random thoughts

{one}
I'm beginning to realize that I'm getting old.
It's really weird to me that I'm turning twenty-one in eighteen days. I'm graduating from college in a year in a half. This is craziness. I mean, surely I can't be expected to grow up and all in that length of time, right? Someone tell me I'm not alone here.

{two}
Somehow adding in 6 hours of classes (technically I go four hours, four days a week, but it's just for a month) made my life crazy busy. I get up at 6:15 each morning, leave my house by 7:15, have class from eight until noon, and then work from noon-ish until three-ish. I just can't handle too much more time in the office and I have lots and lots of reading to do. Some of which I'm not done with and have to read before I go to bed. (Oh yes. This girl has an early bedtime this summer).

{three}
Kelly is documenting her "Week in the Life" this week over at her blog. I've actually done that before, and it was pretty fun. So, I'm thinking about doing a "Day in the Life" tomorrow (June 29). Wednesdays are fun days for me (we have church that night and tomorrow should be exciting because the kids are talking about their mission trips) and I don't think I have the time to commit to taking pictures everyday, all day for the next seven days. So, if you want to join me, I made the following button that you can right click/save as and use on your blogs (Sorry. I'm too lazy to upload to photobucket and get a code). I'll post tomorrow (or Thursday morning) with my "Day in the Life" post and put a Linky up for us to all share our posts. I think it would be really fun to see the "boring" lives we live everyday! :)

senior high mission trip recap

So, I got to spend last week with some seriously sweet young ladies. I chaperones the senior high mission trip to Benton Harbor, Michigan where we stayed in a Salvation Army and played with sweet kids all day. Three of the girls in my group were from my church and the other three were from Minnesota. We went with an organization called YouthWorks that does some pretty cool stuff in communities. One thing I think is cool is that they have staff all year long in these cities even though teams only come during the summer. This gives an opportunity for the organization to build relationships with the people, churches, and organizations already in place.

Monday through Thursday we did a VBS in the afternoon with some kids from the daycare downstairs at the Salvation Army. Even though we only had 9 kids on our biggest day, I think we were able to plant some kind of seed in these children’s hearts and hopefully in the youth as well.

On Tuesday night, we took the kids across the river to St. Joseph. It’s a little tourist city not too far (as I said, literally across the bridge) from Benton Harbor. It was kind of shocking to see the difference between the utter poverty on one side and the materialism on the other side of the bridge. We did a little scavenger hunt around the downtown area and then got some ice cream.

This is my little buddy from Vacation Bible School. I seriously wanted to scoop this kid up and bring him home with me. He was adorable. Apparently northerners don’t call people “sweetheart”, “baby”, or “buddy”. Sorry Charlie. That’s what I’m used to. This kid would giggle and hide from me every time I tried to talk to him. On the last day, we ended with some ice cream and I had to get a picture with this kid before I left. (Okay. Pretty much everyone did.)

And that was our week in Benton Harbor. Busy busy summer guys. I'm pretty sure I’m all traveled out. I started classes this morning at 8 o’clock AM. Seriously. Monday morning came early. My schedule and things look a little different now. Class in the morning, work at church in afternoon, and hang out with kids and get Sno-Biz whenever possible. Teenagers are actually kind of fun to hang around…and I think I’m going to like this internship. Haha. :)

on the road again…

I’m about to start my 3rd week on the road this month. This past week, my family and I went to visit my Dad’s family in Texas. The week before that, I spent the week in Chattanooga with the Jr. High group from church on our middle school mission trip. Tonight (and really early tomorrow morning) I’m leaving again to help with the high school mission trip. It was a little unexpected, but one of the chaperone’s grandparents is sick and she needed to be available if he needed her. I figured that I’ve spent a good amount of time on an air mattress this month- what’s one more week? We are leaving for Benton Harbor, Michigan tonight around midnight. I’ve got a good air mattress and some ear plugs, so I think we should be good to go. :)

Before I left though, I wanted to share some pictures from my adventures this month. I had a really good time on the Chattanooga mission trip and really got to know the girls that I am working with this summer a lot better. Relationships, relationships, relationships people. It’s tough to be a middle school girl these days. After hearing what some of these girls are going through, I feel so blessed that I got through my time in middle school as well as I did. If you have a chance to work with girls in this age range- DO IT! They need to feel loved and be mentored. There’s a longing that someone older will come along and guide them- just like we all feel!

Okay, onto the pictures!

As you notice, poor baby brother was in his big sister’s group with a bunch of girls. He pretended to be upset, but you know deep down in side that he enjoyed hanging out with cute girls all day. The first two afternoons, we spent time at the church we were staying at doing some yardwork. Pulling weeds, mulching, and such. A little hot, but nothing too hard. We also went to a HeadStart and two nursing homes. There aren’t any pictures from those activities because we were not allowed to photograph at HeadStart and I forgot my camera at the nursing homes. Great, I know. :)

 

Monday night, we took the group to Rock City. It’s a neat little thing to walk through some rock formations and all that stuff. From the spot that this picture was taken, you can see seven states I think. Somewhere around that number.

 

The girls and I stayed in the church nursery. This meant plenty of books for bedtime stories and lots of giggling and staying up late chatting.

So, that was the middle school mission trip. Keep our group in your prayers in the upcoming week as we drive to Michigan to serve (Oh- and pray that high school girls like sleeping more than the jr. highers did. This girl needs some sleep. Haha.)

Still Alive...

I promise I'm still alive guys.
I was planning on posting pictures from my mission trip (which was amazing and fun and I'll blog about later). Promise cross my heart. But I was home from Chattanooga for approximately four hours before we left again to head across the country to Texas to visit family. I'm here for the next little bit, but my camera cord is at home. Sad day. So, I'm thinking we'll have to wait until I return home to post the pictures (and the stories that go along with them). Surprisingly, I really enjoyed spending the week with my Jr. High girls that I've been working with this summer. I just didn't ever seem to remember until seven in the morning that I'm not thirteen anymore and I can't stay up all hours of the night and still function in the morning (minus caffeine).
I'm not planning on blogging much this week. No scheduled posts or anything like that. I need to catch up on a few of my TV shows I missed last week (and some from this week) and then I think I'm logging off of technology for the week. I enjoyed the needed break last week...and sometimes it's good to be present with my family, especially the ones I don't get to see very often. So, when I get back, look for some updates. Promise it's not goodbye forever though. I like this blogging thing too much! :)

oh, how pinterest-ing wednesday!

This is my first week doing this. I'm linking up for "Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday" over here. Since several of my blogging friends are doing it AND I really like Pinterest, I decided to join in. (Also the fact that I'm out of town so I needed to write and schedule some posts before I went and this was EASY peasey)

Source: madamecupcake.tumblr.com via Lauren on Pinterest

I lalalala-love this engagement picture. Call me a math nerd, but it's cute. :)

Source: eatdrinkpretty.blogspot.com via Lauren on Pinterest

So. I love macaroni and cheese. No lie. And these little mini-cups? Are adorbs. :)

Source: tabletonic.blogspot.com via Lauren on Pinterest

So true. I need to remember this!

via

So, since I'm out of town, I thought I'd schedule a post or two so that nobody would get bored. I've downloaded some new music lately and looked back through old music (now that my computer is fixed, yay), so I thought a summer playlist may just be in order. :)

1. The Beat- Ben Rector

2. When A Heart Breaks- Ben Rector //I'm thinking this summer is a Ben Rector summer. haha

3. Hank- Ben Rector 

4. So Long Familiar- Mandi Mapes

5. Ain't No Reason- Brett Dennen

6. Hey Soul Sister- Train //I know, I know. Old news. Can't help that I still like it.

7. I'll Wait- Elizabeth Rhyno //Discovered this girl via NoiseTrade. Which is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Don't make me pull out my Books of the Old Testament Song. I'm learning it for a video blog. haha.

8. Here Comes the Sun- the Beetles //Seems like a fitting song for summer...

9. Who Are We Fooling- Brooke Fraser

10. See the World- Gomez

11. Sunshine- Matt Costa //Get me a boy with a guitar that can sing and we're set. :)

12. Just The Way You Are- Boyce Avenue //Another favorite band. 

camera dump and other things

So, I’m going out of town next week. And the next. So things around here may be a little sparse, but I have a few posts scheduled, so it should all work out. Next week, I’m chaperoning the Jr. High Mission Trip to Chattanooga. I just found out I was going a few weeks ago when I became the Summer Intern at my church. Apparently it’s in the job description. I was leading a small group with most of these girls about a year ago, so I know them, but I’m still a little nervous. What can I say? Seventh and eighth grade girl drama kind of scares me. I’m sure you’ll see a blog post when I return with pictures. As soon as I get back from that trip, we’re jumping in the car for a family road trip to Texas to visit my grandparents out there. I think by the time I’m done with all that, I’ll be glad to get back in my own bed. :)
Finished packing my bag today. I’m pretty proud of myself for fitting it all (for the Chattanooga trip) in my small Vera Bradley duffle bag. I’m patting myself on the back for not overpacking, and praying that I didn’t underpack (haha). I found my small point and shoot camera and pulled it out to bring. I want to get pictures and all, but I don’t want to have to lug around a camera bag and I want something that could just fit in my purse. I had to charge it because it hadn’t been used in so long, but when I connected it to my computer, I found lots of old pictures that I thought I should share. I know that I probably meant to blog them way back when (last fall) but I never got around to it. So, I decided to do a camera dump and post them all now!

This is from a trip to the zoo I took with my Daddy last August. I like penguins!

This is from this AMAZING pizza place that used to be in Montgomery (Sal's). It closed down last winter.

This is how we do Friday Nights in Alabama. Small town high school football games. 

And this is from a Saturday afternoon at Desi's baseball game. 

Lastly, this is from a visit with my Grandpa and Miss Cherry. :)

And that's the camera dump for today. Last fall in a nutshell. I need to get better at taking pictures (and uploading them to my computer!). Hopefully next week I'll take lots! Haha. I'm excited about spending time with these girls and building relationships with them over the upcoming week. There's a group of seven girls from the church and I'm really hoping for a week free of drama and girly arguments. Pray for this (Haha. And my sanity on the 5 hour trip!)...and I'll post more when I get back (aside from scheduled posts).

book review: praying for your future husband

I don't know about you, but I know that I'm all about praying for my future husband. I write him letters and all that. It's silly, I know, but there's just something that makes me think it's a good idea. I mean, it sounds like it can't hurt, right? As some of you know, I review books for the Blogging For Books program, and the most recent book I received was "Praying For Your Future Husband: Preparing Your Heart for His" by Robin Jones Gunn and Tricia Goyer. I had really high expectations for this book. While it was an okay read (the parts I read of it), it was kind of boring. I think it really applies more to the Jr. High/ High School age range, and most of the things in there didn't apply to me as a college student (as much, anyways). While the content was okay, it didn't engage me and keep my attention. I tried several times (over the course of about a month, hence the reason it took so long to post this review)..but I just couldn't get into the book. I found myself getting distracted and having to reread the pages. It just wasn't my kind of book. On the bright side, there was a bunch of biblical insight and truths found within the book. I definitely agree with it on a theological level, I just feel like there's a better way to get the message across. At the end of each chapter, there are discussion questions that I think would work for a small group or bible study. Once again though, I think it's geared more toward younger girls. While this may be a resource I turn to with my Jr. High girls this summer, I don't think it's something I'll add to my "must read" library. It just didn't work for me. :)