Leaving on a Jet Plane

Yep, tomorrow morning...very early in the morning...I'll be boarding a plane to go see my best friend one last time before she heads to Japan. We have lots of fun planned including a book signing with The Pioneer Woman, seeing some sites in Philadelphia, and visiting with some friends back from our college days. Can't wait!

(I have to give a very big thank you to my dad who will be driving me to the St. Louis Airport very, very, very early in the morning. Thanks Dadio!)

Much Anticipated

I'm sure you have all been sitting on pins and needles waiting for an update. Okay, so really there are only five of you that actually read my blog and I'm sure this information will not be new to you. Here it goes anyway.

The camp staff attended our annual camp conference in Ohio. This year the conference was at Scioto Hills Christian Camp in southern Ohio. It was quite a drive out there, but since we each have different plan before or after the conference, we pretty much never car pool. I stopped at my parents' on the way out to break up the trip and spend extra time with them. I'm not going to bore you with the details of my drive to the camp, but I'll sum it up by saying after trying those directions, I bought myself a GPS for Christmas. I was ready to pull over, cry, sleep the night in my Jeep and try again in the morning even though I was only about 10 miles from the camp. Southern Ohio road in the back woods at 10:00 at night are not fun.

The conference was great! It is basically our chance to go to camp. The highlight was Monday, when we all went to the Creation Museum. It was amazing and I would recommend it to everyone! The second highlight was actually the office round table discussion. It was scheduled to last an hour, but since there were so many with questions, we stayed for almost three hours. It is neat to be one of the ones with more experience that can offer help and advice to the new ones.

After the conference, I headed to Terre Haute, Indiana to spend the weekend with friends from college. As always, our time is spent catching up and making new memories. I am thankful for friends that even though we live far away and see each other about once a year, we can pick up right where we left off. Of course, the laughter was great! We had some good news among our group...Mary Ann is engaged! Congrats Mary Ann!

Next, I headed to my parents' house for a week of much needed vacation/rest. Bekah met me there on Monday and it was great to spend some time with her as well. I got to cook most of the week. I love to cook, but don't take the time to do it for myself much...besides, my mom cleans up after me when I cook at her house.

There is a Japanese foreign exchange student at the Christian school at my parents' church, so they arranged for her to come for dinner one night. Bekah made a traditional Japanese meal and had a chance to get to know Miho. Since she is here to learn our culture, she was not allowed to converse with Bekah in Japanese, but Bekah could. She loved hearing Bekah speak and she loved the meal. I have never seen anyone so tiny eat so much! She does not understand Christianity, but I think it helped to have Bekah explain a few things in her own language. Pray for Miho's salvation.

Well, that's it. Hope you enjoyed the update. I'm not feeling well, so I'm headed to bed, but since I promised the update, I thought I should do it first. I hope to write something before Thanksgiving, but if I don't get to it, I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. May we remember to give God the glory for all He has done for us.



The museum has a neat petting zoo. This is Grover.

James seemed to look so much like the monkey that I just had to get a picture.

Dan the rodeo man.

Becky, Mary Ann and Roxi - I bet they are glad I didn't put some of the other pictures on. :)

Paige met us for lunch near an outlet mall. It was good to see her too.

The stove and oven stopped working just before dinner was done. Praise the Lord, the microwave finished it off just in time.

This is how the Japanese say, "Cheese!"

I don't know how to spell it's name, but this was very good and I'm usually a cautious eater.

Illinois Drive

Driving to my family's in Illinois takes a little over five hours. One of my favorite parts of the drive is through Galena, IL. It is especially beautiful in the fall, but I took a few pictures along the way to share with you.

When I was a kid, my dad would often stop here on our way back to Illinois. We would make the trek up this tower and look over the landscape. I really didn't appreciate it much as a kid. I was disappointed when I stopped and the tower is closed.

I took these two pictures from the hill next to the tower. Imagine the view from the top!

I took this picture while driving. (That probably wasn't too smart, but I did live to blog about it.) I especially love this scene in the fall when the leaves are full and colorful. I love how the trees meet over the road. I wonder what they say to each other.

Isn't God's creation marvelous? How can anyone believe this world came about by chance?

Time with Friends and Family

I had a great weekend with family and friends. I took Thursday and Friday off work and headed to Illinois. (A big thanks to Anna for taking the reigns in the office.) Bekah had a meeting not too far away, so she drove four extra hours to spend some time with me. It was really fun to spend time with her. It's wonderful to have her as a best friend, but a bummer that she lives in Pennsylvania and will soon be moving to Japan.

I hadn't seen my brother and his family since Thanksgiving, so I was prepared for a lot of growth in my niece and nephew. They are such fun! Here are some pictures of the weekend.

This was actually our goodbye, but I decided to put it first. I just love those kids.

I gave them these towels for Christmas. Aren't they adorable?

I gave them bubbles, so of course we had to try them out.

I loved this picture of them chasing the bubbles.

I just loved this picture of Ethan.

We decided to try to climb the neighbor's tree.

Yep, even I gave it a try.

I didn't realize until Bekah left that we didn't get any pictures taken together. She will love that I put on this one of her "climbing" the tree too. Love you Bekah!

It was also great to spend some time with my aunt, uncle and cousin. I love you all!

Checking In

I just wanted to check in with you and let you know that I survived Counselor Training. I did end up getting full-fledged bronchitis, but I made it through. God is good!!!!! Every time I needed my voice it was there, or if I needed to not cough I didn't! He's amazing! As soon as I was no longer needed, I did crash though. And hard!

I'm taking today and tomorrow off and am in Illinois to visit my brother (which really means my niece and nephew) and Bekah is meeting me here today too! There is much fun to be had.

I promise to post pictures!

~Savannah~

I'm finally posting about vacation. It was so much fun to spend some time with Bekah and meet Trina. We spent a couple days in Greenville, SC before heading to Savannah. In Greenville, we went hiking at Paris Mountain. It was absolutely beautiful.

Our favorite sites in Savannah were The Lady & Sons, Davenport House, Old Fort Jackson and a tour on Old Savannah Tours. I would recommend a trip to Savannah to anyone!!!

It rained almost the entire time in Savannah. Good thing I bought an umbrella while there.

Did I mention we got a free limo ride? It was the first time in a limo for all of us. Quite fun!

Back to the Real World

Well, I'm back from vacation and back to work! It was a great time and I'll post some pictures and blog about it in detail later.

I got back last night just before 6:00, which was about two hours later than it was supposed to be. My flight from Minneapolis to Mason City was cancelled and they wouldn't have been able to get me home until today. Well, that wasn't an option, so Michelle and Barb (staff wives) came and picked me up.

More to come later...

Vacation!!!

Some of you have asked where I'm going. My best friend, Bekah, is on deputation in the south, so I 'm taking a week off to enjoy some time with her. I fly out of Mason City on Sunday and head to Greenville, SC.

We will spend a few days in that area and then we will head to Savannah, GA to spend a few days there as well. I think our highlight will be going to Paula Dean's place, Lady & Sons. If you watch the Food Network, you will know who she is. We also plan to see some historical sites as well.

If anyone has any other suggestions of what to do in Greenville or Savannah, let us know! I'll post some pictures when I get back.

Road Trip

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a road trip, but it certainly was a fun weekend. First on our trip was my friend Sabrina's wedding. She was my secretary for two summers at IRBC and I love her dearly! I had the joy of being the wedding coordinator, so I carried a clipboard and got into my organized mood. It was a beautiful wedding. Great job, Sabs and congratulations!!!

Next on our trip was a deputation meeting for Bekah. We headed to Prairie Flower Baptist Church in Washington, IA. We had a great time with the Pastor and his wife and the church people as well. There are probably five families in the church that are regular family campers attenders, so it was fun to catch up with them. It was especially neat to see Bekah do her presentation. I look forward to the day when I'm visiting her on the mission field of Japan.

We probably shouldn't have taken this picture while Bekah was driving, but it turned out pretty good and no accidents!!! On the way back home, we stopped in Waterloo to go to Olive Garden. It's my favorite restaurant and this is the closest one. Since we stopped there, we didn't make it back in time to go to my church, so we stopped in Charles City. I grew up there, so it was pretty neat to see everyone.

Bekah and I had so much fun, we decided we have to do a road trip again sometime.

Bahama Mamas

I recently had the experience of a lifetime! My parents celebrated their 35th anniversary and decided to give an extraordinary gift to their children. They took my brother, sister-in-law, me and my best friend (Bekah) on a Southern Gospel Cruise to the Bahamas! It was absolutely incredible. Here are some pictures to make you all jealous! (Although we did come back to a blizzard with the worst driving conditions I've ever experienced. And I did come back and have to spend half the next week in bed because I got sick.) Many of my friends teased that this would be when I met a man. Well, I will have you know that almost every man on the cruise was older than my father. So I may have met a lot of men, just not ones that I would consider my type. I prefer at least some hair or hair that isn't white. Thanks Mom and Dad for such a wonderful time!!! I love you!



We looked pretty hot during the lifeboat drill. All those old guys were wishing they were 30 years younger!

This is our cozy group at the captain's dinner. Left to right: Scott, Jamie, Bekah, Me, Mom & Dad. We are quite the lookers!

Our passports are in order - I promise!!



My brother joined in the evening show put on by the waiters at dinner. Go, Scott!

Paradise!