small world

when i was in middle school i went on a trip to a conference in washington dc called DC94. it was so great. middle schoolers in washington dc with thousands upon thousands of other middle schoolers there for a conference and to worship God. it was so great. i have tons of pictures of us having breakfast at mc donalds or when we walked close to our hotel to a bagel shop. i remember on that trip feeling like i was actually an adult or close to it at least.

a couple years later i went to another conference called LA97 in the heart of Los Angeles at the LA convention center. i remember thinking it was so amazingly cool to be in los angeles. our walk from our hotel to the convention center was a lot longer than DC and i remember carrie elston and i stopped to buy gerber daisies on one of the journeys either to the convention or home. one morning we were walking from the hotel to convention center and as we walked over an overpass, in the far far distance we could see the hollywood sign. i just remember thinking that some day i would live there. i would move to this far away, foreign land. i remember thinking that it was so far away from home and it was so different. there was more concrete than grass, there were buildings and palm trees and there were homeless people on the streets and in the doorways. that was the first time i was in los angeles, the first time i saw that hollywood sign, ate at in-n-out burger and i fell in love with that city. it's scary and unknown. i felt like i could drive on same street every day and it would be something different. the cultures were endless and the city never sleeps. i knew that i wanted to go back.

flash forward only 8 years later and i was driving on the 10 freeway heading west looking for the road to get to merediths house and i see to the north of the freeway... the los angeles convention center. it was amazing to see that something i saw as being so far away and so foreign turned out to be so familiar. i drove on that road a lot... i wish it would have been more. (and that's the only time you'll hear me say i wish i spent more time on the freeway). eight years. that's all it took. it only took me eight years to pack up and move and do something i said i would always do. i didn't live in LA, and i like that because it still held a lot of mystery for me but i still love that city. i think southern california is one of my favorite places with a lot of my favorite people.

i've been missing california a lot lately. it's not that i regret moving home, i'm glad i'm here but i can't help but have this feeling that i left california too soon. i know it would have been harder to leave years down the road but it was hard already. i did a lot of crying before i left. i'm struggling a little bit with being here. i'm happy i'm here but it's strange. some days i feel like i've been gone for 10 years and others i feel like i never left... and strangest yet, i don't know which feeling i prefer.

i'm going back to LA in july for merediths wedding and i can't wait to get there. i'm trying to figure out everything i want to do while i'm back and i know right now that two weeks won't be long enough. if i could go for longer, i would in a heart beat.

lia sophia

attention all: i am hosting a lia sophia jewelry party on march 26th and if you'd like to order something, let me know. you don't have to attend the party. it's actually great stuff. if something breaks, and you have the reciept, they REPLACE it. it's great stuff. you can see the catalog at liasophia.com or click here. it's wonderful and really gorgeous stuff.

the special for the month of march is: buy two regular priced items and one item half off and get up to three pairs of earrings 50% off. the best part is that the cheapest items on your list are the ones you pay full price for. so you can pay $12 dollars for something and then get half off of a $90 necklace. (for example)

let me know if you're interested!

hope you're well!

i'll have non party info to post soon...
k

so funny! i cry every time!

Happy (late) Valentines Day!

CAUTION

this is why you don't open the sunroof on a snowy day... just FYI

my mom fell for this as we were driving home from work today. she was opening the sunroof so i could get a picture of the snow covered trees... i never got a picture of the trees

parents worst nightmare

LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany (AP) - Trapped by smoke, the parents of a nine-month-old baby girl faced an excruciating dilemma: if they threw her out of the window, would she be caught four stories below?

The split-second decision paid off: Onur fell safely into the arms of a policeman below. The parents also survived, although the mother was still in a hospital Tuesday, two days after the blaze that killed nine people, including five children.

The drama at a building in southwestern Germany was captured in a series of photographs of the baby in freefall as a group of anguished adults, thick smoke billowing around them, looked on.

The building was home to Turkish immigrants, and Turkey's prime minister expressed concern Tuesday about possible arson. A small girl told Germany's RTL television that she saw a man setting fire to something in the building.

"We want the incident to be enlightened as soon as possible," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, adding he hoped "there was nothing based on hostility toward foreigners."

Erdogan said a government official and four Turkish police officers would visit the scene of the fire.

With the staircase destroyed by flames, adults also jumped for their lives while others formed human ladders to help save people trapped inside, police and rescue workers said. Children from lower floors were handed to rescue workers atop an ambulance.

Some who jumped missed rescue nets laid out by police.

"The scenes were so terrible that some of the forces deployed wanted to give up their jobs afterward," police chief Wolfgang Fromm said.

The fire broke out during carnival celebrations in the city.

Rescue officers and investigators were still unable to enter the four-story building Tuesday because of the danger it might collapse. Police spokesman Michael Lindner said he could not rule out further victims, "but we hope we will not find any more people dead."

Police say that two Turkish families lived in the building, and that 24 people in total were registered as living there. It was unclear exactly how many people were in the house at the time.

Police spokeswoman Simone Eisenbarth did not release the name of the policeman who caught the child, but said he was injured after he fell to the ground and struck his head. He was treated at a hospital and released.