gezelligheid

(n.) the coziness, warmth and comfort of being at home, or being together with friends or loved ones sharing time in a pleasant and nice atmosphere.

I kept saying to myself  "tonight I'll blog, I'll do it tonight, today, this morning, during lunch...." Sadly my dear friends, it just never happened. The fall semester is long gone, as is my winter break. Spring semester is about to start and my homework will start to pile up again.  Can you believe my Physical Geology book was over 300 dollars? That is just absurd. smh. college. egh.

Fall semester - what I am now calling my "Semester of Loneliness"- ended nicely for the most part. I decided to call it the "Semester of Loneliness" because I attended classes at the downtown campus by myself. I have 10+ friends at the same college as me but they all chose a different campus, and the downtown campus while beautiful, is not a good area to try and make new friends or socialize, if you know what I mean.  To top that off my friends and I all had completely different schedules so even when one of us had time to hang out, the other didn't.  Hence "Semester of Loneliness." The downtown campus truly is lovely though, right in the heart of downtown Norfolk. Red brick sidewalks line the streets next to tall regal looking office buildings, hipster coffee shops, and old theaters with vintage marquees. If i didn't miss my friends so much, and if the sketchy people at that campus didn't bother me so much, I would never have considered switching campuses.

Winter break finally came and my lonely semester came to a fast close. First party on the list was the Chick-fil-A Christmas party. We started the night off right with a ugly sweater contest, and then a white elephant gift exchange where our store's owner/operator bought all the gifts instead of all the team members. It was a lot of fun seeing people's faces light up when they opened the bag that held their gift, then see that same face turn angry when someone stole it from them. After that was birthday party, after birthday party, after birthday party. For some reason a good half of my friends have birthdays in December. Every weekend I had a different birthday party to go to, or parties I should say because sometimes I had more than one. (if you ever saw my tweet "my dad says I party to much" now you know why) It was refreshing to see everyone. I hadn't been around people or friends really, all semester... It was like my internal battery had died and I needed a spark of energy to wake me up again.   I never realized how extroverted I was until the end of this semester. When I'm not around friendly people I kind of just die.

Christmas day was nice. I think we all gave eachother some pretty cool (some strange) gifts. I received a shower curtain! My mom got a butter dish; My dad, a vacuum cleaner. Tyler somehow ended up with a huge amount of shoes, and my sister got an infinity scarf. Now you might think an infinity scarf isn't really a strange gift but to her, it was. You should have seen her face when she pulled it out of its box. She was really confused; She had no clue what it was. *laughs* My bad.

Anyhoo...

Happy belated Christmas and New Year's to you all!

-H

17 & Driving

Guess who finally almost got her license? yep, this girl! Virginia's driving laws are terrible and it was unfair of the DMV to make me wait so long to get my license..... and then after I passed all the tests and drivers ed I had to wait, and wait, and wait for the court date so that I could get my actual hard copy. yes, court date. I have to go before a judge, who will grant me my license. BUT ALAS on September 25th, I will have an actual license, not just a silly paper that says I'm a licensed driver. Happy are here again! :)
-H

A Little Gathering

This evening was nothing special, just a starry night filled with; fun, friends, and cake! Mocha and chocolate cake to be exact. The festivities included volleyball, a photo booth, good music, and a movie on the lawn. Although I turned 17 way back in July, I wasn't able to celebrate it with all of my family and friends until now. This night was mine to spend with the friends I hadn't seen all summer. Also it was the night I realized I was getting old because it took me 6 times to blow out all my candles. :)

be blessed

-H

Texas... a while ago...

I would like to move to Texas. Honestly, it is one of the most beautiful, non-humid states I have ever been too! There is so much to see, and do. So much history there - I love it! Also I got to see my Mama & Papa, who I haven't seen in FOREVER!

 

 

 

 

Have a fantastic week y'all.

xoxo

-H

Instagram'n and Drives Ed

agh, why is it so hard to get a drivers license in the state of Virginia? It seems like its the most difficult thing in the world! I started behind the wheel Thursday. We shall see how this goes. My instructor is a little odd but that's ok I guess. I would probably feel better about the class if my driving partner knew how to drive at least a little bit. Poor Mr. Roy is trying so hard to be nice - its easy to tell he's aggravated. "Slow down please Stewart. Slowww down. slowww down" "ACCERLATE STEWART! ACCELERATE! acceleraterRRRRrRRrrrrrr" Its almost funny to watch but I never laugh.

{Instagrams from my recent trip to Alabama and Texas}

little homeschooled angles..

H.E.A.V. - Home Educators Association of Virginia
(note: if you say heav and not H-E-A-V at the convention you will be glared at.... and then rudely corrected)

Have any of you ever been to a homeschool convention? What about the children's program at a homeschool convention? I'm not sure if every convention has one but if they do you have probably heard the "volunteer horror stories"! You know, the stories of the teenagers who volunteered to watch all those little kids for the day while their parents shopped for used curriculum and looked at all the booths in the exhibit room? The "These kids are crazy, they take up all your energy, and then they run off, then you freak out because you think you've lost a kid! They yell and they kick and they scream at you! Its horrible! Don't volunteer! These Kids are little devils, with an unlimited supply of energy!!!" horror stories. Well, I am here to tell you, while those stories may be true, my experience was completely different.

It was a huge shocker when I found out that all my kids wanted to do was color. After hearing all these crazy stories about how I will be chasing my kids around all day, all I actually did was sit on the floor and color with them or play a game of don't let the beach ball touch the floor! The didn't run off and they didn't kick or scream. They were sweet angles, who loved to share and color, and play don't let the beach ball touch the ground with out leaving the bounds of home base. When we had to line up to go to the games station, art station, or the inflatable station everyone got in a perfect line and they stayed in that line. My assistant and I were sooo surprised. It was amazing! Right at noon the kids parents came to pick them up for lunch, giving us a little break and time to enjoy some lunch of our own in the company of the other leaders and assistants of the program. Then at 1 the little kiddies came back and wouldn't leave again till 7.

My group of kiddies only fault? They were strongly against cheating. I mean, cheating is bad, but they took it to a whole new level.

On the first day (Friday) I had two assistants, Maegan - who I've already mentioned - and Ethan. Ethan was only with us for the first half of the day before he was moved to another team who needed 2 assistants more than I did. But anyway he was a Blue Agent long enough for my kiddies to realized he cheated in all of the games so our team would win and let me tell you my kids did not like that. By Saturday morning they had created plan to make a boat load of paper air planes that said "I hate Ethan" and "Cheating Is BAD" to throw at him in a huge ambush! Once I found out about it of course I stopped it all but still.... throwing paper airplanes at a person because they cheated in a game? Its a little extreme for little kids isn't it? haah.

Anyhoo, usually when I go to things like this I post a bunch of photos that I took with Eduardo, but  I didn't take any because I was in the Children's Program, literally all day. Not to mention I gave my camera bag and only camera battery to my friend Janelle who was one of the H.E.A.V official photographers to use. So instead of posting pictures that I took, I'm posting just one awkward photo of myself, taken by Janelle.

isin't that just a lovely photo?

-xoxo
Hannah

there was a bird...

you know those awkward days when you wake up to your mom screaming "there is a bird in the house. THERE IS A BIRD IN THE HOUSE!"

no?

 be glad. be very glad. its weird.

  

 

This crazy bird took forever to get out of our house and it POOPED EVERYWHERE! It must have flown in when my dad left the door open when he was doing yard work yesterday and spent the night in the sun room. *shakes head* so weird.

funny story though. I told one of my friends about the bird being stuck in our house and he shared a crazy bird story of his own with me. Apparently when he was younger this bird had been trapped in his house and had made a nest in his families washer or dryer or something. Crazy right? They must have been on a trip when it happened because, why wouldn't you notice something like that?

But anyway I guess birds flying into peoples houses and doing random stuff like pooping or making nests is not as abnormal as I originally thought. ha ha any weird bird stories of your own?

Happy Earth Day Everyone

-Hannah

To Ashville We Went...

 

 

long bus rides // seeing the cousins // performing // fun depot // eating // taking lots of pictures // Biltmore Estate // watching Prince of Egypt // not sleeping // walking a lot // crying // singing // praising our Lord // braiding hair // making memories

 

It's not about the destination but the journey.

 

 

I went on a journey last week. It started with a long, long bus ride and finished with a long, long bus ride. In between those two long bus rides was; an arrival to Ashville North Carolina, two performances at two different retirement homes, a fun night at fun depot, a performance followed by a tour of the Biltmore Estate, and a departure from Ashville North Carolina. Not to mention the eating, sleeping, not sleeping, talking, walking, short bus rides, braiding and photography that took place while all that happened.

 

 

When God closes a door, he opens another.

 



 

I hope everyone is having a blessed week! Please pray for my family as we travel to D.C. tomorrow, I'm supposed to be the one driving. eeek!

 

-Hannah



 

 

p.s. yes, that first photo is a horse head. its a rubber mask, the nose part is actually hollow. also if your wondering why I randomly shared a picture of my friends hair with you its because of the awesome lighting and shadows, not because his hair is just stinkin' awesome. :)

Color Me Rad

Well Hello Everyone! Yes, I know today is mother's day, and i shouldn't be on blogger, I should be with my family. But i'm the only one home right now, so i figured i would log-on!

Since I am finally done with those awful, never-ending spring trip posts, I figured i would post the photos of the 5k I volunteered for with my friend, Kenzy.  As it turns out i was able to take a lot of photos, so i shall upload some of them for you! The race was truly amazing, if they comeback next year, my friend and i decided we would run it! {which means a lot cuz we "don't run"} anyhoo le photos.

before the race.... Nice and clean, with my white keds on!

we were one of the stations that sprayed the people with color!

me and my bestie Kenzy!

My mom didn't really want to be in the photo below so i edited it a little so you couldn't tell it was her haha..... {just so ya know}

my once white keds.... now mostly yellow..

and now mostly pink...

 below is the parking lot after the race!

 when i got home i took off my shoes and this is what my feet looked

like! cool no?



Well Happy Mothers Day to all!

-Hannah

for the love of teeter totters // Spring Trip

Have you ever been on a teeter totter? They are pretty fun right? well the camp we were staying at for Spring trip, had a couple. and let me just say IT. WAS. AWESOME. I, never really getting the chance to play on one, screamed like a 4 year old when i saw them {the odd part was my friends acted even worse than i did #homeschoolproblems}.

We had more fun on those teeter totters than should be allowed. Trying to balance on them, planking, yeah I’m just going to leave it at "we had a lot of fun". But when were "minding our own business" {like a boss i might add} on the teeter totters we saw this kid. {Below}

Just sitting on top of the playground in the sun {he looked very uncomfortable}, looking off into the distance, like he owned the world, then turning and glaring at us. But hay YOLO!

  but yah back to the pictures! :D

-Hannah

p.s. and on a completly different note i have a big suprise for you all! There is a few kinks I have to work out before i tell you about it but, i"m very excited! So you should be too. ;)