Day Five: Somewhere I've Been.

I love to travel. For someone who is only 21 years old (at least until tomorrow...ahh!), I like to think I've seen a fair amount of the world, whether through mission trips or traveling with family. Here's a list of the places I've been:

USA:
Birmingham, AL
Los Angeles and surrounding areas, CA
Orlando, FL (and other parts of the state, but I was very little)
Atlanta, GA
Chicago, IL
Louisville, KY
New Orleans, LA
Random parts of NW Louisiana
Vicksburg, MS
New York, NY
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
Charlotte, NC
Winston-Salem, NC
Greensboro, NC
Outer Banks, NC
Asheville, NC
Guthrie, OK
Nashville, TN
Austin, TX
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
Houston, TX
San Antonio, TX
Waco, TX
Lots of other places in TX, because-DUH-it's the greatest state EVER!

International:
Cozumel, Mexico
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Managua, Leon, and Santa Maria, Nicaragua
Manila, Iloilo, and Boracay, Philippines
Barbados
Dominica
Aruba
Jamaica
Cayman Islands
London, England
Paris, France
Milan, La Spezia, Fezzano, Cremona, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Aviano, and Venice, Italy

See? Not so bad. Now for what the prompt actually said-a PICTURE! I chose a picture from Italy, because it is the place I traveled to most recently (well, not counting North Carolina), and it is the place I have spent the most time internationally (almost 9 weeks this summer).
















These two pictures are of Fezzano, the village/town/"comune" where my Italian family actually lived most of the time. It is so much more beautiful than even these pictures can show. When I first got there, I literally felt like I had traveled back in time because of the narrow stone alleyways and old houses right along the water. It's beautiful. So that is one of the places where I have been! I hope to always be traveling and learning more about other parts of the world. What a blessing to have the means to do so.

Day Four: A Bad Habit

Day four of the bloggy challenge is a habit I wish I didn't have.

My worst and most annoying habit is definitely biting my nails. I've done it since I was little, and though I've tried several times to stop, it's never really worked for very long. Although it started before I started playing the viola, I have to place at least part of the blame on orchestra, because we aren't allowed to have long nails. Case in point: over Christmas break, I actually quit biting my nails long enough for them to grow out somewhat. I even painted them pink! They were so cute! But when I got back to school, I had to clip them for the first day of orchestra, and that was the end of that. My mom tells me that she bit her nails until she was in her 30s, so maybe there is hope for me yet. And there you have it-my least favorite, hardest to shake habit!

Day Three: Friends

The challenge for Day 3 is a picture of my friends and me. Forgive me if I need to choose more than just one.

First comes my oldest friend. I can't even tell you when I met Rebecca, really. All I know is that she has been there from my earliest memory, and I am so thankful for the encouragement she has been in my life!

See? I'm talking OLD friends!


Growing up...

...into beautiful young ladies, if I do say so myself.

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." -Unknown

Then of course, there are the friends I've made here at Baylor, who have brought so much joy into my life these past few years. I honestly don't know what I am going to do when we graduate and I have to learn how to live life away from them.

A really early picture of all of us...I think this was sophomore year. Lindsay, me, Kim, Rachel, Amber, Valori

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one."-C.S. Lewis

Christmas 2009. Clockwise from top left: Valori, Me, Lindsay, Rachel, Kim

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose." -Tennessee Williams

We laugh a lot, too. Blue Bell Creamery, April 2010.

I'm so thankful for the friends God has put in my life. Whether I've known them my whole life or only a few years, they encourage me and act like family when I'm far from my real family. I'm not sure what I did to deserve them, but I'm not asking!

"Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!"
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Day Two: Why "The Jennifer Story"?

It's day two of my bloggy challenge, and I haven't quit yet! This is progress, people! The challenge for today is: Explain the meaning behind your blog name.
My blog is called "The Jennifer Story". When I was very little, every night when my parents put me to bed, I made them tell me "The Jennifer Story". The Jennifer Story was simply a record of everything I had done that day, from waking up, to eating breakfast, to playing with my toys, all the way to getting back into bed and hearing the Jennifer Story. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it would have been, if I hadn't been the detail Nazi of the early childhood world. I'm told that if my parents got even the smallest detail wrong, like what kind of cereal I ate or what pair of shorts I wore, I made them go back and fix it and tell the story "right". My poor parents. So when I started this blog, I wanted it to be a record of my life (although maybe without quite so many details.) Thus, The Jennifer Story! There you go!

Oh, and just for funsies, here's a picture of little me:

(Somehow the spacing on this post got all wonky, and I don't know how to fix it. Lo siento.)

Day One!

The topic for Day One is: A recent picture of yourself and fifteen interesting facts.

(Wow, I have never put a picture in a blog post before. Let's see if I can figure this out!)

OK, I did it! This was taken last spring when my friends and I drove down to Brenham to visit the Blue Bell factory and see some beautiful Texas wildflowers. Such a fun day.

And now for the 15 facts:

1. My favorite kind of music is country. I don't care if people think it's corny or old-fashioned, I just love it. Even the older, 80s-era stuff.
2. I love to fly. And not just because flying means you’re going somewhere new. I actually love airports, airplanes, and lame in-flight magazines. I think it has something to do with the fact that when you fly everything is very orderly, and there are rules that EVERYBODY has to follow, or they just don’t get to fly. It makes my Type-A self very happy.
3. I kind of wish I could take a few weeks or months and just sit in the library and read any book that strikes my fancy. There always seem to be more important things to do other than read, and that makes me so sad-I really do love to read.
4. I am for sure addicted to caffeine, and, more recently, I HAVE to have a cup of coffee in the morning, or else I am just all out of sorts. Ironically, though, if I have caffeine too late in the day, I can't sleep. (Apparently I'm also an 80-year old. Lame.)
5. I'm currently writing my undergraduate Honors thesis on the public perception of placing infants in non-maternal child care. Or something like that. Ask me again in May, and I'll tell you what it really ends up being about.
6. I love cucumbers, but hate pickles.
7. I have a serious fear of construction sites. I'm always afraid something is going to come crashing down on my head and crush me, or I'm going to fall straight through the floor.
8. I really dislike fluorescent light. No one looks good under it, and it baffles me why nearly every hotel in America uses it in their bathrooms. Ick.
   
9. I almost have to take a shower before I go to bed at night. I can't stand getting into bed feeling sweaty/stinky/gross in any way.
   
10. I really like sports. Football, baseball, basketball, pro, college, high school. I'll watch any of them, and I actually understand the rules pretty well.
    
11. Ever since I've lived with a roommate (all 4 years of college), I have slept with earplugs in at night, mostly to block out noise if my roomie stays up later or gets up earlier than me. Oddly, though, when I share a room with my brother at home, I don't wear them.
12. My favorite color is green. I am a lot more likely to buy something if it comes in green, and I currently own about 2014839 green shirts/sweaters/tank tops because of this.
    
13. I don't really believe that 13 is an unlucky number.
14. I have a Kindle, but for books I really like and think I'll want to read again, I still prefer to have a hard copy. I will say that Kindle's free international internet saved my life in Italy this summer, though.
15. I cannot parallel park to save my life. This was never really an issue, since I grew up in the 'burbs, but in April we moved into a more urban part of town, and several times when parking is scarce I've had to call someone inside the house to come out and park my car for me on the street. Sad, I know.
    

So, there you go! 15 random facts about me! Hopefully I will be able to keep up with this blog challenge...see ya' tomorrow!

30 Day Blog Challenge

So, as much as I have wanted to be a good blogger in the past, I have always failed at that goal. BUT-seeing as how this is my last semester at Baylor (AAH!), I really want to keep a record of the time I have left here. So to get me started, I am going to try to do this 30 day blog challenge that I found on Hannah's blog (I don't know Hannah. But I know some people who know Hannah, and I somehow clicked onto her blog and thought that this was a great idea! So I'm borrowing it.) Hopefully, this will give me something to blog about each day and maybe, just maybe, turn me into a REAL blogger!

Here are the 30 days.

Day One- A recent picture of yourself and fifteen interesting facts.
Day Two- The meaning behind your blog name.
Day Three-A picture of you and your friends.
Day Four- A habit that you wish you didn’t have.
Day Five- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to.
Day Six- Favorite super hero and why.
Day Seven- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you.
Day Eight- Short term goals for this month and why.
Day Nine- Something you’re proud of in the past few days.
Day Ten- Songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad.
Day Eleven- Another picture of you and your friends.
Day Twelve- How you found out about blogger and why you have one.
Day Thirteen- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently.
Day Fourteen- A picture of you and your family.
Day Fifteen- Put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play.
Day Sixteen- Another picture of yourself.
Day Seventeen- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why.
Day Eighteen- Plans/dreams/goals you have.
Day Nineteen- Nicknames you have and why you have them.
Day Twenty- Someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future.
Day Twenty one- A picture of something that makes you happy.
Day Twenty two- What makes you different from everyone else.
Day Twenty three- Something you crave for a lot.
Day Twenty four- A letter to your parents.
Day Twenty five- What I would find in your bag.
Day Twenty six- What do you think about your friends?
Day Twenty eight- A picture from you last year, and now. What has changed since then?
Day Twenty nine- In this past month, what have you learned?
Day Thirty- Your favorite song.

So-here goes nothing! Day 1 post coming up soon.

Summertime!

Hey there! Well, I am officially on summer break now, and have been for over a week. So far, nothing too exciting has happened, unless you count watching lots of daytime TV and avoiding studying for the GRE as exciting. I think I'm saving up my excitement points for later in the summer. Speaking of which, I leave for Italy in exactly 20 days! WOW! I'm really excited and still unsure of exactly what it will be like, but I know it will be amazing no matter what.

Tonight is my brother's last KF Orchestra concert, and therefore the last one my family will attend after 11 straight years of them. That is so crazy and I can' t believe my "baby" brother is so close to being finished with high school! I am really getting old!

OK, one more thing (I don't think anyone reads this anyway, but if you do...) you should check out my uncles' blogs. They have the awesome opportunity to travel with the Passion World Tour all around the world; they have been to Kiev and London and are now in Tokyo, with more places to come. Passion is all about making Jesus famous with college students throughout the world, and it is amazing to see what God is doing! It's so cool that there are college students all over the world, just like us, who want to reach their countries for Jesus. So pray for them, and keep up with their blogs if you want! (Links: Jim and Todd)

I am going to get off the computer now (I've only been on it for 5 hours or something today). Dad will be home soon, and we are off to Chick-fil-A (yum!) and Sean's concert! Ciao!