Bucket List

Lately, I've been seeing a lot about bucket lists on Facebook, more specifically in a few groups I'm in. I've never really had a bucket list. I've always said things were on it, but I'd never made one. Well, I made one. I followed Ryan Eller's format, bucket list by threes, but slightly modified it by putting literally everything I want to do in the categories instead of just three things. I think I have around 120 items as of today (2/6/14,) but will add to it as I think of more things. Of course the travel and adventure categories are the longest!

Travel

1. Set Foot on North America (X), South America, Asia, Europe (X), Australia, Antartica and Africa
2. Visit Harry Potter World
3. Visit every Hillsong church
4. Fly first class on an overnight flight
5. See a Broadway show
6. See a West End show
7. Walk along the Hollywood Walk of Fame (December 2013)
8. Travel alone (June 2013 London)
9. Visit the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff (July 2013)
10. Visit a castle (July 18, 2013 Highclere Castle, London)
11. Visit Italy and see where my family is from
12. Spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square
13. Have a meal at an outdoor Parisian cafe
14. Ride the London Eye (July 2013)
15. Ride a Double Decker Bus in London (July 2013)
16. Visit a concentration camp
17. Take an Alaska cruise
18. See a live mariachi band (March 2013 Puerto Vallarta)
19. Ride a cable car in San Francisco
20. Walk a length of the Great Wall of China 
21. See Mt. Rushmore
22. Stay at a 5-star hotel
23. See Stonehenge 
24. Stand next to a pyramid
25. Ride a Gondola in Venice
26. See the Northern Lights
27. Kiss on top the Eiffel Tower 
28. Visit the Hoover Dam 
29. Climb Chichen Itza
30. Stand beside the Christ the Redeemer statue
31. Walk around the Colosseum in Rome 
32. Visit Machu Picchu
33. Visit Petra
34. Take a picture in front of the Taj Mahal
35. Travel to Jerusalem
36. Watch the sunset on a beach 
37. Go to all 50 U.S. States
38. Go on a cruise 
39. Drive through a Redwood Tree
40. Go to the Olympic Games

Adventure

1. Ride in a Hot Air Balloon 
2. Swim with a Dolphin (2012 Cozumel)
3. Watch a Space Shuttle Launch
4. Scuba Dive
5. Take a long train ride (July 2013 London) 
6. Go to Space
7. Visit the rainforest (2010 Costa Rica)
8. Shower in a Waterfall
9. Spend the night in a haunted place  (Wichita Theatre)
10. See a Lunar Eclipse 
11. Drive Across America Coast-to-Coast
12. Go Snow Skiing (Angel Fire)
13. Ride an elephant
14. Sleep under the stars 
15. Go white-water rafting 
16. Go Deep Sea Fishing
17. Eat strange meat (July 2013 Kangaroo in London)
18. Swim with sharks
19. Experience weightlessness
20. Go to a bull fight
21. Go to an active volcano
22. Travel on a safari
23. Ride a Segway
24. Go hunting
25. Go treasure hunting
26. Surf the waves in Hawaii
27. Go to a NASCAR race
28. Go to the racecourse
29. Drive Route 66
30. Pan for gold

Educational 

1. Write an Autobiography
2. Learn to Ballroom Dance
3. Learn to Legitimately Play a Song on any Musical Instrument
4. Get a book published
5. Take a photography class 
6. Learn to Juggle
7. Visit the White House
8. Take a historical tour of Jamestown

Family

1. Own a home with a veranda
2. Grow a garden and eat the produce
3. Create a Family Tree

Volunteer

1. Plant a Tree (March 2010 Costa Rica) 
2. Visit an orphanage in a foreign country
3. Do a mission trip in a third world country

Physical

1. Be coached by a professional
2. Have a six-pack
3. Successfully complete a double under
4. Pierce my ears
5. Run a straight mile
6. Do a strict pull-up
7. Run a mile, 5k, half-marathon
8. Take a yoga class 
9. Complete a bodyweight clean and jerk

Lucky

1. Know a famous person personally
2. Be an Extra in a Film
3. Be a Member of a Studio Audience
4. Hit a hole-in-one
5. Walk the red carpet at a huge event
6. Meet someone famous randomly
7. Shake hands with a President
8. Set a World Record
9. Be on a game show 
10. Be on a Reality TV show

Random

1. Sit on a Jury
2. Own a record player
3. Write my will
4. Enjoy a real cup of tea 
5. Give a great present 
6. Go to a drive-in movie theater 
7. Get a standing ovation
8. Own a pet monkey 
9. Get something patented

Officially Official!

OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS

In 608 days, I'm going back to Europe! I'll be going with one of my former high school teachers on an EF tour that she's leading.

It is an 13 day trip and it'll go to Berlin, Prague, and the Alps, as well as Paris.

I know I said I didn't really like Paris, but there is no way I'm letting a minor dislike of a city keep my from Europe. At least I won't have to go to Versailles again! It was gorgeous, but not gorgeous enough to go back. That is, unless I went and just explored the gardens. I'd do that. I don't want to see the palace again though.

I'm really excited because a lot of the activities involve WWII, so it's almost a supplement to the class I took in London. I don't know how much I'll remember in two years, but still, it'll be great!

This is our map. The numbers are how many days we're spending in the city. My group is doing the Paris extension, so from Lucerne, instead of going to Zurich, we go on to Paris.

I am definitely most excited about seeing Dresden. We learnt about how it was bombed at the end of the war in my class and I wanted to see it so badly. I will also get to see the 1st concentration camp, Dachau.

This is literally the only hunk of notes I have on Dresden, so we didn't talk about it much. It was enough to make me desperately want to visit though.

It'll be weird having a strict schedule as opposed to being almost completely free to do whatever, but I prefer black and white. I'd rather know exactly where I have to be when.

In Paris, so often it was,
"Well, do you want to do xyz?" 
"It doesn't matter." 
"It doesn't matter to me either." 

I'd rather be told what I'll be doing instead of having to figure it out myself. That way, there's also no fear that whoever your traveling with really does care but doesn't want to say they do. There isn't a choice when it's a tour. That's nice, because I don't like to make decisions.

I just want to be there now. I don't want to wait! At least I have several things to look forward to to pass the time until this though. I have a family cruise, Passion Houston, and spring break.

Passion will be amazing though. It's in February and might be the first time it's been in Houston. Usually it's only in Atlanta. It's put on by Louie Giglio and Chris Tomlin (people who I saw at Hillsong Conf in London.) Francis Chan, Kristian Stanfill, David Crowder, Matt Redman, and Hillsong will be there as well. I think Passion will be the highlight of 2014 and Europe, 2015.

Life After London

Well, in just a few weeks, I'll have my final grades from London. I turned in my research paper last week after having to force myself to finish. If you follow me on Twitter, you saw how terrible it was having to write that thing. I also sent off my book review for the class.

Once those grades come in, London is officially done. It's sad. Every time my mind is empty, I go back to London. People keep asking if I'm going back next year and while I'd love to, it wouldn't be the same. I'd go expecting the exact same people, situations, events, and it wouldn't be that way. I'd want it to be the same people just a second time.

My London MixBook came in, so I look through that quite often. It's like a digital scrapbook. It's 50 pages long and gorgeous.

 Every single thing reminds me of London. I had a game on my phone where I had to guess brands.

Three of the brands I had to identify. I miss all of those. 

Speaking of Milka, the local Market Street sells it! I got my dad hooked on it. It's so amazing. It's just a tiny piece of London back home.

Mostly, all I've been doing is school and theatre. I have three tests this week, but one allows a full printer sheet full of notes and the other is History. Botany is the only scary test. West Side Story is about to end, and after that, I'll get a bit of a break. I haven't gone anywhere fun, so that's been boring. Luckily, the next few weeks have some cool things! I have this app that counts down to different events, so I've been watching closely as some numbers go down.

In less than a week, I'm going to my first convention in Dallas. It's called Fan Days and JOHN BARROWMAN will be there. I'm getting a picture with him. I am so excited. Tom Felton will also be there as well as the Glenn from Walking Dead and Ron Perlman from Hellboy. #nerdstatus

I've also got some family trips coming up that'll be fun. We've got our annual cruise and our annual spring break trip coming up soon, so that's all getting planned. This year, we're cruising out of LA. It'll be the first time we go there, so I think we'll leave early and spent a day hanging out there. We'll go to Puerto Vallarta on the cruise! There's an island I want to visit called Las Marietas. It has a hidden portion that's beautiful.

I'm also so lucky to be able to go to Passion Houston this February! Passion is usually only in Atlanta. It's Louie Giglio's church and this year, it's coming to Houston as well and I'm going to the conference! I saw Louie in London at Hillsong Conf alongside Chris Tomlin. Well, guess what? Chris Tomlin will be at Passion and so will Judah Smith. I wonder how many other college kids can say "I saw you in London and in Houston within the course of one year!" Houston is about 8 hours away, so it's isn't bad at all. My oldest (not age, but length of friendship) is going with me, so that's exciting. We haven't spent time together since the middle of high school when we stopped having classes together. It'll be a great weekend! 

Europe in 600 days isn't 100% confirmed yet, but it's happening. I just need to sign up. I went to Costa Rica on an EF tour when I was a sophomore and this is with the same company. My former newspaper teacher is leading the group. It's a two week tour to Berlin, Prague, and Paris. It'll also go to Dresden, which I'm most excited about because I learned a lot about that city in my WWII classes.

Anyways, I just wanted to post something so that there wasn't over a month between updates. Another will come next week after Fan Days and possibly after the Halloween party. Also after trips, of course. And whenever something fun happens or I cook something neat. Or just when I feel like typing something up.

New Mexico or Bust

*Long post warning*

Hey you guys! I found something to post about sooner than I thought I would. I went to New Mexico for a few days! I haven't been since the church used to take ski trips every year TEN YEARS AGO. We rented a cabin in Angel Fire, so that'll be exciting! It's supposed to be crazy nice weather, but they said that about London too.

We took day trips to Taos and the top of a mountain, but mostly stayed in the house

It took 9 and a half hours to get there. That's seriously more time than London.

I'm going to divide this up into the different days I spent there.

Day 1

Today, we left town around 8 am. We made our first major stop in Amarillo, Texas.

Ice cream time

 We stopped at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo. It's on Historic Route 66. None of us had ever been before, so we figured "why not?"

Cadillac Ranch

I pretended to paint

An older gentleman saw us pretending to paint for pictures and gave us a bag of slightly used bottles. He said everyone needed to leave their mark on history.

Dad's idea. I think my shirt inspired him. 

Family photo

After the ranch, we stopped for lunch at Red Robin (yummm.)

We brought Kacie's friend Peyton along on the trip. She made lots of faces and caused a lot of secondhand embarrassment.

Those are mountains!

We got to our house around 5 pm. It was 3 floors! The ground floor had a bunk bed room and a games room. I was on the top floor with sister Daryl. We had our own bathroom and loft area.

It was so pretty and big! 

There were stick tee-pees built in the yard

On some rocks outside of our house

Always dancing

It was raining when we got there, but that didn't stop us from heading back down the mountain (an eight minute drive) and going to get food.

Healthy, huh?

After we got back home, us kids started a game of Monopoly that continued the whole trip. The first night I bought Park Place and Boardwalk, so I really won. We kept playing though.

Day 2

Today, I woke up really early. Lucky, because I was able to witness the first casualty. A hummingbird smacked into the window and died. 

We explored a bit, but it was too muddy for much

This chipmunk visited us several times. We call him Theodore.

Today, we went to Taos, another ski town nearby. They have a pueblo that we wanted to see called Taos Pueblo. It's an Indian Reservation.

The church

We took a guided tour around the pueblo. The young guy who toured us said he was going to college next year. After the tour, we all bought jewelry from a lady in an adobe shop. She said she makes it all herself.

An oven and an adobe house

The cemetery

Sisters

Their water source 

The main house

After seeing the Pueblo, we ate at lunch and visited a market in the center of town. Then, we headed to the Rio Gorge Bridge to see where the Rio Grande is.

Each night, we ate dinner at the house. We had burgers and chicken and burgers.

There was also a hummingbird feeder that was always attracting the pretty birds

Rain again

Our house was a ski-in/out house, so there was a ski slope two minutes away. We walked over and enjoyed the view. There wasn't a ski-lift, so I'm thinking that was the ski-in part and a bit further down, it meets up with a main slop.

This pretty girl visited every morning and evening. Her name was Zuni and she lived next door.

This is the house that Kacie and Peyton built of sticks. In the end, it ended up with a fence as well.

They played "Katniss"

This night, we all sat around and watched the Teen Choice Awards in the living room. I didn't want Justin Bieber to win, but he did.

Day 3

Today we woke up with the devastating news that a good friend had passed away that morning. Andrew Duncan was only 20 and was killed in a car crash north of Amarillo with four others. The entire past two days Facebook and Twitter have been filled with memories. My favorite was when he broke a door during Narnia because he thought it would be smart to take his entrance for his bow through it. It fell and busted and he got in trouble. He also liked to poke my broken nose during CATS.

On this day, we were planning on taking family pictures. It definitely took a lot more to get us smiling. 

We rode the ski-lift to the top of the mountain, a 15 minute ride. There was a bar that you could lower if you wanted to. We did. On the way up, we waved at the few people heading down. On the way down, we waved at a ton of people, mostly mountain bikers, headed up.

The scariest part was unloading from the lift because you had to lift the bar

View down the side slope

See what I mean about getting us to laugh?

We got hot chocolate from the cafe on the mountain after the pictures. We were outside at a table when the waitress comes out with a bag of Doritos and dumps them on the ground. She said the chipmunk likes Fritos better, but Doritos work for getting him out of the cafe.

I wasn't supposed  to have my phone out on the ski-lift. Sorry mom. I didn't listen.

After finishing at the summit, we went back home for lunch. We lounged around the house and did some building on the fort.

At one point today, we also drove to Red River, but there wasn't much there. We had coffee and then headed back to Angel Fire.

For dinner, we went back into town because there was a pub that was only opened for dinners that had a ton of gluten-free options.

I had a pizza and a brownie. It was amazing.

I was hoping the pub would be London-y, but it wasn't. It was a restaurant.

Day 4

Today we headed home. We listened to Radio Disney the entire way and stopped for ice cream at a Dairy Queen.

For lunch, we stopped in Amarillo at "The Big Texan."

The restaurant is on Route 66 so it's a huge spectacle. The food was good though!

It's a novelty food challenge restaurant.

 Man versus Food did the challenge and won!

If you eat a 72 oz steak in an hour with sides, it's free. If not, it's $72.

My dad wouldn't let us do the challenge. Party pooper. 

After Amarillo, we headed home. It was a faster drive than the way there, but still long. I listened to 58 songs without skipping!

It was a good trip and I hope it turns into a tradition.