2008 already? really?

Well, Jean Wysocki and Joe Kingry are demanding a new blog entry, so I guess I'd better deliver.

It's 2008. I just got back from spending about 24 hours in Frisco, CO at the very nice mountain house of Ev's parents. I did not walk outside the door once in those 24 hours I don't think. But it was good company and below zero out, so why leave? I spent this entire day watching football and putting together a puzzle. That dang puzzle.

1,000 pieces. I had to leave early, but I hear they almost finished it even though Joe was hiding a piece the entire time just to mess with us. He would.

Anyway, the laziness of my new year pretty much describes my entire Christmas break. Yeah that's right. Two years out of school and it's still "Christmas break" in my head. I went home for about a week to hang out with my family, play with babies and spend one evening with my high school friends.

I remember when I used to be home at Christmas and spend every waking moment with those friends. And now it seems like that one night is even hard to get us all to. It's weird how we all just all of a sudden move on. But as I looked through old pictures and yearbooks (which I always do when I go to St. Louis), I realized again how much I miss high school and the people there. I really miss the way you see people everyday and have to make very little effort to be friends. I think I took that for granted.

A couple weeks ago, I got to make my first trip to Oregon, and my first trip to the west coast states ever. The occasion: Jamie Powell's wedding.

Jamie was a part of my amazing New Orleans hurricane relief team. The funny thing is, we weren't really friends and actually didn't even get along that great for about the first month. But something finally clicked and we got to be pretty tight.

The weird thing was, I was not super excited about going to Oregon. I mean I was so excited to see all my peeps like Jamie and Caitlin and Kevin, etc., but I wondered if after these past almost two years of not seeing each other would make us not so tight.

I was wrong.

My time in Oregon was sweet. You've probably noticed how often I bring up something about New Orleans in my blogs, and know that it was an amazing experience for me, but it is so easy for me to forget that those eight other people on my team were a huge part of my great experience.

Being around them is awesome because they are the people that surrounded me for a few of the greatest months of my life. They get it. They understand. And it almost is a subconscious thing. By that I mean I was so immediately comfortable around them without even thinking about it. I don't know, it's hard to explain. There's just something about reuniting with the people who went through a profound experience with you.

Kind-of like hanging out with Rachel Cavanaugh. We were like barely friends when she was a student, but then we were both leaders on the Denver mission trip this summer and shared really cool moments. And now she's home on Christmas break and being around her again just gives me some sort of weird joy and peace. Because there's some big part of me she gets.

I really hadn't thought about any of this until I started typing, so I'm not sure if any of it makes sense. Man I love writing.

Anyway, so this wedding was great. It was great to see Megan, Kevin, Nik Stice, Heather, and of course, my two NOLA boos.

I would relive it all over again with them in a heartbeat for sure.

Some other exciting things have been going on lately too, like Angie being home,

Melissa coming to visit,

my Christmas Spectacular step routine and Emily Ashcraft being there to witness it, Sophie turning 16, me watching hours of Arrested Development and 30 Rock, snowboarding without breaking any limbs, and of course, our rec league indoor soccer team starting up.

Yeah that's just weird. Mark Cuthbertson is good at photo shop. We had our first game last Friday (the day I returned to the Mile High City from the couple hundred feet high city), and I pretty much have never felt so out of shape in my life. I think Jake Stooke said it well when after a few minutes of play he stated that he could already taste blood in his throat. I felt the same way. I cannot explain to you how horrible I felt after running around for two minutes. It was unreal.

But whatever we won, and our soccer team is awesome and it's gonna be a sweet season. As long as no one has to be hooked up to an oxygen tank and taken to the hospital.

Happy New Year!