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Sunday, May 3, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Pictures!
So I decided to actually put some pictures on. They're in order of parks and when we visited them, but they got backwards! Then at the top are all the pix of my birthday and license and pre-spring break. The joys of blogger! Hope you all enjoy!
I got glasses!! I can actually see now! It's really amazing.
Celebrating my birthday - I really can't take anymore candles!
Driving with my family to Arby's - my dinner choice. I'm Thinking Arby's!
Where we stayed during our trip to Florida. It was really nice - the room that we were in was spacious and well furnished, and the beds were pretty comfy.
Our last family picture at DisneyWorld!
Hot, tired, and I had a cramping stomach. Great way to spend your last day at Magic Kingdom.
Nathan was explaining his plan for the rest of the evening with plenty of hand motinos
The lovely Cinderella with her slightly middle-aged Prince Charming. I missed the show - Dad and I stayed home for the morning sick - but I thought this picture was really cute!
Mickey and Minnie together - aww! 
Everyone loves Tigger!
One of those great candids that is one in a million! Megan is mad, Rachel is laughing, Nathan's explaining, I'm drinking some water, and Dad is trying to talk.
Here's the hilarious giraffe! No one took a pic of his head in the truck, but he did stand in the way of a different truck for a while! 
Four kids - we'd only been at the park for about an hour so we weren't terribly tired yet!
The Nemo musical was surprisingy cute. The puppetry was amazing!
The Festival of the Lion King is probably the best thing about Animal Kingdom. Get to the early show - no one was there because they all wanted to take the safari early. 
Megan, Rachel, and Dad braved each and every roller coaster throughout Disney.
Here's a pretty good picture of the stunt show, but you have to see it to really enjoy it!
At the Lights, Motors, Action! stunt show, Herbie made an appearance and split in two!You definitely need to see this show at MGM if you ever go to Disney - especially if you like car chases!
Indiana Jones stunt show - very cool to see how they make movies like Indiana Jones.
There were adorable topiaries everywhere! This one was on the Backlot Tour at MGM.
Goofing around in the gift shop
Main Street USA looks gorgeous with all of these lights!
Like I said, the fireworks were amazing!
Rows and rows and rows and rows of cars - there were a couple other lots this full!
Megan and I managed to stay pretty dry on Splash Mountain
The family favorite: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Watch out - they spit! they really did at the park!
First day @ Magic Kingdom - this was at the front gate.
We were all hot and tired!
Geckos everywhere! Megan freaked out whenever she saw one! :)
Everyone go "awww."
Nice shot of the ball and me and Nathan
The temple grounds were gorgeous - especially the palm trees!
Rest stop
Home of the Kentucky Derby - the biggest horse race of the year!
Indiana Jones stunt show - very cool to see how they make movies like Indiana Jones.
There were adorable topiaries everywhere! This one was on the Backlot Tour at MGM.
Goofing around in the gift shop
Main Street USA looks gorgeous with all of these lights!
Like I said, the fireworks were amazing!
Rows and rows and rows and rows of cars - there were a couple other lots this full! 
Megan and I managed to stay pretty dry on Splash Mountain 
The family favorite: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 
Watch out - they spit! they really did at the park!
First day @ Magic Kingdom - this was at the front gate. 
We were all hot and tired!
Geckos everywhere! Megan freaked out whenever she saw one! :)
Everyone go "awww."
Nice shot of the ball and me and Nathan
The temple grounds were gorgeous - especially the palm trees!
Rest stop
Home of the Kentucky Derby - the biggest horse race of the year! Make sure to watch this year's on Saturday May 2 on NBC!
Wow - that's a lot! Hope you made it through them all without going totally crazy!
Starting to Blog again...hopefully it WILL become a habit!
Okay, so I haven't blogged in forever so I'm just going to start fresh with what's happened in this year so far. You can check the family blog for pictures: holbrookchicago.blogspot.com
In January I celebrated my 16th birthday! I went and saw Bedtime Stories with my parents (awesome movie by the way) and I got my LICENSE!!! So now I drive to seminary alone. It's kind of nice to have some quiet time in the mornings.
We were able to correct some intestinal problems, and since then I've been feeling great, except a little tired. So the kidney people decided to get me some iron infusions and now I feel a whole lot less exhausted. It's a very nice feeling.
My dad got called to be the Bishop, so we see a little bit less of him now.
I ended first semester being sixth in my class 582 - whoo hoo! My goal was to be valedictorian, but I'll live with the top ten. Now I'm in probably the best/worst semester of my life: love global issues and I'm learning a ton about current events. Did you know there are actually pirates? family joke My English class is actually quite interesting, especiall since we just started rhetoric - sarcastic writing. Health is probably the easiest class ever. I really like creative writing, but our fiction unit is about to end. We did this really cool thing called a 55 word story - it's actually really hard to write a story in 55 words or less! I strongly dislike science, but at least we don't have to do anymore lab reports and I managed to bring my grade up. This is the first time in a long time that I have ever had an A+ in math - I give all the credit to my teacher and her amazingly organized notes that actually make sense. AP European History is fun, but we're racing to the finish since our AP Test is only 27 days away. That's only 27 days to study over 800 years of history. YIKES! But I love my teacher (who happens to be my global issues teacher and is an absolutely amazing person) and the topic, sothe studying is worth it. Dad actually didn't know that you could take an AP test and get college credit, so to him, the $86 for the test is easily worth it - especially if I do well. Spanish is increidbly easy. We finished learning a new tense and our strange video project is done and over with. Now we learn about culture, which is so much easier than vocab and verbs. The yearbook has been shipped off to the printer, so that won't take up my Wednesdays until next school year!
Seminary is awesome! Bro. Rubow is a great teacher and does a great job at inviting the spirit and helping us (at least me) understand the scriptures. We just finished James, and we're getting ready for our big SCRIPTURE MASTERY event on Saturday. If anyone has any ideas on how to get a bunch of sleepy teenagers to seminary on time, I'd appreciate those ideas!! We're supposed to start at 6:15, but we usually start with one or two people around 6:20.
Break was amazing - again look at the family blog for cool pix! We went to DisneyWorld! But on the way there we stopped at the home of the Kentucky Derby - Churchill Downs racetrack! It was gorgeous, huge, and absolutely amazing! Even if you don't like horse racing, I would definitely suggest going to visit to at least say that you've been there. I loved the stunt shows and animation exhibit at MGM Studios. Mom and I got SOAKED on Splash Mountain. The last day, we rented a wheelchair because I was exhausted and having stomach cramps, so we got to go to the front of a bunch of lines. GET A WHEELCHAIR when you go to Disney - it'll save so much time waiting in line! A giraffe stuck his head in a truck ahead of us on Safari at Animal Kingdom - adorable! And the fireworks were absolutely amazing everywhere! We managed to visit all eleven countries at Epcot and we went on Test Track twice. Each morning we woke at the crack of dawn to get to the parks early. The opening shows were really cute, and we did manage to aboid some of the longer lines. We took a monorail break during our visit to Magic Kingdom - we took on to the TTC and then hopped on the one to Epcot. We rode back and forth about three times. We were all rested, and it had AC so we cooled down, too. All in all, it was really fun, and the road trip was definitely worth it. Dad learned from some bad Super 8's over our summer trip and booked some really nice Holiday Inn and Comfort Inn places to stay. Thank you Daddy!
I think that's pretty much it! We're on a four day weekend right now - Good Friday we have off and Monday is an institute day. So we're all hanging out and cleaning the house and making easter cinnamon rolls - YUMMY!
There's a guy named Paul Cardall who is waiting a heart transplant. He's an LDS musician with a little girl. Please pray for him and his family!
Forgot to mention: I got glasses! and my license! And I finished Personal Progress and received my Young Women in Excellence Award from my wonderful Bishop, Daddy.
Love you all!
In January I celebrated my 16th birthday! I went and saw Bedtime Stories with my parents (awesome movie by the way) and I got my LICENSE!!! So now I drive to seminary alone. It's kind of nice to have some quiet time in the mornings.
We were able to correct some intestinal problems, and since then I've been feeling great, except a little tired. So the kidney people decided to get me some iron infusions and now I feel a whole lot less exhausted. It's a very nice feeling.
My dad got called to be the Bishop, so we see a little bit less of him now.
I ended first semester being sixth in my class 582 - whoo hoo! My goal was to be valedictorian, but I'll live with the top ten. Now I'm in probably the best/worst semester of my life: love global issues and I'm learning a ton about current events. Did you know there are actually pirates? family joke My English class is actually quite interesting, especiall since we just started rhetoric - sarcastic writing. Health is probably the easiest class ever. I really like creative writing, but our fiction unit is about to end. We did this really cool thing called a 55 word story - it's actually really hard to write a story in 55 words or less! I strongly dislike science, but at least we don't have to do anymore lab reports and I managed to bring my grade up. This is the first time in a long time that I have ever had an A+ in math - I give all the credit to my teacher and her amazingly organized notes that actually make sense. AP European History is fun, but we're racing to the finish since our AP Test is only 27 days away. That's only 27 days to study over 800 years of history. YIKES! But I love my teacher (who happens to be my global issues teacher and is an absolutely amazing person) and the topic, sothe studying is worth it. Dad actually didn't know that you could take an AP test and get college credit, so to him, the $86 for the test is easily worth it - especially if I do well. Spanish is increidbly easy. We finished learning a new tense and our strange video project is done and over with. Now we learn about culture, which is so much easier than vocab and verbs. The yearbook has been shipped off to the printer, so that won't take up my Wednesdays until next school year!
Seminary is awesome! Bro. Rubow is a great teacher and does a great job at inviting the spirit and helping us (at least me) understand the scriptures. We just finished James, and we're getting ready for our big SCRIPTURE MASTERY event on Saturday. If anyone has any ideas on how to get a bunch of sleepy teenagers to seminary on time, I'd appreciate those ideas!! We're supposed to start at 6:15, but we usually start with one or two people around 6:20.
Break was amazing - again look at the family blog for cool pix! We went to DisneyWorld! But on the way there we stopped at the home of the Kentucky Derby - Churchill Downs racetrack! It was gorgeous, huge, and absolutely amazing! Even if you don't like horse racing, I would definitely suggest going to visit to at least say that you've been there. I loved the stunt shows and animation exhibit at MGM Studios. Mom and I got SOAKED on Splash Mountain. The last day, we rented a wheelchair because I was exhausted and having stomach cramps, so we got to go to the front of a bunch of lines. GET A WHEELCHAIR when you go to Disney - it'll save so much time waiting in line! A giraffe stuck his head in a truck ahead of us on Safari at Animal Kingdom - adorable! And the fireworks were absolutely amazing everywhere! We managed to visit all eleven countries at Epcot and we went on Test Track twice. Each morning we woke at the crack of dawn to get to the parks early. The opening shows were really cute, and we did manage to aboid some of the longer lines. We took a monorail break during our visit to Magic Kingdom - we took on to the TTC and then hopped on the one to Epcot. We rode back and forth about three times. We were all rested, and it had AC so we cooled down, too. All in all, it was really fun, and the road trip was definitely worth it. Dad learned from some bad Super 8's over our summer trip and booked some really nice Holiday Inn and Comfort Inn places to stay. Thank you Daddy!
I think that's pretty much it! We're on a four day weekend right now - Good Friday we have off and Monday is an institute day. So we're all hanging out and cleaning the house and making easter cinnamon rolls - YUMMY!
There's a guy named Paul Cardall who is waiting a heart transplant. He's an LDS musician with a little girl. Please pray for him and his family!
Forgot to mention: I got glasses! and my license! And I finished Personal Progress and received my Young Women in Excellence Award from my wonderful Bishop, Daddy.
Love you all!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Spring Break
So, it's been quite a while! I'm back in the swing of things at school, and I just started driver's ed. I actually have my first test this upcoming week, and then I can get my permit later next week! YAY! I'm honestly a bit nervous about driving, but it'll be fun!
Spring break was awesome - I went and saw College Road Trip with a friend and I finally saw the 2nd National Treasure! Both movies were excellent, and definitely worth the money! I just got an itchy nostril and watery eye thing that's driving me nuts and making me miserable! I spent three hours in a hot gym today to watch my three siblings compete in their age leve spelling bees. Nathan got out on the word gradual, Megan got out on drawer, and Rachel won first place in hers with indomitable! It was pretty exciting :-) Tonight is the Young Women's General Broadcast, so Mom, Rachel, and I are going to snuggle in Mom and Dad's bed with the laptop to watch it. For Easter, the four kids got Webkinz, and they may sound little kid-ish, but I love the game, and it's completely safe even though it's online. You never know what can happen by giving personal information on certain sites online. The snow is finally almost gone, and it's suppposed to get in the high 50s next week! Spring is finally coming!
School has been pretty fun. My Broadcast journalism class is a blast - we're just finishing up our latest project, "Person on the Street" where we went around the school interviewing random people with a certain question. I strongly dislike my geometry class, and my biology class is just getting boring. I love world history, but the class is kind of hard and I don't love the teacher. My English teacher is rather eccentric, and we're about to start Romeo and Juliet (yuck). The best part of the day is definitely lunch - my friends are so great and fun to be with! It's too bad we don't have more classes together. I love learning spanish, and it's a geat way to end the day, although I come home and start speaking spanish with mom and drive my siblings crazy! The best part of the first semester is that I managed to finally finish making up work, and I pulled off a 4.2 GPA which places me as #4 of my freshmen class! YAY! I hope my grades didn't slip in third quarter.
For Personal Progress - I'm thinking of creating an entertainment blog for teenagers. There's so much junk out in the world, and the blog would have ideas of clean movies, clean music and singers, clean TC shows, and other media forms that wouldn't have any bad stuff in them. The blog would give teenagers a reliable source (the reviews and ideas would come from other teenagers) to look for good, wholesome entertainment that doesn't leave any feelings of regret. If you have any ideas, let me know!
That's just about it! Happy Spring to everyone!
Spring break was awesome - I went and saw College Road Trip with a friend and I finally saw the 2nd National Treasure! Both movies were excellent, and definitely worth the money! I just got an itchy nostril and watery eye thing that's driving me nuts and making me miserable! I spent three hours in a hot gym today to watch my three siblings compete in their age leve spelling bees. Nathan got out on the word gradual, Megan got out on drawer, and Rachel won first place in hers with indomitable! It was pretty exciting :-) Tonight is the Young Women's General Broadcast, so Mom, Rachel, and I are going to snuggle in Mom and Dad's bed with the laptop to watch it. For Easter, the four kids got Webkinz, and they may sound little kid-ish, but I love the game, and it's completely safe even though it's online. You never know what can happen by giving personal information on certain sites online. The snow is finally almost gone, and it's suppposed to get in the high 50s next week! Spring is finally coming!
School has been pretty fun. My Broadcast journalism class is a blast - we're just finishing up our latest project, "Person on the Street" where we went around the school interviewing random people with a certain question. I strongly dislike my geometry class, and my biology class is just getting boring. I love world history, but the class is kind of hard and I don't love the teacher. My English teacher is rather eccentric, and we're about to start Romeo and Juliet (yuck). The best part of the day is definitely lunch - my friends are so great and fun to be with! It's too bad we don't have more classes together. I love learning spanish, and it's a geat way to end the day, although I come home and start speaking spanish with mom and drive my siblings crazy! The best part of the first semester is that I managed to finally finish making up work, and I pulled off a 4.2 GPA which places me as #4 of my freshmen class! YAY! I hope my grades didn't slip in third quarter.
For Personal Progress - I'm thinking of creating an entertainment blog for teenagers. There's so much junk out in the world, and the blog would have ideas of clean movies, clean music and singers, clean TC shows, and other media forms that wouldn't have any bad stuff in them. The blog would give teenagers a reliable source (the reviews and ideas would come from other teenagers) to look for good, wholesome entertainment that doesn't leave any feelings of regret. If you have any ideas, let me know!
That's just about it! Happy Spring to everyone!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Valentine's Day
Hope you all had a very happy Valentine's Day! Mom and I spent the day together, just as usual. We went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch, though. I got a delicious Thai chicken pasta, but found a pieece of wax paper in it! The manager gave us a free piece of cheesecake! YUM!
I'm returning to church today. I'm so excited! Then tomorrow is a holiday, and Tuesday I go back to seminary! Everything is finally becoming "normal" again, if you can say anything in my life is normal. I'm finally on the road to a full recovery - YAY!
I'm returning to church today. I'm so excited! Then tomorrow is a holiday, and Tuesday I go back to seminary! Everything is finally becoming "normal" again, if you can say anything in my life is normal. I'm finally on the road to a full recovery - YAY!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Update on my Life
Hey everyone! So I figured it was about time I got my own blog up and running since the family blog isn't updated terribly often and so that mom isn't always sending out update emails about me.
Everything is so normal this time around, it's weird for us! My heart has been doing almost as perfectly as any transplant goes. I feel like my heart is working a lot less, and I have more energy than I used to. Of course, I haven't returned to school yet, so we'll have to see how that goes. Waking up for early-morning seminary will be the killer!
Last week, I had my first PET scan post-third-heart-transplant. Everything was looking good! The scan was clear, which means I still have the cancer beat! YAY!
My last biopsy results were a 1A. That's not a perfect 0, but the pathologist said the bit of rejection she had to report was so minor, she almost didn't say anything about it! The nurses are still messing around with meds, but I'm slowly going down on the prednisone, and we were able to switch one of the rejection meds.
The three month mark is approaching, and I can't wait! Three months means back to school! I'm getting pretty sick of coordinating with teachers and tutors about tests and assignments. It'll be nice to not have to worry about making up work.
Plus, it's FREEZING COLD in this state, so Mom and I are pretty much stranded at home all the time. Supposedly it's going to start snowing later tonight, but we already have a foot on the ground! We did go grocery shopping today, but even then we were frozen just getting into the car from the garage! We're getting a little sick of being home with each other all the time! Speaking of which, I need some good lunch ideas...it's impossible to come up with something creative everyday when there's only the same options in the fridge! School cafeteria food is starting to sound pretty good!
My 15th birthday was certainly memorable! Mom and I went to see the movie Enchanted, which was very good. We were the only two people at the entire theater, except for a few employees. When we got home, Mom smelled a funny smell, and it turns out one of us had accidentally left our gas stove running! The fire department came over to make sure the house was safe, and we were fine. Sure makes for a great birthday story, though! I had a great birthday dinner the night before, and decided to go with good old-fashioned chocolate cake for dessert, along with homemade ice cream and hot fudge - YUM! Mom and Dad gave me a coupon to go to EFY, and I got accepted into the Tacoma session the week of June 30. I'm very excited!!! I also got a sweatshirt, a couple of CDs, some books, and some new piano books, too! All in all, it was probably the best birthday I've had in several years! My 10th was spent in an apartment in NJ where we didn't know anyone and all of our stuff was in a truck driving across the country. My 11th I don't remember very well. My 12th I got hospitalized on the day I had planned a sleepover. My 13th happened around the time I found out I had cancer, and we had just moved to Chicago last year, plus I got hospitalized a week later!
Besides school work, my day is pretty much spent looking up news on the internet, sending emails, playing on the Wii (which is a great invention - highly recommend getting one!), and watching Brady Bunch while I run on the treadmill! If you want, feel free to email me at lauren2hearts@yahoo.com! I love getting new emails!
Hope all is well with the rest of you! I miss everyone in New Jersey, Utah, and various other states where you've moved! I certainly never run out of people to keep in touch with! Keep watching for more updates - nothing else going on this week, but I just might post some interesting news I find!
I'll get some pictures up as soon as I can get some recent ones loaded!
Everything is so normal this time around, it's weird for us! My heart has been doing almost as perfectly as any transplant goes. I feel like my heart is working a lot less, and I have more energy than I used to. Of course, I haven't returned to school yet, so we'll have to see how that goes. Waking up for early-morning seminary will be the killer!
Last week, I had my first PET scan post-third-heart-transplant. Everything was looking good! The scan was clear, which means I still have the cancer beat! YAY!
My last biopsy results were a 1A. That's not a perfect 0, but the pathologist said the bit of rejection she had to report was so minor, she almost didn't say anything about it! The nurses are still messing around with meds, but I'm slowly going down on the prednisone, and we were able to switch one of the rejection meds.
The three month mark is approaching, and I can't wait! Three months means back to school! I'm getting pretty sick of coordinating with teachers and tutors about tests and assignments. It'll be nice to not have to worry about making up work.
Plus, it's FREEZING COLD in this state, so Mom and I are pretty much stranded at home all the time. Supposedly it's going to start snowing later tonight, but we already have a foot on the ground! We did go grocery shopping today, but even then we were frozen just getting into the car from the garage! We're getting a little sick of being home with each other all the time! Speaking of which, I need some good lunch ideas...it's impossible to come up with something creative everyday when there's only the same options in the fridge! School cafeteria food is starting to sound pretty good!
My 15th birthday was certainly memorable! Mom and I went to see the movie Enchanted, which was very good. We were the only two people at the entire theater, except for a few employees. When we got home, Mom smelled a funny smell, and it turns out one of us had accidentally left our gas stove running! The fire department came over to make sure the house was safe, and we were fine. Sure makes for a great birthday story, though! I had a great birthday dinner the night before, and decided to go with good old-fashioned chocolate cake for dessert, along with homemade ice cream and hot fudge - YUM! Mom and Dad gave me a coupon to go to EFY, and I got accepted into the Tacoma session the week of June 30. I'm very excited!!! I also got a sweatshirt, a couple of CDs, some books, and some new piano books, too! All in all, it was probably the best birthday I've had in several years! My 10th was spent in an apartment in NJ where we didn't know anyone and all of our stuff was in a truck driving across the country. My 11th I don't remember very well. My 12th I got hospitalized on the day I had planned a sleepover. My 13th happened around the time I found out I had cancer, and we had just moved to Chicago last year, plus I got hospitalized a week later!
Besides school work, my day is pretty much spent looking up news on the internet, sending emails, playing on the Wii (which is a great invention - highly recommend getting one!), and watching Brady Bunch while I run on the treadmill! If you want, feel free to email me at lauren2hearts@yahoo.com! I love getting new emails!
Hope all is well with the rest of you! I miss everyone in New Jersey, Utah, and various other states where you've moved! I certainly never run out of people to keep in touch with! Keep watching for more updates - nothing else going on this week, but I just might post some interesting news I find!
I'll get some pictures up as soon as I can get some recent ones loaded!
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