afterthoughts

How did I forget to mention that I've been seeing lots of my niece and nephew? My nephew is sitting and crawling or scooting around a lot now! And he is learning to eat... today during our big meal we let him try some peas and it was hilarious how he would push them around in his mouth a little and then suddenly spit them out... ;-) He's the cutest! And Valerie loves to tell us to "Settle down" and loves to say "Give me a boom!" (She learned it from a great friend Steve Cabalka...who i miss sooo badly!) It's more than cute. She says it in a lower voice because that's how Mr. C. says it... i just can't even explain it! You have to see it and hear it!! And today she said to my dad "No, give me a better boom!" because he kinda missed her knuckles... or she missed his. And she wants a goodnight boom and a "i went potty" boom now too :-)

My rents have 2 adjoining apartments in this missionary housing place called "House of Rest." Elisabeth & Matt live in an apartment one door down, so they are basically at Mom & dad's apartment with the 2 little ones all day. They've been here almost 2 months and get ready to move to England in a week or 2.... pretty crazy! We don't know when we'll see them again so I'm trying to spend as much time as possible with them all!

Theo and Sarah are doing great.... Sarah just found out she made JV soccer team and has her first game Tuesday,... and Theo loves youth group and has made several friends now. They are so happy to be living in CA, but we don't know what the rest of this year holds for them. They could be moving in Jan. or Feb. depending on where my dad finds a job. He has to find a job by Feb. and it could be in any state. We have no clue where they'll end up this time:-) It's all in God's hands so we are praying lots!
*yawn* okay! That's it! Goodnight

"Turkey Day!"

I Finally made it to my parent's place in Pasadena, CA for Thanksgiving! I got here on Monday night, and can't believe I only have a few days left....today obviously was thanksgiving, so HAPPY thanksgiving!

We had the traditional family spread.... gigantic turkey, cranberry sauce, my sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, 5 bottles of sparkling cider...you know... and it was ALL delicious!! On Tuesday I found out Mom and dad had planned on going out to eat this year. I furiously protested! A traditional home-cooked thanksgiving is what I had been looking forward to these past few months and what I spent so much money on a ticket for! No, of course I really bought the ticket to spend time with my family, but part of that is cooking and eating at home.... thanksgiving wouldn't be the same for me at a restaurant! So anyway me and Elisabeth (my oldest sister who is moving to England in 2 weeks) convinced the rents we had to stay here and Sarah, me, and her would do ALL the cooking so mom and dad wouldn't have to do anything.
We did all the cooking and clean up with a little help from Matt (Elisabeth's husband) and Theo. It was probably the smallest family thanksgiving we've ever had since it was just 4 siblings out of 8... but no, I guess 2 years in Congo we had only 3 siblings! But it really felt weird without my older brothers and Colleen. I am SO excited about Christmas when we all (minus Elis. & Matt) will be together. We just can't seem to get everybody here at once but that's life in a family of 8!

We did the whole "go around and say what you're thankful for" and I thought of so many things to say. I have so much to be thankful for. I say that every year but God has taught me a lot, given me a LOT, blessed me a lot, stretched me a LOT, matured me a lot, brought me through a lot,... and I know He will keep blessing me and working everything out.... :-)
Anyways i just wanted to write and say I'm thankful today. There are things in my life that I never thought I'd have today, and there are things or parts of my life that I don't have anymore today,... but God is helping me be optimistic and He just keeps helping me to trust Him and not worry about the future.
I've been trying to live in the Present and not take anything for granted.
It's time for bed.
Debating on whether or not I should take Sarah shopping this Black Friday.... :-/ hmm
Tempted!! We'll see... but first, I have a coffee date with my dad in the morning!!!

gross taste in my mouth

I'm 20!

What a weird age. It's not really that celebrated. It's kinda like 19 and 17... no one cares! oh and 11 isn't so great either. But my 20th was amazing. To start, I had a party on friday night with my closest friends. we dressed up obnoxiously 80's style and went BOWLiNG!!!!! It took weeks but i finally found a place IN MA that actually had REAL 10-pin bowling. Up here they have this weird bowling called "candlepin." I don't think it should be considered bowling.... you use miniature balls and i don't even know what. I don't know who made it up, but apparently I heard something like it was the original bowling? Naw... I won't believe it. It's made for people who have no strength and who want to make it easier on themselves. And people have candlepin bowling birthday parties? No thanks. I reserved lanes at a place like 25 mins away and we paid for an hour. it was so fun but needless to say,... my bowling skillz were lacking. Sometimes I used to get lucky. But seeing that I hadn't bowled in 3 years,... well... it was inevitable that I wasn't going to do very well. No matter what I did there would always be about 2 left standing. Not enough power!!


But yeah it was sweet. Everyone's costumes were great... and we went out for ice cream on the way home! Richardson's ice cream.... dairy fresh :-p Oh and then we watched a movie when we got back to campus!!

Saturday consisted of trying to make myself do my weekend homework. I failed.
Sunday was supposed to be just church and out to lunch for my birthday. Instead, I got something else.
Very early in the morning, becky, savannah, char, and koto come in my room and wake me up. I was totally disoriented, and asked what was going on.
"Get up, we gotta go!!"
"What? Where? Why?? It's so early!"
"Just come on"
"What time is it?"
"Just get dressed and put on sweats and a jacket!"
"I don't have a shirt on."
"Here, now hurry!"
"Are we going outside?"
They all look at me, laughing. (They are all dressed in coats and sweats. Of COURSE we're going outside.)

As soon as I could get out of bed and put on clothes, they threw a blindfold on me and led me downstairs outside. They made a rude joke about leading around a special girl. ;-) :-( They start running with me still holding their hands, I hear a car pull up, and Char pushed me in. Except I was turned backwards so i tried sitting but fell into the crack between the front and back seat (where your feet go)... i almost got stuck... it was the funniest thing ever since i was still half asleep! I was like WHERE ARE WE GOING?? the whole time and they wouldn't answer. They just kept saying hurry!! They helped me turn around and find the seat (i felt like i was upside down) ... and then we drove like 10mins... I had no idea where we were headed. I felt like I was being kidnapped. They dragged me out of the car again and started making lots of noise so that I wouldn't be able to tell where we were until we had walked a little bit. Then they took the blindfold off and I realized WE WERE AT THE BEACH!!!!!! And the sun hadn't come up yet! They threw down some blankets and I shouted with "glee" (haha i've always wanted to use that word!). We were here to see the sunrise on the beach!!





A little background break: I had written a list of 20 things I wanted to do when I was 20, before I turned 21. And on my 21st birthday I toast to the things I got done. Well number 16 is to watch the sunrise at Singing Beach.... so I got to check one off on the day of my birthday!!



It was the most perfect day and the most perfect sunrise! It was absolutely gorgeous, and not too cold! I felt pretty special. Just the fact that my friend Char had arisen at such an hour in the morning was a miracle and made me feel really good.... and Becky had gotten up too, and Koto drove us! And .... the idea was Charlotte's!!! It was sooo amazing. Now i've seen the sun SET and the sun RISE over the ocean and I still believe it is one of the prettiest things you can ever watch. And both times I saw such epic events (lol) I was with someone [or some people] very special. People I love. So it made my birthday! But that wasn't the end. I got blindfolded again (i think they just enjoyed watching me stumble around and ask dumb questions) and we stopped at Dunkin for breakfast. Then we went home and I took an hour nap before church. Church was so good, and then we dropped Lucas off at his dorm and Koto & Char were like "Eva we have to go to one more place now." I was like, what? Because we were supposed to just go back to Gordon and hang out until my friends could go out to lunch. So I had ANOTHER surprise ahead of me. We went to the mall, and when we got inside koto was like, "Eva our gift to you is a manicure!" So the 3 of us got manicures. I got a French:-) Looks so nice!!
As we were leaving, "Asian Island" caught our attention and Char said she wanted to pay for me to get a back massage. So we 3 got massages too! It was sooo nice. A little uncomfortable when the guy was massaging my BUTT ... but it really felt nice:-)

Then we went back to Gordon and picked up Emily, Savannah, and Becky, and went out to Carrabba's! That's a restaurant i used to love when we lived in SC so i wanted to go there again. It's Italian food.... and so of course I got fettuccini alfredo...with Shrimp! and i got sung to in Italian and a piece of delicious birthday cake! We didn't make it back to campus til like 5 and then it was basically the end of my birthday... time to STUDY and write a speech and paper... ew.
But Catacombs was at 8 so i went and practiced....and THEY gave me CUPCAKES and i got to blow out candles:-) and they gave me a signed card! So sweet and very much a surprise.
WHAT A BIRTHDAY!! It just made me realize what AMAZING friends I have here. I don't know How I'd do it without them. But they're so generous, genuine, sweet,. . . and FUN!!! Birthdays without family are always a little weird (still getting used to that) but this one was sooo good.

so how am i doing? Well... it's been rough. My birthday even was a little sad. There's a big part of my life that's still missing. And it'll be this way for at least another month. Maybe longer. Maybe forever. I don't even know and that is the hardest part. I don't know what there is left to hang on to but I can't forget about it or drop it either. It's part of me. Silence is NOT very golden right now (that was very cheesy; sorry). I have made it exactly 2 months but only because of God. I feel like this last month will be the hardest. It's been awesome having the support from my friends, and the great birthday they put together. I'm not ungrateful but life is different. I am just TRYING to get through... TRYING to focus on looking forward to when I'll be with my fam for thanksgiving (only 2 more weeks!)....and I feel like once thanksgiving passes things will start going really fast. We don't have much school left but most of my motivation is GONE. It's really hard to do work now.

I don't know why.

I don't know what my problem is.

I will get through with God's help though... I know that... I just want to feel sorry for myself and wallow a bit. :-(

evangeline