get on the bus

this picture has absolutely nothing to do with this blog other than that it was taken by my new camera. i'm so excited about it, despite my anti-digital attitude (for which i got plenty enough crap from dan-o and riley last night). anyhoo, we had a ball with our cameraphone scavenger hunt last night. cuchillo brilliantly pulled off the technical end of things and we all had a lot of fun in "the war room." and now i'm looking forward to this weekend when hopefully i'll get to make pumpkin cookies with james, cody and erin and hopefully come up with a good costume idea for saturday night. blah. this blog is kind of blah. but i love it.

Scott Bon-nett

ok, so that joke could have gone either way. i intended it to be a play on words, relating our fearless (xa)leader with the megastar he, em, admires?...bono from u2, not to be confused with sonny and cher. but given that he's wearing cuchillo's hat (it was, right?) you rightly could have taken the "joke" as bonnett. nevertheless, it's been 9 days without our rockstar and we all breathe a collective "welcome home!"

things that don't suck

so i'm toying with the idea of starting a segment at xa with this title. i don't know though, hmm. well, nevertheless, here are a few things that don't:
coffee with a friend...or a pathetically watered-down raspberry "italian soda" begrudgingly made for you by an unfriendly "bear-ista" with a friend, pie a la mode at ruby's with mom, a fun new toy (the tiniest camera whose earned a big place in my heart), getting to see my handsome guy walk by my office (and i use the word "my" loosely), seeing jd morton with a smile on her face and a dead animal in her hands, jitterbugging with zach? well, i'm not sure i can classify that as not sucking, at least on my end, hmm. last night's heart to heart w rachael. yeah, that didn't suck. anyone got any more???

joy

this pirated pic is dedicated to cuchillo, and the joy he shared with me about at tds last night:) looking forward to winter hmmm?

babes and noble

i just can't stop marvelling at how cute this girl is. em, i just realized if you look at my last couple entries you might deduce that my biological clock is not only ticking, but pounding to beat the proverbial band. well, yes it would be nice to have a baby but while that's not in God's sites for me i will settle for playing "grandma" to all these dollies (grandmas get to spoil them and send them home when they get crabby:) i'm hoping to have another surrogate child after my operation christmas child box this year. just rambling. gotta go eat.

Lera

this is kazakh child cutie #2. well, actually #1. no matter, what a great picture too, eh?

boy on train with father

i searched through flickr under the tag "kazakhstan" and found two of the most adorable kids i have ever seen. this is one of them and i'll post the other too. why the search? well, on monday i was at our montana state chi alpha meeting and while we were worshiping, God laid it on my heart to see about going to Kazakhnstan. then i began to talk to curtis and he really encouraged me to go this summer. so my heart is being drawn...

Red hot

well this is not a sight you see too often, but i'd also say it's a sight you don't see enough...campfire in the living room. in celebration of janine's birthday, jill and some others set up her birthday present (which was a fancy schmancy little tent) in the living room and we made s'mores and ate little smokies, sitting around the lampfire. this is megan the red enjoying one such creation. zach was another poor soul who tried, and indeed failed, to convince me that s'mores are better slow-roasted. brown shmrown i say. black is where it's at.

with persona-latte

i was impressed when rw made a personalized drink for rs, but nothing could have surpassed the impression, impressed-ness with which i retrieved my drink, made by pb (with caramel, to boot). too bad the goodness was so short-lived. it seems as soon as my name was gone, rs and i got treated like a couple of no-name, good-for-nothings by an anxious patron, internet code in hand, vulturing around our booth. good thing we got friends in high places...and that rs had little room left for crap that day.