About that long absence...

So...I'm back! After a very (very) long "summer break," the blog is now up and running again :) Two reasons it kinda fell by the wayside:
1. I spent two months this summer helping at an orphanage in Guatemala (as most of you probably know). Quick recap:

I fell in love with a lot of cute little orphans

got to know some of the amazing men and women who work at Casa Bernabe (the orphanage),

and was amazed by both the tropical beauty and third world poverty of Guatemala.

Reason 2 for not posting: School just started, and I've been busy with exams! That's not really an excuse though, 'cause I find that all of the reading and assignments in school is about the only thing that gets my brain running! So, that's generally why my posts only happen during the school year, even with exams :)

Now that my extended sabatical is over, I can't promise that I will be any more regular in posting (the whole point of this blog is that it is composed of random things that strike me as interesting), but I can promise that there will be more posts! (Not that people necessarily care...I just do it because I like to! :) So with that being said, I'll be writing soon!

A Day in DC

Well, I was going to do a philisophical post about "when a tree falls in a forest," but then I went to DC yesterday with Sam, a couple of his friends, and Cody, and decided that would be much more fun to post on! It was an amazing trip. We speed toured the ENTIRE city, and I mean that literally. I mapped it out later--6 miles of walking! And it was so much fun finally having Sam home!

Ok, so any post of DC has to start with a picture of the White House...even if it wasn't the first place we went.

Have you ever been to the Old Post Office? I'd never heard of it before--turns out it's the second tallest building in DC (behind the washington monument) and has an even better view. And it was so cute!

Haha, this was our reflection in the elevator ceiling.

Sweet view!

I like how old this picture looks :)

And then down the dark and gloomy staircase...

Next stop: some memorial I've never been to before. Navy or something? I dunno...but it had a really cool map of the world that you could walk all over!

Home Sweet Home. (I photoshopped the label in afterwards, if you were wondering)

Beth in Israel

Sam wanted to stand in the Black Sea (biggest inland sea in the world he informed us), but couldn't remember which one it was :)

Cody shivering at the North Pole (so cute! ...but don't tell him I said so :)

Ok, enough with the maps. This was the fattest squirrel I have ever seen.

And some birds who were people-watching

Chillin' at the WWII Memorial...
This was the weirdest thing ever! It was counting UPSIDE DOWN!

Cody mentioned that he felt like doing a flip in the grass by the tidal basin...but he was too shy to do one. So Josh promised Cody that if he did one, Sam would too. Yeah, what are friends for? I didn't whip out my camera fast enough to catch Cody, but I got Sam, who was a very good sport. Brother points!

Look closely next time you walk around the tidal basin...you just might be surprised by what you find in there!

The second one is someone's camera, if you can't tell. Poor person.

The JFK memorial is definitely my fav. And these are my favorite pictures!

Did I mention that it was an absolutely perfect day? Perfect.

Inside the Jefferson Memorial

I fee like this picture should be the end of the post, just cause it's so perfect and beautiful, but we weren't done yet!

The American History Museum (which was the whole reason we went down to DC in the first place!) had lines out the door, so we went to the Natural History to see the bugs! This was like the best museum tour ever--no exhaustive class field trip for us! We were in and out of every exibit in under 10 minutes. Whoo ya! Deej had never seen the elephant :)

And these signs in the bug exhibit cracked me up :)

A last word of advice!

Yes indeed! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Aliens Among Us...

And you thought aliens didn't exist. Ha. Shows how much you know. I happen to have proof. It was sitting on my front walkway this morning in the shape of this saddleback caterpiller (the name of which, surprisingly, I found pretty easily online). Don't try to tell me that's not extra-terrestrial.

Photoshoot

So the other day, my friend Liz was over at my house, and we wanted to go out and do something. "Hey," she said, "it's a beautiful day; why don't we go do our own little photoshoot?" Well I thought it sounded like a swell idea, so off we tramped to the meadow near my house... and boy did we make some memories :)

Twirling
(thanks to the tripod, for letting both of us be in all these pictures)

:D

Me: "ok, Liz, pretend you're telling me a secret"

(We would take turns calling out cues after I'd pushed the self-timer button on the camera :)

Liz: "My turn! Look like you're really scared of something over there."

Is she beautiful, or is she beautiful?

Well, when we were done in the meadow, we went across the street to climb on this fence. Unfortunately, the fence wasn't climbable, but the lighting was breathtaking!

Liz: "Ok, Charlie's Angels!"

I love this one. She didn't know I was taking the picture, so it looks like she's just absorbed in her thoughts.

shadows of a model

Montgomery College, here I come!

Well, yesterday was my first day at MC! It was a rather funny day, and since a lot of people have been asking, I figured I'd share it with you:

-Right before I left, I printed off directions from google maps, which I didn't notice took me to the wrong part of the road I needed to be on. So there I was, sitting in a neighborhood somewhere vaguely near my destination, completely lost and needing to get to my classes! Fortunately, I called my mom and, after a lot of "do you recognize this road name? How about this one? Go that way you said? Oh, oops, I just turned left "...etc she managed to get me back on the right road :)

-At MC, I headed in to class, still a good 15 minutes early! I found my room, opened the door, and sat down in a chair. Introductions had already started, but something didn't seem right...the board said something about Chem 101 and the teacher was a woman. This was my room, but I knew my class was Chem 100, and I was pretty darn sure that the teacher was a guy! Well, I was right :) Turns out that Chem 101 (the class before mine) was doing their introductions at the end of class...and I decided to make a hasty retreat back out into the waiting room. After all that drama, Chem class went very well, and I think I'm going to enjoy it.

-After Chem, I had ten minutes to book it across campus to my Women in Literature class. The teacher is hysterical (in both senses) and class looks like it's going to be reeeeally interesting. (First question: "So what are some of the myths about women that exist today?")Fortunately, I met another christian girl already in my class, who I'm really excited to get to know.

-Aaaand so, that was my first day at MC! I'm really excited about this school year; the classes look good, but I'm really more excited about the relationships that, Godwilling, I'm going to be able to make over this semester. I'd really appreciate prayers for both aspects!