Team Illg!

If you would have gone to the Triathlon in Ogallala yesterday, you would have seen this crazy team of family members walking around. This is starting to become a bit of a yearly family get together. It started with just Mom and Robin, now it has grown a little and is expected to grow more. Breaking down the teams a little more... 64: I ran, and Momma swam and biked. (She was going to do the whole thing, but her doctor said that her hip was too messed up to run. However, swimming and biking is actually good for her hip. She is expecting a hip replacement soon.) 58: My Momma's cousin Robin did the entire Triathlon! She did amazing. I call her Aunt Robin even though she technically isn't my aunt. 122- Darwyn biked. (He is Robin's Dad.) Jim swam. (He is my Mom's uncle.) Jackie ran. (She is married to Darwyn.)

Jackie and I get a long quite well. She is a lot like my Grandma. Saturday morning, we were looking at old pictures of my Grandma from when she was a teenager. They held them up to me and had me smile, meanwhile, every jaw in the room dropped. "Holy cow! She is a blonde version of Brenda! (Insert Illg laugh here.)" Ahh the Illg laugh... Friday night before Syd came over, all of us were sitting in the living room talking before we had to make supper. This happens every time all of us Illg women get together. People start yelling at each other across the room, making everyone else talk (and laugh) louder, and then we some how all end up doing the Illg laugh at the end. And then the entire process starts over again. It's just the way my family is. Another thing that always goes down when the Illgs get together is a big drinking fest. My Aunt Jackie walked in the house with a fairly large box full of alcoholic beverages. This annoys me to no end. After supper, we were sitting in the family room talking about plotting Grandma and Grandpa's 50th Anniversary next year. Sassy Uncle Jim practically yelled, "What about booze? Annastazia can provide that!" I rolled my eyes at the half drunk man, "That is illegal Uncle Jim, and you don't need anymore." As Jim, Judy, Jackie, and Darwyn left Grandma's house on Friday night to go to their hotel, I yelled at Uncle Jim, "Hey! No more alcohol for you tonight, Mister! You need to be able to swim in a straight line tomorrow morning." He thought this was funny and continued to stumble out the door.

The Triathlon was a lot of fun! I was able to talk to a lot of people that I had not seen in a long time, as well as joke around with my family about how bad we were all going to do. I waited until Mom was about half way through her bike ride to start getting ready to run, but I got distracted by talking to someone. I just happened to look over awhile later and see Mom coming around the corner, ready to enter the exchange zone. I ran over to the area and helped her rack her bike. She pinned the number on my shirt while I strapped on the ankle timer, and then I took off. I was feeling good for the first couple of blocks. It was quite enjoyable. I was trying to count the blocks to see how far I had gone, but I forgot how many city blocks made up a mile. It's easy to tell how far I have gone when I am running at home because each section is a mile, but city blocks have to be all complicated. I started getting a strange pain in my ankle. I couldn't figure out what it was, and then it popped into my head. A couple months ago, I was talking to Evan's Mom and she said that she did most of her half marathon training on gravel, and when she got to the actual race, her joints killed from running on the cement. I thought she was crazy. If anything, gravel would be more rough to run on. I was wrong. I finally made it to the turn around spot, but as I was looping around the street, I rolled my stupid ankle. I. Am. So. Clumsy. The run back was way worse. I only had to walk for one block, so I was happy about that. The last three blocks were the worst, but thankfully I finished.

In Sunday School today my friend Carlie looked at my arm and asked, "What happened???" I looked at my arm, "Oh, my number didn't quite wash off from the triathlon yesterday." She giggled, "I thought it was a bruise!"..... I rolled my eyes, "Yes, Carlie, because most bruises are in the shape of the number 64." And she calls me the dumb one...

By the way, I successfully made it through the entire weekend with out any of my friends hearing my Illg laugh. Mine isn't as bad as Jackie's or Mom's, but holy cow, it is annoying. Syd was so mad that she didn't get to hear it, I was relieved.

Car Problems... Yuck.

I swear all things that have to do with vehicles hate me and are out to get me and make me look stupid. This morning I got in my little jackwagon car around 6:30 to go to softball conditioning/weights/batting practice/band/dance team practice. I pushed in the clutch and put it into gear, but as I pulled forward, I heard and awkward scratchy/screech noise. At first I thought that I had run over the gutter pipe thing, but as I got out to see what it was, I was a little shocked. It was the dog's water bowl. It is a big metal one  about the size of my tire, and it was wedged up in there. It took me forever to get that thing out. I had to claw off tons and tons of clumps of mud and dirt to loosen it. This made me late, so I didn't get a full warm up in before I had to go run deathly relays for softball conditioning. After weights, I got in my car and drove to the other side of the school for band rehearsal. After rehearsal, I went to take my flute, piccolo, and "Flutist Friend" (or as Syd and I used to call it "Flutist Enemy") out to my car before Dance Team Rehearsal. My friend John was parked in front of me, so we were walking together. I asked him to hold all of my stuff while I got my keys out of my Roo. He said something snotty like, "As long as I don't have to hold your stupid fanny pack thing." Some people just don't understand the "Roo" trend. They are glorified fanny packs, but they are very practical. I love mine, and I use it all of the time. Anyway, so I couldn't find my keys in my Roo, then I look in my window. My keys were sitting right in front of the shifter where I had left them. I started freaking out. My mother had the other set of keys, and she was an hour away in Beatrice working at the hospital there. AAA wasn't an option because my parents haven't added me to the plan thingy yet. Thankfully my wonderful Grandmother was on her way into Syracuse to pick up Izzy from weights. Bless her heart, she drove all the way to Cortland (15 minutes north of Beatrice) to meet my mother to get my keys from her and then drove all the way back to Syracuse to give them to me before Dance Team Practice was over. I was so embarrassed.

Fireflies

Thursday was almost a perfect night. It wasn't too hot, but it was warm enough. It wasn't humid, but it wasn't bone dry. We anxiously awaited the sunset so that we could light off fireworks. Gregory had a nice bonfire ablaze, and we all had sticky marshmallow fingers and faces. I looked over towards our front yard and saw a bunch of fireflies flying around. It had been at least a year since I had gotten a jar out and chased after those awesome little creatures. I had a sudden urge to act like a complete child and run around trapping innocent bugs in a jar, so I did. I only managed to catch two before Daddy lit off the first firecracker. I asked Momma what I should name them. I was thinking about two deeply profound names, such as Frank and Bob. (That was sarcasm, by the way...), but she had something better in mind. "How about Hypoxia and Malnutrition? Because that is what they are going to die of quite soon if you don't get them out of that jar." I instantly fell in love with those names, and then proceeded to the house to stab the lid with a knife to help cure the hypoxia situation. To help fix the malnutrition problem, I put a couple blades of grass, some popcorn, and a marshmallow in the jar. About 5 minutes later, an ingenious thought popped into my head. (Also sarcasm...) I thought that Hypoxia and Malnutrition might get thirsty, so I dumped some of my lemonade into the bottom of the jar. Bad. Idea. I drowned Hypoxia and Malnutrition! They were dead! My Grandmother was laughing at me and my extreme disappointment. I eventually laughed along with her after I dumped out my jar of lemonade, marshmallow, grass, popcorn, and two dead fireflies. This is why I do not take care of any of our pets. End of story.

The 4th of July

It's a bit of a strange holiday. Most people don't see it as a "Religious Holiday" ( for lack of a better word, relationship trumps religion, I know... I know...), but it is in every way. On the 4th of July we celebrate our freedom from Great Britain, but who made that happen? We celebrate all of the freedoms and natural rights that we are given, but who allowed those to happen? We celebrate all of our country's leaders, but who gave those people their power? Certainly no human could do this, it was our wonderful God. We are blessed beyond measure to be able to freely worship and serve our God with out severe persecution. In some countries if you are caught praising God or carrying a bible, you could be thrown in prison, beaten, or even killed. It is always encouraging and a little convicting to think about this. Would I be brave enough to carry a bible and share the gospel in a country like this? I'd like to think the answer is yes, but I have never been in a situation like that. It would definitely be the ultimate test of faith. So, today as you grill out with your families, or go camping, or set off fireworks, or light huge bonfires with like six hay bails and two containers of gasoline (...Gregory...), keep in mind who provided you with this wonderful country, our abundant freedoms, and our leaders.

Psalm 149:1

This is late as well... I'm seeing a bit of a pattern here...

On July 20-23, I had the wonderful opportunity to minister to the cities of Kansas City and St. Louis with my Girls Choir. It was the first "Girls Choir St. Louis Tour", and I have to say that our prayers were answered and we were blessed beyond measure with the ability to minister.

Thursday the 20th: Momma, Izzy, Elle, and I all had to be to church around 6:30. Momma went as a sponsor, and because she usually drives our beast, she was nominated to drive one of the vans. Due to a problem with one of the batteries, we got a late start. We stopped at a park to eat lunch and to change into our not-so attractive blue Girls Choir t-shirts. Then we went to Legends mall and did a little shopping. My friend Lauren and I were in Forever 21, and we stumbled upon the bikini section. I laughed and said, "Yea, though I walk through the section of the yucky bikinis, I will fear no evil, for I know that I am not supposed to expose my body in such ways." She thought that was funny. (Bible humor... anyway.) Our whole choir gathered around the fountain in the middle of the mall, and I started a Girls Choir Flash mob. It was quite entertaining. We sang one of our African American Gospel type songs. After that we loaded the vans and headed to St. Louis. After driving through a mass of all traffic craziness, we found our hotel. Everyone was cranky and honestly needed to go straight to bed. When we got into the hotel, we found out that we had 8 rooms reserved, and that they were spread out all over the building, which annoyed my director. Originally there was supposed to be one adult sponsor, and about 5 girls in each room, but my room got messed up. Somehow we got two smaller rooms instead of one big room, so they split us up. Jayne (our pianist... the adult) was in a room with Lauren and Cassie, and Kara, LeeAnn, and I got a room all to ourselves. That night, all three of us went to go work out, it was amazing! The thing I love about working out is that it sucks while you are doing it, but after it's over, you feel amazing. We didn't get to bed until at least 1:00 in the morning.

Friday the 21st: Purple "Girls Choir Tour" T-Shirt day! It was also Victoria's Birthday. We sang to her after breakfast and devotions. It was sketch at best. Our director gave us a strange starting pitch, so half of the choir started on the note that she gave us, and the other half sang it with the usual starting pitch. We were only half way through the first line when our director yelled, "Girls! Don't ever sing Happy Birthday in a parallel fifth again! Bach just rolled over in his grave!" And with that we left to go sing at a nursing home. After that, we went to the City Museum. That place is creepy. It's like a childish playground for adults. It is so strange. Don't get me wrong, it was quite amazing, but it was so cluttered and crazy. Just as we were about to leave, Teresa (our director) told us to line up in our performance rows, and we sang about half of our entire concert in the lobby. There were so many people asking about us and asking who we represent. There were so many people in that lobby who heard the gospel in that short amount of time. It was amazing. After that we went to sing at another nursing home. Our poor pianist, Jayne, had to use a squatty 4 octave piano. It was funny to watch her because she kept tapping her foot and searching for the pedal, but there wasn't one, and she kept reaching for the lower octaves, but they weren't there either. After we were done singing, we went around and greeted the residents. They were all very kind and talkative. I shook one lady's hand and introduced myself. She smiled and kindly replied, "I am deaf, but I can read your lips." I asked her all kinds of questions, and I found out that she was born deaf, and her parents sent her to a school for deaf children. She learned how to talk and read lips here. She doesn't use sign language very often. She continued to tell me that her husband lost his hearing at the tender age of six, and that they were married for over 60 years when he died. She wears his ashes around her neck in a gold heart necklace. As she was telling her story, I felt tears swelling, but the last statement was what made my tears burst, "Keep making beautiful music to the Lord. He is being praised through the talent that he gave each one of you." I thanked her and told her goodbye. As I was walking out of the nursing home, Jeff (Lauren's Dad) put his arm around me and he was crying. He said, "Annastazia, your solo was beautiful. It made me cry, and not many things make me cry." This of course made me cry harder. When we got back to the hotel, we had a grill-out type supper, and then we went swimming. It is a Girls Choir tradition to play a fierce game of "Chicken" while in the pool. I paired up with Kara's little sister, Jessie. She got up on my shoulders, and we were the champions! We knocked everyone down! This picture was taken at the perfect moment. This is right after we had won, and Jessie's face is absolutely hilarious. Later that night, we watched movies, and then went to bed.

Saturday the 22nd: We were allowed to sleep in for a little while, and then after breakfast and devotions, we went to sing at another nursing home. Although, it didn't look like a nursing home... it looked like a rich people resort. It was amazing. The inside was just wonderfully decorated. (We later found out that residents had to pay about $225 per day to stay there.) After we were done singing, we had lunch and then headed to the arch. It took us a while to get there because of traffic and my mother's inability to read directions. Soon after we arrived at the arch and parked the vans, it started raining. Which scared the little girls who were already afraid of going up in the arch. We congregated in the lobby and formed groups of five: one adult, two high school girls, and two younger girls per group. LeeAnn and I were in a group with a sixth grader and a fifth grader. The sixth grader was full of energy; I swear that girl was bouncing off of the walls. The fifth grader was extremely sassy, not rude sassy, just sarcastic. She was so adorable. As we were standing in line with our little number things, I suggested that we start a flash mob. It seemed like the perfect time because a lot of people were getting irritated with waiting. So I started the song like I did the other times, and a few girl had just started to join in when a sophomore bratty girl says, "Are you kidding me? No! We are not five." This really upset me. The only purpose of all of our flash mobs was to bring glory to God, and this girl thought that she was too cool to sing with us. Of course, all of the girls stopped singing after she said this. I continued, hoping that they would join back in, but they didn't. Soon after, they called this girl's group to go down the steps, so I started singing again and this time everyone joined in. It was wonderful. There were a ton of people who walked up to our sponsors and asked about us, which gave the sponsors a chance to share the gospel. Soon after we finished singing, they called our number to go down to the little egg looking elevators that took us too the top. It was creepy. I hated how the little egg looking thing tilted back and forth. It scared me. The two little girls were freaking out. I thought I was going to throw up. I was very relieved when we got to the top. It was cool to look out the windows during the storm because the lightning was just beautiful. The ride back down the elevator was much more pleasant than the ride up. Back at the hotel, we had supper, and then retreated to our rooms after a quite vicious game of spoons. Lauren, Cassie, and LeeAnn pulled a prank on Kara and I by messing up our stuff and steeling our pillows and such. So we took Lauren and LeeAnn's phones hostage, and put Frito's in LeeAnn's bed. We also did something quite unmentionable with LeeAnn's toothbrush holder.

Sunday the 23rd: We had to be out of our rooms with everything pack and breakfast eaten by 7:30. It was insane. We loaded the trailer and vans, but as we were about to leave, our director was frantically running around to the vans saying that she had lost her music. She asked if any of us had ours. I was the only one out of the entire choir who had my music with me. I had brought my All-State music to look at along the way, and I keep all of my choir music in one big folder (I really need to clean it out. I still have last years All-State music and scales in there...). I finally found all of our songs, and then Jim yelled from his car, "I found it!". I sighed deeply. All that work of sorting through the mass of all music folders for nothing. After our little crisis was averted, we headed out for Hope Bible Church. Upon arrival we lined up in our rows and got ready for sound/microphone checks. Soon it was time for my solo mic check. I walked out of the choir loft down to where I was supposed to stand. I grabbed the mic. Besides the choir, there were only about 20 people in the room. The first line of my solo went great, but then I completely blanked and forgot the second line. I was ready to come back in for the third line, but Gail and my mother where laughing so hard that I messed up again, and it was a complete loss. I got yelled at hard core. Teresa was ticked. I got the "You are a leader in this choir. The least I ask of you is that you remember the words to the solo you have been practicing and performing all year long." speech. After mic checks we had twenty minutes to go to the bathroom (and recite solo words) before church started. Our performance was great! I remembered all of the words! The sermon was amazing. It was about the purpose of music in worship. I have heard everything he said before, but the way he delivered it was excellent. After the sermon we had lunch at the church, and then made a surprise stop at Starbucks! As we were ordering, and elderly lady asked about us, and when she was informed that we were a girls choir, she wanted us to sing, so we sang for her. Then she asked if we would all sing as we were walking out the door, so we sang the chorus of Make My Life a Song, which is kind of our "theme song" this year. We reloaded the vans, and then headed home. I didn't get home until well after ten. I was so happy to be home.

"Sing to the Lord a new song!" Psalm 149:1

IHCC High School Camp 2013

This is extremely late...

I have spent this whole week (a couple of weeks ago actually) at a camp outside of Shell Knob, Missouri off of Table Rock Lake. It was so beautiful down there. I would wake up every morning to look at the sunrise and the first thing that would pop into my head was Psalm 46:10, "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Although as I was growing up in Awana, I always learned it as, "Be still and know that I am God....".

Monday the 10th: I was supposed to leave my house at 4:30 in the morning so that I could be to church at 5:15 to load music equipment into the music trailer, but that didn't happen. I woke up at 4:20, and I still had some packing to do. I ended up leaving around 4:50, but I got to our corner and realized that the beast needed fuel, so I had to go 4 miles out of my way to go fill it up. As I was filling up, I realized that I had forgotten my orthopedic shoe inserts sitting on top of the washing machine, so I hurried home grabbed them, and then headed for Lincoln. I arrived around 5:45 to find the music trailer already packed, and the van hooked up to said trailer already full of students. So, I decided to ride with Nick Cole. He is an amazingly godly man, and his granddaughter was in my cabin and Girls of Grace Camp. It took four 15-passenger vans to get us all there. The vans were stereotyped like this: Nick C's Van: all girls; Ryan's Van: all guys (and Kara); Duane's Van: the rich and popular kids; Nick M's Van: most of the band. It's funny because the vans are almost always set up like this. Every trip. We left around 6:30, and then we stopped some where in Missouri for breakfast three hours later. A few hours later we stopped for lunch in Lemar, and then our last stop was about an hour and a half from the camp. The last leg of the trip is the worst. It is hilly and bumpy and curvy. The vans have to constantly speed up and slow down. It did not help my car sickness at all. I thought I was going to blow chunks all over my lap. It was bad. When we got to camp, we had 30 minutes to unpack, and then we had to go do a swim test. After that we had supper, and then a short sermon.

Tuesday the 11th: In the morning I had special music practice. That was a disaster... Okay... Flashback. The week before camp, Megan asked 4 of us junior girls to do a special music song with her. So we set up a practice the day before we left for camp. Before the practice we decided that Kara, Megan, and I would sing harmony and Taysha and Lauren would sing melody. The harmony was too loud, so we moved Megan to melody. The harmony was still too loud, so we moved Kara to melody as well. The harmony was still too loud, so they were constantly telling me to shut up. End flashback. Anyway, at camp two other girls asked to join, but we could only let one join because there were only six microphones. As we were practicing, my friend Nathan was back controlling the sound table. For some reason they gave me the lead mic. As we started the first verse I noticed that I was too loud even though I was holding the mic at least 2 feet from my face. So I cupped my had around the top to magnify my sound and firmly stated, "Nathan! Turn! Me! Down!". He hates when I do that because it scares him, but I think it's funny. Needless to say, he got the message. As we were singing, I noticed that one of the girls was extremely off pitch, so I went back to the sound table and listened to her in the ear thingys. It was terrible, and I felt really bad for her. So I grimaced at Nathan and he read my mind and turned her mic all the way down. I winked at him and then went back on stage. It sounded wonderful. I just started getting a little upset because some of the girls were having bad attitudes. So I had a little talk with all of them about how we need to make sure that our focus was on the Lord and not on ourselves. They completely ignored me and gossiped about me the moment I walked away. It made me really upset. We should be glorifying the Lord with everything we do and say. Then I realized that by getting upset, I was not reflecting well on the Lord either. It was a long day. That night we had a pool party. I really need to stay away from diving boards. Enough said about that.

Wednesday the 12th: I got up at 6 in the morning to go wake boarding! It was so much fun, and it was WAY easier than water skiing. Surprisingly enough, despite my many wipe outs, I only lost my swim suit bottoms once. Thankfully they didn't sink too far, and I was able to retrieve them before the boat came back to get me. After breakfast and devotions, my friend Cassie and I were signed up to do the ropes course. The ropes course is VERY challenging. It took us about two hours to complete the entire course last year, and this year we did it in about 45 minutes, and I only fell off of the wire once this year! Which is really good compared to last year! The best part of the entire thing is when you get to the end. They harness you to these straps and then push you off of the end of the platform, and you swing all the way to the ground. The bad thing about that was that Cassie and I both have very long legs, and our legs kept going too far and hitting the tree.

After that we had lunch, and then I had special music practice again. After my little speech, everything started working out more smoothly. Upon completion of a successful practice, all of us girls went swimming until we had to be at the team challenge course. I was on the yellow team this year along with all of the lovely ladies in my cabin. The only problem was that there were only 4 of us that could actually be considered "athletic, strong, agile, etc." so we pulled almost all of the weight for our team, literally. I was always the base lifter person, and the last one to maneuver each obstacle because I was the tallest. I was stepped on, tugged on, stretched, and pushed. The whole idea of this challenge course was to get the team to work together as a team with out getting mad or upset with each other. I think that was the most "challenging" part of it. Sure it was physically strenuous, but it was even harder to treat your teammates with the kindness and respect that they deserve even when they are not helping out or are hindering our efforts. That night during worship, we performed our special music song. It went wonderful, but for some reason I was really nervous. My hands were shaking like crazy. And adrenaline also caused my natural vibrato to act supper funny, so some of the harmonies were a little shady, but oh well.

Thursday the 13th: This was our trip day. We loaded up in the vans and left for a river in Arkansas. It was about 2 hours away from the camp. I assumed my position in the middle front seat, but I still got car sick. At the first stop, Nick looked back at me and made a teasing comment, and I didn't respond. He looked over at the "co-pilot" Allison, and she quickly shoved a ginger snap in my mouth and hurried into the gas station to get some ginger ale. They didn't have any, so she had to get 7Up. I hate drinking fizzy liquids when I am sick, but I knew that it was supposed to help. It took about twenty minutes to get all of the vans gassed up and ready to go. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Nick looked back at me and said, "You must be feeling better." I said, "Actually yes, I am." He smiled and said, "I can tell. You got your spark back." Nick knows me so well, it is quite strange actually. He can practically read my mind. When we arrived at the river, we ate lunch, and then hiked a little over two miles until we arrived at the most beautiful part of the river. It was definitely one of those "Be still and know that I am God..." moments. After a couple of hours of catching crawdads and throwing bugs on city-slicker girls, we headed back to camp. The ride back was definitely worse than the ride there. I had to have Nick stop twice because I thought I was going to blow chunks. That night before bed time, a bunch of us girls had a big water fight. It was so much fun. We used our water bottles to throw water and ice on people. I was wearing a cut off, and three different girls dumped ice in my sports bra. No bueno. It was quite painful! In case you are wondering, yes, I am doing the potty dance in this picture. I really had to go, and the water wasn't helping my cause!

Friday the 14th: The last full day of camp! After breakfast, we had devotions, and Laura had asked me to share my testimony. Naturally, I cried. It was just so important to me that every single person in my small group had heard the gospel clearly enough to understand.  After devotions, I went wake boarding again, and I was able to stay up for more than 30 seconds! I felt so accomplished! Soon after I pulled my feet out of the board, another girl jumped in to go next. I was about halfway on the boat when I realized that I really had to pee. So I jumped back in and started swimming away. Anna shouted, "Annastazia, what are you doing?" I stopped where I was, "I have to pee." "Please tell me you aren't going to pee in the lake." "Would you rather me pee on the boat? Didn't think so. Now let me pee in peace." I got so many glares when I got on that boat. This is what I get for signing up to go on a boat with a bunch of city girls who are scared of ruining their hair in the lake. We arrived just in time for lunch, and then after lunch Laura (one of my leaders) and I went kayaking/canoeing. She had never done it before, so I had to teach her how. We were having a lovely talk, and then one of the senior guys started swimming up to the kayak. Laura freaked out and rolled off of the side because she thought he was going to tip the kayak. Well, after she was in the water, I tried to redistribute the weight, but it was a lost cause. I fell in as well, and our kayak was upside down. We swam to shore in shame. After that I showered really fast and then went to go run and jump off of a platform that was 35 feet in the air. It was so much fun! Although for some reason when I jumped, I plugged my nose. I have no idea why I did that... I wasn't jumping in water or anything. People are still making fun of me for that. That night we had a big camp fire. One of the senior guys shared his testimony, and we sang many beautifully meaningful songs. Old school hymns. It was wonderful. After the campfire, we went star tripping. I love star tripping; it is so hilarious how everyone reacts differently to it. My reaction is usually deer in the headlights look, followed by a possessed sounding laugh, followed by falling uncontrollably to the ground, followed by failed attempts to get up, and followed by failed attempts to walk in a straight line.

Saturday the 15th: We got up early and had breakfast, and then quickly packed the vans and trailers. The first hour and a half of the trip was the worst, which made me sick the entire ride home. Ginger snap quickly became my new best friend. Although they do not make very good eye covers. That was a stupid move on my part, I had ginger snap crumbs in my eyeballs! No bueno! We arrived in Lincoln after a long journey at about 6:00, and I didn't get home until nearly 7:00. Our friends from South Dakota where staying with us. Noah, who is Rudy's age, decided it would be funny to sit on me as I was laying on the couch watching Legally Blonde with Payton. That kid might be two years younger than me, but he is about as tall as Rudy, and a heck of a lot heavier than Rudy. I had bruises! Anyway, while at camp we studied Psalm 1. I am always amazing by this passage. So now I will continue to be planted firm in the Word of God, as a tree planted firmly by the water, as well as pursue my walk by faith.

Daddy

I meant to do this yesterday, but I was entirely too busy, so I am doing it a day late. Just for the record. Days like this kind of annoy me. I mean why do we need to dedicate just one day to showing our daddies how much they mean to us? Shouldn't we do that everyday? It's the same way with Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, and Grandparent's Day. It's quite ridiculous actually.

Anyway, my Daddy is amazing, and I love him so very much. We don't always see eye to eye, and we argue quite a bit, but that doesn't matter. If you were to see this guy walking down a dark ally at night, you would probably turn around and walk the other way; he's a pretty intimidating guy. But once you break through the rough outer shell, he is a big softy. My little sister pulls the Daddy face all the time to get what she wants, and he gives in. I can't pull the Daddy Face anymore, I have lost my cuteness. This picture has a name, and it's a quite debatable name. This picture has forever and always been "Baby's First Tractor Ride", however, it's not a tractor, it's a lawn mower, so the name is under current debate. Mom is insistent upon not changing the name. My Mom tells me stories all the time about my father's reactions to me when I was born. My personal favorite is, "Put her back, she ain't done yet." You see, my head was VERY cone shaped when I was born, which concerned my strange father. My parents always say that they are surprised that they even wanted more kids after I was born. I was a terrible baby. At the time, Momma was working full time as a pharmacist, and Daddy was working full time as a Battalion Fire Chief in Millard. Mom says that one night while Dad was on duty I cried for so long that she almost took me to the ER.

My Daddy is so firm in his faith. He stayed so firm to the Lord when he went through the major trial of getting hired as Fire Chief and taking on a high demand job and then getting "laid off" from that same job less than 18 months later. There were so many late night meetings, phone calls, and conversations. We thought Dad's job would be less stressful as Fire Chief, but we were wrong. My Daddy had to put up with so much, and he never buckled under pressure. I'm not allowed to talk about what happened with the "lay off", but just know that my Dad did the right thing. He fought hard for the right thing. The "lay off" was not easy on my family, it was very hard. But my Dad always told us that God has a plan for us, and that He would take care of us. Daddy was right. A little over two weeks after the city council voting in favor of eliminating the position of Fire Chief, the Omaha Fire Department contacted us offering Daddy his job back. It was such a huge blessing. Shortly after we moved back, Daddy received an award presented by the Omaha Fire Chief. It was such an honor for him, he worked hard for it. My Dad's job right now doesn't have an official title. It's a position specifically designed for him. I know that he is in charge of making water supply plans and he is in charge of coordinating new ideas for improving equipment and trucks. He may not be the best at English, but my father is VERY smart when it comes to firefighting stuff. His job requires many long phone calls and meetings, but he enjoys it. I'm sure he would like to be home more often, but when you have to drive a 2 hour round trip to work, you have to get as much out of each trip as possible.

My Daddy is amazing. He has always been there for me, leading me in the right direction and making sure that I don't fall out of line. He encourages me to grow up to be a godly woman. He expects a lot from me, so  he is very strict. Some people say that my parents are Nazis, and sometimes it seems like they are, but they just want what's best for me. I definitely would not still have my 4.0 GPA if it wasn't for their strict rules, and I would probably have gotten in a lot of trouble. Kids need firm rules and leadership like this, otherwise they wander astray. I love my Daddy to the moon and back.... even though he won't shave that disgusting mustache off of his face.

Procrastination

I leave for camp in like less than five hours, and I can't fall asleep. I packed a little bit on Friday, and a little bit today, but I was lazy and pushed most of it off until tonight. I finally got it all done, but now I can't fall asleep. I have to leave my house at 4:30 tomorrow morning to get to church around 5:15. (And hopefully stop for coffee somewhere along the way! My addiction is slowly coming back...). We will leave from church and drive all the way down to Shell Knob, Missouri. We are going to a christian camp called Point 11. It is on Table Rock Lake. I am really excited. I went last year, and I had a blast. There will be a new guy teaching the word this year. I have never heard him teach, so I am excited for that as well. I am a little nervous about my shoulder. I went to the chiropractor on Friday to get it looked at, and it is worse than we thought. It turns out that the shoulder injury may have been created when I got in my ATV wreck a few years ago. In theory, if the force of my body on the the handle bars as I was going down the dam was enough to buckle fracture my left radius, then it was probably enough to do some damage on my shoulder. It hurts really bad, and I have to ice it twice or three times a day. We do a lot of hard core physical activities at camp, and I really hope that my injury doesn't prevent me from doing these. Anyway, I am super excited to spend an entire week with fellow believers learning more about the wonderful God that we serve! I hope this week brings me closer to Him!

I used to think...

This was one of our journal prompts that the amazing Mrs. Helzer had us do my freshman year in English class. I was thinking about this prompt this week for some reason. It popped in my head on the way home from Girls of Grace Camp on Tuesday, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

I used to think that "democrat" was a bad word.
I used to think that I would never ever argue with my parents as a teenager.
I used to think that Rudy was adopted because he was always so much more tan than I was.
I used to think that I was going to be a professional ballet dancer.
I used to think that cheerleaders were perhaps the most amazing people on the planet.
I used to think that FFA stood for Fat Farmers Association.
I used to think that I was going to be a Nun. (This was when I went to the Lutheran Church. Let's just say that I received some strange looks from my Sunday School teachers when I announced that to the class.)
I used to think that I was going to play in the WNBA.
I used to think that girls were not allowed to drive tractors.
I used to think that boys had cooties. (Who am I kidding? Boys do have cooties. Stay. Away.)
I used to think that getting straight A's was easy.
I used to think that my Momma was serious when she told people that she was a drug dealer.
I used to think that Santa Clause came through our wood-burning stove since we don't have a fire place.
I used to think that if I fell asleep long enough in our pasture that I would wake up in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
I used to think that I would have the same "best friend" my entire life.
I used to think that landing on the moon was all a hoax.
I used to think that if I would laugh while Momma and Daddy spanked me, that they would stop. (Nope... flawed logic. I would get an extra one for laughing.)
I used to think that a mule was created when a cow and a horse had a baby.
I used to think that I wanted to be Cross Country/Track Long Distance runner.
I used to think that I never wanted kids. (Now I want 4-6 kids, maybe more. It depends on how many the Lord will bless me with.)
I used to think that I would always be taller than my siblings because I am the oldest. (Now I am only taller than one of them... Elle. Not for long though. It's sad that being 5'10" is considered short in my family.)
I used to think that it was a sin to get comfortable in my bed before I prayed at night.

Taming the Tongue



Bathroom Picture.... Third Grader Style :)

 I have spent the past four days at Girls of Grace Camp at Camp Comeca outside of Cozad, NE. I was brought along as an extra Junior Leader because my girls were not old enough to go to camp this year. (Next year they will be!! So excited!). The Junior Leaders have many responsibilities at camp, but the main responsibility is to be a big sister/momma/teacher/best friend/roll model to all of the little girls. There were eight third graders in my cabin. They are all adorable, and they have such tender hearts. I was joined by two adult leaders (both mothers of  third graders) and Lauren (another Junior Leader... this was actually "her class" I was an extra). The theme of our room was Rainbows. We paired the girls up and gave the pairs a color. So we had 4 different color groups: pink, blue, purple, and green. In this picture, the girls are all wearing their assigned color. All of us leaders wore tie dye shirts, representing rainbow.

Here is a rough description of my four days at Girls of Grace Camp...



Before we realized how insane
3rd graders are...

 Saturday: We had to be at church in Lincoln at 11:30. Elle and I where running late, as usual, so we had to eat our lunch on the road. I never realized how hard it is to eat Mac-and-Cheese while driving! It is quite challenging! I gave up on trying to eat it on the gravel roads and highways, so when we got into Lincoln, I ate it at all of the stop lights on 84th Street. (And if you have ever driven down 84th, you know that there are a butt-ton of stoplights.) So we were stopped at the intersection of 84th and Van Dorn, and I was stuffing food into my face. Elle starts giggling. I look back at her, "What's your problem?" "Spaz! Look out your window I think that those boys in that truck next to you think that you are cute!" Like the idiot I am, I looked over. Sure enough they were staring. I rolled my eyes, "Yes because I am so adorable, wearing a tie dye shirt and a bandanna with my name on it while stuffing my face with Mac-and-Cheese." She thought this was funny, and just then the light turned green. When we got to church, Elle and I unloaded our stuff from the car and loaded it into the trailer. Soon after, we loaded the vans. There were four 15 passenger vans packed full of Girls of Grace girls. The third graders were in the "Sweet Pea" van. I hustled to the van before anyone else and claimed my window seat. The girls were crazy all the way to Cozad. I was so relieved when we finally arrived. We quickly unloaded the trailer, and started unpacking in our cabins. It is the responsibility of the Junior Leaders to decorate the cabin, so Lauren and I went rainbow cray-cray in our cabin. We had rainbow duck tape, rainbow streamers, clouds with verses on them, awesome colored bed-signs, and a pretty awesome door sign. Lauren and I both shared our testimonies that night. It's kind of cool because Lauren and I were saved on the same day, but it happened in two completely different ways. I tried to share it in a way that would be applicable to the little third graders, and I hope I accomplished that. I was really nervous. I was shaking really bad, and I was moving around all over the place. (It kind of reminded me of the good ol' days in Mrs. Diaz's speech class. One day she had to tape my feet to the floor while I gave my speech, she also taped my note card to my hand so that I wouldn't mess with it while I gave my speech.) That night after supper, we went swimming, and then raced for the showers. There were 6 showers for about 50 people. It was insane, and the hot water was out by like the 4th round of people. We each had to take less than 5 minute showers, which made me angry. As most of you know, I take looonnnnggg hot showers, this is my relaxing time. Shower time is happy time, but not when I have grumpy elementary students telling me to hurry up while cold water comes out from a spout that is 5 inches shorter than I am. After that we got into our PJ's and then went to the cafeteria for snack. I accidentally grabbed my Momma's "Omaha Fire and Rescue" shirt instead  of mine out of the laundry, so my pajama shirt was too big for me. It completely covered my shorts, which was kind of funny. My little girls slept pretty well except for Riley. She tapped on my shoulder at like 4 in the morning, and I unknowingly hit her hand away in my sleep, which made her cry. I sat up quickly, knocking my head on the bed above me. I reached for the crying child. She kept saying, "Pillow!" "What are you talking about sweetie?" "Annnaaataaayyyshhha! I can't find my pillow!" So I rummaged through my suitcase in the dark searching for my flashlight. I finally found it, and shined it on top of her bed. Her pillow was on her bed the entire time. She hugged me, and then climbed up her ladder.



My Little Ava-Bug... :)



Sunday: I woke up again to Lauren tickling my feet, "Annastazia, I'm going to start getting ready in the bath house, are you coming?" I looked at my phone. 5:45. Two hours and fifteen minutes until we had to be at breakfast. "Lauren, you are such a girl. Wake me up at 7:45, it will take me ten minutes to throw my mop in a pony tail, get dressed, and swipe some deodorant on. It's camp, and that's as good as my appearance is going to get." She laughed, "I am not as girly as you think." she said as she walked out of the cabin carrying a pink bag full of all kinds of products, soaps, and make-up, as well as two pink towels. Girl if I ever saw one. Later that day we went canoing. It was so much fun! Expect for the fact that I had to pee really, REALLY bad. I looked back at the male leader in my canoe, "Stan, could we go back to shore, I have to use the restroom, and this lake water isn't helping my cause." He laughed and we started head back to shore. I looked around. No bathrooms. I would have just peed in the lake, but we were instructed not to get in the lake unless our canoe tipped. There were tons of bushes and trees around, but I had a feeling that peeing outside wasn't a very "Girls of Grace-ish" thing to do, so I made the exhausting trek up death hill back to camp to use the bathroom. That was the most painful half hour of my life. That night, we had an extended Cabin Study time and extended sermon time, which was really cool. I learned so much. It was crazy, I was a leader, and yet I still learned just like the little girls. Our theme this year was "Taming the Tongue". I guess I didn't really realize how much that I sin with my mouth. I was really convicted. It's something that I really need to work on. That night after everyone in the cabin had fallen asleep, I woke up around 10 to a little girl standing next to my bunk crying. It was my little Ava-bug. (I don't know where the nickname came from... her real name is Ava. She is so adorable.) She was sobbing, "Annastazia I'm just so tired, but I just can't fall asleep, and every one's beds are creaking, and it's just keeping me awake, and I'm just scared of the thunder." I grabbed her and pulled her onto the bed, setting her on my lap. I rocked her back and forth while running my fingers through her hair, "I know sweetie, do you want to sleep with me for awhile?" She curled up in my lap while I was still sitting up. I rocked her, hummed to her, and stroked her hair until she finally fell asleep half an hour later. I was just about to take her to her own bed when my phone lit up, I looked at it. It was text from Byron. I set her down carefully and frantically tried to figure out how to get my phone to shut-up and stop buzzing. The vibrate on my phone is REALLY loud and I was worried that it was going to wake up Ava. Too late. My phone was still buzzing, and little Ava sat up quickly and started crying again. I chucked my phone at my pillow and calmed the crying child. She settled down in under five minutes and was sleeping again. I was so happy, although, despite being super tired, I couldn't sleep. I think I fell asleep sometime around midnight.



Serious Mustache Faces. Every body's doing it!

 Monday: Pure craziness! It was the last full day of camp, so there were a ton of fun activities for the girls to do, including Leader Hide-and-Seek, all of the leaders hide, and the girls seek. The girls get points based on their captured Leaders' level of authority. (We did this when I was in Girls of Grace, except back then, we did it in the dark...). Anyway, Anna and I decided to hide together. We were walking around looking for a hiding place when I said, "I have a sudden urge to climb a tree. Want to hide in a tree?" She laughed and said, "Why not!? I'm not as young as I used to be though." We found a pretty good climbing tree, although this tree had one flaw, the distance from the first branch to the second was a good five feet. I managed to swing my leg up there and pull myself up by a smaller branch, it wasn't pretty, and it hurt really bad. We climbed pretty high, but the wind picked up and was swaying the tree, so we decided to stay put. I wrapped my arm around the tree like I was hugging it, and much to my displeasure, there was a large sappy spot. My arms were covered in sap. It turns out that trees aren't very good huggers, and I was starting to get a rash. Let's just say, my tree climbing/sitting skills have grown weaker and weaker these past couple of years. Anna and I made a few tree-hugger jokes, and then we heard the whistle that mean the girls were coming. We were found 10 minutes later. I looked down at the ground below me and suddenly wondered how the heck I was going to get down. I tried going the same way that I came up, but it just wasn't working out. I ended up sliding down the trunk practically doing the splits. There were scratches all over my legs, but mostly on the backs of my legs. It hurt so bad! That bark was REALLY sharp and pointy! Much to my displeasure, Kelly was at the base of the tree taking pictures of my tree dismounting troubles. It was bad. That night we had the talent show. Our cabin talent is kind of hard to explain, but the third graders were lip syncing a song upside down with faces drawn on their chins. We drew mustaches on them, so to make them feel more comfortable, Lauren and I gave ourselves mustaches as well. The girls did wonderful, and the crowd loved them! After the talent show, we lathered them in bug spray and went to the fire pit for a campfire! It was a wonderful time, and I think I am slowly getting over my fear of fire. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or a good thing. That night I had 3 crying girls in my bed, and one of them stayed there all night.

Tuesday: We packed up and loaded the trailer in the morning, and then after lunch, we left for Lincoln! On the way home, one of my girls yelled, "Annastazia! Annastazia! Look! Look at that flock of cows over there!". According to Airiana, cows gather in "flocks". She is adorable. Soon after we had passed Kearney, Hailey fell asleep on my shoulder, and of course it was my bad shoulder. It hurt so bad, and I felt bad for her, my bony, pointy shoulder was digging into her head. I don't mind when people lay on my shoulders, I just feel bad for them and their soon to be aching heads. We arrived in Lincoln around 5, and then unloaded the trailer. Elle and I finally got home around 6:15. The house was a mess. I didn't expect anything less. My house tends to crumble when I'm not around. The only clean room was my bedroom. (One of my pet peeves is coming home from a trip to a messy bedroom, so I made sure it was clean before I left.) I started cleaning right away, and after about 2 hours the place was starting to look good again. I have no idea how my family is going to survive when I go off to college. I will probably always come home to a messy house, it's just the way my family is. I have promised myself that my house will never look like that when I am older and have children.