There Was A Reason

Last Sunday, Pastor Dave asked me to read the Scripture Reading at church today. I of course said yes, I love to read.

Friday night, I was hanging out with Cho-friends in Memorial. At one point, Kristen, Cameron, Carley and I were having a Bible Study. We zoomed in on John 19 and discussed it for quite a bit. I had never read that much into that section, and loved it.

I read a few verses out of John 19 this morning at church. And then came the sermon.

WOW. It was centered on the part of the Crucifixion where Jesus makes provisions for his mother. Then Pastor Dave went into detail about how Mary was to put the past behind her and get over her grief and continue to live her life. It really hit me hard, and at one point Pastor Dave said "your grief may come from a hard day, a loss of a job, or a loss of a family member" and looked directly at me. He continued on about how we all have a period to grieve, but then how we have to move on and keep living our lives.

I think Pastor Dave didn't just want me to read Scripture this morning, I think he wanted to make sure that I would be there to hear what he had to say. I'm very grateful because I definitely needed to hear what he taught today!

Off to hopefully a day full of baseball!

Senior Pictures-Part 1

A family friend of ours, Missy Barfuss, took my first set of senior pictures this morning! After taking 250, these are our favorite 45! Enjoy :)

We started off by taking some at the crosses at my church.







Then we moved to the columns up by my church. I love the white rock in these pictures, not only because it is my church, but also because it is the same rock as the chapel at Cho-Yeh, my favorite place at camp!





These were taken on the other side of my church. I love my letterman, and like how these display all of my patches! We also had some fun with the water polo balls as props.













I was kind of hesitant about wearing a dress, but I am so pleased with how cute these turned out! For these pictures, we moved to our community college campus and found some trails and hills that were very pretty!









These last set were more for fun. I absolutley LOVE the jumping pictures! The one that looks weird (I don't need to give further description) was when Missy told me to "run and leap". Mom's response was "so that you can get a picture of her falling down the hill?" Bahaha!

Senior Pictures... TOMORROW!

I'm getting my senior pictures taken tomorrow (which I guess is really today!)!!

We were at the Rodeo when we found out that Friday was going to work out and that I was getting them taken at 9AM!

First thought: excitement.

Second thought: AH! I hadn't finalized any of my outfits, still had chipping and falling off nail polish on my fingers and toes, and had started getting a sunburn after being outside for a while at the rodeo.

It's 12:15 and the problem is averted. I have way plenty combinations of outfits ready for tomorrow, complete with shoes, polo balls, and my Bible for "props". Aloe has been applied and the red I first thought was sunburn, ended up just being red from an extremely hot shower once we got home. And as soon as I get off of the computer the nail polish will be coming off and my nails will be cut for tomorrow!

Ah! Senior pictures! Cannot believe it's this time already!!

A week of Cho Friends :)

My friends from Cho-Yeh are amazing, but we none of us live real close to each other, so the time we get to spend together is often few and far between. Not this week!!

Monday-went down to Clear Lake and spent the day watching Chovideos with Carley

Wednesday- getting ready to go to lunch with Erin!

Thursday-rodeo. I'm going with my family, but I know Cameron, Lindsey, and Carley are all going to be there soon, so hopefully we will run into them for a little while.

Friday- Carley and I are going to Kristen's soccer game.

Saturday- Carley will already be in the Houston area so might come to my polo tournament!

AH! I love these friends, and value every second I get to spend with them!!

Still a Gramma

This thought made me so absolutely happy today when I thought of it! One of my friends from school was checking up on me, asking how I was doing and holding up.

How many children go to Heaven before their parents, before their grandparents? It is a sad thought, but it's reality. Between Layla Grace and all the other innocent children who pass away from cancer, and between Clay and all of the kids that are lost because of accidents, how many are there? I don't know, but I know there is some.

In Gramma's bulletin at her funeral, there is a saying that I got to help pick out that was printed on the bulletin. The last few lines read,"When you must come this way alone, I’ll greet you with a smile and say “Welcome Home”."

That is just the kinda thing my gramma would do. I can picture her standing at Heaven's gates, being the gramma for all of those children who come to Heaven without their parents or their grandparents to meet them. Gramma will. She will take them in her arms, love them, bake more cookies for them than they could ever need, and play with them for hours. And when I do make it to Heaven, I know she will be there waiting for me too.

She's still a gramma. Now to more than her 4 grandkids, now she is a gramma to hundreds of children who walk into Heaven's gates. She is still a gramma!

Swimming at Luther

When we were in Iowa, I missed 5 days of school. To exempt finals at the end of the year, you are only allowed to have 3 absences, no matter the reason for the absences. So, we cheated the system a little, and I took 2 college days while in Iowa.

On Thursday, Mom, Aunt Sandra and I ventured from the little town of Postville to the a little bit bigger but still small town of Decorah--home to Luther College. We talked to an Admissions Advisor, who told me that it wasn't too late to apply. He bragged about their education program and small classes, and I tried my best to be interested. After a while, it was kinda a genuine interest, but nothing serious. It was interesting to compare and contrast A&M and Luther... HUGE state school vs. itty bitty town private school.

After the meeting we went on a tour through campus. It was FREEZING, but a beautiful campus. My favorite thing to see was the pool. I think some of the high school pools in my high school district were nicer. Actually, I know they were. A&M's blew the ROOF off of that pool. The are about to start an $8 million renovation though! The thing I found most interesting was the pool records. Some were easily attainable! More excitement began as soon as I looked up how well Luther did at their championship meet this season where they competed against every other D3 school.

WELL--they won the meet for the 5th time in a row.
AND... I would have finaled (top 16) in almost every event if I would have swam my best times as of the end of my junior year.

18th place in the 500 free
15th place in the 200 breast
14th place in the 50 free
14th place in the 200 free
14th place in the 100 breast
12th place in the 100 free
10th place in the 200 IM
8th place in the 200 back
6th place in the 100 back

For a few minutes, I was actually considering starting swimming again. By a few minutes, I mean a few seconds. I think if I would have seriously considered the idea throughout my high school swimming career, my decision might have been different.

BUT, as I came back home to Houston, back to my friends, back to the WARM weather, my excitement for A&M picked back up, and I am still very happy with my choice of playing water polo here in Texas at A&M. :)

Snowy Morning

I woke up to a snow-covered world this morning in Postville, Iowa. I groaned this morning, knowing what a hard day this day would be in my life: my gramma's funeral.

I dragged myself up the stairs to a happy, loud, and hyper 4 year old who was wanting to play. I grabbed some cinnamon bread, and gave Leah a few airplane rides.

At 8:45 we head out the door to go to the church for the funeral. On the way there, it was snowing like crazy, and I was not very happy about the cold weather and the standing in the snow.

I was curled up in a ball on the seat in the van staring out the window, looking into the bleak cold and snowy weather. I remembered this Christmas sitting in front of the window with gramma and watching it snow when she told me "You know, the snow is really pretty and I enjoy sitting here watching it, as long as I don't have to go outside!" After that, the snow seemed to be a lot prettier. I know that gramma would have loved mornings like this, she would have spent the day sitting by that window watching the snow fall and blanket the Earth. At that moment, it seemed perfect that it was snowing.

Today was a hard day, but I know that gramma was looking down on us from Heaven, watching the snow from a whole new perspective.