Thanksgiving with the Tildens: The Oregon Part

(Continued from "The Washington Part"

Wednesday morning we piled into the Tildens' minivan and set out for the Oregon coast. I did quite a bit of sleeping on this drive, and some homework, but still had time to admire the scenery out the window. Generally long drives bore me, but this one was brand new to me , and fairly pretty. Essentially, we followed the Columbia River all the way along the Oregon/Washington border til we reached the coast. We stopped for lunch at Wendy's in "The Dalles" Oregon, very interesting name for a city. A couple hours later the Tildens stopped to show me Multnomah Falls. I love waterfalls, so that was a fun surprise for me. I bought huckleberry muffin and pancake mixes from the gift shop for Christmas gifts.



After Multnomah, the ride got to be a bit tedious. We hit a LOT of traffic going through Portland and some thereafter. The original plan had been to meet up with the rest of the Tildens for dinner, reaching Newport before dark. That changed to 6 pm, then 6:30, then 7:00, then 8:00. At 7:30 we stopped for dinner in Lincoln City at Mo's Chowder. That was a fun dinner. It was a very casual, homestyle seafood place decorated cute with lots of twinkle lights. We all shared a pot of clam chowder and Tad and I shared a shrimp melt, mmm!

We finally got to Newport at 9:00, about 10 hours after we left Richland...apparently it's only supposed to be a 6 hour drive...yeah, yay traffic. We got settled in our rooms and then went to say hi to the rest of the family. I got to meet one of Tad's cousins, who is extraorinarily quiet, and his aunt and uncle.

Thanksgiving was extremely rainy. I was somewhat disappointed the I couldn't see more of, well, anything, through all the rain. I called home and did homework in the morning. Tad's family eats out on holidays, so we headed out just before 1 for our reservation. I was extremely nervous about this, my family NEVER eats out on holidays, but it actually wasn't terribly different. We ate at "Fishtail Cafe". It was a small restaurant, decorated like a home living room with pictures and comfy chairs and a Christmas tree. The owner had been there since 6 am cooking turkeys.

It was a wonderful, home cooked meal, complete with almost everything I've grown up having at Thanksgiving. The only real difference was that we weren't the only group in the room and the people serving weren't eating with us.

Once full with out salad, turkey dinner, and pie, we mosied back to the hotel and had triptophan induced naptime. ... Several hours later ... we gathered in Tad's uncle's room for a light dinner of lobster bisk, rolls and cheese, and more pie. I got a chance to talk quite a bit with Courtney, Tad's cousin Peter's new wife. We hung out for a while and then returned to our own room.

While his parents worked on a puzzle they had brought with us, Tad and I went to spend some time in the hot tub. We had about 20 minutes and then the pool closed. Before coming back to the room Tad took me down to see the crabbing dock. Crabbing is a major thing to do while staying in Newport. Back at the room Tad taught me how to play Guitar Hero, and I think I'm now addicted, hehe

Friday was a very lazy day. I did some homework and played a game on the wii with Tad and Jeana. Lunch was with the group at the Chowder Bowl in town. I shared a seafood platter with Tad and tried fried clams and oysters, not bad!

After lunch Tad and I walked (with Valencia this time) back to the crabbing dock. I had asked if we could go during the daylight so I could see more. It seems like it'd be fun to crab, or even just watch people. There was a tiny little dungeness crab on the dock, so I actually got to see one up close.

The afternoon was spent hanging out, doing homework, and playing more guitar hero. We rejoined the group again for dinner at Lum Yen for Chinese. There was more puzzle action in our room, followed by Tad and me starting a game of Mario Party.

Saturday we had a casual lunch type meal in Tad's uncle David's room (sandwiches, chips...and chocolate fondu) and spent most of the rest of the day shopping. We drove back up to Lincoln City and spent a couple hours at the outlet mall. I got a couple more things for Christmas gifts and a new clinic shirt from Aeropostale. I also got a tshirt from the Christian bookstore that says "Faithbook: Jesus wants to put you into his book, do you accept? Revelations 3:3" There was another one I wanted to get, but was too big that said "Join me for happy hour, every Sunday morning" it had a verse from Ephesians about not getting drunk on wine but worshipping God joyfully.

Shopping trip complete, we met the rest of the gang at Tidal Raves restaurant in Depoe Bay. It was a very nice dinner. I got more clam chowder and coconut shrimp. Tad and i shared a slice of marionberry cheesecake for dessert. After dinner we all played a couple hours of Apples to Apples. Tad and I finished our game of Mario Party once everyone else had gone to bed, I won!

Sunday morning we got up early and started the drive back to Portland for me, and TriCities for the Tildens. We got lunch at Gustav's Pub and Grill in Tigard. We shared swiss cheese fondue and a platter that came with broworst, snitzel, chicken, spatzel, and saurkraut. After that the Tildens dropped me off at PDX and headed for home.

I had a great trip, it was nice getting to spend time with Tad and his friends, and getting to meet more of his family. I'm having an awful time of it now without him, we only have a month til he moves, but that feels much too long. Hopefully I can pull the next 3 weeks together to finish the semester strong.


Me and my love :)

Thanksgiving with the Tildens: The Washington Part

After a bit longer of a break than was expected (nearly 4 months) I am once again with my love. I finished classes on Thursday and arrived in Pasco around 6 pm Friday evening. Tad was waiting for me at the airport and as soon as we had my bag, we got dinner from Sonic. I wasn't quite as impressed with their food as I thought I would be, but their limeade is still amazing. We spent Friday evening hanging out watching hulu and such.

Saturday I spent about the entire day doing homework. His parents fixed steak and mashed potatoes for lunch and in the afternoon we headed over to Tad's frien Tony's place. There was a lan party going on there, so I fit in great with my computer. I think they were having a good deal more fun than I was though. We grabbed Subway for dinner and I watched some of their gaming. The most amusing part of the evening was after a couple of the guys had consumed a considerable amount of alcohol. I had been asleep ont he couch and then heard "hey Edgar! look, I drew you on my mousepad!!!" "Huh? What'd you do?" "No, really, look! See, it's the smiley face...and the curly hair like yours!!!!" "Oh yeah! dude, that's so cool!!!!" lol, is all I have to say.

Sunday was the day I experienced a plethora of kinds of weather. We woke up to crazy 50-60 mph winds that lasted all day and into the night. Somehow in the craziness we made it to church without blowing off the road. Tad and I had lunch with his family at Red Robin and then headed out for a day trip up to Spokane. We stopped in Cheney to pick up his friend Kim from high school who goes to EWU and Valencia got to see snow for the first time. She was very curious about the wet, cold white stuff that was all over the ground.

After being joined by Kim, we met up with Emily at one of the malls in Spokane. We wandered around for a bit, making fun of all the stores that already had Christmas stuff up before Thanksgiving, and then got dinner at the food court. The mall closed at 6 since it was a Sunday, so we followed Emily over to the Barnes & Noble she works at and hung out until their closing time (7). Emily stayed for a work meeting, so the 3 of us headed across the street to Krispee Kremes. Donuts are yummy, very yummy. Kim had class early Monday morning, so Tad and I dropped back off at her dorm and made the drive back to Richland.


hanging out in Barnes & Noble


Krispy Kreme!

Monday morning I helped out with stuff around the house and did some more homework. Tad and I made another Sonic run and then went to hang out at the mall. Tad explored his personal "happiest place on earth" (gamestop), we got free chocolate from the Sees "store" set up for Christmas, and wandered around Barnes & oble (apparently that was just the thing to do on this trip). We arrived home in time for nachos for dinner.

Once the dishes had been cleared, I helped Tad make his "Famous" chocolate mousse pie for Tuesday night's pie party.

Tuesday was another day for the finishing of homework and helping out around the house. The main event for the day was our pie party. Tad had invitd all of his friends who were in town over to have pie and hang out. It was fun, I got to see basically all of Tad's friends from home who I've met. We had the chocolate pies, a pecan pie, an apple pie, half a watermelon pie, Swedish pancakes, and a wide variety of drinks and played about a hundred rounds of Apples to Apples.

Funny realization I made that night, that may well be the last night I spend in Washington as Tad's girlfriend. Who knows the next time I'll be back up there. Anyway, the second half of my trip (the Oregon half) gets its own post.

Settling In

I'm in the middle of my second week of fall classes and starting to feel comfortable with my routine. Mondays and Wednesdays I'm home all day working on homework or tidying up until I head to campus for class from 5-8. Tuesdays and Thursdays (starting next week when clinic starts) I'm on campus all day (8:30-8). Fridays I'm on campus from 9-3, and the weekends are spent doing homework and hanging out with friends. It's actually rather manageable, so far.

Thanks to bootcamp, the building is already starting to feel like home, though I still miss the Biola clinic workroom. The condo is definitely home, I just need to do a better job of getting into this thing called "cleaning"...yeah, about that...

I still miss Biola, but I do love San Diego so much, it's good to be back, and there are always weekends. Speaking of which, I am spending my entire Thanksgiving break with the Tildens. Thanks to university furlough days, I don't have class at all that week, and I'm off the Friday before. I'm really excited to get to spend another week with Tad's family, and to get to meet his extended family. It will be interesting to experience a holiday with a different family, hopefully it won't be too traumatic :o)

I best start getting ready for class now. If I get ready soon enough I'll have time to get a pumpkin spice sweet cream at Starbucks beforehand!

Back to the Bubble

After two weeks of intense, public school classes, I needed some time away. Time away from the stress of school, and time away from the secular world I was sheltered from during the 4 years at Biola.

It has been so strange, I went to public school my whole life until Biola, but during those 4 years I re-sensitized to everything. The difference is, now I'm a lot more comfortable and sure about what I believe than when I left high school. Still, the adjusting is hard, being reminded over and over again on a daily basis that not everyone believes what I do.

All that to say, I needed a fun weekend with some Biola people. I rode up to Orange County Friday afternoon with Anja and her boyfriend James. They dropped me off at Krista's house where I met up with both Krista and Becky. Becky drove us to Biola, and we spent some time roaming the halls of the music building.

I had about 16 hours notice that I was actually going to be in the Biola area, so most people were very surprised to see me, which is always kind of a fun thing. I stopped 4 different conversations simply by walking past the bandroom :)

Justine joined our party, and we made a very important stop: Commons. Nothing more refreshing than a Common Grounds' raspberry, peach smoothie. Commons now carries cupcakes so Krista got one for us to share.

Becky had already had plans for Friday night, so after our snack, she departed and the rest of us went down to surprise more people in Hart. We dropped in on Krista's last roommate Raeleen and Raeleen's current roommate Tia, stopped by to say hi to Charlotte, and hung out for a while in Amanda's room.

After a while everyone left for a bro/sis floor event (oh HUOD/Heat events!). Since Krista and I no longer possess Biola mealplans (fancy that) the 3 of us (me, Justine, and Krista) had dinner at Panera (am I using enough parentheticals?). And, of course, what Biola Friday evening would be complete without Berry Cool. Especially cool, I had filled my stamp card during finals week, so I only paid 16 cents for my fabulously wonderful honeydew fro yo :)

Justine dropped me and Krista off at Becky's townhouse. Since it was a characteristically hot SoCal Labor Day weekend, Krista and I opted for a dip in the pool. Swimming pools are amazing for hot, sticky summer nights.

We took advantage of the dvd collection at Becky's place and watched The Wedding Planner. Becky got home pretty soon after and we unanimously decided it was time for bed.

Saturday morning Becky made grits for breakfast, yum! She had a rehearsal for most of the afternoon, so Krista and I were once more let loose on campus. We spent a bit of time just chilling in Tia's and Raeleen's room chatting while they "worked" on homework. We left them alone to their homework and talked with Amanda in the upper lobby for a while until we decided to get lunch at Eagles.

Amberly met us at Eagles and the four us talked while Krista and I ate lunch. Krista and I spent some time checking email in the library, and I got to spend time sitting outside the library thinking and just being. That's always been one of my favorite places on campus. I love the trees by the library, and on weekends it's so calm and quiet there. Great place to sit and pray.

Krista and I spent the last hour before Becky came back playing a house rules version of Outburst in the sub. We made a really yummy pasta and salad dinner at Becky's and followed it up at Starbucks with Christine. We took turns sharing about our summers and boys over pumpkin spice frappuccinos, which are amazing!

Becky and I dropped Krista off at her house and made it back to La Mirada in time to see Up at the dollar theater.

Sunday Becky and I went to church at Redeemer, picked Krista up from Grace, and got lunch at In N Out. The girls dropped me off in Placentia where I met up again with Anja and James to come back down to SD I spent Sunday night at home so I could get a bit more time with my fam and a chance to hang out with Raelene.

It was so good to get to see my Biola friends again, and to just be on campus. It doesn't feel any different to me, which is great. It means I can just forget about everything else I have going on and enjoy my favorite place in LA. I came back very refreshed, which is good, because this will be a heck of a semester.

Also, apparently my internet browser just hates me, I still can't upload pictures with it, which greatly displeases me, but there isn't much else I can do, so oh well. For pictures of my life, see facebook, they're all there anyway

Washington Trip Part 2

Sunday morning Tad introduced me to his church's "postmodern" or "emergent" church service. He has disapproved of the service from the beginning, but wanted me to see it for myself. His disapprovals lie in the fact that there have been multiple occasions of denial of the complete authority of scripture by leadership. Definitely not ok.

As a whole I thought the general idea of the service was fine, but as an outreach. It was very seeker friendly and very informal. The problem is that the majority of the people who attend the service, are not new from the community. They're people who have been attending his church for some time, and just like the service better. A couple main things that bothered me about it were 1) prior to the offering the pastor described it as something we do if we feel led to. Hmm, I believe scripture says (in several places) to always offer a portion of what God gives us back to Him. Personally, if faith were about doing things I felt like, I wouldn't be living the Christian life.

Second thing was that there were young children running around for the entirety of the service. Besides being loud and disruptive, Tad told me that there was a program for them, going on at the same time. I can understand parents wanting their children to be used to going to "big church" as my family called it, but kids aren't going to get anything out of a service by running around screaming for an hour. They could have been up in Sunday School learning.

Hence I agree with Tad and his family on the matter. I also disapprove of the general movement being called "postmodern", but that's a whole different soap box for me.

We did go to the regular service afterward, which I was grateful for. After church we had lunch at a place called Chico's Tacos, which reminded me quite a bit of Rubio's here at home. I had a very delicious, very large California burrito.

Justine was able to drive down from Yakima that afternoon to hang out with us. I got to show her my Romania pictures and such and we spent several hours playing Mario Party. All I can say is, shake the can is a very interesting mini game. Tad's mom ordered in pizza for us, and then Justine had to drive home. I was so fortunate on this trip to get to see all the people I love in Washington.

Tad and I decided to take Valencia to a nearby park to play. She got to run around, sniff, and even go down the slide once. Once we tuckered her out, Tad and I sat on the swings and talked.

Monday we met Tad's dad at Jack in the Box for lunch and then went to Tad's doctor appointment. It was good for me to hear some of the stuff straight from Tad's doctor, gave me a bit more perspective. On our way home, Tad gave me my first Sonic experience. Supposedly we're finally getting one of those in SD in the near future, which I am now very excited about. Tad is a big fan of the limeaides, so I tried a cherry one and he got a mango one. He also insisted that I had to get a Route 44 one, which means it's 44 oz, oh goodness did that take me forever to finish. It was indeed quite tasty though. :)


I am very excited, as you can tell :D

Tad got a call to go fix a computer in the evening, so after he left, his mom and I went to go help a family friend pack to move. We had some good one on one bonding time, which was much appreciated at least on my part. Their friend Nita is amazing, such a sweet, giving lady. She has college age kids, which makes it even easier to get along with her and her husband, cuz they're like our parents right now, haha

Mrs. Tilden and I helped her by putting together some boxes and keeping her company as she sorted out her garage. We got a little tag team action going on when Tad came by and his mom headed home. Tad's been helping Nita with some picture stuff on the computer. We went inside to do a bit more of that, and then Nita did a spur of the moment photo shoot for the two of us, haha. That was really fun. Since I don't always get to see him, I cherish every picture we have of us, and I can never have enough (a bit to his dismay, lol) You can check out my favorites on facebook, but here are a couple of 'em.




Tuesday was leisurely around the house. I worked on things here and there while Tad worked on his computer jobs. Since we had been around the house all day, Tad suggested we do our just us date night that evening. I used the excuse to dress up a bit (cuz girls can't get enough of those, right?). My boyfriend is the sweetest guy ever! He was basically flat out broke the week I was there, but I had asked for a date night, so he took me out to Applebee's.

We shared an order of honey bbq wings and an order of spinach artichoke dip. Date nights are so great. Even spending all day at the house together is a different kind of quality time than spending time out together. After dinner we went for a walk in a park along the Columbia River. We went down to the water and I stuck my feet in and we watched people in their motorboats. It was fun, but still quite hot out, so we went to walk around the mall to cool down.


Tad takes beautiful pictures :)

I didn't have anywhere specific in mind to shop, so we stopped in Game Stop for Tad first. We walked through a souvenir/gift shop place and then shared an Auntie Anne's pretzel. I can't tell you how good itfelt to spend a couple hours just hanging out at the mall with my boyfriend. I almost felt like we had a "normal" relationship.

After the mall we stopped by Paul and Jessica's to pick up something Tad needed to fix the computer he'd been working on. I actually got to chat some with Jessica, which was really nice.

Wednesday we grabbed lunch from McDonald's and then did some errands. While his mom took Jeana to get her senior pictures taken, Tad and I went and got his oil changed and some other things on his car fixed. On our way home we stopped at Dairy Queen and shared an Orange Julius. Dinner with his family was at a Teriyaki place his family had taken me to the last time I was in town. From there we went once more to youth group, which was interesting thanks to some bad attitudes that night.

The remainder of the evening was spent once again at Paul and Jessica's. We watched the last disc of Tsubasa (that I had brought with me from home) and then played Tripoly. And when I say we played Tripoly, I mean we played until 3 am. We were having fun, and I was in no rush to go to bed considering I had to leave in the morning.

Thursday morning I got up at 8 and Tad helped me pack my stuff up. I hate packing, I'm awful at it and I don't enjoy it. I've told Tad that when we're married, he can do all the packing for us, lol. His mom made me a lunch and thne he dropped me off in Pasco. My flights went just fine, I happened to see one of the same airport workers in Salt Lake as I did the week before. She asked if I needed help and then said "Ma'am, weren't you here yesterday?" hahaha I was like "no, but I was last week!" hahahaha, good times.

I had such a great time with Tad and his family, and getting to see Emily and Justine and my aunt. This is definitely up there with my top favorite visits Tad and I have had. And maybe next time it won't just be a visit :)

I Think I'll Go to Washington Part 1

You know, since the last time I saw that boyfriend of mine was in March. Last Wednesday I got up bright and early to fly up to Tri Cities to spend a week with Tad and his family.

My trip got off to an interesting start thanks to a mix up with security. The man standing on the other side of the metal detector either didn't understand that when Valencia set off the alarm he could just check her, or was too lazy to do so. Thus, a very flustered me got patted down and wanded. My flight went smoothly. I was fortunate enough to have been seated next to a man who trains search and rescue dogs, so he's used to flying with dogs at his feet.

I had a two hour layover in Salt Lake City, enough time so I could relieve Valencia and get some lunch. Valencia's favorite part of the SLC airport was getting to ride on the little carts they drive around. We rode on one to get out of security to relieve her, and another when I accidentally went to the wrong gate section. She thought that was the best thing ever.

I got some lunch from Quizno's and found my gate. I happened to meet an older couple whose daughter has raised dogs for gdb. Flight from SLC to Pasco went well and Tad picked me up. When we got back to his house, it was discovered that the crockpot had not been plugged in. So dinner was out at a Mexican restaurant. after dinner we went to youth group at tad's church. He helps out with the kids, and is a general punching bag/tackle target for the boys, lol

Following youth group (about 10) we went over to his friend Paul's place. I finally got to meet Paul and another friend Theresa. We hung out, talked, and I watched them play DDR.

Thursday Emily drove down from Spokane and we went out to lunch at Red Robin. It was great to see Emily again, and Red Robin is always a tastey lunch option. Poor Tad though got patronized by our waitor. *every 5 minutes* "Do you want a box?" "No, I'm just a slow eater." "Oh, no worries man, me too." oh goodness

After lunch we piled into the Tilden's minivan and set off for Seattle. We arrived around 7 and met Tad's Uncle Dave at a restaurant called Thirteen Coins. His uncle was really nice and seemed to like me, which we always count as a good thing. By the time we were done with dinner it was time to head over to our hotel and get to sleep.

In the morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and made our first stop of the day at Uwajimaya, a giant Japanese food/gifts store. I picked up some Pocky and Mocchi and looked at their paper lanterns. When their bookstore opened Tad and I took a quick look through there.


I do love me some Pocky :o)

We met my Aunt Diane at Duke's Chowder on Lake Union for lunch. It was great to see her again and for her to meet Tad and his family. The Hastings and Tilden families are quite alike in personality and humor, so everyone got along great. Mrs. Tilden's favorite thing to do in Seattle is browse through the giant Good Will Outlet store. I tend to be a bit germaphobic, so I didn't do much looking, though I did find a cute mini deck of Hello Kitty playing cards.

Once the Good Will shopping was done it was time to head back to the Tri Cities. We stopped at the SuperMall outside of Seattle and then at Jack in the Box in Ellensberg for dinner. It was on the way home that Tad was given the new nickname "Puddin Head" by his dad. ;)

Saturday we had a leisurely morning and lunch and then got dressed up to go to a wedding at Tad's church. He and his family have known the groom (Jake) for years at church and Tad knows the bride (Heather) from NNU. Needless to say, he was very excited to have so many of his friends from home AND from school in the same place. The ceremony was beautiful, had I not been wearing mascara I probably would have cried through most of it.

The reception was in the church gym. They had icecream, punch, and cake and cute little bride and groom rubber duckies. I got to see several of Tad's friends who I had met before and meet a lot of new ones. Favorite moment of the wedding was probably when Tad's sister Jeana caught the bouquet.


so cute!


me with my love


Jeana with the bouquet

We had dinner at a nice Chinese place, came home, changed, and headed out for another party. I finally got to meet Tad's other friend Lindsey, a birthday buddy for me. Theresa, Paul, Trevor, and Jason were there, as well as friends Molly, Kyle, and Jessica (Paul's girlfriend). There was some volleyball and badmitten played, some hanging out and talking, and bbqing. Later, after it got dark, we hung out in the basement and some people watched a fiarly inappropriate sounding movie. Before we headed home we stopped with the group at Safeway and got mini Ben&Jerry's icecreams.

It was great meeting so many of Tad's high school friends. Though it's sad that most of them aren't Christians, and it sounds like they've had pretty rough lives. Makes a lot to pray for. :)

In San Diego to Stay

I got the email this morning that I've been accepted to the speech language pathology program at San Diego State! The relief and excitement is incredible. God is so good, he has blessed me with acceptance to my frist choice for undergraduate and graduate school. This means of course that apartment hunting can begin. Oh my

I had a fun visit with Amanda. She came down Monday evening and had dinner with my family and watched Waking Ned Devine. Tuesday we adventured down to Old Town with Raelene, did some exploring, and had lunch at La Pinata. Back at home we made some very yummy oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies and then decorated bookmarks to take to the kids in Romania. She left yesterday morning and last night my mom and I took a CPR class together.

This also means Tad could start the moving process now, but it's his initiative, so we'll see what happens. As for my housing, we have a potential studio apartment that we're going to check out when we pick Steve up for the weekend.

The Lord is Gracious and Merciful

...slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And he gave me another wonderful week with my wonderful boyfriend. As predicted, Spanish on Tues was painfully slow, it did however eventually end. Raeleen took me to the airport and a slightly amusing story ensued.

When we got there, Tad was still waiting for his bag, so Raeleen suggested I go in and find him and surprise him. Great idea, except that neither of us had noticed we were at the drop off section, not pick up. I was greeted with ticket counters upon entering the terminal. I called Tad and was told "ok, do us a favor, stay right where you are, I'm coming to find you." I did as I was told and several minutes later received a phone call "Are you upstairs, or down?" "Down" "No, you're upstairs." "what? no I'm not, I can see escalators going up-" At this moment I was glomped behind by a very attractive young man. Long story short, I was a level above where he was. Luckily he was smart enough to figure that out.

We had dinner in the caf with a large group of Hart people and then hung out in the lower lobby with Justine for a couple hours. Then it was time for our funk-tastic all hall. Seriously, Hart is amazing. People were dressed up like out of the 70's and it was a totally lower campus all hall. Dancing, drinking, an gambling...kinda, haha. Mel and Beardo were our fabulous "bar tenders." Shirley Temples, Sprite with margarita mix, and Sprite with rainbow sherbet. It was basically a casino night: bingo, craps, black jack, and poker (with chips, not money). And the dancing...well, some of it was choreographed, no comment on the rest. ;)

Highlights from the evening include Tad getting "drunk" off a Shirley Temple, Justine teaching me how to par-ty, "hey, stop spooning me in the lobby!", and Ryan Low singing play that funky music white boy.

Wednesday brought the opening session for Missions Conference. "Fragrance of a New Covenant" was the theme for this year. Tad, Becky, and I sat in the gym for the opening session with the parade of nations and George Verwer (our graduation speaker this year) pouring a bottle of water over his head, frying a mic. I absolutely love Missions. We switched to Crowell for the afternoon session with Marilyn Laszlo (amazing!) and checked out the mission organization booths. After dinner Tad and I took advantage of there being open hours; he napped and I worked on homework. We finished off the evening by raiding the International House of Drinks and hanging out in Eagles.

Thursday we went to a really cool seminar on missions at home in America and enjoyed the ethnic lunch on Metzger. We timed it just right to get through global awareness. This year's rooms were Uganda, Honduras, Iran, China, and Burma. Poor Valencia got very frightened in Burma because of the army kidnapping people.

The afternoon speaker was Grant Porter, an Aussie who has been working on the field in the Middle East. I slipped out a little early from the ession to get ready and go to my interview at Chapman. It went really well, and I'm rather excited to hear back from them now. The sad part was that they were running 45 minutes behind schedule, so I missed Marylin's second session. I also missed the capand gown buying time in the bookstore, but Tad was amazing enough to get mine for me, before I called to ask him to do that.

Friday morning Tad wasn't feeling well, so I went with Justine to Marilyn's final session. I really enjoyed her. I bought her book and had her sign it for me. I ended up collecting 4 books over the course of the week. After George Verwer's first session I bought "Amazing Faith" which tells little bios about a lot of different people, including George Verwer. Tad and I got "Revolution in World Missions" free from the Mission for Asia table in the missions booths. They gave out free copies of "The Skeptic's Guide to the World AIDS Crisis." And of course Marilyn's book "Mission Possible" about her work with the people in Papua New Guinea.

After lunch Tad and I got ready and met up with my friend Dave and went to meet his girlfriend (now fiance) Amy at the CSUN technology conference at the Marriott in LA. Us two couples went our separate ways to check out the exhibit halls. I found a couple of things I was veyr interested in: a *good* portable CCTV and a portable zoomtext-like program on a flashdrive. I shall look into both of these things further. The exhibits closed at 5, and at that time we went to Amy's room at the Marriott to feed our doggies. Amy has a yellow lab guide dog named Donna. Donna and Valencia were overjoyed to get to have some play time.

Once the pups had eaten, it was time for the people to. Dave drove us to Hermosa Beach where we walked the pier. It was overcast, but still beautiful. I will never get over how amazingly gorgeous the ocean is. One of Dave's friends from back home in Wisconsin, A.J. met us for dinner at a seafood place called "Sangria." Amy and I discovered that the couples had ordered the same things. Amy and I both got shrimp scampi and Tad and Dave both got chicken picante.

Anyway, so Dave's friend A.J. does a comedy magic sketch at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach (the club where Jay Leno presents his weekly sketches) and offered to get us in for free to the show that night. We certainly couldn't have said no to that! We had a little while to wait after dinner and move our group to get gelato. It was very tasty! The show was really enjoyable. I was very happy that all but one of the comedians had very clean routine's. After the show we got our picture taken with Larry Miller, the headliner, dropped Amy off at her hotel, and returned to Biola.

Saturday and Sunday were a little dull, as they were spent catching up on all the homework I hadn't been doing. Sunday we did get to church at Redeemer and had lunch at Panera with Kathleen. And (to my inevitable sadness) Tad flew home yesterday.

So yes, a very, very fun week. I'll post pictures in another entry, as this one is plenty long enough already :o)

Top o' the Morning to Ya!

Happy St Patrick's Day! A day originally to celebrate St. Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland, now a day for Americans to celebrate *something*, wear green, and in secular culture, go drink at a pub. Gotta love Americans :)

I am very excited about my plans for today (no, they do not include a pub, thank you very much). Tad is currently in Seattle waiting to catch his plane to LAX. Knowing this will make it very difficult to sit through Spanish Literature this afternoon. Raeleen agreed to take me to pick him up. He's flying in just in time for our "St. Patrick's Day Funkship Cruise" All Hall. Have I ever mentioned that I love Hart?

Tad will be here until next Monday. He really enjoyed Missions Conference two years ago when he came, so we thought we'd bring him for it again. Other plans for this week include an interview at Chapman (hopefully on Thursday, that's been a little bit of craziness) and hanging out with Amy, Donna (the yellow lab) and Dave at the beach on Friday. I still have a lot of homework looming over my head, but I can take a couple days off to not think about it.

Anyway, I'm off to enjoy corn beef and cabbage or "Luck of the Irish Green Mac & Cheese" in the caf. God bless

A Little Slice of Happiness

I was fortunate enough to get to spend the last almost-week with Tad. I didn't even actually know he was coming until a week before last Saturday. I quickly found a place for him to stay and a ride to get him from the airport. He took an early (as in take off at 6:30 am) flight in, and I got him from the airport around 1 pm. We got some food from Burger King on the way back to campus, Tad put his stuff in the room he was staying in, and then we cuddled in the lobby until my friend Diana came to hang out with us.

Tad had met Diana briefly the last time he was here (in November), and she had wanted to hang out while he was here. It took us a bit to think of what to do, but we finally decided a Berry Cool run was in order. Krista was around, so I asked her to come with us too. While she got ready Tad and I tought Diana how to play Go Fish. We hung out at Berry Cool for a while and then came back to campus in time for dinner. I'm pretty sure Krista and I created two new Berry Cool fans.

Having finished our frozen yogurt, we returned to campus in time for dinner. Yes, really...it was a light one. Tad and I spent the remainder of the evening hanging out and watching UHF, a very interesting movie :o)

My ride for church on Sunday rode her bike, but was nice enough to let Tad drive her car. After the service we stopped by Stater Bros for some groceries and then got lunch. We spent the afternoon watching Serenity and two discs worth of Tsubasa Chronicles. I love that anime; it has a really good story, good animation, good music, and a major theme is what people do for those they love.

We had a quick dinner in the caf and then met up with Christine to hang out. It would seem we are a rather indecisive bunch, and couldn't figure out what to do. We eventually went to downtown Brea and the Brea mall, but sadly both were mostly closed down by the time we got there. Christine suggested getting some dessert from a place called Mochilatto. It's gelatto in mochi (a Japanese rice cake type thing, it's really good, I recommend it) We hung out there and then walked around Barne's & Nobles for a bit.

I didn't have class Monday because of Martin Luther King Day (huzzah!) so Tad and I got another full day to do with as we pleased. We spent a couple hours after lunch sitting and talking in the new Olive Grove park on campus. It isn't a big area, but it's pretty and a good place to just enjoy each other's company. Valencia enjoyed getting to watch the ducks and squirrels.

Back in Hart, after a few more episodes of Tsubasa, we started making dinner. Hart over interterm does "family dinners" where people take turns making dinner for everybody. I signed Tad and myself up so we could do it together. We made stroganoff, and it was pretty tasty. After dinner, Amanda, Krista, Tad, and I wandered over to the Stewart lobby and found some games. We played a game of Disney trivia (which I won!)

I had class again Tuesday morning, so Tad met me for lunch at the caf. I was in need of a bank run so we made the trek to the Albertson's center. Once banking stuff was taken care of, we shared a carmel frap from Starbucks and walked back. I worked on homework in the lobby while Tad did stuff on his computer. We had dinner and then watched Bourne Identity. Wednesday followed the same pattern, with Bourne Supremacy replacing Identity. And we rounded out our week with Bourne Ultimatum and a final Berry Cool trip (requested by Tad) on our way to the airport.

It was a great visit, one of my favorites (if not *the* favorite) that we've had. I definitely miss him now, and have been feeling a bit lonely without his company, but I'll see him again in less than two months for Missions Conference :)

Now to finish studying for my stats final tomorrow...