What a cutie!

Drew and the little girl Bethany wanted to take home with her.

This is Martin, who I wanted to take home with me. I'm bouncing a ball for him, which he was quite enthralled with.

This is Sophia's brother with Karly.

This was the little girl who attached herself to Stephanie. Her name was Sophia.

Well, tomorrow is Christmas. Needless to say for my fellow Southern Californians, it does NOT feel like Christmas at all. In fact, tomorrow is supposed to be a pleasant 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Lovely. It's been over a month since I last posted (hehe) so there's a lot to catch you faithful readers up on.

Let's see...

School...

I applied to four colleges and have so far been accepted at three of them. At WJU, I have an $8000 academic scholarship waiting for me, and it can be renewed every year with a maintenance GPA of 3.0. Whoohoo!! And then at SDCC I potentially can get $32000 or $24000 over four years depending on how I do in the competition I have to participate in to get it. Confusing I know. Read it a few times and it will make sense. I promise! I also got accepted to SU, where Stephanie is going, but I don't really want to go there. I'm really excited about going down to SDCC in a couple months for a preview weekend. I was driving down the 5 yesterday through SD, and I really love that area. Big trees, big houses, big freeways, the ritzy beach feel, if you've been down there you'll know what I'm talking about...Right now that's my top choice.

So why was I driving that far down the 5 yesterday you ask? Well, it was because I was on my way to Mexico for the first time. Our little "youth group" and Sid and Linda and their neighbors Mark and Diane took shoebox presents down to an orphanage in Rosarito and then had lunch and went shopping. =) It is truly amazing how much poverty is there. I've seen pictures and TV reports or whatever, but it's quite a different thing to see it in person. Even the "clean and neat" neighborhoods are still what we would consider the poor section of town. I can't imagine living like these people do.

We went to this orphanage and it was amazing. Well, the experience was amazing, not the orphanage. I was told that this location was a 1000 times better than the place they were in last year, but there's also no guarantee that they'll be in this place next year. We met Mark and Diane's son, who is the pastor at the Calvary Chapel in Rosarito, and drove to the orphanage with Cindy, who lives in Rosarito and spends most of her time in the orphanage, and Jesus, who is the associate pastor at Calvary Chapilla.

Some of the kids there are so affectionate! Within 30 seconds of arriving there over a washboard road, Stephanie had two kids hanging off her. One of them wouldn't leave her for the rest of the time. I found a little boy I wanted to adopt and got to hold him and open his shoebox for him. They were all so loving and unselfish. Everyone helped everyone else open their presents without shoving or grabbing or "That's mine!"'s. One little boy even shared his gum with Drew and Sid, even though he only got one 5-pack. Pictures can tell the story somewhat better...

Okay okay. Sheesh Brittanie, so impatient!! =) So here's what has happened while I haven't updated...

I've gotten 2nd in our volleyball tourney, taken another SAT, went to Disneyland and had a wonderful day, started basketball, sent in college applications, did school, heard about USC losing, watched USC beat Oregon and Cal, went to a volleyball party where we were up til 4 in the morning, and I think that's about it.

Yesterday at the game, a somewhat drunk Mexican man told me he "loved my eyes". Weird. And the Cal tuba player fell down while they were highstepping through the endzone. Ha.

Does this explain the wedding picture?

Well, yesterday closed another chapter of my young life. It was my last last last volleyball practice. Us senior girls (woohoo all 5 of us) got in a group hug and "cried", which involved more obnoxious wailing than anything else. It was sad though. These girls, except for Tracy, have been with me since I was about 9 years old. Larissa and I have many good memories of coed volleyball =), Rochelle and I have been basketball buddies since that was coed too. Katie is my long lost twin, and we've had a lot of fun together over 8 years. Not that we'll never see each other again or anything, but that's just one thing we've enjoyed together that's gone. =( Don't get me wrong, I'm sooo HAPPY to be graduating and out of high school this year, it's just all the "lasts" that get me sad. Especially since I love love love volleyball and am NOT looking forward to basketball.

I brought cupcakes to make it better and for Larissa's birthday, which was yesterday. (Happy Birthday Larissa!) They were french vanilla, but I added some vanilla extract and cinnamon to the batter and frosting. I experimented and it worked!! Yay!

Saturday is the volleyball tournament, which is, again, the LAST one.

I'm depressed. I'm not ready to grow up. But highschool is dumb. Boys are dumb. I want to move on and become a grownup.

I'm ready to grow up.

Today I took the SAT1. I hope I didn't bomb the math section. I was there from 7:30 am to 1:15 pm. Bleh. I'm tired. I haven't done anything interesting for quite a while now except run a cross country meet. I got 2nd out of 3. My dad and Gwen are at the USC game right now.

I just have to say...Dos Lagos is really cool. And you must visit Charlotte Russe and White House Black Market. I went shopping there with Brittanie and Katie today and we got ice cream and Brittanie and I bought shirts. Mine is really pretty. But I am ANNOYED. The stupid guy who was ringing it up forgot to take off the security tag. So I have to take it back and get it taken off. Dang it. BUT! It was lots of fun, as was the senior dinner on Friday night and having Stephanie home for the weekend with 4 of her friends from school. Four day weekend for Columbus Day??? I don't even get that! Oh well. And we lost our second volleyball game on Saturday morning. It's been a long weekend and it will be a longer week. School and babysitting and volleyball and cross country meets and volleyball games and SAT1s, the list just goes on and on and on. Bleh. I need more sleep!! I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get to college. I'll pretty much die I think.

People, we have lift off!! Come check out my newest blog!! This is only two. That's much better than some people that have, oh, say, 500 or so. =) Here it is. Enjoy if you can.

Well, this has pretty much turned out to be the worst Saturday of my life. Read on.

I am such a klutz. I was coming home from the church this morning and running across the street...I jumped over the little section of grass because it was wet and I hit mud. I went flying, my box of candy bars I was supposed to be selling went flying, I hope my skirt did NOT go flying, and I came out of it with a skinned knee, hand, and arm, and a mildly sprained thumb. And with my dignity defintely NOT intact. Especially after I got home and cried.

The worst part about it was that it ended up I didn't even have to work (which is why I was coming home) because my boss had told me the wrong date. So I had to get up at 7:45 on a Saturday morning and hurt myself for nothing.

And THEN. I had to walk door to door selling the afore-mentioned candy bars.

And THEN. USC, although they won, did not have a very good offensive night.

But I did make some very yummy cupcakes:

So I've been thinking about college...if you haven't talked to me before about it, then I should tell you now. I am REALLY excited about going. I'm thinking about changing my major. For those of you who didn't know, I was going to go into business, open up my own little coffee shop and bookstore, and just...chill I guess. But I really didn't care that much about it, as in, it wasn't my passion. But I really didn't know what it was until about a week or so ago. I'm doing a research paper on children in third world countries and even in the tiniest bit of research that I did, I felt a strong pull towards them. Then I was talking to Stephanie on IM and she was telling me about http://www.wellspringinternational.org and that really touched my heart. And that's when I realized...that's the place for me. Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but that's the way it is. So to make a long story short, I've decided to change my major to missions, or to make it sound more official, intercultural studies. Alright gotta go to bed.

My grandma is here for the week!! Yay!

Something that has been on my heart for a while now is Satan's attack on marriage and family in the Christian community. Several families I know have been split apart, maybe not necessarily by divorce, but by severe relational difficulties. It really hurts my heart to see my friends' parents struggling, and in turn my friends hurting. Marriage struggles hurt everyone involved, not just the couple struggling. It hurts the children, the friends, the children's friends, the relatives, the witness for God. This has been a big issue on my mind lately and I would appreciate if everyone could pray that these families could fight back and reconcile their differences. Let's not let Satan destroy the Christian community!

Today I took a nap, which is rare for me. I laid down on my bed just to close my eyes for a little bit and the next thing I knew, I was waking up. Ahh!! I love naps!

Hick's Lake in Washington! (and me on a pig in Pike Place Market in Seattle).
So the people some of you know and some of you don't are Lisa, Bethany, Paige, and Brittany. The weekend was filled with thrift-store shopping, sunrise-watching, coffee-drinking, meetings, friends, and boys drenching us with water at 2 am. It was basically a lot a lot a lot of fun. I was again overwhelming men with my PIERCING eyes...sigh. But I did get to know people better that I hadn't known that well before like Heather, Melissa, Alex, and Katy. So it was fun. We played Kick the Can, Flashlight Tag, Fruit Basket, and 4-Man on the Couch. Oh and football. Good times, good times. And I only slept through one meeting!! On Monday we went out to Rocky Bay and ate pizza, watched the fire, and played poker (I was the shuffler). We left on Tuesday morning and got home Wed night at about 9:45. LOOOONNG 2 weeks, but oh so worth it. I have officially decided that I really really really really really want to go to college in WA. Even more than I did before. The trees, the location, the people....AAAHHHH.....I love it up there! I am glad to be back though with all my friends playing volleyball and babysitting and doing school...and oh man, maybe not. =)

Sunrise at Alki!!! We got up at 4:45 in the morning for this. It was worth it!! Stephanie, Caitlin, Julie, and Heather were my sunrise-chasing buddies.

We're going husband-hunting!! Wanna come??

A wild beast at Yellowstone and what it left behind...

Then there was this CRAZY long car ride up to Idaho...

So yes, I'm back. I had a lot of fun, even though I came home sick. Bleh. I'm just going to do the easiest route and post pics. So here they are:

This is my mom's mom and stepdad, who we affectionately call Mimi and Kelley.

Well, we are leaving in four days to go on vacation...again. Yay!! I'm so excited! First we go to my grandma's house in Nevada for the first night and then we head on up to Idaho to visit my other *favorite* grandma and my aunts, uncle, and cousins. We're going to do fun stuff like talk (which if you are part of the Foyle family can be fun), go boating up the river, and probably celebrate JoEllen's 10th birthday. It'll be nice though. A relaxing almost-week with my family that I haven't seen in a while.


Then we go over to western WA (my favorite place in the world) and visit our friends in Moses Lake on the way. We hang out with our second family in Tacoma area and go to a weekend conference at which we play lots of fun games until 12pm every night and also go paddleboating or canoeing on the lake. Another relaxing weekend and then we head home, minus Stephanie who has been taken to school by a friend halfway through the conference. We look at a college option near Sacramento and make it home late at night.

The exact dates I'll be gone is the 22nd-6th. So I'll miss the first volleyball practice, but that's okay. I'm just excited to go on an extended vacation again. So I will try to update more frequently when I get back.

I just read a story about a man who woke up and he realized he had turned into a big bug. It was very...disturbing. "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, in case you're interested.

Highlights from Lassen

I'm back...and my dog is dead.

Well, this will probably be my last post for a week and a half. Sorry to leave y'all hanging with my story like that. =) As you might have read on the Froesch's blog, I'm going to Lassen for a week. We leave tomorrow morning around 6:30. So my today's list of stuff to do is:

Pack

Clean my parent's bathroom (oh joy)

Help with the last little load of laundry

Shower and shave my legs (you all wanted to know that, I'm sure) so I don't have to wake up even earlier tomorrow morning to do it

I thought there was more and I was going to impress you all with the crazy amount of stuff I had to do today, but I guess not.

I'm thinking about getting a job during senior year. My *ideal* situation would be to work at the cute little coffee stand down the road and open. So maybe have the 5-10 am shift. That way I would still have most of the day to do school. But obviously you cannot dictate to your employer what you want, although with kids in school, it might be nice to have someone who could be there in the morning. I'm going to have to see how my schoolwork load is first. It might be just too much for me to take on. And Tuesday mornings I'm probably going to do yearbook. Well, must go start packing.

The Amazing Adventures of Ice-Girl, Part One


The call for rescue had come and Ice-Girl was on the way!! Slinging her annoying red cape out of the way, she lept from the nearest high curb and narrowly avoided being hit by a bus. The bus driver shook his fist at our dramatic heroine (no, not the drug) and roared on through the busy city streets. Ice-Girl stuck her tongue out at the receding bus and raced to the nearest crosswalk where she crossed very properly with the other pedestrians. Her blinky watch told her that someone out there was still in trouble!! Would she make it??? Her watch began to beep, slowly at first, then faster and faster as she approached her victim---er, rescue mission. Far down the block, there was a cluster of people gathered around something that was probably very interesting, but was just slowing traffic down. Ice-Girl sprinted past them, glancing down as she did. She gasped with shock!! It was a teenage mutant armadillo!!!! But the call for her heriocs was too strong to ignore. Ice-Girl ran towards the prone figure laying on the sidewalk next to a very large blue van. As she neared, she suddenly realized it was....California Brittanie!!!! Her younger brothers, a.k.a. hot water bottles a.k.a. HWBs, stood next to her in shock.

"Save us, Ice-Girl! Save us!!!" They cried.

Ice-Girl heeded their call and handed California Brittanie a cup of ice she had dispensed from her mouth into an insta-cup she had created by thinking really hard about dead spoons.

"Ahhhh....." California Brittanie quickly returned to her normal state. "Thank you, Ice-Girl! You're the hero of all of us!!"

"Happy to help." Ice-Girl replied with a small smile. "I'd forgotten how warm your body was."

Suddenly Ice-Girl's watch began to flash again.

"Keep cool!" She cried as she lifted her feet to run again. "On to save the center of the universe from the heat!!!"

Erica and Alley playing guitar, Seth and Tim eating

Stephanie and Drew, and Hannah and Bethany

Davy, Davy

Me and Max

Liz, Tim J., and Stephanie