30 Years in 30 Weeks - editions 16, 17 & 18

Okay, so technically, I skipped a year somewhere. Even though I have pictures from 7th and 8th grade, they were at ages 12 and 14. But you get the idea. That's what I get for falling behind on these posts. And, yet, here I am again...making up for lost time..


Okay, so here I am celebrating my 16th birthday. Anything look familiar? Go back and look at my 2nd birthday picture. Yep. Same table. Same chairs. Same shot of me blowing out the candles. Heck, I just went with it and kept the same haircut, too. Mmmmm....German Chocolate Cake....
I'm pretty sure those roses were from Mom and Ben because I seem to remember being upset because my boyfriend at the time barely spoke to me that day. Jerk.


I'm still 16 in this picture, but I told you I messed up, right? This was the summer between my Sophomore and Junior years. We took a family trip to DisneyWorld. (Sarah will probably kill me for this picture...) We drove, of course, and I seem to remember a lot of road construction. Somewhere along the way, we had our first encounter with automatic flushing toilets. I'm pretty sure it freaked Sarah out. In other toilet-related talk...we stayed at one of the Disney resorts (the Dixieland something or other, I think) and the toilet in our room was so amazing that Ben actually took it apart to figure out how it worked. Thankfully, he also put it back together.

During my Junior year, I finally got to join FHA (which is now FCCLA) and ran for Regional Officer. I made it and part of the fun was attending the National Conference that summer in Washington DC. It was my first time ever riding in an airplane. Mom and I had so much fun! It was incredibly hot while we were there, but it's an experience I'll never forget. We took some whirl-wind tours of the Smithsonian Institution museums, but we saw it! The seat-belt safety event at the Capitol and our tour of Arlington Cemetary were the hottest. And, of course, I had to wear my uniform which conveniently consisted of a fully-lined jacket. Mom was a silly girl and wore pantyhose under her dress that day. I won't tell you what she did in order to cool off. Oh, I guess I should mention that this picture was taken of us at the "gala" the last night we were there. Aren't we cute?