taking pictures is one of my favorites :)

Some of my favorite pictures I took from the summer months....

Count your blessings..

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays! right behind Christmas...nothing can beat christmas :)

I am so grateful for the Blessings in my life. God has blessed me with a roof over my head, a warm bed to sleep in, Delicious food to eat, Awesome parents who love and provide for me, goofy siblings, Amazing friends, and his unconditional love which we don't deserve.

I hope all of you take the time to really meditate on how God has blessed you. People take so much for granted in our world today and don't realize how blessed they really are. Concentrating on what they don't have, complaining about how they don't have the latest fashion of clothing or the designer shoes and hand bags, or the newest version in electronics, or a new car, or maybe the toy they saw on a tv commercial;even though they already have plenty of toys, even little things like complaining about a long line in the grocery store. There are people all over the world that all they have are the clothes on their backs and they have to WALK miles and miles to get to clean drinking water. And here we are worrying about having the most popular items at the time, where these peoples only worry is how they are going to feed their family. So next time you complain about a long line in the store, stop and think about it, God has blessed you with with a place like the grocery store to be able to get food and supplies, he has also blessed you with money for these things. Now don't get me wrong. I am completely guilty for all these things. It just goes to show our sinful nature.How we can be so selfish and in want, when all God does is love and provide for us.
Thanksgiving is a time to count your blessings. But I hope it doesn't stop there. We should count our blessings and and be thankful for what God has given us everyday of our lives. And be looking to see how we can help the ones around us other then what we can do for our selves...
HAPPY THANKSGIVING :)

My middle name should be Grace

Please hold your aplaus till the end....The phone rang..I saw it was my daddy...so I run to the phone to answer...The cat had spilled her water dish all over the floor in front of the phone.....I didn't see the water...I grabbed the phone in mid "slip" and fell on my butt..answering the phone "OWWWW"...looked down..and my nee was bleeding....yep. all in a days life of amanda.

dribble, scratch, pass, push,shoot, shove,

Basketball is upon us, and I'm actually surprisingly not that sad about it! lol. Now before you get all like whaaa? lighthouse sports takes up 8 1/2 months out of the 12 months in a year! And sometimes I just want a break! But right now, I'm lovin' it! :) I'm on Varsity this year, and it's just wonderfully wonderful. My. team. is. amazing. The Varsity team last year graduated 6 seniors, and another player didn't come back. So we only have 3 returning varsity players, and then Erica and I moved up from JV ( we went to Liberty, and played some games with Varsity last year so we're not "totally" new). And we have 3 new girls. Which ends us up with a Whopping 8 players! Which when, we have players getting in foul trouble during the game, and you already are low on substitutions, well you get tired fast, but you just got to keep on running. haha. But I'm really enjoying all the girls on my team, we all get along REALLY well, and we have so much fun together. We still have somethings to work on, when on the court - i.e. communicating, making better passes, etc.
We went to a Tip-Off Classic basketball tournament in Greensboro, this past weekend to start off our season. We won our first game, and lost the next two, but it was still fun. We learned a lot about what we need to work on, and it was fun just to finally get to play together in a game. We might not win that many games this year, but I wouldn't trade my team for anything. Nope, nothing. Nada. :)

some of my peeps! ...Erkle, Me, Mo, Tiff, and Faithy on the bottom..we were trying to be statues...I think. :)

Ealges in the Houseee :)

My volleyball team went to the state tournament this past weekend, and it was a blast. We all played Amazingly..the best we've played all season actually. And it was just like Fantastic. :)
We(Varisty) ended up getting 2nd in State! Whoo Hoo! The other teams were not expecting this out of us, and I think we kind of took them by surprise. And boy were they shocked :) Especially Fayetteville...who are basically our arch rivals...who beat us both times during the season, and came into the tournament with what I like to call a cocky head..haha. Well. we beat them. And oh was it GLORIOUS. They were so ticked at us and each other by the end of the game, and we just played above and beyond what any one was expecting...it was great!! :)
It's funny to see the way people act when they're not on top anymore. Friday leading up to the Fayetteville game (which was the last one of the day, at like 8pm) Fayettville was all friendly, friendly in the hall ways and gym, congratulating us when we beat another team that afternoon, and just saying hi, and good luck in the hall ways, Smiling when we walked by, whooting " yeaa goo east!" (the conference is divided into teams from the east coast and the west coast..and then the best team from each side play each other for the championship) Well. the next day on Saturday, after we had beat them the night before, They wouldn't even look at us in the hall way. Didn't say a single word to us the whole day. And then Saturday night when we made it to the championship they all cheered against us for the West team.
It was all go East! go east! when they were expecting to be the top team in the East. But how quickly the tables turned, and they were whooping go West! haha. The whole thing just makes me laugh. And it really just shows a teams character...sore loser's much? :p
But the whole thing doesn't really matter..because you know what?! We beat Themm...and it basically made our whole teams weekend....heck I'm still smiling about it! :)
But there is on down side to the tournament...it means the end of the season.
So Volleyball season is over...and this does not make me happy.

Come and gone

Alex was home on leave from Iraq for two weeks -> :)
The two weeks flew by and now he is already on his way back to Iraq -> :(
The last two weeks have flownnnnn byyyy. Didn't we just pick him up at the Airport? sheesh.

But anyways it was a greatt two weeks, and I was very happy to see him! :) Sarah and Eric came home on the weekends, which resulted in the whole family being home which resulted into a very happy mother of mine. ;) The last time the whole family was together was Christmas, and it was nice having everyone home again :) He'll be in Iraq for 4 more months..and then he'll come back to Texas, where he's stationed at Fort Hood. Can't wait to see him again! Miss him already. Mi Familia :)

Kidnapped to Myrtle Beach

I have never been kidnapped so much in my life! it's only been twice. But that's still more then the zero times I've been kidnapped in my life time..well at least before the last two months :p
Miss Paigy Waigy kidnapped me this time...along with Ellers and Jordan (whom I spent the whole weekend calling Taylor haha..but it's ok, cuz at least it's her middle name) Friday after co-op we arrived at her house, after recieving a packing list and arrival time the day before. We took her dog for a walk around her neighborhood...which was really just a ploy to get us all out of the house so they could pack up the van, because at that time we didn't know where we were going, or even if we were just staying at her house all weekend. So we all piled into the van along with Paiges mom, Mrs. Theresa and Tayor..I mean Jordan's mom Mrs. Sue. And set out on our adventure. Still no clue where our destination was going to be. 1 movie, some sleeping and two packages of cookies later we arrived at the Court Yard Marriott Hotel, in Myrtle Beach, SC, only about a half mile away from the ocean. After "freshening up" we went out for dinner in Bare foot landing. The food was reallllyy yummy! After we ate, we walked around to all the little shops and botiques, got some ice cream, and then headed back to the hotel where the ceiling fell on me and then we went swimming/hot tubbing :). haha yes, you heard right. The Ceiling fell on my head! I was in the bathroom getting my bathing suit on when I heard all this cracking and rumbling, when all of a sudden the Big Ceramic light/fan fixture drops skimming my body and shattering on the floor. Oh my goodnes.. it scared the bageebees out of him. So it falls and shatters all of the floor making a huge CRASH. And Paige being the good friend she is just runs into the bathroom going "Oh my goodness! what was that! are you ok?!" And ellie runs in concerned and then laughing with the camera and starts videoing..all while I'm still in a state of shock, and trying to tie my bathig suit so it doesn't fall off. Finally once I realized that I was still alive I slowly made my way out of the bathroom trying not to cut my feet open, and just colaps on the bed laughing. Oh my goodness it was an experience! Mrs. Theresa called the front desk to tell them that the ceiling just fell on one our heads (haha), and they sent up some guy to clean it all up. Then we went swimming and hot tubing. Where the girls where trying to get me to go to the front desk and complain that the celing just fell on my head and that I desereve a Fruit Basket or Somthing! haha...Anyways.. Saturday we went and got Breakfast, went to Wal Mart, and then Subway to pack a lunch. Then we all headed to the Beach. :) Mmm,mmm,mmm,mmm,M. I loveeee me some beach. :) We spent the afternoon swimming and soaking up the sun. After spending a WONDERFUL time at the beach. We headed back to the hotel and got ready to go out for the evening. All of us Kidnapees didn't know where we were going, and Paige was enjoying it a little to much haha. They took us to The Dixie Stampede. and it was a lot if funnnn :) I loved it :) After that we went back to Barefoot landing to walk around and got old time pictures done as Southern Belles :) That was alot of fun! and they came out pretty good! Spent the rest of the night at the hotel talking about bumpits and promdresses. haha.. Sunday morning we got up at 6am (after going to bed at 2am mind you) and went down to the beach to watch the Sunrise. It was G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S! I think the beach at sun rise it one of my new favorite times/places. It was so peacful and quite. mmmm mmmm. :) After acouple hours we went and got breakfast and headed back to the hotel to pack up and get on the road. We were going to go to a nice resturant for lunch but due to Time demands we ended up at Arby's on the way home where we had lunch and a birthday cake for PaigyPoo! :) Once we got back home. We all went to Ellie's house to "Freshen Up" And we all went to a Meredith Andrews/Chris Sligh/Aaron Shust concert to finish off a greattttt weekend. :) HaPpY BiRtHdAy PaIgY WaIgY PuDdInG PiE! :)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

He's Coming hommeee :)

My Big brother is coming home from Iraq! only for a two week vacation.... But hey! I'll take it! I haven't seen Alex since this past Christmas! He'll be here in a couple weeks :) Yay! Yay! Whoo! Whoo! I'm excited to see him :)