A Few Words

All I really have to say is I. Really. Don't. Like. Sight-reading.

Other than that I'm making it through finals week.

Completely unrelated is a picture I took the other day in the W's backyard. I like it. Just thought I'd share.

The end.

Double Date

No, Tyler and I didn't go on a date with another couple (well, we actually did last week with Ben and Angela! So fun!), but I went on TWO dates Friday night. :)

The first was with Gracie, and we had such an awesome time! We spent the first half of our evening deciding what to do. And then the second half locating my phone, keys, whatever else I had on me to lose. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I did lose my phone several times! She's so gracious. Or maybe I should say she knows how to laugh at me. :) We were joking around that I was the one who needed a baby sitter!

We went to Johnny Rockets! We had a blast taking silly photos and just being ourselves.

Grace's booth was a bit broken, so when she sat down it fell forward. I love her nervous expression in this one!

So cute! These next two are my favorites! :D

Okay, this one came from a slew of others. Grace had me position my face over different things so - like in this one - it looked like I was actually drinking from the straw. I know the people in the next booth thought we were crazy. We were. We are. We're comfortable in our own skin. (Good thing, huh? :)

Next, Grace decided to pose like this dude.

The pile of napkins is her newspaper. I found it insanely difficult to smile with a straw between the lips, but Grace had it down pretty well. My picture looks ridiculous, so we'll just stick with her cute one. :) Seriously, just you try to smile with a straw in your mouth!

We had the grandest time together! I wish we could do this more often. I so miss my Thursday nights with the L kids! :( These are the changes I don't like in life! But I'm so thankful that I get even these opportunities!

Everybody knows any great time is made better with ice cream to top it off! Chocolate ice cream, if your name is Grace.

For the second date of the evening, Tyler took me to Downtown Disney.

It was a gorgeous evening! All the lights were so pretty.

I loved this! Isn't the hot air balloon cool? I kept thinking "a Wendy bird!"

This is for Gabe, because he loves legos and will be so excited to see this lego dinosaur.

And this is because Tyler wanted his picture taken with the robot...

Yes, I'm serious.

We took the ferry across to the other side of the lake, and it was my favorite part. The wind was so refreshing! A girl on the ferry took our picture, but she didn't do a very good job. We're quite blurry. :( I don't know what I was thinking; I should have taken more pictures! (I'm all into documenting life experiences, as I'm sure you can tell.) Tyler kept trying to take my picture but that doesn't count. Besides, I always delete those anyway.

In other news, Haylee came over last night! She's all finished with her semester (jealousy ensues!) and came back into town yesterday. She and Tali and I had the best time reliving old memories! We watched The Suckumentary (basically a year-long documentary of mine and Tali's lives from a few years ago) and laughed just like she'd never been away at school. I love that! :) Looking forward to many more times like that this summer, just as soon as I get through finals. I keep hoping I'll wake up and summer break will have arrived. I'm almost there!

Tomorrow I'm playing in a recital at my professor's house (I'm playing Debussy, Jenn!) and the week only gets crazier from there. I'd better be off! Hoping my friends at church will be kind enough to sit through my jury pieces...hint, hint! ;)

For Angela

Pictures of Acadia for you!

This was the cool restaurant I told you about. I'll have to see if I can find the name...

(Beware of the VERY large lake behind us. It's at least 3 miles! ;)

Picture Update!

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday. We had a lovely party for him last night. He ate way too much pound cake (he gets it once a year) and homemade chocolate sauce and truly enjoyed his birthday. :)

Yesterday was also Tali Rose's 2nd annual Earth Day party! I thought I was going to miss most of it, but my class got out early! Yay! On the way home, I called Gabe and Sophie's mommy and asked if I could pick them up and take them with me to the party. She complied and let me

 drive her Lincoln Navigator with the kiddos' car seats. But it still seemed like something was missing, so I called Maggie-moo's mom and asked if I could pick up her, too. She said yes, so we buckled Maggie up in the backseat and drove over to Tali Rose's. (Not to worry, her house is only one street over.)

The party was a smashing success! Tali organized some games and crafts and made some

 delicious food. The kids all had a wonderful time!

This is a picture of the hostess (looking gorgeous, I might add :) facilitating the "pin the petal on the flower" game for the kids.

This is Claire. You might recognize her, as I've previously posted her picture. I baby sit her brothers and sisters sometimes and teach piano to her older sister. Her mom just had a baby this month. He's so cute!

This, of course, is Maggie-moo. She was hilarious! I told her she was only allowed to eat TWO cookies, but she managed to sneak a few more than two! At one point, I discovered her with a cookie in her mouth and one in her hand. Knowing she was caught, she gave me a chocolate smile and handed over the cookie.

This is Sophie. She always has a good time and loves to ham it up for the camera!

Gabe made his own hopscotch fun out of sidewalk chalk. Doesn't his shadow look cool in this picture?
Tyler did, too. :)

This is Kai, Tali's charge. She watches him, along with his brothers, weekly. Isn't he adorable?

Today was a fantastic day for many reasons! One of those reasons is Jessica. Tomorrow is her birthday, so I treated her to boba tea.
If you don't know what boba is, I can't rightly tell you. I've consumed it twice, but I still don't know exactly what it is. All I know is it's yummy. :D

I ordered a jasmine milk tea with passion fruit flavoring and boba. Jessica ordered a rose jasmine tea, also with boba. The black balls on the bottom of our cups are the boba. They're gelatin-like treats that probably serve no other purpose than to make you smile when you suck them up through a straw. Seriously, it is so much fun to drink one of these!

Jessica's rose tea actually had roses in it. They tasted so strange!
Happy birthday, Jessica!

Well, that's all I have for now.

Tali Rose is on her way over, so I'm looking forward to some time with her.

Oh, I forgot! On Sunday, my car overheated. :( Thankfully, Tyler was driving and knew exactly what to do. Turns out that the radiator had a very large crack in it. The mechanic was going to charge me an exorbitant amount to replace it, so Tyler fixed it for me! He found an inexpensive radiator in town, picked it up for me, and put it in all on his own - without any instruction or previous experience. He keeps saying it was easy and anybody could have done it. All I know is I certainly don't fall under that category of anybody! I'm so thankful he has a knack for these things! My car is all better and up and running! The picture below is proof that it's been operating at a normal temperature. (I'm trying to be more attentive to the temperature gauge from now on!)

Thankful

I'm realizing just how blessed I am by the people God has put in my life. I'm especially thankful for sweet times of seeking Christ with them.

I guess all this reflection stems from my drive home from school today. Every Tuesday and Thursday Jessica rides with me. It's such a wonderful thing to have company on the long and monotonous route. But Jessica isn't just any old company. She's a true blessing to me! She listens to me babble on about whatever, encourages me, makes me laugh, thinks deeply with me, and she prays with me.

Prayer. That's another thing I've been thinking a lot about.

Last week on my walk with Tali, I felt so burdened by the overwhelming divorce rate in America and some specific situations of which I'm aware. Together, Tali and I sought God and begged Him to bring healing and mend brokenness in marriages and families. A friend like this seems normal to me, but I'm realizing what a rare find it truly is. There's definitely no one like Tali Rose. :)

I'm constantly rediscovering how very blessed I am.

Another example of this was Tuesday night at Tyler's. After our bowling trip, we went back to his house and sat on the front porch and talked. Tyler just turned to me and invited me to pray with him right then and there. It's so encouraging to pour your heart out to God, but being able to do so with another is an amazing blessing!

How much we miss when we fail to come to God in prayer as a community. Jessica and I talked some about this today. I was remembering my trips to Mexico and how they were so centered on prayer. None of that "I'm sorry to hear you're having a hard time; I'll pray for you" - I'm not saying that's a bad thing - but "You need prayer? Let's pray right now." It was incredible being surrounded by people who were ready and willing to bring you before the Throne of Grace at any time.

It's been incredible being surrounded by friends here, in my hometown, who are willing to do so.

Still, it seemed easier, more real, more something that I can't quite put my finger on when I was there. If you're following my train of thought (good luck!),  you may see how it quickly led me to wish that I, too, were on the Mexico team this year. As soon as I got home, I watched the DVDs from both my trips. I don't really want to go into that now, but I'm finding it is a wonderful and difficult thing knowing what you're supposed to do. Wonderful because it brings direction. Difficult because it sometimes means "no."

That's where I am. Still, I'm so thankful that God has brought me to this place. And on top of everything, He's given me an incredible excitement for those who get to share in His work in Chihuahua this summer! I can't explain it. Honestly, I'd rather be demanding my own way, but I truly feel a peace about the whole thing.

Prayer is a beautiful thing.

People who pray with me reflect True Beauty.

The only response my heart can even try to summon is one of thankfulness to the God who has given both these gifts among so many others.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." - James 1:17

God never changes. That's another thing for which I am exceedingly thankful.

Life in General

The last two weeks of school don't allow much time for writing - blogging or journaling! Things are pretty hectic; Monday was crazy, but yesterday and today have been such wonderful days! I momentarily forgot about my piano juries and numerous exams and finals. It's been nice. :)

I had such a relaxing Easter! After a wonderful church service, Ty and Kelly picked me up and we went to lunch. (We ran into Maggie, Emma, Wesley, and their parents at lunch; the girls had matching dresses and looked so adorable!) Usually Easter Sunday is packed with cooking, company, and clean-up. This year my parents attended a wedding, so we didn't have any craziness at our house. Although I love everything about out traditional Easter, it was a nice change just relaxing at the house.

A highlight of Easter was when our pastor's mother (who was visiting) came up and complemented me on my hat. She said she was so pleased to see a young lady wearing a hat. Of course she had hats, too, but she thought no one wore them anymore. She said after seeing mine, she wished she'd have worn hers too.

 :)

Yesterday, Ty and I went bowling. It was so fun! Every other time we've gone bowling, I've won. I have no skill or form whatsoever so my luck was bound to run out. I did alright, but Tyler bowled a 189 on one of our games. We must have looked so hilarious: Tyler carefully examining

 the pins, lining up his feet, slowly pulling the ball back and then me, walking up there and chucking the ball down the lane. 

We also stopped by Jeremy's Starbucks and chatted with Mel and Jeremy for a while. It was so nice to see them! Jeremy made me a delicious Vanilla Rooibos Tea Latte. Mmm. :)

Today I baby sat Gabe and Sophie. The second I stepped foot in the door, Gabe was ready to play. (Soph was down for a nap.) It was definitely game day! We had so much fun! Everybody needs to take two hours out of their week just to play kids' games. It's incredible how relaxing Play Dough and Mouse Trap can be!

When Soph woke up, she joined in the fun, too. She had quite the abstract Play Dough creations!

I'm really excited to finish school so that I can spend more time with my kiddos! (And go canoeing with you, Angela! :) I'm hoping to pick up a couple more

 piano students, as well. I'm taking 9 hours online throughout the summer, but I'm not going to let it bring me down! Piano practice is a high priority on the

 list, too, and I'm planning to study with Ms. Williams again in July! Yay!

Hmm. Piano practice should probably be a high priority right now...

Juries are Friday, May 1st, and I'm sure that day will come before I can even blink. I think I'm going to play Debussy Prelude no. 10 and Scriabin Etude op. 10 no. 1. Or maybe a Chopin Etude. I still have time to decide. It's so nice to actually have options this semester! Last semester I struggled so much with tension issues and swollen hands that I really only finished just enough to play for juries. Sorry, I've been around music students too long. I forget that not everybody knows what I'm talking about when I ramble on about pieces and composers. Hey, if you think I'm bad, all you need to do is walk through the halls I frequent. ;)

Well, I'm off to practice. Enjoy the pictures!

Side note: let me commend this post to you. I thought the pictures were so lovely and the quote insightful.