collage day :)

Collage days are so nice.

Something about the moments that some photographs capture makes me happy.

I'm planning a dinner party for tomorrow night, so hopefully I'll get some good pictures up by Monday!

:)

xoxo,

Danielle

the first week of november

Happy November!

As promised, I have more pictures of the Lakeside Baptist fall fest:

:)

Today the fundraiser Aunt Becky has been planning for what seems like forever finally happened!

Hannah wanted to build a soccer field for kids in Burundi, Africa, and her mama made her wish come true!

We met our goal, and then some.

I painted my face.

Have a lovely weekend!

:)

xoxo,

Danielle

fall fest weekend

Happy Halloween!

My Hannah is so indecisive.

I can't relate to that at all.

(kidding)

;)

Joey, enjoying the ride.

Cotton candy!

I like to describe it as "magical clouds of sugar that melt in your mouth".

Elizabeth, with her scarecrow face paint.

(and me, with my dancing candy corn.)

This was one of the best days for a hammock.

The weekend was so fun. :)

The weather was great (if a little windy) for Fall fest... both times!

The Holy Family festival was very well done, with a ferris wheel and everything.
They really went the whole nine yards.
I can't wait to go again next year!

Hopefully I'll be able to get more pictures of Lakeside Baptist's fall festival.
It was also very well done, and included Trunk or Treat.
(people decorate the trunks of their cars as stations for handing out candy. It's like Trick or Treating, but more organized... and with cars.)

The weekend was also filled with my dear friend, Elizabeth.

I will miss her sorely when she moves back to Alabama.

<3

On another note, I am quite proud of myself for mailing both a package and a letter today.

I write letters and thank you notes quite often, but consistently forget to send them.

Mornings are not my thing.

Speaking of mornings, I found the perfect recipe for breakfast this week!

(assuming I can find time to make it, that is.)

How delicious does Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Cake sound?

And even better....

it's vegan.

The great thing is that supposedly you can't even tell how good it is for you!

I can't wait to try it.

Have a fantastic Halloween!
I'll post pictures of my costume later on.
:)

xoxo,
Danielle

fruit loops

We eat lots of Fruit Loops at the Myraun house.

I also eat waffles...

...and everything else.

;)

xoxo,

Danielle

september collage numero dos

Oh hey :)

It feels like it's been a very long time, but I finally made another collage!

xoxo,

Danielle

September :)

Happy September! 

I'm four days late, but it still counts.

;)

xoxo,

Danielle

Tuesdays

Let me just say that I am loving this weather.

Some would describe it as mucky, but I actually really like it.

It's a fantastic excuse for sleeping in late, not going outside, drinking tons of tea, etc.

(although I'd probably do all of those things if the forecast were different)

Over the weekend....

I went to the Star Wars convention!

(I'm not totally positive that Padme wanted her picture taken)

You'd be surprised at how many people dress up for these things.

Mostly Star Wars characters, but I did see Captain America and the Green Lantern...

not sure why.

It was so cool! :)

On Sunday, I finally finished my collage!

I don't know why, but they seem to take ages to complete lately.

It's been a good weeks so far.

:)

xoxo,

Danielle

ps, school has been crazy! pre-calc will be the death of me.

on the bright side, I'm super excited to finally be applying to college!

Tea party :)

Hello :)

So it's taken me a while to get them onto my laptop, but I have photos from my birthday! :)

My aunt let me use her house as the setting for my tea party. 

Everything was perfect.

(we mixed and matched tea sets to put a little bit of quirk into it. Also: yes, we had fig newtons. I'm weirdly obsessed with them.)

(Melanie and her lovely crayon art -- doesn't she look gorgeous?)

(Stephanie and I! She's so awesome.) :)

The tea party was absolutely wonderful, and I couldn't have asked for a more fabulous 17th.

~ in other news...~

School has fit right back into my routine as though it never left. 

Pre-Calculus is probably my hardest subject.

But then, math was never my strongpoint.

English, however, shouldn't be difficult to pass.

We're reading The Great Gatsby next semester. 

:D

I read it as a Freshman, but didn't really pay attention.

This time I'm super excited to read it, and will probably ace all of the quizzes. 

(fingers crossed!)

I seem to be very easily distracted lately. 

For example, I decided to take pictures yesterday for no apparent reason.

As you can see: totally random and without point.

But as they say: c'est la vie. 

I hope your weekend (and Monday) was fantastic.

xoxo,

Danielle

winter.

So it's only the middle of August. 

That doesn't mean that I can't still crave Winter, right?

After all, Summer is over.

It's time to embrace the coming chill.

Although Autumn in Florida is practically a continuation of Summer, it's quite useful for pumpkin pie and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

(it's in September; don't miss it!)

As for Winter, I would normally dread the freeze it brings, but this year...

well, I can practically taste it.

(cranberries, egg nog, and cookies: yum!)

And that smokey smell that accompanies the season is just amazing.

I'm thinking of throwing a big Christmas party.

We'll hang lights around the pool enclosure and everything. :)

I can't wait.

Here's to the best shiver seasons of our lives. :)

xoxo,

Danielle

thoughts, Tristan, and toddlers

Hey :)

It's been a crazy week! 

This is my thought process:

Yesterday was fun!

I got 5 hours of community service hours through decorating (not a bad way to earn hours), and then picked up Tristan to hang out all day. 

There's no limit to the things you can do in a Super Target with lots of time to kill.

My sister and I stayed at Tristan's house for his great uncle's birthday party...

we didn't know his name until we sang Happy Birthday.

Also, apparently it's awesomely normal to sing Happy Birthday both in English and in Spanish when you belong to a family of Puerto Ricans.

It was cool.

:)

Earlier this week, I went to the Myraun's house to watch the kids for a bit.

They're so flippin' cute.

I'm pretty sure that the only time Hannah puts her feet on the table is when I'm there.

I don't technically encourage it, but it is pretty funny.

We ate pizza.

Phase 1...

... and Phase 2.

This is how Joey likes to blow on/lick his pizza.

Like I said:

 so flippin' cute.

I get to go back to their house today! :)

The weekend should be fantastic.

(Friday just so happens to be my birthday.)

However, since today is Wednesday (and not Friday), I'd better do my laundry.

Actually, Wednesday has nothing to do with it.

Mostly it's the issue of not having any clothes clean. 

xoxo,

Danielle

The crazy life of the high school senior

To say that I "haven't blogged in a while" would be the greatest understatement of my blogging life.

Blogging is one of those things that, although well loved, is nearly impossible to keep up with during senior year.

Now, I know I haven't 'officially' started my senior year yet, but....

 well.

    It has begun.

However, I do find a small bit of much needed peace in blogging.

With the craziness of college preparation, I've got to do something to keep myself from panicking.

And so I have decided that (aside from tea, old French music, and reading about Paris,) that 'something' will be blogging. 

(or rather, making collages and posting them here along with whatever else I happen to post.)

This is an experiment, and I anticipate that the result will be a more relaxed state of mind.

We'll see if I'm right.

Seeing as I thought about all of this the other day, I've already created a collage!

(best enjoyed while listening to this.)

Let's hope this works. 

(fingers crossed!)

:)

xoxo,

Danielle

Probably my favorite video of all time.

I watch this video far too much.

xoxo,

Danielle

FFF: Friday Faves... (finally)

Hey :)

Okay, so although I said that I think I'm back on track with blogging, I haven't quite gotten back to Friday Faves. 

Basically, I won't be able to go on and on about every single picture.

I may be awesome (hence the below picture), but I'm not perfect. 

Anyway....

I did make a collage!

That llama is my phone's wallpaper. :)

For some reason, I really want a station wagon. 

(with fake wood paneling and everything. no one understands.)

Also, I really love photo booths.

Oh, and it's true: reading makes you five times more attractive. 

Unfortunately, that's all the time I have today to devote to blogging.

(The Office is on Netflix, and that beats a lot of things in a list of my priorities.)

I have a fun weekend planned, and I hope yours is fantastic.

xoxo,

Danielle

Baking with the Myrauns :)

Yesterday I went to Aunt Becky's house!

Oh, how I love it there. :)

No matter how crazy the kids get, I remain convinced that their family is near perfection.

This time around, my aunt and I baked cookies while the children napped.

It was fun!

I learned that zesting a lemon is not as easy as scraping the skin off of a lemon with a cheese grater.

Also, you don't need to pile powdered sugar onto every individual cookie, no matter how much you want to.

It will irritate the person you're baking with.

Said person may or may not have the sudden urge to hurl cookie dough at your face.

The only thing stopping them is the fact that they would have to clean up the mess.

(Sorry for the blurriness. Although iPhones have the best phone cameras around, they're not Nikons.)

These look like shrimp cookies.

In reality, they're pink lemonade cookies, and they are quite good.

However, they were not as good as we thought they would be.

That could be allotted to the fact that someone took an amazing picture of the finished product and somehow made the food look more yummy than it is.

I still think they look a little like shrimp.

Opinions aside, the recipe was a good one and deserves to be linked.

I believe I'm back on track with blogging, but we'll see.

My Summer has been filled, ironically, with school-related items.

Of course, there are the relaxed days that scream "summer", but not everyone can live stress-free lives.

Who would micro-manage?

;)

I hope your weekend was fantastic.

xoxo,

Danielle

Camp 2012

Hi :)

I got back from camp today!

It was absolutely incredible.

Louie Giglio is such a fantastic pastor.

God gave him all the right words to say.

Worship was amazing, too.

Chris Tomlin played during the evening sessions, and the mosh pit was always crowded.

The bus rides were actually pretty funny.

On the first one, I fell asleep and have a picture to prove that I am not a pretty sleeper.

I'm fairly certain that I showed it to everyone that wasn't on my bus.

Obviously, the beach was awesome.

I personally didn't go surfing at sunrise, but others did.

(I stole these pictures from the 'others' Facebook pages)

Isn't it gorgeous? :)

Well, I'm off to Dreamland to hopefully catch up on sleep.

Rest is not a common resource at a camp as crazy as ours.

(crazy good, that is.)

xoxo,

Danielle

Happy Forth of July! (oh, and I may have hiked yesterday)

Happy 4th!

Today was good :)

We travelled to Uncle Mike's house for a cookout/pool party.

I went vegetarian, but I heard that the chicken was very good.

We swam, too!

(second cousin Chris and his wife Allison with their son, Jack)

Later on, Uncle Mike took us to his nice neighbor's pond.

Actually it was more of an expansive garden.

Basically the neighbor planted flowers and trees around a natural spring that had created a very long stream, which eventually leads to a pond.

(or something like that)

We even walked in the stream!

I didn't fall once, and it was awesome. :D

By the way, yesterday I wasn't even on Facebook until about 11:30 at night.

That is the majority of the reason why I did not blog.

Dad and I went back to Lach Raven, but this time we hiked a bit. :)

(we ate raspberries right off the bush)

Yeah, we stick our heads out from behind trees.

It's only because we're cool.

Maybe we'll start a trend.

Anyway, tomorrow is our last day in Maryland and although it's gorgeous up here and visiting family is nice, I am very ready to go home.

Next week is camp, so I'll have about a day (Sunday) to do laundry.

{We'll probably spend the night in NC again on our way back, which puts us at Saturday as a return date}

Fingers crossed that tomorrow goes well, and that packing will be a breeze!

Since I may or may not have time to blog tomorrow or Friday...

... Have a lovely weekend. :)

xoxo,

Danielle