colorado

i had no idea how to pick 10-15 pictures from our mission trip to colorado out of the 600 that i took! :) you can look through way more pics on facebook, but i posted some of my favorites. colorado was awesome, and watching the kids of our youth group step out of their comfort zones and minister to the kids in montrose and olathe was worth all of the drama and complications that this trip entailed. it was a blessing for sure!

this is a view from the bus window making our way to colorado...beautiful!


on the way to colorado, the kids sang at the palo duro canyon in amarillo. they did such a great job! we had a good time watching the texas play and eating a steak dinner. it was a nice break in the long drive.


once we got to colorado we were split into three groups. the largest group stayed in montrose and did vbs at rosemont baptist church. that church was amazing. they fed us all week, and were the most wonderful hosts ever. another group went to a trailer park, also in montrose, and did a vbs outdoors for the children there. i was able to meet some of those kiddos when we distributed flyers in the neighborhood before the week began...they were adorable. the third group, my group, went about 10 miles north to a small town called olathe to do a sports camp. we planned to have cheerleading, basketball, and soccer. the first day we arrived it had been raining a lot so the soccer fields were soaked and the basketball courts were non-existent, so we did cheerleading for the 4 girls that came. the others in our group helped around the little church doing yard work, cleaning, painting, etc. it was not what we expected or planned for, but it was fun and a lot of work. here is a picture of most of the olathe group on the first day, including our guests, breanna, angel, hope, and paige. love those girls!


one of the projects we did while in montrose was working at the salvation army. it was overwhelming, but a lot of fun! here is a picture of some of our guys on the top of a HUGE pile of clothes bags...


one night, for fun, we went to a nearby reservoir to have dinner, play, swim (in 40 degree water), and just hang out. i took this picture from the playground, just looking over at the mountains. could you imagine seeing these views every day of your life?!


here is a picture of the little church in olathe where our sports camps was. as you can see, day 2 was much more sunny!


we were able to play soccer, which made me happy! :) i am not much of a cheerleader. haha!


this is one of my best buds, kristen, with a girl from olathe, summer. these girls loved our youth and enjoyed hanging out with them so much! it was a blessing to see kristen really open up and minister to them. she did a great job, as did all of the kids. we ended up having about 9 kids/teens showing up throughout the week at olathe, still a very small group, but it was such a blessing. these kids dealt with so much, including poverty, homosexual parents, disabled parents, suicide, prison, all kinds of things that many of our kids could never imagine dealing with. they all learned so much from each other!


one night we went to the trailer park where one of the vbs camps was and the students did their concert. some of our youth performed their drama that is soooooo good. it deals with a young girls who struggles with sex, popularity, self esteem, money, drinking, and suicide. it is very emotional every time i see Jesus pull her through that mess and bring her to His arms. they did a great job!


this is paige, one of the two girls that accepted Christ into their lives at olathe! she was so excited and we partied with her and breanna after their big decision. kristen and taylor were able to talk with paige and the Holy Spirit used them to lead her to Christ. such a great experience for them!


another project we did during the week was picking up trash on some main roads in montrose. we did these projects split up middle school and high school. when the high school did their project, we went white water rafting. so fun! and then we switched the next day. the middle schoolers collected about 450 lbs. of trash!!! we were proud of them.


the last night of the trip, all of the three groups got together at rosemont baptist for a block party and end of the week celebration. all of our friends from olathe got rides to the church, and we were so glad they made it!


the students all took turns working the inflatables, face painting, food booths, petting zoo, etc. the kids had fun and the students worked really hard!


brett and haley hanging out with one of the students. our buses had gone to the trailer park and picked up the 50+ kids that had attended all week and brought them and their families to the block party. it was so much fun!


this is a picture of what it looked like the night we all said goodbye. this little girl was from olathe and she really attached herself to jenna. she did not want to say goodbye. jenna gave her her sunglasses to remember her! :) all our of students had found at least one kids that they really connected with, and there were lots of tears on both ends when it was time to leave. lots of them exchanged numbers and addresses to keep in touch. there was more of a connection than i have ever seen on past trips like these. they affected our students as much as our students affected them. such a blessing to see!
i hope we get to go back to montrose some time soon. i will miss my friends in olathe and i love every time one of them texts me...it makes me feel like God has used me to impact lives more than i ever thought possible. amazing what we can do if we surrender to Him!

testing

So I am trying this out. I added this app to my phone so I can post while I'm on the trip. Hope it works! :)

i'm alive!!!

yes....it's true! i'm alive.

it has been soooooooooo long. and so much has happened! i want to start blogging again, but there's no way i can catch up, so i will hit some highlights:

- i started my master's program in library science (i'm going to be a librarian!) and i love it! i am 1/3 of the way through the program.

- my daddy is doing great and has had no complications since his stroke. praise God!

- i lost 30 pounds, and it was hard!

- i seriously almost live at the church, because josh and i are here nearly every night doing something with the youth, but we love love love it!

- in august, josh and i are going to the UK on a mission trip with 15 other adults from the church...will write more about that later.

- i leave friday for montrose, colorado for a mission trip with a youth choir...can't wait!

- hmmmm...everyone and their dog is having babies! seriously, amanda, rebekah, kelly, brittany, lindsay, samantha, and the list could go on and on. it has been fun having little ones to hold a lot lately. and three of them are my cousins, so our family is growing! :)

that's all i can think of now...but i'm sure i will think of more. i will post prayer requests for our colorado trip, and hopefully i will figure out an easy way to blog from my new iphone, so that i can update you on the trip.

thanks for being patient with me, and gently reminding me that i haven't updated in over 6 months! :) i appreciate those of you who care enough to read about my life...i'll try not to let you down again! hahah! bye!

seriously blessed

ok....so again, i'm a horrible blogger, but i just wanted to share a blessing with you all.

last friday, my daddy had 2 strokes. he was home by himself and called my mom, who could not understand anything he was saying. 5 minutes later when she and my sister got there, he was beginning to recover. he had lost the ability to speak and lost movement on his right side...arm, leg, face...the whole she-bang. by the time to ambulance got there, he was getting better, and then he had the second stroke. he was very blessed that the EMT guys were there and could control his movements and reactions. they rushed him to a stroke center in rosenburg, about 15 minutes away, and took care of him right away. josh and i and trav and rebecca were there about an hour later, and we got to see him in the ER right away. by the time we got there, he was laughing, cutting up, and seemed normal to me...as normal as my daddy can be! :) it was such a blessing for me not to have to see him the way my sister and my mom had to. i am too easily stressed out!

they put him in a room and about 20 different doctors came in and out for 2 days making him tug their hands, touch his nose, smile, blah blah blah. i'm sure he got so sick of doing all of these things over and over every hour, but the blessing was that he could do them all each time. each doctor and nurse seemed amazed that he had had a stroke that morning, much less two strokes! he has no permanant damage or lasting after effects from his strokes. God is so good!

please keep praying for my daddy though. his blood pressure is very high now, and he is having to take meds, which i don't think he likes doing. he also is supposed to be on a low sodium diet now...ugh. but he is doing great and seriously has no problems after the strokes. hearing so many horror stories of strokes, i was so scared, and also so relieved and excited when God protected my dad from these things.

i just wanted to share this blessing with you all and encourage you to recognize all of the blessings that God brings to your lives. also, thanks so much for all of your prayers and phone calls and everything last weekend...i have wonderful friends and family. love you all!

:(

i'm a horrible blogger...just wanted to throw that out there!!!

other randomness...

for my graduation gift, josh had the flower bed done in front of the house and it looks so good! plus he got a crate murtle tree to fill in the huge whole in the flower bed where a huge oak used to stand.

here's another angle...

and for our anniversary we got rocking chairs! i have already been told that we're like a couple of old people, but we love them. since it was our cotton anniversary, i had to buy chair pads to make it anniversary appropriate! but i love them...if you're jealous and want some, go to rockingchairs.com, they have a ton!

viva las vegas!

ok so now that our vegas trip was like a month ago...i thought i would share! no seriously, i got to travel to las vegas with our student choir in june, and it was amazing. we drove, which took two days each way, so all and all i was away from josh for 9 days! that part of the trip was horrible! but we had a great time. we did vbs/sports camps for 4 different churches, we prayer walked, canvased neighborhoods, the kids sang a lot, and we did a block party at one church when we first arrived. it was such a blessing to see the kids minister to others all week long and watch them come out of their shells to do what the Lord asked them to. our fun day was on thursday before we headed home on friday. we went to see the hoover dam (boring), went to the stratosphere, and went to see blue man group that night. the latter two things were amazing, and we had such a fun day. here are a ton of pictures. believe me, it was hard enough to narrow it down to this many from the original 550 or so!!! i know, i'm rediculous!

the happiest day of jenna's life...personally, i found the blue men very freaky. but the show was amazing, and i would definitely recommend it to everyone!

4 crazy sponsors! although most people seemed to forget that jenna and i were sponsors.

the hoover dam...although it was boring, it was very pretty

Jenna, Ashley, and Jenna Ashley...isn't that cute?
two of my favorite girls...

this is the group that i worked with all week at a park for renaissance church. we did soccer, basketball, crafts, and music. we met a ton of cute kiddos and had a blast playing with them each night.

the kids sang at a library one day, and the kids that watched them were part of a music/liberal arts camp. they were amazingly talented and we were able to see them preform as well. definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me.

i feel like i spent most of my trip with these girls. love them!

my room! i had such a great group of girls in my room. they made my first year as a sponsor very easy and fun!

kevin, julie, caleb, and daniel doing the Bible story...they did a great job

we played the silly face game a lot, and daniel (on the right) always won the award for the greatest faces!

the kids singing at the block party at nellis baptist. we met such great kids that night and had a blast. our kids played, served cotton candy, popcorn, burgers, face painted, and just really made the event fun for the church and guests.

this is the stratosphere. there are 3 roller coasters on top of it, and i rode them all! they were so fun! the needle on the top is kind of like the dungeon drop from astroworld, but it's 125 stories in the air! awesome!

my beautiful girls! i will miss them so much when they promote up to 8th grade in the fall! :(

the first and last night we went up on a hill that overlooked the city. the preacher of one of the churches explaineed to us the importance of seeing all of the millions of lights surrounding the city, and not focusing on the 5 miles strip of lights that make up the strip. when we got to vegas, the strip was the only idea that we had of the city, but when we left we had stories to remind us of all of the other lights that represent families and people that need the love of Jesus!

this is where we stayed...university of las vegas

that's it! hope you liked them!

oklahoma

we had an amazing weekend. we drove up to oklahoma to see our very good friends, the kersh's and the hollis'. we got there late friday night and stayed the night at the hollis'. saturday morning we headed over to micah and sunny's. it was so good to see them. we had not seen them since last summer at jeremiah's wedding, and had not seen the kiddos since our wedding, two years ago. creed and rinn had grown up so much and were so fun to hang out with. jude, the newest member of the fam, was sick most of the weekend, but was adorable none the less. they adopted him from korea this year, and he is the sweetest, cutest little guy ever! even though sunny was 100% convinced that i came there to tell her i was pregnant and i had to let her down ...craziness...i think the weekend was perfect! we hung out there all day saturday, and had fun just playing with the kids and chatting. we did get to experience orange tree...a yummy frozen yogurt place in town, and it was delicous! sunday we went to church with the hollis' and got to see micah lead worship! he is by far one of my favorite worship leaders, and it was good to hear him sing again...so talented! that afternoon, after some yummy hideaway pizza, josh and sunny and i went to see a movie. that night micah went with us and the hollis' to red rock, where wade waits tables. it was so good and a beautiful place. yesterday we shared a yummy breakfast with the hollis' and wade's girlfriend, and of course, dana! all the way from russia! i love her so much and it was a blessing to get to hang out with her on skype and talk a little. she will be home soon, and i can't wait! here are some pics from the weekend...enjoy!

josh and i listening to creed and rinn read freckleface strawberry. before that we got to hear rinn recite hiccupotamus...cutest thing i've ever heard!

beautiful rinn

jude...with his huge smile. we got to see this quite a lot the last day we were there. i was very glad for that, and i know sunny was too!

mommy and jude

me and rinny

all three kiddos. crazy talented energetic creed. sweet loving smiley rinn. and drugged out jude! haha...just kidding, poor guy!

creed and rinn did many creative shows for josh and i. this is charlotte's web. rinn was the goose!

rinn in her adorable ballet outfit

josh and creed with their card creation

cutest boys ever!

thursday night, before we left for oklahoma, travis and rebecca took us to an astro's game. although they lost, our seats were sweet and it was fun to hang out with them. pray for them. they just bought a house and should be moving in july! yay!

our seats were right behind home plate on the 2nd deck. i'm pretty sure we almost got hit by a ball like 3 times. close enough for me to hide anyways!

trav and rebecca

great great weekend! can't wait to see my friends in oklahoma again soon. thank you wade and marlene for letting us stay there. your house looks amazing and it was wonderful to spend time with ya'll. micah and sunny, love you so much...always a blessing.

good night!

i finally did it!

well, i finally graduated! it was a really really long time coming, and it feels great to be finished. i graduated friday from university of houston with a degree in english literature. after seven years of college and four schools later, it is hard to believe i am finished...well, with that part anyways. i have applied to sam houston state university to get my master's in library science, but i have not heard from them yet. anyways, here are some pictures of graduation weekend. the pictures from inside the pavilion were all very dark, so i left those out. i also didn't have any pictures on my camera from my party on saturday, but niki posted them on facebook, so check those out.

me and my oh so supportive hubby...he's the one that convinced me to walk!

my best friend, so glad she came. niki and her mom and sis all came to cheer me on. i thought that was so so so sweet.

josh and i at my parents house that evening.

my great grandma. she wasn't able to make it to the long boring ceremony, but she was there to congratulate me that evening at my small family party. love her! :)

my amazing parents

my wonderful parents-in-law :) they also came to cheer me on, along with my sis-in-law nikki and vicki and jeff...thanks you guys for all the support!

my favorite 2 little grads! this is the only picture i got from my party on saturday...but it's a good one!

saturday night and sunday josh and i redid our little half bath. we painted and got a new mirror, picture, light fixture, and some other little stuff. i think it turned out great!

before...

after...yes, it's purple!

that's it! oh, please keep praying for my pappaw. he is back in the hospital. he has an infection in his spleen and is in lots of pain. and also pray for the desouza family. maura, their daughter, passed away with cancer on tuesday. she was only 22 years old and had an awesome heart. praise God she is in heaven today, but pray for her family as they heal. thanks so much!