Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Braces, Pajama Jam, Brown's, and Retreat





This is a longgg post!! That seems to be how I've been doing it lately. Not write for a while, then post something super long :)

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So I know that my mom has posted photos on Facebook, but I wanted to post a few of my own as well. It felt pretty weird for the first day, but today it already feels normal. So glad that I don't have to deal with those rubber bands anymore.


The old bands
Silly Sisters


Close-up of my straight teeth!

Trying out a background

Nice face Jolee... 

Clouds...
Love it.


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Also, on my last blog post I mentioned about Doernbecher Week. Well, everything went well with that and so far our school raised about $2500 for Doernbecher. It's just a tiny amount compared to high schools around the state that have raised tens of thousands of dollars- but our teacher told us that it's not about how much we make, but how much effort, time and care that we put into it. We still will have the car wash this Saturday and I'll be sure to post photos of the fun! We raise around $900 from that. 

The people who organize the Kids Making Miracles* foundation selected certain schools from around the state and each school got to choose 2-4 kids to ride in a "party bus". (See the video below) As a reward from all of our hard work, Naivit and I were chosen to do this for our school! :) The bus came to pick us up from school on Friday and drove us to some Doernbecher offices along with 6 other high school students. (Not Newberg High) It was a TON of fun :) The radio was blasting and we stuck our faces out these tiny windows at the top, screamed the lyrics, and waved at random people on the streets of Portland. Yep, it was pretty awesome. When we got to the offices, we met with about 40 other students who had driven there in different party buses. We all split up into different cars from there. My group got to ride with Myron Child! The founder of Kids Making Miracles. We all went out to a free dinner at Stanford's, and from there we were driven to Doernbecher Children's Hospital. This is where everyone else comes as well, to the "Pajama Jam". Even more different schools and kids come at this time. Our school brought around 30 kids, and there are at least 25 schools participating that all bring around 10-40 kids. Everybody that comes receives a free t-shirt. There is a candlelight ceremony in the auditorium at which patients, doctors, students and teachers speak to everyone there. Then, we walk down to the Eternal Flame in the front of the hospital (even if it's raining!!) and certain kids carry torches on the way down to "re-light" or "add" to the Eternal Flame. We wave at the kids in the windows of the hospital as we go along. When we get there we all cheer as they touch their torches to the flame. After all that and group photos we drive with our school in school buses over to Bullwinkles and have a lot of fun until 1:00am. :) I'm sure that was super confusing, as it is to most people that I try to explain this to. But hopefully you understood a little bit of it. To sum it up, it was a great night!!! And Naivit and I hope to bring Doernbecher to Newberg High next year since at this point, the high school doesn't do Doernbecher fundraising. 

       *Kids Making Miracles (KMM) is the organization through which our school gives money to Doernbecher.

Here are videos/photos of that night:




On the bus!! 

 Relaxing at Doernbecher


 Some of the high schoolers that rode the party bus with us

Cute picture of us :)


 Walking down to the flame (Dallin)

 Walking...


Some of the huge group walking down together :)

Naivit in the crowd

 The Eternal Flame (built by the Kids Making Miracles foundation) It never stops burning to remind the kids at the hospital that there are always people out there who care about them and are supporting them.


I didn't actually get any photos at Bullwinkles... Haha! What a great night!!! :) 


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Also, the Brown's came to visit a couple weekends ago, and it was sooo much fun getting to play with their kids again. They are super special to me. Here are a few cute photos:

Anna


Smiles :)


Aiden

 Anna, Brynn, and Aiden. Oh how I love these kiddos :)




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This is the last section :) This last weekend (same weekend as the Pajama Jam) there was a Mother/Daughter retreat out at Tilikum at which my mom was the speaker. (Not Twin Rocks) I was able to be there for Saturday and Sunday morning and enjoyed listening to my mom speaking, eating good food and hanging out with our friends the Sommervilles. (Grace and Sarah) 


 Walking on the gravel path to the big swing


 Grace and I in the room


 :) Mother and Daughter


 Grace on the big swing


 Jolee on the big swing (it actually goes out a lot farther and higher)


 Frolicking in the meadow :)


A posed "hike" ... Yeah, we're cheesy like that. 


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Well there's that! Hope you enjoyed this long update, as it took me a while to put it all together :)
Brynn



1 comments:

Michelle said...

Is it totally goofy that I like to comment on your blog. Well, you are so good at putting this together. my blog took about 3 hours and it only has one picture.

Thanks Brynn for sharing!

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