I LOVE CANADA!!!

Canada was SO AWESOME. It was SUCH a fun trip! Quick list of all the things I got to do:

• Niagara "Behind the Falls" Tour
• Stayed at a hotel that had a waterpark in it
• Went to that waterpark for about four hours (also had a pizza party there!)
• Ate at a three-story McDonald's
• Met people with awesome Canadian accents
• Visited the CN Observation Tower
• Went to a Rainforest Cafe
• Saw the touring Broadway show of West Side Story
• Went to Canada's Wonderland for ten hours
• Rode a double decker bus on a two hour tour of Toronto

One of the highlights of the trip was definitely the double-decker bus tour. I loved sitting on the top of the bus and our tour guide was SO MUCH FUN. At one point, we went through an Irish section of the town and Mark (our tour guide) said, "The Irish came over to Toronto during the potato famine. When they moved here, the closest church was a few blocks away, and since they're drunkards and incredibly lazy, they decided, 'Hey! What the potato! We'll build our own church right here!'...cause you know 'What the potato!' was a common saying back then." HAHA! We were saying that the rest of the trip and the ride home...oh my word...so funny.

West Side Story has to be the other highlight...I love that show so much. So emotional...such good music...so inappropriately funny...haha, I was roaring at some points. The humor in that show is just so bawdy, but it's perfect!

Fantastic senior trip. :)

The entire Music Department at Canada Wonderland at the end of the day.

This picture was posted at a bus stop and I had to pose with him...haha!

Me and my Polish friend Jen! She's my fashionista buddy. :)

Me and Andre freaking out in the tunnels of Niagara Falls.

More Miracles!

God has answered SO many prayers lately it's insane...first of all, my friend's mom is doing really well. She did have a small stroke but they got her to the hospital in time and the doctors took great care of her.

Secondly, I had a whole ton of miracles last night at the Music Banquet. Every year, the music department has this banquet to recognize all the members (well...all the ones that show up), hand out senior awards, and announce scholarship winners. There were three awards/scholarships available that I was eligible for.

The first was the Director's Award, which is something Mr. O gives out and he chooses who he feels is his most "outstanding" senior. He started giving a speech about it, talking about how the person receiving this goes above and beyond and hasn't stopped working since 9th grade...well BEFORE 9th grade...and at that point I knew it was me. He loves to tell the story of how when I was in 8th grade, he came to the Spring concert at the middle school and after only being there two minutes, this girl came up to him asking, "When does marching band start? Did I miss it? Can I join? When's the first day? What do I need to bring?" Yupp...that was me. :)

The second was the Matt B. Scholarship. The distributor chose to give $1000 to five people this year...and I was one of them. :)

And the third, was the Chaz H. Scholarship. The recipient has to play at least 3 instruments, be a positive role model, excellent work ethic, great grades, a leader...all these really great qualities that Chaz had (he was a member of the marching band...died in a car accident in 2008). Well, I got to hug Mr. O a third time that night...cause I was awarded that scholarship as well. :)

Mr. O (band director), myself, and Briana H. (Chaz's sister)

It was so unreal and overwhelming...after I was named as the recipient for the Chaz H. Scholarship, my mom came over (she was sitting at another table) and gave me a huge hug and told me how proud she was of me. And then of course we both start crying right in the middle of the banquet...haha.

Praise God for such a wonderful night and a phenomenal four years with the music department. :)

Thanks, God. :)

One of my very close friend's mom's was admitted into the hospital tonight due to severe chest pain. The doctors have been doing tests for a few hours and they think she might have had a stroke.

Please add her and the entire family to your prayer list...

God is Good

Last night at post prom when they were drawing the raffle tickets for the prizes, I was actually praying that I would win something. But not so much for me...for my mom. I've always known our finances aren't that great, but recently I found out just how bad things have gotten.

I put my tickets in to win a gift card to Best Buy (so I could buy my laptop for college and mom wouldn't have to worry about it) and a gift card to the mall (because I need to buy nicer clothes for my Career Study and didn't want her worrying about that either).

As they were pulling the raffles I just kept praying...God, I really need a miracle right now. I don't know if you consider my number being picked a miracle but that's kind of what it is to me and my family really needs it right now.

Well, I didn't win either of those. But God works in mysterious ways...instead, I won $50 cash from a random drawing.

The miracle continues...

This morning when mom came home from church, she told she had exciting news to share. She talked about how during worship one of the songs really affected her and she started crying. After service, one of her friends took her outside to the garden to talk, cause she could tell my mom needed it. When she had finished sharing about all the stresses of still dealing with grandma's death, school, taking care of the house, kids, and paying bills, her friend told her she needed to go to one of the church staff and let them know what was going on.

The church is now completely paying for two of our overdue bills.

God gave us two miracles. :)

God is so good,
God is so good,
God is so good,
He's so good to me!

He answers prayer,
He answers prayer,
He answers prayer,
He's so good to me!

The English Major in Me

Morning after prom all the prom pictures go up. I was looking through one of my friend's albums and saw a really goofy picture of her and another girl. In the comments section, she wrote, "you and me were SOOOOOO hot!" And then the other girl replied, "Oh yeah!!!!!!!!! ;)"
Okay, let's go through this piece by piece and explain how it is completely and utterly INCORRECT.

First of all, the 'y' in "you" is not capitalized.
Secondly, because the phrase "you and me" is subjective, it should be "you and I".
Third, there should be a comma after "you and me", which, as previously established, should be changed to "you and I".
Fourth, "were" should be "we're"--without the apostrophe the sentence meaning changes completely. Instead of "we ARE hot" in the present tense, she is praising that they "WERE hot", past tense...something I'm not sure they want to be celebrating.
Fifth, the caps lock and extended use of 'o' in "SOOOOOO" is not necessary.

Oh the joys of being an English major and feeling the need to correct a trivial comment on Facebook. :)

I have a corner in my classroom. :) I've been getting notes and pictures from kids and I put them up on the back board along with some drawings I've done in class and now I have my own little part of the room. :)