I Like Pictures and Stories

Have you ever checked out Suzy's blog? Well you should! Because she always has interesting things to say and cool projects to try out and funny stories to tell! Her blog is where I scammed the idea to do this: Step One: Post your very first facebook profile picture Step Two: pick just one picture from each consecutive year up to the present one Step Three: Explain/tell a story about each one Fun right?!

I was suprised that this was my very first profile picture...I definatly thought it was a different one! Either way, this is a testament to the Tim Tam Slam! For a while there my friends and I were very into the Tim Tam Slam and did it pretty much everytime we all got together! If you don't know what the Tim Tim Slam is...well I'm kinda sad for you. This picture was from 2007.

2008. This picture was taken at the end of a ministry trip we took to Calgary during Easter break. We had a great week helping out at The Food Bank, The Mustard Seed and some other Christian organizations in the city. We also stayed in a church that didn't have any showers, we all took 2 showers at the community pool throughout the week. The four of us were sitting in the back of the can during the last hour and a half drive home and taking silly pictures. This is our "who turned out the lights?!" picture. It made sense at the time!

and here we are in 2009, on a weekend inbetween camps. Craig, Kaylyn, Debbie and I had a most excellent Saturday off! It started with a leftover picnic in "the space van" after which we went for a drive on reserve land and picked berries out of the window. Then we went to the camp and spent the afternoon floating on tubes in the lake. We went waaaaaaay out the the middle of the Lake where a man driving a boat circled around us until we were being tossed by the waves. Also on the list of activities for the day were: a visit to the museum, laundry, listening to creepy music and planning our deaths in a car crash and eating ice cream. It was a really good day! Also, 2009 was a really good year! A lot happened during it.

2010! Also a lot of good things happened but whenever I think about the year it always revolves around the 2 weeks I spent in Regina during the summer for Becky's wedding! I had such a blast helping her do the last minute things and doing all the fun before wedding stuff. Plus her wedding day was just amazing!

One of my most favorite days in 2011!! My 27th birthday :) My friends really went above and beyond to show me I was loved! We went mini golfing, then had a birthday cake picnic, followed by playing W5 and doing some singing around the fire. THEN my friends kidnapped me and drove me around until I was very confused as to our location! When we got to where I had no idea we were going my friends put off FIREWORKS!! It was the best!

And all this brings us to 2010. This picture was taken mere seconds after the new year began. We were all hanging out at a farm playing games, eating food and having a lot of laughs. New Years Eve is one of my favorite nights and I was very happy to spend this last one with these 2 girls, they are a couple of my oldest and dearest friends. That was nice. I'm glad we had this time together :)

It's been a while

I have not said anything in a long, long time on here. I feel bad about that. Mostly for myself though because I love blogging.

I can't believe how busy life has been recently. It's crazy but it's oh so good! God is very good! He's been setting up divine appointments and giving me opportunities and looking out for me all over the place!

Here's a picture I love. This was one of my favorite moments from one of my favorite weekends this "Spring"

SBBC 2011

What a summer, what a summer! I went into the 2011 camp season expecting God to do amazing things and let me tell you He did not disappoint me! I guess what I'll do is give a week by week rundown here...

Staff training:
I find staff training to be such a blessed time. I mean for me the people of SBBC are my family, so staff training is like a family reunion for me in a lot of ways. I get to see the people that I don't have opportunity to see very much and we spend the week together worshipping, praying, learning and having lots of fun as we prepare for the summer!
It never fails to be a week of growing closer to the people I love. This year we did most of the traditional things...having a float in the parade, going to the July 1st fireworks, setting up the tent, having a beach afternoon, spending time together in cabin devotions, enjoying campfire...it was all really good! Our theme verse at camp this summer was "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." [Zephaniah 3:17]








Kids One:

I was the program director for this week which means: I was in charge of keeping the schedule, making sure everyone was where they needed to be when they needed to be there; I dealt with an discipline issues that went beyond what the cabin leaders could deal with; I was the "front man" most of the time...it's a position I enjoy and this year was amazing!

Our first week staff were wonderful! We has such a good week. Every time I turned around I could see God answering prayer and taking care of us in ways we didn't even ask for! Not only did we have amazing staff but the campers were pretty spectacular as well! They all participated in what was planned for them, they were good sports about it all and they really listened during chapel times. I was so blessed during this week by the staff and the campers that I felt like my heart was bursting most of the time.

Kids Two:
During this week I was scheduled to be camp nurse but due to an injury I wound up stepping in for our summer director for a week...it was a challenge. Mostly because I didn't really know what was expected of me as a summer director. However, I did have an exceptionally fun week! :) Our speakers during this week were 2 young guys with CEF who I wound up being trailer neighbours with. Let's just say they were fun to prank!
I also had the opportunity to work with my 2 girls that I've been spending a lot of time with(Kellie and Kaylynn), it was a really good week for the 3 of us to get to know each other in new ways and I saw them both just grow so much in their faith walk! God is so good! They spend two weeks working at camp in the kitchen this summer and I was just so encouraged by them.

I also celebrated my 27th birthday during this week and let me tell you, I have an incredible group of friends who love me so well! I was blessed with an evening of mini golfing, birthday cake and a surprise kidnapping that ended with fireworks! Plus I got the mini golf guys phone number...go figure! It was an excellent birthday celebration!


Jr Teen:
My first week as head cook and it was quite the adventure! The week before we had experienced a small power outage, about half an hour long, and as I watched the ladies in the kitchen I prayed, "Lord, please don't let the power go out on me during my week of cooking!" Well. Monday night brought with it a crazy storm! The winds were violent, the rain was relentless and the lightning was breathtaking! And one more thing, the power? She was out. We got everyone gathered into the chapel where we prayed and sang for the hour and a half until the storm subsided. Then everyone went back to their cabins and to bed. In the morning we saw the reult of the storm: our tent was down, we had a few trees around the property down and there was debris everywhere. The favor of God was on us that night because things really could have been a lot worse. As for me I was without power...for 44 hours! The power didn't come on again until Wednesday evening! However, Our summer director was spectacular and got some generators borrowed so that we could have 3 fridges and 1 freezer running as well as the water! Most of the time I even forgot that the power was out! I only took 2 pictures during this entire week and none of them have anything to do with the kitchen!
I wish I had a picture of the kitchen staff to show you because they truly were amazing, they kept me grounded when I started to stress!

Teen Camp:
Not gonna lie, my favorite week of the summer! I was finally a cabin leader during this week, which I always look forward to! We had an especially small teen camp this summer, only 20 campers and 11 staff members.
We had a great time though! On Tuesday we went on a 3 hour (one way) canoe trip which included a portage, chapel on top of a hill and a camp out lunch. On the way back to camp we encountered another storm which had us paddeling as fast as we could for any bit of land we were near! After waiting underneath our canoes for the storm to pass we continued on our way, it was a bonding time :)
I had a bit of a difficult time this year during teen camp. I had 2 girls in my cabin who I love dearly but they just did not want to be there this year. One of them actually wound up leaving camp on the Monday after supper which was a messy, emotional ordeal and the other stuck it out until Thursday night but she went home as well. I spent a lot of time fighting the lie that I'm a failure and I had let them down. God dealt with me though and reminded me that I just need to be obedient, which I think I was in both situations. Also during this week a lady on the reserve passed away and I was the one who had to tell a couple of her grandchildren that were at camp. That was tough but God's hand was on me. We went to the funeral together on Thursday and it was good for all of us to be there together. Other than those things it was a great week! The teens were ready to hear what our speaker had to share and they were full of awesome questions! I could so clearly see God working in them.

Yes indeed, it was a great summer! Thanks so much for those of you who were praying for us! And now to end my update here are some hilarious quotes from the summer...

"If you drink 100 pepsi's in your life you won't be able to have kids. But that doesn't matter for guys because we don't want to have kids anyway." Hunter, 10 year old boy
"I'm freeeezing! Sunshine...HEEEELP!" Morgan, 10 year old girl
"Joni is this garbage?" Craig Re: a corncob
Brooke: "You're breaking little girls hearts!"
Frank: "It's what I do."
"...and Lord I pray that we all die peaceful deaths..." Kara,13 year old girl
"Dear Lord please be with the pancakes as they go to their death, give them a sense of peace." Frank

Challenge number four...

...a picture of you and your friends.

Hmmmm...I have lots of friends, and not all of them hang out together. You see, I have groups of friends. I have my camp friends, my Millar friends, my Regina friends...
Sooooo I guess that calls for a series of pictures!
(I actually just wanted to finish that sentence with the word collage but then I realized that maybe I wouldn't be able to arrange them much like a collage unless I made a real collage on picnik. However, I'm too lazy to go onto picnik and make a collage. So series it is.)

Some of my Bible school friends reunited this summer at a wedding. I made amazing friends at bible school, it's really true when they say you'll meet people who will be in your life forever during your college years.

and this right here is some of my camp friends a few years ago at a baby dedication. I wish I had a picture of all my camp friends because they are amazing! I feel like they are my family, spending entire summers with them all is such a blessing!

Oh, and here's a picture of me and my oldest friend Barbie...this is about 5 years ago when she was pregnant with her first baybay! See how I'm pointing at her cute belly! We've been friends since we were little. Best friends for a long, long time. You know when you have someone in you life that will always be there, no matter what. And no matter how much time goes by without seeing each other you know that things will still be the same? That's Barbie.

and now here I am with my buddiest Debbie! we have about 5 million self portraits of the 2 of us. For this one we pulled classy and used a timer! We've been pals ever since she invited me randomly to her birthday party many moons ago. We've been on lots of adventures and I can always count on Debbie to do random things with me.

I want to upload more but at the same time I don't. I hope you enjoyed meeting some of my besties, they aaare spectacular!