It came and went...

K wow.

I have the most AMAZING friends/family EVER.

Seriously.

The 15th was my birthday.

I had a pretty busy week so I just planned a small "party" with 4 other girls, on the 14th.

It was a blast!

We basically played dress-up the whole time:

-went to Value Village

-bought our dinner clothes (a farmer, a "punk", an 80's mom, a "prom queen", and a leathermen)

-went out for dessert

-wents to Behns

-scared them all speachless

-took tons of pictures

(Here's a few of my favs from the night)

Then, on the 15th my mum told me not to plan anything because it was going to be our family party. Fair enough. So we went to Eastside Marios and had a nice little family dinner. After I got my free dessert we decided to head home. As we were driving up the hill I noticed a lot of cars and was like "wow, someone must be having a party". I walked in the house and right away noticed something out of place, Rebekah's camera sitting on the ledge. I barely had time to think about it though, cause right at that moment like 100 people jumped out and yelled suprise! Haha, was I ever suprised. I had no idea! Wow. Well, after peeing my pants and trying to run away, the party started. We played games and stuff... it was really fun.

THANK YOU to everyone who came! THANK YOU to everyone for the money and gifts! You guys are AMAZING and I LOVE YOU!!!!

...Or so they say...

The phone rang today.

I didn't answer it.

My mum did.

It was for me.

It was a man.

I was scared.

Haha.

It was Frontier Lodge.

They "would love to have me come." (!) So yeah, I guess I'm pretty happy about it. Kinda nervous though.

New experiences, new trials, new growth...

I leave on the weekend of the 25th (April) and get back in either August or September. They were pretty pumped that I was willing to stay longer then just the normal "summer season". So for now I've commited to the end of August with a "play it by ear" for September and an invite to stay forever. Heh. We'll see. Actually I'm starting to get really excited... it'll be hard to leave here and maybe hard to be there, but I really feel God blessing this whole experience. So yeah...

Some pictographs to express our/my feelings:

Us waiting and waiting for the phone call ----^

Sad to hear that I'm leaving ----^

Us being us, because that's all we'll ever be, whether I'm here or not----^

I LOVE YOU ALL HEAPS AND HEAPS!!

He will find me...

So, my little stocker boy has resurfaced... He sent me the postcard (pictured above) telling me about the cruise he just went on, and how he wished I was there. *shiver*

To quote Starwars - "I just can't shake 'im!"

Lanny Day

Yesturday we celebrated Lanny Day - The day that Lanny became part of our family 4 years ago. (If you happen to read Josh's blog, he got a few details mixed up... but that's alright... we only figured everything out after he had written it.)

We started doing foster care for Lanny a week after he turned one. We were doing full time care, so he was with us 24/7. Of course we fell in love with him right away. And of course his first words were "Scores!" and "Shoots".

But yeah, without getting all sappy and stuff... Lanny has added a lot of Joy and Laughter to our family as well as Noise and Energy. I don't know what we would do without him.

We love him to pieces!!

Petals, Eggs, and Sunshine Rays

I can't even explain how much these few days of bright blue skies mean to me... Seriously, as Winter fades in to Spring, it's like something inside me changes with it.

Hmm... I got distracted there for a minute, and now I don't remember anything I was going to say. Oh well.

The Phone That Never Rang.

So basically, the title and picture have nothing to do with anything.

I finally finished my application for Frontier Lodge. Yes, I know, it took long enough. Now all I can do is hope that my references filled out their forms, hope they said nice things about me, and wait. I was kinda nervous before... but now I'm not really... cause you know, I could go either way. Stay here, or go there. Both would present challenges and both would reap rewards. The interesting thing is... for the first time in many moons I am not feeling restless to get out of Kamloops. Like I would actually be ok if God called me to stay here a bit longer. Hmm... I guess it's up to Him though.

I don't really have all that much to say... feels like besides applying for camp, nothing has really been going on. Well... there's lots going on in my head, but nothing that I could describe (or that you would even want to hear about anyway).

Um. Wow. K, as I was typing I got an email from an unknown sender, so I checked it out and.... well you can read it yourself:

"Hey Liz,

thanks for faxing your application to us. We are really excited that you are applying for spring/summer program staff. My name is Migges (oficially Michael) and I am in charge of hiring staff. I am German and came over two years ago. Just that you know who you are dealing with.

How have you heard about us? I don't want to brag about this ministry but God is doing some really cool things here at the moment. Right now we are building three new cabins, our camps are growing, we get more staff (my goal is to make it really international!) and we are excited for what God is going to do in the future. And your application is a real answer to prayer because we are usually a litlle short on female staff :-) It is looking much better for this year. We just hired a girl for the summer just half an hour ago.

We would liek to have an interview with you a.s.a.p. so it would be great if we could get the references in quickly. Maybe you can remind the people doing it for you not to wait for too long. They can also fax their references. Your criminal reference check.

By the way, I grew up with the Torchbearer movement. My parents were on the board of Bodenseehof in Germany, and I went to Bibleschool there. They are having an awesome ministry an have impacted the entire world over the last decades.

Hope to hear from you soon. In Christ,

Migges

Michael Koenig
Assisant Director/Discipleship Pastor

Frontier Lodge
Box 1
Nordegg, AB
Canada

phone: +1 (403) 721-2202 ext.125
fax: +1 (403) 721-2204
mail: miggesk@frontierlodge.ca

"Using God's Wilderness to Reach, Teach and Train Youth and Adults for Jesus Christ."

I just officially got really nervous.

Ag.

But I do have to head off to work now so... later days I guess.

So I was reading my mothers blog and she was saying that she would be giving an update on me next... and I was like... what the heck, shouldn't I be the one giving the updates? And what could she possibly have to update that most people wouldn't know yet? Heh. But then I realized that I haven't really written a post in a while about what I'm doing and how I'm doing and stuff like that... so yeah. This will be it. I think.

.............................................................................................

Yesterday we ("young people" from VV Church) went on a hike up at Red Bluff (is it actually called that, or do we just call it that?). The beginning was pretty hard I have to admit... but then again, apparently I'm a pretty big wimp. I had a lot of fun though, and I think we have plans for an over-night trip up there (maybe involving paintballs and war tactics!!) The weather was perfect for a hike, though we weren't really expecting there to be as much snow as there was.

We looked like a little army invasion or something.

The View

Josh being his normal self

Kelsey, Beautiful as always

The Group

The Beautiful Day

.................................................................................................

But as for updates guys... er, pardon me... ladies and gentlemen (*), I don't have much to offer except for a bit of not so happy stuff that only a few people know.

Basically, the short story is:

I've been pretty low for the last month or so- unmotivated, unenergetic, unhappy, dissatisfied, confused, hypocritical... and all that "good stuff". Of course getting rejected from CBC didn't help and then on Saturday I got another blow to the already low self image. My boss at Coast Mountain pulled me aside and basically said that I sucked at selling (which I already knew) and that when I came to work next week I needed to come with a "different attitude"... which I really didn't understand, cause I go to work everyday with a cheerful and open attitude. So maybe I'm supposed to go with an aggressive and competitive attitude. And then he sent me home early. So basically now I feel like an academic failure as well as a occupational failure.

In other news... an opportunity has come up for me. Actually it has resurfaced. My dad had sent me a link for a camp a few years ago when they needed some help and though I looked into it, it wasn't really the thing for me at the time. Well randomly a few days ago I started thinking about this camp again... but I couldn't even remember what it was called. I searched for like 2 hours on the internet trying to find out about it, but couldn't find it anywhere. Finally I had little nudge in the back of my mind to check my mums email. I did, and I found a folder she had been saving for me. In the folder was the email from my dad with the link in it! I checked it out and they are looking for spring/summer program staff. It's a pretty sweet camp from the looks of it, and is totally up my ally. (Check it out: http://www.frontierlodge.ca/index.html ) I've printed off the application form and am slowing working through it. It's hard though, cause part of me wants to stay in Kamloops and settle down... but the other half is screaming for adventure, new things, and new places. I don't really feel a particular call to Kamloops though. I will, however, keep looking into all my options and if that involves staying here for a bit longer, so be it.

Well, now I think you've had a bit of an update... but if you want to know more definatly/obviously let me know...

(*) Apparently (according to a "Dear Abby" article) I'm not supposed to call a mixed group of people "guys", I'm sposed to say "ladies and gentlemen" or "guys and gals". I looked it up though, and dictionary.com says that "guys" used informally is "persons of either sex; people."