Las Vegas and my homecoming

I'm just going to post some of the pictures here from Vegas. We had an awesome trip! The hotel was amazing, I felt like I was in Italy during the whole trip. We got to be at the pool every day, we saw shows and we went shopping, AND I meet some familiar faces :) very nice!!!

All of these are taken from the pool

Getting ready to go to the Beatles show

The casino arena at the hotel

"nu ma du ta bilde av mæ og limosinen!!'

Gjett om det var ei som var fornoyd!

At a Italian restaurant.

Look who I found!! :DSo nice to meet Nikoline again, and in vegas, probably the most random place ever.

She is so cute!

From the reseption at the hotel, look at the amazing roof!

Well, this is probably the last post from my blog. I'm not gonna write a whole lot cause I feel that I have written what I want to say in the previous posts. But I'm gonna do a "rybakk" : please meet me at the airport on tuesday at 12:30 or come to my house later, it's open all day!! I'm soo excited!

See you in about 48 hours

Lots of love,

Mariell.

Gloria's birthday

Just a couple snaps from Gloria's birthday yesterday. We went to a really nice European restaurant. I had trout, very happy about that!!

- Mariell.

Graduation time

wow, a year has gone by. I have to get deep now, haha sorry!

I remember when I stepped on the plane on my way to The States. I had said goodbye to my dearest friends and family. They had been my security bubble for seventeen years, and now it was about to break. I'm not sure if I was ever ready to enter the States alone like I did, but I have never regreted my decision on going. I'm not saying that it has been wonderful or absolutely great all the time cause that would be a lie. It has been ups and downs, but the result of that has made me realize who I am, and what I am able to do myself. But I have also realized that it dosen't matter where you are, it's the people around you who truly loves you and care about you that make you feel happiness in the end. By going to Kansas I feel like I have satisfied my curiosity for now, but I'm also anxious to see and experience more. But what I really want right now is to go home and see my family and friends :) It's nice to depend on yourself for a while, but you can never compare that to having people around you who supports and listens to your thoughts.

I am thankful to everyone who has been there for me throughout the year; hostfamily, family and friends. I owe you big time. But I have to say that I am mostly proud of myself, I did something that I thought I could not do, which has suprised me in a good way :)

Here's pictures from my Graduation yesterday, an emotional but gorgeous evening!

before

and after, haha I felt so American for some reason

I also felt really silly with that hat on

Haha she is so cute

click on the pictures to enlarge by the way, right now I look like a little ant in the crowd

haha can you see me? getting ready to sing the national anthem. Haha for one second I thought about singing the one from Borat but I changed my mind, unfortunately.

haha very proud

Family Bass plus Lauren's friend, abby :)

We went to the Cheesecake factory and ate dinner afterwards. Here I am receiving my graduation gift from mom :)

The three sisters!!

So I'll be seeing you in 12 days!

By the way, I'll be posting pictures from vegas next week, isnt that exciting????? I can't believe that I am going, my mom is awesome who's taking me there! :)

I love you guys,

Mariell.

Senior Prom

Finally right? haha im so sorry I havent updated for a while but there hasnt been any time really. Prom was this weekend, and it was awesome! The location was beautiful and for once it was not at the school gym. Everyone looked beautiful and I felt like a princess for a day :) Garry was the awesome photographer, he took some great shots! Enjoy :)

I look like a professional, but believe me I do not know how to put that thing on

Jonathan and I! :)

Dani sweetie!

Dani and Maik, German exchangestudent

The whole group (from left; Jonathan, Shane, Scott, Joe, Maik, Ben and Taylor. The girls; me, Annie, Amanda, Jessie, Dani, Evie and Lindsay)

The guys

Well, prom is over, next up is graduation! :) super excited cause my mom will be here then! See you in three weeks,

Love,

Mariell

The invisible children

Saturday afternoon Gloria, Shelbi, Lauren and I went to a park to support the effort that's being made for the invisible children in Uganda. Shelbi is really involved in this so we all decided to go with her and demonstrate. We were supposed to spend the night there and watch Switchfoot play but the tornado alarm in Kansas City went off so we had to go home. But everything is fine, no tornado's just some thunder and lightning. The last time when the tornado alarm went off was when my mom was here during christmas, and we all had to go down in the basement in the middle of the night. We were lucky, no tornado that night either. But enough drama, here's some pictures instead :)

She's absolutely a doll

People camping

People singing, talking and sharing poetry out loud.

36 days,

Mariell.

Another sunny day

Some pics from the gorgeous day today in Kansas City. Even though it was hot, we had to go and cheat a little.. yea I'm talking about the tanning salon :)

Shelbi and I got lost the last time when we wanted to take the nicer way over there, so Gloria drew us a map. Talking about having sense of directions

un beso para mi

Substitude the road with an ocean and Leawood would be perfect.

jaerra

Im gonna go and sleep in the hammock (hengekoye).

Goodnight,

Mariell.

Mell is ready for prom

You all know how I love to go shopping, but seriously - dress shopping takes foreveeeer!! It's fun the first two hours but then it gets kinda stressful cause you can't make up your mind. Gloria and I started off yesterday around 1 pm. to go and look for dresses, we came home around 9.30 pm. and the result of the day was three dresses on hold. Fair enough. We went shopping again today and I only found one dress that I really liked. But no, I ended up buying the very first dress that I tried on the other day. YAY I'm done! I've never bought such a beautiful dress before so you can imagine that I am excited about it.

I hope you like it :)

In four weeks my mom will be here, and THEN tuesday June 2nd, 12:30 pm. I'll arrive at the airport in Oslooooooooooooooo!

See you on that special tuesday.
I love you,

Mariell.

PlusPlus

Here's some extra easter pictures that were taken today when we had our easter dinner :)

Gloria, Garry, Norma (grandma), Shelbi, Sebastian, Antony and Lauren.

<3

Happy Easter!

It's Easter sunday todayy!

The weekend has been great! Let me update you; on friday the whole family went to a country place to eat dinner with the French guys. Their English is not great but they have gotten a lot better already! Everything is so strict here in the U.S. so we had to leave before 9 because we were under aged, kinda lame but it was boring there so it was perfectly fine for me. Dani and I went to a friend after that so I just spent the night at her house. But then Ryane came and visited me yesterday! All the way from South Dakota. She's a Brazilian friend that I meet in Hawaii :) It was soo nice to see her again, and she'll might come back and visit me again before she leaves USA. And if not, I'll meet her in Brazil for sure! Shelbi and I have great plans going on here :) We took her to the Cheesecake factory, a very nice restaurant where they of course have the best cheesecake in the world! Ry left this morning after breakfast, a little sad cause it's so fun to be around Brazilians and especially since she's an exchangestudent. American girls can sometimes be a little mean, they are certainly not like Norwegians (or Europeans for that matter of fact). But hey, only seven weeks left right? :)

The Easter bunny has appearantly been here, so that's exciting for little Lauren! I better go and check if the bunny left something here for Shelbi and I, and then I'm gonna go and play more playstation Wii! I'm sooo addicted to it.

Happy Easter everyone :)

Besos,

Mariell.

I like it in the city when two world's collide

Hey there. I just cleaned the restroom, good job right? The french firefighter boys are coming tonight and are gonna spend the night here until tomorrow. It's nice having some new people around here.

I've gotten to know a really nice guy named Jonathan. We have been hanging out a bit and on thursday he took me to his hospital. He had cancer last year but is completely cancer free now. It was such a good experience for me to go, especially now that I have decided that I want to be a pediatrician. I meet so many nice nurses and doctors. When I saw the kids who suffered from cancer made me really think about how lucky I am, and how I should stop taking everything for granted, lesson learned Mell!

Well, the weekend has gone by quickly I must say. On friday I went to Joe's house cause he has a hottub! I've decided that I have to get rich so I can get myself one of those... Shelbi had some friends over here yesterday cause we had the house to our selves, but I was a partypooper and went to bed early :) Garry took me on a father-daughter breakfast this morning, we had a very good time as always! But before that I woke up by getting a text from Dani saying that I had to go outside and check my frontdoor. So I did that, and right outside was a letter and a big chocolate cake with the Norwegian flag on! The letter was long and written in perfect Norwegian. So now I am going to prom with Jonathan!! :) I wasn't really excited about prom before but now I am, so yea, I know we're gonna have a good time cause he is such a nice guy.

I don't have any pictures for you now but I'll post some later this week, I promise. I'm gonna go and curl my hair now, for once I don't have any homework! wohoooooooooooooooooo :)

I love you lovebugs,
Mariell.

Cookie is my favorite!

Cookie and I are sitting here in the couch watching the KU basketball game, everyone here watches it so I thought I whould give it a try. Basketball is really exciting but it's just that Cookie and I are having more fun taking pictures now, or at least I am haha. Im trying to think what I've done today...hmm..I went in early to school to make up a test, then after school I went home and talked to my mom and grandmother. Then, I showered and slept, and then I've been just watching TV with Lauren and Cookie. Shelbi is at her dad's this weekend so no shellbell time. ok ok, enough chitchat. It's time to waste some more time on TV, and pet my favorite girl (which is not a hastle, don't take me wrong)!

oh yea, she's tryin'

bingo...

I love her though

cutie! :)

Have a great-great weekend,

Besos, kisses, kyss,

Mariell.