Home!!!

This here is just a little shout out to say WELCOME HOME CARLY!!! My roommate for practically my first 4 years of college just got home today from being gone for 11 months! She's traveled all throughout the world, experiencing an amazing missions trip crossing several continents and I can't wait to hear more about it face-to-face!!! Love you Carly!!

Golfing?

Until a little over a week ago, I would have definitely said golf was one of my least favorite sports. Yes, I know I'm a PE major and should enjoy and encourage others to love all sports, but there are just a few that I couldn't seem to understand the point. Well, in the case of golf, my mind has changed.

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My aggravation with golf has been around for a long time, growing worse with age, to the point that I hardly felt like trying again. You see, quite a few years ago, my mom took my sister and I to a driving range with a few holes on the side and it went terribly! I'm generally athleticly alright at most sports (not great at anything) but I sucked that day. It's hard to get me frustrated but man did I go off that day! Ever since, I've stuck to the random fun game of putt-putt (especially glo-golf!) and stayed away from even watching real golf.

However, all this was subject to change when we decided to take my mom golfing for her birthday at a 9 hole 3 par course, playing a scramble with two teams. It actually sounded pretty fun since I knew we could play with fun in mind and I knew neither my brother nor my sister-in-law (who is 7 months pregnant btw) had played much before. Well, the fun was definitely true! Even though it rained, we still had a blast watching each other, particularly Danielle when she would attempt to bend over and tee up. On top of that, I wasn't half-bad! I had a few good drives and then came my famous birdie shot. The course is full of water, which really sucks if you can never get your ball to go up, but I found a way around that... I hit the ball and it skipped over the water several times before jumping up on the shore, around a wall, and to within a foot of the hole!! It was crazy awesome! I did the skipping water trick a few more times but never with the same result. Overall, it was great! I'm not sure that I'm a total golf convert but we did go to the same place today to play regular golf and it wasn't too bad. We'll see what the future brings!!

randoms

Life has been hoppin lately!! Here's why:

Two of my best friends just got married this past weekend! It was a super beautiful wedding and another great reunion with friends. Unfortunately, it was in the dreaded Columbus, OH- enemy territory- but we made do, with a couple fun road trips included. I've known both bride and groom since freshman year at U of M when none of us knew each other and it's been wonderful to see them get together! It's always great to know both sides of the couple cuz it makes it doubly special! On top of that, I got another wedding invitation for two more of my friends that will take place in October! It's an exciting age to be in!

On the home front, my sister-in-law is getting huge with my niece and I love getting the chance to see her everyday and watch the whole pregnancy! I'm getting super excited for the baby! In preparation for Noel (my niece), we spend most days/nights fixing up their house so they can move back in before the delivery. I don't know if it's a family trait but I like all the DIY stuff we're doing! It's neat to see the before and after stages. I still don't have a job... very disappointing. And, school is starting in only 2 weeks!! I can't believe it's come up so quickly out of nowhere! August seemed to speed by. All of the sudden, school is upon us, my summer is over, my friends are married, the baby's comin soon, and... wait for it...

My best friend Carly is coming home!! She's been gone for nearly 11 months, traveling around the world with no visits home and she'll be back near the beginning of September! Less than 2 weeks!! WOOO HOOOOO!!! Yes, I'm a bit excited. But, I think that's it for now!!

Blue Like Jazz

I just heard some exciting news: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller is being made into a movie!! If you haven't read this book, you totally should! I've got the book if you want to read it! It's a Christian book, but very different from most books you'd read. It was a surprisingly great read and I'm so excited to see what they do to make it a movie. If you want to check out the movie, go here: http://www.bluelikejazzthemovie.com/

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Time to catch up on the goings on in my life!! Hmm... let's see... where do I start?!

This past weekend entailed a trip to the Illinois/Iowa border or my wonderful cousin Jessica's wedding! We got to take a nice long drive out there and arrived at a really nice hotel overlooking the great Mississippi River. We had a nice relaxing night before waking up and taking my sister-in-law to a surprise baby shower! Even tho I didn't know it was a surprise originally and I thought I totally blew it several days before, she was totally surprised!! It was great! She got so many cute cute things!! (we went baby registering a little bit ago and it got me so psyched for the coming baby! Just a few months more to wait!) Later on was the wedding and, while nearly matching Danielle in gorgeous maxi dresses- both given to us by my sister, I got the pleasure of having my cousin's little girl sitting/squirming on my lap drawing me pictures and asking to have the songs from the hymnals sung to her. The bride and bridesmaids looked beautiful and they led us to the reception for extra catch up time with all the relatives! If you didn't already know, I've got a HUGE extended family so there were a lot of people to talk to!! the night ended with some dancing and sleep before driving home the next morning... great weekend!

I also got the pleasure of going to one of my best friend's wedding shower a few weeks ago in Columbus, OH. Yes, that may sound weird, my going to U of M's rival school ground (Ohio State is located there) but it's explainable! My church decided to do a church plant there, seeing as God should be shared EVERYWHERE, including OSU, and Sarah felt God called her there so she's been away for a little over a year now (terribly missed!). The shower was in this lovely building in the middle of this park and we had a great time with great food and cookies!! The groom, another MI friend, had just arrived that day from CA, his first day moving to OH, and showed up to open gifts with Sarah. Sooo cute together! Can't wait for the wedding in a few weeks!! We had lots of fun, even extending to the long car ride there and back in the same day with two of my other great friends! Road trips rock!

Finally, I got to see the 6th and latest installment of Harry Potter with my sister and a few friends. I'd been waiting for so long to see it and was so excited and pumped for it after the previews looked so great! I'm gonna try not to spoil it, but I have to say I was a bit let down. the movie was rolling along (tho this was the first one where I actually felt how long it was) with mostly great stuff... until the end. I was so disappointed on how anticlimactic it was! It left me feeling like the rest of the movie wasn't as good. I still think everyone should see it, and i you haven't read the books then you might not have noticed anything wrong... but if you did read the book then I'm sure you know what I'm talking about! Anyways, yes, go see it, but I was personally let down. I'm still super excited to see how they're going to split up the final book into 2 parts... I hope it's great!!

Weird/Funny Happenings...

Have you seen the 2nd Transformers' movie, Revenge of the Fallen? Well if not, DON'T, and if so, you know what I'll be talking about. It was TERRIBLE! I was totally amazed at how bad it was!! Even though I had read some bad reviews about it, I remembered reading the same about the first movie that I absolutely LOVED so I figured it was just a taste thing but boy was I wrong. It was full of immature, little boy humor and Megan Fox was there purely to add the sexual aspect. The movie was much more about the robots rather than the people, and while a few of them were funny, it was mostly just odd. Finally, the ending was terrible with this weird out of body experience. The only redeeming thing I remember about the movie was the hilarious mom reacting to her son going off to college. She was seriously hilarious! All in all, definitely not worth spending any money on. I'm so disappointed in the terribleness of it after such a great first movie!

On another weird/funny note, I was doing my power walk thing through the arb a few days ago, walking around the field with the long grass, when I noticed a deer standing out there. Now, it's not all that weird to see a deer in Ann Arbor, especially as we edge more and more onto their territory, but it is weird to see them mid-day instead of early morning or late at night. Usually they run away but I tried to ignore it so it wouldn't feel the need to run. It seemed to work since it didn't move as I passed by and I soon forgot about it. So there I am, listening to my iPod so Icouldn't hear everything but I soon hear rustling nearby that I guessed was an upcoming runner that never seemed to catch up to me. I looked back and was surprised to see the deer was keeping up with me about 15 feet out and a few feet behind me! I paused and it paused. I continued and it continued. I got to my turnaround point and the deer was still there! I have to say I was a bit scared at this point by its odd behavior. I figured it either wanted some food which I didn't have or it was going to attack me when I stopped paying it attention. Needless to say, I got out of there and took a turn off my path... crazy deer.

The last recent happening was when two of my aunts arrived with my Grandma on Friday. My mom thought it'd be fun to do a girls' date getting mani/pedi's. It ended up being my two aunts, grandma, mom, sister, sister-in-law and me, big party, taking up most of the place. After it was all started, we found out my grandma had never had this done before and it was amazing to watch her face as her chair started to vibrate and her feet were massaged and lotioned and painted. I couldn't always tell if she was totally freaked out or really enjoying herself but it was hilarious!!

Yes, it's summer and I just went to the first wedding of the summer! It was a fabulous wedding for two of my college friends and it brought together a lot of people that have moved away from MI since graduating! Great wedding and reunion all in one!! The groom started crying before the bride even came through the door and the bride's dress was absolutely beautiful! Their creativity and humor was shown in the slideshow of their lives separate and together, and then later at the reception when each person in the wedding party was given their own funny yet meaningful introduction! We had wonderful cake and conversation and then a dance party before the night was over... great time!!

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARLY!!!!!!!