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...