Long Time no Blog

Yep, it tends to happen when school gets nuts. I had a couple of very hard tests this week, but now I'm FREE! Woo yeah woo! Yesterday to celebrate the happiness of the week being almost done, we carved pumpkins! It has definately been a long time since I have carved a pumpkin. I had this brillant idea that I was going to do Jesus' face. Yeah.......as soon as I put the pattern on my pumpkin I gave that up. And for some reason... Mon gave me the ginormo pumpkin. That thing was about 1 1/2 inches thick. It took us close to 2 hours to carve these beauties! No matter, we had a good time and got very messy.

L to R:
Kellan - A face with a very gappy tooth smile. He broke one of his teeth off and had to stick it back together with toothpicks! HA!
Monica - A smiley face with block mouth. Our pumpkins were all happy ones!
Renee - Her's was amazing! You can't see it very well, but she carved a dinosaur. Way more motivated than me....and anyone else for that matter
Scott - dun nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu BATMAN! I think he was more into the pumpkin seed roasting though.
Tommie - We never really figured out what his was supposed to be. We think that he messed up and tried to correct it. Ending product...looked like a sunrise.
Me - Cross and Jesus fish. I'm so spiritual. :)

Last weekend 7 of us KSans hit up Ohio. Good times with not much sleep. In 3 days, I had a total of 15 hours of sleep. Not that great of a ratio, but to be honest, it wasn't hard to stay awake until the trip home. There has been a rival going on for a while now on who the best travelers are, Ohians or Kansans. They have this huge map of the US with all the churches they have been to stuck with push pins. We took a dry erase marker and dotted all the ones WE'VE been to. We totally schooled them! There wasn't even competition!

In one solid hour I'm headed to College Weekend. Not only am I extremely thrilled to get to hear some uplifting messages, I'm thrilled to be going on KSU funding! Woohoo! I hate spending money, so this pretty much starts the weekend out on a good note!

*Yes it's still Breast Cancer month.......and I continue to post in pink until that time is up!

A couple photos from Taylor

Matty and Kaitlin I think are the little girls' names. This is while watching the Swan Princess.

This would be Brian and Ash's engagement photo. We all knew it was coming some day, just not this soon!

Showing our purple pride!

Working on a jungle covered mountainside everything was green.....

A post worthy of Stephanie

Mom and dad: I tried to call you a ton this week and everytime I got a "all circuits are busy." So this is what I would have told you if I had have been able to talk to you.

I had an awesome weekend in Taylor! Friday night Lin and Tash were an hour late meeting Mathias and I in Cameron. So Mathias and I drove around Cameron and found all sorts of kewl stuff we never knew before. Cameron is 9 cents cheaper in gas prices, there are 10,000 people in this town, and they have a very interesting country western dance club! We had to restrain ourselves from hanging out there. We met up with the girls and headed to Taylor. We all talked the whole way there (2 1/2 hr) with the dome light on and I don't remember looking at the road once. Tash and Lin were in the back and twisted my rear view mirror so I could see them both. So it was probably at a 45 degree angle, since tash is huge and lin is tiny! I have to admit I was a little annoyed when we got left an hour late but I will say I was very thankful it worked out that way! When we got to Taylor we called up Anna and asked them where they were. They said not to worry about going to the Hoerr's because everyone was leaving. They told us that it had turned out what we thought was going to be a small group hanging out was indeed a large group having a singing. Phew! We all had slop traveling clothes on! We stopped on a gravel road to wait for some Bros to pick up Mathias and while we waited we had two encounters. A guy pulled over to help us, and two state troopers stopped to find out what we were up to. I wouldn't have been to scared if it hadn't been for lin crying out that he had his hand on his gun. That made me a little worried. We played 'dumb Kansas' people and they went away. Then the bros that were picking up mathias pulled in in a van. Only we didn't know they were the bros picking him up so we had this very awkward minute of staring at each other. The only thing I could think of to ask them to identify themselves was....are you AC? But then I spied Cam in a car behind the van and ran back there to save the day. We finally got to Norm and Sally's to run into the arms of our long lost love Bethany. Tears of joy were just flowing! Yes...exaggeration! We all chatted far into the night.

Saturday morning we took it easy. Had the best breakfast I've had in a long ole time. Then we hung out with Norm and Sally's grandkids. We watched the swan princess with them while we got sat on and our hair braided by them. Good times. Luke, Tony, Trent, and Cody swung by and picked up Maggs, Lin, Chel, Anna, Heidi, B, Tash, and myself to take us to Quincy where we ate lunch. Pour Lin couldn't speak up when her waiter filled her lemonade with water. Tony pouted because Luke poured salt in HIS fresh glass of lemonade. Nothing too terribly exciting happened...just lots of talking and catching up. Then we headed to Knochels for the start of the invite. 110...or at least somewhere around there was the count of guests. So yes....lots of people. Lots I knew...lots I didn't. I was super excited to see and hang out with old Kansans. They need to all move back. We had relays and tree naming and other fun events then everyone just hung out until supper. www.tifani.castpost.com We had lots of fun with the Hula Hoops they used for some of the relays! They roasted a whole pig and it was delicious! Quite the spread for supper! After supper we played volleyball until the bible study. Polly and I must have been very intense because we both walked off the court with ripped skirts. Bummer. It was my favorite one too. Kim (or Tim...I never could tell which) gave the Bible study Sat. evening. The topic of the weekend was 'Be Visible.' He went over some very nice points on how we need to be visible in our walk with the Lord so that those around us can "see us and glorify our Father in heaven." Then we had a huge and amazing singing around the fire. This might embarrass Ashley but I was so excited that I got to sing next to him. He's got an amazing voice, and since he's no longer in Manhappening...I never get to hear him sing. AFter that we hung out a while more then headed back to Norm and Sally's. Us girls were all in bed by 11. Insane..that's the earliest bedtime I've had since semester started. Sunday morning us 10 girls were the FIRST ones to breakfast! Booya! Sermons were both nice. I stuffed a whole brownie covered in chocolate in my mouth at lunch and about passed out. Also, got playfully punched in the arm by an elder...that's always fun! Along with everyone else in the church, shed some tears while singing "Light the Fire" as a special request to remeber a dear soul passed on. After hanging out for a while at the fellowship center we went and changed and headed to Joe's parents again. 4 hours of straight volleyball. It was awesome! Us Kansas girls (anna, maggs, chel, lin, and me) and one kansas girl at heart though not physically, (B) Took on a bunch of guys and of course showed them our mad skills and beat them! We left about 7 and then I spent the night in Topeka at the AC Convent.

Monday was fall break so I made sure I got my 8 hours of sleeping then got up and wasted the day away. Chel got home from class at about 1 and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening together. Steph we even went to Barnes and Noble's and 'went for coffee' (carmel latte's). For all the don't know, going for coffee in Lindsborg where Steph went to college is basically sitting and chatting for hours. Then we hung out with the Convent girls until about 11 when I finally decided it was time to go home.

Tuesday I can't really remember what happened but it was hectic. Joel from Denver stopped by and gave my roomie quite the shock on his way home from his bro's wedding. He called me when I was still at work to get directions to my apt. cause he was going to make it there about 5 min. before I got off work. He’s never met my roomie so he told me on the phone that he was going to have some fun with her. I get home and I could tell Mon was SOOO uncomfortable. Apparently, when she answered the door he yells, “Tifani!” walks in with wide open arms and give her this huge hug. She of course tells him she’s not Tifani and he responds “oh it hasn’t been that long. It’s me Joel, your high school friend.” She’s like “no really I’m not Tifani, she’s at work and she won’t be home for a while”. So he just keeps going with this and finally walks in sits down and says “well I’ll just wait for her here in this rocker!” Poor girl, She is soo shy and I’m sure she was about to cry. Of course who can blame her. We have all kinds of weirdo's stopping by. I was up at the lab studying the rest of the evening.

Wedneday was hectic as well. I met up with my stats class buddies so we could teach ourselves the material for todays test. I think I walked into church looking mad. Oops. But, it was just what I needed. Dave was up and spoke to us. Then a group of us went to Famous Dave's and ate. I don't know who the dear soul was that called in a paid for our meal, but it was very kind. Even though I doubt it was someone that read my blog, thank you to whomever it was! I got home and finished up reformatting my computer. And listened to the guys above me laughing hysterically about something. Turns out it was a picture of jason that they were tweaking. Just see his facebook pic and you'll understand why!

Yesterday I spent a long time with 1/3 of my class in our GTA's office trying to get him to actually teach us stuff that was going to be on the exam. After I got out of there we headed to Wamego for Resthome singing. Sometimes I wish that we had a resthome in Manhattan that we could sing at instead of Wamego, but then I go and am so thankful! There are about 25 to 30 FAITHFUL listeners! They are so amazing and I just appreciate them so much. I feel that they are doing a bigger service and giving a bigger blessing to us than us to them. There is a special little lady, Anna, who reminds me of my g-ma and I hope that I'm like her when I get old! She knows every song and isn't afraid to express how they are just "full of Jesus!" The rest of the evening was spent in front of my computer. I guess I did do a little bit of laundry but, I had a stats test to prepare for.

Today I'm just thankful the week is over. I head to give blood in 30 min. and then I'm heading over to Topeka this evening to spend time with the Convent girls and Tony,who is here this weekend! Now just 5 hours of work and payroll to separate the difference until freedom for the weekend!

PS--It's breast cancer month...everyone wearing their pink? Also, I am at work so I don't have any pictures with me but I'm going to put a couple pics up later on!