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.