C.S. Lewis

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

All I wanna do is dance

Today I was dancing around the kitchen while listening to this oldies radio station. They were playing sweet music from the 50's, like this:

 Olivia and my dad were there. One of them joined me in snapping and hip-swinging, and the other one was grumpy with me because he/she hates fun. Can you guess which was which??

Tonight Max texted me and said, "At loveland's homecoming right now, wish you were here to dance like a fool with me." BEST. TEXT. EVER. Because, obviously, dancing like a fool is my specialty and is one of the things that brings me the most joy EVER. And I'm glad Max knows that about me. But I was also just really jealous of her and wishing I could be there, too.

Supplies!

My dear brother Matthew turned 24 this week! His great wifey organized a sweet surprise and we pulled it off! We went out for sushi and he was very surprised and it was an awesome time to be with some people that I love a lot. Family and food...two of my very very favorite things in life.

SO SURPRISED!

Great job, Al.

"Sneaky shirt!"

 We ate SO MUCH FOOD. And it was so great. And for dessert we got deep fried cheesecake (cheesecake tempura...)! And these weird Japanese ice cream balls that rocked.

It is such a blessing to be with family and I love mine. Matthew and I reminisced on the surprise party that he threw for me freshman year...what a sweet brother I have.

Joy joy joy

I can't help but post this again. I hadn't watched in in awhile so I needed a refresher...and oh, it brings me too much joy.
http://vimeo.com/44365657

Life is full

My weekend started off right with a canceled babysitting job and time to iChat with my bestie, Abby. She had extreme ADHD and touched her straight hair a lot, we laughed at weird things in our lives, and I cried. Those are things that make our friendship work. She wrote me a letter last week and said, "I think that we're really good at being present in each others' lives." And it's true.

"Do I look like I'm in a circus?" Yes, Abby.

Friday night was the time for our family's spontaneous trip for the week. We skipped the week before so we're not off to a great start. But we ventured (walked) to the new TCBY! On our way to get some delicious fro-yo, we made a stop at King Sooper's to take our blood pressure...we have a lot of fun on Friday nights. Unfortunately, the blood pressure machine wasn't working. Fortunately, we saw some people we knew while we were taking those mirror pictures (none of which were very successful).

After that great family time, I headed over to one of the Young Life houses to join a movie night. I ended up hanging out with Amanda, Elle, Emily, and Mackenna instead. It was a great choice because we watched hilarious Youtube videos and dance partied! Amanda said the next time someone asks her what brings her the most joy, she will say dance parties. And I obviously agree. I have so missed camp dance parties in the last month and a half.

I went to the CSU football game on Saturday and, even though the team really struggled, it was a fun time to spend with some Young Life people. And we got to be on TV a couple times according to some of our friends watching at home! Famous.

After the game, I hung out with Zach, Nick, Mike, Kim, Morgan, Todd, and Jess at the You, Me and Apollo concert. If you haven't checked them out already, you should. That group of people is really a lot of fun and I love that some of them are old friends and some of them are new friends for me. Hanging out in Old Town always reminds me how cool Fort Collins is and how much I wish I hung out down there more often.

Team Flannel

Team North Face

Always photo-bombin'

 

Pretending to be engaged with my cool ring made of real flowers..

I spent Sunday afternoon napping in front of the Broncos game. That's probably one of my favorite things to do ever. And Matthew was there! Which rocked. We roughhoused, which I miss when he and Cathy aren't around. I love my sibs. I closed out the weekend with a worship night with Young Life leadership and more family time in the form of a mini birthday celebration for Matthew.

This cover is cool and I've been listening to it lots...

Ignore the corny music...

Love this.
http://www.nbc.com/the-office/video/office-romance-jim-and-pam/1416123

10 things that made this week beautiful

1. TCBY: Olivia and I made a spontaneous trip to TCBY on Monday and it was just what I needed (as always).
2. TCBY: Trust me, it's worth 2 separate entries. The TCBY that is 2 minutes from my house JUST OPENED!!! AHHH. So probs gonna go there everyday. Can't wait.

3. My mom bought me OVERALLS this week at a thrift store. She knows me so well.
4. I got to have some lovely time with Kim that included watching A Lot Like Love, eating popcorn and Ben & Jerry's, drinking blue Mountain Dew, and talking about life. Beautiful.
5. I went to King Sooper's last night at 12:30 AM to buy donuts and waffles for Wyldlife so I didn't forget. The greatest thing (or maybe the worst thing...I haven't decided) about going at that time was that the only people that saw my outfit were three employees. I was wearing the wideleg gaucho pants that I wore for the Camp T Disco party, my wolf tank, and a flannel. Not at all socially acceptable, but probably my favorite thing I've worn all month. I desperately want to start dressing in the most socially UNacceptable outfits possible.
6. Today I received letters from a couple awesome people in my life.
7. Errbody and their mom is getting engaged, which I have mixed feelings about, but Cathy showed me this hilarious blog that I like to laugh at: http://myfriendsaremarried.tumblr.com/. It's a little inappropriate and has some bad language so sorry 'bout it.
8. I'm feeling very blessed by my parents. Sometimes living at home is a challenge, but they couldn't be more supportive or better role models to me.
9. The weather has been BEAUTIFUL this week. I'm LOVING it.
10. Wyldlife tonight rocked. For real. We had Breakfast Club...dressed in pj's and played games with breakfast foods. It was so much fun and I really loved it. I feel like a real Young Life leader these days and it is so great.

 11. *BONUS* I read Psalm 13 the other day and it felt so perfect. Even in the middle of hard seasons, I can trust fully that the Lord is good.

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

Weekend Happy's

I hadn't seen the twins in FOUR MONTHS. And let me tell you, babies change a lot between 4 months and 8 months old. They're sitting up and holding their own bottles and eating real people food and scooting away from me. They have a couple teeth and are chunky handsome little boys. I love them! I got to hang out with them two days in a row this weekend and it rocked. It was the first time I actually thought I would like to have twins someday. That would rock...double the sweet blessings at once. Look how freakin cute they are!

They drool on EVERYTHING, including my leg.

 

Another awesome thing about this weekend was that we celebrated Katie's 21st birthday! She's the first of my really close friends to turn 21, so it is a big deal. We were planning on going to the Rio to get her a marg but there was a 2 hour wait (dumb), so we went to Coopersmith's instead. It is also delicious, so I wasn't disappointed.

The boys are constantly ruining good pictures...children.

After dinner we sat and recovered from stuffing our faces. Then we ate some more...I made these Oreo Treats (basically Rice Krispy Treats with Oreos instead of Rice Krispies...had them first at camp). They were SO GREAT. I'd highly recommend making them. (I also made a batch for my fam and they were gone in less than 24 hours.) After birthday dessert, we played Apples to Apples (and I dominated). We laughed so hard and it was good for my soul to be with these awesome friends.

Matthew and Alex were here this weekend, too. It is always fun to be with them and I miss them when we're not together. In other news, I tuned my guitar tonight. So maybe I'll start playing it a little again...we'll see.