ScHoOL for real??

Oh, the joys of school!! So far my classes (English-Writing Arguments, Human biology, and pre-college algebra) have been fairly easy, that is up til yesterday! Things seem to have taken a turn, and I actually have to apply myself now. I know, I can feel the sympathy already...haha. I just finished taking an online algebra quiz, and there are just a few problems I can't seem to figure out. They are those lovely word problems....grrr, so frustrating!
In my biology class, my professor went from speaking understandable English, to a very confusing Greek..... I couldn't make sense of anything she was saying! So now I am making time to study, seeing as that might help, not to mention it becoming a good pattern to get into seeing that the classes to come are much more intense!

Costa Rica!

Over winter break I spent 10 days vacationing in Costa Rica with 5 other friends. We really had a great time, it was very relaxing which was quite nice. We spent the first two days in San Jose, before driving north to Lake Arenal, where we had rented a house for the rest of our stay. When we first got to Lake Arenal, it was extremely windy and rainy. The power was out, so we hung out in the living room surrounded by candle light. By noon the next day we got our power back! The rain cleared up for about 10 min., so we were able to venture out and enjoy a little sunshine before it decided to rain again. The rest of the week it rained on and off, but we made the best of it. We spent one day Zip-lining across the rain forest canopy, 600ft above ground. It was quite exhilarating :) We also toured an active Volcano, where we were able to both see and hear large boulders tumbling down the side of the volcano...that was pretty awesome! If you go at night you can actually see some lava squirting into the air...unfortunately we didn't stay late enough to wittiness that, I think it would have been pretty neat to see! We did a hanging bridge tour of the rain forest another day, and spent on day a the beach. We did manage to have one nice, warm sunny day right before we left, but I defiantly didn't come back with a nice tan like I had hoped...haha. Below are some pictures of our trip.

Thanksgiving

Here is quite a collage of pictures from our Thanksgiving Dinner! I missed you guys! Hope you had a great holiday :)


Steve reading to Cassandra




Natashia sporting her cool hat!

Jordan and Evan




Playing Hoss in the living room. (No table space available!)

Gloria, Audrey, and Doris

Jordan and Monica Georgia and Channle (sp?)


Jannah and Savannah





Little Miss Channle
)

Elizabeth, Jannah, and Kari




Channle, Natashia, Evan, and Savannah drawing on the marker board.





Happy Thanksgiving!

Ben and Sam have officially moved out of the house!! Sunday it will be three weeks. Ben recently bought a house that he and sam have fixed up. They are really enjoying being on there own. It was a slight adjustment at first here at home not having them around. Currently I'm really enjoying not having to run the dish washer every night, and having small loads of laundry to do now (we throw all our laundry together), less food to cook....and the list goes on. I believe Rochelle is feeling a little bit like an only child these days, when I'm at school late or just out with friends. But she's a good sport about it. If anything it's made me appreciate my siblings all the more!
Last night a friend and I went to Messiah to spend the night with monica. It was good to see here again! She really has a full load this semester with two part time jobs and 18 credits!! We only stayed to 12 this afternoon so that she could finish up her projects that are due monday. It was a great time though. We found a recipe for chocolate cream cheese cupcakes, so we took a trip to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients, came back and borrowed a friends move Pride and Prejudice...made our cupcakes and watched the movie. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite movies! After tossing an turning most of the night, as we were sleeping on the floor, we were, at least I was, wide eyed and aching all over by the early hours of the morning. Renee (my friend) and I made a big breakfast for everyone (Monica's got two roommates). It was nice and relaxing. We spend the rest of the morning lounging around. Very nice!

Us girls and Dad :)

This past weekend our chruch celebrated it's 30th anniversary. Saturday night we had a formal banquet at the Lancaster Host Resort. We celebrated by playing games, recalling memories from the past, and eating a wonderful meal together. Below are a few pictures of us girls before we left.

Monica and Rochelle

Tootsie

Rochelle, Monica, and I

Us 3 and Mom!

A weekend away :)

A weekend at the mountains is always a time I look forward to. I can always imagine the smell of the campfire blazing, and the cool wind at my back as I rost my marshmellows, knowing that I've got the rest of the weekend to do nothing...I don't know if there's a better feeling then that!
We had a great time together. Played some card games which inluded Dutch Blitz, and Hoss. We also spent time hitting the volleyball around out side. The one thing that took away from my mountain experience this year was the HOT weather!! It was in the 80"s durring the day. I could have kicked myself for not packing any shorts. I was so hot...we ended up turning on the AC in the cabin! Just not my idea of mountain weather. As you can see below, we still did cook hot dogs and marshmellows, it's just that it was in the comfort of our ACed cabin!!

Below are some pictures from the weekend:

Sam and Ben getting their fill of hot dogs.
(Yes there is a fire there, it's just hard to see)



Rochelle and Monica relaxing while they wait for hotdog
sticks....we only had two, and no one wanted to cut any
more.


Dad and Sam


Time for back rubs!! (Rochelle's smile just crackes me up in this picture!) What great brothers we have!!!!!


A sideways view out the back of the cabin.


Sunset



Sam planing out his next move.



A walk down the lane...



The leaves were just starting to change color.

The Buck

Saturday night a few of my friends decided they wanted to go to the Buck for the last show this season. The Buck is this track down on the southern end of the county, not far from the Maryland line, where all the rednecks hang out and race their trucks. I have never been there before, so this was a new experience for me.

The night started out with some little beater cars competing in an obstacle course. They started out driving up a mud ramp and flying off it, they then had to drive around two large tires in a figure eight pattern, before driving off another ramp. Some of theses cars did pretty well, others had engine problems, and had to be towed off the course. One driver got a little carried away and rolled his vehicle!

Later in the night they brought out the trucks and had a competition to see who could drive the farthest through a large mud pit. It became more of a competition between the makes of the trucks (ford, chevy, dodge) than the actual people themselves :) I had to laugh.

It was fun, not something I'd do right away again though. They do have monster trucks come out and jump cars, and that I think would be fun to see sometime. Maybe next year.

Here are a few pictures from the night.

Erica and I

Bethany and Cindy sported their cowboy hats!

One of the cars doing the figure eight...