Nothing but good times!

Goodness, where do I even begin? This past weekend was just awesome. There is so much to tell. Alright I guess we shall begin with Friday evening. After work I headed off to the Eastern Shore with some friends from church. My friend Shara invited a bunch of us out to her uncle's house there. We hit like practically NO traffic on the way. It was sweet! I'm chalking it up to the fact that I think everyone was huddle inside by their tv's getting ready to watch the 2012 London Olympic opening.
I believe my ride to the shore left around 6pm and we got there just in time for the opening ceremony to start. We even had time to make two short stops on the way. :-)
When we arrived most people came inside to watch the opening with us. Some others we grilling and helping with dinner so they came in and out.
Though London is no Beijing they still did an incredible job putting everything together. I loved seeing the history unraveled. It made me proud of my British heritage.

The Olympic rings light up the stadium during the Opening Ceremony on July 27, 2012.  
Credit: Ian MacNicol/Getty Image

Anywho, we watched the entire opening, ate some greatly prepared hamburgers & hotdogs, and just had lots of fun hanging out in good company. We even had a bit of ERS car action going on throught the evening. Needless to say I had everything I needed and was quite content.
Eventually people started winding down and heading to bed. And by bed I mean we grabbed our sleeping bags and pillow and camped outside in tents. It was way hot a sticky outside but hey that's camping in the summer for ya. Most of us were able to handle sleeping outside the whole time. Only a couple slept inside. Total lame sauce if ya ask me. One, cough Ben cough, didn't even attempt to sleep outside. His sisters definitely gave him a hard time about it though. lol Got to love family right?

The next morning most everyone was up by like 7-8am. Breakfast was mainly prepared by Tony. He made some pretty bangin' eggs and pancakes. After breakfast some of us started to hang out on the dock by the water and learn how to catch some good old Maryland crabs.

We had a blast! Courtney and April split everyone up into teams in light of the Olympics and we competed in some games. Mainly we competed over which team caught the most crabs. lol Team Tapioca, aka my team, rocked!!! Carol was like a magnet for them. It seemed like any time she was by one of the lines a crab was biting. I was so glad she was on my team.

Crabbing carried on sporadically all day. Some of us stopped to chill off in the water, go canoeing, kayaking, and/or sailing.

I was totally outside ALL day, crabbing, swimming, laying out on the floaties and all that jazz. Originally I was hesitant to get in the water, other than on a raft, because I wasn't able to see anyhting in the water in any way at all. Wasn't sure how I felt about not knowing what could be swimming with me ya know?

But of course I couldn't get away with just floating on a inner tube. Ben decided I need to go for a swim and jumped from the dock and flipped me off the tube. Thanks a lot! Well that definitely got me over the whole not knowing what I'm swimming with thing real fast. lol

It really wasn't half bad. The water felt great. The current at that time was super strong though. As I was treading, I was basically swimming to fight to stay in one spot the whole time. It was wicked! Def got a good work out in. :-P

After spending loads of time with all that we had lunch, taco salad, and then more activities. We also went to play frisbee out in one of the fields. I totally zoned out at one point and nearly got my head taken off by the frisbee. HAHA! Never been more thankful to be short. After that we were all super sweaty and gross. So we jumped back in the water to cool off before dinner. 

 At that point a storm was starting to roll in. Now, I LOVE storms and summer rains. This was a special treat for me cause I've never seen a storm roll in over the water before. It was AMAZING! The was the calm before the storm and then massive winds. The lightning was epic too. We joked about how cool it would be if we got to see a funnel start to form. I believe I said "I'd be just as excited as I would be terrified!". Well, then it started raining. Unfortunately it was a cold rain and those aren't as fun so we ran inside. 

We all got cleaned up for dinner, Spaghetti and crabs. Mmmm...yummy! My ride was leaving after dinner so I didn't stay through Sunday. Plus I was going home to welcome back my "little" brothers, Timothy & Mathew, since they returned from their missions trip (MP2) in California. My friend Kelly was a leader in training on their trip so I was excited for her to be back too.

She Shares Friday with She Reads Truth

 

 Shortly after joining the blogging world I started to follow the She Reads Truth blog. This blog is for Christian women seeking to spend more time in God's word. They pick a daily devo plan to do and everyone in the She Reads Truth community follows along. It is a great place to meet other believers and unite as one body in Christ. I find that reading the devos and then checking out the comments other women leave is very helpful. I don't always understand every passage I read from the Bible so it's great to see what others get out of each study.

If you are in need of a great place for studying the Bible and a place to commune with some great Christian women then definitely check it out!

Right now we are going through a "Prayer" study using the YouVersion App or site. It has been insightful, challenging, confusing, encouraging, convicting and so much more.

I was so excited when to start this study with She Reads Truth that I even bought a new journal.

 

Isn't it purtty? :-D

 I have been just chiseling away in this journal. Writing down everything that comes to mind when reading each daily devo. So far what I've learned is that, and this is so cookie cutter Christian, prayer is essential to building up ones relationship with God. I know I know this is basically what everyone hears in Sunday school. And yeah I knew it before too but I haven't really been living it out. 

In following along with this study I am being challenged and constantly reminded to pray way more often then I have been. Prayer is something that needs to be an every day type thing. If we aren't praying then we're, in a way, ignoring God. In order to build a better relationship with our Father we need to commune with Him on a regular basis. 

It's like talking with a friend. If we aren't keeping in touch with them then we don't know how they're doing or what's going on in their life and vise versa. You need to talk with each other to keep up and build on the friendship. Otherwise it just flops and goes dull. That's definitely not how I want my relationship with God to be and in this I'm being challenged to spend more time with Him. It's not like I had completely stopped praying or anything it's just that I didn't have the desire to want to run to God and share every part of my life with Him like I use to. I didn't realize how stale my prays had become until starting this journey. This for sure isn't proving to be an easy task but I'm choosing to persevere. I'm not letting any more bumps in the road keep me from my Father. 

Another good thing I've been learning is that praying for others is an amazing rewarding experience. You really feel good when you think about others before yourself. We are all God's creation and we need to look out for each other. We can do so much more for someone when we pray for them instead of trying to help them in our own strength. 

Also, something that really struck me was that we should pray for our fellow believers. We are brothers and sisters in Christ and often we are at odds with each other. Rather than quarrel, we are to be lifting one another up to God and encouraging each other. Especially when we don't feel like it!

Philemon 1:4-6 "I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ"

It's OK Thursday!

I'm new to the whole blog world and was surfing other blog sites and I found this trend "It's OK Thursday". Apparently it started one year ago today. Couldn't be a better day to join yeah? Here goes nothing...

 

It's OK...

To wake up with only a half hour to get ready for work

To sing loudly in the shower for all to hear

To wear flip flops all year long

To accidentally fall asleep wearing makeup

To be an adult that still uses their fingers to count

To have a Free High Fives t-shirt and count how many you get when you wear it

To be a little OCD and have to eat skittles by twos and the same color

To flail around like a fish out of water when something/someone tickles you

To feel naked if I don't have my cell phone with me and panic when I don't know where it is

(Sad I know!)

To be a coupon clipper because at the moment you live paycheck to paycheck :-/

To laugh so hard sometimes that you pee a little (Hey...it happens don't judge!)

To hide out in your house all day watching movies when you need a break from reality

To proudly represent The Washington Redskins even if they don't have a winning season with RGIII

To still get excited when it's almost your birthday month (Yes, I still love my b-day like when I was a kid and I can't wait to be 23!)

Forcey 360 Fun and Games

I used to work with an after school program at my church's school called Forcey 360. Every so often we would take the kids into the gym and play Steal the Bacon. Here are some videos of these priceless memories. :-)

 Staff member Kyle and Student Wilford

 Staff vs. Staff; Chris makes an effort to beat Kyle

        

 

This video is of the program Director for Forcey 360 and some of the kids. We were on a field trip to BounceU and they had these little bouncy horses for the kids to "ride" on. Well...they decided to have a race. Lol It definitely was good for a laugh.

 

Forcey 360 was usually a good time. I enjoyed working there a lot. I've pretty much worked with kids my whole life so it is a bit weird having a job that has NOTHING to do with kids. It's kind of refreshing but I know eventually I will miss my kids.

News News News!

So I am awful at blogging. Things have been crazy and I've been distracted. I plan to do a better job at updating more.


The last time I said I had some good news that I would share soon. It is long overdue. 
I am finally going to have a FULL-TIME job! Yayyy...God is great! This is seriously a huge answer to prayer. Before I started working part-time at Residency Bureau I had 4 part-time jobs. Mostly working with kids. Waking up at 5:00am every morning and sometimes not getting home till after 10:00pm. Not very ideal but ya do what ya gotta do. :-/ 
Working at Residency Bureau is such a blessing though. Now I can check full-time job off my list. Oh and the cherry on top is that I get great benefits. Check that off too!

Goodbye Tricia

The only the sad part of me going full-time is that my co-worker is leaving. (which is basically why I was offered a full-time position.) It's a bittersweet deal. As of August 1st my co-worker will no longer be apart of Residency Bureau.

But that means I also start full-time the same day. 



Now for the main reason I have not kept up with blogging. I was involved in a car accident around the end of June. It was fairly traumatizing for me. I'm just going to state the facts. Someone hit me and the insurance company totaled my car. I am now in the oh so fun process of searching for a replacement for poor my car(Rufio). I'm kind of really sad about having to look for a new car already. Rufio was the first car that I paid for and owned all on my own. I didn't even have him a year.

Rufio - 1 last pic as I left the lot.

Rufio was a great car and I am grateful I had him even if it was only for a short time. I know it seems a bit silly but it was hard to leave the lot after clearing all my stuff out of the car and getting the tags. I will never forget you Rufio!

I had a rental car for a while but had to return that last week. Now I have to revert to sharing a car again until I can find a new one to buy. It kind of feels like I'm back in high school cause I have to ask permission and make arrangements to borrow the car. Yeah...I definitely don't miss that.