Guess who!!

YEAH! I'm BACK! After a MONTH of being home... I finally find the time to actually get the motivation to post! After not writing for so long you're left with that "Uh.... what do I post!?!?" feeling. It's been especially hard because we haven't had a computer (yes... AGAIN) for a while now. Caldwell hired some new employees so we had to send back the laptop they've been letting us use. *sadness* So now we only have the net when my dad is home with his laptop... and even then it's almost impossible to get on. He's on it most of the time, and then when he's not it's just fair game for anyone... including hours of movies for a sick little boy. =| Yeah, so anyway. I finally got a block of time to get on while everyone else is busy! So let's see... where in the world should i start???

Well, I've talked to a lot of you about how my time in IA was, and there's no way that I'm going to try to bring you up to date from two months ago! I was hoping to write more while I was there so I didn't have this much to update on... but it really was almost impossible to fit in posts with everything else I was doing. If I was on the computer... it was either working on more designs for the latest graphic project (which was most of it) or some writing assignment (like writing a teacher's guide to Before you Meet Prince Charming). I was verrry happy to work with cs4 for the first time! It's wonderful! I'm definitely pushing for an update on mine now. =) And now I know why Mrs. Schuurmans loves her dual screens so much.... WOW. I actually felt organized! I could drag all my menus and non essiential windows to one screen and work with just the picture on the other screen. It was great! lol, probably the first time I ever used windows and didn't want to throw it across the room. And it was a really good experience to do "work" for someone else and have to fit their idea for what they wanted and thought looked good. I've only had myself to work with for so long that it was really good to have someone say, "Hmmm. I don't think I like that!" It definitely stretches you to have to keep trying to make it just what the 'client' wants. Thanks guys! =)

So anyway, now I'm back and I've been trying to get into a good schedule so I can stay organized and productive. It's kinda nice not having to do school for a change, but then again... you have to work that much harder to make sure you don't slip into a lazy mode of not getting anything accomplished. (which I must admit happens some days if I'm not careful) So today Rachel and I are going to get the Christmas lights up outside and do some decorating inside. I also am on sewing duty for Joshua and Bradley's costumes for the Christmas play. =) So that should be fun. I just cut out the patterns and will (hopefully!) start sewing some of it tonight. Let's see what else... Oh. I'm trying to get my mom to go get some fabric for a backdrop so I can start playing around with lighting. I want to get a good Christmas picture this year since some of the last year's uh... stunk? =P Most of them were last minute deals so you can't blame them too much... and I didn't have my camera. So two bad things. lol, anyway. Oh yes... and I cut my hair!!! AHHH! I think I'm starting to like it now. But I definitely wondered what had gotten into me after Kara told me she cut 13 inches off!! *faint* She's like, "Oh. Was that too much??" hehe... No. it's fine... I'll just close my eyes now. =S lol. So far no one has told me they hate it... so that's a plus. I'll have to post a picture soon for you people who live so far away.

Well, I'd write more, but I need to go help Rachel carry in the tree. But hopefully I'll be posting again sooner than last time! Oh and a little news flash for you people that read this blog... I probably will be shutting down this blog sometime soon... BUT, I'll starting up one or POSSIBLY two new ones. Anyway, I'll let you know in advance what's going on. But for now Happy (late!) Thanksgiving!! I hope all of you had a wonderful time with family and relatives. I love you all and can't wait to see some of you that have been gone and on the road.

Hey guys!!

Ok! Well, OBVIOUSLY I have very good reasons for not being able to post regularly. But I FINALLY have a free-ISH night to myself. So I thought I'd post something. I haven't really gotten a bunch of pictures since last time... once again.. crazy busy. So I'll put up some of the pics I have.

Well, last thursday through today have been extremely hectic and busy, involving many all nighters and quite a few hillarious moments. We (Abby, Caitlyn, Royal, and I) started the desktop publishing class/course last thursday with Stephen as our ever brilliant teacher. The first two days were defninitely the most overwheleming. I've never used InDesign, so that was really new to me. It helped that I had used adobe stuff before, and it was basically the same layout as like, PS, so that made it a little easier, but still VERY challenging. And then we went through some photoshop stuff, which was a lot of fun. Royal and I have very different oppinions on which is better. PS or ID? Haha. PS!!!!! But he caught on fast to ID whereas I wasn't interested hardly at all, so I didn't just gobble it up like he did. So we're both the go-tos if anyone needs help with either. Oh, and I guess I should tell you who Royal and Caitlyn are. (I think I'll have pics of them below) Royal goes to the same church as Mally's. So we see him there every Sunday. He was interested in the class too, so he came. And Caitlyn is a friend of Mally's and has helped with Bright Lights. She's SOO sweet! I love her. :D Oh, and if you've visited her blog... She doesn't look ANYTHING like that now. I was like... whoa! She has short cute dark reddish brown hair. Not long blonde. :P You'll see it in the pics. Anyway... So we've been having a lot of fun with them. So let's see.... where was I? Oh, so yeah. We had a lot of assignments to get done over the week! We were sooo busy it was crazy. We had class basically all day. (9-3:30ish) And then we would have assignments due by a certain time. We designed buisness cards, wrote out and designed essays in ID, made dvd covers for the Bright Lights conference videos, and I even made a mock up website layout for their main website. It needs a little update... so I'm trying to help them come up with new ideas. I think they liked it... but of course I'm really critical of my first drafts. So we'll see what else I can do with it. :) SOO... today was the final exam test!! AHH! I was so nervous I would do a terrible job. There was a lot of stuff to remember. A lot of design principals and stuff. But I didn't do too bad I guess. I only got a four wrong on the entire test! So I was happy.
So then... after our last day, Abby, Caitlyn and I decided to go "celebrate" by going shopping!! :D YES! So we went to Walmart, the mall, and Sonic! :D We had fun. And besides running over the sidewalk... LOL... we had a GREAT time!! (I won't expound at the moment) :P

SO! Anyway, that's pretty much my busy week. (for the most part) OH! I got together with my girl today that I'm doing a study with. She's 14, and she comes to the Bright Lights meetings. All the leaders got one girl... and Maisie is mine! So we went out to Coffee Smiths (how appropiate) tonight and talked over our session. So we had fun, AND had coffee! I tell ya... this place has got more coffee shops then anywhere else I've EVER been. There's just gazillions of 'em! It's nuts!

Well, I better stop now. I have a terrible headache from all this overloading. I stayed up really late this last week from trying to get assingments done by the next morning. So I think I need to go to bed early. I'll throw some pictures up though before I leave. I love and miss you all!!! I can't wait to come home!




Me and Nickie!



Grace, Nickie, and Abby



We saw Wisemens (Spelling?) at this conference. So we got to talk to them for a while... as well as listen to their music!



Me and Abby!



Grace and Stephen. I thought it was too cute to miss. :)



Desktop Publishing Class



Royal, Stephen, and Caitlyn



More peoples....


Well, there's more... but they're on my camera... and my head won't let me get up. So maybe later! Love ya'll!

Ok! I have pictures! =D

Sooooo! =D Today I finally got some pictures uploaded. I have to be really careful with my battery tho, cuz i just went thru the first one and I don't have my charger. :| I have no idea where it is! I couldn't find it before i left... so my dad bought me another one off of ebay.... but it won't be here for a week! :| *sigh* So i can't just go a have a hay day.... YET. I WILL tho. =D just wait. But anyway... here are a few that I took today. Some of them aren't the best because i had it in manual most of the time... and SOME people wouldn't stay still! :| =P so anyway. Enjoy!





Abby and Nickie hanging out on our lunch break.



Abby at her desk... mines right next to her! =D




Here's the 'kitchen' area behind the store and cubicles.



Meet my newest best friends! =P



These are SOOO good! Mrs. Mally got dropped off one for all of us while we were at the office. She's so sweet!



Here's a cute restraunt I got some lunch at on Tuesay. They serve the BEST pizza EVERY! Yummy!



This is the coffee shop i was talking about in the last post. It's SOOOO cute! I LOVE it! I want to live there! I want my rrom to look just like this... or at least my kitchen!




And here's the entrance. Abby's taking pictures too. =D



Here's some pictures inside the coffee shop.
















SOO! There's a starter! I'll get more up soon. But this is just a few i had on hand. Miss ya lots!

Update 1 of who knows how many...

Well, let me first start off to say...


I MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Wow. Only two days into the intern and it's been very busy! I've had a great time meeting the girls here and getting to know them better. Abby is my room mate... though we're more like 'house mates'! We both share the house the Mally's are providing for us. So that's a lot of fun! I went from just wanting my own room to getting a whole house!!! Pretty cool. So we're both being neatnicks. Angel Torberson, you would be proud. =D

Yesterday was pretty busy. Abby and I had our orientation here at the BL Office and got sworn in as official members! Yay! And... along with working here at the office... you have to be able to make coffee. But this isn't your ordinary coffee... this is the REAL STUFF. Any of you think you drink strong coffee?? HA! Think again! Each CUP has two heaping tablespoons packed with starbucks dark roast coffee beans! Uh huh! Ladies... this is coffee. It's as close to mud as it gets. So i'm coming back a changed person... jittery anyways. :P LoL... I used to think I liked fairly strong coffee... but they're teaching me to drink the real stuff. And I'm really starting to like it! All of us are really big coffee drinkers... so our goal is to hit every coffee shop in town. I think from what I've heard... there's probably around 10-15 coffee shops around here. At least 3 starbucks and some other really cute nice ones.

lol, let's see. What else? Oh, I learned how to pack orders yesterday. Nikki, a BL leader I'm sure all of you who went to the conference will remember (she was the pretty blonde who played 'flirtilia' in the skits), helped us learn how to read the order forms and then fill them. Some people buy a ton of stuff! So that was fun.
The office is pretty tricked out thanks to Stephen. He's the techy around here, and does his job really well. He's wired everything here. It's amazing! And I didn't even know he was a professional photographer! He has two cameras, and at least one of them is a Canon 1ds mark III!!! He works for a newspaper in town, and recently got one of his pictures published in the New York Times. I was pretty impressed. So yay! Another photographer to ask a bazillion questions too. And he has a ton of toys. Lots of really nice equipment. And then they've all done an amazing remodeling job in the office. Everything looks so professional and high quality. I meant to take some pictures today... but we were busy as usual. So maybe I'll remember tomorrow.

Abby and I had a pretty funy evening. After we got off work, we headed out to shop for groceries for out kitchen! We've already planned out our meals for the next two weeks... so that shud keep us good until then. We usually only have to really worry about dinner at our house... cuz we just grab some breakfast early before we head to the office and then we pack lunches or go out to get something. Grace and I are running monday, wednesday, and friday. So I have to get up extra early to get everything done before we leave. Anyway, so Abby and I went shopping around 5:40ish and then stopped at some consignment shops looking for cool coffee mugs for Grace and other stuff we thought of. We finally finished at Walmart around 9:30 and decided there was no point going back home and making something for dinner.... so we went out to McDonald's for dinner at 10! A little late... but better late than never I guess. =P We got home and spent time cleaning up the kitchen and organizing drawers and shelves. So now we've finally settled down... and we're both finishing up a few personal things, and then I'm going to bed! I'm exhausted!

Oh! And last night, we had our BL meeting with all the girls who live in Cedar Rapids. There were about 60 I think. So we had a good sized group. I took some pictures, but since I just took my exilim with me too the meeting, and I didn't want to distract the girls with flash... they didn't turn out so well. But at least you can see the basic idea. I'll bring my 40D with me next time so I can get a few better shots. :) Sorry I haven't gotten many pictures up yet... I just haven't gotten the time to take very many good ones. I'll try more this week... but here's some (gross, bad, yucky, stupid point and shoot's!) in the meantime. =P

Well, I'm pretty wasted, so I better get to bed. I love you all and miss you BUNCHES! The time still seems to be moving slowly... so maybe things will pick up. Thank you soo much for all your prayers and support!! It means a lot to me. TTYL!
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I just realized... (hits head)... I don't have the usb cord for my exilim. (groan!) SO just hang tight on the pictures. I'll take my slr with me tomorrow and upload those tomorrow.

Bye!! =(

Well... I'm leaving anytime now! We're trying to get last minute things packed and ready. So luckily that's keeping me busy and away from being too emotional. I'm gonna miss ya'll SO MUCH! Don't forget to e-mail me! I'll be able to check it pretty often. And I'll update my blog as often as I can. Hopefully the next few weeks won't seem like too much of an eternity. :S I wish I could have come to Emily's party today and said goodbye to all of you... but you'll just have to listen to my voice over the phone if she still gets me to say my chapter that way. :P Well, i gotta keep getting ready. I love you all and miss you already!! Keep me in your prayers!

Off to Cedar Rapids!

Well, it's official now! I'm going to be leaving for the Bright Lights Internship in Cedar Rapids this Sunday. I'll be gone for ten weeks! :( *sadness* But I really think it's going to be a great learning and growing experience. They have a ton of stuff to get done and keep us girls busy with. The schedule invloves devotions in the morning, followed by Bible classes with varying instructors. Then after lunch we'll be working in the office doing a meriad of things. Ranging from controlling incoming and outgoing expensises, to help putting material together for Bright Lights conferences and Leader training. Steven Mally will also be teaching a desktop publishing course to us. And there's a ton of other stuff to get done and attend. I'm sure I'll be busy... but please don't forget to keep up with me! I'll miss all you guys! Ten weeks seems like a really long time... :( so I guess I'm not looking forward to being away THAT long... but the desire to go and help out with other girls pushes me through some of that. :)So anyway, please keep me in your prayers in the following weeks that I'd be open to anything God wants to show me. And also that I'd be able to do a good job.... and not get too homesick! So hopefully I'll see most of you on Wednesday and then whoever is going to Emily's tea party on Saturday. I'll try to keep my blog updated as often as I can. I'm bringing my camera... so I should be able to post some pictures too. We'll see. I wasn't able to get my laptop in time to bring with me... so hopefully I'll be able to use their computers there.

So, there's some more news... and can you believe it!?! ANOTHER post!! WOW. Am i good or what?? :P Love ya'll!

New post! (Happy Austy?)

Ok... well, i know i haven't posted in what seems like an enternity... but the Turner County Fair has kept me incredibly busy this week. Emily Schuurmans and I have been working on staff there helping keep everything clean and spotless. We just finished our last day yesterday around noon. The first two days (monday and tuesday) were definitely the hardest and loooongest. We were scheduled for 13 hours both days and ended up going overtime. The last three days weren't as bad since we got off around 4 instead of 9. (YAY!) And what would being on staff mean if you couldn't run people over with a Polaris Ranger?? Or as Emily liked to call it... our Polaroid. lol. We DID have some annoying troubles with one of the rangers on tuesday... the handeling was AWFUL. You would barely step on the gas and it'd literally jump ten feet forward. And it sounded like it was going to take off into space at any second. (sigh) So that one was sent to detention the next day and we got another one. =D Let's see.... what else? Oh yes. I lost my voice almost completely on tuesday and it still hasn't come back. Now everyone is telling me to quit smoking. :| (haha.) Everytime i try to raise my voice... it just comes out really high and breathy. lol. And of course, everyone wants to hear me sing. Funny, but not happening. So it will be very nice when i can talk again... i've already forgotten what i sound like!

Oh, and while we're on the topic of the fair... Congrats to Daniel, Hannah, and Abby Hanson for making another run on best of show! The pictures look fantastic! And also congratulation to Mrs. Schuurmans for best of show on her painting! It was gorgeous! All that suspense and finger nail biting was so worth it after they put the ribbon on her painting. All us kids (schuurmans and me) we just pacing for the last ten minutes trying to read the judges faces and figure out what in the world they were talking about. And then what really caught us all off guard was when they put the purple on some other painting... and then 30 seconds later brought out another one and put it on Carol's! We went from dissapointment to bouncing off the walls and yelling. lol. You gotta love the fair.

Well, unfortunately there's no new pics... but I'll see about getting some up at a later date. I might be leaving soon tho! Bright Lights is having a internship down in Cedar Rapids... and I really want to go. It's for ten weeks! So i'm not too happy about that. :( But i think it would be a great learning experience and i'd love to help them out however i can. If I did go, it would be next monday. Really soon! So pray for me that i make the right decision and get ready in time! Love ya'll!

Congratulations Rachel and Daniel!!!

Well, as I'm sure a lot of you know... Rachel Haugaard had her baby earlier today!!! (around 4:30ish is what I heard) Congrats to both of them and the families! I don't know many details yet... but I just had to write something for them. We can't wait to see the baby! Hope you're doing well Rachel! We love you!

FINALLY! Some pictures...

Well, even though I've had my camera for two weeks now, I haven't been able to take as many pictures as I want. I've been really busy with babysitting and working outside when I'm home. And then I'm trying to find time to actually LEARN how to use it properly. So, I finally did a photoshoot with rachel (haha... she knew that was coming). The one thing that would have been nice was if my reflector had come in... but they still turned out ok. The really annoying part is that she doesn't want me to post almost HALF of my favorites. =/ Bad Rachel. lol. If you want to see them I'll have to e-mail them to you. So, anyway, here are a few that she didn't mind. (I can't wait to get photoshop back!! Hopefully I'll be buying my macbook within the next month or so.) *crosses fingers*


Ok... well, this isn't reeeally a picture of Rachel... but close enough right? =P LoL, I was messing around with different angles on Stephen's car and somehow his shoe got in the veiwfinder instead... so i thought it looked cool and took a picture! (Josh's shoe is in the background in the picture below) Bet they never knew they were such good foot models! lol.


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Ok, that looks a little bit more like rachel i guess.

Congrats Anika!!

Today we went to Anika Larson's open house party! She looked SO awesome! Besides Laura Dubs, Michael Haugaard, and me... she's part of our '09 grad click for this year. =P Yay! The party was a ton of fun, and the decorations looked awesome. Her colors were black and pink... and possibly white? I'm not sure... There was some white, but i think the main colors were black and pink. But anyway, everything looked great and everyone had a fun time. There were a lot of people coming and going basically the whole time. So it was fun to see all the new faces. Anika must be reeeeally popluar. ;)

Anika, you are an AWESOME friend, and you have a winning smile that can melt anyone. Keep being the wonderful, amazing person that you are! We all love you and wish you the best of the best! We're FINALLY done with the first twelve years of school! LoL, now I'm gonna ask you the same question that drove me crazy (and still does! lol)... Soooooo. What are you gonna do now?! =P C'mon! Fess up! We all know you're going into nuclear science. =P lol... ok maybe not.

Well, Congrats again!!! I hope you had a great rest of the day. And... ahem... can I add....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YE-AH!! 19 is an awesome age. ;) (lol... don't worry... people won't read this by tomorrow... so ur safe from the singing .....for now!) haha. Love you!


(Emily and Anika)

(hmmm... Well, that's definitely Anika... but i'm not sure who that... uh... other weirdo is.) =P lol

(Isn't that GORGEOUS!!! I loved it!)

(LOL! I love this. "Maybe no one will notice if i take one of these....")

Oh! I forgot!

Yesterday was my parent's 20th anniversary!! I meant to post that also with the last post... but i guess it slipped my mind. =S (Another "oops".) =P But anyway, they both went out to sioux falls for dinner last night while us kids stayed home and watched movies. =P Rachel and I tried to get them to dress up but it didn't quite work. Oh well. As long as they're happy I guess. =)

But anyway, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!! We love you!

Does "Ooops" count?

Ok... i KNOW i haven't posted in... 3 weeks which basically equals FOREVER! But it's been really hard to have time to get one done. Sorry. =S So i finally found something I can post about.... =D =D =D!!!


(Drumroll....)

On Sunday... I bought my camera!!!!!! YAY!!!! It still hasn't come in, but it shouldn't be too much longer. After weeks, and hours and hours of reveiws, I ended up getting a Canon 40D! I also got the 28-135mm IS lens to go with it. I can't WAIT to get them in!! I've been bouncing off the walls for the last few days hoping the UPS guys will hurry up and get here. I'm probably going to get a reflector as well before too long. (I fell in love with Hannah's when she did my senior pictures!) I have SOO many ideas for pictures running thru my head i almost can't sleep at night! lol. Rachel has already began complaining because she knows she's going to become my first victim as soon as the camera comes in. =P She's seen and heard enough of us photographer people to know that a photoshoot can be an all day affair. lol. The only bad thing is that I don't have photoshop! That's a problem... but i guess I'll figure it out. =) My aunt already has me down for a photoshoot in July or August. I'm just kinda nervous because she's asking for a certain style. So we'll see i guess.



Anyway! So there you go! An update on my life! (lol) Now I've gotta go get back to work otherwise I'll get beaten. =P Luv ya!

I'm BAA-ack! =P

Hey guys! SOO sorry i haven't posted in FOREVER! This graduation stuff is keeping me on my toes. =S But i've finally gotten caught up... (for now)... and I'm gonna use this spare time to post!

Well, thursday was Joshua's 8th b-day! Since my dad wasn't home till late that night we celebrated on Friday at Ihop. (he really wanted to go there for some reason) =P Josh got some cool stuff, but he's extra proud of his new BB gun. (Rachel and I flipped when we heard that he was getting one.... "head for cover!!!") So he's been out practicing with it non-stop ever since then. He couldn't believe it when he got it. =D So, anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!!! You're such an awesome little brother. Even tho we get on each other's nerves at times, i want you to know how much i love you. You are a !handsome!, talented, smart, and caring guy, and I can't wait to watch you become a teenager! =P lol. But you're pretty awesome just the way you are... even if you still treat me like I'M the younger sibling. =P lol. Love you Josh!

And THIS Sunday is the graduation!! (AHHHHH!!!!) I just finished my picture board and wrote the first draft to my speech. My dad is currently 'red penning' it. =S That's always scary, but i'm glad they fix all the 'spleeing' errors and grammatical mishaps. I might look pretty UN-grad like otherwise. =S lol. But otherwise i think everything is going pretty well. There's just a few other details to finish and I think we'll be ready. I'm getting slightly nervous now that we're down to one week. But i think the most nerve racking thing will be either the speech or the duet Laura and I are singing. =S I'm not looking forward to either. But hopefully everything will go ok.

Well, let's see... what else is new?? Umm... Hmmm... I think that's kinda all for now. I'll have to get some pictures up after the graduation. =) My dad wants to go over the corrections in my speech now... so I guess i'll go. I'll post later! Luv ya!

*Busy signal*

Hey ya'll! Srry I haven't posted in a while! I've been busy with all the graduation prep and then the last few days I've been pretty sick. =( I haven't been able to get out of bed till just today. I think I slept most of the day yesterday. =S (I can't really remember.) Today felt worse so my dad went to get me some drugs. =P But it helped! lol. Anyway, I'm hoping to get back on my feet soon! Hopefully I'll make it to church tomorrow. =S Just pray that this stupid thing ENDS. I'm going insane with how long it's dragging out.

So, as soon as I'm over this thing I'll try to put up a real post. And there was a request to see recent pictures of our house so I'll try to get that up too. Hope to see you all tomorrow!

Alright alright!

(drumroll)....


TA-DA!!!! A POST!

lol, srry i haven't posted in forever. I guess i was just... uh.. brain dead there for a while? =P in any event.... Here is something for ya'll to chew on until i get something real to write about. =)

Well, YAY! I'm offically an adult now! And i can drive! YAY!!! (no licence YET.) And let's see... what else? Graduation is coming up! Hannah (my photographer!) just finished my pictures! They look awesome, Hannah! Thank you SO much! I'll post one of them just so ya'll can preview it. =) I think i'm gonna get my ivites out next week. I sent some 'test' announcements to Harold's to see how they'll turn out. I'm so excited for Graduation! Although i'm not looking forward to the speech! =S I guess i don't mind them terribly, but i sure wouldn't do it for fun! =P Anyway, so that's coming up. (May 31) I hope you all can be there! Tho i kno it's a little hard for you peoples who are half way across the country. =/ i'd still like to see you tho! (if you don't come, you can make your checks out to Sarah Smith...) LOL! JK! =P

Well, I'll write more later... I can smell the pizza wafting out of the kitchen... and i'm STARVING!! So until later... Luv ya'll! =)

Uh oh....

Well, today is my offical LAST day of being 17. =( I love seventeen! I can remember Emily and me counting down the days until we turned our "favorite" age. (remember Em?) =P We'd sit in her room talking about how cool it was going to be when we were both 17. lol, i don't know why exactly we thought it was such a cool number... maybe just cuz it sounded cool, or maybe becuase at the time it seemed really old. (i think we were 14 or 15ish) =P But in any case, we were both dying to be 17. And now after a full year of being 17, i have to give up the title! =( Emily still has a whole 9 months left! No fair! =P lol, well i guess 18 is pretty fun too. I'm KINDA hoping for a licence for my birthday present. (PLEEEEASE?!) LOL

Well, anyway, I'll try to post some pics of my B-day tomorrow... but i'm not sure if i'm gonna have the camera or not... we'll see. I can't remember if my dad's getting home tonight or tomorrow. ?=o We really need two cameras. REALLY REALLY badly. =P It's kinda driving me nuts to not have a camera on top of not having photoshop. =/

Well, I guess I'll see some of you Friday for church service. I miss everybody so much! I feel as if i haven't seen anyone in forever! lol, must be the missed Sunday. (we got snowed in Saturday night so they canceled church) SO can't wait to see ya'll then!

A message from the computer graveyard...

I think we might be cursed or something!! LOL.

Well, two days ago, Joshua took an axe to the computer.... ok, i'm kidding. But he DID decide to dump a whole cup of water on the laptop we JUST got from my dad's company. Yeah... somehow my dad didn't take that too well. (go figure, right?) =S SO, here we are AGAIN w/o a computer, and dad has to pay for yet another broken one.
(btw... I'm writing this from the library) Anyway... so nothing much to say. (that seems to be the norm lately) lol.

Oh, i guess i can think of ONE thing! My birthday is in 9 days!! I'm gonna be legal! Although you know, EVERYBODY who brings up my 18th b-day brings up jail! (?!?!) What?! Do i look like the criminal type?? (Don't you dare answer that. lol!) It's as if everyone is just WATING for me to rob a bank after i turn 18. What gives?? ROFL. whtvr. =P

So anyway, now that i breifed you on all the latest happenings... I'll just try to think of more interesting things to say when my dad get's back w/ his laptop. =) But don't hold ur breath. Luv ya'll!

*yawn*

Well here it is folks! It's that time ONCE AGAIN! Yup! You guessed it!......

IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER LAME POST!!!

WHOO! Yeah! Now ur excited! Just wanted to wake you up there.... *sigh*.... (oh boy).


Alright... SO! NO. I don't have anything to say! And NO. I don't have any new digital art. BUT. i DO have some drawings I'm gonna post. (FINALLY, something!) LOL. I almost never have the camera, so i decided to buckle down and draw some anime (and chibi). I haven't drawn in over a year now, so i'm a little rusty. But here's two pics i just did. Hope you like them! =S (i showed Laura last wednesday and she laughed... she thought they were mushy. LOL. Srry Laura! i like to draw cute little chibi kids hugging, and hey! It's waaay easier to draw people kissing than their whole face! So just think of it as laziness. lol.) =P



this one i tried to enhance a bit so it was clearer... but w/o photoshop it's kinda hard. =S but at least it's a little better. (this is chibi btw) =)


And here's the mushy one! lol! Maybe I'll dedicate this one to you Laura!! =D lol!


I'll see about drawing some more later. But for now this is it. =) L8r!

Me again...

Hey ya'll!

Well, srry it's been a while since the last post... and no pictures! It's SAD! But this time I'm posting from Angel's computer. My dad was on, so i drove all the way over to Angel's so i cud post just for you! Ain't I sweet?... ok, ok. So it just HAPPENED that i was ALREADY going over to babysit... but SO?! I'm still here and posting! lol. Well...Nway... =P


SO, i don't really have anything to say... No new photos, graphics, drawings, or photoshop of any kind. ='( *LOTS of tears* I can't WAIT till i get photoshop back!! And to think i was upset when the colors were just messed up! Now i'm really upset! lol. *sigh* Maybe I'll just have to beg Hannah or Rachel to bring their laptop to church so I can photoshop during lunch or something! LOL. (i would too!) =P

Oh... Molly wants to say something. I'll turn over the keyboard to her...

Molly:

ihdafuhiaufwufoavf vowhairvwihwhir9433y493vvaerf9hvt4vnhuwa349y43 9vy34n9vvq9438-y4q9vn-q4vkjjklxjklxjklxjlkjxkjxklixufr680443656565656
fadsklhfahlkf9ew8uhwfosidhfsodioiooiio

OK! WELL! That's a mouthfull, Molly! (lol) Unfortunatly, I think we're gonna have to cut you off so soon. Srry. Oh, she says goodnight to everybody... and quote, "dook dook dook... AHH! whadis? hhhm-no." Unquote. LOL. Oh... and Micah and Bradley say goodnight too. Ok boys! Back to bed! Hold on... I'll be back...


OK, well, anyway I s'pose i don't really have anything else to say... not that ANY of this has actually said ANYHTING. lol. But, if I think of anything else, I'll try to get on and post. I'll see about getting some pictures too. It's so boring w/o them! Angel has a camera here... but i have no idea where the USB cord is. =/ if i find it I'll post a picture... but in the meantime--- Miss ya'll lots! (in person as well as online!) =/

Sadness...

Well, we just called the Mac shop in sioux falls... and the terrible news is that it's dead. *SOB* They said if we wanted to fix it, it would be an estimate of $800. Enough to buy a whole new one. =/

I'm just glad they could save the hard drive.... that would have been SO SO SO bad if I lost ALL my work, all my pictures, a ton of photoshop downloads, and everything else I had saved on there for the past 4 years! I think I would have gone insane. But luckily they saved it. So now we're gonna have to get a new one. But I don't think we're gonna get another mac. ='( *tears* Dad thinks we can get something just as good with a PC. Esp now a days when computers are just getting packed with more and more power. I'll miss my mac tho. =( But the bright side is, that since we'd be switching to windows... i'd need to buy photoshop again since i have the mac version. (ok, so BUYING it AGAIN isn't the bright side...) BUT! We MIGHT get CS4!! Since we're gonna buy photoshop again, we might as well get the latest one. That would be awesome! But we'll see... I haven't checked the price difference in CS2 and 4 yet. But i s'pose we could probably get a student discount again...

Well, anyway... so that's the reason why I haven't updated, responded to e-mails, or commented in forever! =/ And now i don't even know how long it'll be till we even have a computer again! =( I don't know why the computer crashed... it's not THAT old. *sigh* I hate starting all over. I LOVE the mac. Oh well... can't do anything about it now. SO, I'll probably not be on as much cuz the only computer we have now is dad's laptop... and he's usually on it ALL the time for work. But I'll get on... even if I have to wait till he goes to bed! =P

Well, hope you all are doing well! I s'pose you can pray that we find a computer SOON, and for a good price. We're seeming to have some sort of omen with things breaking lately... everything keeps dying or falling apart. lol. First the Baby Grand, then the car, then the vacuum, then the computer, and then dad's laptop was on the frits for a while, and now we're all crossing our fingers hoping that our phones and the refridgerator don't have some sort of epidemic. lol. What else?

Luv to you all! xoxo =)

(srry, no pictures this time...) ='(

2009 Sweetheart Banquet!!

Well, here's the new one that was SUPPOSED to be posted last week. It's obviously old news for a bunch of you... so srry. =S But it's a post at least. SO here she be:

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Ok! I finally got the pictures and NOW I'm gonna FINALLY do a new post!! =D =D =D Aren't you happy!? I knew you would be. =P

Well, I will have to say that even though we had a lot of fun putting this together, I'm definitely glad we're done. =) Everybody did such an awesome job helping and serving. Laura and I couldn't have put it together without ALL the youth! The younger girls and a few guys did the AMAZING job of baby sitting for all the couples' kids. That's always a huge help. And the older teens stayed downstairs to help put together the plating and serving. The guys did an awesome job waitering, and they all looked great! And of course I would have totally lost it without my girls!
Rachel Haugaard was such a HUGE help! I think she brought half the decorations for the banquet!! They were leftovers and extra decos from her wedding, and she generously lended them to us to use. THANKS RACHEL! She ALSO did the amazing job of arranging all the the flowers. They looked beautiful. =) And she also got there on Friday extra early with Starbucks for Rachel, Amy, Laura, and I! You're so sweet Rachel!

Well, let's see...what happened that day.... Dubs and us Smith girls got up at about 5-ish that morning to leave at 6:30 for Sioux Falls. We met around 7 at Walmart and did last minute shopping for a few fresh foods and ice. We grabbed a few doughnuts and headed to Hyvee to get roses. When we got there we went in to ask how much roses were... It was insane!! It was 5.50 a rose, and around 25 dollars for a dozen! We were like.... no way are we going to spend 50 dollars on roses. And they weren't even that good looking! I had bought roses at Hyvee before, and i just couldn't remember spending THAT much on them. So we finally decided to just go ahead and TRY the other Hyvee on 41st. So we go in, expecting the same thing. I went up to the lady and asked if they had any white roses, and she came back with these GORGEOUS white roses. We thought for sure they'd be the same price, esp. since they looked so good. But when I asked she was like, "Well, since they're kinda on their way out... I'll give them to you for a dollar a rose." !!!!!! We were ecstatic. So we got a dozen white roses and a dozen red ones for a dollar each! We ran out of the store laughing and dancing all over the parking lot!! It was so hilarious! But we were too psyched to care. =P

So after that we headed over to the church at about 8:30. Laura and I started pulling out tables while Rachel and Amy set up the chairs. My dad had said we would probably have to wait to get the dividers out, but Laura and I decided to just try and see if we could lift them. We were pretty pessimistic at first... until we got all three dividers set up. =P We were feeling like we could lift anything after that. LOL. We kept running around trying to see who could lift the most chairs and other stupid stuff. LOL. Dorks. =P Anyway, after we got the main stuff put up we started decorating. Laura pressed all the table cloths while I sprayed glitter on rose petals. Amy and Rachel were dolls washing the dishes for us! THANK YOU GIRLS! Then Laura and I had the arduous task of matching silverware! AHHH! Now since not all of you know what our church's silverware drawer looks like I'll explain... There are about two or three drawers FILLED with mismatched silverware. Knives, forks, spoons, ladles, teeny tiny forks, serving spoons, serving forks, butter knives, steak knives, you name it! and we probably had it in there.... somewhere. SO we began trying to find decent matches. We thought, hey, only 38 sets... that's not too hard. AHHH!!!! Riiight.

NWAY, so that finally got done. By then we were all starving and wanting to go out to eat. So we all piled into the car and headed off to a gas station. Luckily it was Friday, so all the drinks were a penny an ounce. We checked out then huffed it back to church. By then we were all getting a little hyper so we decided to blow off some energy by singing and playing piano (and running around some!). =P We finally headed back downstairs to start getting ready. I've never seen so many cosmetics, hair supplies, and clothing all in one little bathroom! LOL! We had fun getting ready tho. Then about an hour later Rachel H. came in with STARBUCKS!! WE LOVE YOU RACHEL!!!!!! =D =D =D!!!! We started to speed up our progress as Emily Schuurmans, and a few Hanson kids came in early to help. By about 5 we were all in high gear! Laura and I were rushing around trying to get finishing touches done and answer about 10 questions a minute. LOL. Then within 15 minutes of the Banquet starting we realized we didn't wash any salad plates and we didn't have a lighter to light the candles!! So we had Daniel Hanson run to the store to pick up a lighter, and Michelle Erikson and I washed and dried dishes as fast as we could! There was a few frantic moments like when we had to have things come in and out of the ovens, or when we plated the main dishes. The main dish was probably the hardest part just because there were more components to it. But we eventually got it all plated and out to the guests.

The guys did a FABULOUS job this year once again. I got a little concerned when they didn't seem to be listening to any of the instructions I kept changing on them! LOL. But they pulled it all off. So I suppose they're more talented than I thought. =P They didn't dump any food on anybody at least... =P

Well, that's about it, besides all the mountain of dishes and clean up we had afterwards! Emily was indispensable the whole night, but man, she really took on a HUGE job... washing ALLLLLLLLL the plates and glasses and silverware and chargers and serving utensils! I think we counted around 250 dishes + 138 pieces silverware! Wow. I was definitely impressed. HUGE thanks to Emily for being such a trooper! Katrina Larson and Hannah Hanson took turns drying ALLLLLL those dishes. THANK YOU GIRLS!!! Everyone did such a good job jumping in to help clean. That's always the hard part. But we finally got it done at about 11 that night! I was definitely ready for bed. I crashed at about 1 when I got home. Getting up at 5 in the morning and going to bed at 1 doesn't feel too good the next day. =S lol.

WOW. That was insanely looong. Now that you just read my latest book... Here's some of the pictures! =P



Setting up tables...







Ok. Here's the proof that we actually lifted and dragged these things into the other room! LOL. Ain't we strong? =P



Here's all those sets of silverware we were putting together!



And here's those wonderful girls washing dishes! =D



Here's a pic that shows most of the dishes and stuff. There were so many!



And here's a pic of the table decos. =)

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Well, Srry this is it. These are all the pics that i already downloaded last week. I can't get to my pictures cuz they're all on the hard drive... in the mac... at the shop. (did i use enough prepositional phrases?) =P You'll just have to look at Rachel's blog to see the rest of the pics. (livingourlove) It's in my list of people I follow. She posted one about the Banquet too.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!!

Two days late....


I WAS going to post it yesterday... but was WAY too exhausted. And Saturday I was gone the ENTIRE day. Oh my word... I've never seen the mall so jam packed! Wow. It was insane! You could barely get through the food court without it taking you 10 minutes! You would literally stand it place for a minute before the couple in front of you would start MOVING again. Yikes! And the stores were crazy too. I went into Aero and could barely get in. Everyone and their boyfriend seemed to be in Sioux Falls... Like ALLLLL day! Although it was pretty cute seeing guys of all ages in Walmart with carts and bags filled with roses, candy, jewelry and stuffed animals. Laura and I saw this one guy (who looked like he was about 70) buying this HUGE... I mean HUGE... stuffed pink teddy bear in Sam's. I thought it was pretty funny. But man... they were like $50! I think she would have much preferred a new kitchen appliance. LOL.

But anyways... So, sorry i couldn't post for the real Valentines day! But i hope you all had a fun filled day with flowers and candy and people you love! Here's a hug from me to you! I LOVE YOU ALL! =) XOXO

...here are just a couple pictures from Saturday that I (or amy) took.



Getting our coffee fix! We all had to get up around 5:30 to meet in sioux falls at 7.


Us in the car getting more than hyper...


Here we are in Walmart trying DESPERATELY to figure out the budget, the food proportions, the quantities, and MATH... yuck.


We went over to get some vases and on the way decided to take pictures with the flowers... Amy is laughing at Laura cuz she keeps getting in the picture! Laura, Laura, Laura...


FINALLY a good picture. =D


We were in Hobby Lobby looking for... what were we looking for again??? Uh... Oh yeah. Decos and door prizes... Well, anyway, on the way through I found this AWESOME crown thingie! It fits! LOL


I think we were talking about door prizes and candy...


Well, regardless of what people tell you... I DID have a valentine yesterday. Vanessa is going to kill me. MUAhahaha. LOL. haha... right. (No seriously... i wouldn't stoop THAT low. Oooh... ouch. Srry Troy.) =P



HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL YA'LL!!! =D XOXO