CFAW!! (and a few other things)

Happy Friday!!

 

It's been a week since my trip up to Virginia to visit Liberty, so I think it's time I delivered some photographs!!

 

We left Wednesday night, and it was a twelve hour bus ride up to Lynchburg. I can sleep nearly anywhere - except on a bus. It's so hard to get comfortable! Long story short, I ended up with two good hours of sleep and we hit the ground running on Thursday.

 

We had to go to registration is our bus clothes/ pajamas, so we all kinda looked and smelled not that great.

After changing and eating dinner, all of us CFAWers (All the kids who are there for College for A Weekend - there were a few hundred) went to a welcome rally to get the weekend kicked off!
We got to stay in the dorms with students. I stayed in the Quads, which is an apartment style dorm with five rooms and two girls to a room, plus a kitchen and living area.

The next morning (after evidently waking up and gasping before going back to sleep, according to a roommate), we were free to explore before Convocation, Liberty's tri-weekly chapel experience. One of my new friends and I walked around DeMoss Hall, the main educational building. There they have a museum dedicated to Dr. Jerry Fallwell, the founder of Liberty.
Fun fact: Dr. Fallwell's grandfather had a pet bear.
He and I got a picture together.

 

The Convocation speaker was Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty. If you don't know about Duck Dynasty, please go watch some episodes now. You can thank me later. :)

The lines to get into Convocation were so long that you couldn't even see the Vines Center! And the Vines Center is HUGE!

Willie Robertson!

They have a beautiful courtyard in the back of DeMoss Hall. It's just starting to turn into fall up there, so the weather was gorgeous. The lighting on this fountain was great, so here's a picture of the fountain at DeMoss.

DeMoss at sundown

Friday night David Crowder was there in concert with Colton Dixon. Both guys are great, but I was super excited for Crowder.

Stage selfie!

One of my favorite things about this weekend was that Crowder ended his concert with my favorite song, Because He Lives. It made my night, as the words are so reaffirming to me.

"Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone, because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives."

On Saturday, I had a vocal audition. I feel like I did very well, but no results yet!

Nikki wanted a picture of my tag. She got a twisted duck face.

 

This is Elysa! She was on my bus and she stayed in the Quad across the hall from mine!

Also, we were totally twinning with the Liberty shirts.

They had many helpful seminars, like this one on searching for scholarships.

 

Fun fact #2: LU has an artificial ski slope called Snowflex.

That's right, you can go skiing in July (or September...).

Fun fact #3: Snow is the only thing that makes Snowflex shut down.

Not that we had any snow while we were up there (that would've been really weird).

The Lodge on Liberty Mountain!

Going tubing!

The day we were there was the opening of their new tubing slopes. We got to be some of the first people to go down the slopes, and it was really fun!

For football games, the Student Section motto is "Be Early. Be Loud. Wear Red."

Pretty self-explanitory.

Look, the student section (right side) is wearing red!

 

I don't understand football.

At all.

Thankfully, I had some lovely friends explaining what was going on!

Guys.

I kinda understand footballl now!!!!

 

(Our homecoming game is next week. We'll see if I remember anything)

 

We left after watching the band's halftime show. The band was great, and the football team was dominating (the halftime score was 44-7, the final was 73-7). After leaving the stadium, we went by the welcome center. I quickly got down on the floor for a picture with the official LU seal.

 

I also got a much desired picture on the fountain in front of DeMoss. :)

 

Liberty is such a great university! If you're looking for a college that excels in pretty much everything, I encourage you to check out LU.

 

Now the question of all questions: Am I going to LU?

 

That's a great question. One I'm still trying to answer.

 

I'm waiting to find out where I'm supposed to be.

 

And this lovely piece of news I got today changes some things:

 

 

I've been accepted into Palm Beach Atlantic University!

 

This is all very exciting, and very stressful.

 

In non-college related news, I also made it in to our small jazz choral ensemble, Chambers! It's going to be a very fun year! Our first band competition is tomorrow! And next week is homecoming week! AAAAAAHHHHH! SO MUCH GOING ON!!!

 

I wouldn't have it any other way :)

 

Happy weekending!!

 

                                       -SarahCate:D

 

 

Off I Go!!

Hello dear readers! I have very exciting news!! 

I was terribly sick last week (I still have a cough) and had to stay home Wednesday. That's not the good news, hold on. 

The good news is that since I stayed home, I was free to check my email all day! 

In checking my email, I received word of my acceptance to Liberty University!!

Whooooo!!!

I'm a happy girl :)

There was lots of screaming and excitement (as excited as one can be when one is sick). The excitement continued on Saturday when my official acceptance packet arrived!

Whoooo again! 

Here's a close up of the adorable door hanger: 

Cute, right? Not that I actually use door hangers, but it's so awesome!

I'm actually headed out in a few minutes to head up to Liberty for their College For A Weekend (CFAW)! I'm excited!

So, as I leave you, here's a bonus picture of Kirsten, myself, and Nikki before last week's game!

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

                             -SarahCate:D

Just Another Week in the Life...

I have a problem.

I think I enjoy editing pictures a tad bit too much.

Observe:

 

 

This was made with one of the pictures I took last week of Switchfoot at RTU. I threw some lyrics from "This is Your Life" on it. This is currently my lock screen on my iPod :)

 

And while I can't take credit for taking this picture (let's face it- I would die if I was close enough to take this picture), I did put the lyrics to "Where I Belong" over it.

 

There ya go, a grand total of two pictures to try and prove that I have an editing problem.

 

 

If you've been following for a while, you've probably (hopefully) picked up on the fact that I wear glasses. Always. I have contacts, I just never wear them. I got them to wear during musicals.

Well.

It turns out that my glasses aren't exactly 1920s.

Who knew right?

So in order to work with our show theme this year, I'm starting to wear my contacts. I wore them to band practice Thursday night and I survived!!

 

Yaaaaaaaaay!

 

I wore them all day on Friday, but I wore them too long and got a headache. :(

However, with the help of my good friend Advil, I got over it and went to the football game!

Since it was an away game, I had no band duties whatsoever! It was kinda fun, and I got to see one of our sister marching bands.

Me and Mom wearing our snazzy Northside shirts!

Do I understand football? Nope. Like, not at all.
Did I have fun? Yep.
Did I get to hand out with this cool kid? Definitely.

This is Bobbie. She's the little (one year younger) sister of my co-drum major. She's pretty awesome, and she's an amazing artist. Check out this awesome picture of Iron Man she drew:

 

Amazing, right?

 

So we have this thing every year where the whole staff of our school has to go to church at the church that runs our school, and since my mom works at the school, she had to go.

Plus, I was playing guitar in the worship band.

 

Cara (remember? My co-DM) played piano, Graham (her cousin) played bass guitar, Jazz (our drummer) played drums, and our illustrious band director, Mr. Farrell, sang.

 

We shamelessly took selfies upstairs.

 

Bobbie, Jazz, Brandon, Nikki, Cara, and me!

 (BTW I totally stole this picture from Cara's Instagram. So photocred to Cara)

 

It was actually pretty fun. And I get to see all those lovely faces again tomorrow morning at 8.

 

At least all my homework is done.

 

Our band is going to premiere our show at an away football game this week, so that should make for an interestingly fun post next weekend...

 

Well, have a wonderful Sunday and an amazing week!!

 

                                       -SarahCate:D

 

 

Question of the Post: Contacts or glasses?

 

 

 

Universe: Rocked!

HAPPY MONDAY!!

To celebrate, here's an extremely hipster picture I made.

 

I actually took the background picture myself, then put it in an app called Studio and threw some filters and a graphic on top.

 

Moving on!

 

I had a pretty crazy (fun) weekend!

 

Every year in Orlando, Universal Studios and Disney both put on these events (on the same weekend. logic? not in use here), called Rock the Universe and Night of Joy, respectively. I've wanted to go for years, and this year my favorite band AKA SWITCHFOOT AKA The Best Band Ever was at Rock the Universe (RTU)!!

I went with my mom Friday night. We only did Twister (which is absolutely the lamest thing ever...), but we had a lot of fun, despite the rain!

 

We managed to catch the end of Family Force 5.

We got soaked, but it was fun!

 

We had a lot (and I mean a LOT) of time to kill before Switchfoot, so we made sure that we got good spots and waited.

Warning: This is the part where I post about 50 bajillion pictures of Switchfoot. If you dislike Switchfoot, feel free to skip over this part (and then go listen and learn to love Switchfoot).

Ladies and Gents, Mr. Tim Foreman himself.

Jerome being awesome and playing his keyboard!

 I'm pretty proud of these next few shots. I think I'm gonna print them out and put them in my locker with my picture of Jon Foreman...



 

 



The boys leaving the stage!!

The entrance looks really cool right here...

 

We got to our hotel at 2 the next morning, so we slept in pretty late.

At about noon we decided to go hang out at Downtown Disney. I rocked my new Vice Verses tour tee and this really cute pair of shorts that I got the other day (They're originally from Charlotte Russe, but I got them at Plato's Closet for $2.50! STEAL!).

 

 

Saturday night I went with a group from school. The artists that night were good, but none compared to Switchfoot (I had never seen them live, and, since they're my favorites, I don't think anything could have topped them).

LOOK! Jesus Culture (minus Kim Walker-Smith )

My favorite band that played Saturday night was Relient K. I'd also never seen them live. I don't know all of their stuff (unlike Switchfoot, where I know every word to every song), but I knew enough that it was fun!

This is a picture I like to call
 "You can't tell, but Matthew Thiessen is too cool and too awesome and too hipster to wear shoes." 

 One of the best parts was that there were a bunch of youth groups who were all there to just have a good time, so everyone was very friendly.
However, friendliness turns into interesting pictures.

Here's one where Gabbi and I are taking a picture with Tom behind us, and some random guy photobombing us in the corner.

 I just noticed this.

Way to go random photobomb guy.

Way to go.

 

Sunday found me and the parents hanging out with some friends who live in Orlando, but we didn't get home until 11.

I had school at 8 this morning.

If you do the math, plus my AP Government test tomorrow, it factors out to be "I'm really tired".

 

So, my dear readers, have a lovely week!!

 

                                                                                 -SarahCate:D

 

Question of the Post: Who's your favorite band? Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to School: Round 14: THE FINAL ROUND

That's right.
Last week, I started my 14th and final year of school.
Hello, Senior Year.

Story time? Duh!

My parents, my grandma and I have a tradition which involves us going to breakfast at Bob Evan's every year on the first day of school. We've been doing it since first grade kindergarten  I was very small.

Grandma and me!

 

This is Sara. She's been our waitress every year since we started.
And she happens to have an awesome name ;)

 

Me and Madre!!

The first day of school is only a half day, so it was pretty laid back. But the second day, us seniors left for Senior Retreat! (AKA Two days for us to come together as a class and establish that we're going to lead the school this year. (AKA Senior bonding time))

It was a lot of fun, and my mother (one of the chaperones who went with us) took many pictures, so here we go!!

HUMAN FOOSBALL!!!

Niiki and I found a see-saw.
Funness ensued.

That one game where you have to untangle yourselves.
The fabulous purple team successfully created two interlocking circles.

campfire!

Kirsten and myself the next morning.

The next morning (Friday morning), we split up into groups to do a ropes course.

Moving together

Getting our strategy on

 

There was also a game room that we all enjoyed. Nikki and I found ourselves engaged in an epic game of extreme ping pong.

 

 

Miss Aucremann and Nikki intensely playing checkers.

Jen, Kirsten, Me, Nikki, and Cara

AKA The female officers of the Royal Ambassador Marching Band. :)

Class of 2014

Our theme for the retreat (and for the year) was We Are.

We are servants.

We are leaders.

We are forgiven.

We are loved.

We are Seniors.

 

The Class of 2014 has arrived.

School is officially back in session.

 

Until next time!!

 

                                        -SarahCate:D

 

 

BONUS ROUND!!

You get a little me and a big me!!

 

First day of school, 2002 and 2013.