Old Friends, New Friends, Good Friends.

Isn't great to catch up with old friends? I know I haven't experienced much in life yet, being the youngster that I am, but I have experienced the pain and excitement of moving away from a place, and leaving close friends behind. When I moved to Virginia from Ohio four years ago, I was best friends with two awesome girls. We used to hang out all the time and do all the crazy things 6th grade girls do together, it was the life!

I have so many memories of hanging out with these friends. So much of my life revolved around them, we spent a ton of time together. We used to have what we called "triple sleepovers" where all three of us would spend the night at one of the other's house. We used to make cookies, stay up late, try to swallow each other on the pull-out couch, and just be crazy. When one of the girl's sister had a baby, we were the honorary aunts. When I found out my parents were getting divorced, they made me laugh right away. We had so many inside jokes, and I have an entire box of notes that we wrote back in forth to each other in 6th grade.

Things change, people grow up, and new friendships are made. When I first moved we used to talk all the time, and I saw them a few times a year when I would visit my dad. Gradually we stopped talking as much, and my dad moved to Virginia so I haven't been to Ohio in a couple of years. They stopped being friends, but still hang out in groups sometimes. None of us have forgotten the friendship we had 4th through 6th grade though, I'm sure. It is really cool, because after I moved I actually became even better friends with one of my other friends that I wasn't as close with when I moved there.

A lot of things have changed, and if you were to look at the three of us now you might be surprised that we were such close friends, but we were. Thanks to things like Facebook, I am still able to maintain a relationship with these girls. We aren't best friends, but we share a past and I love getting to talk to them occasionally and catch up on everything. These friends also make me appreciate the friends I have now. Because, they are the bestest friends a girl could ask for. :)

I look forward to the next time I go to Ohio. I don't know when that will be, but I hope it is soon. I miss the snow. :) And maybe the next time I go we will have to break out the cookie dough and have another triple sleepover.

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas

This movie marks the start of the Christmas season for me. Ever since Elf came out over Thanksgiving in 2004, in has been a tradition to watch it. After all the food is eaten up, the dishes are washed and we're settled in, we put Elf on and just have a good time hanging out together and laughing. Out of all our Thanksgiving traditions with my family, I think watching Elf is probably my favorite. There is just something about just getting to relax and laugh together that makes you really thankful for what you have. Having something consistent, even when it's just a silly movie like Elf, is really awesome, especially when there isn't a lot of consistency is this crazy life. But yeah, watching this movie definitely gets me into the Christmas spirit. It's just like, Thanksgiving cannot be complete and Christmas can't start without watching Elf.

Thanksgiving was great this year. We packed up our bags, locked up the house, and jumped in the car for the extremely long, excruciating, and tiring 5 minute drive to my grandma and grandpa's house on Wednesday night. I'm kidding, of course. The drive wasn't that excruciating. ;) We usually go somewhere on Thanksgiving, most of the time to my Aunt Shana and Uncle Eric's house, which is always a long drive, but we weren't able to do that this year. So, we decided to pretend like we were going on a trip and slept over at my grandparent's house the night before Thanksgiving. Now, there is something you need to understand, and that is that my grandma is probably the most awesome cook/baker in the entire world. Seriously, I think I would die without her food sometimes. I cry inside for the people that do not get to experience real southern cooking like she makes it. Mm-mm- good! You need to understand one other thing. I cannot cook. At all. I'm pretty sure that gene got lost somewhere along the way, hitting Sarah, skipping me, then hitting Sydni. These things happen sometimes. I want to start getting cooking lessons from my grandma, I need them.

All this mess about cooking is leading up to something, I promise. Basically, the Sweet Potato Souffle Disaster. Well, not complete disaster, or really a disaster, but you will see what I mean. I wanted to make this really tasty dish this year that my Aunt Shana had made two Thanksgiving ago. Sweet Potato Souffle consists of yams and a bunch of other stuff, then a topping of walnuts (or maybe pecans. I can't remember), corn flakes, and brown sugar. It is really good, really sweet, and relatively easy to make. Easy for people that are competent at cooking, that is. So we get everything ready, mix stuff up and start putting things into the mixer. Now the recipe doesn't say drain the yams, so even though they look like they might need a little draining I decided to just dump them in the mixer along with the butter and everything else. Yeah... draining might have been a good idea. A great idea, actually, because this is what it ended up looking like:

This isn't the best picture, but... I think you get the picture. Yes, those chunks are butter. Yes, it looked pretty disgusting and pretty inedible. We figured out we were supposed to drain the yams after mixing it all and ending up with what looked like vomit. Thank God for Grandmas! I would have just chucked it and added Sweet Potato Souffle the the long, long list of things that I cannot cook, but Gram came up with a plan! We got the strainer out and strained some of the excess water out the best that we could, and mixed it up again. Eventually it got pretty smooth and we stuck it in the toaster oven to bake. Yes, I said toaster oven. They actually work really well, especially when you have a 18 pound turkey in the real oven! When it was all over we had a pretty good Sweet Potato Souffle, and you would have never been able to tell it looked like orange throw-up an hour before!! Thank you Jesus for Thanksgiving memories!

The past two months

I know, I know, it has been a while. Ok, it's been a little more than a while... but I'm writing a post now and that is all that matters. I miss you guys. :( It's just been so crazy! I've been extremely busy, like usual, so I haven't had time to write. I must admit I'm also a bit lazy, and these things take a while! My last post was on September 29th, and a lot of stuff has gone on since then. Here are some pictures to catch y'all up!

Hayley and I went on our first adventure together! We drove all the way to the state fair to see Rooney, a great band that Hayley really likes. We had a ton of fun, and I gotta tell ya, it was certainly an adventure! We arrived just in time to hear our favorite song, right after parking in some guys yard for five bucks. yeah.... like I said, it was an adventure! I love getting to do crazy stuff like that with Hales.

We got our class rings! Just one of those perks of being a junior! That is my ring at the bottom, Dylan's to the right, Hayley's at the top and Jackie's to the left. I still haven't found anyone else that got a diamond in their's. :) Well, mine isn't a real diamond, but you know what I mean.

Homecoming Week was awesome! We had so much fun dressing up on the different days, and we took lots of pictures to remember the events. The theme was the Olympics!

The first day was country day, so I repped Ireland with my green shirt and Travis decked out in German clothes. We saw some pretty interesting garb, including one boy in a kilt! Travis loves Dylan a lot, obviously.

Headin to school on Sports day!

I wore my very first-ever soccer jersey for sports day. The first team I ever played on was Solaris, when I was six years old. The jersey still fits me! Ok, it's a little small but that is pretty good for a ten year old shirt!

Trophy and Bling day was cool, I wore my last soccer medal and Sydni wore two medals, both of which were mine. Travis, as you can see got very excited and wore pretty much every medal and ribbon he owns, including putting a Spelling Bee trophy from 8th grade around his neck. Needless to say, I love him. He is there with Robert, another good friend. Showing off our medals and blang-blang was fun!
Thursday was class distinction day, juniors repped the blue! The assembly was fun, Sydni was part of the Freshman skit and Travis was on the Homecoming Court. The senior skit was absolutely hilarious, the Olympic sport they did was ribbon twirling. Yes. I said ribbon twirling.

I participated in Powder Puff football Thursday night, Juniors against Seniors. Naturally, we beasted! GO JUNIORS!! Woot Woot! Playing was awesome, and the cheerleaders performance was great. The Juniors may have won the game, but the seniors definitely win the vote for best cheerleaders. Juniors were still pretty sweet though.

That's right. I had my own cheering section. :)

Juniors are beast. We are only the second juniors ever to win Powder Puff! We are absolutely amazing!

Travis surprised me the night of the football game with a corsage! He wasn't going to be able to give it to me before the dance.

El Grupo!

This is why we are best friends

Moonstar and Snowflake!

Dinner at Capital Ale House was delicious!

He got to come the last hour of the dance!

I love our crazy selves!

It has been a busy couple of months. I miss writing and putting my pictures up here. I miss reading too. I have a lot of catching up to do! More things have happened the past two months I have been absent, and I have evidence, but I didn't want this post to be too extremely long. I'll post another soon, I PROMISE. I love you guys!

Just something to tease you with...

I absolutely love this picture. So yeah, I am just posting a couple of these guys up here to leave you panting for more... :) I'm still trying to download all of them off a CD onto my laptop, it is proving to be quite time consuming. Those of you who have been yearning for pictures- Do not fret! I will have them up as soon as I have everything organized. I will also post other stuff, this would get pretty boring if I just talked on and on about the wedding. Like I said in my last post, stuff has been extremely busy for me; I hardly have time to do my homework, much less blog. So until I can post again and offer up some more interesting topics, here are a few more pictures.

Father helping son.

A kiss from sissy.

Dave got the black sand.

I'm the daddy's girl.

Hope you like all of those. Hopefully I will be able to put more up here. I still haven't gotten them all downloaded yet. Once again, all props go to Katelyn James. She took every single one of these and is an amazing photographer. Please, if you need pictures done for anything; Weddings, Senior Photos, Engagement Pictures, Family pictures; just call her. http://theinspireddesign.com is her website. All her information is on there. Give her a call!

I have been gone too long!

DRAGONS!!... I just put that in there for Travis.

I know, I know, I miss you guys too. It's been like, two weeks. :( I have been extremely busy with school;, slacking off in homework, procrastinating, watching TV... ok not the best excuses. I have been doing a lot of stuff though including the One Act Competition play, doing Powder Puff football, small groups, which takes up two nights of the week, and hanging out with my friends. So yeah, I've been a little busy. I keep saying, I'm going to write today! I just never did. Plus I love putting pictures up, and I don't have too many of those right now.

Last time I wrote about going to Cerro Azul with my best friends! That was a ton of fun. The next Friday I went out again, this time with the church guys, it was great. We hit up Chee Burger Chee Burger, this beast of a burger place that offers up a sacred wall spot to anyone brave enough to stomach the pounder burger. I could not do it. I pretty much didn't even try. A couple of the guys did though, which was sweet. We had a ton of fun, I really love all of these guys. Even though they tease me too much. :)

This past weekend was a ton of fun, I got to hang out with the besties again! We had our first pep rally on Friday, which was beast of course. My high school is very school spirited, so we all dressed up in our orange and black. Naturally, the Seniors won, even though they cheated,(Travis!) So Hayley, Jackie, and Dylan came to my house afterwards and we hung out until the game started. (I don't have any pictures of this because Hayley wouldn't break out the camera. I need to get my own.) We went to the game and had a TON of fun, especially since Powhatan won! Woot Woot. Then Jackie and Hayley slept over at my house and we stayed up 'til two talking, which we normally do. On Saturday they both went home and my family spent the day cleaning. Blahhhh. Our very good friends The Otten's from Ohio came and visited us and had dinner at our house! We hadn't seen them in a while, and they were in VA so they visited for a while then stayed at my granparent's house and came to church with us on Sunday. Which was rockin, by the way. We had a choir and did a rap and it was sick. Then we had baptism!!! It was amazing, as always. My dad baptized David, he was the last one in the family! I was so proud. Dave's legs came up when dad dunked him, so we got a good laugh out of that. Our good friend Chris also got baptized, and that was very awesome to see. God does great things.

So that is pretty much the recap. I wish I had pictures to put up here, it seems so bland without them. I should however be getting wedding pictures this weekend, and when I do I promise that I will put some up here. Follow my link on the previous blog to Katelyn James' blog, and watch the slideshow if you cannot wait for me to post them up here. Go to http://www.theinspireddesign.com/. That is her site, just click on the blog and it will take you straight there. Make sure you look at the slideshow to see more! My afternoons are jam packed at the moment, but I am going to try to write again as soon as I can. I do love it, and it makes me sad to be away for too long.
Love love!

Oh, and if anyone has any red go-go boots, between size 7-7 1/2, I really need some! Let me know if you have any or know somebody that does. I would really appreciate it.

Wow, Craziness!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in so long! Things got pretty crazy for a while there, what with the wedding and school starting and everything. The wedding was amazing! I really wish I had a lot of pictures to put up here, but I don't yet. Katelyn hasn't posted much on her blog yet, but she did give one little sneak peek shot, go here and go on the blog if you want to look at it! She was an amazing photographer, as always, and hopefully my next post will have lots of pictures from the wedding.

I'll write more about the wedding when I put pictures up, but I will say it was pretty much close to perfect. Every single one of us cried coming down the aisle! I saw my brothers and my dad and the waterworks just started gushing. The food was really good, the dancing was great, and my shoes KILLED! Seriously, they hurt so bad. I gotta tell you though, they were cute! Which is all that matters, right ladies? So yeah, that is the news on the wedding front, here is the news on the...

School Front!

Yep, we started school this week! Back to waking up early, scrambling for school supplies, and lots of english projects! All three of us girls are in High School this year, Sydni has finally joined us! She was so excited to finally be up there with us, it's awesome to see her in the halls!

Yeah, of course I was texting before schol started. I don't exactly know why I was making that face though... So yeah, the first week of school is over, "Ahhhhhh". I'm glad it's the weekend! It always takes awhile for us to get into the groove of school at the Brawley house. I think it is going to be a good year, Junior year the hardest, but I'm excited. So after a long first week of school, we wanted to hang out and relax a little bit. Hayley, Jackie, Travis and I all went out on Friday to Cerro Azul, this awesome Mexican place. Jackie is another one of my really good friends, and we had a ton of fun at hanging out!

Speak no evil, see no- yeah, you know the drill!

This is just one of the random videos we took, yeah we usually break out the wicked dance moves in the car.

My best friends.

We actually ended up stayed at the mexican place for about three hours. Travis got there about thirty minutes after us, and when we finished eating we just stayed at talked for forever. It was incredibly fun, I'm pretty sure that everybody in the joint heard us laughing our heads off. Which is pretty much what we did the entire time. Jackie couldn't sleep over when we went home, so we went a little crazy before she left.

We did some make-up...

Sang a couple songs...

Acted a little crazy...

You know, the usual.

I absolutely love my girls. And my boy of course, I'm glad he came with us. He keeps the laughs going :) (I know you're reading this Travis, Love you!) I'm grateful my friends can put up with us, we can get kinda mushy sometimes. :) I'm glad that school has started, 'cause it means all of us are here and we can hang out and be crazy more often. I'm sure I will be putting more pictures up on here in the coming months. Between football games, homecoming, and parties, there will be a lot to share! Stay tuned for a wedding post, I will have one up as soon as I can! Peace and Cheez-itz,

*Sha-nay-nay

My dad is getting married today.