365 - January 23

January 23-
Me and Merissa are in charge of our roommate meal tomorrow so we went to Walmart and bought stuff to make homemade pizzas, pasta, bread sticks, and little chocolate cupcakes! I sat and baked the cupcakes at night. I LOVE to bake! It brings me so much joy! And the batter always tastes good too :)

3.6.5.

January 21-
I went to Sioux City for the day with all  my roommates and our boyfriends :) We got coffee at Starbucks, went shopping at the mall, ate supper at Panera Bread, went to Target, got frozen yogurt and Peach Wave, and listened to Christmas music the whole way home (since it finally looks like Christmas we decided it was ok to start listening to it again :) It was such a fun day.

January 22-

LAZY Sunday! Me and Scott had breakfast together before church of Panera bagels we brought back from Sioux City yesterday, went to church, me and Merissa had dinner together, took a nap, Skyped with Mommy (although the sound didn't work so we were talking on the phone lol), did some homework, watched tv, took some pictures, and watched more tv :) It was quite a successful day of rest.

365

Hi All,

I have been waiting for a picture from Mrs. Van Holland from our trip last weekend but I think she forgot so I'm improvising again :/ because I really want to get my pics up! Here we go:

January 12-
I had to give a little speech in my teaching social studies class. I had to bring in five things that represent me. I brought Gilmore Girls for all obvious reasons :), and my camera lens because I LOVE taking pictures (I recently picked up a digital photography class this semester as in independent study which is taking up entirely way to much time messing around with the editing program :), a pot holder weaved by my "little sister" from the big brother/big sister program because I love kids, my JOY ornament because that is my word and what I strive for each day, and my ski goggles because I love to go snowboarding and spend time with my family.

January 13 &14-

We went up to Mankato Minnesota for the weekend to go snowboarding!. We left on the 13th and stayed the night with Brady's Aunt and Uncle, snowboarded all day on the 14th, AND got to stop at the Mall of America on our way back to Mankato! It was a lot of fun!

January 15-
We left Mankato and drove back to Dordt. When I got back Brittany REALLY wanted to bake these cake batter balls she found on Pinterest. So we went to Walmart and got the stuff and made them before GIFT. They are so delicious and easy to make! We laughed A LOT at brittany :)

January 16-
My new laptop battery came! Notice how I am using my computer without a cord? :) It's been very nice not to have to take my power cord everywhere I go! and Now I don't have to run from room to room when I need to move or unplug it.

January 17-
Our first roommate meal of the semester. We lost two of our roommates over the semester. Kendra got married, and InAe had to go back home to Korea due to some family emergency. But, we picked up a NEW roommate in the process. Her name is Ali and she is from Michigan too! She is dating Jeff VanderMoelen from Unity, and she has a twin sister named Aubrey! :) It was fun getting to know her while we ate so good food! Brittany and Mary made cabobs with chicken, green peppers, carrots, and onions. We dipped them into teriaki sauce which topped it all off and ate cake batter balls for dessert :)

January 18-
Went to a basketball game that started out really close but the boys fought it out and pulled ahead. The crowd was really into it which is always fun!

January 19-
It was REALLY cold today! So I was more than excited to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate when I got back from class. I help it between my numb hands and sat in the quiet and did my homework. It was a lovely afternoon. :)

January 20-
SNOW! We finally got a good amount of snow! It totaled up to be about 8-10 inches. This is a picture I captured while the tractor was snowblowing in the back of the campus center. It was so cool to see all the snow shot up into the air and fall in neat little drifts on the ground below.

 It's been a wonderful fun filled week and I can't wait to see what is in store for me this week. I'm getting better at not worrying about tomorrow but seeking out the good in every situation God hands me.

LOVE ALWAYS,

Aubrey

Aften Alps

I'm waiting for some pictures from Mrs. VanHolland to complete my 365 so in the mean time, I REALLY wanted to share my weekend with you!

Me, Scott, Brady VanHolland (freshman from the soccer team), and Cam VanKoevering (also freshman, older brother of Alyssa's good friend Justine) headed up to Minnesota for the weekend to go snowboarding! Brady's mom has a cousin who lives up in Mankato Minnesota and they said we could stay with them. Brady's parents also came and stayed with them too so they could see their son :) It was so much fun! We left Friday after classes and drove 3 hours to Mankato. We goofed off with the family and played the card game golf. It was pretty hilarious.

Saturday we woke up and Mrs. VanHolland had made us one of her famous carmel rolls. Then we got ready and headed out for our trip to Aften Alps which is another hour and a half from Mankato. On our way we passed the Mall of America!!  It was beautiful :) Aften Alps was such a cool mountain. When you drive up you are at the top of the hill, then you drive down to the bottom. It had lots of different kinds of runs which made it easy not get bored. We jumped around the whole mountain throughout different times of the day. There was about 4 different terrain parks too. Some smaller ones and larger ones. We stayed by the smaller ones most of the day and perfected our jumping and rail riding skills :) Well, almost. We left around 7:30 to head back "home".

Brady & Cam

Scott & Me

Cam's 360

Brady

Scott

On our way past the Mall of America we decided to stop and get something to eat there!! and walk around for a bit. I had never been there before and I was thrilled!! :) It was SO amazing! We only made it through a portion of the mall but we stopped at Legoland and the Nike store and walked through the middle where the rollercoasters, minigolf, waterride, and ferris wheel are. Crazy! Legoland was the best for me :) I couldn't believe how many legos there were!

Ahhhh...

Partial view of the roller coasters

 

American Girl!

Legoland!

Cam & Brady almost got us kicked out by playing in a "restricted" area that wasn't marked as restricted :)

All the legos come in little tubes like this one

And all the tubes are in a huge wall like this one!

(This was my favorite part :)

Oh, and Woody :)

Transformer out of legos was almost lifelike. He was ginormous!

I had to get something from the Mall of America but I didn't want anything expensive... so this is it! :)

 

Lego Harry

 

It was a very successful weekend. We didn't get back to Mankato until 12:00 ish and stayed up later goofing off, so we slept in on Sunday and they made us pancakes and sausage for breakfast. We went on a little hike in the woods to find a dried up waterfall before heading back for Dordt. It was so fun!!

 

I have my 365 pictures coming soon!

 

 

LOVE ALWAYS!

Aubrey

Basketball and a Pillow Pet!

January 11 - 
Tonight we went to the men's basketball game. I've always loved going to basketball games but this one was especially exciting because of my little friend below :) It's not actually my cow, but this guy was tossing his own cow pillow pet in the air throughout the game. It made me smile. My joy today was basketball and a pillow pet =) Oh, and snow. It snowed today a little bit and it sounds like we are supposed to get some more tomorrow!!

NEW YEAR = PROJECT 365!!!

Hello all!! It's a new year and I have decided to do a project 365 to get me excited about blogging again! This kind of 365 project requires notecards and a picture for each day. I am going to write one sentence about one thing I did each day and take a picture of it and keep them in a notecard box. The next year I hope to do the same thing and record what I did on the same notecard for that day from the previous year. This way I can see what I did the previous year and compare the pictures. And, I am going to share them with you!

January 1: Drove to Traverse City to the Cherry Tree Inn and played in the first real snow of the break in a pirate ship outside of our hotel :)

January 2: Skiied at Crystal Mountain with the DeBoer clan

January 3: (I had to improvise because I started late and didn't get a picture for this day): I went to Taco Bell for lunch with Derek Ohlman and Derek Stuyvesant for a nice break from work at Berger.

January 4: Date night with Scott out to Holland to look at the not so frozen lake, but there was some ice that glistened on the railings and the rocks and we watched the waves crash over the pier.

January 5: Headed up to Bittersweet for the day with Scott. It was beautiful and sooo much fun, except I forgot my snowpants so Scott had to go in his sweatpants because he gave me his :)

January 6: Kloosterhouse Christmas party! I got lots of sweet stuff from the penny auction including a new pan, washclothes, and whisk for my appartment, a cookbook, a picture box, and a new watch!

January 7: Alyssa's winter dance! I did her hair and it looked amazing if I do say so myself :) So did her dress... ooh la la!

January 8: Celebrated birthday at Grandma's house. Grandpa turned 70, Grandma turned 69, Faythe turned 42, Josh turned 15, and Jaeger turned 9. My how the years fly!

January 9: Got back to school today and went to Culver's with my roomies and the guys. Missing home already, but glad I got to see my friends again.

 

January 10: First day of second semester and it was 55 degrees outside!! It was beautiful! God blessed us with one more abnormally beautiful, sunny day before the realities of winter really set in. Notice the weather for tomorrow... 31 and snow... and Thursday.... 18! Brrrr.

There's the latest. Christmas went by waaay too fast, but I am sooo excited to see what Gad has in store for me in this new year!

LOVE ALWAYS

aubrey

Kind Heart

Yesterday I visited Miranda for the last time before Christmas Break. So, I brought her a small present. It was a chocolate santa and some small bags of m&m's. I gave her enough bags of M&M's to share with some friends. She was so excited! I thought she would maybe give away 1 or 2 bags to her close friends. However, she gave every bag away but 1! She gave them to friends and to her teachers. She has such a kind heart. She really surprised me.

And today what brings me joy, is being done with exams!!! I took my last exam this morning and turned in all my projects! It feels so good to be done. Now, I just have to tackle the big project of packing... so I  can come HOME!! I am leaving tomorrow :) Can't Wait!