Adventures from the Past: 2006 Graduation

High school graduation was definitely a momentous occasion! I can't believe it has been almost 4 years!

Adventures from the Past: 2005

2005 was the year of changes. C and I finally got together! It was fun summer (our last one before we got jobs) so it was a lazy time of hanging out with friends and each other. Two of each of our friends were also dating, so there were 3 couples of best friends hanging out all the time. It was a great time of all kinds of adventures.

Later that summer, C, I and 5 of our friends went on a mission's trip to Mexico. It definitely changed my life. I am so glad I went.

Right after that trip (as in, 2 days!) I went on a family vacation. After summer ended, I started my senior year!

2005 started the year where I really started taking photos. My 2005 photo folder is exponentially larger than 2004's. It's an interesting transformation to see. I still had no idea what I was doing though :) But that year is much better documented than any previous ones.

Adventures from the Past: 2004

2004 brought me back to Creation Festival for the third and final time. Lo came along too! Got to see Jars of Clay for the second time. Had a fantastic, carefree summer. My friends and I went camping. This was the last summer before work, boyfriends and new schools all got in the way. It's bittersweet looking back on it!

This was the summer that I really got to know C really well. 

Unfortunately, that was the year Mom developed breast cancer. I also transferred to the public high school. It was a rough year, but we ended it with a bang with family for Christmas! My sister and her husband came to California and we all had a huge bash at my Uncle's ranch.

Adventures from the Past: 2003

2003 led me back to Creation Festival! Other than that, I really enjoyed my freshman and sophomore years at my new school. I had a fun birthday party with ALL of my friends from both schools.

Ebony passed away and I got my current kitties, OB and Petunia. This is Luv and me in my Jars of Clay bedroom. News articles, photos, you name it. My wall was covered!

Adventures from the Past: 2002

2002. A HUGE year for me. I was an 8th grader at the age of 14. I went to Washington DC and NYC on my spring break trip. My first trip away from my parents was pretty traumatic for me. But it was also an amazing time. I was amazed by DC. Seeing the monuments and the sights was just incredible. I especially loved being up in the Washington Monument. That was an incredible view. We got to meet our old senator Ted Stevens and even got to meet Ted Kennedy! I've been wanting to go back ever since. I went through like 7 disposable cameras on my trip, but I'd love to go back and really document it this time! This photo was taken in Times Square right before we saw the Lion King on Broadway! We went about 6 months after 9/11, so Ground Zero was really profound. We went up in the Empire State Building, to Ellis Island, to NBC studios, and floated by the Statue of Liberty.


8th grade graduation is a huge deal in my hometown. All the girls go out and buy a nice dress to wear. Here I am with my best friends at the time. We had no idea what life had ahead of us next! Our speaker at graduation was Iditarod champion Martin Buser.

That summer, I went to Creation Festival. My love of Jars of Clay got started there. It was a wonderful time. I think Dad even enjoyed himself! Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have of myself from that time!

After the summer started, I switched schools and started attending the Christian school. I made new friends there and that is where I met C! It really changed my life, I think, and I am really, really glad that I made the decision to go there. I played volleyball for the season and just had a blast.

Adventures from the Past: 2001

2001 found me at age 13. I went to my first real concert at the state fair. It was to see Jaci Velasquez, my favorite artist at the time. This was also the year that my mom babysat a little girl who I hung out with many a time. I recently reconnected with her mother on Facebook, which has been fun. We also got my trampoline this year. Oh the memories on the trampoline!


 


The second picture is of me and Ebony. He was my goofy black baby
who I adored. And the last shot is me on Christmas Day 2001.

Adventures from the Past: Birth to 1997

Happy birthday to me! 

Taking a step backward for a day!

Here I am at one year old, playing patty cake with my dad! Notice the huge amount of snow out the window! That means it was several feet!








As I grew, I grew my hair long, but before kindergarten or so, my mom chopped it off because I always screamed when she tried to brush it out.
















Kindergarten was where I met the friends I went to school with most of my career. We had a fantastic Thanksgiving unit where we had venison stew and some other yummy dishes and we got to dress up as Indians and Pilgrims.












This was also the time I discovered paper hair bows! I would color on strips of paper and then tape them to my hair. I was pretty proud of them, but now I shake my head and laugh about them.








In 1995, my parents and my sister and I went on a fantastic trip to Disneyland, Knott's Berry farm and Marine World Africa USA. I still think about that trip to this day and how "magical" it all was.









Being born on St. Patrick's Day, my birthday parties always involved green. Green cake, jello (Mom's specialty!), napkins and plates. And whatever else Mom could find. Here I am in 1996 grinning at my birthday party.

Adventures from the Past: 2000

2000 dawned with the Y2K drama that we all don't want to admit to freaking out over. I was 12 that year and in the 6th and 7th grade. 6th grade was an amazing time for me. I won a 5 pound bar of Hershey's chocolate in a school event. Went across the Bay for an overnight school trip. Made earthquake houses, bridges, ice cream, cookies and incubated chickens in school. 7th grade was much more of a growing up time. My best friend at the time transferred to another school. The start of junior high was a bit rough, but I was in the same school with all my classmates. Had some trials with friends that year that I prefer not to think about anymore. But all in all, 2000 was a wonderful year.

Oh, and I cut off my long hair! It was also the first year that I spent time at the river less than a mile from my home. For several summers, my friends and I spent a lot of time there.

Eva passed away that year, much to my sadness. But then I got two new kitties from my friend Lin. Ebony and Luv came into my life that fall. Luv is still around, but Ebony passed away in 2003.

This was the year Dad built the lean to garage on the side of the house. The year my aunt and uncle came to visit. I also got a new bike! Well...new to me anyway :)

Adventures from the Past: 1999

Continuing with my past stories...

In 1999, I turned 11. The main thing I remember about that year was our family vacation. It was the first time I had been to my uncle's ranch. It was teeming with kitties! I quickly made friends with most of them. There are only a couple of the original kitties still there. I spent a lot of time checking out the ranch and seeing all there was to see. My aunt set me up with feeding the horses and I got to ride them once while there.

We made a trip to see my grandparents as well, but I do not have any photos from that jaunt, so unfortunately I do not remember any details from the trip.

Next, it was to my sister's place. Went swimming at the pool at her apartment. Alaska kids don't get to swim outside unless in the Lower 48! It's always a special treat for sure.

The last thing we did on that trip was take my dear sister's kitty Eva home with us. A Tortoiseshell Persian, she was a real character. She was a lot of fun to have around. We had her for a year before she passed away.

Thus began my saga of taking millions of photos of my cats. I have tons of photos - digital and film - of her. She always tolerated my abuse and photoshoots.

Adventures from the Past: 1998

I figured I'd try something new for some blog posts. Posting photos of my childhood and teen years that I think are fascinating!

1998 was an interesting year for me. I was full blown into my rock and geology obsession. I was 10 years old and convinced my dad that when we went on our family vacation that we needed to seek out ROCKS! So we did. On our trip down the Alcan, we stopped at a couple of different rock shops. In one town, I had researched an opal mine that I wanted to go to a dig at. Unfortunately, we could not go on a dig, but did go to the gift shop and I got a free rock with a small section of opal in it for "coming from Alaska specifically" to see them. Boy, was I excited.

We went on an excursion through Oregon looking for thundereggs. It was quite an adventure. We found a cave that Dad and I hiked up to and Mom took pictures of us from the ground. When we got back to Seattle, we went to a rock and gem show there. Woo, I was really excited by that. Mom and Dad spent a bit of money on my collection that day!

A random stray cat had six kittens in our yard that summer. I named them all. They were wild as could be, but I caught a few of them. They were all black and some with white spots. They were awfully cute!

 1998 was a good year. Age 10 was a great time!