A Tropical Christmas Season

Ok, so I missed the month of November. But really, who's surprised? Quick summary: I worked on Thanksgiving but had a nice 99 cent feast with some co-workers, yay Disney for feeding their employees well for cheap. :) Chris got me a GORGEOUS Disney necklace for our anniversary, it's splendid. :) Jordan came to visit me for a weekend and we had an amazing, wonderful, splendiforous time. :) Here's me and her with the boss's girl:

So that was absolutely wonderful and I looked forward to that weekend for a long time. Also, I worked 8 days in a row in order to have those 3 days off...WORTH IT! I wish I could hang out with my best friends in Disney all the time. :) We did many joyful things. For example, the night she got here we went to the Polynesian Resort to watch Wishes on the beach. We thought it started at 9, so we were sinning on a swing catching up and waiting for it to start, but at 9 the most bizarre light show started on the lake in front of us...it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Jordan didn't think much of Wishes, until I explained to her that was NOT Wishes...apparently, Wishes started that night at 10. So we went inside the Polynesian and got some amazing Dole Whip...and THEN watched Wishes on a broken hammock that we jerryrigged so we could sit on it...it was a little scary, considering the slightest move could have caused it to break and fall, but I think it was well worth it. :) Then the next day we had reservations at Le Chefs de France, and we watched Illuminations on the dock in Mexico...it was gorgeous. :) Then we had reservations at Kona Cafe the day she left...it was a wonderful trip. :)

Also in November, we had the Disney College Program formal.  Basically, they wanted us to re-live Prom, except it was awesome. Lots of tasty, free food, and lots of characters to meet, like the MAD HATTER!!

Anyways, so to December now. I have less than a month until I go home...and I think I'm a little sad about it. :( My job is amazing if only for the people that I work with and I'm not ready to say goodbye to them. Unfortunately, tonight I have to say bye to one, who is going home tomorrow because he had a sharp keychain. It happens. *shrug* We will be going to Ohana tonight in the Polynesian to bid him an amazing happy birthday/goodbye. Love you, Corey. :)

Since it's the Christmas season, I have been trying to make myself feel as festive as possible. For example, I drink a cup of tea or coffee almost every day, I listen to Christmas music on the way to work, and I watch things like Charlie Brown Christmas on Hulu. Nevermind that it's 80 degrees in Orlando and there are no Christmas lights anywhere in my work place, I refuse to miss the Christmas season, I don't care how tropical and summer-y it feels. So for that reason, I had a massive girls' night last night at my place. We watched Christmas movies, had stupid conversation and ate massive amounts of food. :)

So, I know I did this last blog, but last night I made a cookie and I want to post the recipe for it again. :) They are tasty delicious!

Snowball Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups walnuts, finely chopped
3 tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 lb butter, room temperature
pinch of salt
Powdered sugar, to coat (about 1 cup)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. (Flour, sugar, salt, walnuts). Add the vanilla extract. Add the butter in small pieces, and combine everything together with your hands until the mixture's consistency is like a thick oatmeal. (Make sure your hands are clean!!)

 This dough isn't the most tasty, but just trust that it makes delectable cookies. :)

After it is to the right consistency, roll the dough into balls no larger than a walnut and place them on a prepared cookie sheet. Give them some space, because these cookies will flatten out a bit in the oven.

Bake the cookies for 35 minutes. Once you have taken them out and let them cool, roll them in powdered sugar until sufficiently coated. (Make sure you let them cool long enough...if not, they can be extremely crumbly when you try to pick them up. Give it about 7-10 minutes.)

And then, enjoy the cookies and share the christmas cheer with your friends! At least, my friends seemed to enjoy them. :)

So anyways, I have about 3 more weeks here, and a bunch of my favorite people get here in less than one week. You might say I'm a little bit excited. As for now, I'm going to try to get over this cold I've been struggling with for a while before everyone gets here.

Time to get ready for Ohana. :)

Courtney

P.S. I "graduate" from the Disney program tomorrow morning, how exciting! I get my ears and everything. :)

Football and Cookies

So this past week I worked a grand total of 2 days because of...well, let's just call it a series of unfortunate events. Tuesday and Saturday I had scheduled off and Wednesday through Friday I was forced to call in sick. It was awesome...except not. I was quite bored the vast majority of the time, sitting around in my apartment having nothing to do and barely able to walk. I'm crossing my fingers that I never have to do that again while I'm here, because on top of actually missing being at work, my paycheck is basically nonexistent this week. :/

Ok so there's the negativity of the week. Moving on from that. :) Now, usually my off days are Tuesday and Wednesday...that's my weekend. A while ago, though, I put in a request to have Saturday the 13th off. Everyone who reads this will probably judge me, but that's ok...I asked off so on Saturday I would be free to watch the Red River Rivalry (which also happened to be the first football game I've really gotten to watch since this season started!) So Saturday rolls around and I go to Chris's apartment to watch the most beautiful game of football I've seen in quite a long time. :) (Side note--BOOMER SOONER!) And while I was watching that game, I also got to bake some DELICIOUS pumpkin cookies!!

Now, I might be a little obsessed with these cookies...they are the absolute easiest things to make and they are so moist and wonderful and delicious...I wish it was acceptable to eat these year-round, but I'm a very big supporter of leaving things that belong in certain seasons within that season...so Christmas music doesn't start until the day after Thanksgiving, wearing pastels stays in the Spring months, and these pumpkin cookies don't get baked until Fall is announced. :) There's just something about having one of these cookies with a glass of milk for a nice snack, or break from homework...or breakfast...is that too much? *guilty look*

So since my second favorite season has officially begun, I made the cookies!!! And now I am going to share the simple and splendid recipe with all 2 of you who read this. :)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (With Cream Cheese Icing)

COOKIE:

Ingredients:
1 package spice cake mix (18.25 0z)
1 can pure pumpkin (15 oz)
1/2 to 1 bag mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
makes about 2 dozen cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, stir together the cake mix and pumpkin until well blended, and then add in the chocolate chips.
 

Mmmm...tasty dough. :)

Using a spoon, drop dough in dollops onto a greased cookie sheet, leaving a bit of room between each cookie. (This dough doesn't rise much so you don't need to worry too terribly about the cookies spreading...they basically maintain their shape.)
Bake them for about 18 to 20 minutes in the pre-heated oven.  (I rotate the pan every 5 minutes but you don't have to...I only do that because I was scarred in my old apartment by a terrible oven...one half of the trey of cookies were burned and the other half wasn't even done cooking. It was awful. And very confusing...)

Here is a picture of a trey of the cookies straight out of the oven. Seriously, they don't change their shape much at all, it's kind of fun. :) After they're out, just leave them to cool for a few minutes and then they're ready to be iced!

ICING:

Ingredients:

2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the powdered sugar.

It is THAT simple.  Don't ice all of the cookies at once, just the ones you plan on eating, and store the leftover icing in the fridge until you need it later.

And that's it, that's the recipe for possibly my favorite cookie in all the world...in fact, I think I would like to have one right now! Mmmmmm. :D :D

I'm carving a pumpkin tomorrow that I bought today at a cute little Baptist Church's pumpkin patch. Hopefully when I'm done it will look like Stitch, but plans could change...or I could fail. I'm excited, though, it's been a long time since I last carved a pumpkin!

Cookie time. :)

Courtney

P.S. Holy cow...2 blogs within the span of a week. I can't even believe it! I hope no one gets used to this...

The Adventure

So Disney is absolutely wonderful. :) My job is pretty great--it involves a lot of multiple aspects, so only rarely do I feel like I've been doing the same thing for too long.  The people I work with are tons of fun. I even found a couple girls to start going to church with! So that's exciting.  

Last week, Chris and his roommate Matt (who also happens to be one of my co-workers) decided to go on an adventure/mission throughout the parks of Disney.  We decided we wanted to try to ride every thrill ride in all 4 of the parks in one day. So, we left around 10:30 to have breakfast at Panera Bread and then around 11:15 we were on our way! We started in Epcot and rode Mission: Space, the Orange track, of course. :)

 That was a good time. It was the only ride we considered a thrill ride in Epcot, however. As much fun as Soarin' is, I wouldn't quite call it "thrilling". So that was the end of Epcot.  We did, however, stop in the Festival Center for a bit to get free chocolate, look at all the wines and chocolate art and wish we had more money to buy all the Mickey Mouse kitchen utensils.  And then we were on our way to The Magic Kingdom! It's Matt's favorite park, and the whole time he was emphasizing how much he wanted to stop and watch Dream Along With Mickey on the castle stage, but I was determined to not stop because I didn't want to fail. We didn't end up making it to MK until around 1:30 and we had to ride two rides there and then make our way to Animal Kingdom and ride two more rides there before that parked closed at 5, so I was feeling pressed for time. We fast-passed Splash Mountain for 2:45 since the line was almost an hour wait and headed over to ride Space Mountain, one of my favorite rides in all the parks.

                                               
 After that we realized we had about an hour still before our fast pass so we stopped for lunch at Tortuga Tavern and then, to the joy of Matt, we got to go watch Dream Along With Mickey.  I learned that day that he has that entire show memorized...that was impressive.  So that ended and we made our way over to Splash Mountain!

 After Splash Mountain, we made a quick stop at first aid to grab a bandaid for me (my chacos gave me a blister...that was frustrating) and then hurried along to Animal Kingdom! At this point we were also racing some rain and by the time we got to Animal Kingdom we only had an hour before the park closed.  First stop was Dinosaur!

 And then Expedition Everest, where I realized that from one point on the ride you can see all three of the other parks...that was cool. :)

 We finished in Animal Kingdom with 15 minutes to spare before it closed, and still the rain was holding out.  So we headed to our final stop--Hollywood Studios! We grabbed a fast pass for Rockin' Roller Coaster that was for about 30 minutes from that point, so that was nice.  We went and rode Tower of Terror (Chris's least favorite ride) and I am happy to report that we all survived it.

After Tower of Terror we still had 15 minutes before our fast pass time so we all bought some treats as we waited...I got some chocolate ice cream, it was tasty. :) And then was our last ride, and what we all agree is the absolute best ride in all of the parks, Rockin' Roller Coaster. :D
                                               

DEFINITELY my favorite ride of the day/all of Disney.  We got done around 6:30 and we were rather exhausted, but feeling very successful in our endeavor.  We had originally talked about ending the day in Universal to just ride one thrill ride like Hulk or something, but I think we all knew that was a long shot.  We would have had basically an hour to drive over there, park, walk over there and check in, and honestly we were all so tired that it didn't seem very ideal at all. 

So that was our Day of Adventure.  Up next on my agenda is Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party on the 23rd and then a special sneak-peek viewing of the new Fantasyland on the 30th...I am very excited for both of those things. :)

All of this to say that I am having a wonderful time here in Orlando, Florida.  I know I haven't been super diligent in keeping up with this, and hopefully that will change, but like I said in my very first post, I can make no promises, and honestly the fact that I have kept up with it for this long is a pretty big deal. I'll try to post another one in the next week talking more about what I've been up to here on a daily basis, but if I don't, I'll surely have one up documenting my time at Mickey's Not-So-Scary. :)

For now, I am going to take a nap, I do believe. I love everyone who read this, and I miss all of my friends and family who are not here with me, and for those of you coming to see me, I can't tell you how so very excited I am! 

Courtney

P.S. It's still about 90 degrees over here...the one downside of being in the Sunshine State. Anyone who is getting anything colder, want to send some of that my way please? 

Let the Magic Begin!

Ok, so semi-fail on my part for how long it's been since my last post, but in my defense, it hasn't been nearly as long as my other ones I have tried in the past...you know, where I started, wrote one blog, and then never got on again. So I feel there is hope for me yet. :)

Anyways. So guess where I am. THAT'S RIGHT, DISNEY. Well...technically, right now I'm at the Panera Bread that's right around the corner from my apartment complex, but you get the idea. And later today I'm going to Universal...which once again isn't Disney at all, but that's just because I don't have my Disney pass to get into the parks for free, yet. I get that tomorrow. :D :D

So last I wrote, I believe I was in the middle of camp. Let me just say right now how absolutely amazing all of camp was, but especially the last couple weeks.  On top of having FINALLY gotten the swing of my job and really feeling confident in what I was doing, I had Sam and Colleen back with me and Jordan in the cabin, and even though we had all only been together for a month at the beginning of the summer, it felt like the Universe had been made right again when we were all back together. It was wonderful. I think I'm still having trouble adjusting to the fact that I don't live in the same rather gross cabin with them any more, or even in the same state for that matter. (Forget a Texas to Florida separation, Colleen is all the way in Hawaii...I don't even know what she's doing there. Something to do with dolphins. I think she's trying to one-up me. I think she might be succeeding...)

But what a great transition point that is to begin reflecting back on my trip here to the spectacular state of Florida! So originally, as in since we had been told our arrival date back in February, my plan had been thus: leave for Louisiana Saturday, stay Saturday night at my grandparent's house in Lafayette. Drive all Sunday to some point between Lafayette and Orlando (later decided to be Tallahassee). Stay there overnight. Spend Monday driving to Orlando.  Stay in Orlando that night in a hotel. Have all Tuesday to wander around the city, get to know it, go to Universal ideally, and basically just recover from the 3 day road trip that would equal a total of 16 hours in the car. Stay in a hotel again Tuesday night. Check in early Wednesday morning and begin the beautiful process. My plan is fairly flawless, wouldn't you agree? Well, somehow over the summer, as reservations were being made and relatives were being called, it changed to leaving Sunday and taking out that extra day of relaxation time in Orlando. I wasn't the biggest fan of this plan, for you see, I still supported my original idea.  But the calls had been made and it was set, so I let it rest.

Then along came Hurricane Isaac.  Mothers were panicking, newscasters were over-exaggerating, and Chris and I were looking at driving across the entire coast on Monday, which was exactly when and where Isaac was supposed to hit. An 8 hour drive in nothing but torrential downpour/potential floods? No, thank you. So now we were facing a dilemma: Move everything up and leave early (oh hey, original plan) or contact Disney and look into postponing our arrival date? Keep in mind that it's Saturday as we're trying to get all this figured out, and if we decide to leave early, that means that afternoon. Am I packed at all at this point? Absolutely not, in my mind I still have a solid 24 hours. We call Disney, but no one answered. So our only option is to leave that afternoon. In a flurry of frantic packing, I throw everything I am bringing into whatever bags I can find, resulting in me having 15ish average sized bags instead of 3 or 4 rather good-sized trunks. Maybe not the most effective method for this kind of trip, but beggars can't be choosers. 5 pm rolls around and we take off for Louisiana. Sunday we drive from Lafayette to Tallahassee and hit literally not even a drop of rain. Monday we drive the 4 hours to Orlando and maybe hit an hour of the actual hurricane. And then comes Tuesday, my originally planned day of rest and relaxation. All of this to say, if everyone had just listened to me and stuck to my plan, I wouldn't have had to pack in such a rush, last minute reservation changes wouldn't have had to be made, and everything would have been on schedule as planned. But it's ok, it all worked out, and Wednesday I got checked in, found out who my roommates are and what job I will be doing for the next 4 months, and got settled into my apartment.

Now, however, I must depart for Harry Potter World. More to come later. :)

Courtney

P.S. I'm the only American in my apartment of 6 girls...how exciting is that??

Campy Things

So since I have now been at camp for 8 weeks, which is longer than I ever have been before in the history of my summers at camp, I have been thinking about what it is about this place that draws me back every year. I'm curious as to why it is that I'm ok with giving my entire summer away, losing any opportunities I could have to travel, or see old friends, or just relax, in order to come here and spend 12 weeks making kid's summers more awesome.

I've been thinking about how awesome my job is specifically this summer, not being in the cabins with the kids any more but still getting to interact with them every day. That's pretty cool. 

I've also been thinking about the benefits of the job, like how good it will look on my resume or the countless skills I am learning from being in this postion, from management skills to people skills to problem-solving skills, you name it.  Definitely beneficial. 

I've been thinking about the tan I get...that's always nice. :) Although not super applicable at the moment because we've been in rain for the past week...I'm ready for the sun to come out.  Anyways, not the point. 

I've been thinking about the growing I do as a person each summer, whether it's patience I grow in or organization (neither of those things are my strong suit). 

I think what I've come to, though, has been the relationships I create here.  And that goes in so many ways.  First, of course, there are the people I meet.  I'm not saying that every person I meet I'm all of a sudden best buddies for life with, of course there have been people that I met and knew for the summer and never spoke to again.  That's actually often the case.  But the friendships that have made it through summers at camp, like Alexandra Brown, Katy O'Dell, Jordan White, Sammy Littlepage, and a few more, are what make this place as special to me as it is.  Those girls are people that I know will be in my life for the rest of it hopefully, and I know that no matter what they are there for me.  Not that I don't have relationships like that outside of camp, I could go on a week-long rant about how amazing my friends outside of camp are, but there's something really awesome about being connected with a group of people that I never would have met if I hadn't come to camp.  It adds a different element to my life, I feel like. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but with 4 weeks to go here, that's where I am right now.  A lot has happened this summer, and I'm sure a lot has yet to happen, but I know that these girls are here for me.

On the other side of relationships, though, there's how much I grow with God each summer.  I think it's probably because without Him I would be a terrible counselor/person who interacts with children, and I understand that.  Whatever it is, though, I feel like I try more over the summer.  I wish I could hone whatever that is in so it could be applicable outside of camp, and that's definitely something I want to work on once I leave here.  But it's so good that I have that each summer; exceeding amounts of patience, love, peace, and energy that I would never have otherwise.  I would not be the person I am here at camp without Him.

All of this to say that I'm going to miss this place and I am not looking forward to having to leave in a month. At the same time, I'm excited for the new challenges and experiences that wait for me outside of this positive bubble.  12 weeks here will probably have a bit of an effect on how I react to the real world when I finally get back out there. 

Anyways, I'm going to go give 260 children popcorn now. Also, I'm pretty sure I currently reek of butter...oh, the joys of running movie night. :/

Courtney

P.S. Still strugglin' on the candy front...you'd think I would lose weight being at a sports camp for 12 weeks but oh no, not the case. *shrugs in acceptance of fatty fate*

Halfway!

I have been at camp for 6 weeks exactly today, and I have exactly 6 more weeks until I leave.  I can't decide if I feel like I just got to camp and the weeks have flown by, or if it feels like I've already been here for a super long time and the fact that I'm only halfway done is unbelievable...either way, halfway.  It's hard to believe.

But, it is the halfway mark.  And as a present to myself for making it halfway, I finally bought myself my first pair of Chacos!

Aren't they lovely? Designed them myself. *puffs chest out proudly* Anyways, so this whole gluten-free thing was going really well until Monday of last week.  I had an off night from camp, so Chris and I went to Nacogdoches for the night.  Well, there's a Buffalo Wild Wings in Nacogdoches, and I happen to not be able to resist eating there any time it's an option.  Also, my meal of choice happens to not be gluten-free, and my resolve for remaining gluten-free is not as strong as my resolve for some good spicy garlic wings.  So, I was pretty solidly gluten-free for about a month, and I plan to resume it for the rest of the summer sometime this week, but as it happens, the day after I ate at BWW I experienced a bit of heartache and my resolve for being gluten-free was once again eclipsed by my resolve to instead focusing on not feeling like I was dying inside.  But I understand that can't be my excuse forever, and I made a promise to myself that I would be gluten-free for the summer.  So, I've had this week of weakness, but I refuse to let it last longer than that.  So there is my gluten-free spiel.  

As for the heartache...I hate how God has to teach you lessons sometimes. But, in the past couple weeks, because of what's been going on, I have been pushed so much closer to God.  If I don't do my quiet time each morning, then that day is lost.  I'm cranky, on edge, sensitive, hurting, verging on depressed, angry, etc etc.  It's not pretty.  So basically, God is the glue holding me together right now.  Which I understand is how it should always be, but it's not how it's been for me for the past couple years now, and I will admit it's kind of nice being back in this place.  I hope I don't leave it any time soon...or ever.  

I'm home right now...but I have to be back at camp by 8:30 tomorrow morning.  So instead of sleeping here and having to leave at 5:45 in the morning to make it back on time, I am going to get on the road in the next hour or two, push my way to camp, and then just sleep there so I will just be able to sleep til 8:30 in the morning instead, thus not being absolutely dead all day tomorrow at camp.  Short break, considering I didn't get home til 3 today.  But I had some wonderful mother/daughter time where I got a new computer battery and phone case, had some lovely mexican food for dinner, and was re-acquainted with the guy who sold me my laptop my senior year of high school/the guy I named my laptop after...pathetic? Maybe. Amusing? Absolutely.  Also clever, I think, because his name is Cole, and my computer is black (coal is black)...it's punny, ok? Anyways.  

Time to go have some friend time by the pool. 

Courtney

P.S. I just need to say that the amount of candy I have had this summer is ridiculous.  That AD cabin is dangerous.  Also, refrigerated Reeses are Heaven sent. 

No more bread?

Summer 2012 has started, officially. For me, that means I am now 2 weeks in to my 12 weeks at Camp Olympia. This summer I set myself a couple tentative goals--tentative because I didn't want to make a promise to myself that I couldn't keep. Ok I'll be honest...I call them "tentative" because I sort of set them as an ideal, not really intending to stick to them. The goals:

-go down 2 to 3 pant sizes (i.e. eat better and exercise)
-try gluten-free for a few weeks to see if it does anything for my energy
-spend time in the Word and praying every day

That was basically it. Pretty simple, except with the job I have this summer, I have way less time than I usually do, I'll be here ALL summer, which gets exhausting, and I really like my sleep...like...REALLY like it. All of those goals, in some way, interfere with my sleep and the time I have to effectively do my job each day. Except the gluten free—that’s just no fun. And I’m really bad at time management, so working out and being efficient with my time so I can have a bible study is asking a lot. To clarify, I was just being idealistic with those goals. I honestly didn’t have a lot of hope in myself that I would achieve them. However, I’m thinking now that there might be a chance.

This year at camp I am an Assistant Director, or AD. I live in a cabin with 3 other AD’s and we, along with all the boy AD’s and other AD’s, are given responsibilities to fulfill throughout each term and the summer. So I’m living with 3 of my closest friends instead of with campers, which so far has meant late-night talks and vault conversations, some candy, frequent dancing, and lots of Disney Apples to Apples and “Friends” (fact: best TV show EVER). Cool side fact about all this: one of the girls I am living with has been gluten free for about the last 4 or 5 months, and is sticking with it while she is at camp. I honestly wasn’t planning on cutting out my pancakes and butter rolls and muffins and pasta with alfredo sauce while I was at camp…food is one of the best aspects here. But suddenly I’m living with a girl who has been doing this for a while and is strongly encouraging me to try it. Oh, and did I mention there’s a specialty cook here who’s only job is to find meals to make for people who have food allergies or intolerances or special diets and can’t eat what’s being served regularly, and right now there are only 2 of those here? Yeah, so basically, if I decide to go gluten-free, here at camp I don’t have to stress about what I’ll eat instead—I just tell Dave. :) So Tuesday I started, and tomorrow will be day 4 of my gluten-free summer. I just need to say, today for lunch I had the BEST gluten-free pasta dish with chicken chunks and tomato sauce, broccoli, fruit, and a SUPER tasty gluten-free cookie. I feel like I’m eating like a king; Dave comes and finds Sam and me every morning to check with us if the meal he has planned for us sounds good…which it always does.

Also, every morning at 8:10 the girl AD’s meet right before breakfast to pray over camp for the day. It’s been a really awesome time so far, we’ve had other AD’s or full time staff join, it’s a great time to get re-focused and grounded and share together our passion and heart for Camp, and it’s also made me really start digging more into my relationship with God, making it a bit easier for me to have things to specifically pray for each morning.

Anyway, the point of all this is to say that I think my goals might actually be attainable this summer…if I can be consistent with it. Which I think I can. So we’ll see how this all goes as the summer progresses—I still need to figure out a time and routine for working out. But I have my weight ball and running shoes…hooray. :)

This isn’t really the best time for me to be blogging right now (I think I’m supposed to be watching over all of camp or something), but I don’t know when I’ll get another chance, so here it is. More to come later.

Courtney

P.S. I didn’t explain it earlier…the pant size by the end of the summer is a Disney thing; I want to audition for a costume character when I get there, just to see if I maybe have a chance, and I’m the perfect height for some of the characters but you have to be between a 2 and a 6 in pant sizes to get a character and I’m a 9…so I have set that goal for that specific reason. We’ll see how it goes. Also, it would be nice to just lose some weight. :)

Here we go again

I started a blog a while back...I guess a year ago now.  I did it mainly to document different recipes I had been making, posting pictures along with how to make whatever it was, and telling the random anecdote here and there throughout the post.  I thought it would be something fun for me to keep up with, and maybe it would give me incentive to cook more.  So what happened to that blog, you say?  Well, I posted once, a blog about my homemade lemonade (which was delectable and refreshing and I should really make again sometime).  I had clear, vibrant pictures, an easy-to-follow recipe, and a funny story about lemon squirting into my eye (funny after the fact, of course.)  A month later I made a chicken and potato dish and went to post it on my blog...and couldn't find it.  I couldn't remember what blog site I had used, what my user name had been, what my password was, or when exactly I had posted my last post.  Needless to say, my blog is now floating somewhere out there in cyberspace, probably never to be seen or read from again.  Sad day indeed.

I'll admit I was a little discouraged at this point, and felt a bit deterred from blogging.  So no wonder it took me a year to get back on the horse.  Nevertheless, here I am now.  My motives? Next semester I will be participating in the Disney internship and really think I should document that in some way other than my own private journals that no one is allowed to read ever (duh.)  So I'm starting here, having just created my own gmail account, and having something to say.  This blog really is primarily for my Disney trip, but seeing as how that's more than 3 months away, I might as well blog about other events.  So hopefully there will be recipes posted, stories from camp, and pictures shared throughout the next few months on here.  Who really knows with me?

As for today, I do have one picture to share.  

I had lunch today with these 3 gorgeous, wonderful ladies who have been in my life for quite a while now--I'm very grateful for them.  It's going to be a bittersweet summer--sweet because I'll be at camp doing what I love, but bitter because I won't get to see them every Sunday and plan random lunch dates with them.  Also bitter because Kayse (upper left corner) is having her baby mid-July and I won't be here for it. :(

Anyways, I think that's all I have to say for now.  I'm going to make myself go back to packing for camp (I leave in 3 days :D :D.)  I've been watching Parks and Recreation while packing...I've decided that I enjoy it very much, even though I was originally against the idea of watching it because I want to get my Masters in Parks and Recreation and was scared the show would either suck, deter me from wanting to pursue that, or give me false ideas of what Mastering in that would mean.  Not sure if the second two are going to happen yet, but the first one isn't true at least. :)

Ok, enough of this for now.  I've just turned blogging into procrastinating.

Courtney

P.S. If anyone happens to find my lost blog about lemonade yet, please send me the link to it.  I would greatly appreciate it. :)