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I am (was) at home in Lynchburg for the night to hang out with the family and have my birthday dinner. I figured i would write on here real quick since my mom told me she almost said i couldn't come home unless it said something other than fall break at the top of my blog :-D. I guess i knew what i was getting myself into by starting one! haha

The week went by fairly quickly, just a lot of rain and pretty cold.

Tuesday night was the Young Life banquet, an annual fundraising event. Parents of kids involved in young life, people from the community, and a bunch of others are invited and it's a great dinner and lots of fun. Mamma and daddy were able to come to it which was really fun.

Club on wednesday night was great, about 60 high schoolers there. We played "Eat that food" in which everyone stands in a big circle, and when the music begins they pass around a brown paper bag with an unknown food inside. When the music stops whoever has the bag in their hands must come to the middle of the circle, take out what is in the bag, and take a bite of whatever it is (an onion, a pepper, potted meat, baby food, chocolate bar, etc). The person then returns to the circle with the food in the bag, and then another bag is added to the circle. We played until there were six bags going around i think. I led a game in which two guys laid on the floor, and two girls stood on a table above them, and whoever could make the prettiest ice cream sundae in the guy's mouth won. Lots of fun :-D

On friday night some of our friends had a halloween party at their house. We dressed up like snow white and the seven dwarves :-D. We had lots of fun. Saturday night was great having all the family over for dinner, Amy and Michelle were there too. Then Greg took us out on the town in Lynchburg, exciting huh? WE had a really good time though, we went to Mudpuppy's and then to B Dubs (Buffalo WIld Wings).

Now it's the start of a new week!

Fall Break!

This weekend was JMU's "fall break" which consisted of no friday classes.... half of us don't have friday classes ever... oh well. We took the opportunity to take a house trip down to the outer banks to stay at Michelle's cousin's house. It was a great weekend of relaxation and time together. We took two cars down on thursday, i was in the second which got down there around 11 thursday night. we pretty much went straight to bed, most of us had been up really late the night before and had long days on thursday. friday we took our time getting up and moving, making breakfast and then watching part of a movie. we went to the outlet mall (a tradition when visiting the outer banks) for a while on friday afternoon before going back to the house to enjoy the beautiful sunset and make some dinner. we played cards and enjoyed each other's company. saturday was much of the same, with a trip to the beach in the afternoon. the house we were staying at is on the sound side, collington harbor to be exact. the weather was absolutely beautiful, there was actually a wedding down the beach! on saturday night we went out to dinner at this great place called the black pelican. all of the food was delicious and going out is always fun. on sunday morning some people got up to enjoy the sunset (i was NOT one of those people, big surprise right? :-D). we packed/cleaned up slowly and the first car headed out around 2ish. We all stopped in york county at amy's house for dinner which was so fun. i had not seen her family/been to her house in a while and it's always great being around them. the weekend was JUST what i needed, and i think it was good for everyone to be out of harrisonburg and have nothing to do for a few days. the sleep was definitely very nice.

this week is going to be pretty busy. Tomorrow night is the Young Life banquet and my parents are coming up for that which i'm really excited about. Then on wedensday is Club, then i'm heading home on saturday for the night, which i am looking forward to!

...30 minutes later...
my team just came by (midnight) to celebrate my birthday with root beer floats and streamers :-D. they're pretty great. i now have a multi color happy birthday banner in my room and purple streamers wrapped around me. couldn't get much better, right?

well i'm off to bed after an eventful night!

just quick

hey everyone, i WILL post soon. we just got back from our fall break trip to the outer banks (SO fun). i will write probably tomorrow! goodnight.

awesome

hello all! we had club last night and it was SO fun! we really felt like the Lord showed up and blessed the whole night. there were about 60 high schoolers there, five of which were black (pretty accurately representing the diversity at spotswood), how awesome is that?! The games we played were really fun. we started off with a tape war; everyone is split into two teams, one with masking tape on their back, and the other with duct tape. whichever team removes the most tape from the other teams' backs' wins -- VERY high energy! then two girls got to lather up a couple guys faces with shaving cream and throw cheese puffs at them. then we had a piece of plexi glass with oreos stuck on either side and a boy had to eat the oreos off of one side while a girl had to eat them off of the other side (not using their hands). Each week some of us do a funny skit, but this week we had three of the senior boys do one. THey did a poetry reading that was really funny, and it was really exciting to have them particitpating in an up front way. i gave the talk, and i think it went pretty well. i talked about the temtaption of Jesus in Luke 4 and how we think of Jesus as this goody two shoes a lot of the time who never dealt with anything and can't have any idea what we're going through. but, this passage shows us that he DOES know what it feels like to be human and be tempted to do things we know we shouldn't. This shows us that God is not/cannot be dissappointed with us when we are tempted, but rather it is our reactions that are important. I could go on and on about how fun it was! It was a great night.

I am very glad it is the weekend and very ready to catch up on some sleep. I'm hanging around harrisonburg again this weekend, probably going to a tractor pull at the fairgrounds on saturday :-D. Next weekend is our fall break, which shouldn't really count as a break at all because all we have is friday off... but most of us don't have class on friday anyway. oh well. But, we're going down to the outer banks thursday night for the weekend, so that will be really fun.

Oh, and here's a picture of sarah and me trying to look tough in our BDUs:

I wish my room wasn't so hot...

October 8th 2007 : 90 degrees
October 9th 2007 : 91 degrees
... i am NOT ok with this...

It is supposed to cool off wednesday and then more on thursday, so i'm just waiting for the end of the week!

In other news, if any of you who read this have not heard the new chris rice album, you should listen to it : www.chrisrice.com/music.php (you can listen to previews of the songs). The title track, "what a heart is beating for" reminds me of working at trail west this summer. Seth, the video intern, knew someone and got this song before it was released and it was on the video each week. It played during the footage of the families climbing to the top of the continental divide. what great memories.

It is crazy how far into the semester we already are... this is our 7th week of classes, we only have like 8 more. INSANE. I have yet to come up with a topic for my seminar research paper. if anyone has been thinking about a problem associated with the office of first lady, please, let me know :-D.

This weekend Kim Mascher and Emily Wade came up and visited for a night. They are both planning on going to London next summer with www.BUNAC.com (which is what i'm planning, too). So we talked about that, and made fun plans and we're so excited!

A class that has been really interesting and informative is my Media and Politics class. It has really made me aware of how influential the media is, and how much power they really do have (when it comes to politics). The huge media conglomerates choose what we see/hear/know about. The media is supposed to serve as a watchdog over our government, and to keep us informed. But, these media outlets are owned by people interested in making money and instead of being responsible to the public, play to advertisers and sponsors. This of course paints the media in a very poor light, and may have some big implications, but as informed individuals we are aware of varied ways to get our information. we do not have to solely rely on television reporters, or newspaper writers, but can look to a variety of information. This is just a brief overview of one of the many topics we talk about in class, all of which i find very intriguing.

Oh, and i went to a class at UREC (the on campus gym) yesterday. we did about a catrillion lunges and i am SORE

I Love Fall!

Hello!
All has been well in Harrisonburg this week, great weather, great weekend, great people! I love fall weather with warm sun, cool air, clear skies -- perfect! We had a great weekend at the Soupbowl. On friday a couple of us went to Blue Hole, a local swimming hole just a bit out of town. The sun was really warm but the water was really cold :-D we jumped off the rock and didn't spend too much extra time in the water. Friday night was our annual "prayer blitz" for leadership where we break up into groups and go to each of the ten school campuses where young life is in harrisonburg and spend time praying for that school, the team that leads there, etc. Then i went with a few others from my team to the Spotswood football game. it was their homecoming and we watched the homecoming court out on the field, most of which are kids we know/come to club. The guy who got crowned king is one of our key guys at club and who is really on board with us this year -- awesome! i also know the girl who got queen, along with the rest of the homecoming court.

This weekend was parents weekend so there was a bunch going on around town on saturday, but we layed pretty low. we had a cookout on saturday night with hotdogs and burgers and then of course a bonfire since that has become our nightly ritual lately :-D On sunday we went to Mel's soccer game after church and then some of us went with the guys across the street to play some ultimate frisbee. So we got to spend a lot of time outside enjoying the sun this weekend!

I am leading Campaigners in the morning. Campaigners is a young life gathering for kids who are ready for more of a bible study atmosphere than club. Club is supposed to be the outreach facet and campaigners is where the key kids come to get built up and sent out to reach other highschoolers. I am basically giving an overview of the tools they can use as campaigners/christians. I am using Acts 2:42 which says "And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of break and the prayers." The tools being learning God's teaching/seeking God's word, fellowship, and prayer. Then we have club tomorrow night. Oh, and daddy is coming to harrisonburg for a meeting tomorrow so we get to have lunch! And, Sarah and i get to go paintball tomorrow for our military lab :-D woohoo!