Friday Favorites

I'm just not the kind of girl that avoids things just because their popular. I like what I like, whether other people say I should or not. When Amanda told me about this book series, "The Hunger Games" I figured I would give it a shot. Apparently it's the newest book/movie series fad, with the first movie coming out in March. I just finished the 2nd book this week and am going crazy to see what happens in the 3rd. In all fairness, the Hunger Games is not a classic peice of literature and I know this. The writing is really simple, the 2nd book progresses really weird, and the main character is not that lovable. It's just a fun little book series that will turn into movies every summer for the next 3 years, people will get all excited about how hot the guys are, and then it'll be forgotten. Not that I have to explain or redeem myself in any way for buying into Hollywood's next big thing, it's just that some things in my life are soley for entertainment purposes. So you should go read them. I'll bet money you like it too!

Last night the Cabin was reunited.

Britt: "Is that guy wearing a mask?"
Grace: "Umm he's bald and wearing sunglasses."

Grace to Cali: "Remember when we first got you and you were sweet as hell? Now you're just black."

Story of the Day

This morning I went outside during my usual routine of bringing Cali inside from time in the yard. The fence was open and and I didn't see her anywhere. I didn't bother to actually go inside the fence because as soon as it opens, she runs straight out, so I figured she was half way to Charlotte by then. I drove around my neighborhood 4 times looking for a little black blob in someone's bushes but no luck. Finally as I was starting to call my landlord who knows everyone in the neighborhood, I go into the fence and laying calmly behind the air conditioning unit, is the the little black blob. Chewing a stick with the thought of "Mom why do you look so crazy?" surely going through her head. She'll be 5 months old on Thursday and she puts the term "puppy" into a whole new category with all her shenanigans. When my boss sent me the above picture today, I got jealous because I realized that my puppy doesn't sleep. Atleast I've never really seen her sleep peacefully like this. It's been a really fun 5 months but raising a kid is hard. Good thing she's cute.

I Think I Need a New Town

See what had happened was, my awesome co-worker gave me free airline tickets that had to be used before the end of July. I don’t need many reasons to travel somewhere, so when she asked me if I could use them, of course I found a US map right away. My best pal Laura is always up for an adventure, so after much debating and a little bit of fate, we ended up in Boston this weekend. Laura thought Boston was near the great lakes and because of the Red Sox I thought I hated it, but it is a delightful city. There’s lots of water around and I’ve never seen so many sailboats in my life and all that made the whole place beautiful. The cool thing was that we had no idea what to do or where to go or how to get there, but everything we did ended up being the best idea we’ve ever had. We toured the Old State House and saw some really neat historical stuff (I’m a nerd so that was my fave part of the city). After eating at Cheers, we took a stroll through the botanical garden park and drug our feet through the frog pond. We walked along the Harbor (where the sunset is amazing!) and came across Quincy Market which is super cool and lit up really cute at night. Every time we got bored or lost, we just stumbled across the next little gem, like the Harbor Islands. We decided we wanted to be on a boat so we loaded up and went to Georges Island, where theres a really old Fort that you can walk through and get creeped out and go into all these little holes in the walls and stuff. The building was a photographers dream because of how old everything was, and Laura took some really awesome pictures. Before we took to the airport to spend the night on a bench and sleep for 3 hours, we walked around Boston University and sat on their sailboat dock for a while with our feet in the water. If I went to school there, that would be my favorite place to go without a doubt. The sunset was amazing there, too. Go figure. So Boston is beautiful. It’s also full of nice people such as Boston College football players, Asians on public transportation, and fun bus drivers. I would not be opposed to living in Boston, but only in the summers where their weekend heat waves reach a big 103 degrees. Suck it up New England, the South has that beat on a Tuesday.
Quotes by Laura.

At the haunted Fort:

“Katie I think you’re stepping on a dead body.”
“Crawl in there and see what happens.”
Sleeping on a bench at the aiport:

“I woke up because I heard that huge tour group of Asians come in! And I knew they were taking a picture of me!”

Friday Favorites

Harry Potter 7.2 was the best movie of the year. Yes it will beat every movie that will come out from today till December 31, 2011. It was rediculous and action-packed and adorable and creepy and epic and I want to see it a thousand more times. I am pretty upset that it's all over, however, I still need to read all the books (which I will do one day soon, promise) and it'll feel epic to me all over again. Thank you J.K. Rowling for your brilliant mind and pen over the last several years. You go girl.

Now a few quotes of the days:

Chris D: "Hollywood does sacrifice children on the alter of entertainment."

Grace: "But if we sacrifice real children, we get yelled at."

Me: "My goal is to write a book one day. A book just about all of my opinions on things."

Pastor Ken: "It'll be called "Crap Katie Says."

Pastor Ken: "Bickell freaks me out because she shouldn't sound the way she sounds."

Soccer, Surf, and Journaling

I was in California this past week and I really don't want to write about it all. It was just that cool and I love that place a lot, so I'll spare you all the details. Just know that God is working on yet another batch of college kids out there this summer and they have some cool stories to bring back East. Woot! In other news, how many of you watched the USA Women's World Cup game yesterday? Holy crap, talk about a heart attack. I had about 3 of them. They beat Brazil 3-2 in penalty kicks, exactly 12 years after beating China in the 99 World Cup in penalty kicks. I remember watching that game in 99 and thinking that would be me one day. Playing in the World Cup, being as awesome as Mia Hamm, playing soccer all over the world. But I think coaching my little kids in soccer is just as cool, so it's ok. When we got to San Fran on Sunday night, the santa cruz shuttle picked us up and the driver was this really awesome ex-professional surfer named Mattie. He told us about all the places he'd surfed in the world (including the exact spot we surfed in Ireland!) but how he spent most of his life being a surf journalist. After quitting the pro world tour, he just went around to all these surfing competitions and wrote about em. After having that conversation, and being kind of obsessed with the World Cup this year, I feel like I wish I would've stuck to journalism with my career. Actually I love my current one so not really, but man I loved writing about sports. I did it all through high school and I'm constantly watching the news and reading articles and watching highlights and I don't even think about how I could actually do that with my life and make money for it. I could totally love my life going around talking to pro athletes about how awesome they are and what they do for fun and what's playing on their ipod. Just a thought. Now it's time to cheer on the women's team as they play France on Wednesday to advance to the championship. Party in the USA, girls.