A super long, super fun, best friend hanging, guitar playing, good friend talking/venting, awesome weekend...

As you can probably tell from the title, I had a busy, but great weekend. Nothing especially important or big happened, it was just a fun, full, friend filled weekend. I love weekends like this...

Here's a little run-down of my weekend, and some of the few pictures I got...

FRIDAY I hung out with some of my best friends for my birthday. Not really a party, we just hung out. We went to go see '17 Again', (which was not the best, but we had a good time,) then we went back to my house and hung out for a bit.

Here's a few pictures from Friday night...


SATURDAY started pretty early when I went up to church to help my mom with the children's choir retreat. I was up there all Sat morning. After lunch I headed back to my house to get ready to go to the Main Street Arts Festival with Kristen, Katie and Jennifer. We all met at Katie's about 3:00 and got a ride with Katie's parents downtown. We spent the afternoon enjoying all the sites of MSAF and dowtown...






We headed back to Katie's house that night to hang out for a while. Kristen and Jennifer had to leave after a few hours, and I stayed for another hour or so and watched part of 'You've Got Mail' and had a nice chat with Katie...


Last, but not least, was SUNDAY, which started out with church, of course. After church Kristen came over to practice some songs with me for our upcoming girls' weekend in May.

We headed back to church at four for YCAM practice, (youth creative arts ministry,) and went to the evening service after that.

And to end this wonderful weekend, I went out with my wonderful (long-time) friend, Katherine, for one of our TC's (therapeutic chats) after church. We hadn't had one since the end of last year! We both desperately needed one again, and it was a great way to end my wonderful weekend. We're gonna try and start doing them as many Sunday nights as we both can. I'm glad. :)

No pictures taken Sunday! I was too busy!


That's about the overview of my weekend. There's so many more stories from the weekend I could tell, but believe me if I get into it, I wouldn't know where to stop. And you don't want to hear me ramble, do you? I didn't think so. And because of my recent super long ski trip posts, I'm trying to follow with some less wordy blogs. :)

I am sixteen, going on seventeen

That's me! Yep, I'll be seventeen tomorrow, April 14. (A tax deduction for my parents, born the day before tax day! How nice.)

This birthday doesn't feel nearly as big the last one, (getting drivers license, etc.) but it sounds a lot older than sixteen. I don't know why, but it does. I'm sure eighteen will really seem that way.

But I can't wait, because being a senior in high school and saying I'm seventeen sounds a whole lot better than saying I'm sixteen. Darn skipping a grade and having a spring birthday.

Any who, I was just watching The Sound of Music on TV this weekend, and when "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" came on I thought to myself, "hey, that's me."Followed shortly by thinking to myself, "that is so not me."

And most sixteen going on seventeen-year-old girls aren't really like Liesl anymore. I know it was a completely different time, but I thought it would be funny to copy the lyrics on here, and interject my own personal commentary...


[Rolf:]
You wait, little girl, on an empty stage For fate to turn the light on
Your life, little girl, is an empty page That men will want to write on
Um, okay...

[Liesl:]
To write on
We get it.

[Rolf:]
You are sixteen going on seventeen Baby, it's time to think
I think all of the time, thank you.

Better beware, be canny and careful Baby, you're on the brink
On the brink? Okay... continue...

You are sixteen going on seventeen Fellows will fall in line
Sure they will.

Eager young lads and rogues and cads Will offer you food and wine
I don't know what a "rogue" is, and I don't want to. Also, I don't want any wine. Hello, I'm sixteen going on seventeen!

Totally unprepared are you To face a world of men
I have three brothers, I think I'll be okay.

Timid and shy and scared are you Of things beyond your ken
Not really. Where are you going with this, Rolphe?

You need someone older an wiser Telling you what to do
Yes, the Lord, my parents, etc.

I am seventeen going on eighteen I'll take care of you
Cause that year makes a BIG difference, right? You silly boy, so much to learn.

[Liesl:]
I am sixteen going on seventeen I know that I'm naive
I never said that.

Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet And willingly I believe
Well, I am sweet. But I don't fall for those tricks.

I am sixteen going on seventeen Innocent as a rose
Okaaay. Go on...

Bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies What do I know of those
Um, nothing really. And I don't care to.

Totally unprepared am I To face a world of men
Haven't we said this already? Remember, three brothers? Ringing a bell?

Timid and shy and scared am I Of things beyond my ken
Ummm, we went over this too.

I need someone older and wiser Telling me what to do
Ugh, so repetitive. Let's get on with it.

You are seventeen going on eighteen I'll depend on you
NO, I wont. You're probably a creepy old man now, anyway.


Hope you enjoyed! Just having some fun. Nothing against The Sound of Music. I love that movie, actually.

Since it's about 45 minutes 'til my birthday, I'm guessing I'll be seventeen going on eighteen the next time I see all of you in blog land! Can't wait for that! :)

Senior Ski Trip! Pt. 4- Last full day in Keystone and the drive home

I promise this is the last ski trip post! Really!

But it's a long one.

If you haven't read any of my other ski trip posts and care to read them in chronological order, (like I wrote them in) I'll list them below...

• The first random post about the ski trip
• Part 1-The first 24 hours of the ski trip
• Part 2-The first full day in Keystone
• Part 3-The second full day in Keystone
  

Wow. Slightly ridiculous how many there are. Like I said, this really is the last ski trip post!

Let's get on with it, or it will never end!

Our last full day in Keystone brought forth sore joints, tired bodies and bed heads. But worst of all, the realization that it was the last day! :(

David After Dentist was most definitely quoted...

But we were gonna make the best of it and enjoy our beautiful last day in Keystone! We started out on the bunny slopes with everyone again. But we weren't there for quite as long this day. After about an hour we went half way up with some people.

Took a few more pictures, of course...

Looking up the mountain...


Jay waiting for all the slow-pokes. haha...

After we took a run half way down with the slow pokes, Jennifer and I went all the way to the top of the mountain to meet Katie and take some pictures!


Some pictures from up top...
It was really an unbelievable sight! The pictures don't do it justice.


Me and Jennifer...
It was sooo sunny up there. Jennifer and I both got sunburned... Jennifer got it way worse than me, though.


We're so excited!


Group picture...
I like this one, I stole it from Katie. :)

After hanging out on the top of the mountain for a little while, Katie took the gondola back down, and Jennifer and I skied all the way down the mountain. It was fun, but not as much fun as night skiing. ;)


We knew we were done after this run, so Jenn and I took a few pictures to document it...
We were sad to be done skiing.


A look up the mountain...


We had to take a happy picture...



After we took a few pics we found Katie at the bottom and headed back to our cabin-room-lodge-thing. We wanted to take some pictures around the place we stayed, so we changed out of our ski stuff and into some comfy clothes and walked around and took some pictures.

A LOT of pictures...

My fav of me and Katie...


Jennifer chillin' on a rock...


Katie and lots of snow...


Some of the trees in front of our building...



Katie in front of the door of our building...


My reflection in the door of our building...


Pretty...


Me...
I stole this from Katie's pictures.


Jennifer laughing...
I love it! ha.


The sidewalk with the snow piled up on either side...
Another I stole this one from Katie. I never got a good one of our sidewalk.


Our building...
I stole this one from Katie, too. The little balcony you can see on the second floor is off of our room.


Jennifer and Kristen up on our porch/balcony thing...


Our only attempt at a group picture...
I think it turned out pretty good!


Katie and Jennifer cheesin'...
Cute.


More trees...
I can't help it, I love them so much.


Our bus stop...
You can see our building in the background. we had a very short walk to the bus stop in the morning, it was nice.


Keystone Gulch...
The name of our bus stop.


The yellow bus...
The bus that took us to the slopes everyday.

Whew! I told you we took a LOT of pictures. That wasn't even a third of what I took that afternoon!


After all the picture taking we headed to supper.

Then a few people went night skiing for the last night. Jennifer and I decided to skip this time, we were pretty tired. In stead, a group of some of the senior girls decided to take the gondola up the mountain and take some pictures up on top of the mountain. It was lots of fun!


Turns out Jenn and I made the right decision about not going a second night, it had been warmer that day and according to our youth minister, who went night skiing both nights, it was really icy the second night. He said he almost couldn't control himself it was so icy, so Jenn and I definitely would've had trouble. And the first night was really great conditions, it wasn't icy at all and it was even snowing lightly while we were skiing. So skiing the second night might have made us not love night skiing as much as we did.


Up on the mountain at night...
I didn't mean to do that... haha.


Ah, that's clearer.


Kristen taking some pics...


Me and Katie...
You can see my sunburn now.


Me and Katie again...we take a lot of pictures together, if you hadn't noticed...
It was sooo cold up on the mountain!


We didn't stay up there for too long, because it was so cold AND we had to be back for group/devotional time pretty quickly.

We took a little group picture once we got down the gondola...
Not the best, but still cute.
From the left it's: Lindsay, Nikki blinking (Jay's wife), Katie also blinking, Kristen, Leslie, Sammie, me and Jennifer (you can see how bad her sunburn is here!)



After another great group time, we had to head back to our room-cabin-thing (have y'all caught on that I really have no idea what to call it?) and start packing up our stuff. We had an EARLY start the next morning to head back to Texas. We hung out talking for a while before we really got motivated to start packing... Finally we turned on some music (Wicked Soundtrack) and we got to it! We took a while getting everything packed up, but we did it. I think we were in bed by 1:30... maybe.


I think we got up at about 5:45AM. We had to be at the bus with our stuff at 6:45.

Here's a few pictures I took that morning...

Our living area finally clean! haha...


Katie with her luggage...
I think my camera was still on night setting, so there are kind of funny looking.


Kristen with all of her stuff, ready to go...

I think we got off at about 7:15, here's what I twittered as we drove out of Keystone...

"Goodbye snow, goodbye lifts, goodbye lodge, goodbye mountains, goodbye ski trip, goodbye Keystone... : (" 8:18 AM Mar 20th (the link says 8:18, but it was 7:18 in Keystone.)

It was definitely sad. The trip went by so fast!

Here's some pretty mountain pictures I took while we were driving early that morning...




It was so pretty! A bitter-sweet ride out of the mountains, for sure.


Katie, my bus buddy...

It was a long day of driving...

The first couple of hours there was a lot of sleeping (or trying to) because we were all so tired from waking up early. After the first few hours they started playing movies. The first one we watched was really good, "The Express". But after we stopped for lunch, they played three animated movies in a row. And every movie got more ridiculous. The first one, Wall-E, is actually really good, but it was downhill from there... The next movie they played was Over The Hedge, which wasn't the worst movie in the world, but at this point, I think we were just tired of animated movies. And the last and most definitely least was Open Season, easily the worst animated movie I've ever seen. It was ridiculous. We were all already going crazy just from driving for so long (it was 5-ish in the afternoon at this point) and to add this ridiculous movie to the mix was almost too much. It was a strange movie, to say the least. We were all so tired and delirious, we ended up laughing at it anyway, but it really wasn't that funny.

After that movie we took a break from movies. Praise the Lord!

We didn't stop for supper 'til about 8 and that was our last stop before we got back. I realized I had hardly taken any pictures after our last stop for supper, so I got out my camera and got some pictures while we were waiting for everyone to get back to the bus...

I'm glad I did, because I got some of the funniest pictures...

Katie posing for a picture...
Nathan decided to join in the picture taking, too... haha.

Katie and I are happy that there's only a few more hours of driving...
And I'm smiling funny.


Nathan and Michael playing an intense game of Rock, Paper, Scissors...
Yes, these are seniors in high school. Silly boys.


Still waiting for everyone to get back on the bus, passing time with card tricks...

Notice Randen's cast? It's because he broke his thumb on the first day while he was snowboarding! I would've been so sad if it had been me...

Everyone got to the bus and we got back on the road...


About an hour into our driving that night, our bus driver pulled over (in the middle of nowhere!) because he thought the engine was getting too hot. It was seriously freaky, you couldn't see anything out the windows, it was just black.

We all joked about it to pass the time. It actually ended up being way more funny than creepy. And we were only stopped for, like, 5-10 minutes, so it wasn't bad at all.

I, of course, had to document it with pictures...

Me and Katie pretending to be scared...

Nathan, Michael and Randen pretending to be scared, too...
They're so much more convincing than me and Katie. Maybe they really were scared. ;)


The back half of the bus being scared, as well...
More like the back quarter, I only got one side of seats. haha.

And that was about it. We got back to Fort Worth about 12:30AM and everyone went their seperate ways... It was sad, but we all wanted to get home and sleep in our own beds.


And you already know how I felt after the trip from this post, so I wont go into it. But it's been three weeks since the trip now and I've been back in the swing of things for a while.


It was a big undertaking to blog the whole trip, but fun to relive everything, so even if you just looked at the pictures, I'm glad I did it and I know I'll look back and be glad I did.

I promise to be back to blogging about more recent things now that I'm done with blogging about the ski trip!

Hope you enjoyed! (The pictures, at least!) ;)