Last Day of the Month of May!

I can't believe that June starts tomorrow! (Mexico is only 9 days away!) Even though it doesn't seem like summer yet, I am done with finals!!! I'm so relieved to have them over! I ended my junior year of high school with my biology final this morning - all 11 pages of it! I'm just glad it's over, but I'm yet to see what my grades will be...

Here are a few pics from my Memorial Day weekend. Friday was Eric's baseball game and then on Saturday I was in Princeton for my Grandpa's birthday with plenty of cousins!




Eric pitching at his game Friday.

All the cousins eating Grandpa's birthday cake (which I baked)!

Grandpa, Aunt Jean, and all the cousins!
(Uncle Jeff holding a camera-shy Faith)

I'll be kicking off my summer this year by going to Fish Fest on Saturday and I'm so excited! But it turns out that a lot of the high schoolers in my youth group can't go because of grad parties, work, or studying for finals. I still have about five extra tickets, so we're going to try to get anyone else in the church to go. The concert will be outdoors and the tickets I won are lawn tickets - bring your own lawn chairs and blankets to use! It will definitely be an interesting time, especially since rain is in the forecast! But I still can't wait!

Pirates!!!

I had a great Memorial Day Weekend, and I hope you did too! I went to Princeton with my family to celebrate my Grandpa's birthday on Saturday and enjoyed sleeping in a little on Sunday before church...

I'll share pics and more about that later this week, but right now I'm just excited about finally seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. It was so awesome!!! I won't give anything away to those who have not seen it yet, but it was so good!!! In my perfect world, the end would have ended differently, but I couldn't begin to tell you how many movie characters and literary figures would be different in my perfect world! Note to those who haven't seen Pirates 3 yet: don't leave the theatre until sitting through all of the credits - a special little tidbit is revealed that is so worth waiting for! And if you have seen it already, go see it again and wait till the very end. If you are an avid fan of the Pirates movies, you may know that each movie ends with a little extra scene after the credits which comes to play later in the Pirates movies. This being the supposed "final" Pirates movie, the particular scene must not "come to play later in the Pirates movies", but is just a great scene. I don't want to say anything more for fear of revealing too much, but just take my word for it! All in all, an awesome sequel to an awesome trilogy. Here's an interesting take on the Pirates story from Christian Today. And just a little side note - I said I wouldn't get on a plane and leave the country without seeing Pirates 3, so now I can officially leave for Mexico! (Mexico being in truth only twelve days away - and counting!!!) Have a great week - finals are this week for me, so wish me luck! =P

Fish Fest 2007

So in my post yesterday, I mentioned going to Fish Fest and the radio station (101QFL) that was giving away tickets. Well, this is the second week that QFL has been running this promotion and I've been calling every morning this week. On Tues. I was caller 2, yesterday I was caller 1, and today I was caller 2 again. They give away tickets every hour, so I still had two chances to win after calling in this morning. I was reviewing my literature homework when I realized they had just played their "Fish Splish," the signal to start the phone madness. I had to dial and I got the busy signal, redialed and got the busy signal again. I was telling myself that I probably was to late to win while I hit the redial a second time. Then it happened... I was caller number five!!!!! I just won two tickets to Fish Fest! The morning DJ at 101QFL, Darren Marlar, was talking to me about winning and then he asked me who I was going to share the tickets with. I told him about the whole youth group going and the plan to pool the tickets together. Then he said something about two tickets not going very far in a youth group (I can't remember exactly what he or I said - it was such a blur!) and he asked how many were going. I told him about ten or twelve of us were planning to go and then he said I could have twelve tickets for the youth group!!!!! How cool is that?!?! I just have to make a trip up to Rockford next week to pick them up and then it's off to Fish Fest! It's coming up on June 2nd, only seven days before I leave for Mexico, so this will be a nice little escape from all the planning and stress and excitement. Like I posted before, Steven Curtis Chapman will be closing the 10-hour concert after bands like Superchic[k], David Crowder Band, Building 429, and Sanctus Real perform. I'm so excited - I can't wait! I'll share pics for sure! (And I never win anything, so this is AWESOME!)

Endings and Beginnings

Sunday, May 20, was Dan and Dana Teefey's last Sunday at Hillcrest Covenant Church. Dan, the High School youth leader, graduated from Seminary on Saturday and they are going to take the summer to relax and travel a little before Dan becomes the pastor of a church somewhere in North America. The Teefeys and their ten month old daughter, Adelaide, have been at Hillcrest for five years and it was very hard to see them go! :'( But we'll keep in touch with them for sure! Dan gave a really great sermon on new beginnings that morning for his final duty as a Seminary Intern. After church, there was a big farewell party/barbecue for them and the High School gave a presentation of "The Top 11 Reasons We'll Miss Our Youth Leader, Dan Teefey." I actually wrote all of the reasons after compiling a list of ideas with some of the others in the youth group. Then each of us said a more serious goodbye and people from the congregation were invited up and did the same. Dan & Dana had been involved with the youth ever since they started attending Hillcrest and their first major youth event was also my first ever Deep Freeze. Dan & Dana will be greatly missed, but God has a new beginning and I know they have some great things headed their way!


With Dan leaving, he passes the torch of High School youth leader to Dave Vollstedt, who is already heavily involved with the junior high youth group. He has helped on many Survivor retreats and has been teaching Sunday School for the junior high this past year. He's been planning some of the upcoming youth events for the summer, and the first one planned has me really excited... On Saturday, June 2, my youth group will be going to Wisconsin for Fish Fest 2007. It's a huge 10-hour concert with six major bands, a speaker, and a comedian. The reason I'm so excited is because of who will be closing the night... STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN!!!!!!!!!! I'm a really huge fan of his music and I can't wait to finally see him in concert! My new youth leader also won tickets to this event through my favorite Christian radio station, 101QFL. I've been trying to win tickets every day this week, and if I ever do, you'll be the first to know! I'm going whether I win tickets or not, but it still would be cool to win them. Anyway, I'll post more about stuff later when I get a little more time - this flamingo-ing fundraiser has taken up so much of my time lately! Oh, and American Idol ends tonight! My top 3 were the top 3 on the show, so I really don't care who wins... More to come...

Catching Up...

It's been so long since the last time I posted! I've had plenty of stuff to talk about, but I just never had the time to get it all down in words! So, now that I find myself with a little time, I'll retrace my steps and recap the month of May thus far...


On May 5, I went with my dad and bros to see Spider-Man 3. The movie had some awesome special effects, but the story wasn't as good as it could have been. There were a lot of plot twists that weren't wrapped up very well at the end. The funny scenes were pretty cheesy, and overall, it was kind of a disappointment. I had heard it was supposed to be a great sequel, and the effects were great, but I left the theatre a little disappointed!


Then I was busy all last week with school. I finished my semester-long Bible class last week. No, I'm not out of school for the summer (although I wish I was!), it was just one class that I finished early. With the Bible classes, A Beka plans to have four normal lessons per week and then a fifth lesson spent in chapel (my classes were filmed at a christian school). So instead of only doing four Bible classes a week and finishing at a normal time, I do a lesson every day and finish with 72 lessons instead of the normal 85 for a semester class. This also helps with finals - I have one less at the end of the year! And Bible classes are usually pretty easy for me - half of my final was Sunday School material!

More recently, on Friday, May 11, my mom and Mark drove to Rock Island and brought back my Granny for Mother's Day weekend!!! While they were gone, I went to Eric's baseball game. It was a lot of fun, but it was freezing sitting in the bleachers. My dad was assisting with coaching third base and I'm sure he was freezing!! Eric was pitcher for all the innings that were played (they ran out of time) and his team won 22-6! Yesterday my mom and I took Granny shopping to an outdoor mall in Huntley. I found some cute tops and a great pair of sandals for Mexico. Then Granny was with us at church this morning for Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!!!

Oh, and flamingo-ing has returned! Flamingo-ing is a missions fundraiser at my church that my family pretty much runs. We're raising money for the missions trip to Monterrey in June. I'm the official flamingo secretary; I take care of all the paperwork and keep track of who needs to be flamingoed, who has been flamingoed, and who donates to the cause! This usually takes up at least an hour of my time on Sunday afternoons and then I organize who needs to be flamingoed throughout the week - really time consuming! My family is also in charge of placing the flamingos, picking them up, and transferring them between houses. We also have to take the weather into consideration for Pedro, our giant stuffed flamingo, because rain can be hazardous to his fluff! But this is an awesome FUNdraiser that the entire congregation can get involved in!

Well, I suppose that's a pretty good recap. One other thing I wanted to post about is the music I've been listening to recently. If you get a chance, check out what I'm listening to: Newsboys, Hawk Nelson, and Toby Mac. Check them out! Have a great week!!!