Randoms

Winter has finally truly arrived. It was slow in coming, that's for sure! We have snow, and cold, cold temperatures. The lowest I have seen so far is 3 degrees. Today, it is back up to 18, so it's more warm! It is finally feeling like winter now. I usually am into the Christmas spirit by Halloween. Not so, this year. I'm only now beginning to realize how close Thanksgiving is. I have been pestering C about putting up Christmas stuff, but so far it has not happened.

I have gotten back into the swing of things after being sick, so that's been good.

The eagles are officially on their way back for the winter! I saw 4 on Monday evening when I took some photos of the sunset.

Tonight, for youth group, we are doing Underground Church - where the kids run around town trying to reach a final destination without getting caught. This year, I am helping to provide a clue.

C had inventory at his work yesterday. Last year, he came home around 4. Yesterday, I was quite pleased to have him home by 1:30!

I only have 3 weeks left of 2 classes and then 4 left of the other 3. It's time to get busy on my final projects! It's hard for me to believe that this semester is almost done. It has really flown by!

That's what's happening right now!

Youth Group Duties

C and I are involved in our church youth group and have been for the past year. We weren't all that willing at first, and were mainly just involved to help the new leaders, our friends. But as time has gone on, I think C and I both are feeling quite a bit more like this is where we should be.

Now that the second year has started, we've all become a bit more organized. C is in charge of games and the website and I'm in charge of cleaning up and the photography. It's been nice to have clear cut jobs for us to do.

We had a meeting tonight with the other leaders and it's always nice to bounce ideas off of each other and plan fun events. It should be a great school year!

I like feeling involved. Anyone else involved in their YG?

Youth Group Emotion

Youth group became a big part of my high school years. I spent a lot of time there, expressing emotions - mainly lots of tears. My mother was going through cancer treatments at the time and it really was awesome to have so much support through a rough time.

Youth group tonight didn't develop the way it was "scheduled." But it ended up being all the richer, I think.

We have a sharing time, for if people have a word from God, or something to share. It rapidly turned into a crying session for several of the girls. Our leader changed the direction of his message and had us break into smaller groups and pray for each other. I was with 7 girls, half of them new to the group. I have been finding myself drawn to them lately and I was happy that I joined their group. They cried, shared their hearts, and prayed for each other and were all encouraging to each one. It was awesome. I was really blessed to be a part of it and I really hope that it helps me connect with them in the future.

Underground Church

Who's ready to hear about college meltdown numbers 4 and 5? I can just tell you all are dying to hear about them. Suffice to say, they happened yesterday, at 2 different times of the day. Me, crying my eyes out, ready to quit, yet again. All 4 of my classes are officially causing me stress now.

In between the meltdowns, C and I went to youth group. And last night was Underground Church. Every year, the youth group leaders plan a scavenger hunt around town. They notify the police and then have at it. They set up an interrogation place, with interrogators ready to "torture" the kids. "Cops" drive around town, and when they see kids, they are to pick them up and take them to the interrogators. The kids were trying to get to a certain destination. C led a team of kids. I think only 10-15 kids made it without getting caught. I was in charge of letting the interrogators into the house and instructing the cops. Then I was told where to go for the secret destination. I waited around at the destination for 2 hours. It was kinda depressing how many kids got caught. There were probably 50 kids playing. There were 2 different clue trails going and one was going via the post office. The first group managed to take the entire envelope with clues in it, so the rest of the kids going that direction ended up wasting a ton of time looking for it, and thus getting caught. Rather depressing. C's group was part of that, and were caught after an hour or so. It was fun, but stressful!

In other news, I think these baby owls are so darling!

Prayer for is Best!

Tonight at youth group, we had a special guest I suppose. She told a testimony of how God had worked in her life to get her up here. Her story was incredible and it was obvious all the kids were struck by it. After her talk, we were dismissed for a time of repentance, and then we could get prayed for. C and I sat together, hugging and praying together. I was on the verge of tears when the lady came to us and started praying for us. And then I started crying :P But she prayed for us, and spoke several words over us. She reiterated C's music ability, and the talents that I have will take us far. Mentioned our diligence to each other and our purity. There was more, always is, but I can't remember most of it. I hate that! But anyway, it was a really good time and we really needed it.

Need a boost? Go pray and find someone to pray over you!! :)

Post Twilight Obsession

I'm back to the land of the living now! I finished the last Twilight book today. It took a week and a day, but technically, I did not have any books to read for over 2 days, so it only took about 6 days to read the series. Now that I officially feel like an obsessed fangirl, I'll give everyone an update on what has happened in the last week.

Friday night, a week ago, C and I went to our red haired friend's house and had dinner there and watched Iron Man. Twas fun.

Sunday, had lunch with my mom. Dad was sick, so it was just us. Saw an old friend at lunch who I haven't seen in forever. Went to the used bookstore in town which had the first Twilight book and another book by the same author.

Monday - Inventory day at work. Slaved away, then all four of us working had chili my boss made upstairs. Delicious food and the end of work later, I went to the bookstore (after calling) and picked up the 2nd and 3rd Twilight books that they amazingly had in stock. Too much money later, I went home happily.
Small group was interesting. Our leaders decided to officially make our group a married couples group. We might be switching nights. But it will be cool to get a different type of teaching now. I'm looking forward to it.

Tuesday - More inventory at work. I got to leave an hour early. C and I had dinner and then he went to hang out with a friend. It turned out really well, as I read my book the whole time he was gone.

Wednesday - More reading. C played for the worship band at youth group, so we went early. I of course, brought my book along. Not too long after I started reading on a couch, a girl who I had never talked to before flounced in and sat on the next couch and started talking to me. I immediately noticed her Twilight shirt, but said nothing until she asked me what I was reading. It led into this conversation about how she has read book 3 8 times, seen the movie 4 times, and the section I was in was amazing and she wanted the page number so she could reread it at home. There was more than that, but I had seen enough. I'm so glad that I have moved on from say, my Lord of the Rings obsession. I know I was bad, but not that bad. But I'm just reading these books, and ploughing through them. Not obsessive. I felt bad for the girl, though. She was kinda desperate for attention, but I wasn't in the mood to give it to her at that moment.

Thursday - After 5, two friends picked me up for a girls night. We ate pizza and cookie dough ice cream while watching the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (scary and predictable!) Not sure why they rented it, but we all knew it would be awful going into it. Wasn't a good chick flick, but we had fun laughing at the characters.

Today - Sat around the apartment until I finished book 4. Now I can do other things with my life! My goal was to finish them as soon as I could before school. And I did. I went for a walk to get the mail today. The temperature is actually above 0 today! It's been really cold for about 2 weeks now. I took quite a few pictures while I was out. The sun was setting, so the trees looked pretty cool.

This one is of the moose tracks that I saw this morning in our backyard. I thought it was amusing that it veered away so obviously from the caged trees.

Feed the Kids

I forgot one thing for yesterday's post. Thursday was "Feed the Kids," where the local churches take turns providing lunch on Thursdays to the high schoolers. A local church is just below the HS and the kids walk down. This past week, I helped out. It turned out be really nice (and I got a free meal!) and I actually knew a lot of the kids. I said hi to my boss's son and a friend's little brother and got to talk to my nephew. So it was fun for me to see all of them and get to chat. It was also fun to just be able to help out.

I love good worship!

I've been meaning to blog for several days, just haven't sat down to do it.

On Monday, I spent nearly 2 hours chatting with coworkers. I went into Husband's work and hung out with him and his coworker while he showed me some things they have been working on. I can't think of anything else that happened.

Yesterday we killed some mold on our windowsills.

When we woke up this morning, we drove off for breakfast. We talked about 3 different places for breakfast, which ended up as a wild goose chase as each one was closed. We didn't want to go to Duncan House, where we always go for breakfast. We finally settled on Caribou, because we didn't want to go back home. It was good, but by that point, of over 20 minutes of wandering town, we just wanted food and the excitement was gone :P Oh well, it was still nice.
Then we got our tires changed on our cars. Due to poor planning on our part, no one could pick us up. Then we called our friends who live pretty close. So we walked over there and hung out for an hour, chatting. It was fun.
And youth group tonight was really good. Heard an amazing testimony from a YWAMer, and then we prayed for each other and got words. It was really nice. So today was a good day, but a bit rushed. Oh and Grace led worship. It was super good. I love singing Angela Pinkston's songs!

Husband and I have been making an effort to spend more time together this weekend, and it's so nice. Just throwing that out there.

Tomorrow I will hopefully get a lot done (right) I have to make another trip into work for a paycheck.

I started playing Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass last night. It's pretty fun, and I think I can do ok with this one :P (I'm not the greatest at video games by any means) Wish me luck!

Babysitting

It's been my first chance to blog since last week. I would say it's been a chaotic week, but I think that's what I say every time.

Wednesday night, we helped out with youth group. It was very challenging for me. I'm pretty introverted, and it was harder when it was with kids that I have a slight relationship with, but am completely removed from their world. And then there were the ones that I hardly know their name. Our leaders did good leading them, considering they have no experience doing it whatsoever. It was a hard night for me, just realizing that I have been removed long enough from this setting to be hard to get back into it, and also that I am one of the adults there now. Kind of scary.
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Thursday I did errands, and then ended up hanging out with a friend of mine for several hours. We went to lunch and then spend a couple hours at the beach. I had not hung out with her in several weeks, so it was a lot of fun.
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Saturday night, we started "babysitting." Caleb's parents are out of town for 5 days, so we moved into their house for that time. We dragged all of our computer stuff over, which has been a hassle, but worth it to me so that I can do school. But I did not think about how noisy it always is at this house!
It is kind of hard to explain, but this is a very open house. The friends of the kids are always over, to do homework or hang out. When we got here Saturday night, there were at least 6 extra people here. It turned out to be awful for my homework situation.

[As a side note, living here cuts down on our living expenses a tiny bit. We aren't paying for food, nor driving so much. Caleb is walking to work like he used to. It's also weird spending so much time here again since I've been away from being here everyday since our wedding.]

Yesterday, I went to lunch with my parents. It was the first time since May when I started working on Sundays. It was nice to get to do that with them again.

After lunch, I came to the in-laws' house to do homework. I had a whole load due at midnight and could not find the quietness to concentrate on it. A group of girls were giving dreadlocks to one of the boys. I was here for the whole process. They started at 3 o'clock and finally, finally finished right at midnight. The boy was in pain from all of the tugging and pulling and the main girl doing it was exhausted as well. They all had homework to finish and had not counted on the process taking 9 hours. It was great entertainment though! I was planning on posting pictures, but they did not turn out as nice as I was hoping.

Today I am to be doing homework all day, yet again. Then we have small group tonight.
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It is definitely fall here. The leaves are officially changing and falling and it has gotten colder. It is sad, because everyone is rooting for sunshine after not having much this summer. I'm looking forward to all of the leaves changing though, so I can take some great photos! I discovered a few days ago that looking up from our apartment, we see the hillside to the north, and it is covered in birch trees and others that turn gorgeous. It will be an amazing sight every day!
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We got our free money on Friday (and got paid!) so that was a blessing. All of it is divided into the separate savings accounts and is set to start earning interest tomorrow!
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At work on Saturday, I got my first Alaska state quarter. Not to sound corny or weird, but it's so strange knowing that I've been waiting for this since 1999, never thinking we'd make it to 2008 to actually get to the second to last quarter. Time does fly by!