Without Wax

I was not up for 38 hours straight between Thursday and Saturday and then proceed to sleep for 13 hours the next day.

It did not take me 40 minutes to get the mall [usually a 5-10 minute drive] because they closed 64-40 on Saturday morning, a few days early because of the storm that hit Sunday night. If I had any sense, I would have checked the news to make sure it was open.

I did not pay for $3 of the March for Life trip in quarters because they didn't have change for a $20.

My team in Pro-Life Jeopardy did not do amazingly awesome and beat the team with the law student and the Jesuit scholastic on it!

I did not get extremely excited when I heard that Sarah Palin might be going to the March for Life this year. Even if she did happen to be there, there's no way I would get to see her. Still, I got really excited!

I'm sure there was more that I did not do this week, but I can't think of any more! What did you not do this week?

This widget will be at the bottom of my blog, so please take advantage of it!!

It's that time of year week again!



I did not download 18 *NSYNC songs Sunday. I mean, no one listens to them anymore so why bother downloading them?

I did not for .354 seconds contemplate going to the bathroom in my sink last night after some girl threw up in the hall. Even if I did, I did not justify it by telling myself that if I walked out into the hall and saw it, then I would throw up too, therefore making an even bigger mess. Luckily maintenance came and cleaned it up before I could even think such thoughts!

My room does not still smell like smoke from the bonfire that I went to on Friday night!

I did not get upset when Barbara Walters did not interview Sarah Palin for the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2008 and then just turn the TV off as soon as she named Barak Obama as Number 1.

I did not go to the Galleria 3 times this week for Christmas shopping. That would've been a bad idea as well as very time consuming!

I did not mention my blog to almost everyone I had a conversation with this week.

I did not stay up a lot later than I should have because I was playing a budget game meant for middle schooler's.

That's all for this week!

Last night a group of us from Students for Life went to Forest Park for a hayrack ride and bonfire. It was a ton of fun! We went on a short ride through the park and then we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s'mores [we put the marshmallow in between two chocolate chip cookies!] Later, Caitlin, Hannah and I went rolling down a hill! Like I said, tons of fun! Here are a few pictures from the night.








*Oh, and Pepe never picked my nose. Nor was he at the bonfire. He picked Caitlin's nose on the March for Life. Just clearing that up!

I figured you would like to read something other than my Not Me! Monday posts! So I'm going to fill you in on what I've been up to!

A few weekends ago, I was in Peoria for Maine's [my little cousin] 3rd birthday party. Here are some pictures from it:
And then I was home November 25-30 for Thanksgiving Break. I hardly had any down time! Tuesday night, I met Elizabeth, Sarah N., Jewel, and Brittany at Olive Garden for dinner. It was nice to be able to hang out with them, I haven't seen them in quite awhile! That night I stayed at Melissa's because I went with her and her mom to the hospital on Wednesday for some tests. On Wednesday afternoon, I went over to my grandma's with Luc, Lexie, Zach, Abby, Austin and Ashley and played games! We played 2 games of Bunco and a game of Golf [the card game] The younger kids helped grandma decorate her tree earlier. That night I took Lexie and Nichole to see Twilight. For Thanksgiving on Thursday, we went to my Uncle Rick and Aunt Wilma's house. My cousin, Sean, who now lives in Detroit, and my Uncle Bob, who lives in Canada were both there and it was nice to see them, along with my other aunts, uncles and cousins! Friday was super busy! We took Abby, Austin and Ashley to the Santa Claus Parade [longest running holiday parade in the United States!] and then we met Kristi and Grandma at Avanti's for lunch. Abby, Austin and Ashley came over afterwards and went with us to get our Christmas tree and helped set it up while Zach and I went to the AT&T store to look at iPhones! That night, I babysat Evan and Jacob and then to of their cousins, Ben and Gabe, yes...4 boys...all around the same age. It was busy but so much fun! Saturday I went to a basketball game in Brimfield and then to American with Melissa. She ended up buying an awesome video camera. That night I babysat Parker and Brock. It was nice seeing them too...I couldn't believe how much bigger they had gotten! I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!

I did not contemplate [along with everyone in my car] e-mailing my professors to tell them that there was too much snow and that the conditions were too bad to drive in, so that I could stay in Peoria for another day/night.

I did not get extremely excited when Notre Dame got a first down in the third quarter. It's not like that was their first first down of the game or anything.

I did not use my old ATM card to scrape the ice off of my window on Friday night because I didn't have a scrapper in my car.

I did not bring my dress back to school in case I go to the APO formal but forget my shoes.

I did not go see Twilight for the third time this week.

What did you NOT do this week?

I did not see Twilight twice already. Nope, that would be a waste of money.

I did not buy a box of 24 waffles but only eat two, and then have to throw the rest away because I don't have a freezer.

I did not sleep in until 1 in the afternoon yesterday. That would be completely irresponsible of me considering all the homework I had to do.

I did not offer to help bring the Billiken back to it's rightful home in front of West Pine Gym.

I did not just throw away a pumpkin that had been rotting in my room for weeks. Nope, that would be absolutely disgusting!

I did not say "Bonjour" to someone instead of "Hello" because I had been doing French homework all day!

I have not had "Bella's Lullaby" on repeat all day because I absolutely love it!

I did not play Guitar Hero for over an hour today, that would be a complete waste of time!

For more Not Me! Monday posts, head on over to mckmama's blog!

Eduardo Verastegui* wants YOU to donate [or at least consider] to the Pregnant and Parenting Student Assistance Scholarship!

Okay, okay, so I stole [borrowed...] this idea [and I think it's the same picture...] from Sarah while she was making the March for Life slideshow, but I think it is a very effective technique! I mean, who would say no to that face?!?

What's this I hear?? You don't know what the Pregnant and Parenting Student Assistance Scholaship is? Well, since you asked, let me enlighten you!

Students for Life at Saint Louis University is working towards endowing this scholarship based on the idea that no student should ever have to choose between having a child and having an education. This scholarship will provide valuable resources so that students facing the unexpected challenges of pregnancy and parenting can stay on track toward earning a degree. The student will be able to use the scholarship to help with tuition, books, childcare, prenatal care, etc. For more information, you can click here.

I encourage you to pray about contributing to this scholarship, whether it be with your prayers and/or monetary donation. Thanks!

Oh, and if anyone can correctly guess where I got the title from and/or what it's talking about....kudos to you!









*[if you haven't seen Bella, you should, you will have no idea who he is ]
**That was taken directly from the Students for Life website, but they said it so perfectly, that I didn't want to re-phrase it!

I did not wake up early and drive back to St. Louis this morning because I wanted to stay home and sleep in my bed one more night.

I did not get into a yelling match with my brother and Corey about how the media misconstrued just about everything that Sarah Palin said. Nope, not me. The election's over and it doesn't matter anymore, right? [Wrong...this bother's me to no end!]

I did not look into transferring to the University of Alaska-Anchorage simply because Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska.

I did not get threatened with an ...or else... if I don't stay in St. Louis this weekend.

Okay, so these aren't very good one's buuut it's my first week [well second, but I didn't publish the first one because they were even worse than these!] If you want to read more, or get the button so you can make your own, head on over to mckmama's blog!

This whole, posting things months after they happen seems to be a trend here. Gene and Colleen's wedding was the next day [Saturday] after I had dinner with President Bush. I was going to post this soon, but with the POTUS one, the Stellan update, and the Election guideline post, I didn't want my [very few] readers to start expecting posts all the time!

I guess I should give you a little background on who Gene and Colleen are...Gene is the older brother of Hannah [one of my friends I met here at SLU]. He was also the president of Students for Life when I was a freshman. Colleen was the vice president of Students for Life that same year and Caitlin, Hannah and I [along with a bunch of other people] stayed at her house last year when we were in Washington, D.C. for the March for Life.

So anyways, on October 4th, I attended my first non family, Catholic wedding ever. I'm pretty sure it was the first Catholic wedding that I've been to that was mass as well.

I absolutely loved the colors that she had, and the church was beautiful!

After the wedding, Caitlin and I stayed and took pictures of the families/wedding parties [Caitlin was also taking pictures like it was her job during the wedding!] Then after that was done, we took them to the one hour photo at Walgreens and put them in a picture album so that they could see pictures of their wedding right away. We had a few bumps in the road, but managed to get to the reception and seated before the wedding party was annouced and came in!

The reception was a little different than recepctions that I'm used to! I had a blast though! Congrats Gene and Colleen!

I found this when I was looking at the blog of a lady who was organizing the prayer vigil for Stellan and MckMama. I found it very amusing!

UPDATE!
Baby Stellan is here!! His APGARS scores were both 9 and the NICU team could find nothing wrong with him!! Again, if you want more information or to follow the rest of the updates, head over to mckmamas blog, the link is below!

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I don't know how many people will read this in time [or at all! haha] but tomorrow [well today I guess] at 9:30 CST, baby Stellan will be making his arrival into the world! If you don't know his story, please go check out his mom, mckmama's blog. You can also click on the "Praying for mck mama and Stellan" picture on the right hand side of my blog. Please keep Stellan and his family in your prayers tonight and tomorrow!

A little background before I get to the main part of this post...

Students for Life at SLU has started a scholarship, the Pregnant and Parenting Assistance Scholarship, for SLU students who are, as the title states, either pregnant or parenting. As of right now, once the scholarship becomes endowed, we will be able to give one student $1000 each year. That money can be used towards tuition, books, childcare, prenatal care, etc. The more money we get, the more we can give. One way that we have been raising money to become endowed is through Run for Their Lives which is a 5k run/walk we have hosted the past two years in the spring. On October 10th we had a kick-off event for members, friends of Students for Life, and people in the community who support us.


We pulled up to Hunter Farms, and let me just say, it was gorgeous! I would absolutely love to live somewhere like this! Tons of open space, trees, ponds/lakes...beautiful. After they checked us in and we went through security we mingled among the "Who's Who of St. Louis Republicans" basically [some guests included Mr. and Mrs. Schnuck's and Tim Drury...] Everyone seemed to know each other and we felt a little out of place, so we talked to each other :-) I took a few bathroom breaks, well anytime anyone had to go to the bathroom I went with them so I could rest my feet..the heels hurt so bad and it didn't help that the grass was soft and I kept sinking! The bathroom was cool though. There were pictures of both President Bush's as well as other people who had attended past events here.

After the cocktail hour, we were ushered inside the pavilion for dinner and there a little band of older men playing patriotic songs [which I loved!].

The food wasn't all that great, it would've been better had it been at least warm, but at events like these, I guess you aren't really paying for great food.

They cleared the tables and then, what we had been waiting for..."Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States." I think I got chills when the announcer said that! Everyone was standing, cheering, clapping, waving, whistling it was amazing. When he walked to the podium,he was waving at friends not at people, he casually strolled to the podium. There were no teleprompters. No press to address. No media to misconstrue. No audio or video to limit his free speech.

Some quotes from his speech...
*Someone shouted “4 more years,” upon which Bush replied with, “4 more years and I will be a single man.”
*“Living in the white house is like living in a museum…Laura is always telling me not to put my coffee on the Jefferson table. And keep your feet off of the Grant sofa.”
*To Senator Aiken, “Oh did we leave you behind on Air Force One?”
“…oops.” [I believe Senator Aiken was also in DC that morning with President Bush and Kenny Hulshof but had to take a commercial plane to St. Louis]
* “You have a PhD. That’s Condi. And then you have a C-student. That’s me. But look who is President!”
*“One risk is that you lose and make a lousy candidate…
…the other is that you win and make a lousy President.”
* He also talked about how when you become President, you put the portrait of a past President who you have been most infuenced by and he said it was a difficult choice between Abraham Lincoln and 41 [his father]. But he said that while Abraham Lincoln hangs on the wall, 41 hangs in his heart.

We got to see a very different side of President Bush, the person and not the President, that not many get to see and it was truly an honor.

As promised...here's the video of my jump or fall or belly flop...whatever you would like to call it!*Okay, well I've tried and tried to upload this video, but it's just not working so I'm going to put a link to it on Youtube!

Cliff jumping

In the previous post, I talked about how I went on vacation to the Ozarks with my friend and her family.  Instead of telling you every little detail, I'll just post pictures [courtesy of Melissa because I haven't loaded mine on here yet but they're pretty much the same] and tell you a few stories :-)

So this summer I am babysitting two boys, Evan [6 years old] and Jacob [4 years old].  This week I watched them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but it was mainly just Jacob because Evan's in a summer day camp at Bradley.  On Monday Lexie came back out to their house with me after I dropped Evan off and we decided a new hairstyle was needed on him :-)

This is a little late, but better late than never!


I can't believe Zach graduated. Not that I didn't think he couldn't do it, but that it was so soon. It's been two years since I was sitting in those chairs and it doesn't feel like it's been that long! Time is flying by!



My mom went super early to stand in line to make sure we got seats that had some kind of back support. My dad, Grandma Triplett, Luc and Lexie went a little later and then I went up with Zach. Everyone in my family was already inside and the line was SUPER long, so luckily I saw the Zagardo's and they let me stand with them! Thanks!

Even with 50 more students graduating, they still managed to keep the ceremony to about an hour which was good because every other year that I've been to Richwoods graduation, it's been extremely hot, but it wasn't too bad this year. It got a little warm towards the end though.

Overall, the speeches were pretty good, and Mr. Meisinger and Mr. Schoch even joined in when they threw their hats off since it was "graduation" as well!


Here are some more pictures from afterwards...