this precious life.: simply a ramblin' day

Today is a super overcast day...and it's actually cold too. The song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" sung by Israel 'IZ' Kamakawiwo'ole just came on my Pandora station and it suddenly put me in the mood to blog. {random note: for some reason, that song always makes me think of a day like today rather than a bright sunshiny day}

I might be in the mood to blog...but I really haven't an idea what I'm going to blog about. It's probably more of an excuse to take a break from editing. I've been at it since 9 this morning! But this photoshoot has been a bunch of fun to work on. It was the first full shoot I'd done since last fall sometime and has helped me to get back into the swing of things. I'm 3/4 of the way finished with it and maybe I'll have some posted by this weekend:) Here's a sneak peak until then though!

Tonight is the first of many cast parties and I'm so excited to see all those wonderful people again! Then afterwards, if it doesn't rain, I have a mini-shoot scheduled. Please pray hard that it doesn't rain cause we've already had to postpone it twice this week because of the weather and my friend/client's husband leaves on assignment with the Marines on Sunday! {random note: I don't know what it is about *this* weekend but I've had more than 5 invitations to events just for tonight! 'Course I can't do them all...but I wish I didn't have to pick and choose! haha}

Micah's birthday was last weekend but because of family being in town, grad stuff and the play we didn't get to completely celebrate it! So Mama and the little chillens came up with the idea to get him 20 gifts since he was turning 20...and the very last one to be opened was the game "20 questions":)

They wrapped each gift individually and signed who wrapped it and then placed them all in one huge box, wrapped it again and signed notes on top:)

I suppose now's as a good a time as any to write a blurb about last week...'specially since I keep mentioning it!

Daddy's car, Micah's car and Micah's motorcycle all broke down within a few days of eachother the week before so we all were trying to trade the van around and get everyone where they needed to be!! Talk about making things even more hectic! But the Lord orchestrated everything and taught us all even more patience:) I spent almost every day at the U of I for dress rehearsals and then productions for the Pirates of Penzance musical. It was such a wonderful bonding experience for all of the cast and each night we all looked forward to coming back the next day and performing together again!

I spent Friday with my fellow graduates as we prepped for the grad ceremony, decorated and went to ice cream with the Pastor before heading to another play production that evening! Saturday we accidentally slept in so we had to scramble a bit but we got everyone up to the church in time and finished final prep before the grad ceremony started.

The ceremony was incredible! And what can I say besides, "we did it!". I say "we" and not "I" because there's no way I could have gotten to that day without the Lord's strength and the hundreds of people (no exaggerations!!) that God providentially placed in my life at just the right times to help me in my journey.

{There was a photographer there who took care of everything so we didn't have to worry about capturing all the special moments and we haven't gotten those pictures yet but when we do I'll try to post a few!!}

After helping with the clean up, I headed back over to the U of I for the final production of Pirates of Penzance. Definitely a very bittersweet night for everyone but it was our best yet and knowing we had given it our all felt so good! To God be the Glory!!

We went to Steak and Shake, after cleaning up, for a cast party.... and we were all still so pumped from the performance that we just *couldn't* be done yet! So we asked the manager if we could perform one of our song/dance numbers for the employees and customers and he said YES!! No matter that in the real production, it was solely a pirate song. The girls knew it just as well and had been performing it all week back stage! But doing it at S & S with almost the entire cast was the highlight of the whole week. Truly epic!