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.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
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.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
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
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
Thursday, December 22, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
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:
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:
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
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!
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!
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.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
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):
Here are my 10 reasons to smile for today (in no particular order):
- hanging out with the people in my small group and going to orange leaf
- having a facebook argument about which fro you place is the best
- going to intervarsity tonight
- making actions to Christmas songs with Courtney
- having only 1 more class of the semester
- having nacho bar for lunch
- watching an Aaron Rodgers tribute video with Marc and Erin
- reading damn you auto correct
- watching gilmore girls
- enjoying the calm before the storm of finals!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
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