Day: December 15, 2008

So we went Christmas shopping on Saturday!  I think this is the 4th or 5th year that Dad and Mom have let Christian and I shop for gifts for each other and for them. It was fun as it always is! I would tell what I got for each person, but that would ruin the surprise so I’ll just wait for another 11 days. 🙂 I can say this safely though: Each gift is absolutely perfect for it’s corresponding recipient! Also, every year we put together a puzzle for Christmas, and we have discovered that the 750 piece puzzles are just the right size for us. So Dad and I also went to Michael’s and picked up our annual puzzle. They only had three 750 piece puzzles there. Two were of four American pop culture icons (Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, and James Dean) and the only one left was one of 5 cute little kittens and pretty flowers. Which is fine! But you know, kittens do look a lot alike. So do flowers. So it’s a challenge.  Hopefully I’ll take a picture of the finished puzzle and post it up after Christmas before our cats get to it.

In school… I wrote my first practice ACT essay last Friday.  I did better than I thought I would, but it was much too short, rather badly thought out and had several more flaws that I noticed when I typed it down.  But here it is, unedited. Please don’t cringe!  (The prompt was second chances)

Everyone makes mistakes. It’s absolutely unavoidable to do or say the wrong thing. If it weren’t for second chances, then we’d all be leading lives of regret and guilt. Thankfully, there are some situations where we can turn around our own faults and make things better again.

Some are opposed to too many second chances. They say that second chances breed bad behavior and allow people to perform their misdeeds over and over again. I agree to a point. Some people obviously don’t want to change or make good. But many people have an honest desire to learn from their mistakes and do the right thing.

Because of this and because of my own personal experiences with second chances, I believe that society should soften it’s heart and learn to be more compassionate towards others. We’re all human after all, and who can honestly say that they’ve ever despised a second chance when it’s been given to them?

Tomorrow, Troy and Youngin will leave for ten days in Argentina. They recently started a blog and tell us they will try to update it with pictures and commentary from internet cafes while on their trip. If their postings from Argentina are anything like what they have put up so far, they should be a very interesting read. You can find their blog here. They are a recently married couple who have been in the Raleigh area about the same time as us. The go to Sunday morning meeting and Wednesday night bible study with us. Lorena and Kelly think Youngin is just about perfect. They will even be more impressed when they see what Youngin knitted for her new (not yet born) niece. I am totally amazed. When does she have time for all the stuff she does? Is there nothing she does poorly? The particularly cool part of all this is that she never says anything about any of the stuff she does, you just find out about it when she does it. For his part, Troy is an engineer (by birth, but soon to be by degree, too) which, of course, is just about perfect as far as Christian and I are concerned. We have a special appreciation for those who can not only do the math, but they are interested in it, too.

Tio Jorge, Tia Mari, and primos Jorgito, Valeria, and Brandon plan to visit us from Mexico in the next two or three weeks. Of course we are very excited about the visit. I called yesterday to talk to Jorge about the timing, but ended up talking to Tio Laurin for about half an hour. He is the one that has lived, worked, and traveled throughout South America for the past ten years or so. He was excited about Troy and Youngin were traveling in Argentina. He marveled at the beauty of the country and the inexpensive, really good food there. He thinks it would be awesome fun for all the family to meet in Buenos Aires for a vacation in the next couple of years. I am going to talk to Uncle Doug and see if I can get something worked out. Be sure to check out one of my favorite pictures of the beautiful Valeria and her favorite uncle.