Four Princesses....(and our Princes!) ;)

We'll get to the princes part in a little bit. Let me explain all these pictures first.

Sooo...seeing as how it is my senior year, i decided that i want lots of pictures of our "Fearsome Foursome" to take to college with me!! And what better way to get pictures than to take them every day of school!? haha-yep, believe it or not, that's what were doing.




These pictures were from our first day back....see us "raising the bar!?"lol Pretty cool huh? :) And not even planned!!haha










We try to come up w/ new poses every day...but that usually doesn't work too well b/c me and Kels are always in a rush to get home. (mom's orders!)lol So we just end up setting the camera timer on w/ the camera on the back of the car and smile pretty and run! :O

Here we attempted to be creative....i think they were pointing at me b/c i'm a senior (credits from our picture w/ Taras last year!) but i think they were pointing at Inna too b/c she is now an upper class man!! But what did your parents always tell you when you were younger; "it's not nice to point at someone b/c they can point back!" So that's what me and Inna are doing in return i guess!! :)



Attempting more cute poses.....kinda. :P

Yea.....this one's great-not really centered tho. Remember, we always set the camera on the car so it is kinda hard to center it perfectly all the time...:( But hey, what ever works, right?! And it is still super super cute!! :)

These days we decided to do a tribute to Taras-well, maybe everyone else didn't decide, but i did!!lol And here you see us by and IN Taras' old locker. haha-no, none of us have a weird obsession w/ him to where we have to take pictures by his old locker!!! It is just a memory b/c countless stories can be told involving it!!lol ;)









Man, i will never forget this day.....the day when i talked to Ukoo!!! ahhhh!!! :) :) :) hahaha-in case your wondering and don't already know, it didn't go as well as i had hoped!! :( lol

Ok, and here's where our princes come in!! :) But there are only three in these pictures-we'll add a fourth one in a sec. We have Taras, Victor, and in the second picture, Mark. Yep, those are our Prince Charmings!!! Hahaha-no!! ....They are prince charmings, but i'm not sure yet if they're ours...well...with the exception of a certain princess who shall remain nameless....INNA...any guesses!??!lol ;)

Soooo....at first when we began to take pictures, i had a plan to save them on my computer and re-name them w/ the school day number it was...but....that didn't work too well, seeing as how i never started and i surely don't remember what pictures were what days; way too many, even now!!haha :)







Ok, and here's our 4th "Prince"-Andy Rew!! :) lol.

(Inna, i love this picture!!) ;) hehe.

haha-I was not totally paying attention in this pic, my foot was suppose to be going the other way....whoops!!

Cute stuff!! :) But this picture kinda has a story i guess....there was a spider crawling towards me...and ha-me w/ spiders; bad combination!! So as the timer was flashing i was trying to smile and look happy but also go as far away from the spider as possible by backing up...then remembered someone was behind me....so there went my escape from the spider, i could no longer back up!! :( But thankfully the camera took the picture just before it crawled any further!! :) lol

Showing off "my" sweet ride in the back!! haha.













Love this picture-it's kinda ironic actually, i have a picture on my camera of just Taras waving, Inna has a pic on her camera of just Victor waving, and Kels' camera captured them both waving!! weird....lol :)

Oh, and by the way, this was the first day of Crossfire!!! :) :) :) (keep praying!!) :/

Well, there will be many more posts to come w/ our "FOXY fearsome foursome!!" (ha-had to add that first part..but it's soo true, right!?)hehe.

"My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken." ~Psalm 62:1-2

"A goodbye isn't painful unless you know you're not going to see eachother again."

And that's just the thing; we don't know when we will see each other again. Hopefully next summer, God willing. But sometimes the hardest thing to do is to say "goodbye." Especially if you aren't quite sure when you'll see each other again.

That's just how it was for me and my kids at the end of my missions trip. My two favorite boys, Simon and Elijah were having the most trouble with this. Well, Simon in particular.

First thing you should know was that these kids were the most loveable kids. Whenever i saw them they would always come up to me and give me hugs.



But on this night for example, after the service which ended our week, Simon came up to me and just wouldn't let go! Literally, he was glued to me for 10 minutes, if not more!! No lie!! :) He also wanted to keep taking pictures of us. After awhile, i was getting tired of it b/c i looked oh so silly (Inna, Julia, Kels, forgive me...) so i just started making it all the worse, by making weird faces! :P (actually, they are pretty scary- you can see my nose hairs!!)lol

Simon would, at some points even have his head buried in me, and i now wonder if he was crying b/c that's what he did when i walked past him in the car. But in the midst of our hugging other kids had to come up to me and give me hugs too....they ended up hugging part of Simon as well b/c he just refused to let go. Then, Elijah joined in on our hug and he was doing that for quite some time too as well as this other little boy(who's name i hate to say i forget...) and this little girl named Faith.



It was truly sooo priceless...and made me feel like crying, but i held myself in...not for too long though.



On my way walking to the bus, i saw Simon and Elijah in their van, waiting for their foster mom to come. Holding my breath i walk past them, deciding it would be best not to go over there and make them all sad and have to go through saying "goodbye" again. I couldn't help but look back as i walked by and i realize some other kids from the youth group go over to them to say their goodbyes. Realizing how silly i was being, i stopped, turned around and decided to back there b/c these kids knew me more than they knew the other youth kids who were saying goodbye. I walk over there and Elijah shouts out to me "Miss Briana, you'd better come give Simon a hug..." I peek in the van and i see Simon in tears. Face beat red, rubbing his eyes. I just wrapped my arms around him!! But to make it all the worse, as i'm hugging him i look to the back seat and see the little boy Clay crying as well as the girl Faith; Elijah with the saddest, most sincere look on his face.

I lost it....

I started bawling. And still, up to this day i can picture in my head each and every one of their sad, precious faces.....heartbroken, with the words goodbye on the tips of their tongues. I reassured them that i would be back next year...

I just hope that i can keep that promise-once again, God willing.

I miss all my kids sooo much and i think i would give about anything to be around them and see their bright smiling faces.

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." ~Psalm 37:4

!!!MISSIONS TRIP!!!

Finally, now since i'm done w/ my vacation pictures, i'm getting a chance to post about the missions trip. Well, not rly about it b/c i'm not gonna say much other than about the kids in my pic....detail about the trip is what Kelsey's blog is for b/c i believe she went into a tremendous amount of detail. It only took her like 2 weeks to make the post....but hey, she still got it up before me, so what am i complaining about!?lol

Let's begin, shall we??? :)

me and Kelsey w/ the 3 Soto sisters, Ariana, Brianna, and Kayla. They were sooo cute! (as were all the other kids!)

Simon, me, Elijah

Not to sound conceded (as usual...lol), but these 2 little boys had crushes on me along w/ 3 other of their friends!! I was surprised b/c the whole week i was truly a mess, (evidence lies w/in the pictures; just take a look!) But maybe they justified their likeness of me just b/c i was blonde...;) haha. Or maybe they just took a wise piece of advise from a very wise cousin who once said "beauty is w/in the eye of the beholder." Ahhh...soooo true!!haha.

me, Simon, Terell, & Clay.

I'm not sure how to spell the boy's name in the middle, but is pronounced (b/c i kno ur dying to know!) "TER-ELLLLL"
All these boys along w/ 1 other and a girl had the same foster mom who apparently had 5 other kids at home!! Man, God bless that lady!! And they all were in tears when i said "goodbye" to them for the last time! :( And seeing as how these kids were crying b/c i was leaving them, i, in return, began to cry!! :/ But it was still sooo precious!!

Selena and me-she was sooo cute too!!

Melissa, Ariana, Selena, me and some boy who decided to join the picture!! Oh, and since i taught the Bible story one day, i got to know kids from all age groups so after it was hard for me to choose one age group over the other to help out in the rest of the week. But, there was no reason to fear!! Being the smart, intelligent, blonde girl i am, i decided to stay in the Bible story room the whole rest of the week. That way, i was happy and so were the kids since in each of the 4 different age group classes there were several who would just cling to me!! Literally!! :)




Me and Kels once again w/ the Soto sisters, but this time beautiful Daniella decided to join in! :)

I kinda felt bad for the other leader sitting to the far right here, this was her class and all the girls were surrounding me and even fighting for my lap....:( :)



Eunelise, me, Terell, & Jacob.

Ryan, me, Eunelise

Me and Daniella

Me and Eunelise. This girl was totally adorable!!! She loved me, and i loved her!! Everyday she would sit on my lap, and follow me around, wanting to hold my hand and just always be by me. One day, while sitting on my lap she asked me "can i come home w/ you???" In just the sweetest, cutest, voice!! I wanted to cry. I told her i didn't think that was possible, but that she can come visit me. Naturally, she loved that idea!!
Then another time, while walking around, she looked up to me and said "I wish you were my mommy!!" My heart just sank...and i began to look forward even more to having kids; i just hope they like me as much as she did!! :)

Silly group pose here. I remember here, this day i was leaving the class just as this group was coming in. They were all upset until i told them i'd be right back and to save me a seat. A minute later, i come back in and i had 4 kids telling me "Miss Briana, sit here!! sit here!!" I maneged a way to sit by them all, with Selena on my lap as you can see. But she said my lap was super comfy....so that shot up my self esteem!!lol



Daniella, Eunelise, and some other random girl who wanted to be in the picture.....and can you guess.....yep; once again, fighting for my lap!!



They loved to jump rope during their hour of recreation first thing in the morning. They would form endless lines....and even get sooo upset if someone was jumping for too long....or someone they weren't too fond of was jumping w/ them!! :/ But it was cute seeing them over the week improve quite a lot on their skills!!:) haha.






















Eunelise and Daniella and me during lunch one day.









Super super cute!!! One day during rec. some of the girls were feeling very happy and decided to go around hugging different ppl while Mrs. Haden would take pictures. All i heard was them screaming "MISS BRIANA!!!" and the next thing i knew, i was being flooded by this group of girls....trapped in a loving hug!! :) Soooo precious too!! :)

We did not plan to dance; but it soon became hard to watch everyone else have a ball w/ the kids while we were just sitting there!! We couldn't help but to join in! :)

Me and Simon...don't ask how we were dancing, we just were!! Silly stuff-yet fun- while spinning in a circle, and spinning each other in and out!!

Me and Kelsey had fun dancing together....ahhhh!! And holding hands....haha-don't ask!

I like seriously had to bribe Elijah to dance. Now remember, he is one of the little boys who had a crush on me. Brennan (the guy i'm holding hands w/)came over and told me i should dance w/ him (meaning Elijah!) but every time i would go over to him he just dashed away!! It finally took some convincing, and he saw how much fun me and Simon were having dancing.....Elijah soon felt like he didn't want to be missing out anymore!! :)

Still dancing...

Here we were just catching our breath from all that hard core dancing....it only looks like we were posing for a picture....really, we weren't!!lol :)

I love this one!! It was still at the point when Elijah wasn't too crazy about dancing. Once he realized how much fun he was having, he couldn't help it!! Then later in the night he actually told me that he had such a blast dancing and thanked me for it!! Sooo cute!! :)

According to Simon here, he had the "best spot for the picture!!" yea, leaning against my shoulder!!haha. Elijah behind him, (a boy i can't remember! :( ) Melissa, and Ariana to my right.









Eunelise enjoying sitting on my lap at the end of the day.

And this little boy int he red, he was making "worms" come out of his plum!! He got the biggest kick out of it and i just had to capture the moment!! :)








Check out our sweet dancing movie!!:) :) :)

Ok, one more post to go for the missions trip!! :)

"Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received. ~Ephesians 4:1