The "Oops I Forgot to Say That" Post.

So in my excitement of the Disney World post...I forgot that I'd made a list while I was there of things that I'd learned. I just found it.

Now I must share it. I can't believe I forgot about it.

1. Children with accents are the cutest things I've ever seen (heard) in my entire life! SO cute. I told you about the little girl with the British accent in my last post. There was a kid at Epcot..he was probably 10 or 11. He said (also in a British accent) "Well I DON'T KNOW DAD I'VE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE!" so cute. So cute!

2. Riding roller coasters is the coolest thing ever. It pumps adrenaline through your body like nobody's business!! It was then I realized I need to lead an adrenaline filled life. Nothing less will do. Of course flying planes in the Navy will do this for me and I'm totally PUMPED! :)

3. Disney is absolutely ridiculous. On all levels. The amount of work put into all of their rides, shows and exhibits is...ridiculous. There's so many intricacies and attention to detail. Oh my goodness. If you haven't been, go. It's amazing. So crazy.

4. Ok. Don't think I went into this thinking "I'll find a husband when I'm at Disney World!" because I didn't. I just notice things. And one thing I noticed was that single guys don't go to Disney World..unless they're like 11. They all have girlfriends, fiancees and wives. So you shouldn't go to Disney World thinking you'll find a man. It won't happen. :)

5. I took one semester of Spanish in college. And let me tell you what, it was the best decision I ever made! :) hahaha not really..but it was really fun to eavesdrop on people's conversations! I didn't understand a whole lot but what I did understand was semi entertaining.

6. I noticed A LOT of pregnant women. And when I say A LOT I mean like 3 out of every 5 women were pregnant. No joke. The LAST place I'd want to go if I was pregnant was is Disney World. That is whack! No thank you! And I'm not about to take a 3 year old who won't remember it either! Crazies.

7. Ok..most of you who know me know that most of the time I'm attracted to bad boys. No one knows the root reason but I believe I discovered it in this land of Magic. One word: Aladdin. That was my favorite Disney movie..still is..and now we all know why. *lightbulb..*

8. Snow White didn't need a prince to be a princess.

Yes, I know there are only 8. I wish, too, that there were 10. It just simply wasn't meant to be.

The End...or Is It The Beginning..?

I guess this is a little overdue...well maybe not by much. I just got back on Sunday sheesh.

On May 14, I graduated from college. It's true. You can see my all but enthused face over there on the left! 
I would also like to say that I know all of those armies. They were in my military history class! They're really nice!

Aunt Leslie. I'm staying with her this summer!

After lunch with the G-Rents

The Famfam!

After lunch we headed to Florida. Yes, we drove from KY to FL. Thank the Lord, not in one day! We stopped outside of Atlanta (I think) on the way down there to sleep for the night. We got a few hours...but lucky us picked the worst hotel on the planet..in my opinion. The only room left was a smoking room..ok whatev, we're all gonna leave here smelling nasty. Not TOO big of a deal.

THEN the fire alarm went off. Not once...not twice..but THREE times. THREE. And  all three times it was a fake-out. Oh my goodness. I think I would have rather just slept in the car!

The next day we drove to a little town in Florida to visit this man, Uncle John, and his wife Julia. He's my great uncle..and if I tell you how, your brain will hurt. So I'll spare you. Anyway, that's not the cool part. Many of you will remember this post where I talked about the Colonel and how he was the coolest person I'd ever met. Well, I'm sorry to say that he's been knocked down to #2. Please don't tell him, it might break his heart. Uncle John was in the Navy for 30 years, served in WWII, Vietnam and Korea. He made it as high as a Master Chief. This is the coolest part though: HE WORKED ON THE MANHATTAN PROJECT!!! HOLY SMOKES! (Read more about that here if you need a history lesson). He told us some pretty stinkin cool stories. My sister and I slept in his "I Love Me Room" it was completely dedicated to everything he did in the Navy, lots of plaques and souvenirs. Man. It was great! I really like him a lot and I'm sad that I'm just now getting to meet him! We spent the afternoon with him on Sunday, he showed us his relatives' houses and gardens. Then we went to church with he and Gigi (that's what people call Julia). We had amazing food all day long, and again for breakfast the next morning! He spoiled us, really. 

Then it was off to the next destination! WINTER GARDEN FLORIDA!!!!! haha. Sounds exciting right? We'll see. :)

These lovely people are named Carol and Neal! They're loads of fun. I sometimes call Carol my aunt by accident. She's really my cousin. Again, if I tell you how, I promise it will hurt, so just take my word for it. :)We stayed with them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights! They were very nice to put up with our nonsense! They live only 30 minutes from DISNEY WORLD!!! I'd say that's quite convenient since that's exactly where we were headed!!! :)

Our first day in Disney was spent at Hollywood Studios (formerly known as MGM).  Take a peek at these photos!! 

First ride of the day: Rockin Roller Coaster

This is the Studio Backlot tour. Shortly after this fire began an
enormous wall of water appeared.
It was great.

The Stunt Show. This was REALLY cool!

Beauty and the Beast! :)

:)

KILL THE BEAST!

I was trying my hardest to show the color of these dresses!
It's a ridiculous shade of pink and this picture does it hardly
any justice! 

We also rode the Tower of Terror and saw several other shows. I enjoyed the Tower of Terror but it made me sick. Riding it once was enough for me!

Our 2nd day was spent in Magic Kingdom. This was my favorite! It had more rides than the other 2 parks we went to. We rode Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Buzz Lightyear (I left my sunglasses on this dumb ride and had to buy new ones), Big ThunderMountain Railroad, and more that I don't really remember. I've got our POA (Plan of Attack) but it's in the other room.

My [Uncle] Dennis, [Aunt] Carol's brother
helped build Winnie the Pooh's tree.

He also helped build The Hall of Presidents!

The Castle. Of course

It's amazing how many different accents and languages you hear just walking around this place! We were sitting at dinner and this little girl from England was talking about Splash Mountain and she said "They go up in the slide and they come down and get soaking wet!" Now, reread that with a British accent! It was the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life! The first night, we were riding the tram back to our car and we met an Irish couple. They'd adopted an Asian child and I kept thinking "that kid is going to grow up and have an Irish accent!" it was blowing my mind hahaha!

Us with [Aunt] Carol outside of our AMAZING Italian
restaurant.

On our 3rd day we went to Epcott. This was my least favorite, it didn't have as many rides and it was more informative but it was still fun. Lunch, however, was AMAZING! We went to Italy and ate. Oh my word. Best food I've ever tasted!  

The Ball

Everyone was dead tired that afternoon/evening. So we left and didn't see the laser show. It's ok though, we were tired and I know I was getting grumpy. So we went back to [Aunt] Carol's and swam. It was fun. 

Then we started our journey back home. We stopped by my Great Aunt Addie's..yea..lots of family on this trip. Who lives near Great Uncle Earl and Aunt Ethel. We went out to eat with them at Cracker Barrel where these pictures were taken.

Then Aunt Ethel said "Tony,
take one with the girls" you
can see my enthusiasm....

back row: daddy, aunt addie, momma
aunt ethel, uncle earl
front row: scooter, me

We stayed the night in an empty apartment in the relatives' village thing. Then headed home once again. We stopped outside of Macon, GA. That was an ordeal...my mom told me to find a hotel on my GPS..I found like 25..so I just picked one. Well we got close to it and Momma and Daddy started wigging out. I don't know what they were scared of..there was NOTHING around...but whatever. So Momma wanted me to make the GPS take her back to the interstate. I told her like 7 times that I couldn't do that...I have to have a destination. I'm still not sure that she understands..so we found a Best Western and stayed there for the night. Then we got up the next morning and left Macon.

We stopped in Commerce, GA to see one of my Momma's childhood friends. We ate lunch with her and her family.

Then we were for real headed home. We arrived back at our cute little blue house around 9 pm on Sunday night. 

It was an all around good trip.

Now I need to start unpacking from school only to pack back up for Chicago soon! I'm going back to school town to visit my friend Rebecca and several others before I head up North for the summer. I'm SOOOOOOO excited! I can't wait! :)

Well. That's about all that's been going on with me. Hope you enjoyed my trip to Disney World, I know I did.

So. Cool.

My 2nd post in 2 days! Is the world ending or something!? lol. I just have some stuff to say. Actually, share. I think it's so cool. And I want to share it with you!

Tonight at church I learned several really neat things!

We were talking about a passage in Numbers:

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this food!"

Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them: they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

The Lord said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

Numbers 21:4-9 NIV

1. The snake was a symbol of Christ. John 3:14-15 says Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life (NIV). The snake represents sin and it's dead on a stick, just like Jesus became sin and died on the cross. In Numbers, the Israelites could look at the snake and be healed, just like we can look to Jesus and be saved. So. Cool.

2. I'm sure all of us have seen this symbol before:

Medical centers and veterinary clinics use this as a symbol..I guess to distinguish themselves and say "HEY! We fix things here!" Before I searched for any image, I'd planned on saying "I bet they don't even know that this is in reference to the Bible..."then I came across this:

A stick or rod with a snake curled around it is the staff (the rod) of Aesculapius (also called Asklepios), the ancient mythical god of medicine. His Greek name was Asklepios and his Roman name Aesculapius. In reality, Asklepios may have once lived and been renowned for his gentle, humane remedies and his humane treatment of the mentally ill. His followers established temples called asklepions, temples of Asklepios, temples of healing. The greatest asklepion was in a grove of trees south of Corinth, Greece where the sick had to spend a night while the proper remedies were revealed during a dream to the priests of the temple and the cured had to make a suitable sacrifice (usually a rooster) to the god.

According to mythology, Aesculapius had a number of children including Hygieia, the goddess of health (from whose name comes the word "hygiene") and Panaceia, the goddess of healing (from whose name comes the word "panacea" for a universal remedy).

Today, the staff of Aesculapius is a commonly used symbol of medicine. It is the symbol of the American Medical Association (AMA) and many other medical societies.

-from medterms.com

I thought.."they STILL don't know what it's from.."they don't know that this is a biblical reference and if they did, they probably wouldn't broadcast it to the world because someone may get offended...(I didn't search any other meanings, this one just popped up and I clicked on it, somewhere may very well state that this originated from the Bible, but that one isn't the first thing I saw.)

This staff with the snake represents a place of healing. The Israelites looked to the snake on the rod to be healed, now we look to hospitals, doctors, vets to heal us and our loved ones. Poo on Greek mythology..people need to be educated about this stuff.

Then the guy that told us all of this was talking to me after service and he told me of another incidence where Christ is referenced. In Numbers 20 it talks about how Moses breaks the stones and water flows out of them. Jesus is the rock and from Him flows the river of life. Also, Moses struck the rocks twice, just like Jesus was beaten and then poked with the spear. If I was in an English class, we would call this foreshadowing! God is so cool.

The final excitingness: I love when someone can encourage you and they don't even know it. I've been talking to a friend lately who is so on fire for the Lord it's absolutely ridiculous. This person makes me want to do better. They are constantly asking me about what I'm reading in the Bible, what I'm learning, what God is showing me and challenging me. I don't think they even know it. Lately I've kind of been in a funk and my friends have begun to notice: asking if I'm ok, wondering if something is wrong. I haven't been reading my Bible or even thinking about reading my Bible like I should. I needed this person right when they stepped back into my life (they weren't ever really out of it, but neither of us are necessarily good at keeping in touch).

 They were the first person I wanted to tell the above mentioned stuff to because I knew they'd appreciate it! This person is REALLY cool and I'm so glad to know them! I hope they stick around for a long time!

God is so good. Unbelievably good and I am completely undeserving of all that goodness.

Well ththththat's all folks. :)

surprise.

Now that I've got a new picture it's only fitting to post a new blog...right...? :)

I don't have much to say but I think what I do say will be deep and thought provoking, as usual. ;)

Man. I just got out of the shower and I'd thought of a whole blog to write in there and now I can only remember one thing..but that's the grand finale so I'll have to think get my thought train back...

I'll just start with Friday night and go from there. :)
Friday night. I had a sleepover with my roommate and my neighbors.
These people:
<----those are the neighbs





                            that's the roomie. :)------>


The neighbs threw the roommate and I a graduation party! It was so fun! We played games and ate junk food! They made signs for us and hung streamers. It was so thoughtful! They're so awesome!!! Liz and I took our mattresses off our beds and brought them into the room of the neighbs. You see, I have this goal: to not wake up in my bed on any Saturday morning this semester. Now before you wackos start thinking awful thoughts, here's the story...It was like mid-February and I had either been at home on the weekend or I'd stayed the night at my friends' apartment every weekend...so I hadn't woken up in my bed (or room) on the weekends all semester long. So I thought "Well how about I see how long I can keep this going" There were a couple of weekends when I wasn't sure how everything was going to work out but it did. :) This weekend was great. :)

Next on the agenda was a bridal shower for this young lady:
If you've been reading my blog for long, you'd know that I'll be in a wedding this summer (possibly) with the punter for my favorite NFL team. If you didn't know this, I forgive you, now you know. Hers is the wedding I'll be taking part in. Her wedding shower was fabulous. Her food was fabulous. OH MY GOODNESS. She had a punch that I'll be raving about for months. No..seriously. It was a coffee punch. It had chocolate milk (I think, chocolate something), vanilla ice cream and coffee crystals melted into a syrup like mixture..or something like that. I had WAY too much. Dear Heavens, it's quite possibly one of the best drinks I've ever tasted.

On Saturday evening I  attended the recital of my best friend, Rebecca. You can see her over there on the left. She's quite divine.  Her piano playing skills are superb! Needless to say, she did a marvelous job and I'm very proud of her!

I might add that I love this picture of us. We were at Fort Massac just roaming around hahahha. :) Well, actually I had to do a report on a fort. Anyway..there's another picture that's HILARIOUS. We're arm wrestling, but you can't see her face so it was useless to put it on here. If you're my friend on facebook though you can view it in my tagged photos.

Ok...moving on.

THEN! (after the recital) Andrea (there's a picture of her below)  made me search for my graduation present. Well I didn't know exactly what I was searching for..she just told me I had something to find in Fine Arts. Then when I found it I knew what was going. This is what I got! I love them so much!!! I wore them in the rain today and it was marvelous. I'm not much of a hiking sandal wearing kind of gal, but I couldn't resist. Especially because I'll be in Disney World 2 weeks from today and I don't want to be wearing tennis shoes getting all hot and nasty, but flip flops will be KILLER on the arches. Oh my word, I don't even want to think about that....and I think I can wear them to work this summer because they're made for hiking and I'll just be standing all day. We'll see.  Needless to say, I'm PUMPED.

Then came sunday..Sunday...SUNDAY. I wasn't really looking forward to this day because it meant writing the bulk of a 15 page paper that was due the following day. Yes, I know, I've known about it since the beginning of the semester and it should have been done by now but honestly, I work better under pressure. No, I'm for real. So. I went to church on Sunday morning. Then I wrote about 12 pages of this paper. I'm quite proud of it if I do say so myself! If you'd like to read it, you just let me know and I'll email it to you. The title is: Roles of Women in Aviation During World War II. I really wanted to do my paper on Women in Naval Aviation since that's the career path I've chosen, but I couldn't find any information on it. So I chose this one instead. Still a good topic and quite informative.

I finished it at about 4:30 on Saturday..then it took another hour to figure out how to do the footnotes. Blah. It was awful because I'd told myself that I wasn't allowed to eat lunch until I was done. So I was STARVING. No, I'm serious. Ask Rebecca, I thought I was going to die. Yea..I know..that was a dumb idea but it worked..I only took a couple of breaks to stretch my legs and clear my head. TWELVE pages in 3.5 hours. That's gotta be a record lol. 

After that I went to Rebecca and Andrea's apartment. This is them:

We watched Hook. Andrea got engaged last weekend (WOOOHOO). Her fiance called in the middle of our movie to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden. We weren't all that interested. They don't have cable so it's not like we could have watched the Presidential Address had we wanted to. Hahaha...Rebecca and I were talking about something and she said "I mean, yea, we killed Obama but.....I mean Osama" hahaha. It truly was a mistake of the tongue. It's quite unfortunate that their names are so similar. I'm sure she's not the first and won't be the last to make that mistake!

Now for the random things.

1. My mommy came to Rebecca's recital! Yay! :) that's her. ------>

She's beautiful, I love her. 

2. Not only did she bring her awesome self, but she also brought her awesome peppermint patties! SIIIIGH. If you've never had homemade peppermint patties, you're missing out on life! I can hook you up with the recipe if you really want. :)

3. She also brought 2 of her piano students. They're fly..but I don't have any pictures of them..

4. I've reconnected with a friend. We never lost touch..it was just one of those "you live 2 time zones away and it's really hard to have a conversation with you" things. He's so cool. I might blog about him sometime later.

5. I discovered this video on a friend's facebook page, I think it's absolutely HILARIOUS. click HERE to watch it. Oh my word. SO funny.

Ok. This is it. The grand finale.

For some reason, my mother "forgot" to tell me that she had a new piano student starting today. I'm sure you're thinking "why would she tell you that...?" Just hold on, don't get your panties in a wad. This new student is special. He's a man. WOOHOO just kidding...He's also a Vietnam Veteran (6 months and 10 days until my favorite holiday! no, for real). Just that fact alone makes him cool. But wait, I'm not done. Please get ready for this. Seriously, prepare your mind for what I'm about to say to you.

He's a FORMER NAVY SEAL. Yes, you read it correctly. I'll repeat myself in case you didn't catch it the first time FORMER NAVY SEAL. I'm not sure HOOOOW she just "forgot" to let me in on this bit of information..but she did...until today. I hope I can meet him. I bet he's really cool. 

If ever you had any doubt that my mother was the coolest EVER, well now your reservations have been squashed. She IS the coolest mom. EVER. Argue with me and DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!! Ok, that's a bit dramatic..but seriously. Don't even think about it.

I'm sorry that I always wait until I have a lot to say before I write blog and then I just lay it all on you. I'll try to be better, but no promises.