Its That Time of Year Again!

In one month, my big brother will be graduating from UNC-Wilmington, and in two months my little brother will be graduating high school and my sister will be finishing up her last few days of elementary school. It's this time of year that makes me feel really old! I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by, and how much God has worked in my life! Right after my big brother graduates, I'll be jetting off to Norway for a class I'm taking at Wingate. I'm really excited to be going out of the country again, it seems like Costa Rica was a lot longer than two years ago! I'm really excited to see a country with so much natural beauty and be able to take it all in through the stuff our teacher has planned! Two days after I return, I'll be headed to Williamsburg, Virginia to be a SummerShiner for the third year in a row! I'm excited to work with 13 other Christians serving the campers that come by for a taste of colonial times! In all the craziness of life, I keep Nehemiah 8:10 posted at my desk "The JOY of the Lord is my strength," and truly He is the one that keeps me going and gives me energy!

The end is so near

Actually it's tomorrow...just over 12 hours from now.

After 12 weeks of being in Cherokee, my time here is coming to an end. I never thought i'd see the day, because three months feels like eternity, but i'm finally done. Today was my last day of work, and my mind still tells me that i'll be in there tomorrow renting tubes and booking tours, when in reality my body will be in the car headed for Greensboro. In retrospect, this summer has flown by, but I promise the weeks got longer the more time I spent on the campground. God has really blessed me with everything that happened this summer, both good and bad. He's taught me a lot about who I am and who He should be in my life. I've met some really amazing people that I hope I will be friends with for a very long time, because they taught me how much God truely cares about me and wants to have a relationship with me. I've been quite blessed to have spent my summer with such amazing people! Although many of them are gone and have been for about a week or so, I can't seem to wrap my mind that it's going to be a long while till I see many of them again. For some reason, I keep expecting them to just walk right in the door and start talking like they were never gone. I'm really ready to go home, but I also wish that this summer hadn't gone by so quickly.

While it's sad to leave, I'm so excited to be going home! There are so many of my friends that I feel like I haven't seen in forever that I will get to see while I'm home, and I'll get to spend a little time with my family before I have to leave again for school. I'm so excited about going back to school, I just saw pictures of what my apartment looks like and I honestly couldn't be happier! It still needs some decorating and a few touches here and there, but i'm so ready to move in!! It's going to be nice having a set schedule that doesn't change from week to week.

It's kinda bitter-sweet, but I guess it had to end sometime...

It's been a while...

Whoops! It's definately picked up around here since the 4th of July, so I haven't had much time to blog. Working at the KOA is still a lot of fun, it's just starting to wear me out. Work is much easier now that i've completely figured out the system, it's just a little more stressful since the campground is almost always busy.

Lately, the computer system keeps going down and we have had to do a lot of our sales by hand. Usually, the people are pretty understanding and don't complain about how long it takes us to fill out everything we need to, but it takes a while to imput everything in when they do come up. For example, yesterday morning we rented tubes to 30 or so different groups of people. The computers came back up at about 1pm and were only up for about 10 mins before they went down again. They came back up later and were up for most of the day before they crashed again at 7, right before closing. It was a little hectic, but it was good math practice!

I can't wait to get home for a week and see my family and friends in Greensboro before heading back to Wingate. The summer has flown by!!

Pura Vida!

Costa Rica is so amazing!!! We've seen most of San Jose because we live here and have had several field triips here, but I feel like there is so much more to see! On our field trips we have gone to several places, including a volcano, the rainforest, the gold museum and the national museum. They have all been pretty cool, but my favorite had to be the volcano. It was really beautiful, and i'll be sure to put up pictures as soon as I get home.
I'm starting to get adjusted to life here. It's still a little weird to be living in someone else's house, but they do kinda feel like my family because they make us feel so welcome. The food here is pretty good. Some of it is a little bland, but its still pretty good.
School has been going well, i feel like I am learning a lot, even though I have only had class for 4 days so far. There are 5 girls in my class including me and our teacher's name is Gustavo. He's a good teacher, and he lets us play lots of games which are pretty fun!
So far, i've been suprised by the american influnce that is found here. Most of the resturants around the school are all american (Subway, Quisnos, Pizza Hut, Wendys, McDonalds, you get the idea). It's kinda a bummer though, because we don't get to taste as much of the typical food.
Tomorrow, we are going to isla tortuga, which is a beach about an hour and a half from San Jose. I'm really excited to see the coast and get some sun!!
I'll try to keep you updated, but i usually only have 15 minutes a day on the internet during the short break we have in class.
Oh, and pura vida means "pure life" it's a popular "tico" phrase.

Costa Rica

We arrived safely, and are having a blast!! I don't have much time, but I just wanted to say hey and hopefull i'll get another chance to fill you in on everything happening here!!

Preparing

It's hard to believe that freshman year is completely done with!! I'm back at home, enjoying a few days of sleeping in and trying to get everything in my room organized again. I miss my school friends, but it's nice not having to worry about classes or homework and being able to just relax.

Tomorrow night I leave for Charlotte, then Saturday morning is my flight for Costa Rica. I'm more excited now than I was, because I've found out more information about where we are going and what we are doing. The language school that we are going to is a lot different than the one we would have gone to in Mexico. It's going to be more hands on (museums and traveling) instead of just classroom time. It should be interesting, and I'm sure I will learn a ton of Spanish. This will probably be my last blog until I get back on the 23th, because I won't have my computer with me. I do plan on keeping a journal while I am there, so I'll have lots to share about the trip. I tried to start packing, but it's more difficult than I thought it would be. It's been over two years since I've been out of the country, and I've never been gone for two weeks. I guess I just don't know what to pack because I'm going to be gone for so long. I'll figure it out sometime before I leave though!

Just a few days after I get back from Costa Rica, I leave for Cherokee, NC. I'm so excited about it, and can't wait to see how God is going to use me and the rest of the staff this summer! I should have my computer there, so I won't be completely out of the loop on everything. It's kinda sad that I don't get to hang out with my friends as much as I did last summer, but many of them will be away as well.

It's going to be an AMAZING summer, I can't wait to get going!!!

Endings and New Beginnings

I had a GREAT weekend, and it's actually been a while since I've had so much fun at school! Friday I saw 17 again which was really a pretty good movie. I went to the theater with 4 of my friends, but 3 of them decided (at the ticket booth) to go see Crank instead. My friend Kayla and I were not as easily swayed. We had planned to go see it together last weekend, but I wasn't able to go because of SummerShine orientation. It was a good thing we didn't go watch it with them though, because it turned out to be quite explicit and not that great of a movie. Since our movie started earlier, Kayla and I sat outside to wait for the other movie to finish. We weren't out there for long before Jessie joined us. She didn't like the movie at all, and didn't want to be in there for a minute longer, so she came to talk with us. After a few minutes of talking, we all realized how hungry we were and walked across the extremely sketch parking lot to Applebees. We were afraid that it would be closed considering it was almost 12pm, but they were open and we were seated. Right after we ordered we got a call from the 2 guys Jessie had left in the theater, because their movie had ended and they didn't see us and were worried about us. Sweet aren't they! We told them to just come in and sit with us. After we ate our food and had many laughs, we headed back to school to watch another movie. We started The Pacifier, but didn't get very far before curfew. We headed to our respective floors, but I wasn't really that tired, and neither was Jessie so she came to my room and we just talked for a while until we were both about ready to fall over.

On Saturday, I got up a little earlier than usual so that I could go to lunch with my older brother. He had driven to Charlotte from UNCW on Friday afternoon for the Dave Matthew Band concert and the 21st birthday of one of his best friends from high school. Since my school is right on the way, and we hadn't seen each other since Christmas, he stopped in to say hey. It was good to catch up with him, since he's staying at the beach for the summer, and I'm going to the mountains...

Wingate's "Spring Fling" was on Sunday. I'm not sure if they do something similar every year, but pretty much it was a day full of live bands and pool games. As the finale, Sister Hazel played live. They were a lot better than I was expecting, and actually sounded better live than they do on their Cd's. It was a lot of fun, even if there were a ton of drunk people all over the place... It actually made me feel like I go to a reasonably sized college. I'm not sure where all the people came from, but it was cool to see so many people in a relatively small space, since that doesn't happen very often.

Today I went to my absolute last class of freshman year. It's kinda weird to think about it...as long as I pass all my finals (hopefully that will happen...) I'm no longer a freshman, wow that sounds weird. After classes and dinner, I drove home. I needed to bring a bunch of stuff home so that I would have room in my car at the end of the semester, and my first exam isn't till Friday morning.

Oh, we found out today that we might not be able to go to Mexico because of the swine flu. It's still up in the air, but if it doesn't start to get better, chances are we aren't going to be able to go. I'd actually started getting excited about it too!

Ahh!! 1 month from today I'll be in Cherokee! I can't wait to be a SummerShine Staffer!!

I will go, I will go, I will go, Lord send me...

I was going to go to bed early tonight, but seeing as a fire alarm kept my whole building outside for at least 30 minutes, I'm wide awake now...

I was quite scared about this weekend, and I probably prayed at least half way there. God does answer prayers, and He worked quickly for me this weekend! I don't know what I was so worried about. I got there and felt a little out of place at the beginning, because everyone was talking with their groups for the summer, and people kept asking me where I was going to be working. Even though I was meeting people left and right and I was in a room completely full of people, I felt alone. Someone encouraged me a little when they said that because I was there, I had a better chance of getting a spot than someone who didn't show up. That made me feel a little more confidant that I was actually there for a reason, but it didn't completely calm my nerves.

We listened to several encouraging speakers, and about 9 people started heading off to stay with the families that had given up space in their homes. I was talking to some people that I had met from State, but they left not long after the first few people went. I started talking to a girl that had flown from California to come for training, and she completely eased all my stress. She was telling me all about SummerShine and how much fun it is. I talked to her about most of the stuff I was worried about, and she explained how she got involved last year.

I was placed with a high school girl that was assigned to work at the Cherokee KOA this summer and we were assigned to stay with a really sweet couple who promised to come visit both of us. We stayed up till almost midnight talking to them and hearing the really cute story of how they met. The next morning they had breakfast all set up for us and we got a chance to talk to them some more while we were eating.

We got back to the church around 9:30 and had several more speakers before lunch. The director told a story about how a bird tried to fly in his glass door at home, but ran into it instead. He said we should make sure we fly through the doors that God opens for us, instead of those which we want to enter, because it won't work unless the door has already been opened. When lunch was ready, the director said he needed to talk to a few people and named off a few names. My name was one of them and my stomach literally flipped. Everyone was dismissed by where they were going, so that they could eat and get to know the people they were going to be working with over the summer. I was left in the room with a couple of other girls that didn't know where they were going to be either. The director's daughter came and talked to us about how we might be subs, because there were just so many girls that wanted to work and not enough places to put them. I started to panic, because I didn't know why they had called my name and figured the worst. After she was done talking, I went to go talk to her dad in the other room and he handed me an envelope. He said they had a spot open at Cherokee and wanted me to join the team there! I was quite ecstatic, because I had pretty much figured that I wasn't going to have a spot.

The weekend only got better from there! I got to meet the other people that I will be working with, and had many questions answered that have really put me to ease about this summer. I truly feel a peace about it, and can't wait for it to actually start! I'm definitely going to miss my friends and family, and probably my phone and Internet access, but I know I'm going to grow as a person and as a Christian. It's a wonderful experience, and I can't wait to make the most of it!

The title of this is from a song by Starfield that we sang at church on Sunday morning. It's been stuck in my head all day, and I absolutely love it!

And it begins...

This weekend marks the beginning of a giant leap outside my comfort zone, and i'm scared out of my mind :/

Its time for SummerShine orientation, and the only thing I know is where I am supposed to go. I don't really like going somewhere that I am not completely prepared for. I like to know what I will be doing, and who will be there. Unfortunately, I don't know either. I'm headed to a Methodist church in Clemmons, and I don't know a soul that will be there. I don't even know which campground I will be working at yet. I'm going to a new place and hopefully going to meet some new people...

I'm so glad my Heavenly Father will be with me, because this so isn't me...

Good News

I was home for Easter break Thursday through Monday. It was great to be home with my family, and good to see many of my friends. Unfortunately, I had food poisoning all day Friday, so I didn't get to see several of my friends and had to stay home.

Nothing really exciting happened while I was home. I spent a lot of time with my family, and got a lot of sleep! :) My mom did loose our Easter candy and she spent several hours looking all over the house for it, only to find it around 4 o'clock in one of her regular hiding spots in the kitchen.

On Monday, I was all packed and ready to head back to school at about 2:30, but my mom had the van so I couldn't leave. She called me at about 3 and said that she was washing the windshield and realized that I was well past the inspection date and she volunteered to take it in right then. While she was busy with that, I took her car and went to visit my dad at work. I'm ashamed to say that I probably haven't been to his office in a while, because there were many things that looked new and his office was not where I remembered it being (he told me he switched offices about a year ago! whoops). I was talking to him about several different things, and my summer plans came up. I still hadn't heard from SummerShine at the time, so he got on their website and called the contact number that was there. The woman that answered the phone said that I was on the waiting list and she would call me in the next few days when she found out whether she had a spot for me or not. My dad told me to start looking for other places to work, because he figured that I wasn't the only one on the waiting list. I prayed for knowledge and guidance as to what I should do this summer, since the job I had been eagerly anticipating seemed to be falling through.

Well, my prayers were answered when the lady that my dad talked to called me today during my Spanish class... I called her back and she said she would probably have a spot for me (if I was still interested), but she didn't know where yet because she needed to get in contact with the people that she hadn't heard a definite yes from. She told me to keep my schedule free for this weekend so that I can attend the orientation in Winston Salem. It's in God's hands now, and if it isn't the right opportunity for me, He will close the door. It will be hard if I end up not having the job, but He will help me through!