Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time, I started a blog. I really did intend to keep up with this blog, but alas, life got overwhelming and this poor blog became neglected for several months. But the time has come to begin anew, and from henceforth I shall do my best to try to keep up and even make my life seem a little interesting. :-)

This summer was absolutely CRAZY, but I'm so thankful for all of the awesome opportunities I've had. I've been working full-time, going to school for my Master's, AND I took on an internship with the youth group at my church. Not gonna lie, it was a bit stressful, but soooo worth it! Now that the Summer has come to an end, my internship is over and (insert celebratory trumpet sound) I've FINALLY graduated with my Masters!!!! Oh happy day, I never have to go back to school again! The feeling is incredible, although I have to admit, it still hasn't quite sunk in yet. Now all I have to do is find my perfect job...

On to my FAVORITE part of the Summer...youth group! It really is better the second time around. :-) I absolutely LOVE working with all these kids. They're incredible, and often teach me far more than I teach them. God has seriously been so good to me giving me such an opportunity to get plugged in in this way, and now I don't think I can possibly ever go to a church without serving in such a capacity. We've already made such wonderful memories together, but instead of boring you by typing it out, I'll go ahead and post some pictures. Prepare for youth group awesomeness!

I got to know all these wonderful girls on our missions trip to Chicago. They are each so uniquely gifted and it was awesome to see all of those gifts be used during our time there. Love these girls!

We all also got to know all of these wonderful kids during our time there. We spent the entire week doing VBS at a local homeless shelter. After we left, new groups came in every week and continued running it all summer long. I'm hoping and praying that these kids come to know and understand the love of Christ, and I'm so thankful that God used us to bring the message of the Gospel to them!
The last couple of days we decided to dance during rec time. I am STILL bummed I missed this (I was teaching missions during the time). Here the kids are teaching the girls to two-step. So fun!

I might just have to have a separate Chicago post. There are so many pictures and so many stories to tell! So I'll move on...to the lock-in! We began by playing a rousing game of Eat That Food.

Here's my really really ridiculously good looking cousin, Calvin, demonstrating the size of the GINORMOUS crickets that they had to eat. Don't worry...only one actually ate it. Calvin did at least eat a leg, though.And here's Fawver nearly losing it after eating who knows what. Crab chips? Dried anchovies? We pretty much played dodgeball for the rest of the night. It seriously didn't get old. I love this game.

Next up...Junior/Senior retreat in Kansas City. Not many came, but me and these two lovely ladies had an absolute blast! And we of course couldn't go to KC without having some delicious barbecue. Thanks Jessica, for sniping such a lovely picture of your brother. :-)

There's more to come, but I think this is already a lengthy enough post. Plus, it's getting pretty annoying having to drag each individual picture from the very top to very bottom. There's GOT to be a simpler way to do this! And here I thought I was becoming techie...