For Janelle...

Janelle tagged me to do this a while ago and I haven't had the time but I am currently working my wonderful wednesday shift of 1-6pm in the gameroom and I find myself with a few spare minutes. At the moment I am trying to drown out the lovely soundtrack of the gameroom: people yelling at each other, ping pong balls flying all over, and the air hockey puck slamming into the sides of the air hockey table...I find that Pandora Radio does wonders for the current situation. Anyway here we go, I hope you get to learn something new about me!


four jobs ive had:
1.coldstone creamery
2.aquablue swimwear (mommy & me swimsuits, precious)
3.Palos Verdes Chamber of Commerce
4.Commuter Events Coordinator for the Campus Activities Board at CBU (I am doing Special Events this year!)

four movies ive watched more than once: too easy!
1.pride & prejudice
2.star wars (all of them)
3.she's the man
4.bourne ultimatium

four places i have lived: this more difficult
1. PV
2.Fullerton
3.Riverside
4.Lomita (in the summertime)

four tv shows i watch: don't judge, the Bible says not to
1.One Tree Hill (and proud of it)
2.Ace of Cakes
3.Grey's Anatomy
4.hmmm...I want to watch The Mentalist when it starts

four places i have been:
1.nebraska, only been twice but it feels like a 2nd home
2.Bangladesh
3.Ohio
4.Thailand

four people who e-mail me regularly:
1.heather (boss)
2.chris (boss)
3.goldstar.com (how i got sweet but cheap wicked tickets)
4.my dad

four of my favorite foods: im gonna go with favorite meals
1.fried shrimp from bubba gumps
2.mongolian beef from pf changs
3.my moms lasagna
4.chicken tender thursday at the caf

four places i would like to visit:
1.anywhere in africa
2.greece
3.italy
4.jerusalem

four things im looking forward to in the coming year:
1.seeing my niece and nephew
2.lancer legacy week (be on the look out for this, its gonna be sweet!)
3.yule
4.graduating from CBU...yikes!!!

four friends i am tagging:
1.adam (you have to do it since you asked to be tagged!)
2.brie
3.taylor (since you haven't done it yet, even though your sister asked nicely)
4.lindsey (if you ever blog again)

thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed it!
since janelle posted a pic on hers i wanna be cool and post one too. so ladies and gentlemen, who do not already know, meet this years exceptional CAB staff:

It's almost here...

...I am now only 4 days away from my first day of school as a senior, which I am still having a hard time believing. The past 2 weeks have been great, I moved into my house with my wonderful roommates, had a week of training for CAB, and then spent this past week hanging out with the new freshman. It has been an extremely bust 2 weeks but sooo much fun! I am really excited about this upcoming year and what it will bring. I want God to challenge me and to use me, I want to apply to grad school, to plan some awesome events for school, to be intentional about my friendships with people, I want to build an awesome community with my roommates that is centered around Christ, I want to explore new parts of Riverside that I have never seen, I want to soak up every moment I can during my last year of college but most of all I want to do all this for the glory of God!!!

Tradition...

When we (Monica, Me, Courtney, Vicky, and Liz) graduated from high school we started a tradition where right before we left for school we would all get dressed up and go out to dinner. A couple years later what started out as dresses and going to the Cheesecake Factory is now jeans, sweatpants, and a t-shirt and getting takeout. Although the woardrobe and dinner location has changed the time we spend together is still awesome no matter where we go or what we wear. I love these girls so much and am so thankful for the roles they have played in my life and I feel blessed to be a part of theirs. We all considered it a miracle that we were able to carry on our tradition this year as we are all a lot busier than we have been, but I hope we will carry on the tradition for years to come!

Jet lagged...

I woke up this morning at 5am not able to fallback asleep but still exhausted, thats jet lag for ya! I got home from Thailand late Tuesday night and I haven't even attempted to bog yet because my mind is still going a million miles an hour trying to process everything.
If I had to sum up Thailand in one word it would be unforgettable, which I know is kind of a no duh but let me explain. It is quite possible that never in my life will I ride an elephant, raft down a river on a bunch of pieces of bamboo tied together, ride on the back of a songthaew, live in the middle of a rainforrest, visit a temple during Buddhist Lent, help build a house for a 71 year old woman,and most importantly I may never be in Chiang Mai, Thailand again.

Here is a look at our elephant ride...kinda scary but totally worth it!


It only took us one hour to tare down the house the older woman lived in before, it was basically made up of random pieces of wood and tree branches. It was hard not being able to communicate with the workers and the other people in the village we were at but it didn't stop us from working with them and having a good time. My favorite moment came toward the end of our trip when we had a bunch of people come out to the village and bless the new house. It was amazing to see the worker's reactions to us when we sang a couple of worship songs and then prayed a blessing over the house, many of them had tears in there eyes, I wish I had a picture of it but my camera battery had died so i'll have to wait to get a picture from someone else and put it up. During the blessing all of us gathered around the woman and kneeled in front of her, as it is custom to be lower than your elder, and we prayed over her and the house and by the end she was in tears, it was one of those moments I will never forget. Then she sprinkled water over us as a thank you!

This is a before and after of the house, sorry I don't have the finished product but like I said my camera was dead




My crew also go to work at a school in the village where helped build the house which ended up being so much fun! The kids were full of life and so anxious to be loved. In the morning we told them a Bible story and then we split them up by grades to do crafts, english, and PE with them. It was definitely hard to say goodbye to them at the end of the week!



Another awesome thing about being at the school...they had karaoke!


While were there our team had the pleasure of adopting 3 students from SouthWest Baptist as part of our team. They truly became one of us, they traveled with us, had team time with us, poured their hearts out to us, made us laugh, and truly made our time in Thailand better than you can imagine. Two of the girls, Emily and Lydia, were part of of our crews and will be there for 6 months (so jealous of them right now) and Shawn was there taking pictures the whole time was there for a month. It was really hard to say goodbye to them but at the same time I am so excited for them and I know God is going to use their time there in mighty ways!!!

The day we left =(


Last but not least, for now anyway, my team was so great! We got along great and had a blast together. It was hard for us to be split up when the International World Changers team came but I think it made us appreciate each other that much more. I love you guys, thanks for an awesome experience!

This was after the Khantoke, which is a traditional a Thai dinner and Thai dancing...pretty sweet!


This was after our elephant ride...best ISP picture EVER!


Thanks for sticking with me through this long post, it was actually quite therapeutic. Im gonna post all my pictures on facebook if you want to see more, and I am always up for personal photo viewings and story time if you are interested. Now im going to get ready for the day because I am going out to Riverside to see Brie, Jeni, Chase, Taylor, Janelle, Chris and Heather and I can't tell you how excited that makes me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Tomorrow...

I am leaving for Thailand and I haven't started packing =) Hey it will get done sooner or later. Needless to say I am excited, a little nervous, curious, and amazed that time has gone by so fast since my team first started meeting in February. I have to be in Riverside at 6pm tomorrow (tuesday) and from there we will head to the airport and our flight leaves for Bangkok at 11pm and it will take 17 hours to get there and then another hour to get to Chiang Mai. Thats a lot of traveling but I think it will be good bonding time for our team. We will be there for 3 weeks and then i'll be back on the 22nd with many pictures and stories to share. Here is a pic of the fam from father's day a couple weeks ago, quality family day! lah gorn...bye bye

Quite a day...

Yesterday I started off the day by going to church with my old roommates and then we went to lunch to celebrate Kristin's 25th birthday. It was really great to see them and catch up with everyone, especially to find out that Britney is pregnant! After that I went to see Nicole and got to meet her beautiful new baby boy, Caleb. It was so awesome to meet him I only wish I could have stayed a little longer but I had to speed off the Riverside (go fasttrack) to see of the Romania team. It was neat to be with them and pray with them before they left. I also go to see Chase and Alica which made my day =) Finally I got to see Brie, and we watched the Laker game (sad) and hung out. Then we met up with Taylor and had some Golden Spoon, so all in all a pretty awesome, long, emtional day. And right now im hanging out with my asian watching the office (thanks to taylor)...life is good =)

Im sorry but...

I need to vent a little. Today was a busy day but a productive one, however a couple things happened that really pissed me off. I had to go to Staples today to pick up some ink cartridges for work and as I was turning onto the street where Staples was I was having a hard time seeing around a bunch of parked cars, so I started to creep out carefully. As I was slowly about to turn the corner a guy in a Ford Expedition flew by me and stared me down the whole time. This is where the frustration began because 1. I was a ways away from his car and he was over reacting 2. I am not freaking Superman therefore I cannot see through metal and thus I was slowly turning onto the street and 3. my German tank could take his American scrap of metal anytime! Then I pulled into the Staples parking lot, found a spot, and of course out of all the empty spots I chose the one that contained my greatest pet peeve. If any of you truly know me then you already know where this story is going. There it was, a shopping cart in the middle of my spot. I am sorry but if you are one of the those people who leave your shopping cart in the parking spot next to you cause you don't want to walk 5 feet to put it away please just understand you are one of the laziest, selfish people in the world. If you claim that you don't have enough time to take 20 seconds and put your cart away then stop, slow down and do not let time control your life.
Life is only as busy as you make it.