I can show you the world.

Wow.

I have never had a more fantastic vacation. Disney World honestly lives up to its reputation as "the happiest place on earth." I don't have a single complaint about it, and everything there is just spectacular. Now this is coming from a twenty-year old girl who has never been farther south then Kentucky and who got to act like a five year old meeting here favorite princesses, princes, and other Disney characters for a week. So you MAY not feel the same way, but that's okay. :p Another bonus was that I got to spend the week with my best friend from home and her family (who are basically my second, adopted family!) because they were the ones who invited me to join them on their vacation! I cannot thank them enough for including me in their family and inviting me down to Disney. <3

And as promised, I took over a thousand pictures, 1120 to be exact. Here's a select "few" that happen to be my favorites:

Entrance to the park. :]

Our room in Kidani Village!

My favorite princess and prince! <3

My favorite Disney movie (next to Hercules :p)!

My second family. <33

Cinderella's Castle in Magic Kingdom. 

Alice & the White Rabbit!

Rapunzel! Probably the cutest and most friendly princess. :]

(Every other princess is amazing though, just saying)

I took an abundance of pictures of the castle.

Jasmine, Paige, me, Aladdin. :]

CASTLE. <3

The castle can turn so many different colors :]

Epcot!

I had SUCH a wonderful time at Disney that I have decided I want to apply for the College Program through MSU so that I can work there next summer. It may not be considered an internship, unless I can work with an Imagineer (which would be WICKED cool!), but it will give me great experience in the job world and an excellent source to put on my resume! Hopefully I will be able to! :D

You're the best friend that I ever had.

Today, I got to see my quidditch team for the first time in two months, and it felt like we'd only been apart for a week. The Spartan Spitfire were invited to play at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI for the release of the final Harry Potter film, against Oakland University's up-and-coming team, the Oakland Owls, as well as teach other muggles ("non-magic folk") how to play. It was an all day event and we played on the lawn in front of the Ford IMAX Theatre. So many young kids and groups showed up to learn how to play, it was so much fun being able to teach them and see the excitement on their faces as they learned it's possible to play without being able to fly! I think the parents enjoyed this just as much, too. :p

Well anyway, we were scheduled to play two games against OU throughout the day and we DOMINATED with scores of 250-70 and 170-20 respectively. In OU's defense, they just recently started their team and it was the first time they played against another school instead of just scrimmages against themselves. And I think they played rather well for being so new, so congratulations to them! I'm stoked to play them again, especially once they get a little more experience in the IQA! I was also happy to learn that the Owl's seeker is actually one of my friends from high school whom I graduated with. What are the chances of that?!

Shannon and I, a friendly rivalry. :]

The Henry Ford Staff gave also gave each team a nifty trophy for participating in their event. It's a wax model of Henry Ford with a broom between his legs on top of a gold painted cup and pedestal.  Such a creative idea! Do you think it's worthy to place in the Skandalaris building with the rest of our football trophies and such? :p

Everyone who came to play some QUIDDITCH. 

Left: Oakland University Owls

Right: Michigan State Spartan Spitfires

I was just so happy to see my team and PLAY quidditch again. I guess I never realized how much I missed it until I stepped on to the field today.. I can't wait for next season now!

Here's a heads up for you though! I'm going to be in Disney World for the next week and a half, so I probably won't be able to update this blog for a little while. Don't worry though, I'll have plenty of pictures to upload when I get back! :] 

It's gotta be the best love song she ever heard in her life.

Wow! It's been a while since my last post! I suppose I was in such a rush earlier last week that I forgot to tell you all where I was going for a long weekend.. camping in the beautiful state of OHIO!

Now that may not see incredibly exciting and luxurious to you, but it's probably my number one favorite weekend of the year. It's the five days I get to spend with my absolute favorite people on this earth: my Kentucky family. My uncle and his cousins (so my second cousins, I believe) started this camping tradition nine years ago where they just met in the middle between Michigan and Kentucky. Ever since, we've just been adding family members to the trip each year. My immediate family didn't start going until about five years ago, but ever since, I can't wait to go back to see them. I guess I never realized just how big my family was!

Plus, I just love camping. There's something about stargazing, bonfires, bike rides, tenting, and lakes that just get me. I wish I could go all the time, but there's jobs and school that tend to interfere with that.. ha, oh well. I guess I'll just enjoy every bit I get!

This year, some of us went on the zip lines and tubing at the local parks. I had never done either of these things before, but they were definitely a good time! I have a slight fear of heights, but I was with a ton of people and the guides were really good about talking me in to just going with it. Definitely a great decision! :]

Tubing down the river with first & second cousins!

Zip lines with my brother, Alex.

1100 ft zip line and 150 ft off the ground. Okay.

"Coming in hot," stopped abruptly by the guide.

Sarah, Alex, and I on the rope bridge!

I love my family so much, and I can't wait until the tenth anniversary trip next summer! <3

Proud to be an American.

Well happy birthday, America, you're 235 today! :] That is so old!

Guess how I get to spend my Fourth of July holiday? Work! I don't mind THAT much, but I wish we at least got paid time and a half for working holidays..

I hope everyone else has an enjoyable day with beautiful weather, family, friends, and tasty barbeque! As always, my thoughts, prayers, and many thanks to all of the men and women who have served this country to protect its peoples and freedoms. You are the heroes and heroines we strive to be every day of our lives. <3

Favorite firework photo, Sparticipation, August 2009.

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER.

I just finished my final paper for my online history class, and I am so excited!! :D

It may not have been my best work, but the question was difficult to come up with the correct approach, so I just went with my best guess. I'm just happy it's done though! I finished my psych class earlier this week with my third and final exam, and that went pretty well, I'm pretty sure I 4.0'ed that class. :]

So now that my summer has officially started, I can start doing all the things I have wanted to do since last summer!:

- reading more from my book list, but I've already discussed that
- make a fleece blanket from my high school t-shirts
- learn the basics of drumming with my brother as my teacher!
- find recipes and learn how to cook a good dinner
- bake more! because those cake pops were delicious :]

I have quite a bit to do I think, but that's okay, because I really like to keep myself busy. That just makes it seem that much closer to getting back to East Lansing! Did I mention, it's finally July?! :D

I think I'm going to go reward myself for finishing school with.. more reading! Ciao!

Lights go down, it's dark. The jungle is your head, can't rule your heart.

Reason #2 I love summer: the abundance of concerts there are. Being from the metro-Detroit area, there's so many nearby performances I have the opportunity to go to like DTE Music Theatre, Comerica, Joe Louis Arena, the Filmore, etc. Not to mention the little amphitheatre we have in my city.

This past weekend was extra exciting though; it was the U2 concert at Spartan Stadium. The bonus? I got to work for 19 hours before the concert even started, and I was running on 2 hours of sleep. Why such a crazy schedule, you may ask? Well, one of my other six jobs is to work traffic and parking for the Special Events division of the MSU Police Department. You'll mainly see us sitting in/around our cars at the entrances to parking lots and main roads on football/basketball/hockey game days in yellow and orange vests (not flattering ones, might I add :p) with giant yellow barricades. Our shifts are normally 10-14 hours for major events like football games, but this one was 19 hours, the longest I have EVER worked in one day. It was.. interesting to say the least. My partner and I saw people walking around campus starting at 6am! They said they were going to stand in line for General Admission seating, but that is just absolutely INSANE to be there so early! I was stationed at Red Cedar & North Shaw, and traffic started to get pretty busy later on in the afternoon.

A couple of things I realized from this shift, 1) anyone who doesn't attend Michigan State or go there regularly SUCKS at driving on campus, and 2) drivers aren't afraid to run you over unless you throw a bright yellow barricade in front of their car. So many people without authorized passes tried to get past us into the parking lots closer to the stadium, and we were so close to getting hit so many times. Drivers are crazy!

So after a lack of sleep, a wonderful opportunity to tan, and learning that a guy I met at the end of the past school year is actually my boss, I went in to the U2 concert! It was.. incredible. The stage was just too cool, and the screen they used in their set (instead of the jumbo-tron ones in the stadium) were absolutely SWEET, or at least to an engineer. :p I had never really listened to U2 before yesterday except for whenever they came on the radio, but I definitely think I'm going to invest in some of their albums now. :]

Oh! Not to mention, about the entire state of Michigan came to this concert, seriously. So many of my friends posted photos and status on Facebook and Twitter about how much they enjoyed the concert and everything leading up to it. Not to mention, my friend ended up in a few of the photos in the Lansing State Journal article about the concert! :D

I was also extremely happy to be back in East Lansing. I really miss campus, and all of my friends who live to far away to see often enough or the all of the ones that are in different continents on study abroad. I can't wait until August!

Here's some photos from the concert too!

Tour "U2 360", the structure.

My favorite photo from the day. <3

It changed colors frequently.

Joe! :D

Seriously, that screen is SO COOL.

Tons of lights and colors, and so loud too. :]

I don't even remember what songs were playing during these pictures.

Bono is pretty sweet, if you ask me.

I took about eighty more pictures (just because I'm a photography fanatic) but then my camera died.. oh well!

Ain't no cloud up in my sky, I couldn't worry if I tried.

I found this article on Yahoo! rather appropriate for a couple of reasons: 1) it is officially summer, though a few days late, and the longest and hottest days of the year are now, and 2) I WORK at an ice cream shop, so this obviously happens all the time!

Q: What exactly causes brain freeze? And here’s a better question — how do I prevent it from happening in the first place?

A: Ahhh, the dreaded brain freeze. I’ve experienced too many of those myself, unfortunately. The bad thing about ice cream headaches is that they hurt — a lot. The good thing about ice cream headaches is that they are usually over in a matter of seconds, or at most a couple minutes.

For me, they always seem to come on slowly, with the pain starting at a 3 and working its way up to an 8 or 9 almost instantaneously. (You can tell I’ve been questioned about my level of pain in the ER a time of two.) But they usually subside as quickly as they come, and thank God for that.

And ice cream headaches don’t come only from ice cream — they can come from eating any really cold food or drink. Like Slurpees. In fact, in 1994, 7-Eleven even trademarked the term Brainfreeze to use in conjunction with its delicious frosty drink.

So what causes ice cream headaches in the first place? It has to do with the nerve receptors above the roof of your mouth. When you take a bite of ice cream, some of it touches the top of your mouth, otherwise known as the hard palate. That in turn triggers the nerves above the palate to cool down — and quick. The nerves send an emergency message to the brain that it’s about to get cold up there, and the blood vessels in the brain constrict to accommodate. When the warm blood rushes through the blood vessels again — presto! You get a searing headache similar to a migraine. Ouch! But don’t worry though, this kind of headache does not signify a serious problem.

So what to do? Well if your ice cream headache has already started, chances are it’ll be over quickly. To speed things up a bit, you can touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth and hold it there, warming up your palate and calming down the brain’s reaction.

To keep yourself from getting the freeze in the first place, try eating cold foods slower than usual and keep that ice cream away from the roof of your mouth if you can. Seem impossible? It’s not: I tried it to research its efficacy for this article, and not only is it possible; it works. (That’s right, I gave myself a brain freeze for this article. That’s how dedicated I am. As dedicated as Matt Damon gaining 40 pounds for a role.)

So have no fear. You can still enjoy your favorite ice cream sans the splitting headache. Just be sure to save some for me.

— Chanie

A little science, a little perspective, and a little tip for you today! :]

Two sweethearts, and the summer wind.

Ohh, I love summer weddings. Especially when they're family weddings. :]

My cousin Gary got married to his long-time sweetheart, Jen, on June 18, 2011. He is the first of all the cousins on my Dad's side to get married, so it was a new experience for all of us. It started with a Catholic mass and ceremony, followed by cocktails, photos, dinner, and dancing. The entire day was incredible and inspiring. Now, I don't mean to get all mushy and gushy on you, but I'm always reminded of how extraordinary love is when I attend weddings, which I've only ever been to a few in my life. I'm so happy for the both of them, congratulations Gary & Jen Klump! <3

My aunt asked me to be the unofficial photographer for the day, so here's a few shots that I got!

In the church.

Youngest and second oldest cousins. <3

Most of the Klump cousins.

Bridesmaids & Groomsmen photo.

The beautiful bride, Jen. <3

Seats at dinner!

"J <3 G, Spread the Love"

Wedding cake!

First dance. :]

Everyone dancing, The Cupid Shuffle. :D

Summer nights, everybody, are you with me?

One of my favorite summer activities is reading. It's the time I can catch up on all of the books I plan to read during the academic year but don't have time to due to classes, work, etc. Sometimes I don't even read new books, I just reread some of my favorites. :p For instance, I just finished rereading Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, because I absolutely LOVE the series (aside from Harry Potter, of course!). For those of you who don't know about the series (or the movie, for that matter), it's about the adolescent adventures of demigods, or "half-bloods", to save the world while integrating ancient Greek mythology into modern Western civilization. It may be a little under my suggested age group, but I don't care. I love adventure and fantasy and science fiction books. There's five books in the Percy Jackson series, and it became so popular that the author, Rick Riordan, has expanded the series with another set of characters but with similar concepts. This series specifically sparked my interest in Greek mythology, so I decided I'm going to read The Odyssey, The Iliad, and a standard Greek mythology book that I bought last summer! I have quite a list too:

1. Percy Jackson series, Rick Riordan (5)

2. Kane Chronicles, Rick Riordan (2)

3. Eragon series, Christopher Paolini (3)

4. Greek mythology (3)

5. More that I can't even think of naming right now..

So yes, i have quite a bit to do! Unfortunately, my two summer classes mostly consist of reading, so I've only been able to get one book finished. But! I just received these books in the mail from Amazon, so hopefully it will encourage me to read them on what spare time I do have! :D

Try a little tenderness.

I'm giving my fellow blogger, Jennifer, full credit for this post:

Tonight is my high school's senior prom, and I'm feeling a little sentimental. I cannot believe that it was two years ago for me. It seems like ages have passed since then. I had the absolute BEST final week of high school though. All of my exams were easy or non-existent due to AP classes, I went to New York City with the music program for the long weekend (since it was Memorial weekend), prom was two days after my return, and then I graduated at the Palace of Auburn Hills the next Saturday. Apart from my entire college experience, it was probably one of the best weeks of my life. I had never been to New York before, so it was so exciting to go sight-seeing, and Times Square is gorgeous at night. <3 For prom, I had a baby blue dress and I felt like Cinderella all night long, plus I spent the night with my best of friends. And then four days later, I officially became a freshman at Michigan State University. Like I said, the best week ever. :]

My dress for prom 2009. :]

Broadway, New York City, New York 2009 <3

Yep, good times.