Local.

I may not truly be considered a local, but I can give pretty good directions, can tell you some good places to eat, grab coffee, or hike, and I am going on week 7 of living here. WEEK SEVEN?? This summer is FLYING! The remainder of my summer looks like this: Summer Swamp this week, Portland  and the beach next week, summit a mountain the next week and go to Seattle to see family that weekend, and then it is the last week of the internship! How can that be? I have already learned so much, and made so many awesome friends and memories, that even though time is running out, Bend is now a place I have lived and is a place I will at least vacation to.

So this week was the prep week for Summer Swamp, which is Antioch's VBS. Linda actually got pretty sick so she was in and out of the office, leaving Stephanie, Kim and I up to the task of getting things ready. Which I must say we rocked it. Stephanie took over Linda's weekly list of duties, while Kim painted signs, and I gathered and sorted supplies. When Linda came back on Thursday she was shocked at how much we had gotten done, and so grateful. I was so ready for Monday to get here to see all our hard work play out!

But we had the weekend first. 

The first Friday night of the month Bend has an art walk downtown, where local artists can display their work. This is actually the first one I have gone to, and it was really fun! I have never really explored downtown, and I really wanted to, but it was almost impossible to see the art because of the amount of people, so I decided exploring all the cute shops would have to wait until another time. Who knew that time would come during the next day? Cindy and I hung out on Saturday and decided to go walk around downtown. We went to a used bookstore, grabbed some bubbletea, checked out a few antique stores, and some super cute local Bend arts and craft stores. We also just talked about life, which was nice. Then Sunday we went to church, and after church we went CLIFF JUMPING!!! I love to go cliff jumping, except I am afraid of heights. But looking back on it, or even right after the jump, the thrill is awesome and I want to do it again! ha 

So our cliff jumping adventure had a little detour that took us to some cliffs you wouldn't want to jump off of, but I couldn't complain of the view.

While looking out over these cliffs we found the location where we were supposed to be, and headed that way. Now this weekend was actually hot, like 90 degree weather finally, so after going on a little detour, and then the hike to Stealhead falls, lets just say I was more than ready to jump into the freezing Deschutes River.

I jumped off that! 

So we finally made it to the falls!! And were greeted by like 40 other people who had made the treck out to the falls. But either way, we were there and ready to do some jumping! So there were multiple places to jump, where I am standing to take that picture, the falls, a cliff across the river, and multiple other places just down from where we were. I jumped off where I took that picture, the falls, and the higher cliff across the river. It was awesome and terrifying all at the same time! It was also a fun bonding experience for those that were able to go!

Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures, actually I only got 3, and I am in none...but others took pictures and I can't wait to see them! But here are the other 2 I took!

Alisha jumping!

Brad jumping!

So I am loving exploring Bend and getting to soak in God's beauty!! I have learned so much this summer, and I am not done learning! I won't stop learning even when I leave Bend, because I will have to learn how to apply what I have learned this summer to how I live my life back home, and apply that to what my future looks like! Gah, I can't get over everything I have seen God do this summer, I am loving it and not wanting it to end! 

Well this week is Summer Swamp, and today was day one and it was AWESOME!!

Check out these awesome kids!!

Have a great week ya'll!!