Almost free...

I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning to shoot photos for the Index. I'm on my college newspaper staff. I usually get three assignments a week. This was my last assignment until next semester :)

Only 9 more days of classes til summer! I have two papers, 3 tests, and 5 chapters of Spanish homework to get through this week. It is easier to feel motivated when I know that I am reaching the end.

I took this photo of Zach a month or two ago. I think it pretty well sums up a college student's feelings right now.

Here is to sunshine, family, swimming, watermelon, weddings, bridal showers, sleeping in, Hawaii, hammocks, learning to cook...all these things are summer.

What a week...

Mmm, it feels so good to have some free time again. This week has been really tough. Nice, tall piles of homework, speeches (in both Spanish and English), musical performances and tests. Sometimes I have weeks where it feels like I'm just trying to survive it all. But God always takes my hand and leads me through it all.


There is a lot to catch up on in the blogging world. Last weekend my parents visited and saw the house for the first time. Yay! My Dad showed us how to carefully pull up the baseboards...which Zach and I then proceeded to accidentally destroy. Hehe. My mom and I tackled the weedy flowerbeds. Did some window cleaning that was seriously amazing. It was such a fun day, and I
always love working on the house :)

Last weekend Zach, Brad and I also had a tie-dying extravaganza. Here are some of the sweet photos...

I am marrying this man :)

Shirts and Bandanas

Today my wonderful roomate Julia and I donated blood. It was a good time. We both got dizzy and they had to lower our heads. Then we got awesome pink bandages, pizza and cookies. The whole thing was a bonding experience :)

Here we are trying to look tough. Julia succeeded...I failed.

Zach's Cleaning Technique

Zach's equation for cleaning his room is simple:

Messy room=Invite Amy over

Before applying the equation...

After Amy comes over...

I'm still laughing 24 hours later...

This is a slightly random post, but I had a funny story I just had to share with you all.

Zach and I are both in a class called Introduction to Agriculture. The lectures are killer-boring but the labs are always interesting. Yesterday our lab was held at the University Farm that Truman owns and runs.We started by looking at food that had been partially digested by a cow--smelled great. Studied horse semen under a microscope--fun. And saw a baby cow that had been birthed just the night before. Yes it was all very interesting, but my story today comes from somewhere else...

You might have wondered how did we get food out of a cow's stomach? Well, there is actually a steer that the farm uses to study digestion. It's a little more complex than this, but to put in simply: they cut a hole into its side and put a "cap" on it. So...you can screw off this cap and grab stuff out of his stomach. However, don't feel to bad for this guy. I'll call him Benny for the sake of this story. He is pretty much the King of the pen, gets to amble about all day and eat TONS of food. To give you an idea of how big he is--our teacher told us he weighs almost 3000 pounds!

Now begins the story. Our teacher asked us who had "bad" shoes on so that they could enter the cow pen and help him get Benny to walk toward the fence. No one had "bad" shoes on. But of course, Zach volunteered--always up for an adventure. So our professor and Zach hop the fence and begin their short trek to Benny. When they arrive Benny makes it quite clear that he has NO plan on moving. Our teacher is pulling him by the rope with all his might, and Benny just flicks his tail in amusement. At this point Zach finds out exactly what he "volunteered" for. Our professor tells him to start slapping the cow's butt as hard as he can. Zach puts on a sort of sheepish grin and starts the job.

At this point our entire class is giggling at the sight: Our teacher trying to pull this huge cow, and Zach spanking his gigantic hind with little apparent success. One guy in our class jokingly called out "Why don't you try the other cheek?!" Eventually Zach was pounding on Benny's bum with a closed fist. But still.... Zach's fist against 1000 pounds of rear-end?

Eventually they got Benny to shuffle over towards our class along the fence. Zach's hand was a bit sore and my teacher was winded--but ole' Benny was just fat and dandy :)

So...I hope that perhaps this story made you smile. And perhaps the image of Zach spanking a 3000 pound cow made you laugh.

Our friend Benny

This is Professor Marshall...with the placenta he saved from the cow birthing.

Windy Wendy's Woosop

Hey guys,

Amy and I got up early this morning and decided to attack the house … with paint, I mean. After a quick Sodexho-to-go breakfast on our front porch, we put a second and final coat on the brown wall while jamming out to David Crowder’s “A Collision.” Yeah, we’re pretty cool.

After we finished stage one of the painting, Amy and I shot over to the Rec because our friend Chris (of Woosop's Tae Kwon Do) had come in town for a martial arts demonstration. It was good to catch up with Chris and watch him wield his martial art powers. Check out these sweet pictures of him, compliments of Ames …

Above: on left Below: in blue

After the high-flying action, Chris, Amy and picked up some Wendy's and brought it to the house. I had a Spicy Chicken Sandwich and Jr. Bacon Burger, Amy had a baked potato and Frosty, and Chris scarfed some chicken nuggets – just in case you were wondering. Our dining room still needs a little work ...

Amy cutting in the wall

After Chris ditched us, Amy and I got back to painting, we threw a coat of our second color on another wall in the living room. I think it’s green; Amy says blue; Wal-Mart calls it Winter Moss. By the way, if anyone finished reading this blog, NEVER by paint from Wal-Mart, unless you enjoy peeling strings of latex of your wall.

That’s all for now,
Zach