A few passions

For my passions I chose to focus on two  projects. The more minor one that I plan to complete in the beginning of the process is associated with soccer.  With the mixture of my dad, the coach of the varsity boys and girls soccer teams at school and my mom, known as the "team mom" in most sports that I'm involved with its only practical that I do something involving soccer. My mom possesses a forte for making no sew blankets for an organization called Project Linus.

Although we're not donating these to an organization such as project Linus  my mom wanted to make the varsity girls team blankets for the upcoming season. Celeste and I plan to work together in tying these 23 blankets in the next couple weeks. The importance  to us because it takes a lot off my moms back that she is not making 23 blankets by herself. Also, at pop we can only carry around/use "POPCS blankets" and these blankets will pass that regulation. Soccer season occurring during the winter when it grows really cold out so these will come in much needed use on the bench:)

For the second half of my passion project I will partner with Taylor. We both have a passion for missions. Individually we have both been blessed to go on missions outside of the country, I went to Haiti last summer and she has gone to Romania the previous two summers. Our hearts belong to those countries but both of us have shared a specific interest in Africa and we have talked about it for a couple years now. We are not completely sure how to tackle a shared passion of ours but we seek out to do something in benefit to research organizations in Africa that we could  potentially visit one day.

Sorry mom

I did not release 1.5 million helium filled balloons into the air into a storm (Balloonfest '86) but I did (partially) wreck my mom's new car (that was to be mine in a short 6 months). The setting: a parking lot. Not just any parking lot, but the parking lot of a church. A church of which I was about to attend my cousin's wedding at.

Let me break it down for you. I'm 15 years old at the time, well 15 1/2 to be exact. My mom bought me my first car and decided she would drive it for a year before I got my license. That's where the car came from, now how I wrecked it. It's the summer before I turned 16,  my mom and I were dolled headed down to my first cousin's BIG DAY.

My mom pulled up to the parking spot at SMU. The two of us proceed to get out of the car. After shutting the door my mom and I glanced up and saw a sign that read "Handicap" parking. By this  time my mom had caught a few family members and greeted them. Busy talking, not thinking my mom handed me the keys, "Sophia, would you mind moving the car?" I, of course, jumped right on that because driving is cool (until you have to do it all the time). She then told me she trusted me and to be careful. I started the engine, confident as ever!! I reverse the car, pull into a new spot and I'm all set, right?

I look up and of course, it's another handicap spot I can't stay in...I turn the car back on and start to reverse again. As I reverse out, I think I have enough room to pull out and then forward. I put the car into drive expecting to then pull out of the spot but a couple walking by sidetracked me for a moment. As they walked by I decided maybe I didn't have enough room to pull out, so thinking in my head that the car is still in reverse for a bizarre reason I step on the gas and ram right into the back of a red Sedan. If the damage didn't look bad enough from my point of view I broke the radiator so the car started smoking which made the situation appear 10x better than it was.

Ouch... I, a 15 year old trusted with the responsibility to re-park a car and I totally failed to complete my task, and did worse! At this point I think I had created a puddle from the tears that were spilling out. Being in trouble and unemotionally stable are not the best mix.

 We found the persons car that I hit, gathered their insurance information and I didn't hear the end of it with my mother. We decided to put all that behind us and go support our family member on one of the biggest days of her life. I then decided that I would not again jump so quickly on an opportunity that could possibly lead to disaster. You may want to think about watching out for me in the POP parking lot friends :)