Snow Sculptures

This weekend there was a winter fest in Jackson and part of it was a snow sculpture contest in the town square. So today after church several of us went to go see them and take pictures. Here they are:

Brian and Danilo driving the snow truck.

Really? A mushroom?
You're in a snow sculpture competition, and you choose to make a mushroom?

1st place winner-back view



 

abstract ice sculpture of a buffalo.

Tortoise and the Hare- only the tortoise is riding a snow mobile.

a snow slide.

a wolf and a bear arm wrestling on top of a moose, with an eagle judging the winner.

Valentines, Guacamole, and Philosophy

Even though Valentine's Day was on Monday, the girls at my school had our Valentine's party on tuesday.
It was a very fun affair with lots of food and decorations. We had a great devotional led by Jenny and it was also pretty nice just to celebrate the holiday in general. The girls' RAs gave us all a red "rose" made out of feathers and we basically just talked, ate and took pictures the rest of the night. Here are just a few pictures:

Notice all the red and pink. Also, the roses in our hands.

Then, on Wednesday, I got my new phone in the mail. My family just signed up for another 2-yr. contract, so we all got new phones. I was a little worried that I wouldn't like this phone, because it wasn't the one I had chosen, but now that I have it I really like it. Although, as a side note, it definitly is an older person's phone. When I looked it up on the internet, all of the pictures of it were shown with a much older lady holding it. It also comes with features such as an "easy mode", a pedometer, and a pill reminder. You also have the option to have medium, large, or very large type. Notice that small is not an option.
Luckily, my phone also comes with an advanced mode which makes me feel much more my age.
After getting my phone in the mail, I was off to church to make dinner. We had mexican chicken with a salad and guacamole and chips with cookies for dessert. It took me the entire prep time to sort through the avacados and make my guacamole recipe while the other girls worked on the other parts of the meal, but it still turned out very good and on time.

My Thursday, Friday and Saturday were quite uneventful as they were filled with studying for my Prophecy final and doing the heavy pre-reading required for this week's Philosophy class. I most likely won't be doing much of anything except studying this week as Philosophy is reported as being one of the hardest classes we will take all year. However, after this week is done, my spring break starts and I will be having loads of fun in Colorado with several of my friends :)

Idaho Falls

This past monday my friend Tatiana and I were able to go to Idaho Falls.
It was such a blessing too.
I really needed to go to the chiropractor in IF, and Shannon didn't need her car that day, so she let us drive it. We didn't have anything we needed to do that day, and the quiz the next day didn't even require that you study in order to get a good grade.
So right after lunch, Tat and I jumped in the car with multiple mapquest directions, a gps, plenty of snacks, an ipod, and lots of cds. It is a really long, mountainous drive, but we had lots of fun just talking and singing along to the music.
When we got to Idaho Falls, we still had a little bit of time before my chiropractor appointment, so we went to Walmart (sadly, it is the closest one to my school). After a quick ATM stop and 3 near accidents because of stupid drivers (almost worse than chicago drivers, only with 1/4th of the skill), we got to my new chiropractor (who happens to be quite funny).
It was so amazing to be in alignment and straight again. I could not stop smiling for the rest of the afternoon, it felt that good.

The rest of the day was very good too. We went to Jack in the Box for dinner, treated ourselves to icecream, and tried to visit the museum of idaho. Even though it was closed, we weren't too dissapointed because we're pretty sure the only thing in there would've been a potato in a glass case. But despite this supposition, we still took a few pictures before getting some gas and heading back to school.

this bell was right outside the museum

On the long drive back, we almost got into another 3 accidents, only this time because of mule deer. But despite all the close calls, God definitly was protecting us and we never crashed and my back was never jarred so as to take it out of alignment.
Overall, God is very very good to me. I am so thankful that all the pieces went into place that allowed me to go to the much needed chiropractor. From Shannon's car to having a Colorado girl with fast reflexes drive me over the mountains, the whole day was just one huge blessing. Praise and thanks be to God.

Guns and Gummies

Last friday was a super fun day.
After class, Jared, Scott, Kenton, and Jen took 8 of us girls to the shooting range south of town. Despite the fact that I vaguely remember shooting a bb-gun about 10 years ago, Scott gave all of us a quick class on how to stand while shooting, how to hold the gun, how to aim, and most importantly, how to handle one safely.

Once we got the basics down, we went over to the pistol range. There we shot 3 .22 pistols (one semi automatic and two revolvers), a 9 mm, a .357 revolver, and a .45 glock. Here are some pictures:



Kenton giving some final advice about this gun.





I did pretty good for my first time ever shooting.



After the pistol range, we headed over to the riffle range where we learned how to shoot 2 .22 riffles (one was a pump-action the other had a clip) and an AR 15. The AR 15 was easily the coolest gun I've ever seen. We were able to shoot targets 200, 300, and 400 yards away. I think it's capable of going farther, but our skill was limited, being mostly beginners. Although, I was able to hit the 400 mark the first time I aimed at it and 3 times in a row. Oh yes, be impressed. (actually, I'm pretty sure that's not all that impressive; but i don't know guns.)

Later that night my friend Lish and I attempted to make gummy bears. We had looked up a recipe online and bought a cheap mold and ingredients. So we got all set up in the tiny commons kitchen with our supplies and a boombox and were dancing along while we were stirrin' and basically just having a grand old time. We followed all of the directions exactly (an impressive feat while dancing) and poured the mixture into our adorable little zoo animal mold and put it in the freezer to harden.

After the appropriate amount of time had passed, we took them out and they were still not very firm, so we put them back. When we finally got tired of waiting, we took them out again and they had definitely not hardened one bit. So we attempt to take them out of the mold anyways. Fail. Not only were we unable to get them out in one piece (or at all without the aid of a fork handle), but they were also incredibly sour and were the consistency of sand that had been turned into glue.

Nevertheless, we decided to make some adjustments and try again. So I see a sugar container on the counter next to the salt and pepper shakers and add a very generous helping of it to the gummy bear mixture along with several cups of water.

While it was heating up, our teacher for this week, Barb Leslie, walked in and told us a fun story about how she's a horrible cook. Apparently, she tried to make mashed potatos for her husband right after they had gotten married. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that if you try to use new potatos, it turns into a glue/cement. So she's adding tons of milk and mashing away with her little potato masher and eventually it gets to the point where she's lifting the entire pot whenever she tries to lift her masher. At this point, she's so frustrated that she takes the whole pot, masher, and potato cement mixture into her hands, walks out the door, and launches it into the yard.

After hearing her inspiring story and spending much more time on our gummies than we had anticipated, we decided that it'd be more fun to join in a game than to continue with our failed experiment. So, with mostly exaggerated dissappointment, I took a wooden spoon and scraped the gummyfail into the garbage while Lish and I were going on and on about how "disappointing" and "horrible" the whole thing was. While in this state of dramatic sarcasm, I completely threw the pan, mixture and wooden spoon into the garbage in a manner worthy of Mrs. Leslie's story. After a good laugh, we took the pot and spoon out of the garbage and washed it out in the sink.

But, having never tasted this second mixture, I still had a faint hope that maybe this time it would've turned out better. So I took a tiny bit of un-garbage-tainted mixture and tasted it.

Words cannot express how horrible it was. I felt like I was swimming in the ocean with my mouth open.

So I turn to Lish with the look of total disgust still on my face and say, "ugh! I don't understand why it's so salty! How does that much sugar turn something sour into something that salty?!"

Only then did we realize that the "sugar" container was filled with salt. Only at JHBC.

But even though our gummies were a total disaster food-wise, it was an irreplacable experience friendship-wise. Who would've thought that a whole lot of salt would bring us a whole lot of laughter and give us a story that niether of us are likely to soon forget.

Cayenne

Last wednesday I wasn't feeling very well (I'm better now) and as a result my judgement was slightly impared and I bought a book on Amazon instead of going to bed even earlier than i actually did. The book was called "The Herbal Drugstore" and was only $.01, so in a way it was almost worth it.
Then, on thursday, my friend Lish fell and hurt her knee. So we, both knowing about my recent purchase, decide to try out some of the herbal remedies for bruising on her knees. As we're reading through the possibilities, we decided to try potatoes on her right knee, which she bruised while playing broomball, and cayenne pepper on her left knee, which she had hurt earlier that evening.
So we cut up a potato and put the cold raw slices on her propped up knee. Then we tried to figure out what to do with the cayenne pepper. So after quickly scanning the cayenne paragraph, we took some peach lotion from the kitchen and used it to keep the cayenne pepper on her knee. Then we got some plastic gloves (so she wouldnt have to get up to wash the pepper off her hands) and she massaged it into her knee.
All was fine initially.
Then, as the night went on, her knee started getting hotter and hotter until the pain from her knee was completely drowned out by the pain on her skin. After about 30-45 minutes with the cayenne on her knee, she finally turns to me and asks "so how long are we supposed to have this on here?". That was when we went back and read the directions thoroughly. Unfortunately, we had missed a few crutial sentances the first time. Apparently, we were supposed to use a comercial cream or ointment that had cayenne in it. not just straight cayenne. We were also supposed to use it only according to the manufacturers instructions, and since our version's manufacturer (God) didn't write any instructions concerning cayenne pepper in the Bible, we decided to wash it off as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, this didn't take away the burning effect. So, remembering that the cold potato made her skin feel cool, we sliced up the rest of the potato and slapped it on her left knee. It didn't really help.
Snow didn't help. A hot shower really didn't help. Sleep didn't help.
The only thing that eventually helped was time. Now it just feels like she's missing a layer of skin.
But, the way I see it, even if we had had some cayenne ointment, the active ingredient would still have been the cayenne pepper. And, people pay a ton of money for microdermabrasion.
 So, the way I see it, I really just gave her a ton of active ingredient and saved her a ton of money. Plus, we were laughing basically the entire time, and laughter is one of the best medicines out there.


she's not laughing, she's biting her arm to keep from screaming in pain.



Fortunately, Lish is a trouper.



Monday through Wednesday

On monday, a bunch of the girls at my school and i went into town and volunteered at a christian pregnancy center called "turning point". They're in the middle of a fundraiser where people fill baby bottles with loose change and bring them in. So we spent several hours counting money and writing down amounts. It was nice to know that we were able to help them in some small way, plus we all had fun while doing it.
Tuesday was laundry day as normal, but while we were waiting for our clothes to dry, several of us went shopping for a few necesities. Then, when we got back to campus, i had 3 packages! I was so excited as i seemed to just keep opening and opening. it was like christmas without having to wait my turn! I got several pairs of really warm socks, candy, purses from home and china, earrings, and some things from home, then a box with taffy, a cross necklace, and a nice card from my aunt and uncle, and finally a sandwich cutter from ebay that turns normal sandwiches into 2 dolphins and a heart.
On wednesday, i had a fun time going into town with Tatiana. She and I always have a blast when we're together. Then I went to church with Sam, Kaitlyn, and Amy to make dinner (Mac'n'cheese, hot dogs, fruit salad and brownies).

Prophecy Class

This week in class we are studying end times prophecy with Barb Leslie as our teacher.
It's so cool to look at how accurate the prophetic descriptions of the empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece are in Daniel's prophecies.
I've also really enjoyed learning about different aspects and prophecies within the book of Revelation, the rapture, prophetic aspects to the Jewish festivals and the Jewish marraige ceremony, the possible timelines for end times events, and what those events will be.
i'm really glad this is a 2 week class because every day i leave class with my brain feeling very full and we haven't even covered all of the information yet :)

Hey There

hi,
I made this blog to help keep in touch with my friends and family while I'm away at college. So everything on here is basically just what's going on in my life.