5/18/14

Meet my family. This is the Set Crew at Holland Christian High School. We may be a crazy dysfunctional family, but I love them all the same. This weekend was my last show. We take down the set on Monday, but I could not have asked for a better show to go out on. We had a great season, and I am going to miss them all like crazy.
Love you guys.

5/14/14

Meet Remington. He is a burmese mt. dog and golden retriever mix. He came into my family this past summer when he was about 6 weeks old. Now he is almost a year old. Man how time fly's. Last night I took him out for a photo shoot, and this is the favorite picture that I got of him. He looks so happy about life in this photo. Thats what I want, the pure joy that my puppy has each time he sees me.
How can you not just love that face :P

The Next Chapter.

In less than a week, I graduate from High School.
And so here is to a new start in my life, and a new start on this blog.
I know it won't be perfect, but I am going to try to post a picture each day and write a thing or two about it. No idea how this is going to go, but I am going to give it a try.
Here here to the next chapter!

And Kidding 2014 Begins!

The first baby's were born at the farm on March 3! 

They are a set of nubian triplets. The picture bellow is right after they where born. There is one doe, and two bucks. 

 I went yesterday to the farm to get some of my own pictures of them. They are just one day old in these pictures. They were all sound asleep when I arrived, but two of them stood up for me while I was taking pictures. It took them a bit to get up, but they are only a day old. Hopefully the next few weeks will be full of many more of these precious creatures.

Hero

Sometimes I lose hope in humanity.
Like when I heard this story: Two girls were at our schools dance this past week. Lets call them Suzie and Ann. The two were sitting at a table when Suzie saw one of the special needs kids from our school sitting alone at the next table over. She suggested to Ann that they go sit by him for a bit. This was Ann's response, "No way! Isn't he special needs? I don't want to be judged. Lets go dance." Ann got up to go dance, but Suzie did not join her. She went over and sat by the boy and talked with him for the next ten or so minutes.

There it is, there is the hope I've been looking for.
Hmmm.... Where else have I seen hope? How about when I was walking down the hall about 10 minutes ago I saw one of my best friends, who is special needs, sitting in a group of kids. We have a special designated reading time for our entire school. Now my friend, we can call him George, struggles with reading. So what were these kids doing? They where reading to him. I don't know how well they know George, but at least they were including him when normally he has nothing to do during that time. They where sure having a good time because they all burst out laughing as I went past.

Then there is another girl, lets call her Jane. She is also disabled. Yet anytime she sees you, she will stop give you a hug, and ask you how your day is going. I can watch her walk down the hallway stopping at least five times or more to greet different people, whether she knows them well or not. People practically line up for a hug in the mornings as she walks into school.

Now what point am I getting to here? To be honest I am not sure what I was trying to get at. I was just upset about the first story, but I think I learned something as I have been writing this. As much as Ann upset me, she doesn't matter, Suzie is the one who matters in the story. She gave up her friend to go sit with a boy she didn't even know. She is a hero. She is someone that I want to be, and that I hope I am. Being a hero isn't about saving the world, its about doing an act of good. Our world needs more hero's like that.

Changing the World.

As a Senior in High School, I constantly get asked the question: What are you going to do for the rest of your life?
For the past year my answer has been: I have no flipping clue.
Of course that is still true, but I might have come to a sorta answer of these past few months: I want to change the world.
Now don't you dare ask me when. And don't ask me where. And don't even think about asking me how. I still have no clue. Also I would like to clarify, that changing to the world doesn't have to be the same as taking it over. If I can effect just one persons life, that is changing the world. I just want to do something, and do something good.
That is my promise here to you, and to myself.
Heres to a new year, a new goal, and to changing the world.

Let Them Effect You.

Take one look around you.
A laptop, a phone. A fresh glass of Dr. Pepper. A blanket, my window, a bag of finished pretzels.
Now open a new tab and open your favorite news website. What do you see?
Fires, accidents, death, drama. War.
We live in a world where everything, literally everything is at the tip of our fingers. With the swish of a mouse we can thousands of pictures of cats. We can read up on Africa, learn some facts about Koalas, or try to destroy colored bubbles.
The real question that I am getting at here, is with all of that out there what are you spending your time doing? What are you google searching for. If you're not sure, check your history. You can go back, days, months, even years and see every single thing you have searched for. We are living in a world of such great power and knowledge, but what are we doing with it?
What are we doing with it.
How is it that we have come to live in a world where a cat falling can be seen by millions of people, yet none of them could explain to you what is going on in Syria right now.
Of course as I sit here typing this, I am reflecting this upon myself. I only happened upon a video about the strife in Syria on accident literally half an hour ago. It is not that I am blind, because I see plenty of sad stories that float along on the internet. All asking for money to help some trouble in the world. Of course I know I can't help them all, but has it gotten to a point that I don't even seem to care.
'It's just another organization wanting my money.'
But it's more than that. Those organizations are people. People who have given up their lives to spread the word to raise something that rips at their heart. So why can't we take two measly minutes out of our lives to watch there video? I'm not saying this to guilt you into giving money, like so many of them seem to be doing. I am saying this so that you take the minute to glimpse into these peoples lives and see all of the hard work and passion they put into what they are doing and into the issue at hand. I challenge you, and myself to not donate, but to listen. Listen to their story, appreciate it, and remember it.
I find that a lot of times those videos can all become blurred as one in my head. No more. With all those cat videos you have watched and are probably thinking of right now, remember the things in our world that really matter. If you have the funds to help, and are moved to do so then by all means, but there are other ways you can react to these sorts of things without just passing them by.
Let them effect you.