A Note to My Mom - Mother's Day 2014

I know that we all think our mother is the best one out there. And it's true. All moms are absolutely amazing. But today I would like to take a moment to publicly express to mine just how much she means to me. I don't tell her often enough how grateful I am for her, so I chose to write a letter so that she could keep it forever. 

Don't worry, Mom, I'll get you a hard copy of this because I know how much you dislike reading things online. 

I'm so glad that my entire family was home today to celebrate all the wonderful mothers in our life. 

Mom –

            Never in my life have I known anyone who is as selfless and as patient as you are.  Time after time you show me what true love looks like through not only your words, but also your actions. You have been through the toughest times and endure so much grief, but you never back down.  You are fearless. You are patient. You are selfless. You are adventurous. You are tenderhearted. You are dependable. You are humble. I could go on and on about all the beautiful traits you possess. You are one of the strongest people I know and I look up to you so much. 

            You teach me daily that love is not always perfect. Sometimes people get an image in their minds that to experience love with someone is to never get upset with them or never experience a difficult time. The truth is that when you choose to love someone, you choose to love them without fail through both the happy and the trying times.  You have shown me how to do this, Mom, through your everyday life.  Even when our family endures a tough time, you still find ways to show us love and bring the family together as we try to work through it.  You amaze me every day.

            I love watching you interact with Brooke and Erica every chance I get. To them, you are the their hero. You bring unimaginable amounts of joy to their lives just by being you… the fun, crazy, princess party throwing, laughing uncontrollably, singing and dancing in your underwear type of mom that you are.  Not everyone gets the chance to see the hilarious and fun side of you, but I love it.  It is my favorite thing about you.  You choose to see joy in life and you live it to the fullest.  You choose to look past the troubles that we currently face and you bring joy to the family. You choose to be hopeful of better days to come and that hope is contagious. You choose to cheer us up with a crazy dance or weird song when we have a difficult day. You choose to love each and every one of us unconditionally and I thank you so much for that. 

            The impact that you have on my life goes without measure.  You are my greatest role model and I love you so much.  You cheer for me every day and you find ways to send love to me even though we don’t live together.  I cannot imagine going through life without your constant love and support.

            On this Mother’s Day, I want to thank you for all that you do. Do not ever think that you go unnoticed because you amaze me every single day. 

Your daughter,

Allison Kendall 

Mom with her 6 children. Love you!!!

So I decided to start a blog.
Not about anything in particular...just a way to share moments in my crazy life. If you know me, you know that I love sharing stories - usually funny - about my two adorable little Chinese sisters. I'm gonna go ahead and let you know that I'm kind of obsessed with them (Yeah...we all know, Allison), so there may be quite a few posts about them. Just a fair warning. :)

Anyways! For this first post I thought I'd just share a little bit about myself and my family & friends!

I am 21 years old and am a senior at Oklahoma State University. I live in Stillwater, OK with three amazing roommates (Laura, Laura, and Margo) in a cute little blue house.

Margo, Laura R., Allie, Laura P.

I love all things chocolate. Especially brownies (note the title of this blog). But one thing I like better than brownies is the brownie batter. Give me a box of Betty Crocker Traditional Fudge Brownie Mix (because that is my personal favorite) and I'll probably eat at least half the batter before actually baking the now pancake-thin brownies (as my friends like to call them).
I also really really like am addicted to Thin Mints. I don't understand how people can eat just a few of these cookies at a time. I can eat a sleeve in one sitting. Easily.

My dad also shares my love of thin mints. 

I run. (Good thing, right?? With all those brownies...) I got into running during my sophomore year of college after I transferred to OSU. My freshman year I played soccer at Huntington University in Indiana and since I was no longer on a soccer team I had to find a way to stay in shape and enjoy it, so running it was! I have since ran 2 half marathons and 1 marathon. My next marathon is in 10 days! Yikes. That came way too fast.

I'm engaged to a wonderful guy (Sam) and we are tying the knot on August 9th this year! Ahh! So close. This is one of our engagement photos that we had taken in March.

I come from an absolutely hilarious family. Seriously. Every person in my family is funny and there are 8 of us, so you can just imagine how much fun we have when we are all home. If you have never seen any of the funny videos of my parents/siblings or heard any ridiculous stories, just ask me. I've got LOTS. I really love my large family and wouldn't trade it for the world. From left to right is Meredith, Brooke, Me, Victor, Cole, and Erica. As you can probably tell, Erica and Brooke are the two lil' munchkins that are Chinese, and Victor and Cole are both Russian.  My beautiful parents below have been together for 26 years! Love them all!


I play piano and sing on the worship team for a ministry here on campus known as RUF (Reformed University Fellowship). It's pretty great!

Old pic... but it's the only one I have!

I travel quite often. My family really enjoys traveling and we do it every chance we get. Meredith and I especially love taking random backpacking trips to exciting and new places. Sometimes we have randomly run into family members in the Dallas airport - this place is a Toering favorite. We spend a good amount of time getting stuck here since we fly standby. I have been to 20 countries and hope to go to lots more! I'm not even close to the amount that Meredith has travel to/lived in.

Edinburgh, Scotland October 2012

Once we ran into my dad in the Dallas airport on our way to London

Well I can't really think of anything else. Currently there is a giant pile of Save-the-Dates overtaking my bed which I should probably attend to soon(ish). Why can't they just address themselves? Sam offered to help address them yesterday, but I get a little OCD about stuff like this and want them to look pretty and all be the same, etc., so I sent him to get more envelopes and stamps at Walmart. I texted him a picture of what the box looked like so he could get the exact same ones. He came back with the same brand and color, but get got the completely wrong size. Maybe half of one Save-the-Date could have fit into these tiny little envelopes. Also, he said there were no stamps left. Lose-lose. He tries so hard, poor guy. Thankful that he was willing and offered to help though! Love ya babe! :)

Allie