a gazillion pictures of the coast

Listening to: God's Not Dead by Newsboys
Quote love: "People aren’t problems to be fixed. People are people, for us to walk alongside and journey with and help pick up the pieces with and, when they drop them again, to get back down and help them pick them up again. And that’s real love - without condition and without expectation." -Brooke Fraser 

I'm the luckiest girl in the world. :)

See that seaweed? I almost died when I floated into that in the water. I know I probably have issues...Whenever seaweed got near me, I started screaming while frantically climbing up my boyfriend's shoulders.

Okay, I got over the seaweed thing after about thirty minutes. My friend floated by and she grabbed some and threw it at me. After yelling, "NO," I kinda had to throw some back. Why? Because we're in Texas and we don't have snowball fights, we have seaweed fights. Bwahaha.

When Justin dropped me off at the house that night, my parents were walking outside. I didn't know how burned and tanned I was until my parents were able to see it at 11:00 at night. I stepped out of the vehicle and Papa says, "Whoa. You're really tanned...you're practically glowing."  My face still feels...crunchy. All of us were burned, but it was a lot of fun, so it's perfectly okay. I'm already plotting to go back before the summer's over...

xo,
Jessie Suzanne

the story of the false eyelashes

Listening to: Pressing Flowers by The Civil Wars

My baby puppy sleepin'... :)

Just got home from our second-to-last dress rehearsal. I love putting on performances so much. I'm still going to keep coming to see them after I graduate...which is in less than two weeks. And my birthday is in four days! I'm going to be eighteen! Bwahaha.

Random stuff that's happened:

• I got an obsession with The Civil Wars.
• I face-planted the ground because I wasn't wearing heels. 'Cause I'm just that graceful.
• I curtsied and fell down. I'm playing a queen so I was hoping to be all graceful for once...*cough*
• I saw at least twenty boys wearing makeup for said play.
• I wore false eyelashes for the first time. It was such a memorable experience...I got my eyelid glued open.

*** THE ACCOUNT OF THE FALSE EYELASHES***

Anna and I were sitting in the darkened backstage hallway waiting for our play to start. I hate how everything is so hilarious when you're supposed to be completely silent.

Anna: I have false eyelashes you can use.

Me: Really? Sure. Lets go to the ladies room where there's a mirror.

Anna: *prepares fake eyelashes* Nah, we can do it here. Hold still!

Me: *blink*

Anna: STOP BLINKING!

Me: ....*blink*

Anna: *laughs*

Me: *laughs with a strip of eyelashes adhered just under eyebrow*

Anna: Hold still! *glues eyelid open* Okay, I fixed it!

Me: ANNA!! I CAN'T CLOSE MY EYE.

Anna: They look pretty...

***

I just now peeled them off, and the whole thing looked bizarre. I'm tired now, so I'm gonna go study for the Faith Bible Institute exam that's coming up...very soon...

Jessie Suzanne

i heard that your dreams came true.

Listening to: Someone Like You by Adele (new favorite song. I like love her voice...)
Lyric love: Old friend, why are you so shy?
                  Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light.
                  I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited,
                  But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it
                  I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
                  That for me, it isn't over.

I heard that you're settled down,
That you found a girl and you're married now;
I heard that your dreams came true.

<3
Jessie Suzanne

involving: fires, smoke, and a splattered sun.

Listening to: Revelation by Third Day

Quote love: "Never say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting." 
-Peter Pan

This is Wesley. Ain't he adorable?!?

The sky is wrapped in smoke today. There's a 25,000 acre fire near Bastrop now, and the smoke is swimming in the sky. Please pray for the safety of the firefighters and the people who are evacuating.

My mom and I went to the Stauss's house earlier, which was very fun and epic. Last time, Wesley stole my camera. That night I found a zillion pictures of his teeth and eyes. o.O

We got to meet two missionaries that were staying with them, which was great! I'm so glad I've finally met them; they're wonderful. *grins hugely*

You know, if you see the sun through an ocean of smoke, it looks like someone threw an orange at the sky. Like someone threw an orange at the sky and it got caught in the smoke, staining the clouds around it. It's very true.

Justin and I went for a walk (which was really fun and hilarious!) and stared at the scenery (I was slightly obsessed with it).

The scenery consisted of hills, gravel roads winding along the countryside, smoke, violent cows, deer, more smoke, and an orange splattered sun. It was so hazy and windy and perfect. It seemed dream-like.

We would have walked to another pasture, though Justin said not to. If I'm not mistaken, the cows had predators where they originated from, and the cows attacked the predators. Or something like that...I might be remembering it wrong. O.O

On another topic, my church is having our annual World Missions Conference this Sunday! I think this is our 23rd conference. It's always such a blessing. We usually cook for the missionary families who come and bring them dinner at the Fellowship Hall, and then we have services. It starts on September 11th and lasts for four days. Praying for the safety of the missionaries and that more people will be brought to Christ. *huge smile*

On yet another topic, I'm on Pinterest! If you're on there, be sure to follow me! I just found it recently, and so far it's pretty fun!

What about you? How has your life been?

In His love,
Suzanne

and it ran down the road yelling.

Listening to: Beauty Will Rise by Steven Curtis Chapman

An unbelievable piece of information: I learned to drive a standard vehicle last year. You know how everyone says, "It's not something you can forget. It'll come back to you."

***THE REALITY OF SUZANNE RODRIGUEZ***

I forgot. And no, it didn't come back to me. In fact, it ran down the road yelling.

My dad is an amazing teacher. Amazing. I honestly can't give him enough credit. Two days ago, I drove my dad's work truck. Had someone stopped on the highway and looked inside the blue pickup, they would have seen a wide-eyed seventeen year old girl gripping the wheel, muttering in French (with the occasional shriek). They also would have seen a relaxed man sitting in the passenger seat with a calm, slightly amused expression on his face, as if he were watching an interesting movie. 

While I tripped, climbed, and walked on the fence between sanity and hysteria, he calmly gave instructions. He's the best, guys. 

In the driveway back at home, I slowly emerged from the truck. My hair was pointing at something in the sky, my makeup-less face was flushed and damp (said truck lacks air conditioning, and the afternoons are still in the hundreds). I had a Dr. Pepper and gummi worms. Comfort food.

That night I was sitting on the hood of the truck talking to Justin on the phone and looking at the stars. They looked like little shards of glass that had been thrown at the sky and tied there. One of them fell, though, and went shooting across the dark speckled ocean.

"Maybe someone cut the string holding it up."

-Justin

The stars are so pretty; have you seen them lately?

In His love,

Suzanne

summer's almost gone...

Listening to: You Are More by Tenth Avenue North

Today was very, very uneventful. My dad and I went to a convenience store, and it wasn't until I was doing sixty on the shimmering highway that I realized I shouldn't be driving (I'm still on medication from said surgery). So I turned off the highway and cruised along a back road. The Texas kind of back road. The kind of road that's lined with barbed wire fences, winds through the fields, and is splattered with potholes. And a crazy number of cattle guards. Oh my goodness, we literally can't forget the cattle guards. If you happen to forget about them, drive over one and you'll be reminded. Cattle should just stay put.

Cattle guards or not, we drove along in hazy sunlight with the windows down and listened to a man on the radio remind us of the heat index (113 Fahrenheit).

It's hot.

A tumbleweed rolled across the road, which added to the effect.

The content of my awesome Sunday:

A really amazing friend of mine, Justin, came home after being in Alaska on a mission trip for six weeks. Praise the Lord for his opportunity to serve Him, and that he's back safely! :)

We took the elective's exam. I'm confident that I did well. That makes me doubtful. It was really easy, so either I did great or I just bombed the whole thing. The last time I was confident I would get an A, I got a B. And the questions I answered were: True, true, true, true, true, true, true, false, true, true, true. GAH!!

I spent the time between services hanging out with two families from church; that was fun and such a blessing! That was a pretty wonderful day. :)

In His love and light,
Suzanne

of wisdom teeth (or the lack thereof) and exams

Listening to: Holy by Nichole Nordeman

I plan on doing absolutely nothing today. Except study for the Elective's exam, which is....tomorrow. That class was epic. Creationism vs. Evolutionism & Uniformitarianism. Epicness.

I've a good reason for my planning on doing absolutely nothing today, and it has to do with my new nickname "Chipmunk Cheeks". The reason for my planning on doing absolutely nothing today: I got all four of my wisdom teeth out yesterday. The whole thing turned out to be very interesting. Apparently I had a conversation with the oral surgeon about Creationism and Uniformitarianism. I don't remember that. At all. Then I got dragged to the car, woke up at Burger King to the words over the speaker "You want fries with that?", and then I passed out/fell asleep on the floor of the ladies room in Walgreens. Ew. I'm pretty glad there was no one else in the room; I doubt someone would have reacted calmly to a teenage girl with a mouthful of gauze sprawled on the floor. 

But then I got a text from my un-biological sister: G'morning, Chipmunk Cheeks!!!!!

I love that girl.

Turns out I forgot that our icepack broke, so I'm been walking around with a bag of frozen blueberries against my face. Muahaha. How have y'all been lately? :)

xoxo,

Suzanne

the things that make you remember

Listening to: My Own Little World by Matthew West.

Quote love: "A moment lasts all of a second, but the memory lives on forever." -Unknown

Last night I was sitting on my bed while I folded clothes. I looked in my closet as I hung up a jacket, and I noticed a white book on the floor.

I flipped through my old script, and it brought into recollection a time I hadn't thought of in a while.

Nearly two years earlier, I was frantically flipping through its pages in a dark hall backstage as we practiced the play of The Chronicles of Narnia.  

It brought into recollection the days when we put on masks and costumes. 

The days when we were kings and queens and dwarves and elves; when we all rushed onstage as someone else. When we clung to wooden swords and hosted a sword fight in the dressing room. It made me think of how much fun we had when we decided to play hide & seek, exploring multifarious classrooms in the building.

It made me think of how we choked back our laughter on performance night when someone forgot the cup backstage, and we improvised and 'drank' from someone's cell phone. 

I remembered how we were sprawled on floor as we read through the play, and someone fell asleep.

How we all laughed when we were scribbling our lines on our hands and forearms the day we were supposed to have our lines memorized. How me and a friend raced through dark hallways, only to find the cast's younger siblings in a room with my mom watching Veggie Tales. I thought of how both of us walked in, asked a toddler to scoot over, and we sat down to watch Veggie Tales.

How we sat in that same darkened hallway and pondered what would happen to the paint job if we were to put bologna slices on a car.

The day of performance, and we're waiting in a back room eating popcorn, listening to Fenris Ulf play the guitar.

It's those times when a camera wouldn't have done much good. Because even though a camera can beautifully capture the emotions and images, when you step back and notice your friends, the music, and the times when you laugh so hard you can't breathe, you know there is no way a camera could capture that. 

.:Me, Kaitlin, Elizabeth, and Ashley:.

In His love and light,

Suzanne