Half-birthdays!

Every February 28th I always have to remind everyone around me that it's my half-birthday. I miss the days when people asked you how old you are and you said, "six and a half," or "seven and three quarters." One time I reminded my mom of my half-birthday so frequently that she even made me a cake! It was great! So, today I spent my half birthday in Fullerton, attending classes and sitting in Starbucks writing a paper... fun stuff! Anyhow, to procrastinate I looked up half birthdays on Wikipedia and this is what I found:

Half-birthday
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A half-birthday is a day six months before or after the real anniversary of a person's birth.
Most half-birthdays go unremarked. Perhaps the most common usage is by people whose birthday falls near Christmas, a holiday so widely celebrated that it can overwhelm private anniversaries. Young children sometimes celebrate half-birthdays if their real birthdays do not occur during the school year, so they can celebrate with friends and teachers at school.
A half-birthday is one of many unbirthdays, to use Lewis Carroll's term for any day that is not a person's real birthday.

Other definitions
Loosely, a "half-birthday" can also be a day that occurs near a person's birthday but at a much more convenient time. Someone in the United States whose real birthday occurs in November, for example, may choose to celebrate it as a "half-birthday" during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Another interpretation of "half-birthday" is that it falls on the same day of the month, six calendar months away from the real birthday. That would mean a person has no half-birthday if born on one of the following dates, because there is no correspondent date six months hence: 31 March; 31 May; 29 August (except in leap years); 30 August; 31 August; 31 October; 31 December
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-birthday"

This is all great. However, later I looked up half birthdays and found this Half-Birthday Calculator. I think it acutally splits the year in half in terms of days, not months, because it tells me that my half birthday is February 27th! What am I to do?!?!?! I guess I'm gonna have to start celebrating two half birthdays :-)

CRASH!

Yesterday morning Kirsten and I went on a quick bike ride before she had to leave for her basketball game. We did our usual 16 mile loop that starts on the bike path near our house, goes through UCSB and then loops back around Winchester Canyon. We finish the ride on Cathedral Oaks which takes us back to the house. Well, as we entered UCSB, we had our first bike crash together. Kirsten has crashed before, but this was my first time! It was crazy!





Here is how it happened:
As we crossed Lagoon Rd and headed into campus, I stayed on the street and Kirsten went onto the adjacent bike path. At the first right turn (it is marked by a circle on the map above), I started to cross over onto the bike path behind Kirsten. The turn was blind, and there was a runner in the opposite lane, so Kirsten and I had to stay single file. However, as we made the turn there was a runner in OUR lane too! Kirsten said, "We both were like deer looking into the headlights!" He stepped to his left to let us though and to avoid me (I was behind Kirsten but a little to her left), and Kirsten went to her right (obeying the rules of the road). Therefore, the two of them collided! She would have fallen except he was pretty strong and caught her after she hit him. I however, couldn't do anything but hit Kirsten. Luckily, my foot unclipped so I was able to catch myself after my handlebars hit Kirsten in the back and my knee hit my handlebars.

My adrenaline was definitely going after that, but I was also a bit shell shocked. It all happened so fast, there was really nothing we could have done to avoid it! I was thankful we didn't fall, if anything for prides sake. :-) I almost forgot to mention that the ride before, we almost got into another accident on UCSB's campus when someone coming the other way was in our lane going around a corner. Kirsten hit my back tire and fish-tailed, but she was able to right herself! Man, this biking can be dangerous!

Familiar faces

So, pretty much every time I go to a new place or meet a new person, someone says to me, "You look like this girl I know..." or, "What high school did you go to, you look familiar." However, it's never the case that I know this "twin" that I look like and most of the time this "twin" doesn't even exist. The person can't put a finger on who it is. The person always goes away saying, "well, I guess you just have a familiar face..." What does that mean?!?!?! Is that a good thing or a bad thing???? I guess it doesn't matter... it's just funny.

Anyhow, I taught a class on Wednesday and one of the students came up to me afterwards and said this very thing. Then, on Wednesday night my friend Bekah came over to the house I stay at every week in Brea. My friends in this house said the exact same thing.... "Do I know you from somewhere else? You look familiar." It was so funny, so we decided to take a picture of the girls with familiar faces and similar names...

Beach and BBQ

This past Saturday I had a blast doing pretty much nothing because of how nice it was here in Santa Barbara. It was between 78 and 80 degrees all day! I studied at a coffee shop in the morning and then went home and did some fun reading in my bathing suit by the pool. Then, I met up with Brita and some others to head to Hope Ranch Beach. We were supposed to play volleyball, but ended up just hanging out instead. We ended the night with a delicious BBQ at the Birches! What a great day!





Scott and Amy


Amy and me taking a self-picture


Brita, Ben and Becky

Jen and Brita

Bowling Slide show

Birthday Bowling

Last night a bunch of us went bowling for Steph Shadwell's birthday. I gave Calamity free reign on my camera and here are the pics she came up with. I must say, I do much better in situations where I keep score. I was totally lousy! Anyhow, here is the show!

Dork Alert!

I wanted to sound the alarm myself so that you all know that I know I am a dork :0) I got new sunglasses for biking this week. This morning I went on a bike ride with Kirsten and I decided i would have jen take a picture of me so I could blog about the glasses. They are a TON better than my old pair (that did not do anything but slide down my face while I biked!) Anyhow, Jen took the picture and said, "The dork alert is about to go off!"

Another funny thing that happened is that after this picture I walked into my bedroom and turned the light on because it seemed so dark in my room. I was laughing so hard! It wasn't dark, I just forgot to take the glasses off! Anyhow, here is dorky Rebecca...

And by the way, the bike ride was great!

Miracle performance!

hey all,
I just wanted to let you all know how productive I've become lately. Last Wednesday at our Coaches Bible study, Jen and I prayed for miracle performances. In other words, we both have a ton to do and it would be wise for us to be disciplined and focused as we work. So the last two mornings we have come to Goleta Coffee company between 6:30 and 7:00 and put our time in. I have been WAY focused and productive. :-) It feels so good! I think I'm realizing I do much better in the morning and much better when I have a focused study partner.... oh the feelings of being back in school. I am thankful I'm finally remembering how to do this school thing. I was beginning to wonder what was wrong with me! Anyhow, I better go back to productivity.... lunch first though. :-)

P.S. Sorry no pictures of us studying... we were being too productive! :-)

Florida Storm Warning...

Britty Gumpa

Here is a video of Brita in the back seat. You can hear people who had gotten out of their cars talking to Brett about the situation. For some reason, when Brita, Brett and I get together, one of us always has trouble talking...

traffic

A group of us went to Mammoth this past weekend, and we decided to leave early on Sunday rather than Snowboard. Well, apparently everybody had the same idea. We ended up parked on the freeway for 20 minutes. It took us about 2 hours to go 30 miles. We definitely had to put on our patience pants. Here is a video of us moving very slowly... I am using "Videoegg" for the first time, so I am not sure how this is going to work! I will post a brita video after this one...

The significance of insignificance

The other day one of the faculty at Westmont sent us a link to "Hubble: The most amazing space photographs in the universe."

The email said that these pictures, "illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful." -- Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006)

As I looked at the photos, I was pretty amazed to say the least. I started to think, "who am I, to think that I am anybody!" I am very small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things! However, I was also reminded of the fact that I have a God who thinks that I AM important! So important, in fact, that he sent his one and only son to die for me! Amazing

Not only did he do that, but he created this AMAZING universe that we only catch a GLIMPSE of through these photos. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get that strange feeling in my stomach when I try to think about the universe, infinity, and how God has been around forever... there is no beginning and end to God's existence. As a human, my mind just CANNOT get around the idea of something not having a beginning and end. I guess that is what faith is all about. I think seeing these photos is a good way to keep me humble! Anyhow, I thought these photos below were pretty stinking amazing. I basically pasted the entire website below... so enjoy!


The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth

In third place is Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth

At four is the Cat's Eye Nebula, which looks like the eye of disembodied sorcerer Sauron from Lord of the Rings

The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a pinched-in-the-middle look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre

In sixth place is the Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon)



The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements'

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way

The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation


The Trifid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born

Another Musing.....

The other day I "Googled" my name because I wasn't sure if my blog was accessible to the outside world. The sixth entry was, "Mouw's Musings-The President's Blog." It is the new blog of the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, Richard Mouw. Richard is my dad's cousin and I've had the pleasure of meeting him a few times and eating dinner with him as well. Also, he spoke at my graduation from Wheaton. Anyhow, I thought it was so cool that we choose almost the same exact name for our blogs! Crazy! I wonder if I could get him with copyright laws :-) Haha, I wouldn't want to do that anyhow! I thought his first entry in his blog is a great reminder of God's presence in our lives, no matter where we are... the internet, my space, blogger, facebook, etc: He is there! Here is Richard's entry...

December 4, 2006

Launching a New Blog:
MySpace

Those who know me well thought they would never see the day, but indeed it has come: I am launching my own blog.

Now, it wasn’t so long ago that I wouldn’t have known the definition of a blog, much less its purpose. I am always a little behind on these things—and confess that I have to endure more than a little teasing from my son, Dirk, who is certainly more technologically savvy than I.

Yet I cannot ignore the upside of this whole blogging business. I spent a lot of time this summer exploring blogs—take note, I might be reading yours!—and became quite intrigued with the immediacy of this new way of communicating. So here I am, plunging into the adventure myself. It offers an opportunity for me to share with you, my friends and fellow bloggers, the things that are on my heart in “real time,” so to speak.

One thing that has been on my heart lately is space. Along with exploring blogs this summer, I became familiar with MySpace. I did some browsing, and was amazed by the sheer volume of this phenomenon: thousands and thousands of pictures of people supposedly inviting you into their “space.”

When I look at all those pictures, I think about how, in some primordial sense, each of these folks realizes that they are not alone. I think that, at some level, they realize the truth of the Psalmist when he said: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” Or in today’s vocabulary, we might say: If I retreat into my own website, my own blog, my own MySpace…there, too, I am in your
presence.

As Christians in this MySpace culture, we need to be reminding people that everything we call “my space” is also, in a very profound sense, God’s space. We are inescapably in God’s presence.

Whether it’s on MySpace, in classrooms, or in the workplace, each person we encounter in our day-to-day lives has a God-sized space within their souls. This is a space that can be filled only by a relationship with the one true God.

Richard J. Mouw

Shakey Face Galore...

When I went home, Chad and I had some fun with my parents’ new camera. We did this thing that he and his college buddies do when they are together, referred to as shakey face! Now, I must warn you, it looks a bit funny and isn't too flattering. :-) But don't worry, I'm not proud!





The key is, you have to make your face totally relaxed and then shake your head back and forth. Chad and I had to do tons of takes because we were still learning the camera and there was a little bit of a delay. But beware, sometimes too many takes can give you a head ache! :-)

Hair Do's and Don'ts :o)

My niece Maddie has pretty long hair and loves to have it done in special ways. Luckily for her, Aunt Jamie had some time to "make her pretty" (even though she already is!) this Christmas. Here are some pics of the lovely ladies....



















Post French Braid Shock Syndrome ...



And Jamie even took time to make us the "Girls with Curls!"

Ba!

Today I am going to post pics of the youngest niece in Philly, who wasn't allowed to (or wasn't given the opportunity to) go to see Charlotte's Web. Her name is Evelina... Evie for short. She will be two in March and is pretty much a stinker! BUT, she is such a cute stinker! Definitely expressive with a great sense of humor. By the end of the trip she was calling me, "Ba!" It was so cute! So basically, she was the "belle of the cameras" so there were a larger percentage of pictures to choose from! (Note: when i said in my last post that I had 700 pics to choose from, I did not take a single one of those pictures. I didn't bring a camera home because I knew there would be plenty of pics to share!) So here is Evelina!!

This is a post bath pic with her Uncle Chad. Her hair is not done yet here... she is gonna have great ringlets someday!

Opening other people's presents before it's time :)

























Evie and I sing this song called, "Skid-a-ma-rink-i-dink!" It's got hilarious hand motions and this is Evie and I cracking each other up :)

Scavenger hunt...

I never got around to blogging about my time in Philly, and I have over 700 pictures to choose from, so I decided that instead of being overwhelmed about choosing pictures, I would just do a couple each day.







Finding the clues...








For Toby, Maddie and Josiah's Christmas present, I sent them on a scavenger hunt that gave them clues as to what they were getting. The clues were a bag of popcorn, a spider and a pig. The last clue told them to go to the computer, but before they could go they had to guess what the present was. Toby raised his hands in the air and yelled, "Charlotte's Web!" Josiah said, "We've already seen that video!" I replied, "I know, but there is a new one with real people and I'm going to take you to the movies!" At the computer I showed them the trailer for the movie so they would get even more excited.

These kids have never been to a movie theatre, so it was a real treat! They loved the popcorn and Sprite and Josiah didn't sit down the entire movie (The kids only get one half hour video a day, and only watch TV if football is on. Josiah had never seen a screen this big!) It was awesome to take them to their first movie! Not sure yet, but it might be a yearly occasion! :)

I'll be home for Christmas...

Well, I never got around to blogging about the rest of my week with Dan. We had some fun times hanging out, going to my church, meeting Dan Ribbens for lunch, going out to eat with Brita, Jen Binger and her brother J.D., going wine tasting with Brett, and watching movies. It was great!

On Monday, we gathered up our belongings to travel to Chicago for Christmas! Jamie and Chad arrived in Chicago on Tuesday, Chad's mom on Thursday and Rob on Friday. I had a ton of fun playing with my niece and nephew Eleanor and Ezra and seeing their parents (my bro and sis in law) Andrew and Natalie. I can't tell you how many times Eleanor asked if she could jump on me, which meant, "you lay on the floor, and I'll bellyflop on your stomach!" Luckily, she is only a 29.5 lb four year old, so it didn't hurt at all! Here are select pics of the week in Chicago!








Christmas is always fun, but is particularly fun when kids are around. I am so thankful for Andrew and Natalie and how they've brought up Eleanor and Ezra to be such great kids. I am also thankful for my parents and their care for us as their children. They have given so much to us already and continue to support us all now that we are all grown up. Every time I see them it reminds me of what they have done for me. Thanks mom and dad! In general, I have just been so thankful to be back with my family the past couple of weeks. I'm gonna miss them when I leave! I will write more later with some pictures of the other kids in Philly. (I would do it now but I have over 700 pictures to choose from and they are taking a while to download!) I leave to return to SB on Wednesday!

Brother Dan

On Monday night I picked up my big brother Dan from LAX. His flight got in at 8:05 and my final in Fullerton was supposed to end at 6:45, so the timing was going to be great. Unfortunately, the final was group presentations, and they went way long. Therefore, I was a little late picking him up. (But I am so glad to be done with it!) Dan is the first of my five siblings to visit, so I was super excited. So excited, in fact, I missed the exit to the airport (OK, that was only b/c I was coming from a different direction on a different road, but somewhat b/c I was excited too!)

On Tuesday Dan got to meet the entire Kinesiology and Athletics department as Kirsten and I hosted the White elephant Christmas party. I ended up with a brand new fondu set! It was lots of fun and it was a great time for Dan to meet everybody.

Yesterday I showed Dan around Westmont and downtown Santa Barbara. We ate lunch downtown and then went down to the beach and Stern's Wharf. We took a bunch of fun pics while we were down there...





Later last night, we played an intense game of "take one" (aka speed scrabble). Then I helped Kirsten with a little project in which she stayed all night doing! I stayed up finishing up a paper while she scrapbooked :)



Today, Dan and I went on a great hike through Romero Canyon. We just might be a little bit sore later :)









I have had a blast so far and am looking forward to more to write about this week!