7 Things Your Lifeguard Wants You to Know

With summer in full-swing now, most of you have probably been swimming at your local pool to cool off! After lifeguarding at a large water park for two years and working as a lead staff member this third season, I've learned a few things along the way that I think every responsible (and especially irresponsible) swimmer should know this summer.


1.) Not all lifeguards just sit around all day doing nothing. The water park I work at keeps us on our feet all day. We're required to walk back and forth at most of the lifeguard stands rather than sitting so we can properly see the water. This meant I sometimes walked over 13 miles in one day during a twelve or thirteen hour shift!

Adventures in Fabric

The great thing about being home from college for almost a month is that I've finally had time to get some quilting done without homework, deadlines, and other things getting in the way. I've been working on a full-size quilt for my bed, and now, after nearly six and a half years, I'm thrilled to announce.... I'm still working on it. There's nothing quite like sitting under a quilt on a cold day with a hot cup of tea, while your cat pounces on your feet and anything else underneath the quilt. But that's for another blog post...

I made this quilted bag recently as a Christmas present
for a friend. Quilted bags are a great way to use up all those old fabric scraps you might have sitting around from other projects. They're also a fun way to practice or learn how to hand quilt, if you don't already know how. Here

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree: Christmas 2016

Inspecting gifts. We determined this one was soap.

Today is the best day of the entire year -- Christmas Day!! Well, maybe it's not still Christmas in Australia or someplace like that, but that's beside the point.

I love everything about Christmas, and seeing as how today is pretty much my favorite holiday of the year, I feel obligated to write a blog post about the greatness of this day.

My family and I always open presents from friends on Christmas Eve after dinner. There were all sorts of fun gifts last night, such as candy, a 1,000 piece puzzle, and wrapping paper. There was also bubble gum for Esther...a rather hazardous combination, considering the type of bubble gum eater she is.

A Special Birthday Post

Photo credits: Diane Van Tuyl

So...today is my baby sister's 15th birthday, and in honor of the special day, I've dedicated this blog post to Esther ...a person who knows better than Santa Claus whether I've been good or bad.

My younger sister does a wonderful job as a guinea pig for all my brilliant inventions and for sending down the stairs in a laundry basket first. (Coincidentally, her trip down the stairs also taught me never to do the same.)

Thanks for teaching me valuable life lessons, Esther, like...

The Twelve Days of Christmas (College Edition)

Hello and welcome back to my blog! As some of you may have noticed, I haven't posted on my blog in some time. Hopefully this post will help explain why...Without further ado, allow me to present you with my College Edition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas".

Delray Beach pt 3

We had enough decent weather for Esther and I to film our latest movie from Van Tuyl Productions, "The Hunt". (For other movies from Van Tuyl Productions, click here).

6/9/16

We had a few days where it was lovely weather for ducks, and whaddya know but one did show up and start swimming around the pool. At first, it looked like he only had one leg, but it turned out he actually had the usual two.

Fun and Games at the Beach

Hello, folks! This is the second post about our recent trip to Delray Beach (first post here). I'm shore you'll want to sea some pictures of the ocean, so here you go (goodness, wasn't this pun-ishing to read?).

6/2/16

Things That Go on in a Thousand Mile Car Trip

     Greetings, fellow Earth-dwellers. You've probably been wondering what I've been up to since my last post (was it really back in November that I last posted...?). Well, one thing my family and I did recently was to take a vacation to Delray Beach, Florida! 

     Our new minivan was much easier to pack than our old car had been. (I had a lot more stuff than you see here when my parents picked me up from college earlier this month though.)

Yes, that's a lot of stuff... 5/31/16

Adventures (and bruises) on Ice

After the skating. All photo credits: my mom ('cause I was too busy falling down to take pictures)

Yesterday, I went ice skating for the first time ever, and I am left wondering... How in the world do figure skaters manage to go around on one ice skate all the time? I certainly had enough trouble staying up on my two feet. At least I don't have a peg leg like a pirate. I can't imagine what peg-legged pirates do when they go ice skating.

Food at Liberty

Today, I will discuss a deep, dark secret...the food Liberty University serves in its dining hall. Oh, I love all the many different kinds of food found in the Reber-Thomas Dining Hall here on campus, though many times I am quite unsure exactly what I’m eating. And even though I’ve immensely enjoyed most of the food here so far, that one dinner I ate last week was admittedly not the most delicious thing I’ve ever digested. It had the flavor of a raw onion and the texture of an old shoe. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t try this particular dish, whatever it may have been. I’m just saying I wouldn’t advise it unless you’re particularly fond of eating onion-flavored shoes.