Resolution

Yes. I realize it's April. But I wanted to talk about New Year's resolutions. And I can do that because this is my blog.

A 2007 study by some dude at the University of Bristol showed that 88% of those who set New Year's resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning. Side note: 52% is not very much...why even make a resolution if you're certain you're going to fail?

So many people have resolutions to lose weight, spend more time with their family, quit smoking, or save money. While these are all very advantageous lifestyle changes, I wanted to make mine one that challenged me, but wasn't overused. Sure, I'll still work on all those other things (minus quitting smoking- no need for that one!), but my New Year's Resolution was something that I thought of on my own:

Make someone smile every day. 

So far, I've succeeded. It may be something as simple as telling someone I like their hair that day, swhoing someone a hilarious picture of a baby hippo kissing someone, or just giving someone a hug when they need it most.

Making people smile makes me smile, and that, my friends, is a good thing.

Here's your wonderfully fun picture for they day! I hope it makes you smile!

I feel like this all the time.

And just because I love you, here's another one. I saw it and it reminded me of the time my sister posted it because she had to keep telling her daughter, "No, you need pants to go outside."

Twins

Now, I'm not a huge Minnesota Twins fan...

But I like them as much as the next gal. Especially when the team consists of so much eye candy.

Last week Friday, The Boy took me to our first twins game of the season! (I say of the season because he has season tickets and we shall have many more adventures to Target Field this summer) Before we left my house, he gave me a present!

Isn't it beautiful??

I wish I had taken more pictures, because Target Field truly is a beautiful stadium.

Our seats weren't right behind the dugout by any means, but I don't think there is a "bad" seat in the place. Plus, it's right by the bathrooms! And we all know how tiny of a bladder I have. 

But it was cold. So i rarely took my hands out of my pockets. And rainy. So I had my hood up the entire time. And the Twins lost. But none of that mattered cause I was in great company. :)

He really did have a good time.

And now, your picture of the day! Pretty sure this is what Maggie is like when she has to take a bath...

Up to.

What have I been up to lately?

Seems like there too much to mention. One of the easiest ways is to take a look at my phone photos and those will tell you where I've been.

That is, assuming I even take pictures of stuff I do.

Most of the time I forget.

I'll try and remember most of it now, then we'll see where the photography takes us.

Since choir tour, I've had a concert, gone home for Easter break, paid my taxes (SO MUCH MONEYS), got new tires put on Lola, and brought my dog back with me to Minnesota (hopefully my mom doesn't miss her too much)! I got to spend time with family (my sister and her husband came home from Illinois!), lots of time with friends, and got to play the piano.

I asked my mother if the next time I came home, could she please have the piano tuned? It almost wasn't worth it to play...but I couldn't help myself. I brought back a stack of books with me so that I can play them here! There are practice pianos here at school as well as a piano at The Boy's house. He says he likes to listen to me play...we'll see what he says later! ;)

I don't think I've ever had so many people ask me what I was doing with my life after graduation. At least this time around I have a plan for this summer... As for after that...

I registered for a virtual career fair in the beginning of May, so we shall see what comes out of that. I also sent an email to a company concerning a data analyst position they had open- I asked them when that position was open, and/or if it was filled already. That'd be an ideal job this fall.

And now...the photos. Most of them are boring. But whatevs.

We had lettuce growing on our dining room table. This was a weird sight...

I'd forgotten how much I missed my Rubik's cube! I brought it back with me.

Saturday morning we were talking about phones and apps and games, etc... So they're all sitting on the furniture messing with their smartphones and...

Mom felt a little left out. So she pretended to have GREAT FUN on her 'dumb' phone. HILARIOUS.

 Side note. Dad was playing a motorcycle game on his phone when my mom texted him. Before he could receive the text, Dad gave the phone to Brett so he could play the game. Little did mom know that when you are playing the game, the phone automatically reads the text out loud.

HA.

"Do you really have to do that right now, dear?"

HA.

Mom and I made a BUNCH of cards this weekend. This was one of my favorites!

Back at The Homestead with Maggie! She loves it here!

I already posted this on Facebook, but....It's still true. Graduation. One month. Oh boy.

Here's your photo of the day! If you'd like to see the rest of the funny underwater dogs, here's the link: http://flashsolver.com/2012/04/01/funny-underwater-dogs/

They're hilarious and look slightly insane.



Question: If you had to make a new cereal...what would it be? Not something on the market now, and it can be a continuation of a General Mills cereal.

Likeable

The Boy asked me yesterday why I was so likeable. I had gone with him to a dinner for his grandma and met some extended family earlier that evening, and had met some of his friends the night before.

"What is it about you that makes people, my friends, your friends, Bethel Choir, DP, my parents, my friends, my family, and me like you so much?"

I didn't know what to tell him.

I never really thought of myself as being likeable, though. I was called a bunch of names through elementary school, I always seemed to have the wrong clothes, the wrong haircut, I was too smart, I'm constantly correcting people (I'm really trying to get better, though!), etc.

But then he waited for an answer, so I knew I had to say something.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided it was because I try to shy away from conflict. I don't like it, and so I try not to have a lot of negativity around me. Or maybe people like me because I try to see the best in them all the time. Or it could possibly be because... I actually have no idea.

But I'm very glad people do. Especially The Boy.

Here's your picture of the day! Enjoy!

Days 8-10

   We'll see if I have a long enough attention span to finish the tour out...

Day 8:

   We got a little bit of a slow start the next morning, and so our host mom couldn't drive us to the continental divide, but we were able to see this "million dollar view". As usual...pictures just don't do the view justice. But I try.

We went to Estes park for the day. It was BEAUTIFUL. Here's Alex Steddom on a big 'ol rock that we probably weren't supposed to be climbing on.

   The further we get from tour, the less I remember. But I DO remember that today was Senior Van Day! Well, sorta. All of the people in the van were seniors, but we have more seniors than van spots, so some of them were on the bus. But it was an event! On the way to Emily Noble's church from Estes Park, I got really sick and was kind of a party pooper in the front of the van. I was still able to tweet a bunch of funny things I heard from the backseat, though!

Events/quotes of the day:
Estes Park illegal rock climbing, complete with Jesus time at the top.

"Wait, wait. Was that a marmot?? Wait, what are we talking about?" - Wes Mouri
"...I'm gonna punch you in the face." - Amanda Snyder
The story game on the Senior van, complete with cats named Foremost and blind orangutans named Sparkle McFarkle. 
Wonderful concert in Aurora, CO



Day 9:

   These last two days are going to be quite boring posts because we spent most of them on the bus/vans! Today, we drove from Colorado to Kearney, NE. I spent most of it on the bus sleeping or watching the movie choice of the day- Hot Rod. I honestly didn't even take any pictures this day, either. Not much goin' on in Nebraska.

Events/quotes of the day:
Wonderful last homestay ever with a family who ordered us pizza, had chocolates and chips and salsa and cookies and pop and juice for us, watched The Princess Diaries after the concert (!), and had a delicious breakfast the next day. Beautiful home, too!
No one said anything funny today. That I can remember.

Day 10:

   We got up early today to get on the bus to drive from Kearney, NE to Windom, MN! This trip was also kind of boring, but mostly because of Nebraska. THEN we crossed into MY territory! It was nice to be in familiar territory again! Tony Blankers was up at the mic a lot giving guided tours/fun facts. :)  Then we stopped in LeMars, the self proclained Ice Cream Capital of the World! 

This was Blue Bunny's new location, which I had never been to! It certainly was a little better at housing our entire choir than the old one would have been!

I'm sure that Blue Bunny appreciated our orders, even if the rest of the patrons didn't. :)

Events/quotes of the day:
We had another long bus ride today, no homestay. It was kind of surreal the whole time.
One of the most ENJOYABLE evening shows I've heard in a long time! The choir is SO CREATIVE!
"Uncle Benjiiiiiii, Matt kicked me in the buttttt" - Jeff Dahlquist
Emotional last concert....as usual.

Well, I got it done! Thanks for taking this tour with me! I'll try to be funnier in the future. :)

No guarantees.

Days 6 - 7

   Well, me not having posted anything the last half of tour must mean that I had so much fun I didn't have any time to write anything. Yeah. That must have been it. This is going to take a while, and I don't expect that I'll remember everything that happened. I was simply just having a great time!

Day 6:
   We spent the night in a seemingly upscale-on-the-outside, sketchy-mc-sketcherpants-on-the-inside Ramada in Northglenn, CO. The day before was filled with lots of fun things, the most eventful of which was Casa Bonita. We all decided that you can easily leave Casa Bonita...but Casa Bonita doesn't easily leave you.


  The next morning was the skiing day! Unfortunately, I didn't go skiing. People kept asking me why not, and I had just decided before tour that I didn't want to spent most of the day learning how to ski (I've never been before) and only be able to go once. So I spent the day in downtown Denver with a bunch of people who also didn't go skiing. We mostly just shopped or sightsaw (sightseed?) (sightseen?) (whatever). I didn't take a whole lot of pictures that day, but here's what I got!

After lunch (at Chick-fil-A!) Wes and Laura just had to pose for a picture. Wes then proceeded to run/dance across the courtyard yelling, "They're my friends, I'm with them!" while the rest of us said, "We don't know him, he's not with us!"

  There's a story that goes with this picture. Melissa and Krishana and I were looking for a place to eat supper after a long day of walking/shopping. So we got out our smartphones and looked up a place that had pizza/Italian and found Mile High Pizza Pie! So we walked the few blocks over there and took a picture in front of the sign before we went in. Then about 3 guys walked out of the restaurant came out and wanted to see the picture we took (I think they had just gotten a new sign and wanted to see if it showed up in pictures). Melissa was preeeeetty hesitant to show her phone to the random stranger, but finally agreed. Then we walked in, ordered, and sat down. It was a pretty small place, very hole-in-the-wall-ish. There were probably 12-15 seats in the whole place. They were very overstaffed- probably 6 or 7 guys working there for very few patrons. The three of us came up with a few words to describe our trip:

Free dessert.
Sketchy bathrooms (if you ask Melissa, that's an understatement).
Overstaffed.
Harboring a fugitive.

Let me know if you want me to go into any more detail!

Krishana and Melissa split a couple different things, I had lasagna

The owner came over and gave us free dessert from The Cheesecake Factory! So sweet!

This guy was playing in an alleyway on our walk back to the bus station. He was very good! I wish I had taken a video...

Events/quotes of the day:
Melissa almost got run over by a bike taxi (I can't think of what else they are called!) on 16th Street Mall.
"I wish I could take out my left hand!" - Bre Blaschke

After writing this down, I've decided to write these last few days in chunks as well. One just can't write about the last 5 days of tour all at once!

Day 7:

   We spent the night at the same hotel Ramada in Northglenn, CO. We spent most of the morning/afternoon at Emily Noble's house eating brunch, playing with pets, going to the park and goofing off, and generally relaxing before our concert that evening!

This was the biggest game of Ultimate Frisbee I've ever seen. It doesn't look like it here, but it was actually very sunny outside! I got some sweet tan lines.

There was an ongoing game of Mad Gabs in the Noble's living the. Entire. Day.

  After we left the Noble's, we made our way to The EDGE, who was hosting us for the evening. We didn't have our concert there- it was too small- but they had us for supper. The concert that night was at Columbine High School. Needless to say, it was AMAZING and very emotional.

They had a banner! And decorated tables! And wonderful food.

Our host mom (foreground) and her friend were duet ringers and gave us an impromptu concert! The video should be on my Facebook page if you want to see it.

  Amanda and Krishana and I finally got to spend a night together at Shirley's house. She even had a Steinway in her living room that I got to play in the morning! It was very relaxing, but the drive to and from the church was a little long.

Events/quotes of the day:
"Is the polar bear God?" - Paul Hjellming
"If you're a PK, can you raise your hand?" - Daniel Rimmereid
The bus was a bit sketchy at this point, so when I came out of the church at one point, Josh Palmer, Taylor Bothun, Paul Hjellming and Benji (the bus driver) were cleaning out the bus! They de-trashed, swept, and mopped the entire bus! Lexi made them awards the next morning. :)

That's all I have time for right now! Hopefully I can do the next few days tomorrow!

Days 4 and 5

 These past couple days have been great. I never really realize how wonderful choir tour is until I'm on it. If you haven't seen my post about the first three days, you can check them out here. This post is on days 4 and 5.

Day 4:
   We woke up in our wonderful hotel in Grand Island, NE, had a warm breakfast, and were on the road by 7:30. We drove to Central City, NE and had a small mini-concert in the gym at the Christian school. Kids in grades K-12 were all there in the gym, and they were such a cute audience! My favorite part is when we have soloists do their thing- the kids all give these looks to each other as if to say, "These guys are good." After the concert, we got on the road to Colorado. Needless to say, it was a long bus ride.

She may have slept a lot, but she sure said some hilarious things when she was awake.

'Guys, is this mean to pay with this many pennies?"

Happy Birthday, Lisa and Jay!

Events/quotes of the day:
"I can't wait for the mountains. I just want to lay on one." - Krista Smith
"When I was little, I used to think my mom's tampons were fruit roll-ups."- Krista Smith (Can you tell I sat next to her on the 10 hour bus ride?)
"It's like fried paper, but yummy." - Krishana Dempcy (tortilla chips)
Leah won CMOD the next day for petting the waitress because she thought she was a member of the choir.
"LOVE YOU!!!!...I just yelled that in a restaurant." - Grace Lukens
"Love THAT." - Wes Mouri (soon to become the phrase of the whole tour)

  After getting to the hotel in Colorado Springs, a bunch of the students went swimming. I happened to forget my swimsuit, so I biked for a while. We had a surprise party for Lisa and Jay with lotsa cake. Yum.

 Day 5:
  Today was a wonderful day. Quite possibly the best day of tour.

  We started the day by going to Colorado Springs Christian School and singing at their chapel. This was very fun, but the altitude was getting to us. Almost all of us were having trouble breathing. Corbin even passed out during the concert. Whoops. My Aunt Cora Jean and Uncle Jerry even drove down to the concert!

This is what DJ looks like 95.7% of the time.

  After a wonderful morning, Jerry and CJ took me out to eat at Black-Eyed Pea, which was delicious. After lunch, we were going to meet the bus where they stopped for lunch. A bunch of people texted me and told me we were going to meet at Chipotle at 12:35.

  Turns out there were 3 Chipotles equidistant from Black-Eyed Pea. Guess which one we didn't go to?

 So they drove me to the Air Force Academy, where we met up with the rest of the choir, making it through security way easier than I thought we were going to...

  These next pictures are from our tour of the Air Force Academy chapel. It. Was. Amazing. Definitely was the highlight of my day.

A. Ma. Zing.

 

Who knew it had a basement?

Jewish Chapel

 These next 9 photos are of paintings depicting either actual Bible stories or fictional ones with messages from the Bible. The Jewish chapel had commissioned these 9 paintings by a guy (don't remember his name). The artist painted all 9 of them in 8 months. Oil paint on golf leaf. Everything that looks gold....IS gold. Each painting is valued at $1 million. Wowza.

"Justice, Justice shalt thou follow"

"Solomon's Judgment"

"Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?"

"Ruth and Boaz"

"Jacob and the Angel"

"Deal Thy bread to the hungry"

"The way of an eagle in the air"

"The vision of Ezekial"

"Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven"

Buddhist chapel

Twas a little bright...

Oh yeah. I could live here.

Jeff wanted me to take a picture of him looking tough. I just think he looks creepy.

  After the Academy, we were able to go to the Garden of the Gods for an hour. A few of us ventured out and went climbing. Which apparently you're not supposed to do. Whoops. I got some GREAT pictures, though.

Actual wildlife. I think we stumbled upon their bedding area.

Corbin on the beginning of our illegal climbing expedition.

What. A. View.

Hey look! Bethel people on the ground!

I could definitely get used to this.

  Up next: Casa Bonita! I have no explanation for this. It's just something that everyone has to experience once in their lifetime. Unluckily Lucky for me...I got to experience it twice. Score.

I was very thoroughly confused by this whole process as the last time I was here, I was about 10 and everything was done for me. This seemed strangely like high school all over again.

At least the waterfall was pretty. (Photo courtesy of Melissa Bargmann)

"Guys, you're not ten. Or maybe you are."

  Then we spent a relaxing evening in the pool/hot tub/sauna swimming and playing "never have I ever." Little miss Grace Hanson kept winning. :)

Events/quotes of the day:
I was having too good of a time to write down stuff today, so I only have one quote from DP as we were walking to the AFA chapel:
"These guys fly airplanes. Really fast ones." - DP
Another highlight of the day was moving the tour guide to tears after singing "We Shall Walk Through The Valley in Peace". So amazing.

  Tomorrow is another day!