Ask, and you shall receive...

I know that there have been multiple requests for pictures regarding my adventures, but while I am still waiting on those, I was able to convince Kelsy to send me one of the pics she took when three of us carved pumpkins last night....

Mind you, this was the third pumpkin I have carved this year- I like to consider myself an expert on the art.... just kidding- although I was impressed with how this latest one turned out given that it was only half stenciled- half free handed....

I promise I will do my best to be getting other pics up that contain the roomies and friends from the INN....

Nothing better to do....

OK, So I will be writing a more proper post later today/tomorrow (hopefully) but until then I will complete the survey that Trish tagged me in as I try to kill two hours in the computer lab between classes....

10 Years ago:
1- I was in the 4th grade.
2- I was obsessed with Beanie Babies
3- I was enjoying our new family property in Cle Elum
4- I wanted a dog....
5- I was excited to move on to 5th grade...

5 Thing's on Tomorrow's To Do List:
1- Go to class- Music 105 (boring!)
2- Get caught up on Psych 210 reading
3- Go to a group meeting for chemistry at the library
4- Go to small group
5- Watch Grey's Anatomy with Mary and Trinh

5 Thing's I would do if I were a millionaire(we are talking multi-millions right?):
1- Travel (Greece, Germany, Italy, Egypt, London, Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, and Costa Rica- to name a few...)
2- Buy a sweet house somewhere in Oregon
3-Buy a house near Disneyland complete with my own private plan that can take me to Disneyland at the drop of a hat (sorry Trisha, but I had to top you- we are talking about millions, so it is only natural that I need to compete and out do you :)
4-Go to Grad school without the fear of endless debt
5- Split the remaining money between personal investments and charitable investments

5 Places I have lived:
1- Maple Valley, WA
2- Bellingham, WA
3- Cle Elum, WA
4- Disneyland
I feel comfortable claiming both Cle Elum and Disneyland as places that I have lived, given the amount of time I have spent at both places...

5 Jobs I've had:
1- Babysitting
2- Foley's Produce- cashier, shelf stocker and produce "sampler"
3- Tahoma School District- substitute childcare provider
4- City of Renton- assistant softball coach for summer youth teams
5- Leadership class- Believe me, that was a job in its self...

The 12 days of midterms....

OK, so I apoligize for the lack of blogging that has occured over the last week or so- things got a little crazy between the huge gap I had between tests, and I was trying to hold off and wait for pictures that my friend Sarah has on her camera from the course of the week (that still have yet to come)...

I am finally done with midterms- atleast until the second round hits in a few weeks on Novemmber 3rd... Having just completed two tests before 10am today made for a lot of studying over the weekend... Saturday was complete with a five hour study session at the downtown Starbucks, while sunday I dragged myself to the Woods coffe shop at Boulevard Park down on the waterfront for another five hours of studying (although I have to say it wasn't too rough given that I was sitting in a big brown leather chair next to a rock fire place overlooking the bay)....

Besides studying, this week was especially social. Before the INN on Tuesday, my host team had a team dinner; complete with tacos and pumpkin carving at Sarah's (who is my host team partner). Sarah, and my small group leader Laura both live at the "Lighthouse" which is just down a few blocks from me. After the pumpkin carving, we carted our pumpkins down the street to the INN for a night of greeting. Rumor has it from the INN staff, Sarah and I have one of the best teams the INN has ever seen this early on in the year (not so surprising when you learn that both Sarah and I were leadership kids in highschool). The pumpkins made for some great laughs as students walked in the door and tried to guess the owners of the pumpkins. After the INN, Sarah talked me, Ben and a few others into coming back to the lighthouse to watch a movie. Needless to say, we did not end up leaving until 1am- and that was before the movie even started. Waking up Wednesday at 6:30 was not the easiest...

Wednesday was a pretty typical day, until Sarah called and wanted me to come over around 9 to watch the movie "Baby Mama" and bake our friend Grant a cake that she owed him from a lost bet. Needless to say, after watching a movie, baking a cake, delievering the cake to Grant's house, and getting suckered in to helping Grant fold his laundry I did not get back until 2am....

The girls in my house were quite surprised with this latest bedtime development as I am often refered to as the old woman in my house- I go to bed early, and get up early...

Things were pretty low key (and tiresome) the rest of the week until Friday night when most of the girls in my house were planning on going to The Fort's pumpkin party. However, as it got closer to heading on over there the girls in my house got tired all of the sudden and decided to bail. I called Sarah to see if she was going, and instead she talks me into going with her and a few friends down to some haunted house downtown. After the haunted house, we went to our friend Scott's and watched "The Strangers" which is pretty much the scariest movie I have seen in a long time....

After that we went home, and I didn't see Sarah for almost a whole 24 hours until Saturday night, when we decided to test out a different church over by the mall that does Saturday night services @ 6m. After church we did a Target run (where I was too poor to buy anything besides chapstick- at least my lips will look good right?)

Later Saturday night, Ben came back and took back the wii having received so much crap from the guys in The Fort to get it back. Not even three hours after taking it though, we were invited over to play wii with the guys..... I predict the wii won't last long at The Fort...

Sarah and I broke our unintentional 5 day streak of seeing eachother yesterday as we both had studying to do. We both were laughing at the fact that we only met at the INN retreat in late September and hang out pretty much all the time. Ben (who is also on our host team) was quick to point out that Sarah and I spend way too much time together- I however, disagree....

I better go and get some lunch seeing as my brain is a little fried from all of the studying and testing of the last few hours....

I will leave you with guys with a video I saw on GMA the other morning regarding Obama and McCain at the Al Smith memorial dinner- I found it amusing...

The battle has officially begun...

So, this week has been pretty uneventful. With classes in full swing and the continuous job hunt I haven't had too much free time to get up to any trouble. My housemates however....



So one of the girls Trinh, lent her toaster to her friend Kurt over the summer- who also happens to live in The Fort (Michael's house). But, the girls in my house were desperate for a toaster and would not consider paying for one (Let me preface this by saying we have found a rocking chair in the bushes, a couch and a record player on craigslist, and a garbage can from some friends all for free over the last few weeks). So, a few weekends ago, we went to the The Fort BBQ and Kurt had the nerve to point out "his toaster". Not a good idea on his behalf. So, after we left the backyard of the BBQ, we just walked upstairs into the apartment and took back our toaster to its rightful home. Kurt then called to declare "war". As if that was bad enough it gets better.



Last year, Ben (another Fort boy) lent Mary and Kelsy his wii for their dorm room f0r what was supposed to be a few days. A whole quarter later, Before claiming his wii back for the summer; he even went as far as buying them another steering wheel controller for the Mario kart game when he heard they would like another so that friends could play. Needless to say, shortly after we all moved in we knew it was critical that we regain Ben's wii (he himself admitted he hardly uses it). So, Sunday night one of the girls was chatting with Ben online and convinced him that once again, we wanted to "borrow" his wii. Operation successful. Ben arrives ten minutes later, wii in tow and sets us up for some Mario kart. The boys in The Fort where not happy about this. They claimed it was "their" wii. A few of the boys have been telling us that we have until Tuesday to enjoy the wii- before Ben returns to take it back. Mary, Kelsy and Liz are already working on an interference plan. We will see how that goes...



As if this wasn't enough, Kurt was wearing a red plaid shirt the other day that caught Mary's eye. Apparently Mary has always wanted a red plaid shirt and mentioned this to Kurt- he responded saying that she couldn't have his shirt. Again, big mistake. So, Trinh was visiting The Fort the other day, and of course there was the plaid shirt laying on a chair. So, when Kurt left the room she tucked the shirt into her backpack- he still has yet to notice that the shirt is missing. Although, it should be obvious when Mary plans on wearing it the next time he comes over, and shows him the pictures of her wearing it while also using the toaster :)



I was joking that our house should be called the kleptoscope (kleptomania being a stealing disorder). On the subject of house names, we had a competition last week where people could submit names for our house and the winner would receive a plate of cookies. Well, we gathered Sunday night and while the submissions were plentiful, we still have yet to come to a consensus. I am suggesting The Fortress (Female version of the Fort) considering all of our ties to The Fort, or The Giant Peach- our house is often referred to as the peach house. We'll see how those go over...



Well that's all for now. I'll leave you with a random video that I watched in my Geology class today:



Moral of the story- don't try to ride a Sea Doo next to a glacier...

Back to school!

Hello All!

Welcome to my blog. Trisha has had so much success with Caden's blog, I thought why not give it a shot. I figured that this will be a great way of keeping family and friends updated with my life here in Bellingham.

So, to recap what is going on in my life:
-Moved back up to Bellingham for school. I am now living in a house with 5 great girls- Mary, Kelsy, Liz, Brittany, and Trinh. Our house has been great so far. I am only about an additional 2 minute walk from my dorm last year so campus is just down the alley about a block, and up the hill. Downtown is also walking distance on a sunny day. The location of our house is also close to the First Presbyterian Church where the INN meets on Tuesday nights, so we have a nice, short (and safe) walk as a group.

-As many of you know, I am actively involved with the INN here at Western. Tuesday nights are just a fun time for us college kids in the Bellingham area to come together and discuss faith, community, and local service. This year, I am actually a student leader for a host team, and the local service team. Tuesday night was my first night with my assigned host team. Luckily, I am partnered with a senior Sarah- who is teaching me the ropes of being a host team leader. So far it seems like a great group of people, and we had fun handing out fliers and greeting students as they arrived. As I mentioned, I am also on the local service team. So far, aside from our brainstorming at the SHOP retreat (the student leader retreat for the INN- no one knows what it stands for, but a few of us were joking that it stood for Students Helping Other People) we haven't actually had a service event yet, but I am getting excited for the potential opportunities for the INN students to serve both at a local level, and a more statewide/global level.

-And now, classes. That school thing that brought me up here to Bellingham. I am taking Chemistry 101, Geology 214, Music 105 and Psychology 210. The first three are classes that I need to take as part of the general university requirements to graduate, and the psych class counts towards the psych minor I have almost completed. Needless to say, classes are slightly boring but manageable.

Exciting news of the day: My application was accepted into the Human Services program for winter quarter! This means, pending the results of my Washington State Patrol background-check results (wish me luck everyone :P ) I can start the program winter quarter! Finally!

Well, that is all for now. I will leave you with a random picture of my house that was taken last spring: