tadpoleing and marshmallow feet.

i don't know what it is.

but i just do not feel like writing sentences and paragraphs and stuff.

so i just upload videos.

i think it might be that i have been on summer break for 3 months now.

im entering the last month of break.

here we go august. let's make this a good month.

please enjoy this video of alisha, ellise, and cayla hanging out at the canyon crest town center tadpoling in the little stream.

seriously. i love summer and the random things that happen.

and here is another video.

this is a game we played at jr high youth group.

i feel like someone should make some sort of fear factor/amazing race/wipeout for 12-14 year olds. i know it would be entertaining.

seriously.

summer camp.

Last week i went to jr high summer camp at thousand pines.

i had a blast. i learned so much. and my team won the recreation competition. (go stealth strikers!)

i had 11 crazy girls in my yurt. (a yurt is dome shaped tent thing. think parent trap.)

please enjoy this video of my girls beating each other up.

now, make a fist. slowly ease it up underneath your chin.

when i was in jr high the cool thing to do was to go to the mall with your bff find matching shirts, buy them and then go to photmakers to get pictures taken. 

you could get 50 wallets each for 20 bucks or something.

then the next day you go to school and pass them out to 50 of your closest friends and write something sentimental on the back like "hey gurlie, i am sooo glad we r friends. stay sweet. don't ever change. love rachel."

found this photo while cleaning my room. i think that this is me in 7th grade with my friend eleanor. well i mean i know it's me and eleanor, but im not sure what year. 

you got to pick the background and the color. if you were a ba you would get flames, but we simply chose the cosmic blue background. sometimes they would put random pillars in the background. and the fist under the chin was a must.

jr high camping trip.

just got back from the jr high spring break beach camping trip. with a grand total of 51 7th and 8th graders. 

they are an energetic, wild, and crazy bunch. seriously the weirdest age group out there. well, i guess the 80 and up crowd can be entertaining at times. (side note, my grandmother sent me a text message yesterday.)

we played a lot of ninja, which is a bunch of fun.

and the weather was beautiful. i guess it rained a little but in the night, but i slept right through it. 

:]

bible book marks.

today at youth group a jr higher gave me a picture that she had drawn.
this jr higher has a mad-crush on one of the boys in the youth group.
but she swears she doesn't.
also, she swears that this is not a picture of that boy.
but this cartoon boy bears a striking resemblance to her crush.complete with little 12 year old mustache.
seriously this is why i love jr highers.

so after she gave it to me i of course stuck it in my bible to use as a book mark.

which got me thinking about the other random pictures and sentiments i use. that is a picture of nationa, one of my girls from louisiana.
i recently put her picture on my bulletin board, but tonight i decided to put it back in my bible.
this is a photobooth picture of me and my friend lauren from probably 6th or 7th grade.
our moms dropped us off at the mall and we purchased matching roxy shirts and then took pictures at photomakers.
i dont know how this picture got in my bible, but i like it. that is an add for "friends with diverse abilities" toys. I remember seeing it in a catalogue in louisiana one day when josiah and i were going on facebook or somehting and it made me smile so i ripped it out and stuck it in my bible. possibly the only legit bookmark, merrick gave this to me the first night i met him.
i dont know the story behind this or anyhitng. i just thought it looked cool.
but i think the fabric might be from his stay in india this past summer.

so that is all.

oh another thing.
i need to learn how to forgive.
this is something i am struggeling with.
i am sorry.

i guess i am honest.

friday night we had our jr high leader christmas party.
its always fun to hang out wiht the other leaders, becuase even though i see everyone pretty much twice a week, we are always around a million 12-14 year olds.

so we had an awards ceremony. some serious awards, some joke awards, and some very awkward awards. and i mean awkward.

i got "the most honest award"
so if you need an honest opinion i will tell you mine, and i wont sugar coat it, basically.
i think that's a god thing?

also this weekend i started to embroider.
i looked up a few different stitches and made this little tree. it was fun. kinda took a while.
i think next time i wil use a pattern instead of free handing.
so there it is: my tree and my award.

ugly awkward days.

in jr high i had terrible style.
on one hand im really glad i don't have many pictures from that stage in my life.
but on the other hand i wish that i had some proof of how ridiculous i was.

lets start out at the bottom.
i had about four different pairs of these doc marten sandals. they were pretty comfterable and i thought i looked ba in them.i also had an obsession with matching my shoe laces to my outfitt.
me and my bff ashley were crazy. between the two of us we had ever color of the rainbow so, for example, i would call her up and ask if i could borrow her bright orange ones to match my outfit that day. and we would lace them a different way each day. i hear there are books out there showing 1000s of ways to lace your shoes... i could have written that book.

did you notice that i said bright orange laces to go with my outfit?
that is becuase i had 7-10 different pairs of dickies pants in a wide assortment of colors.
haha.
oh man.
did any one else do these things? or was it just me.

jr high

I am starting my third year of helping with the jr high at the grove.

and i love it!
seriously jr highers, they are stuck in this crazy time of childhood colliding with young adulthood.

one of the is having her 12th birthday part this saturday, and i am so excited!
we are kicking off the celebration with a mall scavenger hunt and then we will go back to gina's house for a makeover/fashion show!

and the invitation is a cell phone!!!!!!!


Who's jealous that they didn't make this guest list?

back from camp

summer camp was awesome.

i was with kristin in cabin 15. we had 11 crazy sweet 7th grade girls.
i am so excited to watch them grow and mature these next two years.

chuck bomar was the speaker. my girls learned so much from his teachings. this might sound negative, but they truly amazed me with how much they were able to grasp. when i first looked at the topic for the week i thought that it would b over the heads of my 11 and 12 year old girls. i thought they needed something more practical about how to live, what to do, they needed more life application. man was i wrong. so wrong. i also learned a lot through chuck's chapel messages.

parachute passing lead worship all week. they did an awesome job. seriously the seminar they did on worship was my girl's favorite. and maybe all of the girls counselors have crushes.

i found it!

tomorrow im heading off to jr high summer camp up at thousand pines.
im pretty excited.

especially because i was originally not going to camp, but then i got a phone call wednesday asking if i could because we are taking up wayyy more kids than originally intended. (86 or something crazy like that).

but i am still not fully unpacked from louisiana.
i started cleaning my room. i filled two trash bags with old clothes for the goos will.

and i found my ipod!!!!! i havent had it since april. i thought i lost it at the beach, turns out it was in a bag in my room all along.
:]

i have no idea what to bring to camp. jackie said, "just bring everything you own." and i kinda want to listen to her. because you never know when you will need something.

the begining of freedom.

i kicked off my spring break with the best kind of party you can go to... a wedding!!!!!!
kimie cook is now kimie klawer. and i still dont know what to do, should i change her name in my phone book? (yes i have first and last names entered in my cell)

their wedding was beautiful. it really excites me to think about them spending the rest of their lives together. i really know that they love each other but more importantly the both love Jesus. their wedding really was awesome because Christ was the center, and if you want to have a successful relationship that really is the only way to do it. EEEE!!!!! congratulations mr and mrs klawer!!!!!!
(this is a picture from when we camped out at the mo val chick fil a opening.)
kimie you really should start blogging.

after the wedding i freed the gold fishies in the fortuna fountain. im just waiting for my suspension now. because that is probably breaking some rule. but im pretty good at rule breaking. then me and nik went to drew and johnie mac's apartment and we hung out and had some friendship.

saturday i went out to dinner with the fam for jacob's 16th birthday!!!! for his birthday ate meat! after practicing vegetarianism for about a year he gave it up. so we got to go out for steak!

then i watched a movie with janai and holly. it was nice and relaxing.

today i went to junior high and daniel talked about job and how crazy his life was, yet he still continued to praise the lord when everything was falling apart around him. not to sound lame or anything but i really identify with this. it has been a hard year and i still know that God has a plan for my life and He is the only reason for doing anyhting. its hard to remember that everything i do need to be a reflection of Him working in me. but im trying.

then i walked with holly and bryce to cvs to buy popsicles. i realized that i love popsicles. i watched a movie, started to pack and walked to subway with holly for dinner. jacob came over and we went to sandals together.

now im at home watching some antm.
and i still have a whole week of spring break left!!!!

30 hour famine.

tomorrow i will be partisipating with the jr highers and high schoolers at the grove in world vision's 30 hour famine.

the whole event is to raise awareness about the 30,000 children who die every day due to preventable causes. its also a great learning experience for the kids (and leaders) as we dont eat for 30 hours and in this time experience a little of what our brothers and sisters live with every day.

leading up to the famine we have been doing a 30 day challenge. we have been fasting from something different each day (tv, internet, a jacket, comfort, people...).

it has been sweet. i have been learning a lot about materialism.
it just seems like God really wants me to get this point: stuff does not matter. at all.
this concept that is so contrary to the american dream has just been all over the place- the passion conference, chapel, and conversations with friends.

i really want to live radically but i dont know how to do this. especially in a "christian bubble" at cbu where i am surrounded by "christians." i really struggle with this.
let me try to explain: so i know people who are really strong in their faith but then they are totally driven by money. like i know their relationship with god is real- but then why are they no different than the rest of america? and i see everyone around me living in the lap of luxury so isnt it alright for me to splurge on some awesome gadget? or another movie? or a five dollar drink at starbucks?

i have tried several times to simply cut stuff out of my life. but its hard. especially when i am surrounded by crazy amounts of advertising everywhere i go. and i always seem to find a way to rationalize spending my money on something stupid.

so basically im excited. i know i can only grow more from this weekend.

the refuge idol.

so tonight at junior high we had an awesome lip-sync contest. amazing.

jackie, heather, and i threw together a last minute n*sync song. bye bye bye. we were alright.

kristin, emily, and hailey rocked the house with fabulous from high school musical 2. hilarious.
then some jr highers won in the costume department in my book. there pokemon outfits were spot on.

the top dog winners of the night: love shack! these girls practiced.
stevie and daniel brought a tear to my eye with their heart warming rendition of breaking free.

so there were so many highlights.
question: when do you get to see your pastor dress like a girl and sing a hillary duff song?
answer: as often as you like. daniel bishop, you are on the internet.

i gave into peee pressure.

(the title should say peer pressure. but i thought peee was funnier so i kept it.)

tonight jackie heather and i went to a show at chain reaction.

the higher
the matches
sherwood

17 dollars for the tickets
free dinner at el pollo loco from jackies grandma.
sweet night.

as far as the music goes... not to sound stereotypical or anything, but-
i loved the matches old stuff so much more. e von dahl killed the locals is far superior to decomposer. they totally sold out.
(sam from the matches last spring)
sherwood was more fun when they used to decorate the stage with flowers. although the massive amount of bubbles were a nice touch.
(joe and dan from sherwood last fall)
the higher was fun. insurance is a fun song. i decided i am a fan of hair. in a variety of different ways. i just like hair.

but now im back in the cottage and i have homework to do. homework that i really should have done instead of going into anaheim.
and we need to put a lip sync together for junior high tomorrow night.
and i want it to be good.
invitation: anyone who wants some cheap entertainment should go to the refuge tonight. lip sync competition. pizza. junior highers. 6:30.
:]