As promised...

I mentioned before about my friend Sarah (AKA Smiller) coming to visit LA and I would put some pictures on from that weekend...well, here there are as promised. See how much fun we can have Smiller...don't you want to move back? :-)



Sarah, Karisse and me...We stopped at the tree lot to visit Karisse (who was working there) after church.


A California Must...there's just something about In-N-Out. For all of those non-Cali people, this restaurant has pretty much has the best fast food hamburgers (in my humble opinion)...


Ode to the home states...I was wearing a Minnesota t-shirt, paying homage to my dear friend, Smiller, and while we were shopping, she found one that had Florida on it.

Traditions

Merry Christmas! I hope that you all had a blessed day and enjoy the time you have with family and friends. I am sure there are traditions that you have for Christmas time, whether it's going to someone's house or how you exchange gifts. Whatever it may be, those traditions seem to bring comfort, knowing that things are the way they always have been. It gives a sense of steadiness in your life even when things around you are always changing.

My family has a few traditions that I know will never falter, like getting to open one gift on Christmas Eve, and knowing that the gift will ALWAYS be a set of pajamas. There is really no surprise about it and that's OK by me. Just as long as I get my pajamas.

In the past few years, we've added something new to our Christmas "festivities"...we have had Christmas morning in a hotel room. I know that sounds kinda strange and maybe not exactly ideal, but in all reality, it's not that bad. It usually means that we are having Christmas at someone's house that has so many people over that there isn't room there for our whole family to sleep (at least comfortably). And I figure if you have to stay in a hotel room for Christmas morning, it's not difficult to stay in a room like this one.

There was a regular sized room with the beds in it and then through the connecting door, there was a living room, dining room and kitchen. In total, the living space was as big as 3 hotels room side to side. And the bathroom definitely deserves mention as well...the tub was HUGE! I don't know the diminsions of it exactly, but the picture gives you a bit of a clue.

Sister Fun Day

Each time I come back to Jacksonville to visit my family (usually twice a year), Maurine and I spend the day together, doing various things and just enjoying each other's company. The highlights of the day were going bowling and making pumpkin bread.

















I'd like to say this was a strike, but I will admit I am not the best of bowlers. I didn't do to shabby...









...but it helps when your competition is only 7 years old :-)

Most kids want to go to places like Chuck E Cheese's for their birthday. Not my little sister who turned 7 years old yesterday. Her tastes seem to be a bit more expensive, as she choose to go to Red Lobster to have crab legs for her birthday dinner. And here you can see her diligently working on cracking those crab legs. I can hardly believe she is 7 now...she's grown up so fast. Sniff sniff.


Here's me, Maurine and my older sister, Andrea

The count down has begun (in hours)

I am leaving for Florida in roughly 33 hours and 20 minutes (ok, so it's not really "roughly" but more "exactly"). I am looking forward to being home for almost 3 weeks, to get to spend time with my family for Christmas (and some time before and after as well!)

O Christmas Tree

When you go out to buy your Christmas tree this year, you can now put a more familiar face to your wonderful person that helps you sort through trees and pick out the perfect one for your family. You can picture me...

Every December, our YWAM base sells Christmas trees at a local lot, and the staff are the ones who work out there. I was on the schedule a couple days ago and my poor unconditioned muscles are still reminding that I am glad that we only sell these trees once a year. These trees are not light by any means, but you get kinda used to it after lifting 50 trees. We put bowls and stands on them as well, so I am now an expert at using a chainsaw. I can cut one straight stem if I do say so myself. We were out there from 8 am until 10 pm and sold 365 trees in the one day!

The nights get awfully chilly...well, down right cold if you ask me...so we have to be sure to bundle up. So I went out to the thrift store to buy a warm jacket that I don't mind getting messy. I found this huge orange puffy jacket that just made me laugh looking at and I look utterly ridiculous in it, but it kept me warm. The jacket was dubbed two different nicknames (not exactly the most creative, but very descriptive): 1-Orange Marshmellow Peep Jacket and 2-The Michelin Man Jacket.

There is a picture of me standing next to one of the trees that I put together and delivered to the house. It's a 6 1/2 foot Noble Fir, which are my favorites...


(for some reason...
probably my ignorance...
i can't get this picture to
post right side up, so
please bear with me and
tilt your head to the side
to see it better...thanks...)

Blast from the past!

So this past weekend, my good friend Sarah, more affectionately known as Smiller, came to visit LA for a few days. She and I did our DTS together, traipsed around South Africa together, and for two years were support for each while on staff here at the YWAM base. We did a lot of firsts while we were here together, like cooking our first turkey for Thanksgiving last year (only to find out after we were done that it was only a turkey breast instead of the whole turkey). We learned how to drive a stick shift car (which provided me with some of the most side splitting times of laughter that I can remember ever in my life). She moved back home to Minnesota at the middle of the summer and the place just hasn't been the same without her. It was such a good time of catching up, getting to talk in person and just hanging out together. I will have pictures coming soon! I miss you Smiller!

Deck the Halls...

This is Amy, another staff member, and one of the most amazing students, Susie.











Me with some of my favorite neighbors, Pete and Kizzy.




















This is me between two lovely ladies...Brooke on the left and Karisse (a fellow Floridian and Flagler alum) on the right.










Two of my housemates, Jodi (l) and Alicia (r)




It's not very often that we get to dress up around here, but every December, we have a base Christmas party and so last Friday night, we all got to pull out the sorta fancy clothes and had a good time.

The leadership team serves all the staff and guests, which is nice because you can just find your seat and then relax and have someone wait on you. A nice treat. And we always have a talent show with various people, some with amazing skills and others that just make you laugh.

Our table found a lot of joy in pelting things at each other, all in good fun of course. it started out innocently enough, with candy wrappers and such. But it quickly progressed into candy still in the wrappers (not exactly fun if you get hit in the head). At one point, I even enlisted the help of a 2 year old to walk up to his dad and throw a roll at him. Of course the father then turned his son around and had him toss it back at me. Oh, the fun of getting a kid to do your dirty work!

All in all, it was a good night...lots of laughs and time spent picking up our mess afterward!