Boars Head Festival

"A night of medieval pomp and pageantry" it certainly was. The singing was good and the costuming was neat. The jesters were pretty amusing. There was a large amount of different acts, from a silent Christmas Story to wassailing to bring us some figgy pudding to good king Wesenslaus. I liked the use of candles. The setup was very good, but the incense was rather strong, and of course they stopped right nest to our isle! :) One little boy behind us was holding his nose. Mom, who is running the Elementary Christmas musical, mainly marveled at how much work it must have been to get everything in order. :) All in all it was a good night.

Games

This family loves games, and I love pictures. These are a few interesting shots I took during pictionary. It was a close game but of course the girls won. :) The favorite games this trip were pictionary, boggle, Mafia, taboo and of course Mad Libs at night! We kids discovered a new way to play mad libs. It really saves time if you don't think of lots of words and just insert the same word in all the blanks. So we ended up with a kid going to a darling camp where they walked through the darling woods looking for darlings who was asking his darling mother to send him some darling underpants and other such nonsense. We also used the words fish and fuzzy, which worked out pretty well. Below is where we cousins slept.

Thanksgiving

What a nice Thanksgiving! Church in the morning, and then home for lunch. My Aunt sure knows how to make a turkey! They invited a few college students over too, and the guy played wii with the other guys (a lot of vacation was spent on the wii, good guy bonding time). After the meal we sang hymns together, it was really beautiful. We had all the parts going and my cousin on the piano. I love music, so it really meant a lot to me to be singing with my family, all about the same faith and hope. In the evening Grandpa and Grandma came up too and we ate leftovers together. After that the cousins played their instruments. One on the saxophone and my other cousin played the violin. At night we played a group game.

The next day we did all the fun stuff, wii, walks together, shopping, karaoke, and more. That night we went out to Pizza Ranch. That place is the best! It's a buffet of different kinds of pizza and you can have as much as you want! Below is a picture of my Uncle's whole family. Then we gave Grandpa and Grandma their Christmas present, because who knows where they'll be and where we'll be. They got a MP3 player. They're pretty good about technology and they'll be able to store a lot of recorded books on there. Can you believe Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is here again already!?

It's a sobering thought that that may have been my last thanksgiving with my family.

We're Heeeere!

A senior never really takes a vacation, they're always learning. :) When we made it to our destination we left A and J and toured Dordt College, my Mom's Alma Mater. It's a really nice place, as you can see from the pictures. Their photography looks strong and so does the education department. I actually got to talk to three profs! The day before thanksgiving too! The English prof, the education prof and and art prof. I liked the tour, it looks like they have a lot of things to do there. Of course, they have to on campus, because the town isn't that exciting, if you know what I mean. :) Anyway, I got another college shirt! I've got a pretty good collection.

After the visit, we went to actually start the relaxing. The last pic is my family in the mall with my cousins and their family, though they're missing two members in the pic. They're so fun! It was very good to see them again.

Okay, so we did celebrate a little the next day. I got to eat the leftovers of last night's feast, and Mom decorated the car. :) We stayed at a hotel with an amazing pool, and we were poolside! It was so cool to walk out our door to the pool. And to end the night, we ate the leftovers of my birthday cake in the hotel room.

My Birthday!

Okay, so this wasn't my birthday, it was the day before but since we were driving on my actual birthday we celebrated early. No, the cake isn't the ten commandments tablets as my cousin remarked while searching through my photos, it's a book. Which one? Haven't decided. My birthday entailed going to school, doing lots of homework, opening gifts, eating at Entre Amigos (Why did they change the name?) and enjoying cake! The house was nicely decorated too, including an arrow above my chair. :) It's tradition now.

Volleyball Memories

The last post I will ever make about MCS Volleyball... how time flies! I was sooo blessed this season. I didn't play, but there were so many things the girls did to make me feel like part of the team. I got to put my hand print on the volleyball alumni memory wall, since I did play two years in high school and many times before. That was a privilege. Another honor was being allowed to go to the sports banquet at the end of the year where we celebrate the season and give awards to the athletes. Won Hee wore the horse shirt for me. :) But the sweetest thing they did for me wasn't letting me stand up with the athletes up front to be acknowledged, the thank you note signed by all the girls for being statistician or the chocolate bar, they actually made up an award for me- Best Statistician. That night I got my first sports-related trophy. The humorous thing is I played for five years and never got a trophy until that night. :) Funny how things work.

That night was one of the best of my life, I knew I had a class that cared about me, but I don't think I really realized how great, making up an award to make me feel included and letting me even stand in the team photo. MCS is a school like no other. When you see the bottom picture of the senior girls, it's a picture of the best class ever!