Friendship

I just wanted to tell you what an awesome friend you are, and that I really miss you and can't wait for you to come home. love you man.
The Giants game last Friday was amazing! Probably one of the best games all season. 754 was beautiful and it came in a game that had back-to-back home runs by Feliz and Molina, plus a Ray hr, and then a spectacular Omar play from a sitting position on the ground, and Sweeney getting his 151st pinch hit to put him ahead of Mota on the all time list. Very very cool; class act that Sweeney. Maybe you caught some replays online. I'll put some pics up soon.
Morris got traded for a Pirate outfielder, don't know much about him.
Oh, Bill Walsh died yesterday :( As you know, a major loss to football and the bay area. If you get a chance while you're online, or when you come back, check out Brent Jones' interview with Ralph on KNBR.com.

Swim Meets

Recent swim stats are in.
Coach, can I just say that they are off the charts and not the hook?

20!!!!

On the day of your interent viewing, I wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! And yea, coming back alive and full of cool African stories would be a pretty awesome birthday present for me. I miss you so much and can't wait to see you in a couple more weeks. Are you going to the bush now? Take pictures of all the animals.
Oh and to celebrate your birthday, I'm going to the Giants game Friday night :) If only Barry would hit one more tonight...and then tomorrow...

Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen . . .

[Setting: Milpitas Pool. Learn-to-swim, level 1. Three ~7 y/o GIRLS, and ME]

ME: OK, guess how old I am.

GIRLS: Forty!

ME: [Incredulous]...No. No, you're wrong. Guess again.

[GIRLS eventually get it right after several guesses]

ME: Right. I'm twenty. [All peppy and teacher-ish] What are YOU girls going to do when you're twenty??:D

GIRLS: Die.




HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! I thought I should celebrate quick before you are lion brunch, so I made you a birthday cupcake!

No, I didn't. But I did make you a birthday blueberry muffin with chocolate frosting...

I love you, Hudson! I hope you have an amazing day (when it comes), and p.s. I secretly want you to live ;)

Mermaids and Sushi

It rained today during swim lessons (first time I have been swimming in the rain in a long, long time!), and I thought my day could not get any better. It was hella super sex sick sweet glorious, bro. But then! Oh, then I ran 2.25 miles and biked 5 more, sweated out a dozen buckets of juice (so hot am I), and was not suffocated by asthma. Then! I sang Christmas songs while taking a shower, the latter being a hygienic practice that is not something that happens very often these days. And THEN! class was CANCELLED! due to a BOMB THREAT! in the men's room. Whoever did that should absolutely be arrested...but I would still like to shake his hand first, once he is handcuffed. Then I did a dance in the driver's seat and drove home. Then I had sushi with my parents and thought about you and your amazing wasabi feat of strength. All in all, I miss you, bud, have you been swimming in any watering holes, good night. [SAS]

Speed of Light

I hope Daniel's Kenyan bandwidth can handle all those pictures and that his laptop doesn't actually turn on him in a fit of rage when trying to download them, effectively ending his 19-year lifespan. Like Wikipedia would....

More pictures.

Here's Kristen's room. I'm done messing up the format on this pretty blog page. Sorry. And...here's some of my daycare kids--absolutely adorable!

Also

I am technically challenged and don't understand the pictures. Lets try it again.

Our SLO home

I just got back from our beautiful SLO home and am unwinding in front of the TV after having just watched two wonderful episodes of Gilmore Girls (in which Rory gets her first kiss and waits to tell her mom, who hears it through the grapevine and gets hurt, and Lorali goes on her first date with Mr. Medina). All in all a touching show. Anyways, the house is clean, new furniture moved in and we now have three new glass topped tables! We may only have use for two, but the two that we have are really nice! :] They aren't assembled yet (I was hoping we could muster all our man-friends/engineer geniuses to help put them together) but when they are assembled, I think we'll really like them. We still need chairs, though. :) I hope Africa is treating you well, I just wanted to post some (or one, I'm not sure how this whole blogging thing really works) pictures of our new place, because I'm sure you'll be spending oodles of time there (as its only one mile from campus and oh so convenient and homey!) :)

I Like Sundays

I had a blood test after the freaky photo-dermatitis (?) event of my body briefly testing hell's fires. I am so glad to know that there are actually people out there who appreciate my blood :)

I'm done with Home Church, which is sad after so many years (aka my whole life!). I really don't get church here in the Silicon Valley. I've been to several churches since I've been back now from Milpitas to practically Morgan Hill, and what I don't understand is, why are they so the same?? With a God who is rather diverse and multi-faceted, there might be more variety in the way we approach him, even if that does seem a bit risky for big church corporations in our step-by-step-program, high-tech land. It's a little bit discouraging. I take Crusade and Shoreline for granted in SLO, that's for sure!

What is a church service like in Kenya?

Yeahhh. Daniel, you need to come back or something so we can chit and chat face-to-face, because I feel pretty silly writing like this on the www, but what can a girl do? No letters, phone calls, smoke signals. I also want your mom's pie . . .

Nothing else too terribly new to report. [SAS]

So, How's the Weather?

Dearest Hudson,

My toes and thumbs hurt a GREAT DEAL. Like the continuous smashing of a hammer and the biting of many fire ants. I think they are sunburned. That's what I get for not bathing my toes and thumbs in SPF 60 as I do the rest of my body. Twice a day. Burnt toes and thumbs is a pretty good reason to skip astronomy tonight too, by the way.

So how are those African night skies? Breathtaking? The universe is so awesome and brilliant and mystical! And...really, really big. Like, imagine if the sun is the head of a pin on one end of a hallway at Mission College, then Pluto is at the other end of the hallway (about 20 yards), and the nearest star is somewhere just south of SANTA ROSA! And the idea that looking at the stars tonight is a long, shiny look at the universe as it was millions of years ago is simply mind-blowing. Seriously. Each class period of astronomy--all three happy hours of it--totally sets me in awe of how inconceivably huge--huger than even time--and yet so lovingly into details our God is. I'm jealous of you and your view tonight!


Today was free slurpee day yeeeahhh baby. I had Coke and blue vanilla. And I won a slam too. You + America = 30ish more days! [SAS]

Home run derby: Cove

Sadly only 2 balls made it to the water, and they were both foul. Vlad won.

Life.

I hope all is well in Africa and the backyards and beaches of the Californian wilderness. I for one have thus far had a pretty fast paced summer and am hoping it will slow down a little, maybe just enough for a quick breather every now and then. I haven't met any feral animals, though I have some playful kittens who would disagree. They're finally learning how to sheath their claws and bite GENTLY, cute little tykes (I never say it that nice when they've got their little weapons sunk in me). Jenn Kay took the little girl Siamese, Sierra is thinking of taking the Grey and Black one (though its tentative if she'll keep both of them)and it looks as if my family might keep Teddy. The little boy. We call him Teddy Bear, though Teddy or Bear for short (Theodore when he's being naughty). I have to say that Sarah's room looks better then mine at the moment. Haha. Erm. I'm taking all my possessions out of my dresser and desk to move it down to SLO this coming weekend (we still on?). Along with those two lovely pieces of furniture, a huge blue couch and rickety old twin bed will also be traveling down south with us. My grandparents are almost completely moved in to their new assisted living community, though neither one of them are very happy at the moment. We think my grandma is depressed and are scheduling her for the doctors this upcoming week. Now that they're almost all taken care of moving wise, Mom and I will be spending the remaining free time of the summer driving up to clear lake to clean out their old house and make it look as good as we can to put it on the market. It's going to be a very busy summer! Phew! Good thing I can read all about our missing comrade in action's adventures. And I'm really glad that the camera is working out for you! Good luck to Sarah with cleaning her room--mine will take a miracle to fix) and to Kristen with her new job--I know you'll absolutely ROCK! :)

Only 1 month and a couple days left...

Summer has been fairly non-eventful so far. I did have fun in Santa Rosa and got to see Garrett and his family for a few days. We all definitely need to go up there when you get back. You would love playing air-soft with Mr. Suave and his brothers; Dexter let me fire his new gun...i must say, it's pretty cool. I'm working at a clothing store now (one that you would never set foot in). My fellow employees are a lot nicer than the Togo's people though. The home run derby is tonight; Barry's not doing it, but he did get voted into the game as a starter. The cove is going to be packed of course.
I hope everything's going well and that your soccer skills are improving. I'm praying for you and miss you very much.