Welcome back 1985!

We are done with clubs for the semester! We ended another year of YL clubs with 80's night, 2 weeks ago, & then senior night this week. We try to mix things up as much as we can in the spring in order to keep up the momentum of club & it felt like 80's night was a great thing to throw in. During 80's club we played a hilarious game of family feud. Cody was the host & we had family feud categories such as, top songs on i-tunes this week, things you find in a high school students car, most popular places to hang-out on the weekends, etc. We had two "families" compete against each other & they made the game so fun.

To end 80's club I gave my last talk of the year. I talked about how a relationship with Jesus is something that goes beyond our wildest dreams. A relationship with him will not always be easy, but he will take us places & place people in our lives that we would never imagine. I ended with 1 Corinthians 1:9 – “no eye has seen, no ear had heard no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." I told them that God has so many great things in store for those that follow him, things that are so great, no one has even heard of these great things yet!

Senior Club

The last club of the semester was senior club. I was excited & sad about this club, because I love all of our seniors, they have made me smile & laugh so much this year. The seniors chose their favorite songs, games, & skits & led all of club. It was fun watching them be leaders & taking so much ownership in club.

The night ended with a senior guy & girl sharing with everyone at the end. I loved watching all the younger kids in the crowd listen so intently to the seniors as they were sharing. I am pretty sure they have never been that quiet when Cody or I were talking!! One of my girls talked about how much of an impact Windy Gap made on her life. The week before we were supposed to leave for Windy Gap last year one of her really good friends passed away & she really did not want to go to camp, but ended up going. She talked about how much she learned there & how much it meant to be there with all of her friends. She ended her talk by saying, "everyone in this room HAS to go to Windy Gap!"

Next, a senior that Cody has spent lots of time with got up to share. This guy came on ski trip with us last winter & it was there that we had the opportunity to really get to know him. Since ski trip Cody & him have spent hours at the driving range, working on an Eagle scout project, & hanging-out. The part about his talk that stood out to me the most was when he talked about prayer. He said, "I always thought praying was something you had to do for a long time, with your eyes closed & head bowed. But, in Young Life I feel like I have really learned what it means to pray. I learned that you can pray anywhere & all the time."

I will miss these kidos, but I pray that they will keep pursuing Christ as their journey continues.

Right now I am blogging from our small bathroom listening to storm sirens go off all around us. There is a major storm going through our area & they are telling everyone to take cover. Right now we are fine & hopefully everyone else around us is too. We were supposed to start our GIANT garage sale tonight for Young Life campership, but due to the storms we will have to postpone it until 6am in the morning. I am pretty bummed b/c we usually make a lot of money on Thursday night & we have so much stuff this year. Oh well, I hope we have lots & lots of people come through tomorrow & Saturday.

This week Cody played in our annual YL Golf marathon & tournament. We have marathon players that commit to have people sponsor them for playing 100 of holes of golf in one day. Cody & about 17 other guys played 100 holes of golf on Monday- they did great. They play most of the holes in the morning & then at 1pm we had a tournament start so he was joined by 3 other guys. The day ended up to be a perfect day for a golf tournament & everything went smoothly, thanks to everyone who helped make that day happen.

Now for the most exciting news...Drew asked my little sister, Hannah, to marry him! I am a little late in posting this news, but we are all excited. Oct. 12th is the big date & we are all in the wedding planning mode again.

Hope everyone is staying safe from the storms tonight, so glad our God is bigger than all the noise I am hearing outside right now!

Maybe you thought the only place you could get fried pickles, fried twinkies, fried mozzarella balls, fried oreos, & fried potatoes was at the state fair?? Well, for those that came to Young Life last week that was exactly the meal everyone had!

Sometimes in the spring there is just too much to compete with & instead of just being another thing to compete with during busy times we try & spice things up a little to keep folks involved. Since it was the night Kansas was playing Memphis for the big championship game we knew lots of people would be interested in watching that game so we provided a great place for the kids to come watch the game, hang-out with friends & leaders, & eat fried food - what more could you want?

Of course, we couldn't just watch the game, we had to give the night some kind of Young Life twist, we called it "Basketball & Fry Club." We told everyone they could bring some kind of food they wanted to fry & we would try it. We had the basketball game going on inside & the large turkey frier set up outside. We made some really good fried Twinkies, potatoes, pickles, cheese & oreos. The kids tried to fry jello & some other things, but in the end we did not discover too many new things that tasted that great fried.

Fried Twinkies -nice & hot!

The night was great & it was a really fun time to hang-out with kids. We had some new guys come that had never come before. One kid came, signed up for camp, & has come to 2 work days since!

Last weekend Cody & I left late Saturday afternoon to meet my parents in Austin for the Capital 10k. It was a short but fun trip. We were able to hang-out with them on Saturday night. We ate a great pasta dinner & finished just in time to go watch UNC advance to the final four!

This was probably only half of the people that were there for the race!

Dad & I ran the in the fun run & Mom was supposed to be in the walking run, but I think she ended up beating some of the runners. I think this was the last time we were dry, it pretty much rained the whole time.

Cody was nice enough to save us a table at Gueros - this great little Mexican restaurant not too far from the race site, where we ate lunch. Anyway, the weekend was great & it was so fun to run a race with my Dad!

April is the month that I feel like everything that could possibly go on in the world of Young Life is going on. These past couple of weeks we have been having YL clubs, Wyldlife clubs, starting a new club, collecting stuff for garage sale, planning our upcoming golf tournament, getting kids signed up for camp, & making commitments to Windy Gap (Young Life camp) & Carolina Creek (Wyldlife camp) on how many kids we will be bringing this summer. All that to say things are going well, the plates are spinning all around us & I hope we can keep them spinning until the summer. I forgot to mention the flower sale we had to raise $$ for camp, it was a hit - thanks to all who purchased from us!


And of course the campership work day would not have been complete without a drive by, throwing water balloons at the young life guys working in a lady's yard :)

Lately with our Young Life club I feel like there have been lots of ups & downs. One week we will have loads of kids, great conversations, tons of fun games & laughter & then the next week we will be wondering where everyone is. Last night instead of doing our normal club we went out on a scavenger hunt. This was not exactly planned but because of stuff going on that evening & the kids we had there we did a spontaneous scavenger hunt. The night was a lot of fun & today Cody & I talked to kids who said they heard YL was so fun last night & they were sad they had to miss. At first I was disappointed b/c I thought we had a great club planned, but I went to bed thankful for the change of plans. During the scavenger hunt all of the leaders got the opportunity to ride around town with different kids. We got to know them better, built memories together, & then went to Braums afterwards. Cody had some great conversations with guys that he had not gotten a chance to talk to & we even went to some kids houses last night & were able to meet parents & in the end I am thankful for the night the Lord gave us with these kids.


I also realize I have not blogged about Wyldlife is a long time. Most kids we have coming to Wyldlife love it so much they would do almost anything to get there. On a WL day we will have kids calling the office as soon as they get out of school to make sure they have a ride, or they will just wait at school until a leader comes to pick them up. One girl who comes almost every week with her sister stayed home this week so she could stay on myspace. This might not sound serious to some, but we really are fighting a battle against media, Internet, etc. We have more & more kids not wanting to give up their myspace time to come to club or camp! Please pray for more leaders & that we will have wisdom in dealing with all the different kids that come.

A Little R & R

I love breaks from normal & this week Cody & I were able to have a few days of rest & relaxation & it was great. We started off the week celebrating our one year anniversary! Can't believe it has been a whole year since our wedding. I have loved thinking about our wedding, we both had so much fun. This year has been full of new journeys together, new friends, a new job, a new place to live, a new church, it's been a great first year.

For our anniversary we went to Austin for a few days. We spent one night with Matty, Cayce, & Madison & had a blast eating pizza & playing wii. We spent the next night at a hotel downtown, we spoiled ourselves.

First dance - one year ago

We ate Amy's Ice Cream - we had to do it b/c we had it at our wedding, but neither of us actually had any that day!

Amazing dinner & special dessert
We also went to see my parents & my mom had the top layer of our cake ready for us to eat. It was still so yummy :)
Cody trying to be funny, while I was trying to have a sweet picture of us cutting our cake.
I am sad our little vacation is over, it is always so good to go home & chill with mom & dad. Hope everyone is enjoying Easter / March Madness weekend.