I'll Be There For You... clap clap clap clap clap

When I worked with Centri-Kid in 2001, I met some of the most amazing friends. It's crazy that almost 6 years later, Nicole, Erin, Amber, Casey, Emily, and I all still keep in close contact. Casey, Emily, and I are all members of Treasuring Christ Church in downtown Raleigh, and Erin, Nicole, Amber and Emily and I have all at one point lived with at least 2 of the others. God has been so gracious in giving me these gifts of friendship with these wonderful girls. Even the girls I live with now, I wouldn't know without having met Casey at camp. Kristin and Nicole are very precious women of God, who help me to understand more about His character each day. It's crazy to think how one short period of life could lead to so many other facets of life being altered.

NICOLE
Nicole Judd is a dear friend who I talk with almost every day. I think it is so wonderful to have a friend like that, who you know will care about whatever dumb thing you thought was funny that day. I am very thankful for her, even though she is very far away in Nashvegas.

After reading Nicole's blog, (on my list of other bloggers, to the side...) it got me thinking. There are some really funny tricks that crazy joker has played on me since we became friends nearly 6 years ago, and I feel that they need to be noted, if not by all, at least by some.

1. Once, I was on a glass bottom boat with Nicole, DaDa, and Randy (a dolphin cruise in Destin). We were one level below other people, and our faces were about knee level with the people above us. I realize this may not make sense... sorry. It's funny to Nicole and me :-) Anyway, on the upper deck, there was a place for people to sit, and the back of those seats were windows, looking into the bottom part, where Nicole and I were. So, Nicole says, "look at that!" and I'm like, "look at what?" she says, "that! look closer!" pointing through the window where people are sitting above us. when I lean into look, she bangs on the window loudly and ducks down so the people turn around just to see my big face staring right at them. She loves to play this trick.

2. Right before I was about to go to China in 2004, Nicole and I were sitting out by the pool, just chatting about what I was going to take, etc. She says, "You're taking your cell phone, right?" I say, "Um, no." She says, "Doesn't your cell phone plan have an international plan too? Mine does!" "No, it doesn't. Shut up." "Yes, it does! Yours probably does too! You should totally take yours." "Well, I guess I could look into it." My statement means victory to her. She just laughs and laughs. "You can't take a cell phone to China! I really had you going!" She also loves to play tricks like this.

3. On my first time to ever eat at McAlister's (one of Nicole's favorite places), she asked me if I would throw her plate away for her. Of course, I took it and walked to the trash can. There was no trash can. I walked around the whole restaurant looking for that blasted trash can. Nothing. I turn around and Nicole can hardly breathe she's laughing so hard. At McAlister's you're supposed to leave everything on the table.

4. Nicole also really loves to roll the window down on my side and put the child lock on when we are at red lights so that the person thinks I've rolled my window down to say something to them, and I just have to smile at them like an idiot, because I have nothing to say, and no, I can't roll my window back up.

5. Nicole came up with a name for this one. I can't remember it, though, so maybe Nicole will help me when she reads this. It was something like The Great Hoax of 2006. We love American Idol. Always. So last year, when Chris Daughtry was voted off, we were surprised. Well, later that night, I got a voicemail from the one and only Nicole Judd, saying, "Oh my gosh, they said they counted the votes wrong and they're giving him another chance on the show!!" I told, oh, I don't know, pretty much everyone that I was in contact with for the next 24 hours who had heard of American Idol. Later the next day, when I talked to her, and I said, "I haven't heard anything about that, when is it happening?" She said, "Oh, gosh, I was totally kidding about that. I made that up!" Nice. We didn't call it the great Hoax (or whatever the name was) until a few days later, after I got over the fact that I had spread falsehoods all over Raleigh about Chris Daughtry. It's funny now. :-)


HALLIE
Hallie and I lived together for 2 years during my time at UWF in Pensacola. Hallie loves cheese. I always think of her if I eat really good cheese. Because of her, I stopped eating American slices altogether, and now I pretty much only eat Cheddar.

I lived with Hallie for 2 years (one of which we lived with Nicole Judd) during my time at UWF in Pensacola. She is a wonderful gift of God to me as a sweet friend who tells the truth, even when it may be a hard truth. Another interesting thing about Hallie is that she likes to play pranks.

1. She loves to turn on my hazard lights when I'm driving, but then when I go to turn them off, they turn on. (She's extremely talented at this. She makes you think she's turned them on, when really, she hasn't. Then when you go to push it again, you are actually turning them on yourself. Very funny.)

2. Hallie also likes to put your car in neutral at red lights when you aren't paying attention. Also very funny. Later. Very funny later.

Now, the following paragraph contains the description of the mother of all pranks. Hallie really set the standard high for all other tricksters we know.

A couple of months ago, Hallie decided to tell Ali, our precious former roommate and super-sweet friend about something called the "Milk Exchange Program." In this program, you can take your old milk jugs to Wal-Mart and they will exchange them for new ones, full of milk. If you're getting excited about the possibility of doing this. Don't. Well, actually, you could stop reading this and then go do it, and come back and tell us how it goes. Yes, do that. On with the story. Hallie really talked this up a while, then let it die, not sure if she could pull it off. One day, the two of them were about to go to Wal-Mart, and Ali grabbed the empty milk jug. I don't know how Hallie kept it together. They walk in together, and the person with the blue smock who gives you stickers for returns of course tries to give her a sticker for her milk jug. Ali says no thanks, she's here for the Milk Exchange Program. They walk up to the counter, and Ali, with total confidence tells the employee why she is there with an empty milk jug. The woman says, "I'm not quite sure what that's about, but I was gone yesterday. Let me ask if I missed something when I was out." The lady comes back and says, she doesn't know what the Milk Exchange Program is, at which time Ali looks back at Hallie who is probably doubling over with laughter at this point. The pictures to the right probably accurately portray what she looked like. Ali, full of grace, says, "Oh. I see." We love you Ali! Thank you for falling for the best prank ever! :-)

Thanks for reading my ramblings about God's graces in my life through a couple of my friends. Even my friends and our silliness are a constant reminder that He is good, and that when we place our joy in Him, and make Him our greatest treasure, then we will not be disappointed.

California!

The past 3 days were probably the most packed couple of days I have had in a long time. It all started a couple of weeks ago, after my friend Erin went to the Ellen Degeneres Show in Burbank, CA. I decided to check online for tickets... A few hours later, the show called and asked how many I wanted! So... this past Monday morning, Nicole, Kristin and I woke up bright and early to head to the airport to catch our flight to L.A.!

None of us had flown in nearly a year, so we didn't know about all the new rules (no liquids on the plane...). This was a sad sad thing, because we had to go back and put everything in our check-on luggage. Each of us has a pretty intense chapstick addiction. By the time we were about an hour into our 2nd flight, our lips were hurting pretty badly for our chapstick. We tried water at first, but it just didn't last. It got so bad that we asked our flight attendant if she had any lotion or anything wet we could put on our lips (there was still several hours left on our flight. So, she brought us a cup with some lotion in it. The thing is, at first it worked (kind of), but pretty soon after, it burned. The lotion was called Lemon and Wasabi or something.

When we finally got there, we got our chapstick out, and headed to the rental car place. The SUV's were the same price as an economy car, which is crazy, but true! We drove a Toyota Highlander around while we were there (sunroof and all) and had a blast! The drivers are crazy there, but God answered our prayers and kept us all safe and sane.

The first night, we met my friend Erin and went to the Farmer's Market to eat lunch, and then we went to Hollywood later that night. We saw Jimmy Kimmel outside of his studio, interviewing people or something, and then we just walked around and looked at the "stars." You can't really tell, but I am sitting by William Shatner's star. For those of you who know me well, you'll remember when I thought William Shatner died. For about 3 months, I believed this to be true, until I saw him in a Priceline commercial, and I thought that was really tacky for them to use his commercial after he died. Of course, I Googled it and realized he was very much still alive.

We also went to Grauman's Chinese Theater to look at all the hand prints of the famous people. The cool part about going to Hollywood, was not only the excitement of seeing someone currently famous, but to be able to see where all the old classy actors and actresses had once been, and where their careers were born. It was all so neat.

The next day (Tuesday), we woke up really early so I could get in line for the Ellen Show. We thought only one person was supposed to wait in line, but we found out later (too late) that it doesn't matter if your friends wait with you. Kristin and Nicole dropped me off around 4:30 (which thankfully only felt like 7:30 because of the time difference). Out of 250 seats, we were numbers 8, 9, and 10! It was definitely worth it. Here's a picture of us on the show after Ellen said something funny.



I have to put in a shout out to CK West Coast 2005... I ate at In-N-Out Burger!! I called several of you (Sims, Emily, Miley) and thought of our team. I ate a double cheeseburger with fries and a coke. There's not too much to choose from, if you remember, but what they have sure is good!




This was our last day, sadly, so after the show taping we went out to Santa Monica Pier, where we saw a movie being filmed. It will have Paris Hilton in it, who I am not a fan of, but I have to say it was still pretty cool to see part of it being made. Paris had already left for the night, but we took some pictures of the guy who's in it. It's called "The Hottie and the Nottie" and it's supposed to come out next year sometime. Apparently it's about a girl and her fiance and how she won't marry him until he finds someone to date her ugly friend. A Paris Hilton film is not something I would normally want to see, but I think I'll see it, just since we saw part of it being filmed.

After that, we were so tired, we went right back to the hotel and went to sleep. The 7am flight back was uneventful, (with a beautiful sunrise from the plane) and we are so thankful to have had this experience! It was such a whirlwind, but we had a blast. I totally recommend going to see the Ellen show, if you're ever in the area. And to you, if you stuck through with this blog to the end, thanks so much for caring! :-)


My disclaimer: Not all of these pictures are mine! We combined our photos after we got back, and several of these are Nicole's and Kristin's. Casey's been teaching us so much! :-)