Simplicity.

Sometimes you just have to stop and enjoy the simpler things in life, now, I'm not saying you should bow to the next seemingly unimportant object you see. But merely stop taking advantage of the smaller things. For example, today I thought I would spend my time taking pictures of small things, that don't often to get to enjoy the spotlight. A few of the subjects chosen were:

-A lamp ( I thought it was pretty)

- and various picture assortments around our lovely home.

These may seem weird, but you might find it truly inspiring what a simple picture can do. Some of you might be thinking right about now. . . 'Why would anyone take a picture of a lamp?' But ask yourselves this, how would life be different without them? Lets say a lamp represents electricity, Where would we be without it? Sure, we would be fine during the day because we have an awesome God who supplies us with natural light, but he also designed it so that there would be a separation between light and darkness. So, in simpler terms, when it gets dark we need something to help us see. Now, these days they have many different lamps. Some are for decorating and some are to light the darkness, some go on the ceiling and some stay on the ground. I, myself, am happy that they make lamps with more. . . flavor, I guess you could say, because taking pictures of boring lamps would definitely be. . . Well. . . boring. Right now you might be asking yourself, why is she blabbing on about lamps? I don't care! For clarification: it's not the lamp I want you to take from this, but the picture it paints.

Don't take advantage of the little things, appreciate them.

Leaving people you love was never supposed to be easy.

We all know that feeling you get when your told: "Okay guys, this is it, it's time to go". But not just in any circumstance, when its time to leave people that you love.

I experience this every year, because every year we make a trip (Or sometimes 2) up to Missouri, to see my moms family. I love it up here. I've not yet discovered the real reason I like it up here to so much. But it probably has something to do with always feeling so relaxed and at home when I come here. See, I practically grew up in missouri. I know some of the people, I know all of the places, its like my second home. I never like saying good bye to it. It used to be a lot worse though, when I was younger, this used to be my all time favorite place, I always looked forward to it weeks in advance and could never get any sleep the night before we would leave. (Take into consideration: I was about 9, 10 or 11 when this would take place). We would always stay up there for weeks and sometimes even a month. I always dreaded leaving, and when it was time to leave I would cry and cry and cry. A couple of times I even 'threatened' my mom by telling her that I was either not gonna eat and starve or lock myself in my room. . . forever. Fortunately, I never went through with either of these genius plans. I would miss a meal and then realize how hard this was gonna be, so I would start eating again.

Now that I have matured A LOT, this doesn't happen anymore. Sure I'm sad, but I don't cry my eyes out and I certainly don't threaten my parents. But it's still hard for me to tell them goodbye, cause they are my family.

Well today, we will be heading home. I'm ready to get home, but I'm dreading the 'goodbye' part. But I'll be back for Christmas, Missouri, until next time!

I like to throw rolls at people.

Have you every been to a restaurant that prefers throwing rolls at its customers instead of politely handing them to you? I have! It was quite an interesting experience if you ask me.

We entered the loud restaurant, specifically Lamberts (Springfield, MO), after waiting patiently for 10 long unending minutes. I find it quite humorous that 10 minutes isn't normally a long time to wait. . . unless your waiting for food, then it seems to drag on and on and on. And having 2 younger siblings there, patiently waiting with you (not really), makes this wait even more unenjoyable. Anyways, finally we were led to our table where we were greeted by a nice waitress and a "What can I get you guys to drink, today?". Like always, my answer is "sweet tea", Why? because it is a delicious drink, and slightly healthier than soda. . . I can only guess. Now, next is the fun, yet interesting part.

"HOT ROLLS!" customers from all over the crowded restaurant, expectantly turn there heads awaiting this delicious, hot member of the bread family. Of course, I wasn't paying attention and next thing I know rolls are being tossed at our table. I had to dodge a few to avoid being hit and getting bread crumbs all over me. But in the end it was most definitely worth it. Until my giant cheeseburger came along and I realized that I had no more room left in my stomach for it. . . Uh oh. I suppose I should of been prepared for the abundance of food I was to be served since I had dined there once before, but I was not, so I only ended up eating half of the cheeseburger and some fries. The rest is for my father when he arrives tomorrow night. (He is going to like this). My dad, is the leftover man, you don't want it. . . give it to my dad. Anyway, as the night concluded we were a bunch of tired, over stuffed kids, but when the food is that good. . . it doesn't matter. :)

A Learning (Driving) Experience

I, being the wonderful older sister that I am, promised Jordan (the 5 year old) that I would take her out for one last ride on the mule. Some of you might be wondering what a mule is. . . Yes, it is an animal but its also, This is hard to explain, a small car type thing. Not exactly a go kart, a little bigger, hopefully you see what I mean here. But anyways, this year jordan learned how to drive it. I’m not exactly sure how she accomplished this feat but she did nevertheless. Now, on with the story, It was early when we woke up because we had to stuff the car with our ‘junk’ for the trip ahead, and since I’m no morning person this was a miserable, miserable time for me. Only joking of course, it wasn’t the most pleasant time but it certainly was not miserable. Normally, I wake up and grab a nice cup of coffee but since this morning was not to go as planned I didn’t really get any time to enjoy it. . . at all. This is when Jordan finds me and asks me if we can go for a ride , in her cute little voice that she uses as a tool for evil. (To get what she wants). “Oh sure, its our last morning here, why not” I say to her. So I go out to the shed and drive it up to the house to pick up Jordan and retrieve my coffee. Now, we’re all ready to go, Jordan is behind the wheel and I’m sitting very closely to her holding my nice cup of morning coffee. “Okay Jordan lets go” She floors the gas pedal (Talk about a heavy foot) This was something I was not expecting. “Whoa!” luckily for me the coffee wasn’t hot, but I did have several coffee stains on my purple dress. She would push it a bit and then take her foot off, we would jolt forward and then abrubtly stop. “Jordan, i think I’m gonna go put this inside” This was smart, cause anymore of this risky driving and my dress would probably permenantely smell like coffee. Unfortunately, we had to go inside after this. Goodbye Farm. . . for now.

Road trips Vs. Air Travel (Choices.. Choices..)

So which one is better? OR more convenient. I, myself, am an expert in both. (Take this into consideration: My family likes to travel.) But if you were to ask me which one I most prefer I would probably be at a loss for words (no joke). Each of these traveling methods have their upsides and downsides. For starters, air travel is 100 times more convenient. (Or i guess it depends on where your going) But our vacations, normally take us to good 'ol Missouri, so in this case. . plane= BETTER. Some of you might find roadtrips to be absolutely amazing AND convenient, but for our family. . . not so much. Don't get me wrong, I love this valuable time spent with my family but traveling with a 5 year old was never supposed to be easy. (a risk my parents were willing to take) Now, if we were headed to Dallas or Houston, it wouldn't be as bad, but compare 5 hours to 12 hours. Yikes. Stopping for the bathroom breaks every 10 minutes turns this 2 day drive into a 3 and a half day drive (Yes, I exaggerated a bit.) But you see where I'm coming from, do they not get that the more soda you drink the more we will have to stop to find a toilet! (Common Sense). But there is also all the amazing times me and my other sister have spent laughing our heads off about absolutely nothing, memories I wouldn't trade for ANYTHING! So, I do like roadtrips, alot of family fun just waiting to happen.

Now, what about taking a plane? You could say its more comfortable, unless you have huge legs. (I feel for you). Or when you take off and your ears start hurting. . . This really takes a lot out of my 'music time'. Plus all the people talking and babies crying, Ugh. And whats up with the drinks? Sure they're good, but I can see why they are 'Complimentary'. . . You can finish it in one gulp! Also, the bathrooms are WAY to small, how on earth did they manage to fit a normal sized toilet AND a sink in there!(I guess we will never know). But I should be thankful there is even a bathroom at all. So I guess the only thing good about these giant flying machines is they cut a lot of time out of traveling. A 2 day trip into 2 hours. (Again, it depends on where your going).
So I guess what you take from all this is. . . Be thankful you dont have to walk!

P.S Order Dr. Pepper on the plane, the Coca Cola is gross. :)

The Conclusion to a Great Week.

Well, as many of you already know I was at a Speech and Debate camp this week and it ended up being an awesome week. Now I'm not just saying this. . . I was actually looking forward to this camp before it started. I'm not really sure if any of the other kids were but I for sure was. This is because I enjoy public speaking. Some people are terrified of it, but I'm not. In fact, public speaking is the number 2 major fear among adults. The first is the fear of death. I agree with this partially because it can be frightening at times but I love trying new things even if they appear scary at first.

Friday was 'Presentation Day' We had a Team Policy round and after lunch we presented our speeches. We each had to present a Platform Speech and an Interp. This is funny because this is exactly what I competed in for competitive Speech and Debate last year. I was just a little nervous before I went up but not enough to make me chicken out. I think most people get a maybe a tiny bit nervous before they speak, I did. But I was still more than thrilled when it was my turn to go up. I'm not sure why, I just like speaking publicly AND entertaining people with my book interpretations. :) I really enjoyed this whole week, the new information AND the meeting new people. Awesome, Thank you Lord!

The Art of Debate.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, was the first day of my wonderful, week long, speech and debate camp. Now one thing you must know about me is, I am no debate freak, I feel myself more drawn to speech at the moment. This may change in the future but as for now, no can do. Anyways, we learned about debate in the morning and covered the speech portion in the afternoon. I, was not as confused as the other 7 people in the classroom during "debate hour"and this, made me quite happy. Fortunately, I've gotten the privelege to watch many debate rounds through NCFCA speech and debate tournaments that I have attended and competed in so I've got a pretty good idea what happens. But it was still nice to have the "inside look" on Team Policy debate. We even tried a practice TP debate round today, I represented the 1st negative speaker and the topic/ resolution was as follows:

'Chocolate Kisses are better than Starburst'.

Now, this is no time to be sharing with you my personal opinion on the matter but if I had to choose right now I would probably be more inclined to go with the starburst. (Just in case you were wondering). Anyways, back on topic. I think my debate "round" went well. The reason I put it in quotes is because I'm not exactly sure if it could have been considered a round. In fact, I would have done remarkably better if I had been given time to prepare but since this was more for demonstrational purposes, I left it as it was. But what I think I learned from this is, debate is a very valuable skill to learn even if you dont plan on using it for competition. I will skip debate for perhaps, one more year and then maybe when I'm 17 I'll give it a try, so for now. . . that is my game plan. :)

"You haven't failed until you stop trying"

What is failure? Some people mistake this term to be an insult, usually made on themselves when they continually make mistakes. To me, failure, is when you give up or just make yourself believe you CAN'T do something and stop trying. Unfortunately, this attitude is possessed by many people these days because they have told themselves that they can't do something imparticular, therefore, making themselves believe that they are indeed.. failures.

Today, my awesome, wonderful, supportive mom took me to the track feild to begin training for state in high jump. I was VERY sore from yesterday, something I didn't take into consideration when I got into the car. I'm not out of shape but it's been quite a while since I've stretched that part of my back. But, I went anyway. Practicing high jump everyday would only make me stronger, I concluded in my mind. I arrived, ran a lap and completed the nessesary stretches to loosen up my muscles.

See, I'm very competitive. I strongly dislike losing AND making mistakes. I get very frustrated. Tonight, I was having the hardest time getting my back to arch and when I would finally fix this problem, another would arise. . . my feet. If my back didn't hit the bar, my feet would. Well, you can only imagine how angry this made me. So I would step back to my spot and start running making sure I did 5 steps and then 4 landing me in the nessesary spot in front of the bar so I could jump over. This is nowhere as easy as it sounds. Making mistakes only makes me frustrated and I push myself to try harder. So I would arch my back, leap over and right when I thought I had it perfect . . . Thud! The bar hit the ground and I just lay there feeling like a screw up. But circumstances like this are normally the ones that get the best of us. I could've continued to lay there and then told myself I'm a failure and then just gave up. But, the things that don't kill you only make you stronger. So, what could I have possibly gained by just getting up and leaving? Absolutely nothing. I would have never prepared myself mentally or psysically had I given up. Well, I had an Aha! moment. My attitude improved and so did my jumps. Of course, I still messed up but I wasn't expecting myself to be perfect. Talents like high jump need time and practice.

'Practice makes perfect'

So, through all this the point I'm trying to make is.. Don't give up on yourself. Calling youself a failure gives no justice to the wonderful person God created you as, and he created you in the image of him.


"But one thing I do; forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Phillipians 3:13-14

What is truth? Continued from the last post.

This is unfortunate because the society we live in today enjoys throwing things at us that it considers 'normal'. However, are these events, attitudes, or perceptions normal? . . .Or even appropriate? I'm inclined to answer no. I've learned this through the many circumstances i've witnessed and even been involved in. To be clear, I personally believe the actions and behaviors of our culture will continue its trip downhill. So we, as followers of Christ, need to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually. WE need to be able to differentiate between the truth and a lie. NOT the truths of this world, our cultures perceptions of truth are twisted to make you believe and long for them. Like something ugly and bad wrapped up in a nice pretty package, the world wants you to believe that you need it or you absolutely have to have it but if you know what truth is by God's definition then you will be able to differ between the two.

High Jump!

Well today, as some of you might already know from my Facebook statuses, was our regional track meet in Kerrville. I competed in 2 running events and a field event (100m, 200m and High Jump). The running events were like always. . I did well. Although the first time I had to run with 16 year old boys. . this was not on my schedule for today and so therefore I was the least bit prepared BUT I did quite well and was pretty impressed with myself. Anyways, on with the exciting part. I had to arrive at the track field at 8:30 (But you know us, Liberto's, we can never get anywhere on time) So I arrived about 9 and began making sure I had my steps right and stretching (Of course).

The boys went first and it was now time for the girls. Out of all the Boerne Competitors I managed to stay in the longest ( no idea how I did this) and my height ended up being 4 feet 8 inches. This is my first year high jumping so did I know this was coming? absolutely not. I, unfortunately, could not manage to get past the 4'10 but i still qualified and I will know what to work on for state.

It was of the upmost importance to keep my focus while jumping and, thankfully, I wasn't really nervous. So when it was all finished I knew who I had to thank. . God! of course. Also, my mom, who went to the track with me yesterday and stood out in the rain with me for about 45 minutes continually cheering me on while I practiced my jumps. And last but not least, the rest of my amazing family, they are always so so supportive.. God is awesome! I would be nowhere without him.

"Modesty Survey"

After reading my lovely title many of you might want to discontinue reading this post but I can assure you that it will be short and to the point. I will be posting a link that I encourage you all to visit. Its called the Modesty Survey and you can find it on TheRebelution.com, This survey was started with the help of Alex and Brett Harris, the starters of this website. Now, what it is is just a HUGE survey talking about modesty, but that cool part of it is they are all guys opinions on what modesty and immodesty can be defined as. I'm not going to go into details about it but it talks about and shows, with proof, what guys really think when girls dress innapropriately. However, modesty goes so much further then what you wear, it also covers how you act, speak and present yourself. Personally, I was quite surprised after reading this, my definition of immodest dress was short shorts and revealing tops and since I'm not allowed to dress like this anyway I thought I was doing pretty good. But I was a little off, turns out they're are even smaller things that I have done before that can be slightly misleading that I have never noticed before. So to end this fairly short post I encourage you all to check this out, and take the time to read over it, its quite eye opening. :)

www.therebelution.com/modestysurvey/

River Gate Malfunction

Well, today we decided to take a nice family ‘trip’ down to the river, well, all of us besides dad.. he had to work. And since its only about 5 minutes away and its in our neighborhood I was allowed to drive, Well, i’ve done this may times before so I was just driving like I normally do when we reached the gate. We’ve lived out here for about 7 or 8 years and the gate has never really caused us any problems so we weren’t really expecting it to today. Well, lets just say we were wrong. I pull up in my mom's beloved mini van (why she loves that thing so much, I have yet to figure out) and i place the card on the little river card pad, and like always it begins to slowly open. Now here is when the trouble starts, the gate continued opening till it was past the halfway point and then the retarded piece of medal decided to stop.. Great! Well there I am sitting there on a pretty steep incline contemplating whether or not I can make it through with Mrs. backseat driver (a.k.a mom) sitting next me telling me to hurry up.. What am I supposed to do? Thats when the gate decided for me and started closing. So Sydney is in the back telling me to roll down her window so she can try it again, so I put it in reverse and hand her the card. And again, the gate stops in the exact same place but this time I’m totally ready for it and i start inching forward with my complete trust in my moms eyesight (She was watching her side to make sure I didn’t hit anything). All of a sudden I chickened out, too afraid I was gonna damage my moms car and I stopped. Well my mom certainly is not helping

“back up! or the gate is gonna hit the front of my car!”

This was one of those ‘Oh crud!’ moments so I again through the car in reverse and backed up. Yikes, that was a close one. Well, I guess I learned one thing from this. . . Always be quick to make up your mind. :)

The Tale of a Lost Hamster.

Well, before I begin this epic tale (Not Really) I will give a little background into the story. My 11 year old sister, Sydney, purchased a teddy bear hamster a few weeks back and ended up naming him Theodore, much to my dismay, I wanted to name him Alejandro. Ha! I'm not exactly sure why I wanted name a hamster the most un hamster like name EVER but I liked it nonetheless. However, i didn't get my wish, Theodore remained as the hamsters one and only name.

Now, On with the story. . My sisters cage was. . malfunctioning, so she decided it would be easiest to just take the slide and the wheel that goes on top out, leaving a nice big hole right at the top. Well, this hamster is pretty big and I've concluded that he is also part monkey, meaning, he can get out of almost anything. So she quickly taped some cardboard/paper like stuff over the hole and then we left the house. This was a big mistake. See, something else you should also know about my sisters pet is, he LOVES to chew. You can probably already see where this is going. So we arrive home late that night, I head back to my room and I'm just minding my own business when suddenly I hear my sister yell "MY HAMSTERS GONE!" Uh oh, this can't be good, so I run back there and the hamster had indeed chewed his way from the cage. Well, I've come to the realization that I'm the only one in my family who can keep myself calm and composed in situations like these, My sister begins crying hysterically and just keeps saying "He's gone! He's gone!" over and over like she was in some sort of trance, She keeps this up for about 5 or so minutes when I finally look at her and go:

"Sydney, we are quite aware that your hamster is gone but crying will not help us find him!"

Well, this didn't really help so my dad finally told her to either help us or go away (Oh yeah, lots of family love right there) He didn't say it that harshly but you get the point. After about another 20 minutes of searching My parents and I kind of gave up for the time being and decided he would turn up looking for food and we would get him then.

Well, Leave it to my 5 year old sister, Jordan, to make matters worse. "Sydney, he probably got eaten by the cat!" She says in her little 5 year old sarcastic, drama queen voice. Well, as you probably figured this not only made Sydney continue to cry but cry harder. But, after about 10 minutes it all kinda goes back to normal.. kind of. My mom is comforting Sydney, talking about all the things they loved about that hamster, my dad goes back to his work and I retire to the computer. I guess i was pretty paranoid because about a minute later I see something crawling by the door sized windows in our office, I look over and in a moment of panic I kind of yelp and yell "There he is!" So they all run in and we retrieve the missing hamster.

So, i guess that shows you just how well families can work together in moments of "Crisis".

1 Timothy 4:12