For our last full day in Michigan, we had a wonderful brunch of biscuits and gravy, fruit salad and coffee cake. 

Then we spent the rest of the day at the beach, which proved to be extremely hot but fun. I also did a little photo shoot with my other sister.

Beach Day

We had a wonderful beach day today on Lake Michigan, which was nice since it's been raining the whole time we've been here! The day started off with some raspberry chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. They were amazing!

Then we hit the beach, and I did a little photo shoot with my sister.

Maybe in March

I guess I'll need to step it up a bit with my French. 

Vacation!

I had a wonderful first day of my week long vacation that consisted of shopping with my sisters and finally finding the perfect dress for a wedding that I am singing in, which will be revealed in a later post. The past weekend was frankly horrid; I had the stomach flu Saturday and was on the mend on Sunday, but I am mostly back to my old self now. I also talked to my lovely roommate about our quickly approaching semester ahead and I am getting so excited to start decorating and living with her. God has truly blessed me with a great future roommate. Here are a couple of things I've been looking at.

I found this on Design*Sponge and I think it might possibly be the coolest door on this earth.

I love this lamp from Ikea.

Eiffel Tower door stop from Urban Outfitters.

Also, my mother has informed me that we have some old pink curtains that she does not want anymore. I need to get my butt moving on my buttons + curtains = fabulous project before school starts! Avoir! 

Harry Potter

Please don't read this unless you've seen the new movie. I wouldn't want to ruin anything for you.

My relationship with the Harry Potter series began well before I was old enough to stay home alone. I know this because I have vivid memories of ravaging our babysitter's house for robes and sticks that were wand like and pretending to be Hermione. By this time only three of the seven books had been written, and being an obsessive reader, they had taken over part of my world. However, by the time the fourth book came out some of the magic had faded, and being quite young, the length of the new book seemed a bit much. So unfortunately, my love for the books went into hibernation, only to be awakened approximately seven years later.

Last summer I started reading The Goblet of Fire, determined to finish all of the books by the time the seventh movie came out. I finished The Deathly Hallows during my first week at school and was infinitely excited for the movie to come out in November. While reading all of the books I also watched the movies and was left disappointed almost every time. Though I enjoyed the movies, I was sad that crucial scenes were taken out that I was so excited to see in the movie. This is nothing new to Potter fanatics, and it is just simple fact that the movies are no where near as good as the books. And yet, we love them all the same.

During the days leading up to the November release it was all Harry Potter all the time on my floor at school. Somehow, my hysteria had infected many of my friends, and we were watching as many as the movies that we could before the new one came out. I was Bellatrix for Halloween and I bought a 4 foot poster of Snape (which is amazing) and hung it in my dorm. It was really great fun.

Though going to the midnight release was exciting, The Deathly Hallows Part 1 left me dissatisfied. Most of this was natural, considering that the movie was two parts, but I HATED the forest chase scene. It was so similar to Twilight that I cringed while watching it again. I had planned on rereading the whole series again this summer, but getting caught up in work and summer classes, I haven't had the time. However, somehow my youngest sister took an interest in the books after we watched part of The Goblet of Fire together. This made me happy because she doesn't read much at all, and she ate up the Harry Potter books.

I saw part two today, and I am honestly so sad to see such an amazing story end. The movie blew away all of my expectations. I was really afraid that Snape's story line was going to be botched the way that so many others had in the movies, but it was executed so beautifully. The first thing I noticed about the movie was that it was so much darker than the others, and rightfully so. All of the momentous lines of the book were included, which made me extremely happy. The plot fit almost to a T, but what I really loved was how Snape was portrayed. His memories with Lily were so much more emotional than I was expecting, and seeing him holding her dead body after she was killed truly brought me to tears. He has always been my favorite character by far, and I have discovered that I have a thing for the characters that seem evil but then turn out to be the most virtuous. Out of all the characters that had loved and lost in the series, his love was the deepest and the most true. The pure genius of making Harry a perfect mix of the people Snape loved and hated the most still blows my mind, and the movie showed that in a way that I was not expecting. I found myself just wanting to watch Snape's part over and over again because it was so beautiful.

I have no complaints, and I didn't even notice that Dumbledore's past was completely left out until my friend and I were talking about it in the car afterwards. We're going to see it again in 3D next week, and I can't wait.

I can't post a blog about Snape without a picture. His hair was so voluminous in this movie! Plus Alan Rickman is a total hottie, no matter how old he is.

reading

I used to hate rereading books. I would never do it. When I would finish a book I would be done with it and that was that. It bored me to know the ending, to see it coming, but somewhere along the line, that all changed. Rereading books now is like stepping back into a world I temporarily forgot about. The memories start to flow as the somewhat familiar plot is unmasked and the lost details reveal themselves as the story closes itself around me. It's almost better than reading it the first time. Almost.

I'm currently rereading The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and it could possibly be my favorite book. The language is beautiful and the plot and subject are both extremely interesting and enticing. I first read this book last year in a book club and really loved it. And now for the second time, I cannot put it down. I would highly recommend it. The next book on my list is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It was recommended to me by a friend and I'm really excited to read it.

God Help the Amish

I am writing this post from Barnes and Noble because the internet is out at our house. The power has been out for 3 whole days and is finally back on. It has been a crazy time trying to figure out what to do, but it also has shown me a few things.

The first day it was actually fun. My family had planned on going camping this past weekend, but due to some issues we ended up not going. So, this was like camping in our own house. We broke out the candles and made a pizza on the grill (which is somehow way more amazing than in an oven. Try it.) After the storm my sister and I went out on a picture taking excursion, taking action shots of all the fallen trees and debris like reports. We then went down to the beach after it got dark. The lake bathed in moonlight from an almost full moon was so amazingly beautiful, and it was almost completely dark because no one had power (except for those schmucks with generators). The only light was the moon, and it made the water sparkle like glitter. It was a sight that I was thoroughly thankful for. That night I had washed my hair with water bottles, which seemed to work fine, but seemed like it would be difficult with only a flashlight. 

By day two my family was getting fed up with the power outage. My only concern was taking a shower and completing homework online, because I was at work all day. The task of trying to figure out how to bathe myself, finish French homework and eat dinner all at the same time made for a stressful night. I headed over to Panera to complete two of those tasks, but was further stressed by how packed it was. Everyone was there charging their phones, computers and sharing their power outage stories. This made me really think about people in hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters who don't have power or running water for months. And here we are flipping out over a few days without Facebook and air conditioning. 

I'm actually happy when stuff like this happens. Not only does it spice things up a bit, but it puts us in places where we actually have to problem solve and make an effort instead of just moving through life. It brings out the true colors of people, and sometimes they're colors that we need to get rid of. I shocked myself by having the sudden urge to flip off the Com Ed guys as I was driving by. It actually made me laugh. Because they worked for the electrical company, I automatically placed the blame on them when they were actually working to help the problem. In our society we're raised to blame others for everything, and I'm thankful for opportunities to weed out these unfortunate tendencies in my own life.

Here are some pictures from the storm:

A tree that fell at the beach.

A willow lying across Rt 31

Our janky portapotty.

C'est la vie

I have recently started listening to the band the Head and the Heart, and I love their song Coeur D'Alene. In this video they play two of their songs, Coeur D'Alene starting at 2:15. Here are some of the lyrics that I love from this song:

Oh the songs people will sing for home
And for the ones that have been gone for too long
But oh the things people will do for the ones that they love


You're in my soul now
You've gotta waste away with me
My mind's made up, I'm stayin' here with you

There's no use knowin'
Which way the wind is blowin'
My mind's made up, I'm doin' this, I'm doin' this with you


I think it's a really great interpretation of how loving person can become so strong that it no longer is a choice, it just simply is. 


On a lighter note, I'm going camping this weekend, which means taking lots of pretty pictures. I got a memory card, camera bag, and a bunch of rechargeable batteries today, so I'm all geared up and really excited. Here are some shots I took today.

New Camera!

My Pentax kx came in the mail today, and I've been having so much fun with it already! My family is going camping this weekend, so I can't wait to bring it along to take some awesome pictures.
All my pictures can be found here.