"So where were you yesterday? I thought we were going blading."

Taylor Porter has been a brave, courageous, wild, bold dreamer since the day I met her. 6 years ago she had just finished Wilderness and was on a mission to bring whimsy and beauty into her Senior year at Carmel. Now she's about to set off on a solo adventure in Europe in just a few days. She'll travel to a few different countries for six weeks, staying with friends and turning strangers into friends. Then she's planning to walk the Camino, 500 miles through Spain. It's going to be awesome. Scary and exciting and new and exhilarating and breathtaking and adventurous and awesome. Today we walked on the Monon together and I picked her brain about all that is to come. I'd happily start a Taylor Porter Fan Club. I can't wait to hear about it all. 

My sweet friend Emily Glanders wanted to take me out for a belated birthday dinner so we met up at Pei Wei--it's one of my favorite restaurants in the Broad Ripple area that I rarely get to visit anymore. I'm so lucky to have a friend like Em that cares so much about people. Hearing her talk about her students and her classroom makes me want to be a better teacher. I love talking small talk with her and big talk about stuff that really matters. It's a bit of a trek to see each other but I love that we're intentional about making it happen. 

I'm LOVING my Kid President and Donald Miller's books. Everyone should read both of them. Here's a bit of their goodness...

Scary Close by Donald Miller, "I don't know why it is exactly, but the people with the healthiest self-esteem are also the greatest at intimacy. I'm not talking about people who know they are both good and bad yet believe at the deepest level they are really good for people. It's a beautiful moment when somebody wakes up to this reality, when they realize God created them so other people could enjoy them, not just endure them."

Kid President's Guide To Being Awesome, "To party is to do what you like, and to like what you do. You live every day as a party. How? Just by partying. Every day. All day. And night, too. A lot of people told me it was impossible to party nonstop all the time forever. But so far, I've been able to do it. Thanks to you and a lot of other people too. It's a group effort. I couldn't do it alone. Partying is a team sport."

p.s. When Kid President visited the White House last year he got kind of nervous while he was waiting to meet the President. And he licked the wall. LICKED THE WALL. And a Secret Service agent asked him to stop. This has me thinking, because I like to do what Kid President does. Do you know where I'll be on Saturday with 200 8th graders? That's right. The White House.