THIS WEEKEND'S ADVENTURE

Road Trip to Arizona! It's going to be a blast going to visit the Starks and their five daughters. I can't even remember meeting the two newest ones. They're going to be toddlers by now. Wow, time flies, and that means i've been doing some growing up too.

The Starks, although I didn't get the chance to really spend a lot of time in their guidance, have had a huge impact on my life. They were the youth leaders back at my church in Guam for a while, and I've totally seen their influence on my brothers' lives and a few of the other older kids in my youth group's lives and attribute their influence to the laying of a good foundation for spiritual growth and ownership in my own life. i'm excited to see them!!!  They give good hugs

I'm also going to fit in a sidestop in Tucson to see Andrea! They say that one of the ways to really get to know someone and be more a part of their lives is to visit them where they live and to be around them when they're at home. I'm glad i get this chance, even if it's only for a day. fun fun times.

Anyone ever want to get to know me better by coming home with me to Guam?

One more state towards my goal.

IT'S ALL ON THE RIVER: POKER 101

Last Friday, we hosted a nice little poker tournament at the yellow house with about 13 people. We had two tables going and the top 3 of each table would play in the final round.

We were playing Texas Hold'em, burn and turn style, everyone dealt, cut to the right, deal to the left (lol, i have no idea if i'm describing this correctly, but hopefully you know what i mean.) I think I can become quite a competitor and "trash talker" when given the right promptings and the right circumstances. And this was one of them.

So I sat there playing poker, doing some trash talking, Lilibeth-style and I am, to everyone's surprise, doing really well (and this is only the third time I've ever really played). My hands were really good and I could play them well enough, I got quite a few lucky draws on the rivers and people didn't call me on some of my bluffs.

Somehow, I end up cleaning out one of the guys and the title of chip leader falls on me. And I'm partly excited, but then also there's this other internal dynamic going on for me that doesn't want to be chip leader because I couldn't handle the pressure. After all the trash talking and winning that I had been doing, I felt the expectations begin to rise and the pressures of needing to continue in that direction. and i didn't like it. I won some more, lost most of what i had won, then regained all of it. And every time i would have a ton of chips, I would feel the pressures, lol.

Anyway, I kept my cool. (I don't think anyone could really tell how intense the game had become for me.) So I kept up my trash talk, kept up with the gutsy bidding, and big bluffs. I think the shocker of the game came in the final round. So it was Pat, Christian, Kevin, Candiss, Melissa, Larissa, and I in the final rounds. And it's getting really late, like 1:20, 1:30 already, so Pat goes all in on a straight draw (if i butcher this story, haha, ask one of them boys to tell it) and so does Kevin and Christian. I don't completely know what's going on, but I have pocket Jacks with a Jack already on the table, so I'm all in too. So the river could potentially win it for any one of the guys. I'm thinking to myself, what did i just do?

So we're all standing, like you're supposed to when you go all in (and I'm standing up on a chair just because) watching as the dealer shows the river. And it makes for a pair with one of the other cards already on the table, but with my pocket jacks I have a full house! crazy! I started jumping and screaming, while i'm standing on this chair, haha, and all the guys are looking at it, like WHAT  and that was the end of the guys.

The final four in our tournament was a table of ladies. It was such a "girl power" moment. And the funny thing is one of the guys pointed out that I had wiped out all the boys. He was saying how I had only really taken chips from the guys and never really took any from the ladies the entire game. and then with that last hand I took out all the rest of the guys. Good times.

After that I was so drained and didn't have much steam in me anymore with the guys out of the game (when it comes to games where people wouldn't expect me to do well, because I'm a girl, I get this competetive fire in me that sets out to prove them wrong, like in football or broomballing. it  isn't one of my prettier sides.) The tides turn and the river forgets about me and instead becomes Candiss' friend, haha. Long, long, long story short, Candiss WINS!!! yay! the game ends at like 2 or 230 in the morning a good four hours after we first started. good times though.

After that game, I was pretty stressed out. LOL, the intensity of the bluffing and the pressures of needing to win becuase now everyone thought i was really good at poker (more like really lucky). It was draining. I mean I had tons of fun, but i'm beginning to see more and more that I'm not really cut out for these high pressure games...mafia included, although, I think I'd have a harder time saying no to texas hold'em than to a game of mafia.

***for you poker buffs, notice my use of poker language, haha, pretty good, yeah? i almost sound like i know what i'm talking about.***

Other fun things I did:
~ Saturday Sabbath at the Getty. It was pretty relaxing just lounging on the grass. Mel and I rolled down a grassy hill, it was great.
~ Sunday I hung out with Rachelle at Evergreen Cafe. More good times, very very relaxing. Food at Ohana, which looks and tastes exactly like L&L's, but whatever. Then toured the AGO house and played some pool. Couldn't hustle my way with that one perhaps another game. And the guys cooked us some chicken katsu. SO good! better than L&L's i think.
~ Monday work and stuff, hung out with Jen! cooked some yummy pork chops. then late night tea and knitting, while watching The Village, not sure yet if I like it.

Summer community out here has been such a blessing so far and it's such a nice change of pace compared to in the school year. I still think its crazy how fast the summer's going. In about two and a half weeks i'll be in LAUP, then after LAUP, there's preseason, then school.

I guess I'll just have to enjoy it while I can and take it one day at a time Hope you all are having good times!

LILIBETH'S TRAVELS

Some of you may have heard of the random goal i have to visit all the 50 states (and a trip to Europe) by the time I'm 25. Well as of today I am 20 years old and have visited 11 states! So I'm well on my way  Not too bad for a girl from Guam. Here's the list:

Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nevada, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey

And this doesn't include random stop over states, although Washington DC may not be good enough for my Virginia and Maryland visits.

EAST COAST TRAVELLING:
       My brother is amazing for flying me out to visit him and then taking me out to tour the different cities and states!  I had a fantastic time! My oldest brother lives out in South Jersey, which is beautiful, by the way, no armpit of america there.
       We visited the UPenn campus, his alma mater, toured the historic sites of Pennsylvania: Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Betsy Ross House. It was also fun because Melissa Jen and her friend came out and met us for dimsum in Philly and joined us for all this touristy fun.
       The next day we were off to North Jersey and from there we were off to NEW YORK! The drive to North Jersey took a good two-ish hours, and we took a one lane road for a good part of it. Maybe not the best idea (we got stuck behind a speed limit abiding truck - speed limit varied between 35-50 mph) but it was the beautiful scenic route. Anyway, the family we stayed with was awesome! The grandparents were in town and i love spending some time with the older folks; they're almost always so nice and welcoming. And they're fun to watch and listen to. That night we took the subway into New York for dinner in Times Square and Broadway! We walked around to see the Rockefeller Center, and Fifth Avenue, and the outside of St. Patrick's and many other cathedrals.
       FYI, I am not a Broadway or theater or artsy kind of person, but given the opportunities, I love this kind of stuff. I wanted to see the Lion King, but that was a bit difficult to do, so we saw Beauty and the Beast. SO fun! The sets were amazing, and the music and the singing, tons of fun. It was cool to see how they chose to capture the object characters like Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts. Chip was a cute little boy, but the odd thing was it was just his head. Most of the time he was a cup (head) on a cart, but sometimes he was on a platter ...that was weird. Good times.
Coming out of the musical was pretty cool too. Times Square looked so much brighter than before I went in. And there were SO many people! New York at night...when i thought of New York, that's what I had imagined: Bright lights, tons of people walking around places to go, people to meet. It was a bustling couple of blocks.
       The next day my brother and I saw the Statue of Liberty. Seeing it from the coast of New York is nothing like seeing it up close on Liberty Island...so pay the extra ten or so bucks. It was really cool. I don't really know how else to describe it. Also the boat ride and the walk around the island is pretty relaxing. We also saw ground zero and the empire state building (didn't get to go in). Side note: have any of you gotten that forward about the 9/11 attacks that show a picture of a cross out of the building frame of the world trade center, making a point of how God is still protecting and watching over us? Well, the cross thing is there!
       That Sunday, we went to my brothers church in Philadelphia. It's a really big Presbyterian Church, with amazing preachers of the Word. The two services we went to (morning and evening) were really good. I loved how straight-forward and how scripturally based it was. It wasn't overshadowed by a bunch of entertaining, slightly connected personal stories or anything like that. It was like an honest look at the Bible, nice and simple. I think I've been missing that. It was a good dose of some of the more traditional practices of the church: hymn style singing, responsive reading and liturgical worship, no powerpoints , everyone dressing up. Good stuff.
       We also got some Philly Cheese Steaks from Geno's (not Pat's). These were two humongous cheese steak stands with long, long lines that stretched around the street (like Pink's hotdog place, or Chano's). It was good, part of the Philly experience. I saw some of the sites where "Rocky" was filmed: the steps he runs up, the place he stood to get a cheese steak or something, from Pat's. And later that night we saw the updated (i don't know if updated is the word) version of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. I hadn't seen it in forever and all the earlier star wars episodes (4-6) get jumbled in my head pretty easily. Key thing you all should know: there's still some good in Darth Vader...he comes through for Luke in the end  haha, I forgot that little detail. It was a good surprise. I hope this doesn't ruin it for some of you 
       Memorial Day was spent with my brother's adopted family from church. Isn't that cool, a family kinda adopted him since he's been out there in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey area. (Note to self: I would like an adopted family) It was fun: wiffle ball in the yard, random rabbits running across the yard, stories about trees, and I met some really interesting people. Two quick things about some of them: a bunch of them were mostly homeschooled even through high school and second, other people have really cool/random/purposeful lists of things to do too. Oh and lastly, we played some good old Texas Hold'em.  I won one hand with a two pair: A's and 5's. A fun hand, haha, I went all-in, with my remaining 15ish chips.

And that was my week of travelling and visiting my brother on the East Coast I'd say it was a very well spent time of doing and seeing things and relaxing, enjoying, and experiencing some of the things that are normal to life for my brother

Whew, aren't you just tired from having read through all that .

Perhaps I'll be writing more since I don't have tons of other things to be doing these next few weeks. We shall see.

~lilibeth 

COTTON CANDY IN THE SKY

I was in class today and saw a sheet of paper that had one line written on it: 
      clouds - like cotton candy in the sky

It used to always make sense to me when people say it in movies or whatever, but in my plane ride back to LA (through Hawaii first) I saw the clouds upclose right out the window. And the clouds really did look like cotton candy. some were formed and shaped all nicely like a ready made pillow of cotton candy and other looked like strands waiting to be twirled onto a paper conestick thing as if it were in a big blue bin (like the ones that heat up the sugar syrup mix thing and turns it into that airy cotton candy substance.

The views out of an airplane window are amazing! Take offs and touch downs in Hawaii were gorgeuos, especially when you fly over the less commercialized islands like Hilo and Maui, but Oahu is still very beautiful as well. Oh and then if you fly at night, you're up so high, away from all the potential light pollution and its just the dark sky and the stars. There are a bajillion of them It's crazy amazing to think that God put that there for me to one day see and appreciate. I didn't sleep most of the flight and spent a lot of time looking out that window. I tend to have moments like these. They're just so vivid and profound in my memories. There was a sense of peace from God in that moment that didn't take away my fears or my worries, but this peace went over those things that troubled me, assuring me that everything was going to be ok.