blog time.

yep.  it's blog time.  

it was nice to actually be able to run today.  i haven't been able to do like any physical activity for two weeks due to that cold previously blogged about that i just never got over.  note to self....decongestants can help prevent ER trips.  i think i'm gonna die this weekend though at the tournament....i'm pretty out of shape!  

but i am pretty stoked about being able to go skimboarding at isle of palms.  i really want to drive down, because my car is like this freedom to me.  it means i can leave.  i means i can go.  if i don't want to do something, i don't have to do it.  i absolutely love having the ability to just...leave.  escape.  my car.  love it. 

not only did i lose the ability to run for two weeks...but i couldn't sing either.  not that i can sing good, but thank goodness that God doesn't care about what i sound like, just the condition of my heart and it's little passion to sing.  speaking of hearts...i'm reading this book by andy stanley about my heart.  it's gettin me pretty bad.  my heart is somewhat out of whack.  it's not broken, it's not cold, and it's not hard.  it's just....not where it needs to be.  i'm gonna go into the heart stuff in a later blog once i finish this book, because it's pretty revolutionary!  

dale is back.  gotta love that guy.  and sprinting to catch his touchdown passes is better than peanut butter m&ms.  also...ryan.  what an incredible friend.  and blair and lauren.  wow.  and lauren dubbleya.  what a goofball.  and the guys i live with.  ashleyking txt msgs. and just the people i know are my friends out there....i am so blessed by friendships!  so many crazy awesome friends.  also...blessed by naps.  and skeeters animal crackers.  and a bunch of nice things.  and FINALLY THE DETERMINATION TO GET UP EARLY IN THE MORNINGS!  man have i had some wonderful mornings lately.  lovin it.  

found out from lauren tonight that she's helping my sister get ready for the pagaent...katy, i didn't even know you were in the pagaent.  mom, dad, i'm going to have to start requesting email updates on the 8's, just like the weather channel.  mall people watching was incredible friday....and listen to this.... i felt so crafty.  i was sitting outside barnes and nobles while everyone was inside, cause i just wanted to chill for a sec, and i had sierra mist in my backseat.  and i mean i was just in a complete state of chill and enjoyment, and i was thirsty. but the sierra mist was warm.  so i go in...ask for a cup of ice, come back out and enjoy cold sierra mist.  i felt like a genius.  when ryan came back to my car, i proudly told him of my heroics.  he was proud of me too.  that was like....one of those moments for me.  lately God has been filling me up with joy at random times, and i'm loving it.  because it overflows when it's from God, and it just spills out.   i try to go to big crowds when i'm like that so when the light is shining brightest it's shining like a city on a hill!  i usually stand on tables and juggle.  just kidding.  but you guys know what i mean.  jobi is trying to sleep now.  and me writing this blog is keeping me from keeping him up!  

mmhmm

i'm sitting in a slightly disorganized room eating a fruit cup in cheez-it pajamas.  i'm thinking that it's kinda yucky outside, thank goodness someone just called to tell me my lights were on in my car, i wanna watch a movie and go to sleep.  and my tooth still hurts from the filling.  and you know what?  it's time to start doin my time with Jesus in the MORNINGS.  that means i gotta go to bed sooner and get up a loooot earlier than i'm gonna want to get up!  

school is not being very friendly to me right now.  at the start of this semester, i wasn't putting forth much effort, and that was starting to get to me.  now, i AM putting forth some effort, and school is absolutely beating me up like a 3rd grade bully!   on another note, william lyon is addicted to halo.  i mean, i haven't seen this kind of addiction since the halo days of high school.  i'm really enjoying being a part of stone bridge church...there are some really cool people there and God's definitely up to something.  i found some fellow skimboarders on the ngu ultimate b-team!  and they are pretty good.  we were out skimboarding in some of the puddles tonight.  well....i was under the caf deck watching them because wet+coldness+an actual cold = pnemonia for chris brank. but it was fun watching robbie earle skimboard for the first time. ...  ... and fall.  

and now...i'm going to start reading a book.  life without facebook is fabulous.  i realized half the time i used my phone was to check my mail, and 75% of the reason i checked my mail was because i got facebook notifications.  so now i don't use my phone as much either, and this is the first time i've sat at this computer for this long in a week!  and it's only been like 15 minutes!  so now i'm getting off because nathan needs my chair for william, jobi, skeeter and nathan halo time.  i think i'll crawl in bed.  my tooth still hurts.  

it's about that time

wow.  it really is about that time to write a blog again.  the main reason i'm writing this blog is to say that i'm gonna get away from facebook for a while.  why?  because...

1.  it just consumes a lot of my time.  i don't think just limiting my time on it would work for me.  i mean, that works for some people, that's cool.  but i'm just gonna cut it out, and if i do come back, i'd like to do it for the sole purpose of encouragement.  not to try to get a date or impress people or gain popularity by having a million friends, but for the sole purpose of connecting with people to encourage them.  but in order to do that, i've gotta get away for a while.

2.  i don't want to have friends that are just my friends on facebook.  i mean the kind of people that i only talk to on facebook and not in real life.  i'd rather get calls than messages, i'd rather get calls than wall posts, i'd rather get calls than texts, and i'd rather actually talk to someone in real life than all of those combined.  in this crazy 21st century culture we live in we've somewhat lost REAL connections with REAL people.  like face to face.  and we've lost it to AIM, texts, facebook, myspace, etc.  i want something real.  and i think the people in this generation want it as well.  they just don't know it!

3.  i would consider myself faithful to facebook.  i check it pretty much everyday.  i get emails sent to me with notifications, and i can check them on my phone any second of the day.  that's faithful right there.  guess what i'm not faithful about?  God's word.  prayer.  hope.  faith.  i want the faith and the hope that Peter talks about in his first letter, i want to be filled with inexpressible joy!!!!!!  facebook can't offer that, but man sometimes i was trying to find my encouragement and happiness through that site.  

also, this weekend, i'm gonna turn off my cell phone!  i'm gonna let my parents know when i arrive and when i leave, but it's going off.  i want my entire attention on what God is doing here and now.

let me just say i have some absolutely AMAZING friends.  real ones.  that same letter peter wrote says "now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart."  that's incredible.  and God has placed people in my life that love me like that.  i want that kind of love, and i believe everyone does, and i want to offer that kind of love.  and i want to offer it face to face!

not a long one.

so let me start by saying that there is this group of teenagers on the campground that don't actually know what my voice sounds like.  i've done so many voices, that when they ask me to do my real voice, and i do, they don't believe it's my real voice.  they think i'm making my real voice up.  that was really the sole purpose of writing this blog, i just wanted to tell you guys that.  other than that, only two more days left here!  i am officially all by myself for the next few days!  except for punky and larry and wiggles, who have all become my best friends this summer.  speaking of punky...i am currently uploading all of her pictures.  so go check them out on my facebook!  also coming soon...my skimboarding photo shoot today!!!  woohooo!

true love and pirates

this....is crouton.  my friendly car puppy.  he's been with me through thick and thin, and he's always there smiling at me and happy to see me, no matter when i get in my car or what i feel like when i get in my car.  good ol' crouton.  the love of crouton and ice breaker sours in the Ford Contour spread throughout the summershine staff this summer !!

anyways, today is pirate day, and it has absolutely been amazing.  wanna hear what's happened so far?  i got up, ate cinnamon toast crunch, got treasure hunt stuff ready, and at 9:55...there was no one there.  in the next 5 minutes, 30 something people showed up!  30-40 is a normal crowd, but there was something special about today, they were just cool kids.  then i finished the last fun finder activity schedule with what my life will revolve around for the next 8 days, and printed out around 400, took lunch, handed out water balloons, watched while the inspectors CLOSED THE WATER SLIDES because one of the ladders is too close to one of the slides.  hopefully this matter will be revolved in the new few days, cause i honestly like the slides.  the kids love them, and that's one of the easiest ways just to get to know the kids and the campers and to learn their names.  so after doing lots of random things that needed to be done, PIRATE GEAR BINGO at 2 o clock happened, and it was one of those random activities i make up sitting at my desk cause it sounds fun, and it was AWESOME.  i wrote off some awesome pirate stuff, and we had like 30 something people come out to that too.  and we've just got a great group of families here right now!   

 

unfortuately.....right now....it's storming.  we're under a deadly lightning warning from now until 10 o clock tonight!  so we had to cancel the 4 o clock sandcastle building / skimboarding lesson activity.  which is a REAL bummer cause i know a lot of kids that were exciting about skimboarding, and i know a lot of chris branks that were pumped about skimboarding too.  but....hopefully it won't rain out the pirate parade tonight, because i'm pretty sure the whole campground knows about it, and i'm pretty sure every camper on the campground has a bag of 50 water balloons that they are going to specifically ambush me with.  how do i know?  they've told me, the little sneaksters.  anyways, corie and diana left at 445 this morning. i set my alarm to call them and i was like WIDE awake and i know it had to sound over the phone like i was on  one of those youth-group lock in caffiene highs that you get at like 3 in the morning!  

want to know the most awkward thing in the world?  there was this girl that came to s'mores last night, and when i handed her the toppings i could have SWORN she was wearing a true love waits ring, right?  but she jetted before i could ask, cause i love asking people about cross necklaces and true love waits rings and stuff like that.  (side note...every church group that's come in this summer..i've asked them if they really love Jesus or if they just rented the van.  no one's rented the van yet.)   so anyways i was handing out those bags of water balloons today and her and her friend said they'd like to be ambushers for the ship, and i saw the ring again and i asked if it was a true love waits ring.  and she said ".....uh, no.  it's just a ring"  and her and her friend kinda looked at me with that kinda "that was kinda a weird question" look, and then i realized, hey, that is a weird question, and i was out of there quicker than a couch potato in gold's gym.  no, ok, not that fast.  but HOW AWKWARD!  never ask that question to anyone.  because if they don't know what in the world you're talking about, that IS a really weird question.   cole had said the other night that he saw a true love waits ring, and that the girl was like drop-dead beautiful, and he said he wanted to go up to her and say "hey, it can stop waiting.  i'm here."  but of course...he didn't.  cause we're not like that.  ok enough on that subject.  i'm gonna upload some more pics to facebook.  yay rain.  

well, here's for catching up!

yep, not gonna do it!  not gonna try to catch you up on everything that has happened over the past like 2 and a half weeks, because the days are packed, and there have been WAYYYY too many things that have happened and to try and blog it would / could / possibly take up WAYYYY too much space in your HTML browser.  

so i'll start with today!  i got up this morning, ate Cinnamon toast crunch, and just chilled for a while.  i probably showered.  went to walk wiggles, my wonderful neighbors dog (punky and larry, who are phenomenal.)  then i went skimboarding for a little bit, and it was just bad.  i mean where the campground is on the island, there are actually PEOPLE so over time there gets to be a real bad slope down to the water.  so it's not so much fun skimboarding in front of the campground cause you just kinda go down right into the waves, even if you try to go sideways.  and if you're not real good at catching waves yet, well, the waves just kill you!  my foot suffered quite an injury today!  so i went back in, helped diana write off some candy bars for candy bar bingo, ordered tie-dye stuff, called the kayak guy because like 20 people signed up for the tour tomorrow night!  i just got some of diana's pictures onto my computer, i crashed on punky and larry's couch for a while with wiggles, and in 25 minutes we're doing flag football on the beach!  woohoo!  and then..... after flag football....

we are going to ocracoke for staff night out!  there's only 5 of us left now....so we can all fit in one car...and we're taking the hummer.  WOOHOOO!!  punky let me drive it up to outback with the staff a few nights ago, and we drove through the worst storm i have ever been in...in my life.  it was CRAZY.  we have videos.  anyways, came up with a new song today.  i really enjoy songs that are like 2-3 minutes long.  i think this fall i would like to release some kinda EP with some of these songs ideas.  cause some of this stuff is fairly cool, and usually by recording it opens my eyes to crazy ways to improve the stuff.  only 10 days left on the island!  and no, it hasn't gone by fast.  it feels like i've been living here for about 3 and a half months!  i'm super excited bout going back to school and giving up to God the things i need to give up and let Him lead and see how He uses and leads me.  

can't promise i'll blog again before i leave, just know that it's going absolutely amazing.  it's time to wrap up this mission and prep for the next!  

ahem

ok so here are just a few thoughts running through my head at this point in time.  enjoy!

-man.  the dark night comes out tomorrow.  is it worth an incredibly fun road trip 2.5 hours up to VA to see it in IMAX on one of my days off?  quite possibly...yes.

• -bottlecaps are one of my favorite candy.
  
• -fries are just not that healthy.
  
• -new skimboard rocks.
  
• -maybe i'll upload some facebook pictures someday!
• -pirate day activities ...pancake breakfast, pirate day power nap, pirate day write this blog, treasure hunt, pirate day make 500 copies of the fun finder, pirate base building on the beach, followed by staff skimboarding, followed by pirate day grab a super fast dinner, followed by fill up 400+ water balloons for the pirate parade, then pirate parade, then random other pirate things that need to be done till pirate day bible study at 10:30.
  
• -air conditioning is great.
  
• -i need to find my radio.
  
• -mike is weedeating outside my window and it keeps messing up on him...it's loud.
  
• -wiggles is my favorite dog on the outer banks.  
  
• -i almost have the entire "dooley" song memorized.  if you dont' know what i'm talking about.....
  
• -PLEASE WATCH THIS
  
• -that's becoming my all-time fav. song.  
  
• -all my clothes are clean
  
• -yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
  
• -(i was trying to scratch some dirt off of the y button)
  
• -i just found the bullet button so i guess i don't have to put the - before the sentences now.
• i am definitely ready to see my family in about a week!  YAY for vacations!
• forrest has push-mowed for like 10 hours in the past two days.  
• diana is like a machine, except a really nice one.
• tiffany has an awesome new haircut and contacts!
• chris fell asleep at the lost colony, and it made me incredibly happy to know that guy was relaxed. 
• corie is developing perseverance like nobody's business.
• cole's parents and sister and her husband are coming today!  woohoo!
• jasmine is a hardcore funzone worker, and she reminds me of goofy.  idk why.  
• mandi got hit in the head with a golfball.  and she's one of the coolest girls on the planet. on a scale of 1-10, she'd be spectacular.
• me and courtney got to eat supper together last night, and i tried one of the waves breakfast wraps, and i didn't know it had avacado, i don't even know what that is but it's gross, and she laughed at the face i made.  she's learning even more that she realizes.  she'll probably realize that later.
• kelli is like a breath of fresh air. 
• i miss jacob, and anne-marie, and ashley, and ryan AKA thelma, and i miss lauren bryant even though she never actually made it out here.
• if i forgot somebody i'm gonna kick myself in the shin.
• i am super excited about being a part of Stone Bridge Church!
• getting plugged in there with the music and youth and video and whatever is just...yeah...exciting!
• my musical wishlist for the fall is growing.  i think it now includes a banjo.
• God's turning my worries into ways I learn to trust, and it's cool.
• ok i'm done!