Family Reunion!!!

What do you get when you get 48 Tillmans together?

To quote my cousin Julie "This is epic!!!"

I pretty much have the best family ever. Guess where I'm at right now! If you guessed Oregon, you're correct! We're at this place called Sunriver, and it's a pretty sweet resort type place. We have four houses that are great. Also, the high in Oregon is around 80 degrees!! HOORAY!

This is my dad's side of the family, and he's the seventh kid out of eight. Three girls came first (Jean, Anna, and Carrie) and then five boys came after that (Chet, Joe, Steve, Ben [that's my dad!] and Matt). So with all of my grandparents children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, we have 48 people here at this family reunion. So yeah, it's pretty fabulous.

So my immediate family came in Monday evening, but we were pooped so not much fun happened. Tuesday, I stayed behind with my two youngest siblings and Aunt Carrie and Uncle Greg's son Andrew while the rest of my immediate family, All of Uncle Steve's family, Aunt Carrie and Uncle Greg, and Aunt Sandy went on the Paulina Plunge (a downhill bike ride). Chad (Uncle Chet/Aunt Sandy's son) and I pretty much just stayed around the house watching the kiddos and catching up on our lives. 

Wednesday was pretty great. I went on the Paulina Plunge with the rest of the "older kids" because I finally graduated into the older group! It was me, James and his wife Taryn, Alicia and her husband Dustin, Julie, Missy and her husband Phillip, Tiffany, Christine, Chad, and Aunt Sandy led the tour. It was a mostly downhill bike ride, with occasional mini hikes to some water falls that we got to jump in, slide down, and swim in. The water was really cold, but it was totally worth it to jump in and swim around. After we got back and ate dinner, a bunch of us cousins got together (Benjamin, Jacob, Chad, Josh Matt, Malynda, Malia, and Maddy with Kyle, Zach, and Seth watching) and sat in the hot tub for awhile. When we got done with that, we watched Batman Begins and got back to our houses around 2am. I guess there's no curfew with cousins!

Thursday we went to the Lava Caves, and it was pretty neat, and also very cold. We only had a couple of lanterns between the 14 of us that went (my family + Uncle Matt's family), so it was pretty hard to see. Luckily we passed by the rest of our family on the way out and they let us borrow some of their flashlights, which helped out a bunch. The Lava Caves were great because we got to see some pretty neat rock formations. Afterwards I bummed around the house for awhile while my parents and some of the younger kids went on bike ride. After dinner, we went back to Uncle Chet's place to watch The Dark Knight.

Today we went white water rafting! It was my very first time and we had a super cool guide. In my boat there was Matt, Josh, Benjamin, Malia, Chad, Maddy, and some random kid named Cole. It was a class 3 ride (I think out of 5?), and it wasn't too hard at all. Actually, it was perfect for people who had never white water rafted before because there were calm stretches that were super easy. We tried to convince our guide to continue taking us down the river to some class 5 rapids, but apparently that's super dangerous or something along those lines.

Tonight my family and Uncle Matt's family are in charge of dinner. Hello hamburgers and hot dogs! Also, we're going to see The Dark Knight Rises to complete our little tradition of watching Batman movies. I don't even know what we're going to do Saturday night.

I can't believe our reunion is almost over! It's been super crazy fun so far, and hopefully we can keep the ball rolling the next day and a half.

And now, for a little guide of the Tillman family (child of my grandparents first with their spouse second, followed by their children):

Jean/J.D.: Alicia (married Dustin and has three boys- J.J., Cameron, and Sterling), Julie, James (married Taryn and has a little girl Madilyn), and Carrie (she's on her mission right now).

Anna/Mike: Jason (he's married and has two boys now), Jeremy, Shanna (she recently got married this summer), and Doc (he's married too). This whole branch of the family wasn't able to make it out to this reunion which makes us all super sad.

Carrie/Greg: Andrew

Chet/Sandy: Chad, Josh

Joe/Louanne: Brian, Missy (married to Phillip), Tiffany, Brandon, and Christine

Steve/Kathy- Kyle, Zach, and Seth

Ben/Rosa: Me, Benjamin, Jacob, James, Adam, Emily, and Andrew

Matt/Jeselyn: Maddy, Malia, Matt, and Malynda.

Ta da! My super crazy amazing Tillman family!

Marvel vs. DC

Some of you may be wondering what the words "Marvel" and "DC" mean. Well, today is the day to become educated! These are the two major comic producers that create pretty much every comic people have come to know and love. For the following post, I am going to be completely and totally unbiased (Marvel is better) without a hint of preference to either one (Marvel totally beats DC) since this is merely for instructional purposes (Marvel wins. Always). First up is a little bit of background.

Notable DC characters: Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and anyone ever associated with The Justice League.

Notable Marvel Characters: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, The Hulk, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and anyone else associated with the Avengers, Hydra, A.I.M., or S.H.I.E.L.D.

Notable Movies Associated with DC (1989-2012): 7 Batman movies, 1 Superman, 1 Catwoman, and 1 Green Lantern. Total: 10

Notable Movies Associated with Marvel (1989-2012): 5 X-Men related movies, 4 Spider-Man Movies, 3 Fantastic Four movies, 2 Hulk Movies, 2 Iron Man movies, Thor, Captain America, and the best one of them all: The Avengers. Total: 18 And these are just the movies that contain the notable characters I've listed above.

As you can see, Marvel has a lot more variety than DC does. The entire X-Men comics alone have enough characters to pretty much be their own universe. Also, Marvel's movies are pretty good overall, especially the most recent ones featuring the Avengers team. (Those ones are just fantastic.)

I'm a huge fan of Marvel because of how imperfect their characters are and how relatable their struggles are to us "normal" folk. The best example is Spider-Man.  He gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and then goes out and does what pretty much any teenager does when they have something cool: He shows off. He doesn't instantly become imbedded with a moral compass. No, he wants to make his problems stop at school, he wants to be cool to the girl he's been crushing on, and (in the new version) he wants to help find out about what happened to his parents. It's not until his Uncle Ben talks to him and begins planting the seed that people with power have responsibility that Spider-Man begins to realize that his powers are more than for showing off. Even after his superhero realization, he still has every day problems. Just because he's now Spider-Man doesn't mean his real world problems will go away. He still has to pay for rent, go to school, help his widowed Aunt May, and figure out how to become less awkward around women. His first love dies in a tragic accident, and the villains find ways to defeat him on a regular basis. Peter Parker's world is not an easy one, and I love the fact that just because he's a super hero doesn't mean that the rest of his problems disappear.

Many Marvel character have issues similar to Spider-Man's They have to struggle with how they plan on going about being super heroes. Wolverine has to deal with isolation issues. Iron Man and Thor have to learn how to stop being arrogant brats and become heroes. Hulk just has huge anger management problems, and even Captain America initially struggles with becoming a hero instead of a dancing monkey. (He actually gets that joke.)

DC doesn't have the same well rounded characters. The only one who even comes close is Batman, and that's pretty much only in Christopher Nolan's most recent "Dark Knight" trilogy. DC heroes' only problems are the ones that they have facing villains. (Although why Lex Luthor is ever much of problem to Superman is beyond me. Puny mortal.) There is not as much struggle, and the good guy always wins. The reason why Christopher Nolan's Batman has been such a huge success is because it breaks the DC stereotype and goes nowhere that a DC character has gone before: The hero has issues. Huge, giant issues like the entire city hating him and the love of his life dying. No longer does a DC hero live in a candy-coated world where he can fix all of his problems.

Am I being a little harsh on DC? Probably. However, the following highlights from this article prove my point about DC films: "Because Reeve's Superman doesn't wonder who he is or why he is, the citizens of Metropolis...don't wonder, either." Superman is also described as a "confident, unburdened hero". Maybe that worked back in the late seventies when Superman: The Movie was released (which is the best Superman according to the article), but it does not work now. Hopefully the new Superman movie (Man of Steel) will put some good background info on the "unburdened" hero showing how he too can have disfunctions, instead of just assuming that he's perfect.

Now just because I don't like DC as much as Marvel doesn't mean I won't watch their movies or cartoon shows because let's face it: They're still superheroes, and I'm all about loving superheroes. I'm not as totally excited to see them though as I would a Marvel superhero movie. I haven't even seen Green Lantern yet since I've heard it was mas o menos (so-so in Espanol). Dark Knight Rises is a definite must-see, and maybe Man of Steel will be worth watching. Maybe.

Marvel is the best. And if you don't believe me, then do your own Wikipedia research, and watch their movies and if you're a big enough fan, delve into some of the better cartoon shows. Personally, I haven't heard one bad word for Avengers, but that's probably because there isn't one. And in the end, if it turns out that you're a DC fan, it's ok. I'll forgive you.

You've Got Mail!

And by you, I mean me. I get mail quite frequently. It's fantastic. Call it a reward for the amount of time I spend letter writing to missionaries. I now have ten missionaries that I write to quite frequently (Tyler, Nic, Murphy, Brett, Peter, Ryan, Spencer, Mike Clawson, Ben, and Mike Poret). I will be adding some more of these faithful Elders over the summer as well!


Getting mail is definitely one of the best things in the whole wide world. There's just something about seeing letters addressed to me after I've pulled them out of the mailbox that makes me all warm and happy inside! It's wonderful. And if I feel like that every few days when I get a letter, then imagine how those missionaries feel when they get letters from me! They probably feel even better!


This picture represents the amount of mail I have received this summer. Isn't it so super cool?!

Now you see why I've been spending less and less time on the blog, and more and more time writing missionaries. It's super fun.


On a completely different note, look at what I did to the Suburban mirror!

It cost me eighty-two dollars to replace the glass. Talk about a huge boo-boo for my wallet. Now we're having trouble with other parts of the mirror, (I didn't do it! I promise!) so now it's actually in worse shape than it was with the cracked mirror. Lesson that I learned: Cars are super expensive, and cause tons of trouble. I mean, a car isn't magically going to fix itself! Every day it just deteriorates into worse shape than it was the day before. So not fun. That's why I won't get a car for a long, long time.

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

There are lots of people out there wondering why Spider-Man is being redone so soon. To be put simply, it's because the Sam Raimi/Tobey Macguire's Spider-Man was good, but it wasn't great. In fact, it barely even followed the comics. At all. Like they really didn't follow the comics. One example being the fact that Spider-Man was able to create webs out of his wrists without using web shooters. Foolish movie makers. That's the whole reason why Spider-Man goes like this:



See the black pad in the middle? That's to activate his web shooters.

As you can see, there was some major disappointment in the earlier Spider-Man movies. Jessie used to think that Spider-Man was a lame whiney college kid that needed to grow up, because all she knew of Spider-Man was Tobey Macguire's portrayal. However, Spider-Man is cool. Like super cool. In fact, one might even call him amazing.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Guys, even I was a little skeptical about this movie. I was worried that Spider-Man and Peter Parker wouldn't be portrayed correctly. I was dead wrong. To answer why they redid Spider-Man a mere five years after the previous monstrosity hit the screen is because they had to fix it. This Spider-Man is the true Spider-Man. He's the Spider-Man I grew to love as a little girl. The guy who not only has real life problems as Peter Parker, but problems as a superhero as well.

So what made this movie so good? It was a little bit of everything. Andrew Garfield is an excellent actor, and his portrayal as Spider-Man and as Peter Parker was phenomenal. These characters evolve so much over the course of the film, which is quite a feat over the course of one movie. Andrew Garfield was able to pull off not one, but two character turnarounds, for while Peter Parker and Spider-Man are intertwined, they can almost be thought of as two different people.

The story of the villain was also shown well. The reason why Doc Connors does what he does and how he became a villain is touched on well enough to understand the why, but not overdone to where it takes away too much screen time from our hero.

The romance was also portrayed well. Gwen Stacey is a teenage girl. Peter Parker is a teenage boy. Put those together and what do you get? Hilarious awkward moments to where you're glad it's not happening to you, to super sweet moments where you get to see a little bit more of each characters' strengths and weaknesses. The romance wasn't just something added in to distract the audience temporarily, but it enhanced movie by allowing the characters to become more developed as the movie progressed.

For the people who hated Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man or thought that a "reboot" was unnecessary, this movie helps to correct all of the previous misconceptions that there may have been. This is the real deal. The Spider-Man movie that is closer to the comics, and has a darker edge to it that makes it more relatable to each of us. I would recommend to watch it. Even Jessie has come to realize how amazing Spider-Man truly is.

Oh hi there!

Oh that's right! I have this blog thing that I write in every now and again to satisfy my writing needs! Well, now I have two jobs and seven missionaries that I write (speaking of which, I need to write some of them today) so it's been kinda crazy in my life.

First, let me recap my two jobs. I work for TCU Human Resources, which is pretty fun. I worked full time there for 12 days in a row, which got to be pretty intense. I mostly just do the odd jobs, like scanning things, or mailing things, or alphabetizing things etc. However, I was able to use my International Services skills to help a student out, and it was AWESOME. Just getting to hold an I-20 again and use the acronyms"OPT" and "CPT" made me so happy. I'm so excited to go back to doing that every day!

I also work as a lifeguard for the YMCA branch near my house. It's actually pretty good, but then again, I haven't really worked a million hours a day in the sun since I've only been there a week now. That will change this Saturday, as I will be working a triple aka three shifts back to back to back. It's going to be intense. And hot. But hopefully it will go well, and above all- MONEY! Another great aspect is that I get to work with people who are closer to my age range. I love the people at HR, but there are so many grand-baby stories that you can hear before you start realizing that you're not really in that stage of life right now. But next week, my very dear friend Jessie will be coming home and working with me at HR, and we are going to RULE THE WORLD!! Or just have an insanely awesome good time. I'm so stoked.

So yeah, those two jobs pretty much constitute my life. I'm working abou 55-60 hours between Monday and Saturday. Thankfully I don't have to work Sundays or Monday evenings, so I get to keep going to church and Family Home Evening with the Singles Ward. (I love FHE. It's pretty awesome. This past Monday, we learned how to properly paint with water colors. The Monday before that, we played Ultimate Frisbee at the park, and the Monday before that, we played the most intense game of Uno that I have ever played! So much fun to be had!)

Oh the Singles Ward. At first, I didn't really know what I was doing there. I felt a little outta place, and it was just so tiny, which I wasn't used to. I was used to 180 people, not 40. However, I've grown to absolutely LOVE it! Part of that has to do with my calling, and the other part has to do with the fact that everyone is just so accepting, it's wonderful.

Ok, so calling. I'm the "Ward Music Chair" which typically means that I just oversee all of the musical aspects of the ward. However, since the ward is so small, I am the musical aspect of the ward. I play the piano during Sacrament meeting every Sunday, and I direct the choir, which is wonderful! I love choir. So much. I never really realized how much I love singing until I got put in charge of helping people sing. It's fantastic. And the people in choir are amazing. Our first (and so far only) practice was held two Sundays ago, and about 20 people showed up, which was great! That's pretty much 50-60% of Sacrament meeting attendance. I'm so proud of them. Choir is pretty much all I think about now. I just can't wait for the next practice!

So yeah, that's pretty much my life. Working a ton, and then getting Sundays and Mondays for fun time. It's kind of funny, because if it's not Sunday or Monday, I don't really know what day it is anymore. I keep thinking that today is Wednesday, but it's not, it's Thursday, which means that it's that much closer to Sunday! Hooray!

The Ultimate Nasty

There are few things that I hate in this world. Like truly down to earth will not tolerate and absolutely loathe. And one of those things is medicine. Ew gross. I shudder every time that I think about it.

I hate medicine more than I hate Dolores Umbridge. And that's saying something because she's pure evil.

I don't know why I hate medicine so much. Even the pills are awful. They often get stuck in my throat and cause me to gag them back up and it's just an awful sensation. I refuse to take the little round Ibuprofen pills anymore because it's happened to me too many times in a row.

So two quick stories about my hatred of medicine.

When my family lived in Honduras, we had to take medicine to prevent us from getting malaria. Now the malaria medicine was seriously some of the NASTIEST stuff on the face of the earth. (Pretty much equal to the Ultimate Nasty, which I'll get to later.) So we had to take this disgusting medicine (I feel like it was some sort of powder we had to swallow? I don't know I was four. It was just gross) once a week so that way we wouldn't get malaria and die out in the middle of nowhere. Well one week, I absolutely refused to take it. I mean I flat out wouldn't open my mouth and ran around the room away from my mom. I still remember the resolve I felt that I would never ever take that medicine ever again. And since I was four about to be five, I didn't really understand my mom's reasoning, or maybe I did but just didn't want to accept it. There is one thing I did know: That medicine was never going down my throat again. Man, did I throw a tantrum! And I wouldn't even take the piece of candy that my parents always gave my brother and me after we took the medicine. No way Jose! Not. Happening. So my mom finally decided that it was my dad's turn to deal with me. My dad was pretty much fed up with the super tantrum I was throwing. So much so that he decided to teach me lesson. He then did something that will stay with me forever. I will never forget this. He unwrapped the candy (a Werther's Original) went to the bathroom (dragging me with him), threw the candy in the toilet AND FLUSHED. As I was watching my Werther's Original swirl down into the toilet, he told me that I didn't deserve candy, and that I could either take my medicine willingly, or I could watch the rest of my candies go down the toilet week after week. It was my choice. Boy did that shut me up. I took my medicine every week after that with little to no complaints.

Now there is a medicine that I like to Ultimate Nasty: Off-brand Robitussin. Now Robitussin is no laughing matter. But the off-brand stuff is the most disgusting thing on the face of the earth.

So I have this cough, and it was kinda sorta getting wildly outta control. It doesn't hurt me, and I'm already over every other part of my little cold, but this cough will not die. So the other night, my mom insisted that I take Ultimate Nasty. So I went downstairs with my brother Jacob (for moral support) and grabbed it. We were both talking about how horribly disgusting Robitussin is and Jacob said something that made me laugh so hard because of how truthful it was.

"It doesn't even have any kind of flavor to it! You know, other than death."

Yep, Ultimate Nasty is equivalent to death. That pretty much sums it up.

Now I'm not a total child like I used to be. It used to take my half an hour to muster up the courage to drink my medicine. I would pour it out into its little cup and let it sit there. I had to get used to it, you see. Now I drink it after 5 minutes, tops. And sometimes even after 30 seconds! See, better! But I will always and forever hate hate hate hate hate medicine. Even more than Umbridge.

(Oh, and for more hilarious stories of my freshman year of college, I've been writing some experiences in the apartment blog some of my friends started up, so click here. And yes, this is a shameless promotion of my recently endowed authorship.)

See what had happened was...

This past week, so much amazing has happened, it's not even funny. First, this happened:

Then this happened:

And then we went to The Swamp (Florida's Football Field) and met some of the football players and took a tour of the locker room:

(It turned out a little blurry, I know, but it's the only one we've got! This is Ronald  Powell, the player  that showed us around. He's such a nice guy!)

Then we got a little bit of sun:

And then we finally made it back home! Next week is going to be my very first choir practice as a director and I'm super nervous, as I've never conducted a choir before. Hopefully people show up!