Once upon a time...

    ...there was a young lady who was waiting for God to bring along her prince charming. And, though she waited, he never did seem to appear.
     One day, though, she decided to take a class at the suggestion of one of her teachers. It was a small  class and required much work. The big project of the semester would take countless hours of research and organization. There were two topic options for this project, and the one she chose was also chosen by one other person in this class. This person was someone who she did not really get along with very well (in fact her opinion of him was not exactly complementary...). Yet, as the semester drew on and the deadlines for the project began to loom, she was driven by sheer desperation to join forces with this other person so they could help each other get the project done.
     The first big deadline came, and she was ready to print it off...but as everyone knows, printers NEVER work the day a project is due, and it certainly was not working for her that day! In panic, she rushed out to see if anyone could help her. The only person she could find was this young man Caleb, the same person she had worked on the project with. After several attempts to help, he finally put her whole project on his computer and got it printed off for her, and they headed down to class together...and were 5 minutes late...but at least it was done!! The young lady was very impressed by Caleb's kind willingness to go to such lengths to help her, and she began to realize how wrong her opinions of this young man had been.
     From this time on, these two were good friends, and continued to encourage and help each other through the rest of the hard semester. What the young lady did not know was that it was starting to be more than friendship, and that by Thanksgiving Caleb had asked her father's permission to begin a more serious relationship and told him he had been praying about her. As the holidays came, however, she started to realize just how much she really did care about this young man, and began to pray about him. After the New Year, the young lady's father gave his permission, and the couple had as their first "date" the college volleyball marathon. Months went by, the two began to become closer and closer friends, and began to truly love each other. The young lady was sure that her prince charming had finally come.
     A few days ago, this same young lady was sitting in choir, early in the afternoon. Caleb poked his head in the door, smiling, and said "Casey, come on!! Get your stuff!" She grabbed her school bag and headed out the door with him, asking him what was up. There was a couple in the church they both knew and who were moving, but had been saying they wanted to do something with them before leaving. Caleb said that it was going to work out for that afternoon, and he knew that she liked surprises. She did of course, and was excited to get to spend the afternoon with him, especially since Caleb said that before they went to dinner they were going for a hike in the dunes park, which was something she LOVED to do. At the dunes they hiked one of the longer trails, but she did not mind because it was fun to just be able to take a quiet afternoon in the midst of the busyness of school. At the end of the trail, they overlooked the lake, and then went down to the waterfront. Once they got to the shore, Caleb started to walk very fast, insisting they had to hurry or they would be late for their reservation at the restaurant. (little did she know he had to be at a certain spot at a pre-arranged time!) After walking down the beach quite a distance, he stopped, saying they had a minute to rest, and wait for the others to catch up. He bent down and wrote "I love you" in the sand.

Thinking it sweet, the young lady bent down and drew a heart around the words.

And then, she got the biggest surprise she ever had...

As she stood up, the young man knelt down on his knee, held up the most beautiful of rings, and asked this young lady to do him the honor of being his wife!

And, of course, she said yes!!!

One more surprise was still waiting, though. In his thoughtfulness, he had arranged for a photographer to be hiding at a certain, prearranged spot on the beach, to take pictures of the whole thing...

Then he asked her to turn around and look...and was she EVER surprised...He had planned this whole thing so well!

He told the young lady that he wanted to take her back to this spot because he knew she loved it there, and this was the same place he had first told her he loved her :)

...And so, on May 30, 2014, Caleb and this very blessed young lady (me :D) will get their happily ever after!

Old Fashioned Sunday

     This Sunday our church celebrated its forty-third anniversary, as well as ushered in our new pastor, Pastor Damron. It was a very exciting day, and in honor of it, we had an old-fashioned Sunday, complete with old-fashioned activities, and a tent meeting service. And, of course, we all dressed up!

Caleb and I outside the tent (Caleb said he was not sure what he was supposed to be, but that he felt like a dork :D)

Rachel and I

Inside the tent before service (if you look to the right you can see where we were sitting)

After the service, everyone headed down to the gym building for dessert and a slideshow presentation

The whole family (although I am not sure what Caleb was doing here :P)

Rebekah and Miranda

Jacob and his friends

They are just too cool

And after a VERY long day...we were ready to go home!!

Mom and Dad's 24th Anniversary!

     Just putting up a quick post about Mom and Dad's anniversary. This year they went for a picnic to the beach (since this is something Mom loves to do--and she got some pictures!!). I am so thankful for their godly example and love through the good times and bad. We are so blessed to have them as parents! Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!!

Good Old Summer Camp

This year, I got the amazing opportunity to be a camp counselor at our church's 8 week long summer day camp. I had the 6-9 year old girls for the summer, and had a blast!!! They were all great to work with, and taught me many things as well. This year, we had a group of about 18 kids come from Korea and go to camp here. They learned how to speak English more fluently, as well as lessons about Jesus. Every day we would have team competitions, and many times there were individual competitions.They were able to play all sorts of sports, go swimming every day, and take several fun field trips, including an all day trip to Six Flags. On the last day of camp I took pictures of some of my girls:

                I was able to do devotions with the girls in the mornings. My group met in the lower library, and I took a picture of the group

Silly Sendy. These girls have such personalities!

Erica and I

Some more of the girls from Korea

Miranda also got to help in camp for a few weeks with the little ones, ages 3-5. She took some pictures of her kids too.

Pray all of you are having a great summer!!! Now we are looking ahead to this last year of college...YAY!!!

My 21st Birthday :)

     Last weekend was my golden birthday...21 on the 21st. The one thing I had asked to do was go to the beach and have a picnic, so Caleb arranged it with Mom and Dad for us to go the Friday before my birthday, since Sundays are pretty busy for us! It was soooooooo nice. He got Applebees to go and we took it with us.He also gave me a gorgeous necklace!! Later we went out for ice cream. yum! Of course, we took some pictures :D

Then, on Sunday morning I found a beautiful bouquet of roses sitting outside the door...from Caleb, and later that day a ring to match the necklace. 

Mom and Dad got me a new flute, which I was sorely in need of, as well!!! So, I had a VERY VERY special 21st birthday :D. God is soooo good to me....far more than I could ever deserve. As I  look back at all the blessings God has given me over the past 21 years, I am humbled and so very thankful!

2012-2013 (so far)

Life has finally slowed down...a little...now, with the coming of summer. We finally have a chance to take a little breather, so I have about a year's worth of pictures to put on here for everyone:
For Mom and Dad's anniversary last year, we surprised them with pictures. A professional photographer in the church took them for us, and she did a very nice job. Here are a few so you can see how much older everyone  is getting!:

Here is one from Christmas time (Mom is not really a fan of this one...)-

In the church newsletter that comes out, they always have an article on a college student. This last time around, Dad was chosen. He thought it would be a good time to get some family pics done (which we have not done since Jake was a baby), since they asked for one to put in the article. Another of the ladies in the church took these, and also did a very nice job:

Ok... now I would like to introduce you to someone special. His name is Caleb Smith, and you will be seeing more of him :). Caleb is going into his senior year (as are Dad and I). His parents are missionaries in Estonia, but he is originally from California. We have known him since we got here, but it wasn't until this past year we really spent much time together (and we got to  be friends over the course of working on a SUPER hard English project together :P).

Last month, we went to Chicago. He took this one while we were on the Ferris wheel at  Navy Pier.

Here he put his foot out and had me caught in the revolving door at the Hershey's store...(and thought it was hilarious! Silly guy!). 

This was at a college activity in Michigan, where they took us to go tubing.