Little Friend

Yesterday I was telling my mom it'd be fun if we met other people while we we're at the beach. I mean, it's kinda funny if you think about it. You're on a beach in close proximity of basically the same people every day while you're at the beach. Anyways, as it turns out, today I made a new friend! :).

I was digging a hole with my little brother near the edge the water. The tide was coming in, so so hole kept filling up with water. After a bit, I noticed a little girl eying us. She kept coming closer and looking at us. So, I asked her if she wanted to dig with us. She said yes. Her bathing suit was mostly pink and she was carrying a neon green sand shovel. She told us her name and that she was five.

When she told me how old she was I thought of how she would've been the right age to come to Princess Camp :). But I don't even think she lived in the United States. At first I thought she had mistaken different states for different countries. But then, I think I started to hear a bit of a... British accent, maybe? Her little brother, who was three, came over and started digging with our bigger shovel, while the little girl and I drew caterpillars and sea creatures in the sand. We talked about The Sound of Music, iCarly, and our families, among other subjects! It was lots of fun :). Eventually their dad came and told them they were leaving shortly. Hopefully I'll see them again tomorrow! :)

Stars!!!

Today was our first day at the beach! It was lovely. We arrived after 1am... this morning/last night. 

When we got here, I was reeeeally excited. The hyper excitement started when we were close to our house. We drove by the other beach houses and finally reached ours. It's fun being in a new house with friends or family for basically a whole week.

I thought there would probably be a couple people who hadn't turned in for bed yet. But it turned out that all but a few were awake! Some were even in the pool. Thus I didn't end up going to sleep until... well, let's just say, REALLY late. 

But before I slept, I saw the stars!!! Oh, how I love them! I love stars. Love, love, love. And in my memory, I've never seen them shine like the way they shine here. When there are no clouds you can see shooting stars and the Milky Way. It's crazy. I love the stars because they're so beautiful and bright and they go on and on, growing seemingly smaller as they go. They twinkle, shine, and sometimes shoot. And when I look at them, I'm almost immediately reminded of how big God is, and how incredibly tiny I am. And what a Creator He is. Stars are breathtaking. I suppose people are struck into awe by different aspects of God's creation. For me, a big one is the sky. Particularly these stars. How amazing they are :) :) :)

Photo-Op; Bible Translations

In a few days I'm going to be at the beach.

Oh my goodness.

Photo-Op!!! :D

I can't wait. I hadn't thought about it much until recently, but now I'm getting really excited! This'll be my first time at the beach since I actually started taking lots of pictures. Well... I took lots last year, but I didn't edit a lot of them. This time I'm going to take lots and lots and lots... of all the beautiful things God has at the beach... waves, seagulls, boats perhaps, sand, families, sky, ah :). 

I'm also entertaining the notion of getting a new camera sometime this summer. I'm not exactly sure if it'll happen, but that'd be pretty neat! I guess it mostly depends on my money saving and earning. And etc....

What's your favorite object/setting/time to take pictures? I guess this won't apply to everyone, but if it does comment back ;).

I added a new poll recently, You should vote in it :).

Lately I've thought a little about Bible translations. In a book series I've been reading, the author incorporates verses from The Message translation. To be honest, it kind of bothers me. The verses aren't separated in this version by individual verse, but by chunks of verses, and much more modern terminology is used. But then, I realize, what did some people think when the NIV translation first came out? I really like that translation, from what I've gathered, but I'll bet it seemed pretty modern at first. But also hear this: I am NOT saying The Message is wrong or not as good as any other translation. What I'm saying isn't even really a conviction, but a personal preference that happens to be geared away from that type of translation. Nevertheless, this is still a translation of God's Word, which I am aware of. The reason why I don't appreciate it as much is that it's not presented in the same terms I'm used to... so it doesn't really feel the same for me reading it. I'm used to other translations like NIV and NKJV (my Bible is that one). Anyways, what are you thoughts or convictions on this topic? :)

Nature Calendar Contest

Hello. Hmm. I feel a bit shy right now, writing this post. I'm going to propose an idea to you, hopefully it'll work out. 

Alrighty! Well. if you're reading this, yes, I'm talking to you. There's a website calledArtsCow.com. They have pretty high shipping fees, but when you join you get offers for a bunch of free stuff. It's pretty neat! One of the first free things was a custom photo calendar. So I put in some of my nature photos and ordered one!

An idea I had was to do a drawing of sorts on my blog for the calendar. But... yes, that's why I'm nervous. I guess I'm going to carry out that idea/plan, hoping some people will respond ;). The pictures aren't amazing, they're all taken with my point-and-shoot, but I've edited them. They're nice and colorful. And hey, it's free if you win! :). 

So basically, if you want to be entered leave your name and last initial in a comment on this post (you don't have to be part of anything to comment, if you're reading this on my actual blog site, just choose "anonymous." I guess I'm assuming that anyone who reads my blog I'd be able to get in contact with, but if not, I guess just tell me and I can figure out a way to contact you!

So I guess that's that ;). Respond if you so desire! :)

BBB & HP6!

Hi there! Well I'm glad to let you know that Princess Camp continued and finished well :). It was awesome getting to spend time with some of the girls that I knew went to our church, but I'd never hardly talked to before. Although... I did know some before. And I didn't know one at all! New friends :)

Bye Bye Birdie is basically happening right now! Not NOW, now, but the show ran last weekend and will start again this evening. I've gone to all three performances they've had so far ;). It's been lots of fun. I like watching different groups at different times, because there always seems to be a lot happening on the stage, particularly during the chorus numbers. There are the teens and the parents, or the boys and the girls... so much choreography! It's really awesome. Sitting near the front also gives a different experience. Actors come down very close to you and Conrad Birdie even goes across a certain row of seats. That won't give away much, though, because that certain row seems to change quite often ;). 

Also... Harry Potter!!! I'm going to see it tonight! I know last night was the midnight premiere, but tonight's showing will feel similar. I'm excited. I started rereading the sixth book yesterday (oops, a little late), so at least I'll get through some of that before the movie. I'll probably read a synopsis on Wikipedia to catch up any details I may want to remember... hopefully that will be good enough ;). After all, what book-reader doesn't like to point out the many places where a movie differs from its book? 

~LA

Princess Camp (Day 2/4)

Hola! In my last post I told you that Princess Camp was the next adventure :). It started on Tuesday and will go until Friday. Today was day 2 out of 4. I think it's going really well! There are 9 little girls in the camp. There were going to be 10, but one has been sick :(. Anyways, now that we've gotten those numbers taken care of! My sister had been helping with camp, but she's now sick/exhausted, with a sore throat. She's had tons rehearsals of rehearsals because the play (Bye Bye Birdie) that's she's in starts on Friday! So she's going to rest up and save her voice tonight in rehearsal. Meanwhile my friend Emma is going to help the last two days of camp :). Yay!

Today in Princess Camp, one thing we did was playing outside in the water. I got this $5 sprinkler at Dollar General. It's basically kinda similar to a plastic floaty for the pool, except it's a way bigger circle that's pretty thin. It has tiny holes every few inches so that water sprays up. My mom finally got it to work pretty well, and the girls were having fun :). Quite a photo-op, too! After a while, a hole popped in the "seam" of the sprinkler. And then it got bigger. The girls enjoyed the water gushing out... but it didn't exactly work after that! So, my mom got out the garden sprayer and the girls ran through it and took turns holding it if they so desired. 

Well, this is a bit short, but I'm going to stop writing for now. Later Alligators! (after while crocodile) See ya soon, Baboon! ;)

Nana & Papa's House

My Nana and Papa's house - that's where I am, and have been since Friday night. They live in a small town in a Southern state :). It's pretty neat. After going to NYC over spring break, I realized how little I truly like cities. They're loud and expensive. The loud and colorful part is cool and exciting at first... but living there? Yikes, not for me! Small towns, on the other hand, are something I do enjoy. I'm not sure if I'd move to one (well, I might if my closest friends came too! But still, I'd probably want to go anywhere with them). 

Yesterday I took bunches of pictures in my Nana's garden. I also took lots at my Nana's brother's farm. There were cats, chickens, cows, dogs, barns, haylofts... many lovely things that you'd think of  when you hear "farm" :). I even like how farms smell, no kidding. I don't think I really liked that smell when I was little... but I do now. Anyways - I don't have wifi for my laptop, so I'll post pictures from both places when I get home on my Flickr! 

I was amazed at how easy it was to get good pictures of the flowers; God makes them SO breathtaking. All we do is *snap* a picture, edit, and etc. But it's really so amazing. There's another thing about being here. It's easier to see God. More nature, less distractions. If you have family in a small town, I'd suggest visiting them and really trying to appreciate God when you go! Though, I'm sure different people feel like they can see God more easily in other places. For me, the stars always seem to spark a closeness to God right away. When I go outside at night and see stars, I talk to God. It nearly always comes as a natural reaction. Stars are SUCH an amazing and beautiful creation!

Today was our official family reunion. It didn't last very long, but it was nice. My family minus my sister (she stayed home, getting ready to star in Bye Bye Birdie :D), my Nana and Papa, and my Aunt and Uncle were there. And then there were lots of... relatives (I'm not really sure HOW I'm related to all of them, but I assume I am in some way!). I only recognized a few at first... but then I realized that I remembered more than just a few. 

There actually were some other kids, but I didn't exactly know any of them. Ian was there, he's 17. Maggie and I hung with him one 4th of July around 4 or 5 years back... but since then I haven't exactly... um... talked to him. I don't think. Kinda sad, but true. I only see him, rather in passing, every few years.

There were a father and son there who were neither Amish or Mennonite... but something similar. Forgive my politically incorrectness. The son's name was Billy, and he was about my age. My dad and Billy's dad got into a conversation about the Bible and God's authority over us and other similar things at the very end, making us the last to leave (not unusual on any occasion ;) ). I'm not exactly sure what his theology was, but it was neat to hear my dad talk to him.

There were three little brothers, ranging from ten years old to about two, I'd say. The littlest one was quite the cutie; he entertained some of us by eating a dripping slice of watermelon. Then there were a brother and sister who seemed to have picked us on the whole freckles/red hair trait of the family! They were probably... tvelvish? but not twins. Plus one other girl who was sixteen; she was the girlfriend of some other guy there. She took our family picture. 

For the picture, we all gathered around a few picnic tables. "Old" people designated to the front bench. Kids on the table. Adults standing behind. Ian and Billy stood in the back. I sat on the table. Oops. 

All in all, the reunion was nice. It was raining most of the time, which made it chilly, but we were covered by a rented pavilion. Yesterday, Independence Day, really was lovely. I like being in a small town, at least for a short time. I'll be coming home on Monday, only to start the next adventure on Tuesday morning.... Princess Camp! :D