long time no see

so I haven't posted anything since July... that's 5 months!!! A LOT has happened in 5 months.. lets see if I can quickly list the highlights of major things that have happened in my life these past 5 months:

End of July:
-find out my brother & sister-in-law are having a baby!!! Luke Mitchell will join us on February 1st 2010- I found out through a text,yep that's right a text message & this is what it said: FYI Kelly is pregnant then another one came weeks later saying: we are having a boy. Haha not really the way I dreamed about finding out about my first niece or nephew but that's my brother :)

August:
-I became Acting on AIDS president of the undergrad chapter at my school
-Before school started I went on the Student Leadership Trip & it was truly life changing!! God is awesome! & it was such a wonderful experience to be with other student leaders who have passions similar to my own
-Met a cute boy on the retreat ;)
-Back to school!

September:
-Start dating Mr. Alex James Turner! a charming redhead who quickly became one of my best friends :) He is from Austin, Minnesota and is a youth ministry major with a minor in counseling and biblical studies. He has a heart and passion for the homeless, kids/youth, missions, & photography which are very similar to my own passions. We always have so much fun together and enjoy playing cards, pool, and any other game we can come up with! (I always win, of course :) )



-I was asked to be a part of the Ugandan Well Force Team for my school where it was our goal to raise $12,000 in one month to service 12,000 people for 10 years!!
-Met the first Lady of Uganda!!



October:
-Through a series of many events such as mini golf in the library!!, bigger or better, community barbeque, t-shirt selling, and a lemonade/hot chocolate stand at football games we raised $17,000!!!! Praise the Lord!
-Visit my best friend Jess and cousin Nick in Colorado over my Fall Break
-Find out I am no longer able to do my student teaching overseas :( I turned my application in the morning after it was due and therefore because it was late I was no longer allowed to apply... probably one of the hardest things I have had to go through in awhile but God brought me through and I am continually learning to trust Him in every circumstance.


November:
-My Great Uncle Bob (Grandpa's brother/our second grandpa) becomes sick and hospitalized. He was unconscious and was said to most likely not make it very long. However, I spent one night in the hospital and prayed over him for an hour and my family and friends were praying for him as well & his health began to improve slowly everyday. He was transferred to a nursing home and was able to communicate clearly and even make jokes when we came to visit him! But after one good week his body began to slowly shut down and he passed away on Thanksgiving Day around 3:00.
-I went to MN to visit Alex and meet his family. I had a wonderful time and absolutely LOVED his family!!



December:
-My roommate Savanna & I move out of our current dorm and into another one- its called Madsen and its more of like an apartment style dorm so we have a common living room area, a kitchen, and a balcony!
-Savanna gets engaged!!
-My oldest sister Chrissy moves home for good!!! She moved 8hrs away to Springfield, MO around 11 years ago and has now finally decided to move back home!!! :) it is so great to have her back!!
-tomorrow we celebrate Jesus' birthday! oh how I LOVE Christmas!

hmm.. I think that's abt it for now! :) Hope you have a Merry Christmas Eve!!

i have a problem...

name of problem: i take WAY too many pictures

so the other day my brother informed me that on my families computer at home I am using 50GB of memory with MY pictures alone!!

I currently have a grand total of 155 albums on facebook.. each of which hold 60 pictures & now facebook allows you to create albums with 200 photos in each.. Lord help us all.

I knew it was bad the moment I started thinking at any event or vacations I would go on that i had to take at least 60 pictures while I was there so that I could make an facebook album out of them & while attending the event or special occasion I was constantly thinking of what a good/creative photo album title would be for the album.

my friends have caught on to my problem as well & one of my friends Andy told me that he was happy that we were going to the same college now so that his life at college will be documented :) I also informed my suitemates the first week that I met them that I love taking pictures & that I will be documenting their lives as well... & mark my words this statement held true- I got abt 30 fb albums to prove it! :)

however sometimes when I first meet people I am too nervous/self conscious to take their picture because I feel like they are going to get annoyed with me for taking too many pictures. also there have been times in my life when I will go a long time without taking any pictures (for me thats abt a month) & I notice that during those times I am not nearly as happy as I am when I am taking pictures regularly lol taking pictures and capturing moments is just simply something I LOVE to do! altho I find I need to be careful on missions trips especially that I am not spending too much time behind the camera and not engaging with the people I am with.

anyways not only do I have a ton of digital photos but I also have an entire photo box of printed photos from my film camera days & 15 REAL photo albums full of pictures as well!

its crazy stuff i tell ya! & some might say its out of control but I love photography way too much to stop & I will for sure continue to take WAY too many pictures throughout the rest of my life & fully enjoy every picture I take! & I hope that you can enjoy some of them as well :)

band-aid stand??

One day I was driving to work and it was pouring down rain... & as I pull up to the Goulder's (family I work for) house, I saw the most bizarre thing! three girls across the street were having a lemonade stand in the pouring rain!!

the three of them sat there huddled together under a huge umbrella that also had a towel hanging from it on the other side.. every once in awhile one of them would pop there head out as they heard a car driving by informing them of what they were selling and how much it cost.

I walked over to the girls & I asked them, "What in the world are you doing out here in the rain?" they replied, "we are comfortable! & we are selling candy and popsicles for 5 cents! we have sold more candy today then we did yesterday when it wasn't raining!" I couldn't help but laugh :) I told them I admired them for their dedication and wished them the best of luck with the rest of their sales and then ran inside...

Later the oldest Alex came in the house & i asked him if he saw the girls who were sitting out there in the rain selling candy & he was like, "what? there selling candy?? YES! I am going to go get some right now!" he was gone for abt 5 minutes and then returned empty handed. I asked him, "what happened?" he answered me saying, "oh they ran out of candy". I responded, "Oh I'm sorry thats too bad, what are they selling now?" He answered, "Band-aids".

hahaha kids crack me up! not only were they sitting in the pouring rain but they were selling band-aids lol when I was little i once sold painted rocks with my friend across the street but never band-aids :)

"I'm sorry but this is an invalid ID"

On April 23rd I turned 21 and now that it is summer and I am no longer under Trinity Expectations I am able to legally drink alcohol!! yay 4 me! So in order to celebrate this fact, I went out one night with friends to get a drink. I was excited cause it would be my first time using my ID and idk it was just kind of exciting to me to finally being able to go out with my friends to get some drinks.

I was with Andy and Pat and we drove to Jenny's house to pick her up. Before we left I received my first "please drink and drive responsibly" talk from Jenny's mom. I assured her that I was the designated driver and I would only being having one drink, so we should be fine. So after we were done talking to her parents, we left Jenn's house and drove to downtown Naperville. We decided to go to this place called Quigley's Irish pub- it was a pretty sweet place. Jenny and I were all excited and taking pictures with our ID's while also trying to figure out which drink we should order. Pat suggested that I get a Malibu Cranberry cause it was his cousin's (who was once a bar tender) favorite drink, so I decided that I would get it. The waitress came up and I was the first to order...



"I would like a Malibu Cranberry please" the waitress responded by saying "OK, can I see some ID?" I very willingly and happily gave it her since it was the first time I have been asked that question and she took it and looked at... she studied it for about a minute or so and I began to get a little nervous but I quickly assured myself that I was 21 so there should be no problem with my ID.. I was wrong.

The waitress looked up from my ID and said, "I'm sorry but this is not a valid ID" and handed me back my license. Confused and a little bit upset I asked, "What? Why?" she explained that a law was recently passed saying that once two weeks has gone by after a person has turned 21 and they still have yet to renew their license, it is no longer a valid ID. I couldn't believe it and responded by saying, "but it doesn't expire until July.. that doesn't make any sense" and she explained that I could have an older sister who just turned 21 and got a new license and then gave me her old one since it didn't expire for two more months... so it kind of makes sense but I still thought they could at least just ask for another type of identification like a school ID or credit card to make sure that I was the person listed on the ID, but I knew there was no sake in arguing with her so I just said to myself, "well I guess I won't be getting a drink tonight but at least I can sit here and enjoy time with my friends while they have their drinks" ... wrong again.

The waitress then informed me that this pub was "21 and older only" after 9:00 and since it was 9:30 and I was without a "valid" ID she was going to have to ask me to leave!! I couldn't believe it!! I actually just got kicked out of an Irish pub!!!

of course that would happen to me the first time I go out to get drinks..

however she suggested we go to the next township and try to get drinks there cause they probably would be less strict about the new rule, so we did & we went to this sketchy sports bar/pub place and successfully ordered drinks there instead :) we still had a good time tho & I finally was able to enjoy my Malibu Cranberry...



& I went and got my license renewed this morning :)

Grandpa Sorensen

I just received a phone call from my grandpa & his by far are the phone calls I enjoy the most!! They only last for a minute or so (I seriously think the longest conversation I had with him on the phone was 5 minutes) but they always leave a smile on my face :)

this last conversation went something like this:

A: Hello?
G: (in an excited voice) haha Why Hello!
A: Hi Grandpa! How are you?
G: oh I hope I didn't wake you up (laughs) -he is a little hard of hearing so he sometimes doesn't answer when you ask him questions lol
A: (laughing) No you didn't
G: so whats the good word? -he ALWAYS asks this question :)
A: well I just went and got my license renewed!
G: oh well good for you thats great! that reminds me of that one time when you were driving home from the south and you gave me a ring.. yeah that was really cute (I called him just to say hello when I was driving home from MO over a month ago)
A: haha yes well I am glad you enjoyed it
G: alright well just let your dad know that they are diggin' around here by my place so he can come on over if he'd like to see some dirt piles! - ahahaha he is SO cute!
A: OK Grandpa I will let him know!
G: Oh and while I am on the phone here talking to you, would you like to plant some flowers for me again like you did last year?
A: Sure, I'd be happy to!
G: oh alright then I'll start to figure out what I'd like to be out there
A: Sounds good just let me know
G: Alright honey well it was nice talking to you
A: you as well Grandpa, have a good day!
G: thanks you too, buh bye
A: bye!

I love the fact that the only reason he called was to report to my dad that there were a lot of dirt piles around his house & invited him to come over if he wanted to see :)

One time I visited him around lunch time and he asked if I would like to make myself a sandwich, I said yes and asked him if he had eaten yet, he said no but when I offered to make him one as well he said, "no thank you, I am gonna wait til the garbage man comes to take all my trash" lol it didn't make any sense to me at first but then I realized he probably does this every garbage day, he know that they come around lunch time so he sits at the table watching out the window waiting for them to come, and once they do he goes outside, gets the trash can, brings it into the garage and then makes himself lunch - he has a set schedule and he wasn't about to break it.

my grandpa lives such a great & yet simple life- he sits at home, watches the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks outside (he often makes voices for them as if he knows what they are saying to each other), occasionally he gets up to scare the geese away if there are any in his yard- he HATES geese lol, he people watches and observes the world around him in his cozy little home and waits for his son (my dad), daughter, &/or brother to come visit him or talks to them on the phone throughout the day. He receives much joy hearing from the ones he loves and its no wonder then why a simple phone call means the world to him, so much so that he will talk about for weeks after you called him.

It's these kinds a realization that push me to make more of an effort to call or visit my grandpa throughout the week, cause even just a minute of my time can really make his day. My grandpa truly is a valuable part of my life, & I want to make the most of every opportunity I have with him, while I still can.

Limericca

my dad is retired now so he has quite a lot of time on his hands & sometime last year he started writing limericks & would send them as a mass email to my moms side of the family the Riccas & eventually started calling them Limericcas :)

well I decided to compile them all in a Microsoft Word document & its currently 10+ pages full of limericks written by my dad & others in my family.. anyways my dad wrote me one for my 21st birthday so I thought I'd share it cause it made me smile :)

To Angela Lynn, we give up a cheer-
Her 21st birthday is finally here
She's been old enough to cast her vote-
Can drive a car and maybe a boat
Now she can even sip wine or beer!!

well done daddy, well done

tomorrow's the BIG day!!!!

oh my goodness!! this week has been SO crazy with tons of activities, papers, projects, and tests that I almost forgot that it was my 21st birthday tomorrow!!

WOOHOO!! I can't believe it!!! 21 just seems so old to me for some reason.. anyways I am going home tomorrow after I take my test in Shakespeare & spending the day with my family!!! I am excited- its been awhile since we have all been able to get together so it'll be fun to spend some quality time with them.. ahh i just love my family.

& thanks to Trinity expectations I will not be able to celebrate my 21st with an alcoholic beverage BUT school is out in like 3 weeks so my time will come soon enough :)

alright, well now I gotta study for this test :(