nostalgia

[foto by jd]

as i was writing my bio for class
i realized how much i miss DC.

i miss the black people,
the talented kids,
the singing,
the metro.

i miss this big green chair in front of my school,
and i miss bus drivas.

i loved rain and the wet dewy walk
over wet, colorful splashes of the fall leaves on brick sidewalks.



here it is just hot.
[cept for the awesome rain outta nowhere last night!]
and i get to hang out with my best friend daily...
and see my family all the time...
and go to the cabin occationally...
or even the beach...

hey wait!
this is fantastic!


dear Very Near Future,

lets be here soon:

[foto by peg]

ok. sounds good for me too...
weekend of not-laboring it is...

a few things coming up...

hold on to your butts, guys,

its gonna get crazy round here...

selective amnesia

have you ever found yourself in a phase of life,
completely new,
and suddenly you couldn't recall life before?


like when you got to high school.
felt like you were always there,
and that you would never get out.
nothing mattered outside of your high school world...

like college.
never. ended.
and while there, high school was a blur.


i can't remember what it was like to not be a clifford.
i forgot what it felt like to wonder and worry and imagine.
the last few years are hard to pull up.
at least all of the bad stuff feels erased.



and i thank God for the tender mercy that that is.



[clifford people. at the river in payson.]

Yep- we're THAT family...

how we roll in the family vay-cay dept:


early morning we make breakfast... named after ourselves (egg mcmoffats- hilarious huh...)


those shirts are definitely matching...


then we rode on this ride where you shoot things and get points and they let you email the picture to yourself at the end... i got the most points... cause i look intense.


the new pirates ride is great... lots of cameos from Captain Jack Sparrow that look just like him!


we all canoed on this canoe... cool.


proof that grandpa just needs someone to spoil...


the next day was Cami's birfday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMI -- I sure love you and love having you in our family. Thanks for letting us share your birthday with you!

which means cheesecake and ganosh (made my mac -- so naughty)


that morning we had to head back down to disneyland because of course we left the keys to one of the three vehicles in my purse that went home early... which meant that we had to leave the car there overnight. (we are staying in san diego, so that is a good hour and a half away.)

when we got there rob (who has an annual pass to disneyland) and i decided we just wanted to go to California Adventure for the day... cause we were already there...

so we did...
(this is at the "tough to be a bug" show (3D and so cute)


more pictures on their way... the Disneyland ones and more beach pictures are posted on my photo album. Enjoy

my own spring break...

foto by
josh dalton










foto by
some other random asian










i needed a minute to breathe
and because of people who love me (namely this one)
i got one.

DC. was just what i needed: sleeping in, conference (which was great...), good movies, great food, good company... and not a whole lot of even remembering that i am in school... which is what a real spring break should be able to provide—true forgetfulness.

i got to play with josh's camera too, and came up with some fun things... i didn't know which to showcase on the blog for the 2 who care, so here is the link to see most of the pictures if you are interested to see em or comment...

i have to say- some of them look quite awesome. that is partially because that kid is so dang photogenic and partly because he has the nikon D80... the "man" camera... i think i am going to go with the nikon D40 (basically a "his and hers" set when together). that way when i get there we can go "shoot" together and swap lenses... in the clean way...

the people in the land of DC are fun and inviting and i had a great time meeting new people and letting josh show me around and quite frankly—spoil me. we watched a few movies: "stardust" and "freedom writers"— both good ones, although I will admit that freedom writers gave me a gut feeling that resembles complete terrified paranoia about teaching in a similar environment...
it's fine, really it's fine.... just fine.

no, but really—teaching in the city will be fine- i can do it.

bring it.

we also cooked, made an awesome bread pudding and homemade pizza one night, and then for the big game night, he whipped up some burgers and brats- so el yummo...

as for now, i have to write:
—Play reviews for two classes
—Classroom Mgt. Case study
—Disclosure doc- English
—Grammar examples and lessons (about 30)
—Rewrite the 8 pg crap paper for Monday
—Classroom Management handbook
—Grammar in context paper

...all by the last day of class which is tuesday!! and then i have a few finals left and then I get to graduate!!! (well...technically, cause then I have 4 classes I am taking this spring)

pray for me— this has the potential to murder me in the end. it might be better if i had time to sleep at all in the past 5 days or in the next three... but it doesn't look like that is going to happen...

...OH- and as a necessary side note: I sure love running into my old girl friends after they return form their missions. Namely Ali Bray and Lena Noble... it makes my day every time to see RMs ... especially if it is completely difficult to grasp the fact that they were not around for the past few years of my life because we can just fall back into being great friends... both meetings made me smile all day long!
AND, Lena will be here to play with all summer (sing) love it!

If everybody had an ocean...

Last weekend I went on a mini vaycay-within-a-vaycay with the now small family to San Diego. Going to Cali always reminds me of how much I love my family. I love the long hilarious drives we used to have, and the long days on the beach, and the long nights of ab-killing laughter as we played games and what not.


I haven't been to the beach in a while, but the basics are always the same:

Cute little cousins that just love to roll in the sand,(Kate Thomas,7)

Adorable dad who gets in "vacation mode" and packs a cooler, usually with Fresca, Diet Coke, (DDP of course), and a soggy box of wheat thins,

and eating at a hole-in-the-wall burrito joint that is TDF and close enough to the border to be good Mexican, and just off of the beach...


Long story short, I have been needing some good famtime and some good I-am-just-going-to-sit-on-my-A-and-do-absolutely-nothing time. I didn't do much reading even, but I finally finished Harry Potter... SIX- so I can read SEVEN while I am not in school for 2 seconds. Between finals and rehearsals and work it has been almost impossible. I guess I was so in need of a relaxing vacation that I just basked in the not-so-perfect beach weather and loved every second of the breeze and the sound... and didn't do much more than that!

Speakin of sound- dad's "vacation mode" usually includes a few cycles through all of the James Taylor that we have (which I love). I did have to put some JT on my shuffle to listen to at the beach because my dad has trained me to need it-- mostly at the beach and the lake and on long drives where, of course, he is present.