Hungary Hungary Hippos

 So tomorrow is the big day! I get up at 4:30 AM to head to MBCC to embark on a two week mission extravaganza to HUNGARY!

I'll be here in less than 48 hours. Oh my stars y'all. I'm throwing it down internationally now.

 I’m slightly excited if you can’t tell. And in true Allison Ingram style, I have yet to start packing. But this packing is relatively easy; tons of  t-shirts, tons of long shorts (don’t have to see my thighs for 2 weeks. SCORE.), 3 cute and extremely hipster outfits, and all the usual travel necessities. And even though I’m pumped about going, of course I can still find something to freak the freak out about. So, for your reading pleasure, here are some of my concerns about my upcoming voyage:

1-   1)  I HATE flying over bodies of water. Something about being in an airplane over water that is miles deep and in the middle of nowhere absolutely terrifies me. It would be me that would become prey to sharks after my plane crashes in the middle of the ocean before I had time to swim to the nearest island and build a treehouse and start my life as Captain Jack Sparrow. I actually think that that last fear originated from too many years of shutting myself up in my house and watching Shark Week, but that’s a different story for another time. When we flew into Tampa for spring break I was hyperventilating.  And that’s for a bay; this time it’s 5 hours and 30 minutes over the Atlantic Ocean. Prayers needed/appreciated.

2-    2) I am so awkward around people I don’t know. And I’m leading a group of Hungarians BY MYSELF. Give me a sec...AHHHHHHHHH. Ok. One of the things that are freaking me out the most is that they are watching your every move. My friend was telling me how much we are looked up to (I know what you’re thinking, me a role model? I think it’s insane too.) and so we need to be extra conscious about our attitudes. Other things that I’m horrible at; knowing how to say the right things in certain situations.

3-    3)I am also so awkward in serious situations and when people are emotional. I strongly dislike sentimental and serious ceremonies/services/times because I always feel uncomfortable and I don’t know what to do. Therefore I avoid them as much as possible.  And for some reason my tear ducts are not on the same page with every other human being on the planet and therefore I never cry when it’s acceptable but only at random times. Example: cheer camp bible study this year. All JV and Varsity is crammed in a room sharing struggles and prayer requests and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is breaking down crying. And of course I am sitting in the middle of the room looking like an insensitive jerk with completely dry eyes. And then while everyone else’s prayer requests were about ailing parents, destroyed homes from the tornado, and loved ones in Afghanistan, mine is a prayer request for flying over that dumb ocean. But of course my tear ducts are over active at random times, like when Dobby dies in Harry Potter and after my first day of my last cheerleading tryout clinic. Story of my life.

4-  4)  I don’t know my team that well. One of my best friends is going so I know her, and this is her church and so they are all BFF’s and know each other so well. And then there’s me. Deuces America. They are all so sweet and I know this will be a bonding experience and yada yada yada, but I’m just worried about the beginning part. 

So as we speak I am sitting at work, watching Wimbleton, (oh btdubbs my new life’s dream is to be a professional tennis player. Fingers crossed y’all!) and thinking about all I have to do to unpack from my 3^rd beach trip this summer and get repacked for my first international adventure. Oh that’s the other thing I wanted to write about, my love of the beach. I’m lucky enough to go down so much with friends and family and I absolutely adore it. You get to wear cute beachy clothes, you get to sit out and read, you get to eat seafood out the wazoo, and you get to not do anything. All I need in life is a Diet Coke in a coozie and a good book (and a buttload of sunscreen) and I am set for a day at the beach. Plus you get to shop. For example, on my most recent trip, I got SEERSUCKER LILY PULITZER SHORTS (I have no life anymore, it is gone due to my obsession to these shorts), a $19 Lily bathing suit top (I rock at everything), 2 shirts from J Crew (my ultimate weakness. But come on, one was 50% off and the other was French. I’m pretty sure it would be illegal to not get them), and my most favorite, hair feather extensions!!! Hispta, please.

Also an aspect of Allison’s life recently is this book,

If you have never read The Help, stop what you are doing, drive to Barnes and Noble or your local book retailer, get the book, go home, make a pitcher of crystal light pink lemonade, and lock yourself up in your house for 24 hours and read it. You can thank me later. This is even my second time to read it and I still love it. I finished my other book, The Historian, at the beach and luckily my friend, Aldog, had The Help on her kindle and was kind enough to let me basically steal it for the entire trip. According to the kindle, I’m 44% of the way finished and I plan on reading the other 56% for the 11 hours total over ocean. In case context clues or actually reading in general isn't your strong suit and you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm slightly nervous about this flight.

So, to close on my wonderful blogpost today, please pray for my team and the Hungarians we are going to be meeting on this trip. Pray for safe flights (last time I promise y'all), lots of bonding time, and for us to spread His word to the best of our abilities. And please pray for me to a have an open heart and to stay out of trouble. And moving from that brief and out of character serious note to a more light hearted note (with still some slightly serious undertones), we all know I have the worst luck ever so pray nothing bad happens out of the blue like getting kidnapped or getting lost in Budapest. I mean if it's going to happen to someone, odds are it will probably be me so I might as well prepare myself for the possibility. 

See you in two weeks!

Ali

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." –Andre Gide

don't blame me, blame my family

if you are wondering about some of my quirks and strange habits originated, i probably should introduce you to my family.  i grew up in your typical southern family; we get together for football games like they are holidays, we eat enough to feed a small country, and we have enough strange characters to scare the faint at heart. 


let's start with my immediate family. i have a mom, marilyn, and a dad, cecil. i probably have the best parents on the face of the earth, not in a cheesy way i promise y'all. their parenting policy is to let me have reasonable freedom until i do something to not deserve it. and so far, i've either stayed under the radar or not gotten caught (just kidding...maybe). my mom is extremely reliable, plus she spends her year working as a junior high nurse and a nurse at alpine camp for boys. talk about patience skills. she also has the "suck it up kid" mentality, so therefore my brother and i rarely miss school or have major medical catastrophes, frankly because we just don't overreact. also she is very good with taking out splinters, giving flu shots, and assessing snake bites. then you have my dad. i think i inherited some of my best qualities from my dad; love of indiana jones movies and chinese food, identical toes and calves, and the ability to fall asleep and take a power nap at any time or anyplace during any given situation. everyone loves my dad. he's the kind of person who would make my friends and i sit on the couch in his office and watch a youtube video that combined the toomer's corner fiasco with adolf hitler. (yes this has happened before) . he also is an insane golfer and brings me back big t shirts from golf tournaments. nothing says "i love you" quite like a t shirt that comes to your knees and makes your mom squirm when you wear it in public.


speaking of insanity, i have a 15 year old brother, wayne. wayne is another person all together. my mom always tells me to be nice to wayne because he will make a lot of money one day my life is a joke which is true. this would be the same 7 year old child who sold balloon animals for 25 cents at the ball park during softball games and make like $20 a night. also this is the same kid who i passed by randomly on the side of the road last april in a full bunny suit in the middle of town. like the rest of my family, everyone loves wayne. mr. spartan council, mr. most school spirit, mr. broadcast, mr. good babysitter, mr. sociable. the list goes on and on. 


and finally, my favorite members of the family, bucky the dog and tiger the cat. ok to set the record straight, i was the one who taught bucky how to shake and to this day that is the sole training he will adhere to at any time. thank you, thank you. i also swear that bucky is the most intelligent member of my family. he always knows when we are trying to get him to go outside, go on a walk, or go do anything he does not want to do. therefore, he will run away, with a full dog smirk on his face, and practically taunt us. this is the life i lead. tiger on the other hand, is not only just as smart if not smarter than bucky, but he knows it. sometimes, when i'm mean to my cat, i get so scared he will come hurt me in the night, that i have to apologize. i, allison ingram, occasionally have to apologize to my cat. and mainly it's for stupid reasons like giving him dry cat food instead of wet, or making him get off the counter. he also lives on my kitchen window sill, always keeping watch on the on goings on family life without actually having to participate. i think he's some sort of assassin. yes, i just called my cat an assassin and yes, he secretly runs the house and neighborhood. my mom even narrates his actions with a german accent. there are often mornings we look out the window and see him running into our yard from down the street. he even used to double time us by being another "pet" to our elderly next door neighbor.  i kid you not, no one questions the cat in the house. he just comes and goes as he pleases and we stay out of his way.


now moving on to the more (or less) extended family members. meet lindsey. the perfect cousin who now lives in birmingham and therefore i see her on an almost day to day basis. and i don't use the term lightly; she was valedictorian and president of her sorority. she has had the coolest jobs like working in the corporate office at chickfila and for geneologie; a graphic design company and basically she travels to colleges and helps sororities and fraternities design t shirts. if you ever see a group of my friends, chances are you will probably see at least one geneologie shirt or sweat shirt because we made ourselves the official spokes models and lindsey loves to supply us with free samples. starting in august, she is going on a full ride scholarship nbd to beeson divinity school. and to round out the list of her accomplishments, she always knows how to make you study for anatomy and math tests, when to send an encouraging text message, and where to find a good strawberry cupcake. she also loves spartan and alabama football just as much as i do, which is saying a lot.


other cousins we have are in medical school, law school, have successful jobs and are perfect. they've studied abroad, interned at the freaking white house (with W, of course), and are as addicted to andy stanley (aka preacher man by my dad, wayne, and i) as my mom is. meanwhile, it is a regular occasion for me to walk in the house at 11:30 at night,in soaking wet clothes, and wayne to be found standing on the side of the street or beach on the phone with animal control, trying to save a stray dog, pelican, exc. 


as for the g-rents, i have a set in florence and a set in t-town. at most ingram family get together's in tuscaloosa, we watch football/golf/soccer (?), hide from certain members of the family, and count how many more times our cousin, cole (youngest so therefore the baby) is on the fridge than everyone else. current scoredboard, cole: 21, everyone else on average: 8. we thank our lucky stars every time another year passes and we don't get moved up to the adult table. sometimes, it gets more exciting. like last year, wayne, my cousin kara, and i managed to break an antique bed and blame it on cole. solid family time. 


majority of the time we go to the crowell side of the fam in florence, i find myself watching tv in the den with my dad, uncles, and cousins, while wayne floats around the kitchen, not only sucking up to the women of the family  but also confirming his title as mama's boy. one of the highlights is always when my vietnamese aunt makes egg rolls. trust me, they're awesome. this same aunt and her husband are some kind of technical engineers in mobile and so the meal is usually followed by everyone getting a free consultation to fix whatever gadget we have managed to break in the time since the last family gathering. conversation usually revolves around whether or not power bands actually work, football conspiracy theories, and how law school and med school are going. once again, goob and i are the failures of the family so the later doesn't concern us. we've learned to embrace it and use it to our advantage. for example, low expectations. i'm opening a pub/coffee shop/cupcake bakery and wayne is going to be a wildlife conservationist, just like steve erwin. deuces america. oh and don't forget red velvet cake; we always talk about how much my uncle loves it, and yet we never eat it at these gatherings.

all in all, i absolutely adore my family. they make me feel slightly more normal and at the same time their actions explain so of my weirder habits that i obivously inherited. thats all i've got for today, so merci beaucoup for reading my extraordinarily long post!


to the moon and back,
ali

"A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

my summer continued.

one of my favorite parts of summer is that you can do what you want virtually all the time. and being 17 and doing what i want is one of my favorite past times. for example, i am going to the beach 3 times in 2 weeks. yesterday, i watched 6 straight hours of my big fat gypsy wedding. and tonight i made fajitas. happy summer y'all.


so here's the low down from my final cheer camp. we DOMINATED. 1st place home pom, 2nd place cheer and extreme, tradition award, top banana, and all of our girls who tried out, got all american. we "bonded" as a squad. when i say bonded, i mean there is no where better to get to know people than cheer camp. you have to spend all day in the hot sun learning cheers and dances that you don't remember that afternoon, you have to be peppy, you have to play dirty to win, and you have to find enough self patience not to strangle others when they won't shut up. its the ultimate team building exercise. but this by far was my favorite cheer camp i have been to. the staff (all bama fans) were fantastic and they actually knew what they were doing. i love my squad and the jv squad. and plus, we were at the beach. i was in a condo with 7 of my favorite people known to mankind. in 4 days, we managed to inhale 6 boxes of crystal light, 2 packages of double stuf oreos, a whole container of cookies and brownies, and finished off the week with a jar of cheese dip. aren't cheerleaders supposed to be skinny and anorexic? gsg. 


no truly embarrassing moments, besides the fact that i stepped in a bed of ants and have bites all around my swollen ankle. my life is a joke. actually i take that back; i publicly humiliated myself at the parent show the day before we left. i called a cheer and you couldn't understand anything i was saying because i was laughing to hard and i fell on my butt during a back handspring. everyone; allison ingram, mountain brook cheerleader.


i also went to a beautiful wedding saturday night. y'all, weddings are one of my favorite things, but i vow to not have a wedding in my church. it's asymmetrical and it gets on my absolute last nerve. also, our organ is one of the most loud and obnoxious instruments that has ever been invented. i detest organ music. along with ketchup, the term "friend group", and tennessee orange.  


pause: right now i am watching this songwriters game show on bravo and all the contestants are such hipsters. my kind of people right there. 


which brings me to my next subject of bloggage; monitoring the progress of my hipster lifestyle. i've developed a new taste for herbal teas (tonight's flavor: lemon and ginger). when i'm in hungary for two weeks, my mom and lindsey are redoing my room in a hipster style. like cool wall art, bed canopy, beside table WITH DRAWERS that i have been wanting my entire life to store my hipster books, and for the grand finale.....twinkle lights!! my hair is also so long and i can braid it and i'm considering getting a feather extension. yes, i know that feathers, teas, and twinkle lights don't make a true hipster, but it's pretty dang good for a pseudo-hipster.


tomorrow i begin beach voyage nombre deux with libby, laine, and virginia. and needless to say, i have yet to start packing, so i'm going to get cracking on that so i don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to finish what i procrastinated today. nighty night!


to the moon and back, 
ali


"The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you, but yourself." -Rita Mae Brown 

walk down cheer camp memory lane

tomorrow morning, i am to rise at 4:15 AM in order to be at the highschool and loading in the bus with 32 other girls by 5 AM to embark on my final cheerleading camp. yes, cheer camp has some fun parts, and yes, overall its a good experience, but i am slightly ready to never have to go back to another UCA event. nothing screams "i hate everything and everyone" quite like being up at the crack of dawn while having tiny and overly muscular cheerleaders trying to get you pumped up for a long, hot day of having people fall on you, going through excessive repetition of dances/cheers/other routines, and of course, listening to a thousand girls screaming and getting emotionally attached to a bunch of plastic pipes (spirit sticks) and an inflatable fruit (THE banana). so you can definitely say this is a bittersweet moment.


don't get me wrong! i've definitely had some great times at cheer camp. mountain brook dominates everything at cheer camp and its lead to many great bonding experiences. like 9th grade cheer camp. an experience in of itself. if you're reading this and have been to a mississippi state cheer camp in the past 15 years, you probably remember mountain brook as the squad with the pig tail braids with pink and white polka dotted ribbons. and i am here to say that i, along with most every cheerleader in the mountain brook system, used to be one of those girls. other cheer camp memories from this year involve laine, hannah, and i having to walk back to the dorms (ALL THE WAY ACROSS CAMPUS) in the scorching heat to get flip flops. yes, you heard me. flip flops. they were used as a "squad present" for another team and we had to have them that night or whatever. but its ok, we got a ride back to the camp center with a hall fellow i guess you could say(?) in his sports car. of course we didn't know him and yet we still willingly got in his car to ride along, while dressed in a cheerleading uniform and pigtails. needless to say, ninth grade was not my best year in the thinking arena.

respect the braids. fear the braids.

10th grade cheer camp was a winner too. i got so delirious that i climbed (and got stuck in) a tree after lunch one day. if you need a visual picture to fully capture this, then here ya go.

i also blew a bubble so big on the bus ride over that it popped all over me, while shattering a world record for biggest bubble known to mankind.

and finally, on the way back to the dorms one night, i attempted to do a bellhop jump and busted on my back in front of all the mountain brook high school cheerleaders. this was particularly terrifying because i was on jv and everyone was older and it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. thankfully, there is no picture in existence to capture this description so you'll just have to use your imagination on this one. 

then 11th grade whomped because we stayed home and used a weird company. i wouldn't recommend anyone to attempt that EVER.

and now senior year. were going to the beach for camp, we are actually prepared for once in our lives, and i'm in a condo with all my friends. #winning. but were still going to cheer camp and its going to be exhausting and stressful. #losing.


oh yeah, did i tell you that i, allison ingram, am officially a SENYA? this would be the girl who still considers herself to be a sophomore and possesses the majority level of a 12 year old. and this means that i will be having a lot of "lasts" this year and therefore will probably be bawling my eyes out 65% of the time. be prepared, reader, if i don't think i can handle this, then you probably won't be able to handle me blogging about how i can't handle this.


ps...i'm still seriously PUMPED though. seniors12.


to the moon and back, 
ali



"The worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation" ~ Sun Tzu

plethra of loves,

i love the months july, october, and december. i love fall and summer, but football is my favorite season. i love HGTV, especially house hunters international. i love french and history. i love big t shirts and pancake breakfasts. i love spinning hugs, "nuggie" hugs, and pick up hugs. actually, i'm a sucker for any type of hugs. i love pearl earrings and my camp desoto ring. i love twinkle lights and weeping willows. anything seersucker or bright, clean white. i love being surrounded by people constantly.


i love harry potter, anything written by francine rivers, and the help. i love OPI nail polish, especially Over the Taupe and Barefoot in Barcelona. mostly, i select my colors by their names. i love back scratches, chaco tans, and french braids. i love the smell of aussie shampoo in the summer. i love coffee, after 10 PM especially. i love camp desoto and glass jars. i love all white, fluffy bedding. i love making lists. i love the fourth of july and christmas.


i love documentaries. i love tubing, lazor tag, and diet coke. i love father of the bride, she's the man, and any of the indiana jones movies. i love my sectional and my "santa is my homeboy" t shirt. i love quotes. i love gerber daisies and wisteria. i love cheerleading. i love having things to cheer for like mountain brook, the crimson tide, and even my camp tribe, the creeks. i love my family, including bucky and the cat. i love chinese food, turnip greens, and strawberry cupcakes.


i love the feeling of walking into air conditioning in the summer. i love getting mail and writing letters. i love pictures. i love collaging pictures on the walls of my room. i love my stuffed animal twiglet. i love pink lemonade and wedding dresses. i love the feeling of getting 3/4 of the way through with a run. i love early mornings and mist. i love bass pro shops and michael's. i love making playlists for seasons. i love old hymns and adding "y'all" to everything i say. i love(d) angry birds, but there is a time for everything, and it's time (more like addiction) needed to end. i love being outside.


i love afternoon naps. i love sundays and tuesdays. i love the colors turquoise and taupe. i love pretending to be artsy/hipster and i've learned to accept the fact that i will never truly become artsy/hipster. i love my coffee mug collection. i love oatmeal. i love cooking. i love waking up early and being productive. and i also love sleeping late and wasting time.


thanks for listening to my clique banter! 
ali


"I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that." -Princess Diana