August 26, 2015

Welcome to UNG

I have officially started college, classes and all! Well… sort of. I just got back to the room after what was supposed to be my first day of class, but our professor never showed up! But hey - I’m not complaining! My schedule is pretty awesome though, the earliest class I have all week starts at 12:30, on Wednesday I don’t have to be up and at ‘em until 4:00, and I don’t even have class on Friday. Talk about a great first semester!

We also got all moved into our suite, and we are LOVING it. Our homemade floor couch has already gotten so much use, we had about nine individuals piled up in here for a few hours the other night!












Friday after move-in day, AKA the most chaotic day of my life, our whole hall went to eat together at chow. I LOVE all of the girls on my hall, there are actually five Maddys! The next day, we had a Freshman Jamboree! This was when we got to meet other freshmen complete with water slides, obstacle courses, Twister with paint, and volleyball! It was so much fun! Last night, we got to all go through the underclassmen arch as a class, then go to convocation. The school welcomed us, and officially introduced us a Nighthawks!






This weekend was so much fun with no classes to worry about, so this week will be the real test, for sure! But I’ve met so many awesome people, and it’s so weird finding so many things in common with everyone. I feel like we are all connected and I love it! Also, my mom and dad always told me that UNG was like a “family,” and I’ve finally realized what she’s talking about. It’s only the third day, too! I can already tell that this is going to be a super fun year, and we’ve already had a whole lot of adventures! Speaking of...

Lesson #1 of college: When there’s even a chance of rain (and you don’t want to have to change all of your clothes right before class), take an umbrella… It will rain and it will rain hard.

August 10, 2015

It's Here Before I Knew It

Well, Friday is the day! The day that my friends and I have been working towards for the past 18 years, the day that will “be here before you know it” according to the adults in my life, the day will truly turn the page to a new chapter in this book we call “life.”

COLLEGE!

All of the above statements are true, of course. This summer was the fastest summer I’ve ever had! I woke up this morning and both my mom and dad were at work. I can remember the week after graduation when I was in this same situation, but my mom wasn’t home because of POST-planning. I usually love pre-planning because I get the house to myself for awhile, I don’t have to share the TV, I can sing as loud as I want to, and I can sleep all day long. But this year, I’m waking up to go to work, packing up boxes, ordering things I’m last-minute remembering I need! It’s definitely different, but I like change.

But, just because I like change doesn’t mean I’m not nervous.

My friend, Avery, and I were talking at a birthday party the other night about how there’s no one that could NOT be nervous about college! I mean, you’re moving to a brand new place with brand new people, you have to remember to get your laundry out of the washer (not a big deal for most, but for this girl… HUGE DEAL), and you are living on your own for the first time! That’s a pretty big change. So, of course we are nervous. But, another feeling got me right after this conversation. My mom and I were about to leave, and I said, “Well Avery, if I don’t see you before you leave-” which was followed by his response: “Probably not, I leave in two days!”

WHAT?!
This is the first time it’s actually hit me (and it hit me hard) that the last time my entire class would be together was at graduation. We all really were going separate ways. Sure, it’s a pretty obvious moment in our lives, but I guess I have been so busy, I haven’t dwelled on that idea for very long. Living in a small town, we grow up with the same people for thirteen years. We have the same classes, we have the same friends… Our friends are pretty much the only reason we willingly go back to school after each summer! We’ve all grown to know each other so well, so it’s hard knowing you won’t see them all the time. My best friend, Abby, is going to Georgia Tech. Even though we have our own busy lives to work around right now, it’s going to be a huge transition not having her right down the road (or her mom’s pork). Emotions are running wild this week. I know there will be many, many tears. But, there’s one more feeling that I’ve had through this entire experience so far...

Excitement.

I’m moving into a suite with one of my best friends. I get to decorate a cute room. I’ll be living in a brand new place, where I can start fresh. I get to meet some pretty awesome people, who have a very high chance of being my best friends. I will finally live near a Moe’s. I get to go to a school that both of my parents attended. I’ll be starting my journey towards my dream career. I get to be put into more situations to grow in my faith. I will be able to blog from a new perspective. I’ll get experience that you can only get from college. I will make some of the best memories of my life.

This week will be a whirlwind, for sure. It will be full of these emotions, plus a thousand more! Please be praying that I will transition easily, stay safe, and not do anything (too) stupid. Now, I guess all that’s left to say is (especially to the adults)... I’m ready for the “best years of my life!”

Now, here are some pictures of small me (to make my mom cry).






August 4, 2015

What a Week

Wow. What a week. Alaska was the most awesome experience of my life.


I’m about to give you a run down of how my week went (from my perspective… if you want to read about each day from everyone’s perspective, go to my Alaska blog). Prepare yourself, because you’re about to be taken on an 8-day rollercoaster condensed into 8 paragraphs. Also, there will be lots of photos. I can’t remember anything if I don’t take a picture, so if I wouldn’t have taken these pictures, I probably wouldn’t even remember going on this trip (just kidding about forgetting the trip… not kidding about having to take photos).


Okay. I woke up at 5:04 a.m. Sunday morning, put my left foot on the ground, then my right. I then walked to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, gasped at my appearance, then brushed my teeth for 1 minute and 34 seconds.


Just kidding, I’m not telling the story like that (you’re welcome).


But there is truth behind the whole 5 a.m. deal! The whole 32-person Alaska team met at the church around 6:00 Sunday morning, prayed, and loaded the buses. My dad told my mom and I right before we got on the bus that he had felt chills during the prayer, and he knew the Holy Spirit was going to do something awesome. MAN, WAS HE RIGHT. I have this weird thing where I’ll get sick if I ride in a car early in the morning, so I’m just going to add that I wasn’t feeling on top of my game on this fine morning. We got to the airport, checked our bags, made it through Atlanta security, and waited at our gate to board! After getting sick a few times, I felt great and I was ready to fly! (My body is so weird, I know.) The first time I had flown was in fourth grade, and I don’t remember it, so this was almost like my first time flying! I. LOVED. IT. It was so beautiful, and it just amazed me that it only took what seemed like ten minutes to fly all the way across Kansas. I just couldn’t believe we were on the opposite side of the United States, in only five hours, when we stepped into the Seattle airport. We grabbed a little snack, hopped on our next plane, and our next stop was Anchorage, Alaska!





















We arrived in Anchorage to a BEAUTIFUL airport, BEAUTIFUL scenery, and BEAUTIFUL weather! It was about 65 degrees when we arrived, with no humidity. You could hear all 32 of us say “Ahhhhh...” out of pure happiness when we stepped outside. It was almost harmonic. A few GraceWorks leaders met us with the vans and took us to Calvary Baptist Church, our “home base” for the week. This is where we ate, slept, had chapel, hung out, and did EVERYTHING for the week- other than our park ministry, of course! It’s an older church with only about 20 members, and they have turned part of it into bunk rooms for volunteers to stay in! We got fed some yummy chicken as soon as we arrived, then a few of us went out to explore while the others caught up on their sleep after a long day of traveling!


We walked around the neighborhood, took a look at some scenery, and walked down the road a few blocks, where we found a playground! Little did we know at the time that this was the park we would be ministering at for the next five days… God works in amazing ways! There was a man outside his house cutting up fish, so we walked over to watch him and ask him some questions. We literally stood there and talked for at least 45 minutes, it was so neat! The greatest part was what happened next though. We dared Jared to eat one of the fish’s eyeballs… AND HE DID.



It was insane (and completely disgusting, but I still like him). We walked back to the church to hit the hay around 2:30 a.m., and it was still completely daylight! That was the thing about this week… it never got dark so we never knew what time it was. I loved it personally, because it felt like you had all the time in the world! It was precious on our walk back though, there were some little kids outside playing soccer (remember what time I said it was), and one little guy about five years old yelled, “HEY LOOK! IT’S THE CHURCH PEOPLE! ARE YOU COMING TO PLAY WITH US TOMORROW?!”
I knew it was going to be a fun week.

This is the view at 2:30 in the morning. That's right. 2:30.




On an average day:
Wake up
Eat breakfast at 8:00
Get everything ready for the park
Chapel at 11:00
Lunch at 12:00
Park Ministry from 1:15-4:00
Dinner at 5:00
Free time
Quiet hours after 10:00


That’s how our schedule played out most days! On Monday, we went to our park, Government Hill, and met our local kids for the first time! We quickly found out that they LOVED four-square, and once we had a long line I played nine-square for the first time! I was a fan, definitely! The kids were absolutely precious, and SO loving in their own ways. Whether it was asking for a piggy back ride, hugs, throwing frisbee with you, offering us one of their crackers, following the leader, or pushing us in the tire swing. We were blessed with awesome kids. We were also blessed with an awesome view from the park!








We did our first round of sightseeing and one of our ministry leaders, Travis, took us through some beautiful mountains! We also went to Earthquake Point to watch the sunset, it was GORGEOUS.



























Tuesday morning, we went on a hike on part of the Iditarod Trail! Fun fact: There was a sign at the beginning of this hike that said, “BEAR ALERT!” It was warning us about all of the bears that had been around the trail lately. Three days later, they shut the trail down because there were too many bears!

















At the park that day, Jared and I really clicked with this guy named Richard. He is going to sixth grade, and he is so funny! He would walk or ride his bike to the park everyday, then to the church to eat with us at night. Jared and I started walking with him back to the church, and on Wednesday he even came to the church BEFORE he went to Government Hill so we could all walk together He was so sweet, and he also loves frisbee! I took a cool panorama, too (with Richard and Jared playing frisbee on the right, of course)!

















Oh, and I also found this atrocious bruise on my leg from who-knows-what on the back of my leg. I’m gonna say I fell too hard in love, since it’s shaped like a heart.



Most kids in the park are eligible for free lunch during the school year, so they don’t have to worry about where their meal is coming from from August-May. But during the summer, some aren’t so lucky. That’s another area where GraceWorks steps in… We get to take coolers filled with sack lunches to give out in the parks. A lot of times we have extras, so they may even end up taking two or three more home! On Wednesday morning, Jared, the Clevelands, and I stayed to pack up the lunches for the kids that day. We packed over three hundred lunches for all of the parks, it was crazy! After we finished, we had a lot of free time because everyone else was off on another hike! Claire wanted to play a trick on Jared, so she was sending him messages from my phone and we played a little game of hide-and-seek with him. She thought it was HILARIOUS, if you can’t tell from this picture!



It was a rainy day at the park, but surprisingly we had a lot more kids than normal! The tire swing was the main event...


















We went to Beluga Point that night (it would have been safe to call it “Windy Point,” as well) and found a cute little waterfall on the side of the road!















Thursday was our big day, we had Community Outreach AND our Park Party! For our Community Outreach, we took doughnuts to the Anchorage Fire Department! They were so kind to us, they gave us a tour of the whole place! I also used my puppy dog eyes to slide down the fire pole, and it was the greatest moment of my life.













We went back to the church to get everything ready for the park, and for some of us… take a little rest break.



At the park, we had a TON of kids tell us they were coming to the Park Party that night, which made us 100x more excited than we already were! I also discovered that Divinity, one of my new best friends, knew the Cup Song! We sang it together, and her voice was beautiful! She also gives great hugs!















After supper, it was PARTY TIME! We put air in the bouncy house, got the hot dogs cooked, set up our nail painting/hair spraying/face painting tables, and got our music hooked up! Tons of families came out for this, it was so unexpected!



















I painted nails, and all I can say is… I feel sorry for those children who wanted beautifully painted nails. I discovered that nail painting is not my calling. I passed the torch on to Taylor for that job, and I headed to the face painting station (where there were stencils to use). While I was there, one of the regulars at the park, a little girl named Katalina, wanted to paint MY face. I let it happen of course, and BOY, did my face get painted!




  Katalina’s brother, Brandon, even brought his violin to play for everyone. He is so talented, and everyone LOVED it! The party was awesome, and it made me and the rest of our team even more excited to come home and start something here in Georgia.





……...and then there was Friday. Friday was the most fun and the most difficult day, by far. It was our last day with the kids, so we had a water fight for our grand finale! We had buckets of water and sponges to throw, it was so much fun!









After we were all soaked, Jared, Richard, and I walked to Richard’s house so he could change clothes. As me and Jared were waiting outside, Jared reminded me what time it was, and we realized we had to go straight back to the church and not back to the park. I didn’t even get to say goodbye, I didn’t think about it before we left! Honestly though, I was somewhat thankful. I’m not good with goodbyes, and I don’t know how I could have said goodbye when I’d grown so close to them. I heard it was very, VERY sad. I was thankful for my happy little walk back to the church to eat. We actually had FOURTEEN people from Government Hill come eat dinner with us that night! It was a nice little “last meal” for us all, and we snagged a picture of the crew before they left! It was so sad giving our last hugs, a LOT of tears were shed throughout this day!






Later that night, a group of us walked downtown to visit a few shops, and we got ice cream! It was nice to get a distraction from all of the sadness earlier.






Saturday was a full day of SIGHTSEEING! We woke up a little earlier than usual, got breakfast, then all seven churches there loaded the buses. We first stopped at Bird Creek for some pictures, then we stopped for snacks at a little gas station, where they had a PUPPY in one of the gift shops!











Then, we headed to Portage Glacier! On the way, we stopped at a little oasis on the side of the road where water had flown from a glacier into a little pool-like area. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL (and Tammy cried). We headed to our little glacier cruise after that, where we cruised by Portage Glacier. It was pretty awesome, we even got to see some ice drop off into the water (which we later found out was because there was a small earthquake, which was a crazy discovery). After the cruise, we hiked a short trail to another glacier, and there were also TONS of rocks everywhere! It was pretty cool!






























We headed to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, where we saw tons of Alaskan animals (including a moose, which I took a selfie with). There was also a bald eagle there, and the most patriotic event in my life took place… I was looking at the eagle, I quietly said “‘Merica,” and it looked me RIGHT IN THE EYE. It was a beautiful moment, right there in the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.







We went back to Calvary Baptist one more time, grabbed our bags, said goodbye to our leaders and thanked the staff, and loaded the vans to ride to our hotel for the night. It was bittersweet riding in the “Goose” van for the last time, we had really gotten acquainted and learned to love the no-air conditioning! The hotel had a pool, and more importantly: a hot tub. A few of us went down and had some relaxing fellowship putting our legs in the hot tub, while Bonnie Greer, Ella Grace, and Claire all swam in the pool! When Daddy came in and said the word “pizza,” the deal was done. It was now a pizza party. Fifteen minutes, fourteen towels, three two liters, and six pizzas later… It was a party in the dining room! We ate, talked, and laughed until we were all tuckered out, then we all went to bed. We knew we had a big day of traveling the next day!

























Sunday was EXHAUSTING. We left the hotel around 11:00 a.m. to go to the airport, and our flight to Seattle departed at 4:05. We arrived in Seattle and had about a two hour layover, so we all headed to the food court to eat! I got Japanese, and oddly enough everyone else at my table had some sort of foreign food… not sure if that’s the best idea before we hop on a five hour flight, but it happened anyway. The flight back to Atlanta was… long. It was very long. There was also a very unhappy baby, who didn’t stop crying unless its mom was STANDING in the aisle. Sleep wasn’t exactly “easy,” so when we landed, I saw a whole lot of 6:00 a.m. smiles!






I, however, was sick again. It must be something about Hartsfield-Jackson, but I haven’t made very good memories there the past two times I’ve been! But oh man, I’ve never been so happy to see two church buses in my life! The ride home flew by for me, because I felt great and I was working on my blog. We arrived at the church to everyone’s family, and Papa Gayle picked us up. We went to get a chicken biscuit from McDonald’s, headed back home, and had a nice day of sleeping.


I still haven’t QUITE gotten back on Georgia time, but it’s getting there! All of the exhaustion was more than worth it though, this was truly a life changing experience. I can’t even begin to describe how much the kids, the staff, and the entire community in Alaska means to me. Thank you to everyone who helped us get there, it really does mean the world. God definitely worked in me and in these kids in the park. It is SO true that He can move mountains, I firmly believe that. It was a wonderful week… I’m blessed.