home sweet home

I just wanted to post some pictures of the inside of the apartment I'm going to be moving into in July. You'll have to click on the pictures to be able to see them well, probably.

The living room is a really dark brown color, but it looks nice with the furniture they have in there.

This is the room they've been using for the master bedroom. It's a light brown color. Their bed is a queen-size bed, so mine won't take up quite as much room.

This is the other bedroom. It's about the same size as the other bedroom. It's going to be my scrapbooking room ;)

The bathroom is pretty little, but has a bathtub. It has an interesting tile design in the floor. I like the color of the walls in here. They're green!

The kitchen is a dark purple color, but there isn't that much actual wall space. The stove is new this year.

weekend excursion

Grr . . . I tried to save a post on here and it got deleted! It was really long too. Here's the second shorter version, but with the same number of pictures.

I drove to Collegedale for the weekend on Sabbath morning. I left here (Highland) at 10:15a. We're in central time, so I got to Collegedale around 1:15-ish, just in time for lunch at the Heilmans'.

Ryan and I played catch after lunch with the neighbor kids' uncle (who was probably 11 or 12 years old). The kid kept saying that he could throw faster than me. It was kind of funny. So, we were outside for a while, but the weather was getting worse. We went for a walk with Randy and had to come inside so we didn't get struck by lightning.

Just after we came in, it started to hail. All three of us ran outside with cameras to watch the hail bounce off of our cars. (Notice the big splashes where the hail bounced off.) After it stopped, there was a nice rainbow that lasted about a minute before it faded.

Saturday night, I went to Ross to buy a bathing suit so we could go boating on Sunday. Ryan had a gift certificate to use at Barnes & Noble, so we went there for a while too and looked at lots of books. After we left there, we hit Taco Bell for a couple of bean burritos before heading back. We decided to watch a movie before we went to sleep, so we watched You've Got Mail until about 1:00a, when we were too tired to stay awake any more.

Sunday morning, we hit the SAU flea market for some bargain purchases. Ryan was Bob Benge's best customer :) Then we headed back to finish the movie. We stared out the front window for a while hoping that the clouds/rain/thunder would go away so we could go boating. After Randy and Mary Jane got back, we decided to be optimistic and headed out to the lake.

Ryan wakeboarded first (because he's always brave enough to jump in really cold water). I think he must have practiced down in Florida, because he jumped higher than ever! When I got in, the water temperature wasn't too bad. I could definitely tell that it was my first time out this season, though. I am SOOOO sore now.

The best part of boating was tubing. There's nothing better than being flung around on the end of a rope. I flipped over once trying to make my tube hit Ryan's. It's good that we stopped when we did, or I wouldn't have been any help for moving Jaclyn in, whatsoever.

Jaclyn and I ran errands and went shopping on Monday. We hooked up her utilities, printed pictures, went to the mall, I bought a microwave at Target, ate at Moe's, made up a new ice cream flavor (coconut/key lime/graham cracker) at Marble Slab, and talked to people in Wright hall. It was a very productive day, and the best part was that I got to be with Jaclyn!

I'm going to be at Highland until Friday. I'll probably get to leave in the morining and head home. Hopefully I'll get to stop at MPA and see Marca one last time before they move away. I am headed to Nosoca next week sometime for ad staff week, and will be back here at HA (Highland Academy) July 2nd with all of my stuff.

Sabbath

I got to ride on a school bus for the second time in my life today. It reminded me of the first time, my junior year at Pisgah. We were going back to campus from the picnic at Camp Rockmont and Mr. Grow kept making comments about how a grizzly bear could run faster than the bus could drive. (The bus was owned by Fletcher, btw.) Anyway, we went to the church in Asheboro for the school church program, ate potluck, and drove back. It's about a 45-minute drive from the church to TCA (my dad's school).

This afternoon dad and I took the dogs to Salem Lake, Winston Salem's water supply. The dogs had fun trying to make bikers fly over their handlebars!

Oreo was hilarious. She hasn't really gone swimming very much. She tried to jump out to some "grass" that was growing in the lake. She proceeded to do antelope-like hops in the water. After a few of those, she actually went in several times and swam around with her head and feet very high out of the water. I liked her flying leap from the bank the best, though.

We acutally got Maggie to do some retrieving. We had almost begun to believe she forgot about that part of her name. It didn't last very long, but I have a picture to prove it.

I saw a female common yellowthroat near the water. The only other birds we saw were red-winged blackbirds, baby cardinals, and green herons. We heard a kingfisher and an oriole too.

I like this picture of Maggie. She had just gotten out of the water from chasing sticks.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Highland Academy to do some training before Salli Jenks leaves. We'll see how long the trip takes and if I remember anything about how to get to the school. I'm hoping to get away and go down to Collegedale next weekend, but it's Highland's graduation that weekend. I'm not sure if they'll want me to stay there or not.

kittens

4/5 kittens

This is a kitten with her "aunt Mia"

graduation!

Here are some pictures from SAU's graduation weekend. I haven't gotten to print out any of the pictures yet, but I did resize some to make them small enough to upload on here. I'm sure MJ's blog will have other pics if you want to look there.

This first picture is from the Riverwalk. We went there to eat Sabbath lunch. Joy, Bobby, and Ella came up and ate with us. Ella and I had fun "hanging around" on the playground. We went down every single slide. Ella liked playing on the bigger part of the playground and said the slides in the 2-5 year-old section were "baby ones."

Sunday morning we had to be at Memorial Auditorium by 8:30a to get dressed and line up alphabetically. I helped fix a guy's hood that was totally upside down. We couldn't really hear any of the instructions being given before marching in, so I think we all just kind of winged it.

The stage was so hot. We had lights on us from all angles. If you click on the picture of the stage group, you can see where I was sitting. Ryan was on the same row, across the aisle from me.

Jaclyn sat in the balcony and got some good shots of the program. She took pictures with her camera, Stephanie took pictures with my camera, and Hollie was the spotter. Good thing my parents gave me a new telephoto lens, huh?

The rest of what I'll put on here is just some pictures we took after graduation was over. Thankfully, the rain held off until we were done with the program and had time to take some pictures. McCallie Ave. was closed after the program so we could all be outside, but it was still really crowded and hard to find everyone.

Asti got me this lei all the way from Hawaii.

Apparently I was the only one who thought we needed to "scrunch" more for this picture. (Thanks for documenting every moment, Stephanie.)

The girls - we miss you Tara!

All of the family

The graduates

fisheye lens?

Welcome to the Georgia Aquarium.

We will be your tour guides.

In case you've never seen tropical saltwater fish, they have LOTS of them. This is a Pyramid Butterflyfish, Hemitaurichthys polyepis.

There are at least three types of jellyfish in different tanks. These are pretty fast and hard to photograph. I think the blurriness makes it look wispier.

In case your feet get tired (or if you aren't coordinated enough to look and walk at the same time), you can get on the "moving sidewalk" and go through the ocean tunnel. We actually weren't on the moving sidewalk (but this doesn't necessarily mean we're coordinated...).

This wasn't actually a fisheye lens. As soon as you get through the tunnel, look up. You too may see one of the two whale sharks above your head. Believe it or not, they're not full-grown yet. Ralph and Norton eat out of different colored buckets so they both get fed.

The viewing window at the end of the Ocean Voyager section of the aquarium has a L A R G E viewing window. Hundreds of cownose rays, a few big ugly groupers, wrasse, hammerheads, a guitarfish, and even sawfish are clearly visible. (I contemplated spelling out letters [GA] in silhouette for using in my scrapbook, but I couldn't figure out how to make a "G" out of my body.)

In much colder water, beluga whales swim and flip. They look like ghosts in the water. Their white color works as camouflage in icy water. Males are about 16 feet long and females are about 12 feet long. The GA Aquarium has 4 belugas.

And for the kids . . . the Georgia Explorer section has lots of hands-on stuff. This was actually the first time I ever touched a stingray. The sharks swimming around are hammerheads (small ones!). Other things to touch include horseshoe crabs, shrimp, and hermit crabs. I was glad there was a sink with soap and paper towels at the end of this one!

For more information about the GA Aquarium from people who know what they're talking about . . . go here.

lookouts smoked the smokies

the beautiful sunset gave way to violent thunderstorms later that night

a Lookouts player getting out at first - at least they won though! (notice the Memorial Hospital sign in the background)