Let this be a warning to you!!!

If you take pictures with a camera without its owner's knowledge (or permission), the pictures you take WILL be posted. :)

Beach Day with Amanda!!!

Amanda and I went to the beach last Wednesday in celebration of being on Spring Break! She picked me up at my house at about 9:30 am and we headed south on the 405 toward the Newport area. Along the way we had some great conversations. I love talking with her, we're so similar in so many areas and so its such an encouragement to discuss things with her that I'm going through that she's had experience with and vice versa.

We had kind of an adventure when we got off the freeway in search of the beach. My mom had sent me with clearish directions to the exact beach I had in mind, Corona Del Mar (been there many times as a girl, but have never been responsible for getting there so I didn't know the directions off hand), but something went wrong and we found ourselves....how do you say it?...lost I guess. I was going to try to explain how we got lost in between the busy, big, roaring freeway and the endless, blue, roaring ocean, but we were also pretty confused as to HOW we got lost. Anyways, after parking at a gas station for quite a while with Amanda studying her Thomas Guide, she discovered a route that would surely take us to our destination. Thank the Lord (and Amanda!), her route worked! We arrived at the beach a little famished because of our driving adventure, so after we set up camp and put on a bit of sunscreen, we ate our packed lunch: onion bagel sandwiches and lots of other yummy beach lunch stuff.

It was a little too cold and cloudy to get excited over actually getting IN the water, so we just laid back on our blanket and talked. Suddenly I sat bolt upright and stared out in the water...I was SURE I had just seen the beautiful black fin of a dolphin. I stared and stared, and sure enough, there was another, and another, and another! Amanda and I became such girls, jumping up and down, squealing and clapping our hands every time another really-close-to-shore-dolphin surfaced. Frequently they would curve out of the water two and three at a time. Ooohh, it was such a beautiful sight. The gigantic pod of dolphins stayed close to shore, just swimming and playing around, for like 45 minutes! For most of that time Amanda and I were splashing around knee-deep in the ocean, talking about our gratefulness to God that He would allow us to see and experience such a sight, and talking about the greatness of our God in general. Man, our God is creative!

When the dolphins started turning away, we turned our faces toward the shore and realized that it was a pretty sight. So we took a picture:

We then proceeded to play with a frisbee and then cards. Because there were other places for us to experience that day besides Corona Del Mar, we next packed up our stuff and walked back to our car, but not before some more pictures of the afternoon cloudy beach (and the hot babes!!)!


Our next stop was Balboa Island. We did a little bit of window shopping there, the stores on the island have such character! Outside of one of the stores was this strange figure (I told Amanda to make a confused face, but I liked this shot of her busting up over the sillyness of the cow):

We stopped at a cute little candy shop:

As we were walking along the edge of the island on our way to take the ferry over to the Newport Peninsula, we heard one of the loudest, most angry, long growl-barks that I've ever heard. We turned to face the direction of the commotion, and to our surprise there was a giant sea lion on the back of an anchored boat looking at us and shouting! Apparently he was quite offended that we had simply walked passed him without stopping to be impressed like normal tourists. When we finally gave our due squeals and started bringing out our cameras, he tried to pull a "Oh I'm so tired of my popularity and the paparazzi...I'm just going to bury my head and try to blend into the back of the boat." So sadly, we didn't get a shot of him with his head up, but if you notice a big brown blob at the back of the middle boat in the next picture, that's our Mr. Sea Lion.

You may be able to tell that we were laughing during this next picture. We took it on the ferry ride over to the Newport Peninsula. As Amanda was telling me a story, I realized that maybe I should get a shot of us on the ferry. What made us laugh was that as I was pulling out my camera and putting it into position, this was Amanda speaking: "talking talking talking talking talking talking-OH!-silence" ...then giggles as we waited for my camera to take the shot. Then she continued with her story. :)

On the Newport Peninsula we paid 3 bucks each to take a ride on the ferris wheel! It felt SO good to sit down and 'fly' through the air. This is a picture of us on the top, but you can't really tell we're on a ferris wheel...oh well.


Our next plan was to head to Ruby's on the Newport Peninsula pier, but our plans changed a BIT, all because of a postcard that we found in one of the little shops. Amanda had this memory of going to the coolest, round, red-roofed Ruby's on the coolest pier in Huntington Beach with her friends a few years earlier. I was pretty sure that the Ruby's we were planning on going to was the very one she remembered because I thought Newport was in Huntington Beach or something. But when we finally got to the Newport Peninsula, we realized that it WASN'T the Ruby's or the pier that she remembered. We were about to go have our dinner there anyways, but just in time we found a postcard that pictured the very pier she was so excited about...it gave us hope that it wasn't too far away. On our way to the car I asked a woman if she knew where the Huntington Beach pier was, and she gave us very clear directions. So our day at the beach ended in the fun atmosphere of the two-story Ruby's with the awesome food and shakes on the popular pier!!!!

Had a blast with you, Amanda!

TMS Spring Banquet

Last Friday, March 30th, was The Master's Seminary Spring Banquet at the Ronald Reagan Library. Andrew Zekveld, one of my good friends who is a first-year seminary student from South Africa asked me to accompany him. It was great to be able to support him and be a part of this time of refreshment and relaxation for him because of all the hard work he's put in this semester. Also, because I was a homeschooler, you can imagine how excited I was to be invited to a formal event that I had to dress up for...very exciting ordeal for me because, think about it, I never had a prom, winter formal, nothing!

My wonderful Mom pre-arranged her morning so that she could give me a manicure and pedicure for the event, she did a great job. I also made appointments to get my hair done by the greatest stylist in the world and to get my make-up done by Clinique. You have to hear about God's KINDNESS to me in this matter. He knew I really couldn't afford both appointments, so my mom was eager to let me take out a loan from her because of the rarity of occasions like this, and because of her compassion for me for the fact that I never went to a prom. :) Anyways, God allowed my stylist to be over an hour late for my appointment with her (she had accidentally scheduled me for SATURDAY morning, not Friday), and so she insisted that she style my hair for free that day. Isn't God good? He knew I really couldn't afford to get my hair done, but He let me anyways, for free! He's such a doting Father! Can you believe that after the incalculable gift of salvation, He doesn't stop giving or caring, even caring about the small things of this world, like hair-dos? Thank you, God!

The stylist did my hair PERFECTLY, just like I wanted it done. :)




Andrew picked me up promptly at 2:45 pm, giving us enough time to drive up to Anton and Marietjie's place so that we could carpool to the Library from there. The four of us really had a blast. We stuck together the whole afternoon and evening. So much laughter! Thank you God for the blessing of friendship!

Air Force One! Definately the highlight of the museum.

Andrew bought a copy of this photo for both of us. His pose is quite presidential, don't you think?


The afterglow of the Air Force One tour.

The view from the back of the Library is so beautiful. I love this shot of the four of us. We took this during the cocktail hour before dinner. (I must say that the shrimp was amazing, as were the cheese, crackers and bread.) This was where I had the opportunity to meet more of Andrew's friends and seminary professors. I had already met quite a few during the tour of the museum. I was surpised how many other South Africans there are at our church and seminary! I'm beginning to realize that all South Africans are happy, jolly people, and the ones at our church LOVE each other and LOVE God and LOVE the gifts He's given us.

Dinner was quite amazing. Gourmet salad, filet mignon and grilled salmon, mashed potatoes, cooked vegetables, WONDERFUL bread, and a tri-dessert plate and coffee! Andrew and I sat at a table with Anton and Marietjie, Dr. and Mrs. Drew, a couple who are Anton and Marietjie's neighbors (I'm blanking out on their names right now), and another seminary student and his date.

Apparently Mr. Clayton Erb is a friend of Dr. Drew's. When I expressed my excitement at Clayton coming to visit our table, Andrew just went ahead and took a picture of him! :)

These are all the South Africans in attendance that evening. Well, Holly Drew and I were at least South African for that picture. :)

After dinner Jubilant Sykes and Christopher Parkening performed a mini-concert for us. It was SO enjoyable. I think it was my first time listening to Jubilant in a smaller intimate setting like that. A few songs he went ahead and sang without a microphone...MAN his voice is powerful! When they both stepped off of the stage the whole audience gave a standing ovation and called for an encore.

Christopher Parkening also shared a short version of his testimony with us. He's a real cool guy.

After the banquet Andrew and I spent a little bit of time at Anton and Marietjie's, eating ice cream and talking.

Thus concluded our wonderful evening at the Spring Banquet!