Go watch Matt and Jared sing.

:)

I am SO excited!!!

Front Cover

I'm taking a break between my two exams today to eat Chick-fil-A and tell you all that Laura Dye is amazing (she was Stef's wedding photographer)... If you want to see the final book she put together for the wedding, go here. It is incredible. Great job, Laura! Also, more cool points for Laura because her husband's name is Jared, which is one of the coolest names ever! heh.

Happy People

I love the one of Stef and Leslie.

So cute.

And I love the one of Stef playing the piano because it reminds me of some random fun that we last had together. I think that is why I love the one of all the bridesmaids trying to catch goldfish. I was hungry, we were in a nursey, anyone who has seen me at church knows I normally get goldfish between services. :)

This is one of my favorite hymns! I hope you all enjoy it as well. I may have posted it before, but I am posting it again because it keeps going through my head. We sang this at RUF the week that my Grandmother died. I was crying during the last verse. It had never hit me before that we are free from the fear and dread of the tomb. We leave this world and we are ever before his glorious face. How wonderful is that? That being said, the third verse is the one that I relate to the most. It is easy to forget that God has given you the gifts that you have. Well, maybe not forget, but take for granted... Anyhow, I love this song. I hope to have you all hear all these great hymns sometime. They are wonderful old pieces of music.

Jesus, I Come

1. Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come; Jesus I come.
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

2. Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,
Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress into jubilant psalm,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

3. Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into Thy blessed will to abide,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair into raptures above,
Upward forever on wings like a dove,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

4. Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

If you want to hear the first and second and third verses... click here.

Oh and Mom, if you need another Christmas present, I want the Igrace V cd.

You can buy it here.

That is the fifth cd. It is great!

Combo number three looks really awesome as well, but that could wait for my birthday. Or buy it now and give me the other three cds for my birthday and the fifth one for Christmas. :D

Love love love.

You can even listen to some of it there.

Joe and Mary took me on a study break tonight. I was in my room all day studying until they came home tonight and took me out to see the Mormon Tabernacle lights. They were pretty neat (the fact that they were LED lights there was neat). The visitor center there is sort of creepy because it is like Christian with a bunch of weird stuff mixed in. It is just weird. But seeing LED lights was really awesome!
Then on the way home we road by a few decorated Christmas houses down on the edge of DC. Yes, I was in DC tonight!! :D You know that makes me happy. I love DC. It is so interesting. So then Joe decided that we were really close to the actual Silver Spring in Silver Spring. So we drove over there and Mary and I had to get out and go look at the actual Silver Spring. It was really small. heh. But I have seen it now! Good history lesson mixed in there with the fun.
Then Joe had us fun in giant and we each picked out our favorite ice cream because the house was getting a little low on ice cream. All we have had for the last few weeks has been vanilla. I love chocolate and mint chocolate. My absolute favorite is chocolate peanut butter by turkey hill. Actually it is chocolate malt by Turkey Hill, but that was a special summer flavor that they had many years ago. So the actual flavor that they still make, that I love, is chocolate peanut butter. But that chocolate malt was amazing!!! It was perfect right when it had been sitting out for a while and was getting soft and melty. Yum. The first time I ever had it was at the Huntingtons!! Woohoo!
So that was my evening. I love the Howards. Joe and Mary make my life so much fun. I love living with them. Life gets so interesting and fun. :) I wish I had more free time to do stuff with them. I need to see the Botanical Gardens Christmas display. But there is no time before I leave, maybe sometime between Christmas and New Years... I don't know.
Anyhow, I hope you are all making time for fun activities and not sticking your head in a book. :) See you all in Salisbury in six days!!!

I woke up at 5:30 am. It was dark. I took a shower and got dressed. It was still dark. I made my breakfast and left the house. It was still dark. I drove to campus and walked across campus in the dark. It is so hard to get moving when it is dark outside. I like to sleep when it is dark. I don't mind getting up early, if it is light outside or if at least becomes light during sometime during the whole morning routine. First exam in an hour and a half. So in three and a half hours, I will only have three more exams until home!!!

I love plays!!! Joe and Mary (actually Mary couldn't go because she was caroling with the church, but I was Joe's date - Jared agreed to share me for the night - heh) took me to see this with hundreds of their grandchildren (well, not quite that many, but there are a lot of them). Although, I think Salisbury Christian did just as good of a job, this was quite delightful as well. :) I need to go to more plays... which reminds me, I can't wait to see Charley's Aunt! I love the theatre!! I also realized how sad Fiddler is - the whole play is rather bittersweet.

This is a thank you to Hayley and Sarah, as well, for the coolest birthday present ever for my twentieth birthday! Phantom was the most awesome play I have ever seen!! Thank you thank you thank you. I still rave to people about it.

I love snow!

However, I don't love walking around in it without my snow boots (which I left at home because I said that it never snows in December) on all the ice that is all over the sidewalks. I wish they had cancelled class either today or yesterday. It is such a mess out there. We got about five inches of snow. It snowed ALL day yesterday, from the moment I got up until when I got home last night. It is so pretty. I feel all Christmasy. :)

Love Hayley!!

Love good friends.

Love good food and wacky resturants.

Love chai tea.

Love laugter.

Love Laughing Stock!

YAY!! What a great study break. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hayley for coming to visit me and going out to dinner with me. What fun. I can't wait until our next adventure! ;) You have put me in such a good mood during this crazy week.

Thanks so much!

A few things before this week starts:

* Hayley is coming to College Park tomorrow!! We are having dinner. I am so excited because then I have something to look forward to all day! Woohoo.

* Two, the sermon was really good today. I will try to get around to typing up a few notes. I'm a little typed out right now and I still have one more report to write.

* Three, I have two projects due tomorrow and one on Wednesday. I have been running computer simulation after computer simulation for the last three weeks, but I hadn't done any writing for the projects until Wednesday night. I started Wednesday night and wrote until Friday night. Seriously, it was all I did. I wrote 53 pages of material and formatted 51 pages of excel spreadsheets. It was insane. Today my heat transfer group put our project together. The report was 51 pages in entirety. I wrote at least half of those. My HVAC project I have written on my own. It tops out at 28 pages. I just finished the conclusion. I am so proud of it. haha. I am so glad it is finished.

* Four, Mary makes amazing ginger cookies. They are flat like ginger snaps, but they are chewy like regular cookies. I have eaten so many. I need to get the recipe. They are amazing!!

* Five, Maryland soccer is disappointing. They scored twice in the first half. It was 30 some degrees last night. The entire night they were pounding away at the other teams goal, but couldn't get anything else to go in. It was chilly. I needed more than four layers. With only two and a half minutes left they let the other team score and the they let them score again with only 30 seconds left. It was freezing. I should have brought a blanket. So they went into overtime. I should have brought two blankets. No one scored and they went into a second overtime and I was all excited because I love shootouts (as long as I am not in them). I couldn't feel my feet. But the other team scored with a minute left. I hobbled out to the car because my feet hurt so much. It was cold. The guy behind us laughed like this, "ck ck ck ck ck". It made us laugh. I LOVE SOCCER!!

* Six, I have finished two of my three homework sets due this week. I don't know when I will finish the last one . It is due Tuesday at five.

* Seven, I can't wait until Wednesday. Then I will be done all my projects. WOOHOO! Almost as exciting as Hayley coming to visit (in case you forgot, see point one).

Bedtime.

EDIT: Apparently I also have a lab due this week. I just checked my email before going to bed and he sent an email out two minutes ago that assigned a lab this week. The report is to be written during class and handed in. Craziness. I love the professor, but he really does demand a lot. I love heat transfer too.

I told Jared that I want to see this play called Charley's Aunt in February. I've been looking forward to it for a while. Well, Sunday he tells me that is he going to audition because he knows I have wanted to see him act for a while. Today he tells me that he got the part of Charley!!! YAY!! Hey Jared, this could be part of my Christmas gift, if you want. :D

So people, PLAN this on to your calenders. I promise that it will be funny! It is British humor! I love British humor.

CONGRATULATION JARED!

Friday Feb. 15 2008
8:00 pm
Saturday Feb. 16 2008
8:00 pm
Sunday Feb. 17 2008
2:00 pm

Friday Feb. 22 2008
8:00 pm
Saturday Feb. 23 2008
8:00 pm
Sunday Feb. 24 2008
2:00 pm

Website.

Go once, go twice, go every night!!
It is going to be awesome!

edit: Matt Robins is going to be playing the guy that has to dress up like Charley's Aunt so it should be funny. One more reason to come. Matt Robins in a dress... And plenty of fake British Accents!!!

Give Gifts!!

or you can donate money to the family goat gift...

talk to Mom about that one.

You know you are in the final days of the semester when your professors all start writing so fast and you realize that you are holding your breath while you try to copy everything down. You also know it is the end of the semester when you learn an entire of semester of linear algebra in one class (because you were already "supposed" learn it, even though it isn't a required class, but the professor thinks it is a good tool for everyone to use... basically he says, "you will need to learn this by the final, it doesn't matter if you have never taken linear algebra, there will be questions about this on the final." ) .

Hooray for the end of the semester! These are the days of madness. Two projects are due Monday and one on Wednesday along with a project report presentation. I don't even want to look at the assigned homework, it is rather depressing.

If you get a chance, please say a prayer that I keep a good attitude about the end of the semester. I always seem to let the stress level get me down and taking five classes this semester instead of four is crazy, especially since they are all upper levels. Or feel free to drop me comments in the next three weeks reminding me to rejoice and have joy!

Oh, and one last thing... Stephanie (Hornor) Keith is one of the greatest people to get my mind off school. She called me last night and had me laughing so hard that I was crying about old memories and crazy things that we had done together. Wow! I love that girl so much!! So thank God for Steffy. I miss her so. She was always good for coming up with crazy and fun ways to distract me from doing my schoolwork.

John Newton

By faith in Christ I walk with God,
With Heav’n, my journey’s end, in view;
Supported by His staff and rod,
My road is safe and pleasant too.

I travel through a desert wide
Where many round me blindly stray;
But He vouchsafes to be my Guide,
And will not let me miss my way.

Though snares and dangers throng my path,
And earth and hell my course withstand;
I triumph over all by faith,
Guarded by His almighty hand.

The wilderness affords no food,
But God for my support prepares;
Provides me every needful good,
And frees my soul from wants and cares.

With Him sweet converse I maintain,
Great as He is I dare be free;
I tell Him all my grief and pain,
And He reveals His love to me.

Some cordial from His Word He brings,
Whene’er my feeble spirit faints;
At once my soul revives and sings,
And yields no more to sad complaints.

I pity all that worldlings talk
Of pleasures that will quickly end;
Be this my choice, O Lord, to walk
With Thee, my Guide, my Guard, my Friend.

Field greens

Mandarin oranges

walnuts

blue cheese

I bought a salad today.

I ate a salad today.

Thank you Howards.

I love blue cheese!

See these wonderful candles...

I saw these at the Huntington's house many many months ago and I commented how I loved them and I would love to buy them from Mrs. Huntintons shop when she got more in. That was quite a while ago. I love these candles because they remind me of Dr. Suess. I don't know what it is. Maybe they look like little stripped stockings on the funny little people in the books. But anyhow, I love them very much.

So today I go over there for thanksgiving and Mrs. Huntington tells me that she has a present for me. And she gives me these wonderful wonderful candles!!! I can't wait to have a house to put them out in. They are so fun and lovely. I am so happy. :D

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!


Ana Candles.

I went over to the Shelton's for dinner last night and Mrs. Shelton and Jared had a wonderful surprise for me... Mrs. Shelton made me Swedish pancakes!!! Woohoo! After over two years, I have finally gotten to eat her Swedish pancakes and boy are they good. Plus, as an added bonus, Hannah was there and I got to see her too!! YAY! Oh yum they were good, with nice warm peaches!!

Jared says I should be a food critic because I care about how my food tastes so much. haha. Well, if I was a food critic, I'd rate these among my top favorites. However, mostly everything My Mom, Mrs. Taylor, and Mrs. Shelton make are in my top favorites. ha. Anyhow, it was such a lovely surprise! Thanks guys. :D

I am going to see this tomorrow with my family! Yes, that means that I am going home tomorrow after my last class. Woohoo! Ps. Jared says this is getting Oscar buzz because of the main actress's job in the movie. Sarah showed me the trailer many weeks ago and she has been talking about going tomorrow for a while. I am very excited!!

More proof that I am a huge nerd...
Last Undergrad semester schedule!!

For a more complete explaination...
I am taking:

* ENES220 - Mechanics of Materials; (3 credits)

Stress and deformation of solids-rods, beams, shafts, columns, tanks, and other structural, machine and vehicle members. Topics include stress transformation using Mohr's circle; shear and moment diagrams; derivation of elastic curves; and Euler's buckling formula. Design problems related to this material are given in lab.

I should have taken this class a long time ago, but I didn't. So I was supposed to test out of it this semester, but that didn't guarentee an A and it was way too good of a chance to boast my GPA. So this class is what I take to pad my grade. I'm a sad little nerd when this is what I take for an easy class. HA. But I need it to graduate.

* ENME472 - Integrated Product and Process Development; (3 credits)

Integration of product development with the development process. Design strategies. Product architecture. Design for manufacturing. Selection of materials. Design for assembly. Basically, all that means is SENIOR PROJECT. This class is supposed to be a ton of work. But this is the class I have been looking forward to the ost because you get to design your own project and actually make it and market it. How sweet is that?!?

* ENME695 - Failure Mechanisms and Reliability; (3 credits)

This course will present classical reliability concepts and definitions based on statistical analysis of observed failure distributions. Techniques to improve reliability, based on the study of root-cause failure mechanisms, will be presented; based on knowledge of the life-cycle loadprofile, product architecture and material properties. Techniques toprev ent operational failures through robust design and manufacturing practices will be discussed. Students will gain the fundamentals and skills in the field of reliability as it directly pertains to the designand the manufacture of electrical, mechanical, andelectomechanical products.

Ummm, I don't really know how to explain all that. Think computer chips, then think about the plastic casing around them and then boards they sit on... yeah, this class is about how those type of things fail. It is a grad class. It should be fun.

* ENME808X - Advanced Topics in Mechanical Engineering: Engineering Decision Making; (3 credits)
I don't have a clue what this is about... I am thinking about swapping it out for:
ENME808Z Advanced Topics in Mechanical Engineering: Design in Electronic Product Development; (3 credits) it is just so much paperwork!!

New things on the links:

* Hucks Army (join) - haha
* I brought Krissy up to her own spot because she is posting again and has been for a while, I just keep forgetting to more her up. So she is now at the spot for Robins.
* I finally updated Hannah and Rachel Townsends new blogs. Check them out under links.
* I added Carolyn Webster.

If you all want anything else, let me know. I might try to get some last names up there so it is a little less confusing. But who knows... not before finals. Also, maybe a new design, maybe, if I find time.