A Pastor's Wife...

I have been involved in youth ministry for about 7 years now and the wife of a youth pastor for a little over 6 years. I never wanted to be a pastor's wife (or PW as some lady once told me), but never say never because it always happens anyway. I have no wisdom about youth ministry. I have no wisdom about being a pastor's wife. What I do have is 6 years of experience and this is my "advice":

A few months ago Mike was teaching a class on youth ministry and he had me come in and talk with his class about being a pastors wife. Below is my outline from this class:

Frustrations in ministry (being the wife):

· Always being watched

o How do I deal with it? I try living a life that pleases God and no one else.

o Example: “Inappropriate Clothing”

· Church members always wanting you to volunteer for everything

o I learned this early on. You need to know when to say “No”

o Example: People ask me a lot of times to do things that don’t fit in with my “sweet spot” (Girl Student Leaders, Video/Technology)

· People always assuming that you know everything that is going on in the youth ministry

o In a small church and youth ministry you probably will know what’s going on all the time, but any time you get over a ministry of thirty or more most likely you can’t know everything

o Example: Guys Game Night (not going to know what’s going on at this)

Positives in Ministry:

• My Involvement
• How lucky that God knew exactly where I would be in ministry 8 years ago when He told me I was going to work with students?
• Being married to a pastor helps me to be involved on a deeper level in youth ministry then a lot of other volunteers (I get to be in the know before a lot of other people)

Things to make sure to ask when interviewing at a church:

· What do you see as the responsibility of the youth pastor’s wife?

· What are your expectations?

· Am I required to be a volunteer in youth ministry? (The answer should be: No! You need to find the place God has in mind for you!)

Balancing Marriage and Ministry (What Do We Do?):

• Date Night
• Day Off
• Your day off is your day off, whether it’s Monday or Wednesday or any other day of the week. You need to take time to relax and NOT deal with anything at church, unless it’s absolutely necessary (ie. the church is on fire)
• Boundaries
• There have to be boundaries in ministry. You need to take the time to put God first and then your family. Your ministry is Important, but not so important that you neglect other areas of your life

Conclusion: Being the wife of a youth pastor (or a pastor) can be difficult, stressful and hard at times but doing ministry together is what counts and who better to do ministry with than someone you love and who gets you?

I don't know if any pastors wives read this, but if you do I hope this can be helpful to you, especially if you are just starting out in your marriage. If any pastors read this always encourage your wife in what they do in ministry whether it's with youth, children or singing in the praise band and show them this to let them know they aren't alone.

I love youth ministry!

Taking Time to Rest...

My life is constantly in the fast lane of the freeway! I am constantly on the run from one thing to the other. I tell people I have been super busy and then wonder if they think I'm making it up because they are usually the people I don't see all the time. I also sometimes wonder why I am so stressed when I don't work outside the home and I have no kids to take care of. This is why I have made the decision to cut back. I don't typically have a problem saying no to things, but sometimes I have trouble saying no to my husband. That is, until this morning. I have been talking about not volunteering with our Wednesday night program at church. I feel it's not the place for me right now and I'm not excited about it. This morning Mike told me I should just stop volunteering there starting now, so I said okay and he asked if I could at least go next Wednesday. That is when it happened I said no! Flat out no, I'm not going to. I think Mike was shocked by my response, but he is totally on board with my decision. SO as of 10am this morning I will no longer be volunteering on Wednesday nights.

I think so many times in our lives we get caught up in dong too many things. WE go from one task or activity to the next I know there are times that I "forget" to spend time with God because I've got to get to the next thing on my list. I forget to stop and listen to what God wants me to do. That is why I'm going to take the time to stop doing everything under the sun and just... rest.

You Stay Classy, San Diego!

On Friday Mike and I went down to San Diego for the night. Mike was teaching a conference down there at this thing called Leadership Training Institute. We made it down to San Diego at about 2pm and we shopped around, got some Baskin Robins and checked into our hotel. Our friend Josh picked us up to go have a meal with him at this place called Point Loma Seafood. He told us it would change our taste of fresh seafood and he was absolutely right. I had some of the most delicious shrimp I've ever had! Thanks for taking us Josh! The next day we went to the conference. Mike had two people at his conference and I read the whole day. It was awesome!! I had my camera, but I forgot to take any pictures. Sorry. You'll just have to imagine what it looked like.

The Office: Jim as Dwight vs Dwight as Jim

The Office... An Amazing Show!

I love to watch The Office. If you asked me about a year and a half ago if I liked this show I would have made a face and said, "No Way! It's horrible!" That was until I watched it again after having only seen about 3 minutes of the show the first time. I used to work in an office when I was in college and when we first moved to the O.C. I worked in another office. My experiences were nothing like those of the characters on TV, but I can always pull out a hint of a situation I had while working in that environment. So, to show you how much I love The Office and to share with you how excited I am for the fourth season I have a little video for you to watch above! This is my favorite scene from last season.

***I just added this video stuff to my blog so the video actually shows up as a different post. I'm working on figuring out how to get it into my actual post and not separate. So for now enjoy the video meant for this blog post in the post right above!

****And I am totally a blogging machine today! I have never posted this many times in a day, let alone in a week! Well, maybe a week.

The Computer Lab

I had time today to go to the lab for my class and catch up on my classwork and "homework". For the most part I was able to work in a classroom alone with just the humming of the computer modems. This was until about 40 minutes later when two guys walked into the room. Now I want you to know that there are probably a good 20 to 25 computers in this classroom. All which are not being used at the moment except the one I am on. But, of course, the two guys decided to choose the computer right next to me to work on. They were extremely loud and rude and talked the entire 15 minutes they were there and it took me about 1o of those minutes to read about two pages of work (out of about 25 pages). It was not good! I just don't understand. Why do I always find myself in these strange situations?

My College Professor...

This past friday CBU lost a wonderful professor, Melodie Yocum. She passed away from cancer. Melodie was the very first professor I ever had contact with at CBU and for the most part taught a lot of the classes I took for my degree. She gave me the opportunity of a theater scholarship without having ever seen my acting ability. She also gave me my first role at CBU by basically making up a part of a fairy not in the script. Melodie was my professor, director, actor and friend. In the last few years I did not talk with her much. Mainly because our paths didn't seem to cross as often. I had the privilege of being directed by Melodie in two plays at CBU and a multitude of scenes. I also had the opportunity to direct Melodie a few years ago in a play about the life of Ruth Bell Graham (wife of Billy Graham). I have also had the opportunity of acting alongside her teenage son. My heart goes out to him right now as I can not even imagine what the feelings must be like to lose a parent at such a young age.
Please keep the Yocum family in your prayers as I am sure this is a difficult time for Melodie's husband and children.

And the Diagnosis is...

I went to see the doctor at the Breast Clinic this morning and all is well in the life of Nicole. At least in that area. I do have two.. yes two... lumps in my left breast and the doctor I saw recommended that I have them removed. He said that they are fibrocysistic or something like that. So on October 5th at 8:30 in the morning I will be having a local shot in that region and they will remove the two cysts leaving only a small scar and I will be awake the entire time. I am not looking forward to the being awake part during the procedure, but I will deal with anything if it means not having the lumps anymore. The doctor said he likes to do this so if it happens again in say, ten years, I will be just as scared about it and get it checked out.

I am extremely relieved that the diagnosis was good and I thank everyone who reads this blog for your prayers. Please continue to pray that everything else in this process goes well.

Words, words, words...

I have a lot on my mind right now, but the thing that's driving me crazy the most is the fact that I have to come up with video ideas for about 8 videos that I know of plus a few more that I have yet to know the topic of.

Let me start at the beginning for those who may be confused:

Last year I began a ministry with students at church that makes videos for our high school ministry. Last year went fairly well, but it could have always been better. There aren't exactly a lot (none) of scripts out there to use with making videos. Therefore, I have had to write a lot of the scripts and adapt some other things. This year I have decided to hold auditions. Not to cut any students, but to place them in parts that suit them. I am ready for the auditions this weekend, but I am having some trouble coming up with scripts for announcement videos. I want to be able to give them some scripts to take home and memorize. I have A LOT of thoughts in my head, but I almost can't get them out of my head fast enough and sometimes when I do they don't come off as well on paper. I feel as though I am gong insane!!!

To quote Shakespeare in Hamlet: "Words, words, words."

I don't know what I'm gonna do!

I'm still in school and I'm still smilin'... barely...

Warning: Extremely lengthy post ahead!

Today was my second day of school and it was okay. I feel a bit lost in the class, but I assume it's normal for it only being the second day. I sat down at the same computer I had last Wednesday (we are sooo creatures of habit) and next to the same guy. I said "hi", he sort of nodded then we went back to our computer screens. Mine decided to freeze on me and I felt like an idiot when I raised my hand to have the professor help me. (To clarify I would usually just reboot the computer, but our syllabus tells us if there is a problem to leave it to the professor. I like to follow rules.) I asked if I should reboot, she said "No!" She pushed some keys and couldn't seem to fix it so she decided to reboot (go figure!) As soon as she walked away the computer came back on and was in the same freeze position as before. I again raised my hand for her only to tell me to share with the guy next to me. He did not look amused and neither did I. You see, I am a kinesthetic learner and therefore must do things as I am being taught. I rolled over about three inches to sit next to "random guy" (I was not paying attention when role was taken in order to hear his name) and as the professor showed us things about Adobe he was like 3 minutes behind everything she did. I again, was not amused. We were then given a 15 minute break. I called Mike, used the facilities and then went back to sit down at my still frozen computer. There was about 5 minutes left so I watched as "random guy" used his already (I believe) advanced photoshop skills to tweak a pretty amazing picture. Apparently he works as a photographer for some design company. After a little more of the professor showing us some basic work space stuff she told us to do Lesson 1 in our books. "Random guy" was very nice and told me I could take his computer since he didn't have the book yet. He then proceeded to reboot the computer and of course it actually turned off and came back on... unfrozen! He basically grunted to me to use my disk and share my book with me. I obliged even though I was thinking "I really don't want to share and he already knows more than half the class anyway." He then was obviously going faster than me and I kept apologizing to him for being slow. I think about it now and I'm really not sure why I was apologizing for my being slow when I was letting him use my book but, whatever! Overall, it was a pretty strange second class, but I'm still sticking it out!

Back to School...

Today I went back to school for the first time in 4 years!

In case you are lost and don't know me or talk with me personally I am going back to school to obtain a graphic design certificate so I can hopefully do some free lance design for churches and companies and whoever else will want to higher me. The following is my first day at Riverside City College:

I was a bit nervous because I didn't have a clue where my classroom was and I heard it was hard to park at RCC. My class began at 8am and I had no trouble finding it, which was a relief. I took a seat at a computer (which are Macs, by the way, so that was awesome) and the professor was a lady which I was not expecting, but still cool. Turns out the lady was only subbing for the real professor because she is at a conference. Our actual professor is also a lady, which is still cool with me. We were then given a syllabus that has the wrong class dates for everything so that's a bit frustrating. The final project is worth half my grade! As the sub was reading the syllabus she told us we need a 1GB USB drive and then asked if anyone had one to show. Of course being the nerd I am brought one with me so I had to be the one who showed the class what it looked like. That was bit goofy because by the looks of my class I'm pretty sure we all know what that is.We then began to watch videos on something call Bridge, which from the 4 videos we watched I can only decipher that it is a storage spot for all the other Adobe applications. That took about an hour and then we had a break. After the break we opened up Adobe Photoshop and took the next hour and fifteen minutes to make a flier about a lost animal using shapes and tools on the tool bar. I proceeded to make a very crudely drawn lost chicken. I can't wait until the actual professor comes back so I can learn things a little better. Overall today has been an interesting first day back to school.

I am not sure why I have such a goofy expression on my face becasue it was too early in the morning for me to look that excited!

What I did on Labor Day...

Today we decided to go to Disneyland to watch our friend Eric "Puddles" Putman run in the Disneyland Half Marathon. He finished in about 3 and a half hours and we were able to see him right after he crossed the finish line. Great Job Eric!! We went on four rides today (I went on 3). They were all inside rides because it was like 235 degrees outside, in Anaheim, at about 10am. We went on Space Mountain, Pirates, Soarin' Over California and Grizzly Rapids. On the last one I ended up getting the most wet (which usually happens on those types of rides) and my pants and half my shirt were soaked for about 2 hours. It was fun... can you hear the sarcasm. Overall the day was pretty fun, yet exhausting due to the heat. Below are some pics from the day.

Eric right after he finished

Mike and my brother, Eric, right before the rapids begin

Right after the rapids. My whole left and back side was soaked.

It actually rained in Riverside as we were driving home! Amazing!!!

Goals for Me! Part Two!

The other day I posted what some of my goals are. Below is a list of the things I want to do throughout my whole life. I have done a few and have a lot more to accomplish, but this would be most of them. (I saw someone else post something like this and found it interesting, so I hope you enjoy!)

Have 2 Children

Run a half marathon

Adopt 1 Child

See U2 & John Mayer in concert (probably not at the same venue)

X See Delirious in concert (thank you, Mike)

Get a certificate in Graphic Design

Go to Paris, France

Go to Italy (visit the city my grandma was born in and other places)

Go to Germany (visit the town my ancestors are from)

Buy a home

Visit all 50 states (I have 13 Down, 37 more to go)

X Go to England

Read all Charles Dickens Novels (I’m close)

Begin free lance graphic design from home

Be in the musicals Oklahoma, Sound of Music and My Fair Lady

Hike up some mountain (I don’t care which one, just one that will get me over my acrophobia)

Wake board

X Sailing (Large boat and I captained my own small boat)

Get on one roller coaster (Again to overcome my acrophobia)

Write a fiction book (I have many thoughts, but no significant direction yet)

Write some articles for something in youth ministry (I have no thoughts on this yet)

X Buy a car (with the help of a loan)

Donate my hair to Locks of Love 5 Times (I have 2 down and am working on #3)

Go on a camping trip (just Mike and I, to see if I can really “rough it”)

Go on a cruise (somewhere, anywhere it doesn’t matter)

Go to Canada (especially British Columbia and Nova Scotia)

X Go to Washington DC

X Go to New York City (thanks for getting married there Brian & Kalee)

Go to Australia & New Zealand

Some obviously require more than others, but I think it's a pretty reasonable list. Just thought I would share what's inside my head. :-)

Goals for Me!

I have always had goals in my life and about 63.2% of the time I follow through with those goals. These are some goals I am making for myself right now...
1. Take a graphic design class at RCC
2. Obtain a certificate in graphic design so I can possibly free lance from home
3. Buy a program that allows me to be able to free lance from home (after or before obtaining the certificate)
4. Step out of my comfort zone when it comes to talking with my neighbors and others I am in contact with
5. Take out the 10 girls in my Bible Study (one at a time) for coffee... or non coffee
6. Run at least 2-3 times a week in my beautiful neighborhood
7. Start lifting weights (small ones) to get rid of the inflammation in my chest (seems like it would have the opposite effect, but it's doctors orders)
8. Eat more healthy (I think I do this now, but I can always do better)
9. And finally (not because it's the least important, but more because it's the most important) I'm going to start trusting God more with the plans He has for me and try really hard not to think about worst case scenarios with my health

I know that number 9 doesn't really sound like a goal, I just need to have it written somewhere that I said it.

I don't know what to say...

I have a multitude of thoughts going through my head right now and I'm not sure where to begin.

First, I want to say that my costochondritis is still here and may not go away until I work it out through exercise. My doctor didn't seem real concerned.

Secondly, I'm trying to find the words to say my next thought without be too vague, yet not super descriptive. Here goes...

I found a lump in that upper girl region on my body. My doctor verified it today and referred me to a specialist. They are supposed to call me within a few weeks. I am extremely scared, anxious, angry and so much more right now. My doctor tells me there is a 90% chance that it is just a cyst that needs to be drained and if it had been a little bigger he would have done it himself (with a needle... oh... yay). The nurse was trying to be a comfort and told me that "we all have them." I'm not sure if that was comforting or just made me think if we all have them how come it's such a big deal. I'm not sure what to feel right now. I know that God is taking me through this time for a reason, but I still want to know why.
So, for now I just wait and pray and wait and pray until I am given more answers.

Connections...

I am trying to make a point of connecting with high school girls in my Bible Study more this year. My goal is to take them out for coffee or lunch or something at least once. There are ten girls in my Bible Study and I figure that's one a month with 2 months to spare. I've said it here so hopefully I will accomplish this goal and can share my experiences on this blog. Now for a story...

For about the last seven months I have been going to coffee (or non coffee as we call it) with a girl named Sarah. We have connected so well and I believe we have a wonderful friendship going on. She wrote about Mike and I on a blog on her myspace so I was thinking I wanted to share with anyone reading how amazing just one connection can be.

Sarah will be entering college this fall and I know that she is anxious, nervous, unsure, and undecided about things, but I also know that she is finding comfort in God even through this next step in life. I look at Sarah and she says she learns a lot from me, but I have learned so much from her also. She has shown me what it's like to trust God with things even when you are unsure. She is someone that I know I will be friends with for a long time and I hope we will keep on meeting in person together for many years (at least while we live close by). She has this calmness about her and this wisdom about things that I sometimes don't understand and then I realize it's her love for God. She is concerned for others, loves hanging out with teenage girls and she really thinks and prays through big, tough decisions. She is a true friend to those she is closest to and you would be lucky to know this girl if you ever meet her.

Connecting with students is an important part of ministry and there is no way I could connect on the same level with every student. I think the most important thing to remember is that after making that connection you can't just leave them when they leave high school, try to continue to connect with them after they leave your ministry and beyond. You can't do that with every student, but you can do it with a few and maybe you will make a little bit of a difference in someone's life.

Ministry...

I don't talk a lot about my ministry on my blog, but something sparked me into thinking about sharing my thoughts on the ministry I do.

I am a high school ministry volunteer at my church. When I was 18 years old I made the decision to be involved in youth ministry somehow, someway after high school. Little did I know that God would put me on the path to doing ministry early on. I have now been doing youth ministry for 7 years. 5 years with junior high and 2 years with high school. If you had asked me 2 1/2 years ago if I would ever volunteer with high schoolers I would have told you flat out... No! Now I can't even imagine going back to junior high students (as much as a I love them).

I was the girl in high school who did everything. I played sports, I wrote for the school newspaper, I was in theater and I was extremely involved at my church. I would not recommend that for any high school student that I come in contact with, but it definitely shaped me into the person I am today and the person I continue to become. This has also helped me to say no to a lot of things because I had the tendency to get burnt out in high school.

I currently teach a Bible Study class on Sunday mornings, I lead the video ministry (it's pretty infrequent) and I volunteer on Wednesday Nights (which I may cut back on this year). This may sound like a lot and I could be doing a lot more. The only downside to this is that it makes me a bit more visible to parents and students and they tend to think i know everything about every event coming up.

I love my ministry and I love high school students. I hope that I am able to volunteer with this age for a long time. At least until God has me move on to another area of ministry!

Tension...

I know that most of my posts are about my health and how many times I have taken xrays and gone to the doctors, but here's one more for you.
If you have been reading my blog you may know that I had/have this thing called Costochondritis (look it up). I am still taking pain medicine for it (which I';m not sure it I still should be) and the pain has lessened in my chest a little bit, but has now moved to another part of my body... my arm. I am working really hard on not being a worrisome person, but this just adds to all my worry. My arm hurts and has been off and on numb/tingly for the last few days and it also seems to be connected to my shoulder. I told my mom about this (I pretty much tell her everything) and she told me it's probably tension. I truly hope it's just tension and not something worse, but I sure would like to have one day without any pain in my body... anywhere! So... I am still debating making an appointment with my doctor, but I continue to pray that it will just go away. So, if you do read my boring medical stories please take a little bit of time to pray that I will make the right decision to either get it checked out (again) or that God will just take it away because I know He is the Ultimate Healer! Thanks for reading!

I'm back from across the pond...

We made it back to California from London on Tuesday and we are just trying to recover from jet lag. It was worse coming back then going there. If you want to read about our trip and see pictures from it then you can go to mine and Mike's joint blog. I hope you enjoy our stories.

Trusting God in every aspect of life...

I've been sitting here for the past few minutes pondering what I want to write about. I know what I want to say I just don't know how to say it...

In this moment in time in my life things have been extremely hard for me. I feel like I am in a time of battle and I don't know what to do. I don't mean to sound cryptic in my writing, but I don't think everyone needs to know the specifics of my life, just that I am in need of prayer BIG time. I know that God has my best interest in mind and that He is taking me down the path He has set out for me and that most of all, He loves me. Please just pray that I will have a peace about all the things going on in my life right now, good and bad.

I apologize for being such a downer in my blog. I'll try making the next one funny or at least not so cryptic. :-)

I have been commissioned...

Yesterday at church our London Team was commissioned. I have never actually been commissioned before and I always thought of it as sort of nerve-wracking. And let me tell you it was... at first. I really dislike getting up in front of a bunch of people I don't know, who don't know me and that are all staring at me. Now I know that they are not only looking at me, but also looking at the 12 other people standing up there, but it's still intimidating. One of my fears going into it was that when our pastor asked people to come down and pray for us that no one was going to come over to me. My fears came true a bit, but it turned out better than I suspected.
Let me tell you what happened:

• First Service (The Scary One) People began coming up to pray. Lot's of people were heading for Mike on my right and whoever was on my left. Finally after what felt like an hour (it was probably about 10 seconds) Anthony Lammons (he works at CBU) and his daughter and a student from my Bible Study came up to pray for me. Relief washed over me.

• Second Service (The Awkward One) Again people begin coming up to pray. Again lot's of people were heading for Mike on my right and whoever was on my left. Finally a lady comes up and it looks as if she wants to pray for Mike but there are too many in front of Mike so she suggests everyone links hands, which I do, awkwardly take her hand because some other lady takes Mike's hand as I went to reach for it, and she prays. This was probably the most awkward of all of them because the lady didn't know my name so when she prayed for me she called me, "This young one here." This makes me think she assumed I was one of the high school students going.

• Third Service (The Awesome One and maybe a bit awkward): This time when our pastor asked people to come up I could pick out the people coming towards me. Mainly because this is the service with many of our students and they know who we are. The funniest or maybe a most awkward moment of the whole thing was that when Jon McWhorter came up to us he put his hands on mine and Mike's shoulders and I reached up and patted his hand. Now my whole meaning behind this was to say thank you nonverbally. I am hoping that's the way Jon took it (Jon- hopefully you will read this so you know my meaning behind it) and I hope there will not be an awkwardness between us now. I told Mike and he thought it was funny. As I write this I think I am thinking I need to write a post about how awkward I can be (that will be for another day). Anyway, this one was very cool having our students support us in prayer, even if it was a bit awkward too.

I looked up commission on dictionary.com and this was one of about 20 definitions:

to authorize; send on a mission.

I think this is a great definition for what we are a about to do! We are being sent to do a a mission for God and we may only come back with a few results, but we are doing what Jesus commanded us all to do in Acts 1:8. This time next week we will be done with our first day of ministry and I'm sure tired, but I believe it will comfort me to know that our church will be praying for us and especially that we have students who are praying and supporting us too. So, even though I was dreading my first commissioning experience it turned out to be pretty sweet!

Remember to check out our London Blog: lovatosinlondon.blogspot.com

A Case of Mistaken Identity...

Over a month or two ago I wrote about how Casey Angulo links me on her blog, which I'm not gonna lie, made me extremely excited! Needless to say, I told you I would give you the funny story of the first time we met.

It was probably about 4 or 5 years ago now and we were at some kind of youth rally (I think at Woodcrest. Sorry, but I'm bad with the specifics). Anyway, at the end of the night there was this time for prayer and I ended up being in a group with Mike (my husband), a random student (I think) and another girl (Casey) who I thought was a student of ours named Katie. While we were praying I prayed for Katie (or Casey in this case) by name. Not the most embarrassing moment of my life ever but I didn't even realize what I had done until a few moments later when we were done praying and Mike introduced me to Casey.

In my defense it was quite dark inside and in my opinion Casey and this other girl Katie look a lot alike, other than the fact that they are probably about 7 to 10 years apart in age. For some reason this case of mistaken identity has always remained a memory of mine. Now every time I am going to pray with a student I make sure I look at them first to make sure I say the right name.

I now have Casey linked in my "Blogs I Read" section! Go read her blog, it's pretty sweet!

Makin' Some Changes

I am trying to give my blog a different look, so if there are some weird names or titles on it for a few days do not be alarmed. I didn't change the name of my blog, hopefully just the look!

Just a Few Words...

Today was a lazy day. This is a day I haven't had in a long time. It was good for me and also not so good for me. For those of you who know me well, know that I'm a worrier (is that word?) and it is always something I am working hard not to be. Some people also may know that I struggle with anxiety, so this does not help me along. I tend to be in these states of anxiety and worry mostly when I am doing nothing. So, today was a particularly hard day for that! It is something that I am working on trusting God with and it's getting better, but I guess we all have our days! The good part of my day is the fact that I actually took the day to do nothing but sit on the couch and read (except for the hour we went out to do London stuff). I am now more than halfway through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and I am pretty sure I will have it read by the end of the week if not in a couple of days. Well, there are my few words for you, not words of wisdom, but just some thoughts from my head.

My S.H.A.P.E.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about where I fit in ministry in the church. For the last 7 years I have been involved in youth ministry and while I love it I have been thinking lately if this is where I'm really supposed to be ministering... until this week. At our church this week is a little thing we like to call VBS (Vacation Bible School). I have been teaching second grade all week and let's just say...whew! I am exhausted. I am pretty sure that I have found my shape and it's not children's ministry. I love the kids, I love that they love me already even though they barely know me and I especially love that they have this joy about loving God at such a young age. The things I don't love is constantly having to count and make sure we have ten kids, singing and doing hand motions for a total of 45 minutes a day and the fact that our theme is sports and all they want to do is play baseball in the classroom. At one point this week I actually thought, "I do not want kids!", but then I came to my senses and realized that there is no way I would have ten kids at once or even ten kids total, so I felt a little better. Only two more nights of what I call pure chaos and then I can get back to what I do best... loving on high school students!

Oh! Check out my other blog about Mike and I going to London.

Well, we just got back from camp last Friday and it was awesome! It was probably one of the best camps I've been to and if you know me that's saying a lot. Below are some pictures from Hume in San Diego. WE are leaving today to go to the Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback. I will post more about both this weekend or next week!

Ingimar... What! Our large rec team won!

What are Mike and Ben pointing at?

We went to a church and fed some homeless people! It was amazing!

Inviting some people to the meal at the church!

I'll post more pics later!

I'm not a hypochondriac! Yea!!

For the last few months I have been experiencing what I like to call "pressure" on the left side of my chest. I was not overly concerned at first because I feel like I'm always finding something wrong with myself medically. But... this morning I woke up and I had the pain in my chest. I usually don't wake up with it, so that was a little weird, then this afternoon my left arm started to hurt and I began to freak out just a little. I called Mike and he came by the house and picked me up and off to Kaiser we went again. Now, I must preface all this with the fact that I believe that I'm a pretty healthy person (other than my sprains and breaks). I run (I will begin again soon, when my ankle is healed) and I make sure that we eat pretty healthy at home, I don't smoke, drink and I don't even have caffeine that often.
Now getting back to my chest pain. We arrived at Kaiser and I must say that they get you in to urgent care very quickly when you tell them that you have pain in your chest. I had a very nice nurse and then the doctor came in. He asked me a few questions and then he listened to my breathing and heart. Then he preceded to put pressure on my different parts of my chest. When he touched the left side it hurt a bit and then he moved away, looked at me with no doubt in his mind and told me I have something called Costochondritis. This has nothing to do with my heart and basically means I did something to strain my rib cage and and that the cartilage between my rib cage and breastbone is inflamed. His prescription: 2 Advil three times a day for 12 days. I just kept thanking him and saying I'm glad it's not my heart! I'm also glad that I finally went to the doctor and I'm especially glad that this makes me feel like I'm not a hypochondriac.

My Best Friend...

I don't have a whole lot of close friends, but I do have one best friend who has been with me through a lot in the last six years we've been married and the last eight years that we've known each other. I love my husband more today than I did the day he asked me to marry him, more than the day we got married, and my love has continued to get stronger for him. I couldn't ever imagine my life without him and his calmness, his seriousness, his goofiness, and most of all his love for God. He has such a calming affect on me at times which is great since I'm a very high strung individual. He is serious about his job and affecting the lives of teenagers in a fun, yet positive way. He is a highly funny individual which I don't give him enough credit for. His love for God is what I love most about him. He strives to learn more about God and works constantly on his own relationship with Him. He lets me vent to him and talk his head off when he gets home from work and best of all he lets me be myself and the person God made me to be. I don't know how many people read this, but I know Mike does, so I just want to say thank you for loving me. Thank you for letting me be me.

Another X-Ray...

About a year a go I had my first post about my broken finger. I'm happy to say that my finger is doing well and bends just as nicely as it did before it broke. I tell you this because yesterday I once again had to have an x-ray. Not on my finger this time, but on my ankle. Oh yes boys and girls I hurt myself once again. Luckily this time it is just a very painful sprain. I wish I could share with you a daring and amazing story of how I hurt my ankle, but alas, I can only say that I am highly embarrassed by this true story.

This weekend Mike and I moved his grandma from Yucaipa, CA out here to Riverside. Yesterday morning we decided to get bagels before heading out to Yucaipa to help with the estate sale for her home. As I was walking out of Panera Bread with a bag of bagels in one hand and hot chocolate in the other (I don't drink coffee) I stepped off the curb between my car and a small white car and that is when it happened. I fell, or tripped or maybe I was catapulted off the curb. I don't know how it happened I just know one minute I was enjoying my hot chocolate and the next I was on the ground with the bag of bagels two feet in front of me, the hot chocolate tipped over next to my turned in ankle and hot chocolate "juice" splattered all over the clean white car next to my head. My first thought was my pants are ruined and my pinky toe looks gross. About two seconds later I started to bawl like a baby and my ankle started to shoot with a whole lot of pain. Mike was a few feet behind me and only heard me fall (apparently I made a loud noise when I fell). He ran in to get me some ice and then off we drove to Kaiser.

One nice thing about yesterday was that There was not one single person in the waiting room of the ER and I got right in. We were in and out of the ER in a little over an hour. My final question that I leave you with is: Is it really okay that I have gotten 5 x-rays in the last year? That can't be good!

I'm Linked...

Okay, I know it has been a month since my last post and I would have posted sooner, but I have an excuse. I couldn't get into my blogger account because I am somehow computer illiterate and it wasn't working, but now it is. End of story.

My actual reason for writing this post is that I read a lot of blogs, mostly linked from my husbands blog and today I was reading Casey Angulo's blog and noticed that I am on her list of blogging friends. This was very exciting to me because I saw the name Nicole on her list and decided to click on it to see what other Nicole's write about and there I was staring at a my own blog! So, thank you Casey for showing me some "link love" and as soon as I figure out how to do it I will one day soon return the favor to you. I may also share my awkward and embarrassing first meeting with Casey. :-)

TGIF...

Remember when you were a kid (or a teenager, or maybe an adult) and you would watch TGIF on Friday's on ABC. Maybe it was the highlight of your week or maybe you weren't allowed to watch it, but either way it meant that it was Friday. Today I can actually say thank goodness it's Friday. Here are the highlights of my week (and lowlights, I guess).

• Monday- I wake up with a headache (not a good sign that this will be the best week ever). I pick up Mike's Grandma at her Doctor appointment and proceed to take her to her home about 15 miles away and it takes 40 minutes. I go to bed with a headache.
  
• Tuesday- I again wake up with a headache (the same one, that lasted all day the day before). I proofread book reviews from Mike's class he is teaching and a few other boring house chores. I also drove all the way to Corona to drop off our applications for a house we want to rent. There was traffic. It was not fun.
  
• Wednesday- I again wake up with a headache for the third day in a row. I look up headaches on Web MD and decide that I must have a tension headache (which can last up to several days and are most likely brought on by stress). Yeah!! Or Not! Mike informs me that we were approved for the house we want to rent. Yeah!! I attend our Wednesday night program at church and am not sure if I can make it through with a pounding headache. I surprisingly make it through and not only that, but I really enjoyed it. Mike spent the night at his Grandma's house so he could take her to another appointment the next morning. I took a Tylenol PM for my head.
• Thursday- For the fourth day in a row I wake up with an aching head and it's 6:45am. I drive to Highland to pick up Mike's Grandma from her medical procedure she is having done. They call me in to sit with her as she wakes up and then the doctor(who has horrible bedside manner) tells us he is admitting her to the hospital because she has fluid in her stomach. This is actually AWESOME news because they have actually found something so we can get to the bottom of her sickness. Anyway, I then had to drive her to the hospital, get her checked in and then settled in her room and then I had to drive about 20 minutes back to her place to get a bag of things together for her and then go 20 minutes back to the hospital. I was doing this while calling about 15 people to let them know about Mike's grandma being in the hospital. As I was driving home I called Mike and then took him and some other youth guys some food for lunch. Then I went home and did some household things and made dinner and then went to bed with a headache and some Tylenol PM.
• Friday- I woke up this morning for the first time without a headache, but it decided to come back a few minutes later. I now have to pack for this weekend (we are going to Junior High Winter Camp).
  

All I can say (or sing) after this very stress filled week is...
"Gonna have some fun,
Show you how it's done,
T.G. I. F...."

(I'm going to try to update more often, but no guarantees!)

Pictures from the Living Christmas Tree

You probably can't see me in the picture where I'm wearing black. That is the dance that nearly killed me, but I made it through all 7 shows!

I Did It!!

The Living Christmas Tree has now come to an end at my church and I made it all the way through all seven performances without, falling, freaking out, or dying. :-) My main goal was to see if I could get back out on stage without being on anxiety medicine and my second goal was to be able to hopefully plant a little seed in one persons life. I think that I accomplished both those goals. Every time I would be in the aisle I prayed before hand that God would put someone in front of me that I could reach out to just a little bit. I was a little bummed at first because I kept seeing people in front of me that I knew and that knew to be Christians, but I think that there were a few who weren't and for that I am grateful.
A side not that is sort of hilarious to me, but a former student and his family were sitting in front of me when I was dancing in the aisle and he told me afterward that his dad asked him if he wanted to get my number so he could hook us up. I thought that was pretty funny!
Overall I think that my time in the Living Christmas Tree was one I will not soon forget, but probably not one I will repeat next year... I'm exhausted!
I'll try posting some pictures soon!

Tonight's the Night...

I will once again be on stage performing. I have not performed on a stage in over three years now so I am extremely nervous! Tonight I will be performing and singing (kind of) in my churches Christmas production, The Living Christmas Tree. I know the words, the moves and all the cues, yet I'm more nervous for this tonight than I have ever been for any other production I have ever been in. I think if I decide to do any community theater after this I will not be auditioning for any musicals in the near future. I forgot how hard it is to sing, dance and smile. If anyone does read my blog, please pray that I will remember everything I'm supposed to tonight and that I don't fall, faint or freak out! My main goal tonight is to do this all for God and to show people how amazing He is, the true meaning of Christmas and how Christians can have fun at church and even dance :-)

The Class... My New Favorite Show

As some of you may know I love the TV show Friends and can pretty much quote a show verbatim every time I'm watching it and even when I'm not. I told my self at the beginning of the Fall TV season that I was not going to take on anymore new TV shows (which did not happen). I accidentally set my DVR to set a show entitled The Class. I was meaning to record How I Met Your Mother (funny, funny show) and they had switched the times on me, so long story short I began to watch The Class. It is from the creator of Friends and is somewhat like the show except it follows 8 people and not all of the people hang out as 8, but their lives intertwine after one of the characters decides to get his third grade class together to propose to his girlfriend (also from the third grade class). Unfortunately for the guy she dumps him at the party and it show begins following these 8 characters. The reason I blog about this is because Mike, my brother, Eric, and myself were able to go and see a taping of this show. It was one of the funnest things I have ever done. First of all they sat us in the front row off to the side, which was awesome. Second I have decided that I could very well work in the TV show environment (I always said I would only do stage stuff). Third that coolest thing about the whole taping was when at one point about 4 of the characters the two creators, the director (who also directed and produced all of Cheers and many, many others) were standing right in front of us, about 10 feet away. I could care less about getting free stuff and dancing around to the music with the warm up guy, I just loved being able to hear conversation that the writers were having and the actors. The actors were all great some even would wave and smile and make eye contact with us. At least I like to think it was me, it was probably someone behind me. :-) I just think that everyone should watch this show. It's hilarious and the entire cast seems like they have a lot of fun working on the set. Watch it Monday nights at 8:30pm on CBS. If you haven't seen the show you can watch all the episodes for free at their website. The Class... My new favorite show!!

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I have decided to venture back into the blogging world! I know that many of you have missed the absence of my blog, but now you can once again be enlightened by my thoughts.

I recently turned 26 which was sort of hard, but not as difficult as turning 25 last year. Anyway, our church puts on this big Christmas production each year called the Living Christmas Tree. As some of you know I majored in theater when I was in college and haven't really done anything since then (production-wise that is), so I decided to contact the person in charge of the dancers and other groups to see if there might be a spot for me in the big production. Well, it turns out that there was a part in the opening number where I get to do some choreography and dance with fake hand bells. I was very content with this although I thought it would have been pretty fun to be one of the main dancers. Well, yesterday I got my "wish" I not only get to be in the opener, but I also get to be in the other Stomp type number. If you are unfamiliar with Stomp, it's a musical play that incorporates banging on trashcans as drums and other things. I have a part where I get to hold a fake tambourine, in this Stomp-type number, which to the average eye would not seem to difficult. Not until halfway through do you see my true exhaustion and the fact that I am not a hip hop dancer, nor will I ever be. I have to participate in a dance that is so fast I look absolutely ridiculous at this point every time we do it. I am so tired after this dance I actually could barely control the shaking of my body when the entire dance number was over. I figured out that every other person doing this dance is the average age of 21 years. 5 years ago I could have done this and been energetic about it, not so much now. If you don't hear from me in the next few weeks it will be due to the fact that I fell down dead on stage during the dance number from hell! I'm gonna go soak my feet now.

Riverside Construction.....Aaaaaaah!

Tonight was a great night at church until I left. Let me tell you a story...

I got into my Honda a drove off to In & Out Burger. I ordered my food, they prepared it and gave it to me. I then took off for home and deicided to go the way I always go. It's quick and easy and the most direct route home... or so I thought. I got to one section of my drive and said to myself, "Oh yeah, they're doing construction on this street and the next one, oh well it won't be that bad!" So as I'm grooving along to some sweet tunes on Star 98.7 I all of the sudden come to a complete stop becasue the dork in front of me and the one on front of him can't merge into one lane. Finally we start moving again and the left lane opens up again, but only for about 100 feet then more arrows telling us to get over again. Okay I must stop here to say... Why don't they just section the entire left lane off and not open it till later when there is nothing left to section off? Anyway, I am then ready to turn right onto the main street I take home (this one has eighteen times more construction on it) and about half way up the street the left lane is being worked on again. I being the smart Riverside driver that I am know that the left lane will likely be closed and remain in the right lane, but other do not and must get over. Now, I hate traffic, but I do think the proper merging technique in traffic is to for each right lane car to let in one left lane car. But no, this is not how everyonr thinks. The car in fron of me is staying right up on the butt of the bus in front of him, so I must now let two cars in. Just not right! As I'm driving along at 2 mph I can smell the delicious cheeseburger sitting next to me and just as I begin to drool the lanes open up and I am flying now at 50 mph when once again I see brake lights. This time there is no construction just people who don't know how to drive on the open road. I finally make it home after 30 minuts of being on the road. Not fun. It has been proven that it takes about 13 minutes to get from my church to my house and if I was at In & Out Burger it should have been more like 10 minutes.

(In the middle of writing this I had to go and deal with something, I am now back).

All in all, if you plan on visiting the beautiful land of Riverside in the near future... don't! Come in January when most of the construction will be done!!

GOOOOOOOALS!!!!!

Towards the beginning of the summer I posted a blog and in it I wrote that I had some goals I wanted to meet this summer. Well, I'm sorry to say that most of those goals were not met. Here were the goals I didn't meet and the reason why:

Goal #1: Learn to play the guitar

I have wanted to learn to play the guitar for a really long time. I can play the piano and read music somewhat well so I figured that learning to play the guitar wouldn't be that hard. This all would have been great had I not broken my finger at the beginning of the summer. I unfortunately had a splint on my finger for half the summer so my lessons did not ever happen. I would assume it's a bit difficult to strum a guitar when your right ring finger is jutting out straight.

Goal #2: Take a dance class

This was all set to go until my beautiful sister backed out. I was really excited because my sister and I were going to take a Hip Hop dance class (yes, I know I am probably the whitest dancer ever) through parks and rec here in Riverside. She is in Color Guard at her school and it takes up her entire life, especially in the summer. (Grant it her high schools band and color guard ARE going to the Rose Parade in January.)

Goal #3: Write a Play

This one doesn't really have a valid excuse except that my creative juices have not been flowing lately. Everytime I think of something to write about in my head, it ends up being pretty cheesy when I put it down on paper.

Although none of these goals were met I don't feel as though my summer was a waste at all. I did meet some unexpected goals though:

Unexpected Goal #1: I rode a gondola up to and then stood at the top of a 10,000 foot mountain
Unexpected Goal #2: I have made it almost two months without taking medicine for anxiety!!
Unexpected Goal #3: I am starting a visual arts team for the high school students in our church

I would love to meet my goals at the top someday! Maybe I'll shoot to achieve those goals by the end of the school year! We'll see...

A Fly

Right now I'm sitting in the office at my home and laughing at a fly. You may think that I've lost it and I am completely bored, but this might just be the dumbest fly on earth. It keeps flying around and around and running into the mirrored closet doors. You would think that after about 50 times of hitting the closet (and I'm not exxagerating) that it would fly off to someother part of the house. Nope, it's still flying into the mirror. Fifty One... Fifty Two... Fifty Three...

School Begins Without Me

Well, school has finally began again for the students in Riverside. I didn't have to go back with them because I am in the process of taking the CBEST to become a substitute teacher. I resigned from my job of 6 months at Madison Elementary School and I will never have to be a instructional assistant again (unless I have this lingering desire to go back and do that again)! I am sort of excited to sub and sort of not. Here are my fears:

1) I won't pass the CBEST when I take it in October and will look stupid and have to retake it in January or February.
2) I will get bored and lazy between now and the time all my paperwork goes through to actually sub.
3) I will be called every morning at 5am (the butt crack of dawn) and I will be a grouchy sub all day long or I'll pick up the phone and hang it up never getting a sub job ever.
4) I will have to take a TB Test for the eightieth time in three years (really it would only be the third time)
5) I will have to be fingerprinted again and the same lady who took 30 minutes the last time will be pulling at my fingers again and again. (Apparently I have fingers that don't fingerprint well, who knew?)
6) I will not get a job at all and all my precious time and money will be wasted (not to mention the fact that I expelled a lot of brain cells taking a test to be a sub)

Hopefully none of that will happen or if it does at least I'll have already gone over the scenario several times in my head. Until then I guess I will just enjoy my time off and pray that I pass the test!!

Friendships are Hard

I wasn't going to post anything about this, but I feel as though I need to get it off my chest.

Have you ever thought that your life was going pretty good and you had no worries about anything? I felt like that until about a week ago when I went to check a message I had received on myspace. I had received a message from a girl I went to high school with and who I had always considered a really good friend. The message went a little something like "...now that we are mature and older... why didn't you like me in high school?" Now grant it I'll even admit that I have never been the greatest friend to some people, but I thought that after being out of high school for 7 years that I wouldn't have to deal with something like this. Apparently it has been festering with this person for sometime. The one thing that I can't understand about the question she asked me is that I never didn't like her in high school and I have never not liked her. I have disliked peoples attitudes in the past, but I have never even thought that about this person. I am an extremely sensitive person and when I read this it inititally hurt me, then it made me mad and now I have no idea what I'm feeling or what to write back to her. I have been mulling over it for a week and praying about what I should say, but I really dislike confrontation. I obviously don't want to be harsh in writing back and I don't want her to think that I don't like her, but I want her to know that I was hurt by her statement. I guess I'll just continue to pray about it until I figure out the right option.

Book Meme

Okay, I've been tagged by my wonderful husband, Mike to do this Booke Meme thing. Here goes:

1. One book that changed your life: I don't know if this changed my life, but it changed my perspective on dating and marriage. Boundaries in Dating by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: I read books constantly and I read them multiple times. I think it's because I read fast. I have read Roots by Alex Haley about 4 times (you know you've read a book a lot when the cover has fallen off) and I've read all the Harry Potter books twice.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: I would want a book that would keep my interest so yes even though it's the go to answer I am going to say The Bible becasue even though it comes as one "book" it's many books that all have extremely interesting stories. I would probably want The Message version though, just to be able to read it in a modern day language.

4. One book that made you laugh: As You Like It by William Shakespeare. I know it's weird that I can laugh at Shakespeare by just reading it instead of seeing the play, but I studied it so much in high school and in college that I can read it pretty much understanding every word without looking it up. Plus any play is more amazing when you can read it and imagine what it looks like.

5. One book that made you cry: I've cried while reading a whole lot of books, but the one I can think that made me cry most recently was (now please don't laugh) The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares.

6. One book you wish had been written: How to Cook a Meal and Clean Up Without Actually Doing Any Work! I hate cooking and I really do not like having to clean up everything after I've cooked it. If there's a book out there like this please let me know.

7. One book you wish had never been written: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Now I was an English minor in college and I love reading, but this book is the only book that I've ever gotten Cliffs Notes for. I had the hardest time reading it (I fell asleep everytime I opened it up) and I will probably never read it again.

8. One book you’re currently reading: I am reading a lot of books right now, but if I have to pick then it would probably be The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I see it every time I go to the bookstore, but I never buy it.

10. One book you’d like to write: Junior High Drama: On and Off Stage. I have wanted to write this for a while. I think I would incorporate original scripts in it and make it a book for junior high students and maybe give them insight into a few things. I don't know, it's all still in my head. I think I would also like to write a book for wives of youth pastors. I just wish there was something like that out there that I could have read or could read, maybe there is and I just haven't looked. I feel like thenwife of a youth pastor is such a strange ministry to be involved in because there is this hidden thought among parents and volunteers that you are the "lady youth pastor." My working title is: Oh Crap, I Married a Youth Pastor! Now What Do I Do? :-)

Okay, I now tag John Snyder and Stephen Perry. They are the only two that I can find that don't have this on their blogs and I have no idea if they even read my blog, but I guess it's worth a try.

Going Public: San Francisco

I know it's been an extremely long time since I've blogged and I'm sure the two people that read my blog are itching to know what I've been up to. :-)

July was extremely busy for me, including the first week of August. Here's what I did:

After getting back from vacation Mike and I leapt right into Going Public. I was not looking forward to it. You see, Going Public is a Choir Tour/Mission Trip, more emphasis on Choir Tour than on missions in the past (at least that's what I'd been told). I have nothing against Choir Tour, especially since I went with my church all four years of high school, but I was not looking forward to going as a leader on a trip where I wasn't going to have much to do. Yet once again in my life I was wrong and I found that I enjoyed it a ton and was sad when it ended. I learned a whole lot of things on the trip. The first being that high school students are amazing and no one should ever underestimate the things they can do and the difference they can make. I would have to say that the trip in its entirety surprised me by the amount of missions type things we did. About two-thirds of our students were in the city of San Francisco doing things like working at the Rescue Mission, doing manual labor at a church, fixing up a place called Page Street Baptist Center near The Haight District and Evangelism all over the place. I was with the one-third of students that were in the suburbs at Western Hills Church doing a Kid's Club and Sports Camp. I was able to help with the Kid's Club which I love doing and was right up my alley.

I also learned that those punk kids in junior high can grow up to be pretty amazing high school students. As a lot of people know I am not very good with clingy people or students who have no respect for adults or leaders. I had the opportunity to work on this area of my life while in San Francisco. I was put in a room with two other girls, one which thought that I didn't like her because she was such a punk in junior high (and yes she was a very punky, annoying kid in high school) and the other girl in my room is kind of clingy and says things that are very rude most of the time. I was actually very disappointed at first with my room assignment, but by the end of the week I'm glad that I was put into that situation. I'm not saying that these girls still don't do some things that I'm sure will get on my nerves in the future but I look at them in a whole new perspective now. They are both just girls that need to be loved and they need to be told that someone cares about them.

Overall, God gave me a whole new outlook on Going Public and I am definitely looking forward to going next year and making all new memories.

Oh! One absolutely, amazingly, awesome thing we got to do was go to Monster Park where the San Francisco 49ers play. We were able to go to the locker room, the field, the steps (I stupidly ran up thinking I could do it just like the high school students; almost killing myself and/or passing out I'm not sure!), and the press room (media and written).

Smelly Horses

This week we are on vacation with my family and this morning we all went horseback riding in the rain. Yes, on our beautiful summer vacation it rained. Not just a little rain, but we're talking about large drops. Overall it was fun and it was pretty awesome seeing Mike on a horse, especially a horse called Buster Brown. Although I felt sorry for my brother who was behind Mike and Mike's horse kept farting. Above are some pics from our vacation so far.

Student Leadership Conference

As I'm sitting here in beautiful Mammoth Lakes, CA on vacation I decided that this is the perfect opportunity to write a blog about my experience at the Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback Church.

Day1- We arrived at Saddleback after a very short drive. Some of our students were amazed at how close Riverside is to South Orange County. The students played on some of the bouncy blow-up toys and Mike and I went to a Leaders Meeting. The meeting went a bit long and Mike and I were some of the last people to eat while all the other students and leaders started pouring into Tent 2. A bit hectic to begin, but we survived. Doug Fields taught about the Make-up of a Leader and had some really good things to say. After the first session we took our students to the Irvine Spectrum were we rode the Ferris Wheel and Some of us had Funnel Cake.

Day 2- The morning session was excellent with Kenny Luck speaking. His daughter was in my C-Group at Saddleback so it was really cool to hear him speak. We also heard Matt McGill who I'd never heard speak before, but I loved it because he was short and to the point (good for my attention span) and he was extremely real with the students. After the session we met with our team to do this race type game called "Experiential Leadership." We were in classrooms before lunch where the students did some team trivia, human knot, ping-pong drop, etc. After lunch the students in these same teams did an "Amazing Race" (my favorite reality show) type game where the students had to build a pile of sand 4 ft. high, count parking lot spaces and much, much more. In the afternoon session we heard from an event planner from Disneylnd and Eric Rees who is the Pastor of Ministry at Saddleback. Listening to Eric made me regret not having gone to Class 301 when we were at Saddleback. At the night session we heard from Nick Vujicic, who has an amazing story about liiving a life without any arms or legs. He is an amazing man of God who has inspired many people. After the night was done we went back to the hotel and played Mafia with the students.

Day 3- The morning session had a few speakers that didn't really impress me too much so I'll just move on to the workshop time. In the afternoon the students were able to attend workshops given by different people, some from Saddleback others from other churches. I went to Mike's which was okay and I also went with some girls to a workshop about Breaking Down Barriers and beginning a Girl's Ministry. It was good to hear that every church struggles with how they can reach out to all girls. The afternoon was fun because we took our students to Laguna Beach and then to Fuddrucker's for dinner. They seemed to have a good time. The night session was pretty good with the guy from Dare2Share, Greg Stier, who has some pretty funny stories even though I'd heard them before. Also there was Erin Kerr the Pastor of Evangelism at Saddleback. They both had some really good things to say. After this session we took the students to Golden Spoon.

Day4- There was a super session in the morning on Friday. The two speakers were Dee Eastman and Jim Burns. Both which were very good and had some really good things to say. We ended the conference and the session with a time for Communion. It was a very awesome experience. After the conference we took our student to Wahoo's and introduced them to the experience that Wahoo's Fish Taco is. We actually arrived home early.

Overall, my experience at this conference is one I will never forget. It was worth the 3 nights in a hotel just to see how much the students learned and to see the look on their faces when they finally got what Purpose Driven is all about. You can only explain things so much but until a student sees it carried out it won't be real to them. We will definitely bring students to the conference for a long time.

Dynamic Duo Strikes

As you can see from the pictures our 3 month old Honda CRV was tagged yesterday. Some high school girls were getting back at Mike for telling another high school student about them tagging his car in pink and white. To make a long story short, they found out and decided iot would be fun to do it to our car while at church. I do have to say that it's better than getting your house toilet papered or your car like students used to do to my car when we were working with Junior High. It kind of makes you feel loved.

I will be posting about the Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback as soon as I get more time!

Rialto, Subways and Hollywood

Yesterday was aweome, exhausting and something that I'm pretty glad is only done once a year. I took thirteen teenage girls and one adult to Hollywood, CA!

My day began at 4:30 in the morning as I was extremely nervous and woke up at that time and could not fall back alseep. The reason I was nervous is that this was the first ever event I have put together and done by myself minus my amazing youth pastor husband Mike. As you can see this might make one a bit nervous taking thirteen girls to Hollywood (or Hollyweird), CA. We met at the metrolink station at 9am in the morning and our train pulled out at 9:36am. Our ride was pretty uneventful until we told some of the girls that they could get off the train to get a snack at one of the stops on our way to Union Station. Little did we know that the train only stopped for 30 seconds at all stops except our previous train station in San Bernardino. The train began moving and five of my girls were not on the train. Luckily the train stopped as they saw the girls running and they all jumped back on. I was glad we did not lose them in Rialto, although its only like 20 minutes from Riverside. The remainder of our two hour trip was uneventful. When we pulled into Union Station we hopped on the Los Angeles Subway and took the Red Line up to Hollywood and Highland. We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum which was surprisingly not that exciting to High School girls (Junior High girls seem to love it). After this we wandered over to Hollywood and Highland. Some of us went into Sephora and ended up getting free makeovers, which was pretty sweet and I ended up buying $20 eyeshadow (Calypso) which is not normally something I would do, but this eyeshadow is the best. After the girls had their makeovers we walked over to Grauman's Chinese Theater were some girls took a picture with Marilyn Monroe, shirtless Elvis tried to get in our picture(creepy), a tall, caped, one-eyed dude scared Julie to death by growling at her, Spiderman hit on Brianna and there were pirtates everywhere. We then took the Subway to Universal City Walk, shopped around, and had an amazing dinner and Buca di Beppo. Some of the girls thought that our waiter was hot and were flirting with him until they found out he was 24 years old. I thought that was pretty funny! After dinner and a little more shopping we took the Subway back to Union Station. The subway was as crowded on a Saturday night as the Subway in New York is at rush hour. We had a uneventful ride back to Riverside and arrived on time. I think parents were relieved that their daughters came back alive and well from Los Angeles. I did not get to bed until 2am, but you can find out why if you read Mike's blog. Overall it was a wonderful day to get to know students and it made me look at ministry and say, "I'm really glad that I'm not a youth pastor, just a volunteer!" :-)

95 Years Young

A few weeks ago my family (minus Mike) went up to Santa Barbara to visit my great-grandma for her birthday. My beautiful Great-Grandma Mildred Ashley just turned 95 years old and she is one of the most amazing women I've ever known. She is also the most coherent and alert 95 year old woman that I have ever known. She is the mother of 5 girls, the grandmother of 15 grandchildren, the great-grandmother of over 30 great-grandchildren and the great-great-grandmother of 2 great-great-grandchildren. She has lived by herself for over 30 years until the last few months and she still loves the Los Angeles Dodgers (Go Dodgers!!) and knows almost all the players batting averages and facts about them. All this and she just had her little pinky toe amputated. Another amazing thing about this woman is that she is always caring about others and their well being. The women in my family all live to be very old; at one point I actually had all 4 of my great-grandmas alive. Amazing!! I hope that if I live to be as old as 95 that I will even just a little bit as awesom as Mildred Nordman Ashley!! :-)

(The top picture is my daddy and my grandma, the bottom picture is my brother, sister, grandma and me)