long drives.

This post was actually written the day before Thanksgiving. As I was working on it, I got frustrated with the pictures not working. I ended up leaving the house that evening, and for some reason never got back around to fixing it. Then Thanksgiving came, upon many other events, and I just never got around to posting it. However, it is very important that I post it today because tomorrow's post will be fabulous!

This will probably be the blog post with some of the worst pictures I’ve ever taken!
Why? Because they were taken on my phone….while I was either driving slow and enjoying the ride, or completely stopping because no one was behind me!

I’ve been wanting to do this blog post for a while, but just never felt like sending all of the pictures from my phone to my email. It takes forever because the files are so big that you have to send each picture individually. Looking at my email inbox, it shows that it took from 11:53am to 12:10pm to send all of these pictures!

Anyway. When Matt was going to school at Ferrum, I loved driving to go see him. I used to not be a huge fan of driving long distances, but after my first time driving straight to Ferrum from Richmond, that completely changed! From then on, I didn’t care if the drive was 4 hours from home to his school, or 2 ½ hours from Longwood to Ferrum, it was a nice drive. ESPECIALLY in the fall, driving through the mountains and all of the colors on the mountains! And as silly as it sounds, I was so excited with myself when I went to visit him over my Spring Break (when these pictures were taken) because it was the first time I drove there without reading directions! Haha. I was so proud.lol

That particular trip was a surprise, too. I left my house early enough, but that almost ended up being too early. No worries, it gave me more time to look in the bookstore and plan how I was going to surprise him. I ended up texting him saying, “Please call me when you get out of class!” So, he calls me, I ask, “I can’t decide if I should buy this shirt or not…can I send you a picture of it and you tell me what you think?” Well, of course, he said he would. Then, I laid out a zebra print Ferrum tshirt, took a picture on my phone, and sent it to him. I swear, not 15 seconds later Matt was calling me, laughing and saying, “Where are you?” Well, you know me, I can’t hold in a laugh to save my life so I couldn’t even try to make something up!

Enjoy some of these pictures of the drive to Ferrum. I wish I still had a picture of the shirt to show, too!

Love that I saw a rainbow! (Yep, that means I had to drive in some rain)

I actually took this when I left Ferrum, because I forgot to take it on the way. This is right before you get back on 460 E

mixed emotions...

I was reading old blogs of mine on Myspace (old school, right?), and in one post I just had these lyrics. I thought it would be appropriate to post them now:

Like You'll Never See Me Again

If I had no more time
No more time left to be here
Would you cherish what we had?
Was it everything that you were looking for?
If I couldn't feel your touch
And no longer were you with me
I'd be wishing you were here
To be everything that I'd be looking for
I don't wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don't wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
'Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So every time you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again
Every time you touch me
Touch me like this is the last time
Promise that you'll love me
Love me like you'll never see me again


How many really know what love is?
Millions never will
Do you know until you lose it

That it's everything that we are looking for
When I wake up in the morning
You're beside me
I'm so thankful that I found
Everything that I been looking for

I don't wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don't wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
'Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So everytime you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again
(can you do that for me baby)
Every time you touch me
(see we don't really know)
Touch me like this is the last time
(see everyday we never know)
Promise that you'll love me
(I want you to promise me)
Love me like you'll never see me again
(like you'll never see me again)

Take time to love everyone in your life and be thankful for them.

a true friend. aka "big dubb diesel"

I have about twenty other things that I want to blog about. But right now, those can wait.

Last night, a really good friend of mine from church was killed in a car accident in Ashland. I'm not going to write much about that, but if you'd like to read the story, you can find it here.

He had been my friend, best friend, and boyfriend at one time (December 2005-February 2006). Which is why I think it's still so surreal to me that it actually happened. We had some good times together...from beach trips, mission trips, midnight premiers of Harry Potter, the whole shebang. And just the night before the accident, we were making plans to get our "group" together to go see Harry Potter 7 again (because you can't see it in theaters just once.)

I went through his old Myspace Blogs (I was his trusty Myspace-layout maker :) ), and found several that he mentioned me in.

10/10/2005
"I don't know how but me and Mallory got closer this weekend, she's like my bestest friend. She says her feet are kicking but I didn't smell anything ahha, but a skunk ahhahaha."


These next 2 are from when we were going out...

1/11/2006
"MALLORY!...I would do anything I could to make her happy...I'd drive any distance and do whatever to see you sweetheart...the past two weeks we've been together have been the best, and I know there will be many more to come..."


2/10/2006
"Mallory [is] pretty much what keeps me going, because she can do things to make me feel like the luckiest, happiest person ever. tomorrow we're going out...I'm just looking forward to being with her, not the movie, not the food, and not the car we're takin..."
(sidenote--we always had car trouble when we would go out!)


Just some random facts:
-I would always schedule my mall trips on days I knew he would be working at the Oakley's stand.
-On the beach trip, we had intended on getting up to see the sunrise. Both of us were late sleepers, so that never happened.
-He called me Princess. Mom actually remembered that and reminded me today.
-I was at CVS today and the first Christmas card that caught my eye was one that I had given him years ago.
-He was the one who got me hooked on Jack Johnson.
-He always teased me about my smelly feet.
-His hugs swallowed me. Always.
-Last Sunday in church he was eating Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (from Harry Potter, of course). It was great. Especially when he got the Fish flavored bean...


*these pictures are no where near chronological order. just lots of good memories.. And if you're friends with me on Facebook, there will be more up soon.

We were always great game partners in Youth. I couldn't find the one of us doing an egg toss..
More games...

Casey Ryan, you will truly be missed. Forever. You touched so many lives in your 23 amazing years of life. You were a great, caring friend, who we'll never forget. But now, I know you're in a better place, looking down on all of us who have been blessed to know you. Love and miss you always 0:)

Matthew 5:4

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Psalm 9:9

The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

Emily's Senior Pictures!

I am so excited to show you all these pictures now! I have been dying for Emily to see these, as I know she’s been patiently waiting :)

I have known Emily for basically forever! She and my sister are the same age, so they’ve grown up in school together, and Emily also dances at the same dance school as we do. So when she asked me to do her pictures, I was thrilled! She put up with me because every time I took what I knew would be a Great picture, I would keep saying, “Emily, you’re just so pretty!” haha.

She also wanted a few pictures with her boyfriend, and I was impressed-he knew just what to do, a natural just like his girlfriend ;)

Okay, there is definitely a story with this picture. We all couldn't stop laughing at the girl with the lime green pants, so then we decided we couldn't leave without Emily getting a picture with her. This was as close as we could get without looking too stalker-ish!

This is seriously what Maymont was looking like. Emily, my sister and I have all been in the Communications Center in high school, so we were the ones who kept talking about how awesome the tree right behind Emily would be with the really bright colors coming in through the back...haha

I couldn't decided which of these next two I liked best...so I included both!

And then we saw a family throwing leaves in front of a little kid to take pictures, so we did too :)

Sneak Peak : Emily's Senior Pictures!!

Halloween!

I have read on several of the blogs I read that people have just been so tied up with busy lives that there hasn't been much time for blogging. I can totally relate.

I've been working on this horrible Biomechanics paper that I have just not been motivated to do and it's one of those papers where you're so close to finishing but it's like you don't have an ounce of energy left to finish it! Well, there was a positive part about this paper. It was due last Friday-the 29th, but last Wednesday my professor she didn't want it any earlier than the following Monday, and we had until next Friday (tomorrow-Nov 5th) to turn it in. Well, then Monday she told us that we won't be having class on Friday, the 5th, so it was just due to her by class time that day. I was just going to turn it in during lab today, but thennnnn this morning, I received an email that lab was cancelled and the paper isn't due until NEXT Monday! Talk about crazy! Yet, very relieving! Even though I'm basically done-just have to cite my sources in my paper, but that won't take long at all. And then the negative part about the paper-I told myself I couldn't write another blog until the paper was finished because if I was going to type that much, it was going to go towards my grade! haha

Well, technically my paper is not completely finish but since I have enough time today, I wanted to blog!

I went home last weekend for the Halloween festivities I always look forward to. About 5 years ago, my dad got the idea to set up a canopy tent at the end of our driveway and he would bring the grill out to cook hotdogs. Mom also decided to make chili for this and that way 1) trick-or-treaters wouldn't have to walk up our long driveway for candy; 2) we could eat dinner and stay warm with the chili; and 3) trick-or-treaters' parents can also have a treat! Well, over the years it turned into what seems like a full-out feast of wonderful food, and some of our friends actually plan on coming over!! (last year, some people were worried why we didn't do it, but we were at a wedding that day :) )

This year, dad even brought the fire thing from on the back patio so we could roast marshmallows and keep even more warm (which my cousin Alison was THRILLED about!!)

Here are some pictures of this year's Halloween set up!

Set up!

Condiments for hot-dogs and chili:
The feast table...

My contributions: Pumpkin Spice Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting, and Roasted Pumpkin seeds that were coated in cinnamon, nutmeg, and all-spice. Mmmmmm!

Even Chestnut got a costume this year! :) This made us laugh ALL night.

When I asked Mom if she bought good candy for trick-or-treaters, she said, "It's candy y'all would like." I approve, because that means we get leftovers ;)

Abby's pumpkin!

Dad's pumpkin!

My pumpkin!

Matt's pumpkin!

*The roasted pumpkin seeds came from the last 2 pumpkins...haha.