for lunch with Landon's uncle. We went to Jake's, an awesome burger place right by their house so we were all stuffed for the rest of the ride home.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'm always thankful for opportunities to see Audrey, and it's such a privilege to have friends who will endure the 14 hour drive with me. We have one more week of classes left, then finals week and then I make the 26 hour drive home to Oregon with Landon and Jacob. Hopefully I'll be able to make it through these last two weeks to see another vacation! Thanksgiving was wonderful, but I got absolutely zero homework done, so I guess it's about time to get it in gear.

Thank you Audrey, for putting up with all of us for the week, and I can't wait to see you again so soon at Christmas. I love you!

What a great day.

Honestly, it really is just a mediocre day, as busy as any other (maybe more), except for the fact that my new lens came! Gone are the days of only manual focus! That's a real pain in the butt. I bought a beautiful AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm VR lens used. I'm always a little uneasy buying things other than books used off the internet, but this was definitely worth the risk. It looks brand new and was only half the price of a new one.


Time for some new adventures.

Busy Busy

Now is the time of the year where everything and everyone goes a little bit crazy right before Thanksgiving. It just feels like the work load is getting bigger, my motivation is getting lesser, and break is getting closer. Choir has been intense in just preparing for singing with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, we'll be performing Carmina Burana on Sunday so this week we're driving down to Wichita to rehearse with them. As awesome as the opportunity to sing with them is, it is definitely a huge time suck.




Some things I'm excited for coming up:
Driving down to South Texas for Thanksgiving to see my sister!
Looking into potential seminar topics over break
Payday.
Going home for Christmas. Ah.
Leah and I have a couple surprises in the makings as well.

Trail Walking

After taking so many pictures this summer Leah and I have been going through photoshoot withdrawals. Yesterday we wandered about on the trails on campus and took some pictures. All the ones of me were taken by Leah, and I took the others.
On another note, I think I would declare today the windiest day of my life. I've never experienced this before! 40mph winds are enough to make walking a bit more difficult. Megan and I walked to her house this afternoon and made pretzels, which was surprisingly easy. They were delicious, and the recipe included a tasty honey mustard dipping sauce too. This is a busy weekend, but I don't mind. It's been the best kind of busy!

Miscellaneous

I have been very absent on this blog this school year so far, so I figured I'd give an update. I've been pretty busy with school work, and working at balancing that with work and friends, but somehow in the little free time I've ended up doing a lot of yoga. I decided to spend the money on a nice yoga mat, and I'm so happy with it! I got the Lululemon travel mat and it is wonderful. I figured investing money in yoga would be enough to get me past the point of getting tired of it just because I'm bad at it. I've stuck with it now for a little while, and am already noticing myself improving and becoming more flexible.
Halloween came and went, and I realized I never posted about it! A few of my friends and I went as Harry Potter characters, I was Draco Malfoy naturally. Finding a tie was difficult. I ran around for a while, but apparently Bethel boys aren't very into green ties. Whatever. I found one eventually, but when my prospects were looking pretty dreary I was strongly considering just using what I had so far and going as Ellen Degeneres. Here are some pictures from the semester so far, I haven't taken very many though. It's hard when my auto focus lens broke, so the only one I have is manual focus. Convincing people to take pictures with my camera gets even more difficult when they realize they have to focus it themselves too. Maybe Christmastime will bring the joys of a new lens. I guess I ought to save my money.










Looking ahead, Thanksgiving break is in two weeks and I'm going to drive down to the very southern tip of Texas with a few friends to visit my sister. I made the same trip last year but with different people and it was so much fun. Then after Thanksgiving there are only a couple weeks until Christmas break, and Landon is coming home to Oregon with me! I'm so excited! I just have to get through the end of this semester, and in one month I'll be back home for a few weeks. That can come anytime now.