DNOW 2010

we survived DNOW 2010 and it was incredible!! 930ish middle and high school students spent their weekends playing, laughing, and learning about how LOVED they are by God and many lives were changed! so amazing. here's what the church service with students plus leaders, co-leaders, and host homes looked like:

i guess we've already outgrown our new space because there were tons of kids sitting on the floor! awesome sight. and my small group got to stay at alton brown's house, nbd. he wasn't there, but that was probably be good because i get really starstruck and awkward. but it was weird to look around and see his wedding pictures and stuff! my girls had a great time, aren't they so cute?!

i'm taking the day off because coordinating that many people is a lot of work and i'm pretty braindead and sleep deprived! a little dvr watching, jazzercising, doggy snuggling, cookbook searching, mama jo's hot chocolate, and finishing up some mentoring homework. what's better than a random weekday off?

and a little update on ricky...he woke up at 4am yesterday morning in a lot of pain. he twisted his ankle on saturday (story of his life) and was okay saturday but yesterday couldn't even walk. the doctor said it was a really bad sprain and if it doesn't feel better in about a week then we'll need to see a specialist because there might be ligament damage. hopefully it will heal just fine because ricky has had enough surgeries already!

we've messed with texas

july has been a month of work hard, play hard! by the end of the month, i will have been in my office a total of 9 days (some of them half days). i love that so much of my "work" takes place out of the office!

july began with a bram fam lake vacay! somehow took zero pictures which is really unfortunate because there were some amazing rednecks there! including my banjo picking dad :). family + large body of water + food = the perfect formula. ricky was bummed that we missed out on the shoji tabuchi show in branson.

ricky headed to dallas straight from our vacation and has been working like a maniac ever since! he was able to come home this week to recover for a couple days and will be home for good in a few short weeks! but he's really enjoying it!

our dallas mission trip was amazing!! it was a little bit warm in texas and behind the scenes, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, especially with the buses, but whatever, our students were awesome and loved on kids the way that Jesus does! i was so proud of them and we had so much FUN! God did amazing things in and through students and leaders alike. it was my last big trip with the 8th graders, but i'm working hard to avoid that thought.

k-state represent!

and a little puppy update...penny got spayed this week and she does not like the cone of shame! but she's really cute! i love being a crazy dog lady!

winter retreat

this one time, we took 80 middle schoolers to an indoor waterpark in gatlinburg, and they all got folliculitis. awesome.

so glad i stayed out of the water.

summer adventures!

wow, this summer has been so much busier than i anticipated, but better than i had hoped! i thought i'd post a recap, since i just never seem as caught up with friends as i want to be!!

we kicked things off by moving into a new house and gaining and endless to do list of fun and not so fun projects. a couple of days later i got to take kids to camp up in the mountains of chattanooga, one of my favorite trips yet! i loved that once i got there i got to stop being the assistant and just got to hang out with our students. here's a picture of the wonderful group of leaders i got to work with:

i got to go up to nc to visit libs, check out her new digs (yeah. i'm a poet now), and find her stunning wedding dress! highlight of the weekend was definitely just sitting outside a coffee shop with her just being us. laughing and crying and making absolutely no sense to anyone but each other.

then it was off to the ozarks! ricky's first trip to one of my favorite vacation spots ever. it was an awesome few days with the bram fam, including a pontoon boat that was driven more like a waverunner, go carts, fishing, the best view to a fireworks show we will ever have, fireworks with my brother (always an adventure!), and listening to my dad's commentary on the bachelorette. totally worth the 24+ hours in jolanda the honda. but i totally failed at taking pictures...oops.

in the meanwhile, i got paid to go to six flags and go rafting with teenagers, we celebrated a ton of family birthdays, literally pulled trees out of our gutters, dog-sat a normal sized black lab for a couple of weeks, and had some fun times with friends. the next big thing was the middle school mission trip to dallas! what a week that was! 105 degrees everyday while we were doing vbs outside, but the little kids were so precious (ricky is so lucky i didn't bring any home) and it was incredible to step back and watch our students reach out to them and love them. lot's of cool "God moments" as we called them. i was a little better about pictures for this one:

after a week of getting close to no sleep on an air mattress, i was ready to be home! i got so lucky and missed the bus ride back to atlanta! thanks josh and katie for getting married on the 18th so i could avoid that misery! we had a blast spending time with all of ricky's best friends and the wedding was beautiful!

we wrapped up the summer with a long weekend in jacksonville, relaxing and getting beach time with some friends. it's been a great summer, probably my favorite outside of my yl summers! but i would be a big fat liar if i didn't admit that we missed young life camp every single day! i'm convinced that nothing holds a candle to it. we're so blessed to be near family, friends, jfbc, sweet tea, & the sec! we're counting down the days until football starts, until we get to travel back to our arizona family for jeff's wedding, and until libby's big day! no sign of life slowing down, but we're loving it!

it's official. longest. post. ever. and somebody's demanding my attention.

reloaded

i had my first big event with johnson ferry yesterday! it was a LONG day, but so fun and worth it! we had 526 students there for some back-to-school fun, worship, and a chance to win an ipod touch. it was funny to see 6th graders and 12th graders in the same room. middle school kids are CRAZY, this is going to be fun! i'm having a blast in the youth house, too, there's always something going on. it reminds me of the lost canyon office...always one of my favorite places to hang out at camp! and we're going to sharptop in january, i'm excited to get my young life fix...i don't think the addiction will ever leave me :).

and libby comes to visit this weekend!