Birthday Weekend

I have been a rather lousy photographer lately, but I did take a few this weekend!

This is me and Tami when we went out to Van Raalte to go sledding. Unfortunately, I don't have any actual sledding pictures! It was a good, fun, icy time!

And here's me and Mike with our first birthday cake. We ate the other one on Saturday, but I don't have pictures of it. Both were delicious.

My dear roommate Jeannette and I. And Laura Peterson peeking up behind us.

Me and Laura Peterson at the beach for sunset. I saw the clear sky and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try to catch a beautiful Holland sunset over Lake Michigan, so we went!

And this was about as colorful as the sunset got. Still kind of cool though, right? :)

The Sunset Watchers Who Braved the Cold: Laura Peterson, Jon, Lindy, and me.

Hope you all enjoyed them! See, I'm not a totally hopeless blogger :)

To Tokyo Nik

In response to your comment about the socks and jeans, I'm afraid I know very little about the supposed tradition of intentionally posing feet for photographs. Instead, I offer you this quote one of my professors shared with us today in class: "When something is going on, something else is going on, too. Write about the latter." (William Stafford... not an exact quote) "Foregrounding the background" often makes for the best art. Not to infer that the comment about my dear friends' feet was exactly what I'd call "art," but giving attention and meaning to that which is usually ignored at least adds interest to life--or to a lame blog post!

Oh, and thanks for the birthday wishes, Nik. You, too, Uncle Dave, Kathryn, and Mom :)

candles

According to what seems like a long-standing Hope College tradition (candles are strictly prohibited in on-campus residences), I blew out colored toothpicks in the shape of a 22 for my birthday. Here's me, Mike, the birthday cake Val made for us, and the jeans & socks of some of our dearest friends:


And maybe I'll have more pictures for you later :) It's been a dry season of photo-taking for me... but I do have a few more.