Craaazy Surprise!

Soooo, on Monday, poor unsuspecting Rachel and I

quite contentedly thought we weren't doing much to celebrate

our birthday. We were going to go have lunch at Gpa's so that

we could spend some time with Mom, and then go out for

supper that evening.

Little did we know that Crystal had invited some of our

friends over for a crazy hair/girl day!

We soon found out though...

Crystal had also got a bunch of fun party stuff :)

Rachel really enjoyed that part!
So, pretty much as soon as we got in the house we were
sat down in the "special chairs" and got our hair done...
Oh boy!
Yes, I believe it would be okay to say that I was a little worried
about how my hair would turn out...
Thank you for being kind though Mel!!!
Sawyer's facial expression while we were getting our
hair done! I think he probably looked how I wanted to ;)

:D Love those party favors!

Tressa, Anna, and Bristol. (Please don't slaughter me girls

for putting your pictures on here!!!)

Molly, Tosca, Bristol, and Samantha (oh my, if I don't

get slaughtered for the previous picture I'm going to have

an even harder time getting not-slaughtered for posting this one...)

Working on figuring out one of the games we played.

(you had to figure out who was who by looking at baby

pictures of all the girls who were at the party)

The other game. You had to flip the match of each girls'

baby picture, and current picture.

:D Such a cute baby!

Instead of birthday cake we had cookie dough

and mix-ins for our dessert! Oh it was wonderful!!!

We had so much fun!All of us (minus Mom, T, Dad, Sawyer, and Jared...)

How 'bout this, All of us GIRLS!

Wow Crik... Stylin'!

No I do not believe there is such a thing as

"too many Sawyer pictures!"

Thanks Crystal for setting the party up, and thanks girls for all coming out and helping Rach and I have a most wonderful 18th birthday!!!!

Interesting...

I'm reading this book, and its just got really short chapters
about a whole bunch of different topics. I read this part a few
weeks ago and it stuck out in my memory, so I thought I'd
put it up.

A strange dance goes on around us every day.
Evil twists good things to evil purposes, and good twists evil
into greater good. The light is indeed greater, but whereas
evil seeks ever for domination and destruction, sometimes
even of itself, good seeks ever for redemption, even for those
things that seem irredeemably evil.

I just thought it was kind of neat.
Hope you did too!

:)

"It has been a good birth day..." (said in the 'Dug' voice)
Rach and I had such a great day!
After our fun, and dawdling this morning, this afternoon we went
into grandpa's and had lunch and got to hang out with Josh and
his family. Then we came home to the complete surprise of a
bunch of friends (secretly hiding in the kitchen until we came inside
and then they attacked us and did crazy stuffto our hair),
had a ton of fun, played some games, and ate cookie dough!!
And then this evening headed back into grandpa's to pick up Mom and we
went and got our favorite pizza, and ate Rachel's birthday dessert!
We saved my dessert until tomorrow when we have a little more room
left in our stomaches :)

Pictures from our girl party to come!!

:) 18's a good number...

Well, I know I for one am looking forwards to 18.
I'm ready for new.
Plus, I'm the legal skydiving age now!!! (That's all I'll put about
that because certain people who are not in favor of the whole
skydiving thing are going to be reading this...)

This morning (midnight) Rach woke me up with a glow in the dark
sign that said happy birthday, and confetti on the fan blades ;)
Then Dad, Crik and the dog all came in around 7:30 to wake us up
and make us feel all special.
Rach made me breakfast, and it was WONDERFUL!
And then Mom called, Aunt Pam called, and Jared's down right now :)

Yep, I feel loved.
I think I'm gonna like 18 pretty well ;)

A little bit of Shakespeare

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
~William Shakespeare: Sonnet 116~

Home.

They're back!
We went and got Mom and Dad from the airport tonight.
:) We got to there a little early, walked around just a little and
then found some seats to wait for them...
Yep, we went through the whole 2 dark dark tan people RUNNING
through the terminal towards the sickly white 3 who were waiting
for them (thanks Wolfgang for being so kind to pick up the bags
they left on the floor) ;) We got ourselves hugged quite a few times,
which felt pretty darn good after 2 weeks!
And then we got to bring them home.
Yep, I'd say that was a pretty good start to our week.

:/ So much for my big idea...

Well, I had this great idea. There's this song I really
like, and I saw a great youtube video of it and was going
to put it on the blog, that way EVERYBODY could see it ;)
But apparently it doesn't work that way, and blogger wouldn't
let me upload it :( So here's to the song you won't get to hear now.
Everybody enjoy this lovely Monday!

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee,
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller, be.
~George Matheson~

:D Waasdorps

So tonight we had the Awesome priveledge of having the Waasdorp girls join us.

We made bracelets.... quite fun...

and played games and had supper... ( and chocolate :D )

these were some of the finished products

!

our 'stuff' I love these stackable containers....

:D this one made me smile :D it's so..... us ;D

we played mad-gab, and Pit... Very fun, and Very hard....

everybody's finished masterpieces!!! :D

totally awesome, was my thinking for this picture :D

thanks for coming out girls! we had SO much fun :D

-rach

my family :D

I LOVE my family!!!!

I love Karley's face in this one... :D
Josh decided to 'dance' to make the little girls smile :D well, they thought he was weird, but the rest of us smiled ( and laughed ) and some of us joined in....

;D So sweet
me and my sis :D

as Joy would say... Becky rocks!

LOVE this picture :D

my neices are drop dead georgous!

My nephew is So great.... Totally

:D this is an awefully typical family shot for us :D
... and as Josh would say, as only he can.... A Good one :D