Spring Break Day #2

It's pretty late now but we did arive at our lake house in Louisiana! We went to church this morning in Alabama...it was a rainy Easter morning but wonderful nonetheless. I wish I had time to write all my thoughts and feelings about Easter and our Savior and his Atonement and Resurrection, but because I don't I'll just challenge you to go read the words to my very favorite Easter hymn: "That Easter Morn" (LDS hymnal page 198). It's beautiful to read, and even more beautiful sung in four part harmony :) Right now I'm lying listening to the water of the lake hitting the shore. More tomorrow; goodnight!

Spring Break Day #1

I want to blog about spring break not in hopes that anyone will read it, but mostly for my personal records and for my brother Tanner :) It's the first vacation we've taken without him...and I miss him a ton. As crazy as he makes things, I wish he was here. Anyway, this morning we left for Spring Break 2013, Destination: New Orleans. My mom's not up for driving it all in one day so tonight we're staying in Alabama. We stopped today in Kentucky to see Mammoth Cave! Well, part of it. There's about 400 miles of cave and we only saw two of them. But they were awesome! We did the historic tour so we learned about the prehistoric people who explored the cave (and they know because they've carbon dated bodies that they've found back to 2000 years ago) and the more modern people who rediscovered it in the 1800s. I can't imagine exploring with no electrical lights. What happens if you're 3 miles in and your torch goes out?? There are names carved into the wall dating to 1839. We also saw one adorable little bat! I think that was the highlight of it for Grant. The highlight for me was two little boys on our tour who kept saying the cutest things. Our tour guide said something about there being heights later in the tour (there was a pit where he told us not to look down if you're afraid of heights). So one of the boys asked where the heights were and the other one pointed down the trail: "the heights are down there" and then he pointed upwards: "and God is up there!" Later in the tour one of them told their mom that they had to go because it was almost midnight. I guess when you're little and in a dark cave, you equate it with midnight!
Tonight when we got to our hotel we went out to eat at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that had southern barbecue and hush puppies. This place was not sophisticated, complete with leaky roof and all, but sometimes it's refreshing to get away from Zionsville. Our server was an adorable lady with a thick southern accent and I just wanted to take a picture of her! I wish I could take a picture of every little thing that I loved on every vacation so that I'd never forget, but that's so tedious. Anyway I didn't think I was that hungry when I got there but after I finished my barbecue chicken I picked over the bones at least twice more! Maybe it was so tasty because of the array of sauces on our table; there were no less than 6 different bottles. Ice cream cones after dinner were 25 cents each :)

Snow Day!

My good thing for today is that I woke up to about 10 inches of snow and no school! I really needed a day off today and it was a blessing :) I caught up on a lot of homework, shoveled the driveway, watched a movie, did laundry, etc. Now I only have a 4-day school week before we're off for spring break!!

Peaceful Morning

My good thing for today is that I got to sleep in...but the best part was that when I did wake up, it wasn't to the radio, a trumpet, the piano, a clarinet, bass clarinet, a saxaphone, or any other extraneous noise. It was quiet. I so often get woken up on Saturday mornings by brothers who, in my book, aren't being very conscientious. Today I was even able to eat breakfast and do some homework in peace.

So I have been thinking about this for a while and have decided that I'm going to try everyday to write about something good/positive that happens to me or in my life...just at least one happy thing. That's not hard, right? Mine for today is that during a passing period at school, I saw a girl drop a couple of things in the hallway. She bent down and picked up one of them, and then the boy that was walking in front of me stopped and bent over and picked up the other one for her. He wasn't that he just did it begrudgingly because it was in his way, he really stopped and smiled at her. Going to public high school often decreases my faith in the youth of today, but this helped restore it. Unfortunately I was a coward and didn't tell the boy afterwards how I great I thought it was; I just kept walking behind him and smiled.

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough."

My Favorite

"It's not what you look at; it's what you see."