Shot Shots*

Sore. If you look closely at the last one you can see the needle sticking in my arm. The big smile on my face was purely for the camera. It wasn't real.

When we were leaving I told the secretary that the last shot had hurt the worst. She said in a nice Indiana accent, "Yeah, that's the MMR. See that little baby out there? She'll be in here next and she's getting the MMR too, and here in a couple minutes she'll be screaming."

Thank you secretary. Good thing you didn't tell me that before I got my shots.

*thanks Daddy for the title that I kinda stole from your email :)

Three Reasons For Summer To Come:

Big bags.

Big sunglasses.

Cute shoes.

That's the style this summer in my Middle Eastern country. Sooooo, I get to go birthday shopping with Grandma sometime soon. I can't wait for summer.

Turns out, there isn't air-conditioning at my summer family's house, so it's gonna be pretty hot. My mom thinks that it'll be upper 90s and low 100s: hot. But oh so worth it. :)

Around here, the weather is perfect! It's spring, complete with sunshine, warmth, growing things, and RAIN. (There's a thunderstorm right now as I'm typing. Thunder and lightning make my favorite kind of rain.)

So excuse me as I go read my Bible, and goodnight.

She's Like a Beautiful Green Gumdrop

Thanks for all the happy-birthdays! It was a blast. Sadly, no rainbow. We did have rain, and there was a double rainbow, but I was inside reading my new Ted Dekker/Carl Medearis book (Tea With Hezbollah) and didn't see it.

Again, sadly, I didn't win Paperdoll, but now I have an Amazon card (Thanks Aunt Jenny!) so I'm going to buy it. So excited.

The title... we watched Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. My favorite part was when Theodore saw the girl and said, "She's like a beautiful green gumdrop." *sigh* It was really cute.

In First-Grade...

Today I was riding in the car and out of nowhere I thought, I'm fifteen. It hit me that when I was in first grade, going to school in the Netherlands, the fifth-graders were the big kids. High-schoolers were scary, and I never thought about becoming one.

Now, I'm ending my first year of high-school, getting ready to travel halfway across the world this summer. First-grade me never thought about that. First-grade me was just concerned with learning Dutch so she could do her homework and make friends. Freshman me is trying to learn some Arabic and save enough money to go to the Middle East. I am so excited about this summer.

Just after I turned six, my family moved to the Netherlands. Looking back now, I cannot believe how little that mattered to me. It wasn't that important. I wasn't scared, I wasn't particularly excited, it just happened and I was fine with it. In late May I'll be getting on a plane and heading to the Middle East and it is such a big deal to me. So much has changed since first-grade.

Giveaway!

Hey all, Bloom! is giving away a free book! I really, really want it. It's called Paperdoll by Natalie Lloyd, who has an amazing blog which I love. And I would love to read her book.