March Highlights 2017

Yet another month in 2017 has come and gone. So much has occurred this March, so bear with me as I try to summarize. :)

~Summary~

Within the first few days of March, my mom began getting her dental work done, and while it will take several months yet to complete it, she is no longer in as bad of pain as she had been. Thank you for all the prayers!

Besides this, March started off with a friend coming to stay and watch our house while we took a trip to Shaver Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The first day of the trip, however, my family and I spent in Bakersfield for the Christian Youth Film Society's 23rd Film Festival. This organization is the one that hosted the camp I attended last November and that has inspired me to begin my own movie-making journey with my youth group, some other friends, and family. It was a very formal event with a dinner and then the evening showing of the short movies that had entered the contest. I enjoyed my time and especially was glad to get to see some of my friends that I hadn't seen since the camp. Additionally, the couple who opened their home to us that night were involved in the festival and movie industry. (One was a judge of the movies, a producer, and an author!) Both were very sweet, and I loved spending time with them.

The following morning we headed up the mountain to Shaver, where we found several inches of snow that had fallen the previous day. It's a running joke with us and our friends up there that whenever my family comes—it snows. :) We spent the next few days sledding, cross-country skiing, and (in my case) catching up on some schoolwork.

Life slowed down a bit after the Shaver Lake trip, but was still busy as usual with youth groups, school, and other day-to-day events—not to mention the difficulties that daylight savings brings! During this time, I was also introduced to a book series, the Ranger's Apprentice, which I have really been enjoying. My church also had a breakfast last Sunday that was very fun, and I was thrilled to have one of my friends from another church visit with his family. Also, now that my family is all official HAM radio operators we have been building an antennae with one of the teachers of our class who also attends our church. In addition, one day this month my grandparents came down for a much-enjoyed visit. I've also gone on several fun horseback rides this month now that the ground is drying up a bit.

This last week has also been filled with birthdays every-other day. Literally! Last Sunday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday had a combined five birthdays of people I know, one of which was my sister. So, happy birthday to Samuel, Abigail, Cheyene, Nichole, and Ruben! I hope you all had wonderfully special days.

For my sister's birthday, my family returned to Hume Lake for the youth pastor's retreat. It was so different than when I went earlier in the year with my youth group and the campus was swarming with high schoolers! This time, there were very few people, no snow, and no structured "activities" per se. As a family we hiked, explored, took pictures, helped work on building the summer camp set, relaxed, played games, and did a hidden-transmitter hunt. I was excited to get lots of reading done as well. Of course, I have to mention that we played Apples to Apples—probably one of my favorite games. :) The weather went from clear and sunny to foggy, cloudy, rainy, and finally hail as we were leaving and visiting Sequoia National Park and the General Grant tree.

To top off my month, I was able to go to a friend's birthday party. I had a wonderful time hanging out with everyone there and I was glad to get to know some more people better. It was a party I won't soon forget! (All for good reasons. :D) Thanks for inviting me, Samuel!

~Reading~

March was a very successful month in terms of books. I'd recommend all of them. My total number of books? Nine. Total pages? 2,633. Not bad if I do say so myself. :)

1. Out of Time: A Time to Die, Nadine Brandes (389 pages)
2. Circle C Milestones: Courageous Love, Susan K. Marlow (186 pages)
3. A Seven Wonders Novel: Shadow of Colossus, T. L. Higley (384 pages)
4. Left to Die, Ivy Rose (116 pages)
5. Martin Generations: Martin Hospitality, Abigayle Claire (386 pages)
6. Circle C Adventures: Andrea Carter and the Long Ride Home (expanded edition), Susan K. Marlow (195 pages)
7. Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan, John Flanagan (249 pages)
8. Ranger's Apprentice: The Burning Bridge, John Flanagan (262 pages)
9. Ilyon Chronicles: Samara's Peril, Jaye L. Knight (464 pages)

Every single book on this list was wonderful! However, I would like to specifically mention a few.

I have been waiting for months to read A Time to Die, and it did not disappoint me. It was a different style than I'm used to, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the plot.

Courageous Love is likely my second favorite book out of the Circle C Milestones series, and while some spots broke my heart (and there was certainly a major aspect to it that I wasn't expecting), it was a wonderful book!

Abigayle Claire did a delightful job on her new novel, Martin Hospitality, and I had a hard time putting down the book! It was well written and I found myself in love with the characters and plot.

Thank you so much to Alex and Samuel for encouraging me to read the Ranger's Apprentice series and for loaning me the books! I'm loving it so far!

And last but not least, I have to mention Samara's Peril. How could I not? It was just as wonderful as the previous books in the series and I love the new twists!

~Writing~

Again, another slow month in terms of writing. I got less than 1000 words done on my Dragon Chronicles, but did accomplish some writing on other projects. I would have certainly liked to write more, but hopefully April will prove to be more profiting with Camp NaNo and such. (Any other campers out there?)

~Photography~

With all of the trips this month, I've had plenty of opportunity to get some cool photos. I'll limit them all to a few.

This is where we stayed at Shaver Lake.

The flags hanging over the ice skating rink at Hume Lake.

My sister at Hume Lake.

At Hume Lake.

The Bakersfield orchards.

This is where we skied at Tamarack Ridge.

Hume Lake

Some of the giant Sequoia trees.

On a ride. :)

~Great Quotes~

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see." -Winston Churchill

 "Church isn't a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken." -Jefferson Bethke

"Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they're big, flashing signs that something needs to change" -Gretchen Rubin

~Blog Posts~

To visit any of my posts in March that you might have missed, here are the links:

February Highlights 2017
"Tu" v. "Usted"
Dear Readers . . . .

I also got several more followers in March, so I'm really excited about that. Welcome and thank you for joining my little community!

Another thing I wanted to point out is the poll that I ran for a week toward the end of this month. I asked what sorts of posts I did that were your favorites, and the order of which you said you enjoyed them are as follows:

1. Life Updates
2. A tie between Photos and Writing
3. A tie between Reading, Books, and God
4. Blog Tags
5. Writing Challenges

Thank you to everyone who voted. I appreciate your feedback!

Unfortunately I haven't found much time in March to read many other blog posts, but I'd like to let you know about a cool challenge that was posted on Andi's Blog by Libby to help grow your spiritual walk. Also, since the beginning of the year I've found and enjoyed reading multiple new blogs. Give the authors a hearty welcome to the blogosphere! You know who you are. ;)

Alas, we have come to the end of this post. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my month. Now it's your turn—tell me about yours!

January Hightlights 2017

Wow. I can't believe that the first month of 2017 is already over. It doesn't seem real. Wasn't just yesterday Christmas? Despite the speed which with this month flew by, January was a very good month.

~Summary~

I kicked off the year with a trip to Hume Lake Christian Camps again with my youth group. That was my best trip there so far! Plus I earned lots of bragging rights because we went during Hume's biggest rain storm in ten years. Despite the pouring rain, I loved every minute of my time up there. The tube run, coffee shop, and band were wonderful, and the speaker was excellent. My favorite parts were simply the great conversations I had with my friends and getting to know them even better.

I mustn't forget the ice skating! All my friends agreed that this was the highlight of our trip. I had the honor of teaching yet another friend (or two, or three) to skate. This year, instead of always being the teacher, I also got a chance to improve as I was challenged by another friend (you know who you are :P). I finally decided that I didn't care how often I fell, and I had a blast! I attempted skating backward (a disaster but fun nonetheless), and did my best to keep up.

Due to the excessive amount of rain, the Boxsled Blitz was cancelled, at least, the normal one. The Hume staff came up with a sort of obstacle course that we did on the ice skating rink. We didn't even place, but I'm pretty confident that our sled would have won had we raced down the hill. Our design was a pirate ship.

In the coffee shop.

Skating.

 

With the rain, the lake filled in a day.

In chapel.

Our pirate ship boxsled.

The river was less than half this size before rain.

This was one of the best weekends of my life! Thank you so much to my dad for taking the youth group, all the counselors, and my wonderful, amazing friends who made this trip so perfect! You guys are the best friends I could have! Thanks.

January also meant back to school, which really isn't so bad. I found myself actually looking forward to starting again.

In addition, the youth leader's wife from the other youth group I'm apart of had me and a few of my friends over to her house for an amazing sleepover.

A new experience for me this month is taking classes every Monday to get my amateur radio operating license. It's time consuming, but I know that it will be worth it to get my HAM license in a few more weeks.

Other than these, January didn't hold very many big events. It was nice to slow down a bit after Christmas and my birthday and enjoy the rain that we so desperately need out here in CA. We've gotten far more rain than all of last year combined and I'm getting to see ponds filled and rivers flowing strong. It's been so long since we've had this much water that I don't even remember seeing most of these as full as they are now.

~Reading~

I didn't quite make my goal of 10 books this month, but I came relatively close. Seven books for a total of 1,894 pages.

1. Red Rock Mysteries: Hollywood Holdup, Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry (208 pages)
2. Out From Egypt: Shadow of the Storm, Connilyn Cossette (346 pages)
3. The Blades of Acktar: Destroy, Tricia Mingerink (165 pages)
4. Adventures of the Northwoods: The Vanishing Footprints, Lois W. Johnson (156 pages)
5. Dragons in Our Midst: Tears of a Dragon, Bryan Davis (363 pages)
6. The Staff and the Sword: A Cast of Stones, Patrick W. Carr (428 pages)
7. Red Rock Mysteries: Wind Chill, Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry (228 pages)

Every one of these books was wonderful! My favorite was probably Destroy. (Of course! It's by Tricia Mingerink!) I also read my first book by Patrick W. Carr, and I was really happy with his writing. If it's any indication, I want to buy more of his books. :)

~Writing~

After a long an unintentional break from writing, I finally started again on my dragon novel. I didn't get too much done, but I'm so happy to be writing again! I ended up writing a little over 1,500 words. I'm also in the process of editing a friend's story.

I think this pretty well sums up my month. I've been really absent from the blogging world lately, but I'm hoping that will change very soon. I hope you had a wonderful month! God bless you all!

Wildfire: Rough!

Hello, Faithful Readers! I apologize for not being super regular on my blogs lately but life has been crazy! I will try to give you an “update” on my life but for now I have an urgent prayer request.

Many of you may remember my posts about the winter camp that I attend with my youth group, Hume Lake. I recently was made aware of the wildfire Rough that is haunting the Sierra Nevada's in this area. The last that I heard, it was about 2-3 miles away from Hume Lake and still raging onward directly toward the camp.

It has burned over 30,000 acres, and the camp has been evacuated!

Please join me in praying that God does a wonder to protect this special place from this fire. This camp has changed many lives and is filled with God's presence. I know that He can do a miracle and that is what I urge you to pray for. Pray that God keeps everyone safe and that he gives the firefighters wisdom what to do. Pray for God's presence in the midst of this disaster! Thank you all so much and stay tuned for an update on my life and other posts!

The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. - See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fire#sthash.A73e9t4a.dpuf

Daniel 3:25 "He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods."

Exodus 3:2 "And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed."

The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. - See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fire#sthash.A73e9t4a.dpuf

The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. - See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fire#sthash.A73e9t4a.dpuf

Hume Lake: 2015!

Ice Skating with other kids from my youth group.

The weekend of January 30-February 1, I went to a Christian camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range near Hume Lake. Thank you to all who were praying for this trip—there was no real snow but there was some artificial snow for the tube and snowboard runs but still the trip was wonderful. In last year's post about this camp, I discussed the different activities that Hume has so this time I will focus on the Boxsled Blitz, (See Winter Camp.) Broom Hockey, ice skating and chapel time. Here is a quick excerpt from Winter Camp that explains the Boxsled Blitz:

The “Boxsled Blitz” is a competition between the churches that go up there. The rules are that you have to make a sled out of ONLY cardboard and duct tape. Then, when the tube run is iced over at about ten at night, two to ten people get in the sled and go down the hill and over a jump directly in front of the judges.

Me and the director of the camp. Selfie!

For the first year EVER that our church has participated in this event, we won! We created the coolest looking space shuttle! Even other campers from other churches went out of their way to compliment us. We were able to fit ten of the eleven kids that were on this trip in the sled (including me!). When it was our turn, we literally flew by the judges at 27 mph—just 2 mph below the camp's record! We scored four perfect tens and must have maxed out creativity points! After we took the jump, we barely began to slow; we just kept going and going until the very end of the run! It was super!

Broom Hockey is similar to regular hockey except that you wear tennis shoes, have only four minute rounds, and use a broom instead of a puck. Both our boys' and girls' teams advanced by one round which happened to be the semi-finals since it was a small camp. That too was fun to participate in but I got much more time on the ice when I actually ice skated later on. Also, I was blessed in that more people wanted to go with me this time! This year, I helped 3 people to ice skate and sometimes there were six from our group on the ice at the same time so I had a really fun time doing that especially since ice skating is one of my favorite activities there! (I only fell once!)

Me and two other girls from my group with the speaker.

Chapel.

This year the theme was “Everyday Things” and the theme verse was Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understandings. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” The band was a group of three guys called The Advance. (They have six of their songs on I-tunes for six dollars and I would recommend at least getting their song: “Give Us Faith.”) I really enjoyed their style of music as well as the touching lyrics to the songs. The speaker, Eric, is a youth pastor from Pomona. Each chapel session he explained another part of the theme verse. He talked about how not to get caught up in the everyday things in our life that can pull us away from God but rather to let God become a part of those everyday things. He also discussed how difficult it is to truly trust God and not to rely on what you think is best for your life. When addressing, “In all your ways acknowledge Him. . .” Eric informed the students how to do this by letting their light shine. In the last chapel session, he summed everything up with what it means to have God direct your paths. As I listened to this discussion of a passage that is so familiar to me, I felt very challenged and almost a little discouraged. I really struggle with trusting in God with all my heart. I am so afraid that He will send me somewhere where I will be martyred or face other serious hardships. It was a challenge to me to let go of my fear and trust that He knows what is best for my life.

Have you taken a journey to trusting in God? I would love for you to share it and maybe it will help me to trust God. You can note it in the “comments” section it if you are willing to have it where everyone can read it or, if you have my email you can send it to me.

I would truly value your prayers for me to be encouraged and strengthened and also that I might completely give myself to God and His plan for my life. Also you could be praying for the three kids from our group who surrendered their lives to Christ at the camp and for the others who recommitted themselves to Him. Well, I hope that you enjoyed reading about my time at camp! Thanks for your prayers and for reading! I'm glad that I can share these experiences with you! Enjoy your week!

Winter Camp!

Sorry I haven 't posted in a while. I've been super busy. Enjoy this post!

Thanks for reading!

Ice skating with two of my buddies.

Broom Hockey. (I'm in green)

From January 31 to February 2 I went on a trip to a winter camp with my church's youth group. Hume Lake Christian Camps, is located in the southern area of the Sierrra Nevada Range. This was my second time going with the youth group. About 17 middle schoolers went and of those two accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Your prayers would be coveted for all the youth, that they would not stray from the Lord due to their home life, pressure at school, etc.

Among my favorite activities at Hume were ice skating, tubing, broom-hockey, and the “Boxsled Blitz”. The “Boxsled Blitz” is a competition between the churches that go up there. The rules are that you have to make a sled out of ONLY cardboard and duct tape. Then, when the tube run is iced over at about ten at night, two to ten people get in the sled and go down the hill and over a jump directly in front of the judges. This year our youth group made by far the most beautiful sled; it was a red and black locomotive complete with a bell and smokestack. We probably won creativity wise but, being the first sled down the hill, we only hit about eighteen mph and I think that judges were giving out lower scores at first, saving the better scores for if there was a better sled. :( Also, Hume has another tournament called broom-hockey, which is very similar to hockey. That was a lot of fun to participate in although we didn't win. I went ice skating twice and taught two people to ice skate. For not being on the ice in almost a year I feel I did fairly well. :P

The speaker was very funny.

Another of my favorite parts was chapel. There are two chapel sessions every day where there is a live band and speaker. This year the band was “For All Seasons,” formerly “Reveal”. The speaker was very funny. At one point he duct-taped a kid to his back to demonstrate carrying unnecessary burdens. He also told a lot of stories. The theme this year was “bear” fruit. If you're not bearing fruit then maybe you aren't connected to Jesus, the vine. They talked a lot about being grafted into the vine and such.

The band leader, Emily.

Even with all the awesome activities, chapel was my favorite part. I love the worship and the atmosphere where you don't feel ashamed to lift your hands in worship. I can't wait for next year's trip!!!