Just a 'Chele: 2009

::DISCLAIMER::

This post is a thousand years long. I'm sorry.

Oh dear. Remember me? Michele? I was the one that was actually updating this thing pretty well last Spring...ringing any bells?

Well, if it's not, I don't blame you at all. I don't know how I let myself procrastinate for so long. I've fallen away from all things blogger since the Spring. Even other people's blogs that I know and love reading, and commenting on, has fallen to the wayside. If this was a friendship, Blogger would be past being upset with me and would've moved on to some more faithful friends at this point.

But, it's still here, waiting faithfully. Giving me the option to renew this blogging adventure. All I have to do is click "New Post."

I'll admit, throughout the summer, and toward the beginning of the fall, I've had many moments when I thought about and tried to start posts to catch you all up on my life. But since I haven't written a good updating-you-all-on-my-life post since May, it became overwhelming. Every time I would start a post, I would become overwhelmed with trying to catch you all up on my life sufficiently. At least the way I would like to catch you all up.

I like to be detailed, explain things clearly (or as clearly as I can, which isn't always clear at all), post lots of pictures, and do things in chronological order if at all possible. And, frankly, if I tried to do that at this point, I could probably take a weeks.

And I don't have a weeks, folks.

SO. I'm going to have to lower my blogging standard a bit if I ever want to try and update you on my life the past almost five of months.

So, without further adieu, my life since May (well, the main points):

It's been a crazy couple of months. Full of wonderful times looking back at my life so far, lots of lasts, some awesome trips, many wonderful moments, grown friendships, and hard decisions.

And it went by too fast.

Let's start back in May. What a wonderful time. Lots of exciting things going along with the end of the school year and graduations. And of course still having the whole wonderful summer to look forward to.

There were a couple wonderful events in May. The first was my youth group's girl's retreat.

It was something that the Junior girls in the youth group last year (AKA- my grade) started up after not having one for a few years. I actually blogged about last year's girls retreat here.

"Unify" (what we call our girls retreat) is a little different from girls retreats in the past because it was planned and led by other girls in the youth group, not as many adults (though we did have help and advice with planning from adults along the way). Older girls in the youth group did all the teaching, small group leading, and worship leading. Anyway, I wont go in to detail about it, but it was a wonderful weekend at a beautiful location. There were many improvements from last year, and I just loved getting this time to grow and get to know the girls in the youth group better!

If you click on the picture just below, it will lead you to my facebook photo album for "Unify 09". You will see a lot more of what we experienced that weekend.

Another awesome event this spring was Senior Recognition night at my church. Basically a night for the seniors to be recognized for the things they accomplished so far, be prayed for as we go off into the world on our own, and tell some plans for our future (which I'm sure won't change at all, ha!).

It on a Sunday night at the end of May. Basically we go up on stage and we each take a turn where our youth minister reads off things we've done in high school and what we plan to do after that. Our youth minister also gave us the option to take a turn to speak to our church a little bit. I had initially said I wanted to, but almost decided against it that day. I was nervous, but I went through with it and I'm glad I did. I've been at this church my whole life and I wanted to say a little something about how much everyone there has meant to me (even if I sounded like a scared puppy up there, haha).

I could go on about the service, but I wont. It was great though. After the service, all the seniors and their families had dinner at the church. Once everyone finished eating, some of us suggested that we go take some group pictures in the sanctuary. We did and it was absolutely hilarious. I'm sure we didn't get one normal picture of us, but it was fun. After we were done taking pictures we randomly busted out in a song we learned on a Summer trip in the eighth grade. SO funny. It was an all around great night and I love my seniors...err...freshmen. :)

Again, this picture is a link to my FB album from senior recognition...

The transition from spring to summer was filled with lots of graduations. Three to be exact. That may not sound like much, but think about all the speeches, awards, and names called at ONE graduation, times three...it was a lot. And these were big schools. I heard at least a thousand names called all together, and I went to hear about thirteen names. What can I say? I'm just that good of a friend. ;)

And again, a picture link to my graduations album...

After that, it was summer!

One of the first big events this Summer was youth camp(mid June). My last one as a student. I knew it would be bitter-sweet. And I knew it would be great. But I had no idea it would be the most amazing youth camp I'd ever been a part of. In all my years in my youth group, I had never experienced such an awesome youth camp (and I've gone every year I was in the youth group). I can't even begin to explain to you all the reasons, so I wont try. I'm trying to keep this short as short as possible. Let me just try to hit a few high points of camp.

Our camp speaker, Ryan Fontenot, was great! He was just real with us, without being degrading and acting like he was better than any of us in any way. And that was a breath of fresh air. I got something different out of every lesson. I could try to explain to you in detail everything that I loved about our speaker, but instead I'm going to link below all of the live recorded lessons from each night (and morning) of camp. They were streamed live each night and they're saved now so people can go back and watch them (I love that!). I'm sure most of you wont have time to watch all or any, but I thought I would put them all up just in case. I will put side notes next to some sermons that were my faves.

The video quality is horrible, but the sounds is clear.

Each video (except the last) is around an hour or a little less. At the beginning of most of these videos is a worship time with our worship leader that week, Chris Clayton. You can always skip over that if you want, but it was great too.

Tuesday Night (first night of camp) -I would recommend this one just because it was a good introduction to camp and the theme and stuff. And the sermon was great.
Wednesday Morning
Wednesday Night
Thursday Morning
Thursday Night - Probably my second to favorite night of the week. It was just awesome.
Friday Morning
Friday Night -Definitely the best night of camp. I would recommend this video first out of any of them! It is about three hours long because there's a big break in between the end of the sermon, and the night of worship after. So you can skip over a lot of stuff and it's not as long.

That last night of camp, after Ryan preached, we had an awesome night of worship. It was amazing. Here's what the worship leader (Chris Clayton) tweeted right after our night of worship was over.

Just walked off stage from THE best time of worship ever...these students "got it" this week...I am speechless. headed home tomorrow.11:17 PM Jun 19th

Of course, ultimately it's not about about what a camp speaker or worship leader did that made camp awesome. It's about what God did. And what God did was amazing.

By the end of camp, 97 students accepted Christ as their Savior for the first time, 115 re-dedicated their lives, and 25 surrendered to full time ministry.

And, over 30 of those 97 that accepted Christ for the first time were from my youth group. So awesome.

I think this camp was a huge growing experience for everyone involved. I know it was for my youth group and myself.

I've definitely said wayyy more than I was trying to, so let's get to the picture album...you know the drill, click the pic and see the facebook album.

Skipping over some smaller events in between, I'm jumping to July 9-19: my youth group's mission trip to San Diego.

After a week of getting ready, and three long evening rehearsals (it was a choir tour mission trip), we headed on two charter buses to San Diego, California!

We expected it to be a good trip. Especially after the excitement in our youth group from camp just a few weeks prior.

It ended up being full of things no one expected. There was a lot of obstacles that came in our way regarding concerts and reach out opportunities. Many concerts and plans we had made weren't working for one reason or another.

I like the way Genny summed things up in this excerpt from her post about the trip:

"Many things that were hoped for/planned simply didn't happen. Many things did. All in all, 24 people accepted Christ as their Savior, one of them from our group. We give God the glory for that, and ask you to continue to pray for San Diego. They seemingly have everything in the world (money, things) and yet are so lost in their sin."

One thing I loved about this trip was, because of a few canceled concerts toward the beginning of our week, we ended up having a few unplanned, but great times of fellowship as a youth group. I got to know some people so much better on this trip, and I think our youth group really created a bond like we haven't ever had.

Just in case you were worried we had nothing to do on the trip, during the day from Mon-Thur of the trip, we broke off into different small groups doing different outreach things. There were three different Upward camps (Soccer, Basketball, Cheerleading), a sports camp (kind of like a back yard bible club, that's what I helped with), and a couple different groups that did miscellaneous work projects.

It was a long, tiring, patience-trying, learning experience-full, sunburn-inflicting, hard, but wonderful trip. It wasn't easy, but God was in it. And as my youth minister likes to say, God wastes nothing.

Aaaand, here's a link to my FB photo album (FYI- there's a lot).

Side note: this picture isn't actually in my fb album, I stole it from someone else. It's all the seniors that went on the trip, our last day in San Diego. I love this picture.

A week after our return from San Diego, we had our home concert at church! We always have a home concert the following Sunday night after our trip to tell about the trip and show give the performance that we performed on the trip. It was really great, but sad knowing that it would be my last.

The album from the home concert is pretty small, and mostly pictures of me that look about the same, but I'm still linking it.

Another great, awesome thing that happened summer was I GOT MY DSLR CAMERA!!! It was a bit of a surprise. I was getting close having enough saved up, but I still didn't think I would have enough to get it for another month or two. But my mom decided to go ahead and order it when it went on sale the week I was gone on my mission trip. I had no idea she had, and the day it came (the week after my mission trip) I was SO SHOCKED. Of course I'm still paying for it, but I didn't think I would have it yet, so it was a great surprise. Thanks, Mom!!!

Since I got my DSLR, I decided to make a photography blog! I don't have many pictures on it yet, but I would love if you checked it out and let me know what you think!

The picture below will take you to the blog. (I also have a button on my side bar)

A week after I got my camera, our family spent a week house and pool sitting for the Holmes's while they were on vacation. Probably needless to say, I was very excited to take pictures with my new camera while we were there. I wish I had known as much as I know now about settings for my camera, but I had only had it a week and was still figuring lots of things out with it. I still had a blast with it, and I'm so thankful I got in time to use that week.

Of course there's a facebook album with pictures from the week! Click the picture (unless you're tired of all these pictures)!

Toward the end of the summer, some of my best friends decided we needed to have a big hang out day/night, as it would probably be our last for a while (with us all going different ways for college).

We painted a garage wall (yes!) with colorful pictures and memorable quotes, ate pizza and junk food, played Rock Band, and camped out in Kristen's back yard and watched movies. It was so much fun, and I was glad we had such a great hang out before we all were away from each other for a few moths.

Click the pic to view the FB album...it's a good one. :)

Ahh, we're basically to the end of the summer now. I'm sorry this blog is so long! I'd also be surprised if any of you are still reading this...

I suppose you're all wondering what the heck I'm doing now that the summer is over...

My plans were ever-changing as I approached the fall.

I was planning on moving back to FW full-time (my family has been commuting between a small town and FW for a couple of years) and living with my big brother at our house here. I did that. After the tiring job of moving all my stuff here, I am now just finally getting some things settled (though I still have things to unpack).

As far as school goes...for the first semester or two I was planning going to the community college in the area. As I approached the fall, I kept running into problems, and for a handful of reasons I am not going there right now.

One reason being the job I was planning on having this summer and fall fell through at the beginning of the summer. No job=no money for school, which I have to pay for myself. Another reason being I really wasn't sure if it was where I should be going. So no, I'm not going to school anywhere this semester.

Now, don't go assuming I'm some dead-beat kid who would rather lay around on a couch and not do anything. That is so not me. I would rather be going to school right now.

But things didn't work out that way. So, I'm planning on working as much as I can this fall, and saving everything but what I need for gas and food.

I'm currently working for the childcare at my church, which gives me enough to live on, but not too much to save (I live on ramen noodles and pop-tarts mostly, and my car gets good gas mileage, so I don't need that much to live on).

I've been trying since I've been back in the city full-time (about a month) to find another job, but it has been SO difficult. I'm so thankful for the job that I have that gives me plenty to live on, but I've become frustrated trying to find another job. But I keep trying.

I would love if I could start making some money from photography (taking portraits for people), but right now I don't think I have enough work for people to see to get much business from that. I do have some friends that have let me take some pictures of them or are planning on taking some pictures soon, so I'm excited about that. Even if I don't get any money from that, I still enjoy getting to take pictures.

Oh! I have one more album! Even if you check out my new photography blog, you should check out this FB album of mine. It has all of the "portrait-y" pictures I've taken in the past month or so. My photography blog doesn't have all of these on it yet.

As far as my future plans go, I desperately want to get back to school for this spring semester. Where I go depends mostly on money, but I will be going to school somewhere. I would love to start at UTA in January. They have a great art program and I would most likely major in visual communications (graphic design) and minor in photography. If I don't have enough money and scholarships to start there in the spring, I will take some core classes at the community college here and wait to start at UTA until next fall with some transfer credit.

Well, if you made it through this post, I hope you feel updated on my life! I'm sorry I waited so long to update and had to make this update post so long! Hopefully I can update more often now and my posts will be shorter. Hopefully.