What's-Been-Going-On-In-My-Life-Recently/Catch-You-Up-With-Me

Because that's the best title that fits this post :D

***Note: I ask some questions at the end of this post so be prepared for some "audience participation" haha

I'm going to try and let y'all into my life a little bit so you can see what I've been doing recently! I even have a few random pictures to share! It's long winded so bear with me!

January isn't my favorite month...a few events happened a few years ago that make January a bit painful for me. Plus I just don't care for how cold it gets haha :P But this January ended up being a pretty decent month.

January started out busy because my online college course started. I'm taking Old Testament Survey. I'm doing well in the class! Being my first college course, I was really nervous but I'm doing fine.. I have two quizzes this week and the final exam. Prayers are GREATLY appreciated.

Six of us from my Youth Group went to a Winter Retreat (Thursday-Saturday). We had a fun time playing games and hearing good messages. My team ended up losing :-( I have never won a Winter Camp Retreat. I've been going to the same Winter Camp since I was in eighth grade and I never win....*siiiiiiigh*

A friend of ours had a birthday in January and she invited my sister and I to go with her, her two sisters, and her parents to Philadelphia to go to the King of Prussia Mall and go to a Philadelphia Flyers Hockey game! We had such a great time!! And the Flyers won so that was awesome :D

Also in January, our youth group started practice for Bible Quizzing. For those unfamiliar with Bible Quizzing, we quiz with four other churches on a book of the Bible. This year we are memorizing the book of Ephesians. Each month we meet at the end of the month and quiz on two chapters of Ephesians. Our church has three teams of four teens each! We didn't do very well in January...

February arrived and the same family who invited us to Philadelphia invited us to go to New York City with them for their oldest daughter's birthday! My parents came along with my sister and I so we rented a fifteen passenger van and my friend's dad drove into the heart of New York City! We went to see Fiddler on the Roof and it was AH-MAZING!!! If you haven't seen the movie, I totally suggest watching it! It's funny and great for the entire family. It's about a Jewish family and follows the patriarch as he marries off his daughters. It also deals with some historical issues at that point in time. The next day we got to walk around Times Square! So epic and I'm so glad we had the chance to do it!

On February 18th, my little brother turned thirteen. On the twentieth, my lil sister turned sixteen. And on the twenty-second, my dad had his birthday! (Forty-four in case you were interested :P) The end of February is REALLY busy for us because of all these birthdays!

On Sunday the twenty-first, we had our second round of Bible Quizzing. My Youth Pastor put me, my sister, Rachel, and my lil brother, Grant, were on a team together. We worked hard and we did really, really well! We won all of our games except one! My sister "quizzed out" (which means she answered three questions) in each game!

On the twenty-third, we left our house at nine a.m. to begin the drive to Watertown Wisconsin. This is where Maranatha Baptist University is located. This is the school I will most likely attend. My Youth Pastor's two boys go here and I've heard lots of good things about it. I'm looking to major in Communication Arts (which entails digital media, computer stuff, photography, videography, etc.) We drove to Toledo, Ohio on the twenty-third, and on the twenty-fourth we drove the rest of the way. What we didn't realize was that the winter storm that wasn't supposed to hit until two o'clock decided to come early! The snow was really bad and some weather stations advised people not to drive and to stay home! But we had to drive in it so it was mostly us and the truck drivers out on the Interstate.

I think this was Indiana 

View out my window at 10:30 a.m.

Foggy and snowy

Can't live without Smarties...
I'll have to write a post on how my addiction started sometime

    I tried to use my time wisely by doing lots of Bible reading for my Old Testament Survey class. I succeeded fairly well, getting my reading done for these books of the Bible (pictured below). Mostly I listened to music, watched movies--Flicka (any Flicka book or movie fans out there?) and Brother Bear--with my brother, and ate Smarties and Twizzlers. Confession time: My name is Lauren and I'm addicted to Smarties and Twizzlers :P

Anyways, after a looooooooong trip, we made it to Watertown and to our hotel. Wednesday night we attended a local church (where my Youth Pastor's  boys go) and my dad taught a lesson for the Youth Group. (I don't talk about my family much on here so you guys probably didn't know that my dad helps teach our church's Youth Group. His work schedule only allows him to be at church half the time so when he is at church, he teaches the Youth Group and when he isn't, our Youth Pastor teaches. Our Youth Pastor does the Music Ministry, Heads the Children's Ministry and the Youth Ministry, runs the church website, is the church secretary...etc so Dad wanted to help him out.)

My trip was great! The weather wasn't too cold but it was VERY windy. For me anyways. Some people are used to it. I spoke with a girl from Kansas and she said Wisconsin is not windy at all compared to Kansas. It can be windy at my house with so many open farm fields! The school is lovely, the people are so friendly and outgoing and helpful. It looks like this is going to be a great school for me!!

Gettin' comfy :D

We drove home Friday night (we started at about 11;00 pm) and drove through the night. My dad drove until about six when he pulled over and slept for an hour. Then Momma took over and drove until about ten and Dad drove the final two hours. We made it home and basically crashed the rest of the afternoon.

I'm used to long car rides. We drive almost forty-five minutes to church every week, my grandparents and aunt, uncle, and cousins live an hour away from us, and my other aunt and uncle live about three hours away. And almost every year we go on a family vacation with my cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles and we drive down to North Carolina to Topsail Island for a week at the beach. So I am no stranger to long car rides but the trip to Wisconsin did me in! I am pretty sure I explored every possible way of sitting in my chair. I sat cross-legged, I sat with my feet propped up, I had my feet on my brother's chair across from me, I faced sideways at the window once, I slept on the floor (which was really cramped by the way :P) and I laid half on the chair and half off the chair once. It was crazy haha. So many memories were made :D


Yesterday was busy! I was at church from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. just about! For me, it was a usual Sunday though. We had our Nursing Home Ministry that afternoon where a few couples and a bunch of teens eat lunch together, then drive to a local nursing home and do a short service for the elderly people. We sing hymns, the Youth group (and sometimes adults when we need extra and experienced voices haha) sing a special song, and one of the men will give a devotional. Then we visited one of my friend's great-grandma who is going to be 102 shortly!! She is still pretty sharp for her age. She loves when we come to sing for her and she loves the Lord. We sang acapella for her (one of my favorite times! Our church has many talented singers and to me, there is no better sound than four part harmonies of the good old hymns vibrating through the room).

And that's what's been going on for me this 2016 so far! I just wanted to catch you up with what I've been doing and hopefully give you a bit on an insight on my life. It can be crazy, boring, bizarre, or just plain regular, normal life but I thought maybe you'd be interested :D

I set up some polls to get some feedback from you guys. Please take a second to look at the polls and vote! The first poll asks if you'd like to see more posts about me and my life. The second poll lists some potential post ideas I could write. I want to write what you guys want to read so vote or comment below and give me feedback or ideas on what kinds of posts you'd like to see me do!

OH! Almost forgot, remember a few months back when I mentioned my best friend's grandma was told she only had a few days to live? Well she lasted much longer than expected but last Thursday she passed away. The funeral is today, I'm guessing it is almost over by the time I post this. But pray for the family that they would be comforted during this time. The grandma was saved and is in heaven, Praise the Lord!