Rock N. Roley Murder Mystery

About a week ago was Britley's surprise birthday party!! It was a murder mystery surprise party and everyone had to dress up! It was set in the 50's so it made it all the more interesting. We were supposed to be a bunch of people coming back to our 5 year high school reunion or something like that...solving the murder case of our dear friend Rock. N. Roley. Other names were Dee C. Deucer (The Seducer *wink wink*) Penny Loafer, Priscilla Teen (Went by Pris... Pris Teen...) and a few others I truly can't remember! Ha ha Whitney, Britley's sister, did such a great job of decorating and what not, it was super cute!! :)



Shelby and Anastasia shared the part of Evelyn C. Leigh, the cheerleader that could never say no. Everyone called her 'E.C.' for short. It took us a long time to get that one!! Ha ha ha



Gerin here was a nerd and played a guy by the name of Calvin Q. Layder. Cal for short. (Get it? Cal Q. Layder?? ha ha)



I ended up playing the role of Delbert Toids. Ha ha Friends called me Del, He was the super Jock, in Football, Baseball, Basketball... yada yada yada, complete opposite from me!! Ha ha





This is me and E.C. Ha ha We had a lot of fun! The mystery was intense and fun and way confusing!! But we were happy to wish Britley a Happy Birthday!!! :D

"You can't let your failures define you."

I may not be the most educated person on Politics, and I may also be a little swayed by what my parents believe, but I strongly believe that America is a free country and you do have a right to disagree with the President but do you have to disrespect him? Again... Free country right? Anyway. I just have a lot of respect for President Obama and again, I may not know all that he's doing wrong/right but I think it's a little ridiculous that there is so much controversy going on with him wanting to address the students. Anyway. Since they just published the speech he is going to be giving tomorrow I thought I'd share some of the highlights that I thought were very nice!

~"Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities."

~"Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide."

~"We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country."

~"No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in."

~"You can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying."

~"The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America."

Stolen Moments

Does something ever happen to you that brings back this rush of nostalgia? It's been happening to me a LOT lately! And it's not even that you can remember the exact memory or moment that you were having that made you feel that way, but it's as if you catch a taste of a memory. Your brain just feeds you this random spurt of emotion.



Today for example, we ran to Lowe's to pick up some Bee killer and the second we stepped into the store I remembered this feeling of excitement. I remembered running around and hiding in the model bathtubs and sitting on the toilets. Flipping light switches on and off and playing hide and seek among all the paint chips, ladders, and machinery. My Mom said that when we were building our old house, me and Ben were very young and whenever she brought us we would run around and continue to be really naughty. I haven't thought of that in years or even stepped inside a Lowe's or Home Depot for that matter so it was just funny that the second I stepped inside the store this rush of memories came to me.



Lightning is the other thing that brings back a rush of feelings. I don't want to get too mushy or anything, but I can remember watching the lightning with Bruce the summer before he left on his mission. We just laid a blanket out on the front lawn and watched our very own presentation in the sky. I saw a picture or something the other day, and I realized that I haven't remembered those fun and exciting times with Bruce in so long and it was as if seeing that picture unlocked this flood of water just waiting to gush. :) My stomach flipped and the excitement of summer kisses made me smile. It wasn't even the memory itself but the essence of it. There's a very specific feeling that was with us, not just on that occasion but multiple times, and I seemed to have forgotten it altogether. It was such a familiar sense that I haven't felt in so long. I just... love those moments.



The other time it happened to me was this week as I was driving home from work. It just happened to be when the sun was positioned at an exact point in the sky which made the lighting just right which caused this feeling to hit me. I don't even know what it was... just a familiarity that hit me. I know I've seen and felt that feeling before and because the lighting was different enough... and yet the same enough...it brought my mind to some random nostalgic feeling.

I like to see them as Stolen Moments. These moments that are with us for so long and then we forget about them simply because we don't take the time to remember them. We get caught up in the 'important' things and forget to remember. :) Then we see images, or smell smells that trigger feelings that capture the essence of times we were most at peace and had found a sort of happiness. That's when the moments that were stolen from us are 'found' again. I just think it's so cool. This is a reminder to myself, and everyone else, to always remember the stolen moments.