Game afternoon

Sorry I didn't take any pictures of my game afternoon so I don't have any of them to share. On Monday afternoon some friends from high school all got together to play some board games at the Speake household. It was my friends Angela, Jamie, Traci, Paige S, Adam, Thomas, Paige W, and Jared. It was great to see them all since I haven't seen some of them in a couple of years. We also realized that we had quite the diverse group since we had representation from 4 different graduating classes at Hampton-Dumont.

We played a couple of new games and had a lot of fun. It may have gotten a little inappropriate at times, but not too bad. We played boxers or briefs and the game of things. Both were great games for a large group of people to play.

After game afternoon Traci and I went to Subway to eat and then went back to my house and watched a couple of movies with Carina and my mom. We watched Going the Distance and Easy A. I would highly recommend Easy A and have seen it quite a few times. Going the Distance was a strange movie, but was also pretty good.

Micheal Oher

Like I said before I read both the Blind Side and I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond. Both of these books centered around Michael Oher.

The Blind Side was more about football and the development of the left tackle position. It also obviously talked about Michael's story from birth to the beginning of college. It was pretty interesting to read. I cared more about his story then the development of the position. I understand enough about football to watch it, but not quite enough to read about the different positions and to know what they are talking about. Since I LOVE the movie I did enjoy reading the book and seeing what really happened. Some of the things in the movie were switched around or not really explained enough so I enjoyed seeing that side of the story.

I Beat the Odds was from Michael's perspective. I liked this book much better. It told his life story from his point of view. He also said that he wrote it so that people who are in his position either living in bad parts of town, being in foster care, etc. can see what he did and use his experiences to leave that cycle of poverty and do what they love. This was very interesting to get the whole story of his life and exactly what happened. It was also very inspiring. When I get a little older I would consider being a foster parent or working for some other type of organization to help disadvantaged youth.

I've grown up knowing about foster care/adoption with my mom having a social work background and spending a decent amount of time while I was growing up as a social worker. I always knew that there were kids who didn't have families and were shuffled around from foster home to foster home, but I never thought about what this was like for the kids. Seeing this perspective really made me think more about this.

New Layout

I was inspired by my friend Michelle to update the layout of my blog. You'll now have to click on the title of the post to read the whole thing. Leave your thoughts on the new layout in the comments. I hope you like it!

Christmas

As you know our celebration of Christmas started a couple of weeks ago with bowling and ugly sweaters.  We will be continuing this celebration until Jan. 7 when the Hanson side is celebrating.

Our actual Christmas time celebration started on Friday (Christmas Eve Eve), where we opened our presents from each other. I ended up getting a lot of things that I wanted like a gps and the board game things. My sister and brother also made me a DG mod podge canvas thing that I really liked. Below is a picture of my gifts from our family Christmas.

Then we loaded up the car and heading to West Des Moines to go to the Christmas Eve service at Lutheran Church of Hope. It was a really good service and talked about how Jesus is the greatest gift. If you'd like to watch it online you should definitely check it out here.  It's located under the Advent Ready or Not and it's called 'Greatest Gift'. After the service we then headed to my grandparents house after stopping along the way at a lovely Burger King.

Christmas Eve was spent mostly watching quality tv shows like Swamp People and American Guns. Carina and I also spent a good amount of time reading. She read the first Hunger Games books and I was reading the Blind Side and the Michael Oher book. (I'll write more about these books tomorrow). Here is a visual about what we looked like:

Then after a good amount of this we went to the local church for our annual Christmas Eve soup supper. It's a tradition for my grandma's side of the family along with some family friends to get together before the service and eat soup and other good food. It's my grandma's 2 sisters and all of their children and grandchildren so depending on the year can be pretty big.There's always chicken noodle soup and oyster stew. (I always have the chicken noodle) Carina also decided to do my hair and this is what she did.

Then we head upstairs for the service. This years was pretty short and pretty hot. There wasn't a sermon, but had more of a story told in song form. Then we head back downstairs and a few gifts are opened. Carina, Isaac, Travis, Heidi, and I were all entertained during this time by our younger cousins Olivia and Jillian. Olivia (whose 5) told us that she had her full drivers license and other great stories. Then we headed back to my grandma's to continue or tv watching and reading.

Christmas morning we headed over to my great aunt Cathy and uncle Brady's house for our traditional Christmas breakfast for my grandpa's side. We had swedish pancakes and then hung around and chatted with family. Olivia and Jillian hung out with Carina and myself some more. We also just ate a lot and did who knows what. Then we headed back home so my dad could go to work in the morning. Overall it was a good Christmas.

Worship Wednesday "Turn Around"

Christmas Countdown- "I Heard the Bells"

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Countdown "All I Want For Christmas Is You"

30 Things....

I've seen the following on a couple of different people's blogs lately and I thought I'd share. I really enjoyed reading it and it will definitely challenge me to look at the things I'm doing to myself.


30 things to stop doing to yourself

There's also a follow-up, which is equally as good

30 things to start doing for yourself

Christmas Countdown- "Born is the King"

Reading

One of the things that I love about breaks is being able to read books for fun. I love reading, but during the school I have too much stuff to do with classes and so I never have time to. Also when I read I get so engrossed in the story that I usually can't put the book down and spend all my free time reading. This doesn't work out well when I have so much school work to do. Here are the books that I've read so far and some of my thoughts on them:

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

This book is the story of Hosea set during the California gold rush. I'd heard so many good things about it, but I really didn't give it too much of a chance since I'm usually not that into Christian fiction. But after all these people told me to read it I took the first step this summer and borrowed it from my church. Then over break I decided to actually read it. It was SOOO good. I read it over 2 nights and could barely put it down. It's a beautiful story about God's redeeming love for all of us. No matter what we do he's always there loving us and I really needed this reminder. I also was very inspired by the character Michael in the story. He is the type of man that I would love to marry someday. He really loves God and is just a great example of a Godly man. Overall, I would recommend this book for any girl/woman to read. It's just a wonderful book and is very difficult to put down.


Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow and Nathan Whitaker

The next book that I read was Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow. I've really enjoyed learning about Tim Tebow lately especially with all of the hype around him. I remember hearing about him some while he played for Florida, but since he played in the SEC conference and not the Big 12 I didn't pay to much attention. This book did a great job of sharing stories from his life and showing what his motivation was for a lot of what he did through his life. I enjoyed the story-it's mainly about football and his thoughts throughout most of his games. So if you don't enjoy reading about football, then you probably won't really enjoy this book. It does also talk about his family life and other stories, but the majority is football. This book is also a really quick read I started it Mon. night and finished it on Tues. From reading this book I really think that Tim Tebow is the real deal and really lives out what he talks about. I think that this is very rare in celebrities that are in the spotlight. I'm also now slightly obsessed with Tim Tebow and am going to mail him a letter tomorrow. I'm sure he'll never get it, but whatever I at least tried.



Throughout break I'll probably add the books that I've read and what I've thought about them on here. The next two that I'm planning on reading are also football books.

If you have any book suggestions please let me know.

Christmas Countdown - "Joseph's Lullaby"

Ugly Sweater Bowling

On Saturday we had Christmas on the Albers side of the family. Instead of giving gifts or having a gift exchange we decided to eat lunch, then go bowling.

Our family also decided last minute to have an ugly sweater contest. It was too last minute for most people to participate so the Hanson family supplied everyone with a sweater. The winner of this years contest was the winner of bowling since it was too hard to actually judge the ugliest sweater when they all came from our house.

Bowling was a lot of fun. The first game we bowled "normally", then the next game each frame we had to do a different activity like under someone's legs, eyes closed, under a bridge, etc. It was funny to watch and overall some good family time.

Here's some pictures of the event to enjoy:

Worship Wednesday; Christmas Countdown- "You're Here"

Mistletoe Mingle

On the last day of classes during the fall semester the college of pharmacy and health sciences hosts a little party called mistletoe mingle. It's held at the Holiday Inn near Mercy at the top of the tower.

Professors and students go and have fun socializing, eating, drinking, and dancing. It was a lot of fun. It was a tad awkward seeing professors, etc. out on the dance floor, but a good kind of awkward I guess. I'll probably plan on going again next year!

Twitter

So I decided to get a twitter yesterday. I'm still trying to figure it all out and I'm sure I'll have very wise things to tweet about. Anyway feel free to follow me @emilydhanson.

Christmas Countdown "Go Tell It on the Mountain"

Christmas Countdown- "Born in Bethlehem"

Christmas Countdown- "Give this Christmas Away"

Worship- "How Many Kings"

10 Reasons to Smile

I got the inspiration from the post by Sarah and this video she posted a couple of days ago...

Here are my 10 reasons to smile for today (in no particular order):

1. hanging out with the people in my small group and going to orange leaf
2. having a facebook argument about which fro you place is the best
3. going to intervarsity tonight
4. making actions to Christmas songs with Courtney
5. having only 1 more class of the semester
6. having nacho bar for lunch
7. watching an Aaron Rodgers tribute video with Marc and Erin
8. reading damn you auto correct
9. watching gilmore girls
10. enjoying the calm before the storm of finals!

Worship Wednesday "Mary Did You Know"

Worship Wednesday- "Angels We Have Heard on High"

Thanksgiving Break

I had a very nice and relaxing Thanksgiving break this year. I'll do a little bulleted list by day (I haven't done that in awhile) of what I did.

Tuesday:

• Was done with class around 11
• Met my grandma in Ames at Hickory Park for a late birthday lunch
• Arrived home around 3ish 
• Watched 9 episodes of Gilmore Girls

Wednesday:

• Watched more Gilmore Girls 
• Finished the new Nicholas Sparks book that I had started while visiting Carina
• Went to Traci's church for a potato bar with Traci and her parents
• Went to the movie Courageous with Traci and my mom

Thursday:

• Went to my grandparents for Thanksgiving and ate and spent time with family
• Watched many youtube classics with my family which included: Marcel the Shell One and Two; David after the dentist, Charlie bit me, Jimmy Kimmel's-I told my kids I ate all of their Halloween candy, etc. 

Friday:

• I went Black Friday shopping at midnight (we actually got to Walmart around 11:30) with my mom, grandma, aunt, and 2 cousins. I ended up getting only things for myself- a couple pairs of boots and some dvds. So while that was nice for me-I still have many things to get for others of my list!

• We got back home around 7 am and then I slept until 2.
• I started baking some of the recipes that I'd found on pinterest for my friends who were coming over later that night. I made peanut butter brownies, pizza rolls, and buffalo chicken egg roll wraps. I've decided that I really like trying out new recipes to bake and all of them turned out pretty good!

• Then my friends: Jamie, Tara, Angela, Traci, Deb, and her boyfriend Aaron came over and we ate, chatted, and played some board games. It was a good night overall. I love catching up with my friends from high school and reminiscing! 
• Then I cleaned up and watched some Gilmore Girls before going to bed

Saturday:

• I didn't get up until around 11:30 and then watched the Iowa State-Oklahoma game. It wasn't an awful game to watch as ISU actually played ok against a ranked team. Obivously not as good as last week, but still good. The defense did really well-if only the offense would have done a little more.
• I pretty much just layed around the house-watched some Gilmore Girls, Greek, a Hallmark movie, etc. I also attempted to do some homework/studying, but wasn't super successful.

Sunday:

• Went to church-saw Tara, Angela, Deb, and Aaron again (along with Kodi and Paige) and chatted with them during the peace
• Packed up all my stuff and headed to Iowa Falls to pick up pizza on my way to my grandparents
• At my grandparents Isaac and Carina decorated the tree; parents, grandparents, and I made popcorn balls; my mom and grandparents made cookies; and Isaac, mom, and grandpa made caramels.

 

• Isaac and I then headed to Ames and stopped at Orange Leaf before I dropped him off at his frat.
• I then headed to Des Moines and unpacked my stuff and set up my small Christmas tree before I went to Courtney's to watch the new Hallmark channel movie
• After the movie I went back to DG and chatted with some people before doing some homework.

Worship on Wednesday "Motion of Mercy"

ISU for the Win!!!

Friday night was a very exciting night for ISU football. I went to the game with Sarah and my mom. My grandpa and grandma had tickets inside the Jacobsen Athletic Building to watch the game so that was exciting for the them.

The game was really exciting and ISU of course pulled off the win. I'm super excited that they're not eligible for a bowl game and told my mom that we should go (I'm not sure if this will happen, but one can hope).

This was a great game to experience and the crowd was really in it most of the game and rushed the field afterwards (no I wasn't one of these people)!

Grandpa is the one sitting in all red

22nd Birthday!

Wednesday was my birthday which I celebrated by having a pharmaceutics test. I also had Bible study and Intervarsity so I didn't really do anything for my birthday.

On Thursday I met my mom for lunch at Famous Dave's. I haven't been there in a really long time and it was really good. We also chatted for a bit and so that was nice.

For supper I went with some friends to On the Border, which I also hadn't been to since my last birthday. I really like their chicken empanadas and chicken tortilla soup. I also got some sopapillas for my birthday, which were really good. It was fun to hang out with my friends and just chat and have a good time!

Visting Creighton

Last weekend I decided to go to Omaha and visit Carina at Creighton. It was a good weekend and fun to see what her life is like at Creighton. I got there Friday afternoon and we hung out for a bit in her room before going to the dining hall for supper. I got to experience Sodexo food once again and try a peanut butter, apple, and granola wrap. It wasn't too bad, a little strange, but much better than most of Sodexo's foods. Then we went with a couple of her friends to the basketball game. Creighton is much stricter about their student section than Drake is so Carina and I ended up sitting where my ticket actually was and her friends sat in the student section. Creighton won the game so that was good.

After the game we headed to Red Mango, which is a froyo place in Omaha. It was pretty good, but I didn't think they had as many flavor choices as the places in Des Moines do.

On Saturday we got up and got ready and then we went to the zoo. It wasn't as epic as I remember from my childhood (partly because my favorite place the aquarium was closed for remodeling), but it was still cool. We got to see lots of fun animals. Carina and I also decided that there are way too many reptiles and bugs for our likely in zoos. Probably our favorite animal to watch was the gorillas, because they were very hyper and would like bang into the windows and pound at their chest. We spent quite a bit of time in their house.

After the zoo we went to Fuddruckers for a late lunch. Then we headed back to campus and went to the library for a couple of hours so we could each study. Carina, Julia (her roommate), and I then headed to Spaghetti Works for supper. After supper we went on a quick Target run before going back to their dorm and hanging out for the rest of the night.

On Sunday we got up and went to church. After church we went to Panera for lunch. I then got all of my stuff packed up and headed back to Des Moines so I could go to all of my DG meetings in the afternoon/evening.

It was a great weekend to spend with my sister and see what school is like so far for her!

Worship Wednesday- "Fall Apart"

Worship Wednesday-"Not to Us"

Worship Wednesday-"Your Love Never Fails"

Living History Farm Halloween Festival

Today the DG chapter took a little adventure to Living History Farm in Urbandale. We rode their in our families so we had to take a family picture when we got there.

Then were were broken into groups based on our majors. I of course was in one of the cook pharmacy kid groups. We walked around the little town, took some pics, went on a horse-drawn carriage thing, roasted a marshmallow, got some pop and popcorn, went on a jack-o-latern walk, and then heard some stories. It was pretty fun. The event is mostly for small children-so we didn't get much candy or prizes, but it was still good to hang out with some DGs.

My other Halloween festivities for the weekend included:
Friday-going to an IV party where I dressed as a fork-in-the-road
Saturday-making a nerds costume (which i didn't wear), going to church, watching ISU win, hanging out on the couch while watching random tv shows, and doing my laundry!