No Longer Fresmen!!!

I know I have not done anything to the blog in months. I have been so busy and I kept putting it off until now I have a mammoth task ahead of me: updating everyone on everything that has been going on all year, so far. We kicked off the semester (and the new year) with volleyball marathon. For those who don't know what that is, the whole college is divided into two teams. Each team divides their players into groups and each group is responsible for a shift of four hours a day, and then they play almost 100 hours straight of volleyball in the gym. This means that from Sunday night after church until Thursday afternoon, there is always a game of volleyball going on (yes, even at 3:00 a.m.!). It is the one fundraiser that the college has and it is a great help in keeping tuition down. Dad and I want to say "thank you VERY MUCH" to all those who sponsored us this year. We greatly appreciated it. It came as quite a surprise to many, but Dad actually has good volleyball skills. After playing for hours a day, after a few days, even I improved...I can now actually serve the ball over the net and have it stay in bounds!! Unfortunately, the only pictures I have of this are in my cell phone, so I can't post them.

   Later on in January, Pastor Reeves and his two sons, Mr. Jake and Mr. Paul were able ot come out. Pastor preached two college chapels, the Thursday night service, and the father-son banquet.  It was so good to see them again! We had a wonderful time fellowshipping with them, and they brought another blessing along with them: a care package from our home church. I do have some pictures of their visit..

Some fellowship after dinner at our apartment

Pastor, Mr. Jake, Mr. Paul, and Dad

All of us (except Mom of course, who took the pictures :-)  )

Dad and Jake headed to the father-son banquet

   In February, the big event was wrestle-o-rama for the academy, and the wrestling meet for the college guys...(which dad did NOT participate in...)

We had a mother-daughter banquet that month. My dad also had a partyfor all of the college students he worked with at americall (after he left and began working with Clean Internet).

Well....maybe this isn't the best picture, but there they are. Left to right: Caleb, Drew, Dad, Kathy, Denise, Hannah

In March, the college activity was a newscast night. The college was divided into three teams, and for one month each team worked on producing, editing, and acting in their own news broadcast, complete with commercials. The staff also made a couple of videos. For the newscast night activity, we had a special screening of those, and nice dinner, and a devotional:




Katie and I waiting for the newscasts to begin



 We also had spring break, and went down to NC for my friend Jessica's wedding, in which I was the maid of honor..i will post some pictures of that in a little while.

April brought preaching conference and Sustainer's banquet, which is where some of the college students are chosen to serve at a VERY fancy dinner for those that donate to the college.
Preaching conference is almost a week long, with preaching services morning and evening, with special activities in the afternoons. It was a blessing, with many people coming from all over the country to hear the best of preaching and music. This year, David Cloud gave a two day presentation on music, which was very interesting.

In May, the college had finals (ahhhhhhhhh!!!!). A few days before graduation, the college took a trip to tennessee, to see the Creation Museam. That was amazing!!! We also got to see the planetarium.. I will post the pictures I have of that at a later time. We did have some silly times in between all that, like...



Mom playing charades




I think Dad was being a chipmunk here :)




And, well, ummmmm.....then there was this

 So, the big thing we have been doing this summer is work on the house we will be moving into this weekend. It is a big house, but it was left sitting for two to five years, so there was a ton of work that needed to be done! One project would turn into another...and another.....and another, so we spent pretty much all our time on that (and of course, Dad and I worked). We plan to take another video of the house and post it, like we did with the apartment, so you all can see it.

Last, but not least, the kids are going to school in the Academy this year. Their first official day was Monday..

Dad and I start back to college on The 1st, so I knew I had better get this post done, or it would never go on :-). Pray ya'll have a great day!

SORRY....



  I haven't posted in so long because the internet connection we were using at our apartment was secured, and we couldn't use it any more. Now I finally got my laptop to work with the domain at the college, so I need to do some serious updating. First, all the Christmas activities we had in December. There was a college activity called "Christams Lights" where we all went to Chicago. I went, but Dad decided to work instead. Here are some pictures from that:

The whole city looked so pretty with all the Christmas lights and decorations. This was the HUGE Christmas tree in front of Macy's.



My group got to go ice skating at Chicago's Millenium Park. This is a pic. of Katie and I.



It was my first time ice skating, so I was a little unsteady! But it was a lot of fun!!



All of the shops in Chicago had such amazing displays. The outside of the Lego store was all legos, and the had a lego man sitting on the bench outside the store. (Allan wanted a picture with him)



Here is another one of the displays, this one at a candy store. The dress is made comletely out of skittles and skittle packages.



We went shopping at the mall in Chicago. We all look so puffy because we had several layers of clothes on. It was only about 8 degress that evening. This is a pic. of Melissa, me, and Katie.

There was also a fancy Christmas banqeut on a Thursday night service, but we don't have pictures of that. Next, there was the Christmas concert at church. I got to participate since I was in college choir, which was awesome. There were several specials, music by the orchestra, and several choir specials. We even got to do the Hallelujah chorus. I ordered the cd from the concert, so maybe later I will post some of the songs. For now, here are some pictures:

Red and black was the color the orchestra and the choir had to wear



Here is Jacob with some of his friends: Thomas, Luke, and Alec. Jake is the well-dressed one in the middle.(-:

We had to have a fake tree for the first time this year, since the apartment owner won't let the tenants have real trees. Mom was able to fid a really nice one for only $15. We decorated it one night after church.

Dad, Jake, and Beka



Everyone getting the decorations out of the box

the tree was 9 feet tall, so Jake needed a little help!

TA-DA!

Poor Charlie!

Awwwww.....

Now for Christmas:

On Christmas eve we celebrated Dad's birthday. He "still looks good" at 42.

Opening preasents on Christmas morning.

Miranda had been wanting boots for a long time.

The gifts we got from Nana. We all got the thing we wanted most.

One last thing, which I don't have pictures of, is that around his birthday, Jacob made a profession of faith, and was baptized. Now we are looking forward to Pastor Reeves coming out here, so I'll try to post those pictures shortly. But for now, that's all, folks!