Movies, Plans, and Love...

Caleb was over today and showed me how he break dances... it was very cute and very funny. While they (all three of the boys) were here they all had to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks again (they just watched it yesterday with my sister) and they couldn't leave until the movie was over because they had to see the end...

This is my week off from school and surprisingly I don't have much planned... I pretty much just sat around here today which was nice. I also filled out some online applications for jobs... we'll see how that goes.

I'm in a small group at the church I attend for the college group. We're reading a book called "Your God is too Safe" by Mark Buchanan. At our last meeting one of the chapters we discussed was chapter 13 and it was about holy disciplines. The thing that struck me at the end is why we participate in these holy disciplines (prayer, Bible study, fasting, etc). Sometimes as Christians we think we do these things because its the right thing to do, it's what we've been told to do, and we're not good Christians if we don't do them. In reality, these aren't good reasons at all. The reasons we pray, we fast, we study our Bibles... the sole reason should be because we love Jesus more, love people more. It's stupid to just do these disciplines just to do them. It would be the death of the person, there is no life. But when we do them for love, life is abundant. There is no point outside of love.

Break Dancing, Somersaults, and Headstands....

So tonight we were celebrating my Aunt's birthday (I know we have just a rip roaring family social schedule). I left early because I was going to a Sunday night college service at church. It seems that after I left my youngest cousin, Caleb, decided that he was going to show everyone how he could break dance... I would have paid money to see this! And he had to have music to dance and Jesus, Loves Me wasn't cutting it... so my wonderfully musical family was trying to "beat box" (though from what I heard it really couldn't be called beat boxing). That I would have paid more money to see!

Then it was Papa Frank's turn... mind you he's 71. He did a somersault and then tried to stand on his head like he used to, but he couldn't get up. Now he used to do this all the time when I was little and we would all run around catching the change that fell out of his pockets. I heard he finally caught on and emptied them this time.

On another note, we had the best service ever at Logan's Roadhouse today... and it was from a waiter who had only been serving for a few weeks and had never served before this job. And when my family of 14 says you did an awesome job... you did an awesome job. Anybody that can handle our crazyness can handle anything that is thrown their way. They are now officially prepared for the job.

For some reason my sister has the insane idea that I will be staying up until midnight to celebrate her birthday with her... if you'll excuse me I have to convince her otherwise.... I also have to go practice my break dancing so Caleb and I can dance together next time... maybe he can give me some pointers...

Birthdays and Family

Tonight we celebrated my sister's birthday with family and most of my extended family was over. I forget how loud they can all be until they get here. But instead of it being a sound that I hate, I'd rather sit back and enjoy it. I know I'm right where I want to be. I just sit back and listen to the chaos around me. It's the same way when we take family vacations... people think it's strange when I tell them that my favorite vacations are with all 16 of us. But to me it's not a vacation unless I have my family with me. It is rather boring just going with my immediate family... don't get me wrong I still vacation without bringing everyone and only going with my immediate family but I would rather go with everyone. It's just not a true vacation without everyone there.

My family is super close. My cousins are more like brothers and sisters and my aunts and uncles are friends. Most of the time I would rather hang out with my family than with my friends (or try to split the time so I get to do both). If I have to miss a family birthday party I'm usually in tears, because I'd rather be with my family than doing something for school. (Of course, usually I'd rather be doing anything but things for school :-)

So if you haven't guessed it yet, family is a major part of my life.

So anyways, back to the party tonight... My cousins were running around the house screaming, stealing slippers and playing hide and go seek. Well, all except Alicia who was working on a book that she is writing. Then Caleb (one of my four year old cousins) had some coffee with lots of cream and LOTS of sugar, If you've ever seen Alvin and the Chipmunks (the movie, not the old cartoon) when the manager gives them frozen coffee drinks with chocolate then you've seen Caleb when he has had coffee. Livi had to wear her party dress because she was going to a party and all evening she flounced around in her pretty pink dress.

So anyways my family is pretty cool.

Randomness...

So, this is what a blog is like, huh... Well we'll see if I'm any good at keeping this up to date or not. Anyway, I just finished with the semester... so glad it's over right now... but it does feel weird to not be thinking about homework that I need to be doing. Oh well, in a week I'll be back at it, for at least one class.

My allergies have been sooooooooo bad lately. I'm on meds and they've helped with the sneezing, but my eyes are really itchy. This past Tuesday I actually wore my glasses to school, which if you know me is a huge deal... normally I wear them only about once a year for the whole day, the rest of the time I would rather wear my contacts.

I saw Zack (one of my Young Continental Leaders) yesterday. He was on his way back from Nepal and had a 6 hour layover here, so Em and I took him out for dinner. It was good seeing him, since we haven't seen him in about 2 1/2 years. Hopefully this time we'll stay in better contact than we did before. Who knows? Maybe we'll even see him again!