Summer in Texas!

I had an incredible summer in Oregon, but my summer in Texas was pretty quick. Before heading up to Bend, I had a couple weeks, but they were filled with graduations and birthdays. Coming home from Bend I had 2 days to see people, and pack for Waco. The hours in Portland flew by and if I saw anyone if was for a short time period. I am really grateful my family got to come to Bend, because that gave me a whole week with them before I had to go to Waco. 

This has been my life since landing in Texas:

Get to Corpus Saturday afternoon. See as many people as possible, and pack for Waco.

Drew drove me to Walmart in his new car! Scary!

Monday afternoon I headed up to Waco, it took a little longer because of some car problems, but I made it! Tuesday I gave my final presentation for my practicum and made an A in the class! Wednesday and Thursday I moved rooms and set up my new room. 

Friday I headed to Austin to see Mimi and Drew get married which also meant a PALs reunion!! The wedding was so fun, Mimi looked beautiful, and I wore the same dress as the bridesmaids. Yep, you read that right. I was wearing the same dress as the bridesmaids, just in a different color. I got my dress in Portland, Oregon and they got theirs in College Station. Crazy! It was an awesome Zephyr reunion and I am so thankful for those people!

Miss working for these crazy guys!

Sassy PALs!

Cute Roommates!!

Saturday morning we got up, went to Gourdoughs, then explored Austin before splitting up for the evening. Lauren and I headed to Waco, Pamela went to Temple and Sarah went home to Round Rock. 

This place is so good!

Miss Shortcake with grilled strawberries!

Love these people!

I am so thankful for these girls!

Sunday morning we all went to Central in Round Rock and got to worship with Price Hill and see all the awesome, amazing people there including the Frans and Lambert families!! I love that place! We all went to lunch and tried to get caught up on each others lives. I will be making a trip back down there again soon!

That brings us to today, Monday. Welcome Week training started today and right now we have a good task force, but I am waiting to truly count tomorrow. ha but I am excited for one last Welcome Week! Well excited and sad at the same time. I am super pumped for senior year, and super grateful for everyone who has helped me get here. Which is pretty much the people I spent my one week of summer in Texas with! ha 

Well that catches me up on posts!! ha Im excited for Welcome Week and my senior year! 

Have a great week y'all!!!

Where to start...

Where to start? Thats a good question. I am in Waco, and Welcome Week starts tomorrow. Sorry for not wrapping up my internship, but these last 3 weeks have been CRAZY! I went from Bend to Seattle to Bend to Corpus/Portland to Waco to Austin to Waco to Round Rock and then back to Waco. I told you its been crazy.

To start Im going to go back to Week 9 of the internship. That seems like so long ago and I wish I could go back to then! Knowing I only had a short time left I kicked it into high gear. I hung out with my host family as much as possible, and worked on finishing all my projects for the internship as well as school. That Friday the interns did one last adventure together. We were supposed to summit South Sister, but the snow level was too great, so instead we climbed up to this rim that gave us an amazing view of the mountains! 

Look at those beauties!!

Made it to the Rim!

Hiking in snow in July?

So after that amazing hike, I got up SUPER early the next morning to fly to Seattle to see my family!!! It had been 9 weeks exactly since I had seen them, and I missed them terribly!! Why were we meeting in Seattle? Well my cousin and his family live just outside of Seattle so we were all going to see them too! We watched the Olympics, went down to Pike's Place and just hung out. It was a well needed weekend!!

Sunrise on my flight!

So excited to see each other!

Sweet cousins :)

Just throwing some fish around.

After Seattle I headed back to Bend, and my family followed the next day. I was so glad they were going to get to see where I had spent my summer!! I had all kinds of plans for their short time there. But Drew had started to feel bad in Seattle and it just got worse in Bend, so some things got changed, but they still got to eat great food, see some highlights of Bend, such as downtown, the Butte, Tumalo Falls and the Lava River Cave! I loved getting to show them a place I had come to love and the people who I had spent my summer with. 

Holding the moon on the Butte.

Love this place!

In a cave!

FroYo with my host and real family!

Week 10 of the internship was the fastest week yet. We wrapped up projects and celebrated the summer. I am so thankful and blessed to have been apart of Antioch this summer. Standing on the other side of these 10 week, I can stand even firmer in my passion to go into children's ministry. I dont know what that will look like exactly, but I am ready for whatever God has because this summer was incredible, and that was just a taste of what is to come! 

These girls are incredible!

This girl is ridiculous! 

This couple is amazing!

I am so thankful for my 10 weeks in Bend. I had such a great time getting to love a new community and getting such great experiences in a ministry I am passionate about. I loved every minute, even the hard ones, because looking back now, those times I grew the most. I don't think I could pick my favorite part, but I would say the experience I got working with Linda and Mission Kids was one of the top favorites. Along with my Pulse group and getting to get out into nature basically every weekend! I loved my summer in Bend and it is something I will go back to constantly. 

I think the biggest thing God taught me this summer was that while I was surrounded by his creation, I needed to realize I was also his creation. He took time to create the mountains, but he took even more time to create me. How incredible is that? I am continually astonished by how much my God loves me. He took me on this incredible adventure this summer and I can't wait to see what he has next. I was challenged physically, mentally and spiritually this summer and I am grateful for every moment. It's not something I will soon forget.

Have a great week y'all!!!