Three Days!

Three more days and i will be home for good! this week has flewwwwn by! see you all real soon! i can't wait!

Merry Christmas!

Today was Christmas! We went to church and had Christmas lunch together and worked on registration all day. Tonight we went to Olive Garden to eat Christmas dinner and we got our gifts! My secret santa was S.T (Sara) She gave me a necklace then as her sacrifice gift she gave m her book that she reads her no boys allowed girls for the past four years and she passed it on to me. We boh do NBA this summer and we have shared the boit meant SO much for her to hand it off to me. Then Holly..seen above was my secret girl! She loved all of her crafty goodies! We had Starbucks after dinner and met osme Romania people that were ministering to people here in america. It was so cool to meet them because our mission money this yea is going to the Roma people and most of those people live in Romania. What a God thing! We prayed with them and they sang for us! It was SO cool! God is good! We start our last week of camp tomorrow. I am so sad! But at the same time I can't wait to be home! See you soon!

VA, OK, and TX!

These past three weeks have FLOWN by! They have been really great and God has been SO big! Last week in Texas there was a group of ten orphans from Uganda. Most of them couldn'

t speak english. I have two of them in my Bible study with me. They were amazing children. One day I had all of the girls with me in No Boys Allowed and I got to do all of their nails. They were all huddled around me just giggling and talking in their language. It blessed my heart so much. I have the hugest smile on my face all day. They have an organization that brings groups of ten from an orphanage in Uganda for a few weeks to go on a choir tour then they take them to Centri-Kid for a week then they go back ot no family. It was so sad because none of us wanted ot let them go. It made me want to pack up my bags and go to Uganda. The organizaiton is amazing and I will keep them in my prayers. They need it. This is our last week of camp! We arrived at Bolivar, Mo this afternoon and we are pretty much finished up with everything! This week has been "Christmas" We drew names and we have been giving our secret santa gifts to them all week. We will find out who our secret santas our tomrrow night when we get Christmas dinner and our final christmas gift and our sacrifice gift! see you all in a week! i;ll be home saturday!

The Fourth And Other Previous Get-Togethers

My family and friends have really been soaking me up these past days tha tI have been home. It has been very nice to be with them all. We had dinner at the Maholland's. I took April on the four-wheeler as you can see. She didn't realy like riding that much. She said i went too fast.

For the Fourth of July John and I went to the single's grill out for lunch and hung out with the Barrios and friends. We then went swimming with his family and ate dinner with my Dad's side. It was a day FULL of food and it was AMAZING! I have been greatly deprived of food so this week has been lovely! John and I then went to Nashville to watch the fireworks. Both of us had an amazing time! We saw the concerts on riverfront and watched the fireworks. They was awesome! Today I have a looooong list of things I have to get accomplished and people I need to go say goodbye to. I have already been witht he Hine's today and I FINALLY got my pedicure! It was amazing! Me and the girls had a great time too! Tomorrow morning will be very rushed to get back to Carsen Newman with my team in time to head to Lynchburg, VA. I'm anxious to get back with them and get the ball rolling again with camp!

Home for the Week!

I arrived home from B'ham AL 3 Saturday morning. I have pretty much been relaxing since then! Today I got to have some fun in the sun with Boober, April, Bryce, Myra, and Granny. I got a LOT of sun! Everyone has been awesome here by not making me do a lot of stuff and just knowing tha tI want to relax and not run "rampid" the whole time. It has been great to spend this time with my family and to rest!

Dinner Table Games

I will have to say I have been learning many things here at camp. One of them being dinner games. On weekends we get to go out to eat since the college caf's aren't open. Withen the past 24 hours I have learned two new games. One of which involves packets of suger and one packet of salt and another that involves you doing something ridiculous. I had the oppertunity to take part in both of those. In the suger game you each get a packet of suger and we replace one packet of suger with salt. You then begin to pass the packets of suger around not knowing where the salt is. When someone yells stop you down your packet in your hand. It stinks if you get the one with the salt...I know, I got it while playing my first time last night and once AGAIN tonight at dinner. Life is great here in LA. We are ready for camp and ready for kids to come tomorrow! My week off begins Friday so I will be in then! I am SO excited to get to see friends and my family! I will also miss my team too while I'm gone away from them. We are having a blast. Last week was difficult and it stretched us a lot but God helped us charge on through. I had the oppertuity to lead a girl to Christ last week and it was the most amazing experience ever. We are really pumped about what all God will do this week through us!

East TN

Hey everybody! We arrived at our week two destination late afternoon today. We actuall stayed over night in Nasvhille. I got kind of sad because on our way to Nashville we drove right past my exit for home! I don't have any pictures this time because my computer connection doesn't work so I have to use someone else's. We are having loads of fun! Last week at camp we had over 20 desicions made! It was amazing and God definately answered our prayer of doing immesuarably more then we ever imagined. I thank you all for praying for us and I appreciate all of the support! John and Dad are coming on Tuesday to visit! I am so excited about that! Love you all!

At Camp!

We have arrived to MO from training week and we are paitiently waiting to meet all of our kids on Monday!!! Pray for us! Here are some pics to share from training week and from our first road trip!!!! Love you all sooooo much! and miss you dearly! +The girls of CK 5 +St. Louis Arch +Us excited on our van after seeing the Arch +The drama team I'm the best racecar driver...Earlene!!!

Five Days

It's amazing how much God is working already through my Centri-Kid team. We have a prayer calender that we use daily until the day we all meet. Yesterday I used my prayer calender and prayed for all of my team mates. I feel that right now we all need prayer everyday until we leave. It's an exciting time for all of us but at the same time saying goodbye for a few months will be difficult. It has been so cool to see God encourage me these past few days. The other morning I woke up and was very discouraged and extremely overwhelmed over all that I still needed to do. I have always been a fan of little detailed things, momentoes if you will. My dad called me and told me I had a package from CK so I tol dhim to open it. It was my team shirt with our team name on it. We are not only CK 5 but we are now called "The Nomads" The front of the shirt says "Nomads, nounn. people who can not stay in one place for a long time" the back says "CK 5 is ready to drive. 5, 640 miles sounds about right!" With the t-shirt was a note telling us to wear this to the airport on Tuesday so we can be easy to pick out and we will know who all is on our team. This one little package uplifted my spirits and it was like all the load was lifted off of my shoulders. Yesterday I spent a long time in prayer for the summer. I am very pumped and excited! I will be in contact with 26,000 children this summer! My prayer is that God will be preparing the hearts of the children and the adults coming to camp with us. I have a list of addresses of where I will be this summer. If any reader is intersted let me know and I will email them to you! Love you all!

Here are a few pictures of what I have been up to!!

One Cool Granny & Mother's Day

The Sunday was Mother's Day! We spent it at my aunt's house with a birthday celebration for my Granny! Here she is in her birthday boa and tiara! I let her borrow mine from my birthday. It's tradition with me and my friends to wear birthday boa's and tiara's ever birthday!

Mother's Day is so fun. I think mom's definately deserve a day just to them. They work so hard for all of us and they never complain. I love my mom so much. She is my best friend and definately the youngest mom I've seen and the most stylish and hip! She is too fun.

Later that day I celebrated with another amazing women at the lake. Me and John drifted off before dinner and fished a while. Noone caught anything...except me!!! I was so excited! It's a pretty big blue gill. I refuse to touch those things...they hurt! Enjoy the pictures!
Centri-Kid (CK 5) update: Two weeks from yesterday! I refreshing up on the Bible study stuff and worship songs. I am so excited and a bit overwhelmed with it all today. I know God will work amazing things this summer! I can't wait!

It's Been A While

Summer is here and I am enjoying it so much! Everyday has been spent soaking up some sun with my best friend, Boober, and hanging out with John, Sam and Holly at night + movie nights at Steve and Amanda.

Exactly two weeks from today I will be leaving for Centri-Kid training week in KY!!! I am really excited!

This week I am kind of sad because I want to spend as much time as I can with all of my family and friends that I love so much!

This picture was taken when we got invited out for Sam's birthday.

Dinner With FRIENDS

Last night Sam, Holly, Steve, Amanda, Emily, John, and I all went to P.F. Changs for dinner. It was a great time for all of us. They have huge portions of food so John and I shared supper. It was yummy yummy! Afterwards we got treated to Starbucks coffee! We all had a great time together!
Steve is beginning to work a lot with the singles ministry at church and we are all really excited about him leading us all. This afternoon holly, amanda, and i all relaxed and watched our favorite tv show ever. It was nice to hang out with the girls again!

Summer is finally here and my grades are in. I did well this semester. It was a tough one, but I was proud of my grades! Only less than 3 weeks till I leave for Centri-Kid. I am getting a bit sad about leaving everyone but at the same time SO thrilled about what God is going to do in the lives of so many this summer. It will be life changing for sure!

Opera, Camping, Boating, & Birthday's

The Opera last weekend went so great! A big THANKS to everyone who showed up for support! It was a nice success and it was such a cool feeling doing a Christian story at a college campus. I loved it. It was so much work that really paid off when it was all over! Wednesday - Saturday I went camping at Piney with some friends. We did absolutly nothing the entire time except relax, and play UNO attack! It was a blast and we all got to get to know each other even more! I love friendships that just keep getting better and better! God was so evident and powerful this weekend. He kept us safe and blessed us with His great creation. Saturday afternoon me and John took a boat out and fished for a while. The motor died...but we have it fixed now and should take it out again soon! It was pretty funny. All we could do was laugh at our horrible luck with yet another water related activity going all wrong! Last night we celebrated April's 31st birthday. She looks great doesn't she! I love my sister. She is my best friend and I thank God everyday for her love. I just have a few more finals to take. I have a very large on tomorrow. I have to take my Junior leve hearing. I have to perform 5 songs for the whole voice faculty and must pass it in order to proceed to the upper level classes. I'm sure I will be fine, but it is a bit nerve racking! Enjoy the pictures!

Singing My Heart Out

What a weekend FILLED with singing!!! Today after school a dear friend and I traveled to a recording studio of a man I know. I have been wanting to record a demo forever now and got my chance today. It took two loooong hours to do two songs. I was very proud of my and my rock star guitar player, Brandon. We only had to do one take each of both songs. The rest of the time was used to edit and mix everything. The tracks sound great!

Tomorrow is IT! The moment I and everyone else has been waiting for. Opera time!!! Noah is sailing his ship far tomorrow and everyone is coming to see this all happen. I remember LAST sememster when we had try-outs. That's when it all began...if you don't get my drift...it's been a LONG process and here we are! Completion! I can't WAIT!

Fun With My Birthday

I had a great birthday weekend! You know one can't just celebrate her birthday just one day...it's all weekend! Friday night was opera practice and then I was taken out on the best date ever. John took me to Sam Ash for a long search for an Ibanez hard guitar case which ended with me leaving the store with nothing in hand. Then we ate at Olive Garden, my all time favorite restaurant. We had dessert coffee to go at Starbucks and headed for the movie theatre to see Reign On Me. We were the only ones in the whole movie theatre! It was awesome and lots of fun!

Saturday I went to opera practice and studied for the most part of the day. I scrapbooked my whole winter scrapbook! (i know, i'm getting ahead of the game now!) And my parents took me out to eat and we rented a movie. Saturday was orginally supposed to be my friend birthday-day, but it rained...a lot...and we didn't want the rain to ruin our fun so we postponed.

Sunday, my actual birthday, it snowed, I went to church in my favorite summer dress (i wore what i wanted to..it was my day!) ate lunch with John and headed to school for practice which turned into just ubilding a huge ark...it wasn't easy! Later that afternoon we had my whole family over plus John's family. We ate Lasagna, yummy cake, coffee, opened presents,and played Family Feud and Cherades for hours! It was a blast!

Opera practice this afternoon and tonight were both very good. Tonight was dress rehearsal and it was lots of fun to have our costumes on...finally! It's hard to believe I only have about one full week of classes left and then I off to being a Junior! wow!

A Little Behind

I have been a little behind on my scrapbooking. As most of you regular readers know, I scrapbook by season. And usually, for example, on Christmas break I will scrapbook fall and on springbreak I will scrapbook winter. Not in this case. I just finished my Fall scrapbook a few days ago. Three out of my four classes got canceled and I got to accomplish SO many things that day before returning to school that night for opera. One of which, being finishing my fall album. Last month I bought everything for my winter album all I need is the actual book. I need to catch up before we know it it will be summer!
Opera Update: Practice tonight was good and long. We praticed finally with the "Animals" aka about 50 third-fifth graders. It was lots of fun and a a lot of hard work.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Jay, Christi, and Andrew all moved to Texas a few weeks back. I got really close to Jay and Christi while they were here. I miss you two very much! I am SO thrilled for you two and know that God is blessing you so much in where you are at now! I pray that God will continue to use you, protect you, and teach you as you serve Him. Love you guys!

Thank You Easter Bunny

Happy Easter! He's Alive! Today was a beautiful and amazing day. I just love Easter. It is definately my favorite holiday. We praised that our Lord and Saviour has risen this morning at church and then ate and hunted for eggs this afternoon with my mom's side of the family. It was a lot of fun. This week is when opera begins practice every night from 5-9. Please pray for strength of the cast and the director's.

Afternoon With Buddy

Buddy and I got to do something we hadn't done in quite a while. We played frisbi. Buddy has a funny way of doing this. It is always so entertaining! He jumps up and tries to grab the frisbi out of my hand.

Then he just sits there and barks over and over until i throw it for him to catch. It's a strange bark that he only does when we play together.

He's always been greast at fetching the frisbi. When he is tired he just runs straight to the door to go inside for a quick water break. Then he is ready to go again!

This weekend was great in KY. I got the the second round. The third round is pretty much impossible to get to because they only choose three people. Out of over 70 girls I got to the second round with only 25 other women. That felt great. What I was excited about was all of the great comments from my judges and I know that I did my very best! It was a great experience for us all!

A Weekend Of Singing

All to be the VERY best one! I leave tomorrow afternoon from school for NATS. (National Association of Teachers of Singing). People from college all over will show up on the front steps of the University of Kentucky Friday afternoon to audition to be the best. Auditions are grouped by grade level in school and my women and men. So I wil be in the Sophomore Womens Age level. You are to sing three songs infront of about four or five judges. They will then rank you and Saturday you may make it to round two if they like you a LOT. If you do REALLY well you will make it to finals at Saturday night and hopefully will win in your division. That is how it works. My songs are a german peice intitled Du Bist Die Ruh by Franz Shubert, Willow Song (Ballad of Baby Doe) by Douglas Moore, and Bucking Bronco (Cowboy Songs) by Libby Larsen. I have a lot of variety for them to enjoy! Wish me luck!