the beach and boba shooting

not wanting to waste such a lovely saturday afternoon, julie and i decided to go to the beach. the water was absolutely gorgeous! wasn't too cold (well, i thought so anyway, julie disagreed), but it was very clear for any california beach.
here are some pictures.

















































































we tried to write our names in the sand and then get someone to take a picture...didn't work out too well. after standing around for like 10 min. trying to find someone to take it the guy cut the rest of my name off...so it reads "julie & D"
sweet.







i have got some nice beach hair going on here! awesome! this is after i went swimming, if you couldn't tell. :)

ummm... this video should explain the boba shooting. for those of you who don't know what boba is it's those little round tapioca balls that come in tea drinks, smoothies or slushies (it's asian :) well, boba is actually pretty aerodynamic and shoots well through the straw as we found out. this guy is running as we are driving down PCH and i have julie's sun glasses on and a shirt tied around my face with boba ready to be shot. what do i do? i rolled down the window, the guy looks straight at me and i blow. that thing went super far and actually hit him! i felt kinda bad...poor guy was just trying to do something healthy for himself and he gets pelted by a brown ball of tapioca by some stupid teenagers. haha sad, but SO funny! julie is a bad influence on me...hehehe! she caught it all on film! we were smart and only shot it at someone who couldn't chase us, like a car for example. that would be bad.

good times!

hope your week is finding you well!

some of my favorites from the night...

high jumpers unite...again!

me and matt! (aka. mattie poo as hannah and i like to say) i like how emilytyne is in the background...cute picture.

amy and i...i love this picture!

don't even ask. it is pretty darn hilarious though. my leg does not look like it is in a good place...totally unintentional!

hannah, looking beautiful as always.

i'm surprised at alicia and my acting skills...see we can put on a happy face and pretend not to hate each ohter to take a picture! haha just kidding, i love you, alicia.

it's just that this is more "us". me being weird and her wanting to kill me! haha we take the best pictures (remember our smack that one...good times).

how great is this?! we have got some serious attitude going on, man. august and i are good at faking looks of disgust at each other, but we love each other deep deep down.

JSB continued

me and jenna, who is looking mighty sexy! haha it's a joke when i asked her what her dress looked like she described it as "sexy". funny jenna.

august, grace, and i

kristen

laura

andrea...someone i'm actually taller than. haha!

rachel

bethany

yeah...who says i can't be gangsta! hehe...i can't

pre-JSB

attractive...not goig to lie haha!

don't even ask what betsy is doing...i haven't the faintest idea. i was trying to elbow here, but accidentally hit amy in the face in the process, hence her pained expression. sorry amy! :)

good a normal one...acctually this is unusual.

me and my mom

fotos de mi cumpleaños

tennis ball cake! actually a chocolate chip cheesecake...yum yum

totally a typical picture of us...katie eyeing what she wants, me looking like i'm in pain and betsy causing me to look in pain. ha!
katie got to enjoy the cookie that was the tennis ball

katie...what a cutie

i love this eye picture!!! august drew it a while back and had it on her binder. i always would say that i liked it and that she should draw me one. she gave it to me for my birthday! what a sweet heart. i believe i'm starting a collection of her art. i now have three things in my possession that she has made. :) haha

JSB pictues still to come

no longer sweet 16

now i'm 17! woohoo! haha i don't feel much different, but it does sound much older than 16.

it was a pretty awesome birthday, if i do say so myself. grace told me to get there early because she had to interview me for something at her church. i was like okay sure. i get to school at 7:45 and see her and amy. we begin walking in and then amy goes "oh i have to go back and get the cookies i brought for our spanish party" i offered to go with her, but grace dragged me away and amy said she would walk with august. i still didn't suspect a thing. in first period chelsea walks in and goes "happy birthday, danielle. i saw your car it looks really cute." i'm like what? then it clicked the entire interview thing was made up. haha wow did i feel stupid. anyways they had "bow attacked" my car. how funny!
they did completely cover it, but i had to take them off in order to drive home. i was able to leave the "17" on the back without the bows flying off though. :) i have some pretty creative friends. thanks guys!






i also went to JSB last night, which was a blast! i actually had a lot of fun. good stuff. i'll post some of those pictures later!

bye for now!

track warm ups + steep grass hills = perfect sliding fun!

well, well it has been yet another week of no sleep and tons of homework, but nonetheless still a fun one. i believe that i got a total of 7 hrs of sleep with monday night and tuesday night combined...haha so wednesday was definitely an interesting time. especially when one has a track meet :)

jumping i didn't do so hot...only 4'6", but the track meet was still fun. kinda. it was up in brentwood, so at 1:15 we all found ourselves packing onto the bus to head up there. since seating was minimal i had to sit next to someone i didn't know, which was fine, but we just didn't talk much. the ipods went in the ears and within five minutes of trying to do my chemistry homework i was out. didn't even wake up when we got there. hannah started calling my name and i still was dead asleep. then the girl i'm sitting next to has to start poking me in order to make me wake up. unfortunately my nap didn't help, but just made me more groggy and tired. boo! oh well, by the end of the meet i got over it and began sliding down hills. so the brentwood track is surrounded by a giant slope all the way around with the field and track in the middle. the slope is covered with that really long slick grass stuff that grows in little patches. anyone know what i'm talking about? well, anyways considering the incline, slick terrain and warm ups with the type of material that slides well, what else was i supposed to do? actually ryan went down first and then matt and i followed. we must have looked pretty funny sliding down a hill head first on our stomachs....ah, never a dull moment.

today was a good day as well. nothing too interesting. i made cup-cakes! that was fun and smelled delicious. i didn't even eat one and was still bouncing off the walls. i had a solo dance party in my house while my family was gone. yes it is the new cool thing to dance alone, in case you didn't know. just turn some music on and let the beat take you away. :) this was also my last day being 16. yes indeed tomorrow is my 17th birthday. yay! tomorrow will be good. can't go wrong with a half day, a birthday and JSB.

we'll hopefully i shall have some pictures to put up soon.
good night, friends! :)

~~~~~

i can't think of what to title this so you get squiggly lines
so, i'm in for yet another busy week. let me up date you all on some of the things going on.
we'll start with this weekend, shall we?

well, actually i didn't do much this weekend other than homework...oh, and i washed my car. exciting, i know. so, moving on now...

today i took an full length ap english practice test. icky! seriously by the last essay i didn't even know what i was talking about...something about a swamp as i recall :) oh, and i jumped 4'8" in practice first try, which isn't too bad.

tomorrow i get to take a history test...yay...haha not.

wednesday i have a track meet in brentwood...double yay (again sarcasm)

thursday: math test, which i REALLY need to do well on. have i ever mentioned math isn't my strong point? we'll it's not.

friday is what i'm actually looking forward to (who isn't always looking forward to friday). well, two good things about friday. it's my birthday. yes i'll be 17 that sounds old...scary. and JSB is on friday and i'm actually looking forward to that.

any who...as you may have gathered my life is not very interesting at the moment and my mind is perhaps not in the best state to wright a post. hehe!
so, i will leave it here for tonight, since i will probably be up for another hour or two...yuck! but, that means i get to hype up on caffeine tomorrow!!! yippee!

goodbye!

ps. i really really really want to make a pie...a lemon meringue pie...maybe i will, but alas i have no time to do it in...someday...soon...

what a week

"i've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped." haha name the movie!

anyways...twas a crazy week. most parts fun, some not so fun, but one things for sure: the entire week was busy! monday started off with a Phantom of the Opera outing with NHS, which was fun, but that was for sure a late night. i got home around 11:30 and then had to do homework. tuesday and wednesday were pretty normal days. yesterday we had track pictures, which i completely forgot my uniform for...that was an experience, but what ever it's over now, so no matter.

today was a pretty good day. track was canceled, so august and i went to it's a grind after school and just talked for like an hour. that was fun. then i came home and was going to wash my car, but instead watched a movie. hehe! i watched the princess bride (that is where the quote is from)...haven't seen that in forever. i had forgotten how hilarious it is. love it. then i attempted to do some homework, but instead ended up drawing a picture...don't ask and now i'm sitting here typing this boring and pointless post. sorry for that.

well, i shall inform you all if something interesting happens/ comes to mind to write about.

have a great weekend!

video time!

skiing slowly haha...i hate my commentary. oh and i like how i completely miss getting betsy and my mom in the video and get the trees instead. my recording skills while skiing are not good. :)

this is the freaky "trying to be rock" group outside of our complex. sooooo funny!

then betsy and i decided to get a closer look

well, hope you all enjoy your mondays tomorrow! twas a fun weekend for me.

pictures of Lake Tahoe

on the ski lift...like my glasses? haha i don't think they are me...they are my moms. i forgot my sunglasses :(

Lake Tahoe from the top of the mountain...absolutely beautiful.

i had to take a picture of this car in some random parking lot. it says "i wish my girl friend was this dirty"...ummm yeah you wish you had a girl friend buddy with an attitude like that!

if you look really close you can almost see a speck in the center...thats me!

me and betsy at the top

and with the lake in the background

this me at the "rock concert" haha...scary!

hello friends

i am back from my skiing adventures of Lake Tahoe. let me tell ya it was definitely SPRING skiing. i wore a long sleeve t-shirt and a vest and was completely fine. friday was cooler than saturday. saturday i didn't even need gloves. anyways...it was a pretty amazing trip. this year my family ended up going with some old family friends of ours (my sister and i went to elementary with them) that we used to do a lot of trips with, so that was kinda fun to re-connect and catch up. it was sorta awkward as well though just simply because we really don't have a lot in common anymore (more just i don't), but it was still cool.

we left thursday afternoon around 3:00. it was a good thing we left eary because we were driving into the airport and then my step dad realized he had forgotten his bag, so we went all the way back...it was yet another terrifying driving experience! he is a crazy man behind the wheel i tell you! 20 min to get from LAX to my house with traffic!!! i thought i was going to puke. seriously. anyway, we flew into the Reno airport and then drove to Tahoe. we skied all friday, which was fun. i did a couple of black diamonds and only ate it once. funny thing was i didn't even fall on a black diamond...it was on a pretty easy part. but, boy did i eat it good! lost a ski and a pole, landed on the back of my neck and rolled a couple times down the hill. haha! bet that was a sad sight! no worries though...didn't leave any lasting damage...perhaps a bruise or two, but i just got up and kept going.
saturday we also skied all day, this time i managed without falling. it got up to 70* that day! crazy! it was a bit cooler at the top of the mountain, but only by about 6 or 7 degrees. the view of the lake from the top was absolutely beautiful though! after skiing and betsy and i getting lost in the trees (courtesy of me :) we made it back to our condo, where we thought we would be able to relax a bit before going into town. but instead there was some type of freaky rock concert going on right below us. i'm a fan of rock, but not this kind...screaming galore! i took a video of it so i'll post it later. pretty hilarious.
today was nothing too interesting we walked around old town Truckee (major town there), which was nice. it has a bunch of cute little random shops. then it was off to Reno to catch a flight. but, on the way we happened to stop and get gas at the location of the Bonnie and Clyde famous death car. random? i think so. seriously out in the middle of no where there is a chevron, a random casino (well, it is Nevada) and in the casino a few historical items from Bonnie and Clyde. it has the car they were shot in and also the shirt he got shot in. i was slightly disappointed that they had washed the shirt and cleaned it up...come on now keep it all natural and preserved the way it was. blood and all. with how many bullet holes the car and the shirt had in them there must have been blood. haha is that morbid? betsy thought i was a freak and disgusting, but whatever. so that experience was cool, i guess. random, but cool.

well, that pretty much concludes the condensed version of my trip.
i'll put some videos and pictures up in a little bit.

talk about manic mondays...

yesterday had to be the absolute craziest monday of my life! it was great!
it started by me getting cut off by scott cowie. this is the second time he has done that to me...loser. haha just kidding...pretty funny actually.
nothing else very interesting happend (unless you count your spanish teacher telling you she wishes you would pass out...haha she was kidding...i think :) until third period when i got yelled at by mrs. flietstra and growled at by mrs. hogan. creepy! so, amy and i are messing around and amy somehow slams my finger in to the chair (OUCH!) it hurt, but i was laughing at the same time. so flietstra asks who did the girls soccer page (which i did) and i didn't hear her because i was getting over the pain in my fingers so she repeated it and i make the connection. "oh sorry i have the girls soccer page"
her response: "danielle i just can't deal with you right now...just go sit down and pay attention!"
psh whatever...i don't really have respect for her (which is know is bad, but...), so that didn't bug me too much. obviously it had no impact on me since i left class without telling her (she didn't even notice) to help allison with some stuff and go with her to ask mrs. hogan a computer question (this is the growling part). we walk into the computer lab (by the way there is a class going on), ask our question and then of course hogan brings up track. she asked allison if she was going to be at the meet saturday, but then turns to me and growls. no joke! then to state the obvious: "grrrr! i growl at you" ummm...yeah wouldn't have figure that one out. the entire class looked up at us. i had to force myself not to look at allison while we turned and walked out of the room; it was all i could to, to keep myself from laughing in front of her. i have weird experiences with her.

things just got better in fourth period history. we have this thing called a connecting chapter but mr. bras calls it a sista chapter and then proceeds to sing the "sista sista" theme song. well, anyways he has a baseball game on the screen, but then sister sister comes on. we all go "look mr. bras...its sister sister". he stops turns to look at it then jumps and just yells "SWEET!" while diving for the volume button (it had been muted). but then to make things even funnier since it wasn't good enough that he was so genuinely excited about the show coming on he starts dancing and singing the song. you had to be there, but it was absolutely hilarious! he is awesome. bible was quite hilarious as well. it always is with ms. admiraal, but we somehow spent an entire 25 minutes discussing how to do a chicken impression followed by some pretty actuate ones. so random.

track was is whole other experience...always is with the high jumpers. we somehow got in a grass fight. this did not end well for matt. you see we were not just throwing grass at each other, but trying to stuff it in each mouths...nasty! well, matt was attacking caitly, who was on the ground trying to cover her mouth, so i tried to go to her aid, which just ended in both matt and i falling on top of her, but the best thing was just as we had fallen hannah comes out of nowhere with a half-melted bag of ice and dumps it on matt, getting him full in the face! amazing hannah! :) no one saw that coming. twas a fun day at track practice.

well, unfortunately today was not as eventful, but no problem.
sorry that was a bunch of rambling about things none of you really care about...they were funny at the time, but i'm not sure reading about them is quite as captivating.

hope everyone is having a good week!

4'10 to karaoke...

well, i had another track meet in downey today, which was nice since we were able to drive ourselves and then leave when we wanted to :) always a good thing. best part though was tying my PR of 4ft 10 inches again! i also had one pretty solid attempt at 5ft (oh that's high) it was a good day for jumping. especially because i distinctly remember no making a height at this meet last year and crying. i also remember getting lost behind a green fence and needing some intelligent assistance from rebekah, but that is another story...haha!

after i was done jumping i went home, did some homework and took a nap. it was nice. then tonight julie and i went to dinner and then to a karaoke place! awesome!

well, well, i'm sleepy, but hope everyone is having a good weekend. bye for now!

showing my rebellious side :)

things have been crazy! fun, but crazy. i was up till 12:30 last night doing homework and then was a bad girl this morning and skipped chapel and 1st period so i could study for my history test. :0 i know, but my mom was fine with it and called the office. i also didn't go to track practice today. hehe! i know i'm a rebel.

anyways...i did have a track meet yesterday, which i jumped horrible at, but still had a blast. seriously we do the craziest things! like steam-rolling across downy's mat, which is much longer than ours. by the way steam-rolling is when you all lay in a line side by side and then the end person rolls over everyone else, then the next person goes and so on...till you get to the edge then you go back! :) haha what can i say we are easily amused.
what else? oh, mrs. hogan totally creepified me (and yes i just made that word up), but what else is new. but no, how encouraging is this..."so what did you jump today"
me: "just 4'6" " (fyi that isn't THAT bad)
"oh, what happened? you did so good here before"
ummmm....thanks? what the heck, mrs. hogan why don't you try jumping anything over 4 ft and then we'll talk. ugh! makes me so mad.

*inhale *exhale

okay i'm good now...sorry for my venting; just had to get that out.

oh! we are having a high jump jello party tonight!!! yeah we are cool! :) you all wish you were invited and did hj...it'll be fun.

well, i think that is about all thats happening in my oh-so-interesting life.
adios

"a cliche that actually comes to life..."

this video cracks me up...so sad, but so adorable and hilarious at the same time!

in a way i think we can connect this to God...although we can't always see God, just like we can't always see our shadow, doesn't mean that He isn't there. i'm not talking about physically seeing, but more seeing God in the world (people's actions, love, sin etc...). sometimes the fact that God knows my every though, every move, every breath can be a scary and quite overwhelming thought. but, more often than not i find it comforting. unlike a shadow God doesn't disappear when the sun goes down, but remains with us all the time. even in the darkest of places He is there and will never desert you.

have a good rest of the week!