Hooray hooray, for the 8th of May...

That's a poem that a very special person taught me years and years ago.  He's 20 years older than I am, but has acted like he's a teenager for most of his adult life.  He has a love for ministry and a gift of working with youth.  The number of miles I've traveled with this man are uncountable (to Dallas, to NYC, to LA, to Mississippi, to Charleston, to Chicago, to Toronto, to California, to Mexico, and beyond).  His ideas are always big, and he usually manages to pull them off.  My life in Norman, Oklahoma, would not be the same if it weren't for Scott Meier.  This post is for you, Scott.

Scott, Amy, Lydia--on the way to LA (summer 2002)

old school--circa 2002

Scott and Kristin cooked dinner for a big group of us going to semi-formal (circa 2002)

Wedding announcement :)

getting hitched!  

Scott and the Mrs.

lunch stop, on the way to Mexico!

Scott and his loving parents in Walla Walla!  Who else would open their home to 50 high schoolers?

Just your normal youth party in the kitchen...

Pretty good sport about a flour fight in the kitchen...

Completely stopped at the border of Mexico.  Dance party session.

Scott and his mini-me in Mexico

Juners!

doing what he does best...watering the dirt in Mexico

actually working!

Juners

Dora the explorer hat...

Scott and Jorge, best of buds

food bank fun

twinsies

The pumpkin patch!

old school McFarlin youth pic

Nora, Lydia, and Scott. A memorable ride in Mexico...

FISH float trip...Scott, Pirtle, Kendall

Teaching Tino how to ski...priceless :)

one of the many faces of SMeier

another face of SMeier

And the last pic we have together!  

Happy happy birthday, to the biggest kid I know! :)

Happy Birthday, Pops!

I feel like all that I've been writing the past few days has been birthday posts! And I'm still not done!  For a couple weeks in March and a couple weeks in May, there are a LOT of my friends/family birthdays to celebrate. And, when my parents came over, I got to grab some old school pictures off their hard drive.  So I'm also excited to share a lot of those {horribly awkward and embarrassing} gems.  Amy Carruth, you better be glad that I didn't have their hard drive when it was your birthday. That's all.

So, today is my dear old Dad's birthday :)  Which of course means, it is time to dig out the Frost family picture collection!  I never realized until I compiled all of these pics that he has a lot of plaid/checkered shirts.  Just wait, you'll see.

I always wanted a dalmatian as a pet...that barking toy was the closest thing I've gotten :)

hanging out at the zoo

Disney World!  Really cool overalls, I know.

First school dance at Norman North--semi formal, freshman year

before the Tim McGraw concert! :)  

Mom and Pops

After a dance recital 

At the Orange Bowl--2005

Prom 2005

Graduation Sunday

Jeremy, Mom, Pops

Hanging out in NYC!

I must have missed the memo on alumni sweatshirt night...

Boomer Sooner baby!  "Howdy y'all! I'm Big Tex..."

Welcoming a new Frost in the family :)

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam...

Only in Oklahoma!

When we moved to Oklahoma during the summer of 2001, I realllllllllly wanted a dog.  A toy poodle to be exact.  We got said dog maybe in November 2001 when she was just a few weeks old.  This was supposed to be "my" dog.  But, Pops has a love for animals that is pretty unique.  She is now {and probably always has been} "his" dog :)  He lets Missy outside approximately 284592 times a day.  He gets down in the floor and plays tug-of-war.  He takes her for walks around the block where she wakes every animal in a 5 mile radius.  He changes her water and refills her food at the drop of a hat.  He worries {and kind of obsesses} over whether she's okay when they go out of town. He will sit uncomfortably for hours reading or watching a movie...as long as Missy is comfortable in his lap or arms.  But all in all, she's still his loving pup.

puppy Missy :)

her favorite spot

Are you catching on?

Christmas sweater time...

It doesn't have to be our dog either that he always loves on.  Hanging out with Jeremy and Tina's pup Gracie here.

Or a big ol' ball of fur known as Roxie, who is our friend Gillie's guide dog.  

I also found a slew more of Team Hobart pictures.  If only I'd had their hard drive back in January for this post.

Pops, hope your birthday is one for the books :)  Enjoy your day МНОГА (a lot), and know that I'm thinking of  you!

Happy happy birthday, Pops!

P.S.  Happy wedding day to my SIL's sister, Kim and her fiance, Mike!  Can't wait to see pics from the special day!!

Yes, Mike really is that tall.  A whopping 6'8" or something like that?  Pretty cute couple, yeah? :)

Reading for Pleasure

During my four years of college, I rarely took the time to read.  And by rarely, I mean never.  My parents have always had a house full of books.  They love reading.  My brother loves reading.  My aunt loves reading. My uncle loves reading.  If I were in the states, I would upload a picture of me sitting in the built-in bookcases in my room in Alabama.  But, that's not one of the oldies I have scanned and on my computer some 5500 miles away.

I grew up loving to read...but sometime along the way, my opinion changed.  Perhaps because of having to read books for school?  It basically ruined a book for me to be assigned to read it for class.  I can remember enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby in high school.  I didn't read my senior paper book {The Grapes of Wrath}.  And I still got a very good grade.  But that's beside the point.  The second semester of my senior year at Norman North, I took Reading for Pleasure with Claudia Swisher.

That class changed forever how I viewed books.

Every day, for 55 minutes, we simply sat in her classroom and read.  You could read whatever you wanted, as long as you were reading.  At the end of the period, we would journal for a few minutes stating how many pages we read and anything that struck you for the day.  This is a class that, in my opinion, should be mandatory for every kid to take at Norman North.  For the past six years when I worked with kids at McFarlin, I constantly told each of them to take that class.  It was the best decision...ever.  No question about it.  You see, not only is Mrs. Swish, as she's commonly referred, one of the most fun teachers at the school...she also has pictures on her wall of every student she's taught at Norman North (and probably beyond).  If my memory serves me correct, it's a requirement to give her a senior picture of yourself.   And when some of my McFarlin kiddos would {actually} listen to me and take her class, they would come running to me saying that they found my pictures on the walls of her room.  That was usually followed by laughter at whatever outfit I happened to be wearing or how my hair looked.  Moving on...

The Kindle.  I didn't want one.  Remember?  Well, I was wrong.  It is by far my absolute favorite thing I brought with me to Ukraine.  I hated the idea of having an "e-book" and no longer having my "pretty books" on the shelf.  But, in the world of Peace Corps, it's really not practical to have a slew of heavy paperbacks (or even worse, hardbacks).  So, two weeks before I left for Ukraine in March 2011, one of my best friends, Mitchell {and his loving fam!}, surprised me with a Kindle.  If you want to read more about the background story {which I made very complicated by deciding I would buy my own Kindle!}, here's the link.   Here's the horribly awkward video that my mom took of me opening the package in the mail.

Since today is Friday, I am always reminded of Mrs. Swish.  She has a little poem that she says aloud to every one of her classes:

Take care of yourself;
Take care of each other. 
Buckle up.
Hug a dad or a mother.
Tell someone you love them!

It's stuck with me for 7 years now.  Here's to Friday, Reading for Pleasure, and one of the world's most passionate teachers.  Thanks for teaching students the art of reading, Mrs. Swish!