Confessions.

I'm in a student produced dance production this weekend called Confessions. I thought it would be fun. It hasn't been really. It's been stressfull and exposing of my weaknesses. But in the end I think I will be better for the experience. I think it's probably a fitting experience for the lenten season.
On the brighter side, I'm going to California in 8 days. We get to go to Catalina for a weekend. Catalina! I can't wait.

Happy Birthday Daniel!

Daniel is 1 year old today!

One year ago.

5 months ago.

Today: I have no picture. But I do have a nice little paragraph from an e-mail I got from my sister a couple days ago. She writes:

"Daniel is super cute too. He waves to people and claps his hands now, and he’ll often do a little bouncy dance if he hears music. No walking yet, though, and I’m still not sure if it counts as a word when he says mama, since he says “mamama” at random times just as often. He doesn’t like grass much because it tickles. If we put him down on grass he doesn’t complain but he tries to hold as much of his body as possible up off of it. Like today, he was holding onto Viggo with both hands and standing on one tiptoe. It’s very funny. If he has nothing to hold onto he’ll do only one hand and one set of toes on the ground if he can manage it."

(I especially like the part about the grass).

Happy Birthday Daniel Jacob Larsen!

One very happy Year.

Although our anniversary is technically tomorrow, we celebrated our very first annivesary ever tonight. Michael took me to a privately owned fondue resturant. It has been called the most romanitc restuarant in the city, and I would believe it. We enjoyed three courses of fondue: cheese, chicken, and chocolate, in a little candle-lit booth. It was quiet and there was a live guitarist playing in the background. The food was delicious, it was Michael's first time having meat fondue, and it was very fun to cook our meat and our vegitables. Besides that cheese and chocolate are our two favorite things in the world. But I'm giving too many details. After the most romantic and perfect dinner I've ever had in my life, we came back to Wheaton (there was no traffic either direction) and I changed into warmer clothes so that we could go ice-skating on the nearby frozen pond. I have always wanted to do this. And although the ice wasn't in the best condition, and Michael's ears were very cold, it was still dream-like.
But what is making me more happy right now than all of these perfect elements of a perfect date, is coming to the end of of the best year of my life, thus far, the year I fell in love with Michael Kolbas.

At last!

I have always wondered just exactly how this whole second or third, once or twice removed thing worked. My cousins and I have argued over it at probably every family reunion for the past 12 or more years. I've heard different things from different people. FINALLY, while going through a far-too-detailed-to-be-interesting tutorial on kinship for an anthro class, I came across the following diagram and my questions have finally been answered. Therefore I am sharing it with you all in the event that you too may have disagreeing through firmly asserted pieces of knowledge on this topic.

Oh, and in case you haven't seen a kinship diagram before circles are women and triangles are men. = obviously is marraige, yadda yadda yadda, and you have to start with the black triangle, ego, and apply all the terms to him.

(On a side note, I think kinship diagrams need some serious feminist critique. Why must ego always be a he? Outrageous I say! Simply outrageous!).

A rough week.

It's been a rough week. It's almost strange to love somebody so much that I really do hurt deeply when he hurts deeply. Michael's dad and aunt are separately going through possibly the hardest times of their lives. It's been really hard for him. Please keep him in your prayers and his dad especially as well. It feels strange to post something personal on here because I don't have any idea who reads it anymore. But I think we could use all the support we can muster.

We sang "Give Me Jesus" in chapel this morning and both agreed that it was just what our hearts were longing to sing.