quick update

hey y'all. it's been kinda crazy the past few weeks. last friday, march 8, my church had a "birthday party" for our 5 year anniversary. they asked me to help take pictures, which was a blast. we just celebrated what the past 5 years have been like, and talked about our plans for the next few years. next week we are launching our brookeside campus! it's so exciting and i can't wait to hear stories about it! i am hoping there are a few weeks i can go down there and help them out if they need it. here are a few pictures from the party.

erica, the kids city director for brookeside, and her sweet daugher

one of the most photogenic kids ever! i love his big brown eyes. he's gonna be a heart throb

lindsey, my kids city director, and her lovely daughter, who will be a big sister soon!

janet, the pastor's wife.

me and my friend kelli. she's been a great lady to get to know and has such a strong faith. i love getting to spend time with her. 

kelli's husband and son. he's one of my favorite kids. 

pastor troy

sweet kid, after crying that mom and dad left him. it was unexpected from the kids point of view. 

about the only two not crying. 

happy boy. (this picture was horribly dark when i took it, still not the best)

big kids got to watch a magician. i heard an adult wants him to come for his 29th birthday party. 

tommy, the former worship leader, who went back to chicago to start a church with his wife and their mentor. 

one of my favorite pictures of the night. i love how excited this kid is to get the hold the bird. 

i wish the one was clearer. it's lindsey's daughter and the bunny, but the poor bunny had tons of kids around. hence the blurry. 

praying for the brookeside team.

this sweet girl is the bass players daughter. she was up there dancing after the closing prayer. 

then the following sunday, march 10, we had five people get baptized. i love watching the baptisms, and these ones seemed extra special to me since everyone got baptized by family. they had me take pictures of them as well. i'm blessed to be able to get to do things like this for the church. i honestly never thought i would get these opportunities. 

tuesday i started a new class. it's not bad, except i have to drive in city traffic to get there. i firmly believe there is a reason i was raised in a small town rather than the city itself. independence has horrible traffic, and this is what i get to look forward to for the next 10 weeks. not too excited. but the class is good, and it's nice to be able to apply what i'm learning. i've really been enjoying the job. it's so different from the y, and a very welcome change. 

i've been trying to get back into working out. i don't work on thursdays until 4, so i like that i can go to the gym in the morning and do some cardio, and then i am planning to start doing personal training with my friend again. it will be great to get back into a routine, and great to see her again. i went to small group with my parents tonight, and a lady in the group told me the work has been paying off and she can see a difference. it was great to hear. then i was talking with my best friend and she said she noticed it also in a picture i put on instagram, and said i looked more confident too. it's so reassuring that other people are starting to notice, and it's not all a wasted effort. 

i am signing up for three 5ks again this year. one is a fun run, and i'm super excited for it. it's around arrowhead stadium, and at the end you get to run into the stadium and the finish line is the 50 yard line. my friend is doing it also, so i'm excited for that one in may. i'm also doing the dam to dam again with my aunt in june, and at the end of june i will be doing the glow run again with my friend that i ran it with last year. so i'm training for these, along with trying to lose weight for my bff's wedding june 8! (and by the way, this best friend just joined the blog world. you should totally go check out her blog!!) 

any fun things going on in y'all's lives?

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february...in pictures

so february was kind of a crazy month. i started my second job, and started transitioning out of the y. all of this along with classes, small group, church, and attempting to spend time with family. aside from small group, i don't get to see friend often which essentially translates into never seeing them. but i was able to do a photo-a-day challenge, which is an accomplishment in itself for me these days.

day 28: something i am looking forward to. 

in other news, today was the monthly leadership meeting for church. in three short weeks, we are launching a third campus in brookside. crazy that in the 5 years restore has been around, we are now at three campuses. (happy 5 year birthday to restore, it was march 2, 2008 that the church was launched in kansas city) 

also, i haven't straightened my hair in two weeks. HUGE accomplishment for me. it's hard learning to embrace the curls i have naturally, but i'm slowly figuring it out. there are days i still want to straighten it. but i know if i do it will lead to me straightening it every day again. so for now i'm trying my hardest to feel comfortable and confident in my curls. how are things going for you?

snowmageddon 2013

wow it's been a while. i've been so busy with both jobs, plus school, plus church/small group. i feel like i hardly have any time to do anything. i really miss working out and running, and haven't really had a chance to do anything for about a month. until today.

kansas city got hit pretty hard with what the news was calling snowmageddon. (kinda funny if you ask me) up here at the airport, we got about 7.6 inches the last i heard, but we are still expected to get a few more inches. we will see what it's like before i go to bed. but like all of the town got a snow day out of it haha. i went in to the y this morning only to be told we were closing in like 20 minutes. i stayed and helped close before heading back home. probably would have been smarter if i left right when i was told, but oh well. i still made it up the driveway this time without help from my brother, and didn't leave for the rest of the day. i called into my other job and luckily they were okay with me not coming in.

thankfully this was a pretty dry snow, so it was fairly easy to shovel until we got to the bottom, where it gets packed. brother and i shoveled to help mom get in the driveway. she came home early from work, and said she shouldn't have even gone in. dad is spending the night in leavenworth tonight. we will see if any of us make it in to work tomorrow.

so many cars and trucks got stuck on the high ways, making it hard for the plows to get around. the scout cams showed the highways as parking lots. it was crazy today. this morning we got thundersnow, which is part of why it was crazy. like at 730 there was just a dusting, and then at 1030-11ish we had like 4 or 5 inches.

around 11am

in other news. i'm totally loving my new job. it's a great change of pace from the y. sadly, like i said, i don't have time to work out lately, and it's kinda killing me. (i am claiming shoveling the driveway with brother counts as my workout today) i didn't realize how much i liked it until i can't do it. still planning on doing a 5k or two this summer. i will probably be doing the dam to dam in iowa at the start of june with my aunt again. and probably also the glow run again at the end of june. i can't wait til june, because it will also mean it's time to fly to michigan to see the bff get married! i can't wait! plus it means hot weather and no snow. and maybe by then i will have fully embraced my curly hair. i decided to start embracing it and not straighten it. i've been doing good this week. 

what it looked like sunday. 

also last night my small group went bowling with another young adult group. it was great to just hang out and let loose with everyone. and last week dad took mom and i over to ku and we got to watch the band of the scots guards and the pipes, drums, and highland dancers of the black watch of the 3rd battalion. it was so awesome to watch. (and yes, those "pipes" are bagpipes!) it was a blast and an amazing way to spend a friday night. 

patriotic jayhawk with the flag, on the turnpike. 

so this guy is a clarinet player from the irish guards, who got to come on tour with them.

also, my baby bubba turned two yesterday. crazy to think he's two already! 

sorry for the randomness of this post. hopefully i have time to be more consistent with this. how have y'all been doing lately? miss y'all!

i've been failing...

...at what feels like a lot of things. i've been super busy and stressed trying to balance work, school, starting a new job, church/quiet time, and family. it's been soo hard and exhausting. but sadly, it's staying this way for a while =/ it feels like, at least for a while, trying to get back into shape is totally out of the question even though i've already paid for a month of training

so i'm still at the y, and feel like i am there all the time. i also got hired on at cvs about a month ago to work as a pharmacy technician. i have been trying to get through all of the trainings, and then thursday i had my first shift for on the job training. i need to talk with a lady there and figure out what my schedule is going to be for the month of february. one of my friends/coworkers at the y told me she thinks i'm going to be killing myself this month. i basically already started that process in january. i'm not sure how long i will be able to do this, but i'm pretty sure i will crash and burn a lot sooner than i think i will. i'm super excited to see where this new job takes me, but i'm praying i don't have any anxiety attacks while i'm doing both. thankfully i haven't had one in a few years

school isn't going so great either. my on campus class is going fine. it's pharmacy calculations, and it's pretty basic math and concepts i've kind of already been introduced to. but english is killing me. i'm taking it online, which was mistake number one but they push online classes at this school. and then i was talking with one of the girls in my pharm calc class, and she said a lot of people fail it online. this would have been great news to know before i agreed to this class and paid for it. certain i will have to take it again and will be sure to take it on campus instead. then next month we switch classes and i will have another online class, that i have heard is passable online, and an on campus class, but at the campus that is about an hour away. trying not to think that far into the future yet.

my friend and i are apprenticing to be co-leaders for small group and this month we are slowly starting to take some of the responsibilities. this wednesday, i will be saying the closing prayer. i get nervous when i have to pray out loud, so i am praying it goes smoothly. we have these meetings each week with our current leader who is moving to georgia in june to help us get ready to be leading. but with all this chaos of trying to figure out a schedule, i'm making it difficult for us to find time to have these meetings. thankfully they have both been very understanding with me.

this is kind of how i've been feeling lately. 

this year has been exhausting already. i'm kind of just waiting for the worst to happen to me right now. i'm praying to have some peace, but i'm not good at giving up control, and i have a fear of not knowing how things will be. i would greatly appreciate some prayers in all of these aspects if you are willing. feel free to let me know if there is anything you need prayer for. love ya'll.