Time Flies....

Wow, I can't believe it's been about 4 months since my last post....so much has happened since then!

1-My freshman year at the University of Mobile ended. But, man! It was a great year! I met some of my best friends last year. We had Goodwill Gala, Monster’s Ball, and Spring Formal. We spent the night on the beach, watched the sunrise, saw dolphins, a manta ray, and electric eels all within 24 hours. :) We got to really know some of our teachers, and even visited them at home. We got on each others’ nerves…A LOT! :) It was soo much fun.

2-New Empire didn’t make it to Cornerstone Fest. I was sad about that, but now I’ve learned that their planning a US tour, so I’m super excited about that!

3-I turned 19! :)

4-My mom, Michael, Emily, and I went to Gatlinburg the week before school started. Josh and my dad didn’t go because Josh had football practice…but, it was so much fun because we weren’t constantly on the go like we normally are. We slept late, got lost going a different way to Cades Cove (and ended up going to North Carolina), saw (and got reallllllly close to) a mama bear and 3 cubs at Roaring Fork, saw a bear in the distance and a bear in a tree at Cades Cove, went to Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, Rainforest Adventure Zoo where they had an Australian animal exhibit, and ate some amazing food!

5-I’m now a college sophomore. It’s so weird to think about…only 3 more years and I’ll be out in the “real world”. Kinda scary, but exciting at the same time! I haven’t even been back a week, and already so much has happened. My roommate is awesome (we definitely planned rooming together haha), and our room is pretty darn sweet. We got rope lights, man!! Goodwill Gala was fun, because I got to see a lot of people that I hadn’t seen all summer, and get all dressed up to go to a dance where it didn’t matter how you looked because it’s a GOODWILL gala. Haha! I’ve also met a lot of cool freshmen. And there’s a lot of cute guys this year too! ;) My class schedule is great, too, this semester, because I have arts and crafts and bowling, and no classes on Tuesdays! Amazing!

Life is so good right now. God’s just amazing! I’m still praying about His plans for my life, but I’m being patient. Or trying to, anyway. I know He’ll reveal everything to me in His perfect timing!

OK well I gotta run because we’ve got Dinner On The Run in just a few minutes. Peace!

1909

OK, so I have a special occasion speech due tomorrow, and I haven't even begun to get started on it. We have to pretend like we're giving a speech at a special occasion (wedding, birthday, etc...). I haven’t exactly started on it yet, but I do know what my topic is - my great-grandmother, Lois Hill (“Granny Hill”)'s 100th birthday.

That's so incredible to me, that she's been alive since 1909. It's almost unfathomable.

She was born the day after William Howard Taft officially became the 27th President of the United States. That's 17 presidents ago! That's the year the first subway car with side doors goes into service in NYC, the year 1st credit union opened, the 1st US airplane was sold commercially (for $5,000!), the 1st Lincoln penny was issued, the North Pole was reached, construction on the Titanic begun, and the cost of a first-class stamp was $.02. Some of the things that hadn't been invented yet - zippers, toasters, hair dryers, bubblegum, sunglasses, ballpoint pens, Monopoly, trampolines, shopping carts, duct tape, Tupperware, bikini swim suits, disposable diapers, Velcro and milk cartons. Life expectancy was under age 50, and the average worker made $12.98 per week for 59 hours.

Isn't it crazy how much has changed in 100 years??

Isn't it crazy how we take simple things like zippers, duct tape, pens, and bubblegum for granted? What if those things had never been invented? These things are pretty much everyday things for us...how would we have survived in 1909 without them?

I sometimes wonder what my great-grandmother thinks about society today. I mean, life was so different for her back then. I wonder what she thinks about all the cars, the clothes, the fads, the music…just our society in general.

She married Lowell Hill and after WWII they started the North Alabama nursery. Lowell died in 1967 but Granny Hill kept the nursery going til the 80s…She was the oldest of 4 kids, and is the only 1 still living. She’s lived through the Great Depression, both World Wars, the Gulf, Cold, and Vietnam Wars, the attacks on Pearl Harbor, September 11, and the War in Iraq. She got to see the first animated Disney movie (Snow White and the seven Dwarfs), the creation of Mother’s Day, and the opening of the Empire State building and the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge. She got to see the creation of NASA and the first man on the moon, as well as see Alaska and Hawaii becomes US states and the first black president.

She’s experienced SO much in her life and she's just an amazing woman, and I’m proud to be called her great-granddaughter!