thanksgiving

i know it's been a week since thanksgiving, but i am finally getting around to putting up some pictures of it. for thanksgiving, my family and i drove up to my aunt and unles' house in castro valley (that's in the bay area). i wasn't really sad about not getting to home until sunday when i couldn't see my fam at church. i really miss them all, but i will be there in a week, so i think i can make it! it was really nice to see my parents and brothers, as well as all my extended family. we did the traditional thanksgiving dinner, and then on friday we all went into san fransisco which was lots of fun. i wouldn't say it was relaxing, however, because there were 16 of us in one house, and 7 of them were boys between the ages of 9 and 16. interesting, funny, crazy, but definitely not relaxing. i am really looking forward to going home so i can just relax with my family and have quality time with my brothers and parents.

one thing i was thankful for was friday night. my brothers and cousins were off somewhere playing video games or beating each other up or jumping off a cliff or something of the sort, and all the adults and i (i don't considere myself an adult even though i am almost twenty, it's just too weird) sat around the table and talked. my grandaparents and three of the their four kids, my dad being the second oldest, talked about when they were growing up and different memories. i love hearing aobut my parents when they were kids, and i had lots of fun learning about different kinds of trouble they caused. a few highlights: my dad shooting a firecracker through the kitchen window; my uncle picking up my aunt while riding his skateboard, resulting in her getting stitches and a scar on her chin which she still has to this day; my grandma tricking her kids into eating beef hearts by cutting them into little squares and calling them "square meats". I also got to hear how my grandparents met; it was so cute! fifty-five years later, and here they still are. love it. it is kind of a long story, and this entry is long enough already, so i will save it for another time.

for now, i just need to get through finals week, and am off to study now. then i have 3 fabulous weeks of family, disneyland, christmas, friends, and no school!

girl time

on saturday, my friends dragged me to the avila pier for pier day. we got to see some ocean critters and smell the salty air. it was great to just hang out and be girls. we all have such busy schedules that when the five of us all get to hang out, it is pretty rare. i love the beach, and it was so fun getting my toes sandy; the beach always puts me in a good mood! for the rest of the day we went to the grocery store, made gingerbread houses, and played jenga (don't ask me why). it was a good time just to catch up and have fun!

on sunday, i went to church, and the pastor was talking about having joy and praising God through your suffering. while i am not suffering right now because life is pretty good, it was still very powerful. i had lunch with a bunch of church friends after, which was a lot of fun. then i went to the pool and did tai bo! now my arms hurt, but i feel very productive. overall, it was a nice, relaxing weekend and exactly what i needed before a long week.

catching up

ok, so i am officailly horrible at keeping up with this. but i will try harder. yesterday, i woke up early (you should be sitting down) and went swimming. after 100 yards, i was tired and out of breath. pathetic. i was on the swim team in high school and i really loved it, and i miss it, so hopefully i will contiue this tradition of slowly floating (can't really call it swimming yet, i am too out of shape) up and down the pool until my muscles can't stand it anymore.

i seem to be in this situation a lot in my life. i know i will feel so much better after swimming, and i did; i was in a great mood for the rest of the day, yet i hate the sound of the alarm and conteplate just going back to sleep. i have homework to do, yet i would rather just put it off until the night before even though i know i will be stressed and not do it to the best of my ability (i have been getting better at this though). i know there is no way i can make it through life without relying on God to bring through the highs and lows, and whenever i have quiet time, i am so much closer with the Lord, and i have this joy that can only come from spending time with God. and still, if i have quiet time 4 times a week, that's good. on a smaller scale, i have also just been bad at keeping up with this blog. clearly self discipline is something i'm going to have to ask God to help me with.

as for this weekend, last night i went to the midnight openeing of james bond (didn't understand the plot, but his eyes are gorgeous). i then had class at 8 this morning (yay for 4 hours of sleep), and i am going to a gingerbread house making party tomorrow. as for the rest of the weekend, i will be doing homework and catching up on grey's anatomy, private practice, and the office during my breaks.

lastly, i don't know if you have heard about the fire at westmont, but already 170 houses have been burned down, as well as buildings on campus. please pray for safety and that the firefighters can put it out quickly.

if you have read this all the way to the end, you get a star! i will (hopefully) write again soon.

boys.

can't live with them, can't... nope, that's it.

take action

at bible study, we are studying the book of ruth. can i just say right now, ruth is a pretty bomb woman. her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law died, leaving her with naomi, her mother-in-law, and orpah, her sister-in-law. naomi told rught and orpah to go back to their home towns and marry again, but ruth didn't. she clung to naomi and took care of her. she went to bethlehem, which was not her home. she has to start all over and might not get married again. going back to her home town would mean security, but she didn't want security. she knew naomi's god is the true God, and she followed him. right when naomi and ruth got to bethlehem, ruth was tired so she kicked back and turned on hgtv and told naomi to make her some popcorn. just kidding. she went to the fields to gather the grain that the field workers had missed. this was a very low and humbling thing to do, but she did it, because she needed to take care of naomi. ruth saw what needed to be done, and she did it. this seems like a pretty simple concept, but how often do we actually do this? for me, i don't do it enough. many times i am too wrapped up in my own life, and bother to think that other people have needs that need to be taken care of. it is time to be more observant, and more take action. what i like about ruth is that she submitted herself to god's will, but she didn't sit around waiting for him to bring an opportunity to her. god wants us to get up off our couches and take action, do something with our priveledged lives, and actually make a difference.

first one

well, i suppose i will start out by saying that im laura and i love jesus, purple, my friends, my family, and food. i am a sophmore at cal poly slo and i love it. i am living in an apartment with three friends, and we have been having a lot of fun being on our own and being our own sort of dysfunctional family (they decided i was the annoying little sister). i'm just starting to get into the swing of things with school, now that we are starting the fourth week. hopefully i will find some interesting things to write about for later, or maybe i will just babble on like i usually do and you can understand how weird i am. either works for me.