Competition-crazy month

Been wondering what we've been up to? There's a lot to tell! For 4 weeks in a row, we had some sort of competitive event, most of them having to do with Awana. My sister Stephanie was especially busy, as she participated in each one! A privilege of being in 6th grade.

First weekend: Awana T&T Bible Quizzing. My mom helped coach, and I served as Timekeeper. Very interesting being part of such suspense. Steph quizzed alone against one other Book 4 quizzer (normally they are teams of 2 or 3). They were well-matched, but Stephanie pulled ahead and won! Yay!

Second weekend: Gamequest. It's true! Awana goes all the way to high school... it's a big secret, I know. Jr. and Sr. High have regional games and quizzing competition all on the same day. Chris, Michael, and Stephanie all joined onto other church's teams so they could play games. Michael and Stephanie's team (Trek) got 2nd place in the first round and 4th place in the second round. Chris's team (Journey) got 3rd. We see a lot of people that we know from camp there, so that's always great. Megan and Jared S. even came out to watch (long time no see, haha).

Third weekend: Sparks-A-Rama and AwanaGames!!! (I almost made a whole post for just this one, but obviously I changed my mind.) I was so excited for this day! I wish I could still play as a clubber, but helping coach is the next best thing. This was a very interesting day, because it was almost exactly like last year, except with all new people from our new church. Even down to the scores... Sparks finished, um, last... but our T&T WON!!! Woohoo! They did fantastic! At first we didn't know if we'd have enough people to make teams, but we did it, though we had to pull kids from 4 other churches to have enough. (Sparks did end up being short a girl, but they needed us to play so bad they let it slide). We had really cool blue camouflage T-shirts that made it very obvious who you were cheering for. (Ironically, they make it really easy to spot friends across the room, and they didn't help our Sparks at all in the game Rabbit Hunt.) Afterwards, we went to Culver's for ice cream, another tradition.

Fourth weekend: Odyssey of the Mind (or OM for short). OM used to be called Olympics of the Mind, and what it is is a competition of creativity. Michael and Stephanie did it with a couple other kids. They had to choose one of several tasks, then creatively accomplish it. The task they picked was to research the trials of Hercules (or Heracles), then make up their own and act it out, overcoming a few prescribed obstacles. This weekend was the State competition in St. Louis, and they got 2nd place out of 5 teams. That means they will go to World in May, which is held in Iowa. They will literally be up against teams from all over US and the world!

So there you have it: our past several weeks in a nutshell. Busy but fun!

Books

As most of you probably know, I'm a big reader. These are some books I've read in the past couple months:

The Bravehearted Gospel by Eric Ludy
This is a powerful book. I would recommend it to all Christians, and especially pastors. It has a culture-defying message, a call to lay aside everything that entangles us and to wholeheartedly serve our Mighty God. A call for us to follow the cross, the world behind us, no turning back.

Set-Apart Femininity by Leslie Ludy
Wow! From the very first chapter, this book spoke to my soul even more directly than The Bravehearted Gospel. It's specifically written to women about the awesomeness of giving your whole life to Christ. It has definitely called me to seek the Lord even more and surrender everything to Him. This may be a girls' book, but it's full of braveheartedness! I can't recommend it enough, and I'm only halfway through it!

Before You Meet Prince Charming by Sarah Mally
To be honest, I thought I had read enough relationship books to last me for a while. But the compelling title (true for me!) and some shining recommendations persuaded me to go for it, and I'm glad I did! Refreshingly pure presentation, but with a relevant and Godly message, it was an instant favorite. I think my favorite aspect of it was that it was geared to girls who came from a like background as me (Christian, with Godly parents, already wanting to be pure, etc.).

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Surprised? I prayed a lot before I read this series... and strangely enough, God gave me a green light. Or so I thought. More likely I was listening to my own temptations. I can't recommend it to anyone. Though the numerous "you've got to read this book" comments I got could count as "whatever is of good report" (Phil. 4:8), after reading it myself I have to conclude that it cannot count as noble, pure, virtuous or edifying. The values of the characters were contrary in so many ways to God's Word, and it is true that it is portraying evil as good. In many ways it reminded me of the Harry Potter books. Sensationally addictive but not spiritually edifying.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
This was a book assigned for school, but I was glad to finally have the chance to read it. I haven't finished it yet, though I'm close, (and I know how it ends). It's been interesting, but the character of Jane is a bit gloomy, and therefore the book has been too. Still, I've enjoyed it. A couple more chapters to go...

Finally... the best for last!
Ephesians,1 Corinthians, & 2 Corinthians written by Paul, inspired by God
Genesis written by Moses, inspired by God
Proverbs written by King Solomon, inspired by God
Psalms written by King David and others, inspired by God
If you can't read anything else read these! Hugely powerful, educational, and encouraging. :D

Skirts

Well, it finally happened. Someone asked why I was wearing skirts so much. I told them that it was because I had become used to them. That was a true statement. Even after wearing them for a week or so, it feels kind of weird to wear pants again, especially jeans. But as I thought about it later, I realized there were some more meaningful reasons that I started wearing skirts more in the first place.

First and foremost, they make me feel feminine. From about age 6 to age 16, I was a definite tomboy. Pink was not my favorite color. I was better friends with Chris and Michael than with Valerie. But there came a point that I realized that being a girl didn't mean I had to be a pink-ruffles-and-bows girly-girl, and I relaxed my guard. I started wearing first jumpers, then skirts to church, because I wanted to. Now, because I want to, I'm wearing skirts on other days.

Besides making me feel feminine, skirts also make me feel modest. I'm not saying that pants and jeans are in all cases, immodest. After all, I do still wear them now and then (actually I am right now as I type this). And not all skirts are modest, although I hope the ones I wear are! But there's something about skirts that, besides being modest in themselves, encourage me to act modestly, to act like a lady*. And that's what matters, really.

Most females I know do not regularly wear skirts. Wearing skirts makes me feel somewhat like a maverick. It's rather fun going against the norm. But skirts also make me feel connected to both women in history (before World War II women wore skirts/dresses as a rule) and real-life current-day Christian families that I admire, including but not limited to a certain group in Wisconsin. ;) It was that WI group more than anything that actually got me started. I'd never seriously considered it before. But if they could wear skirts every day, even living on a farm, milking cows and riding horses, then I could too (minus the farm part)! There was nothing stopping me.

I can't predict my skirt-wearing trends. Maybe someday I'll go 100% skirts. Maybe I won't. But I'm leaning toward the former. I'm ready to stop rationalizing away Deuteronomy 22:5:

A women shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, not shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God.

Therefore, whether you [wear skirts or pants], or whatever you [wear], do all to the glory of God. (paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 10:31) God bless!

*I'll be the first one to admit that I haven't lost all my tomboy ways. I still run, play Frisbee, sit Indian-style, and even climb trees. (Hurray for long flared skirts!) I do, however, still prefer pants for Awana games and dodgeball. Old habits die hard.

Ice Rink! (pictures and video)

It's here! After many hours of cold, hard work, our backyard ice rink is up and functional! We are having lots of fun, especially Valerie, Stephanie, and I. We three have used it almost every day. It's 35 x 45 sq. ft. We thought it was funny to tell people that we used buckets to fill it, but actually we used hoses. (More than one because our back faucet stopped working for some reason.) We were very careful to not let water freeze in them.

Chris putting some water in the rink.


A couple kids out on the ice. Closer zoom-up from the same day.










It's great having our own private rink. You can do anything from "change direction whenever you want" to, what else, square dance! :) (Sorry for anyone who can't watch the below video... it's not too amazing :P)

Holidays, 2008 style

I hope you all had a great Christmas! We did, except for a few incidents of the "24 hr" flu. (Who knew that Dad and Chris both have a tendency to black out when they vomit?) This year, my parents' gift to us kids was a trip to the Creation Museum in Kentucky! We went there last spring on the way to Florida and really enjoyed it. Going again at this time of year was great because we could see all the Christmas extras... the live Nativity (above picture), the lights in the gardens, and my favorite - the special "Christmas Star" planetarium show. Plus they have a petting zoo now... no dinosaurs, but there's a camel and a zonkey/zedonk (never found out which one it was) .
















For New Year's Eve we did our yearly tradition of everyone making a batch of cookies. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's 10 batches of cookies.) This year I made Cookie Dough Truffles (basically balls of chocolate chip cookie dough dipped in chocolate.. really good if not strictly "cookies"). New Year's Day we did our tradition of donut snowmen... it's quite a junk-food holiday for us, LOL.Hope you all had happy healthy holidays! Thank you Jesus for being the reason for the season!

Pictures of our snow creations

As much as I like snow, this -28 F with wind chill weather is too much for me. It sure makes me thankful for a warm house and clothing! Here are some pictures of past creations from the last two years, in chronological order.

Our first major work and masterpiece: the Keep









Stephanie and Snow White (who, though you can't tell in this picture, has a spiked mohawk) on the spiral pedestal.

Me, Stephanie, and Valerie with the arch. The arch after some melting (it was April).










David on top of the mountain.


This year we started on a new one (not telling what it is in case it doesn't work out :P ) but the snow hasn't been real good for packing so we haven't gotten that far. Sorry, still no ice rink picture. I keep forgetting to take one during the day, and right now it's kind of hard to see with all the snow on it anyway.

Ice Rink!

Because this winter is supposed to be a cold one, my dad has decided we could put up the ice rink in our backyard this year! They set up the frame right before it snowed, and on Friday they fixed the broken seam in the plastic sheet. Now it's laid in and they've started filling it. I haven't really helped at all this year, but I'm very excited... it looks like we might have it ready to use before Christmas. I think that's a first! Sorry, I didn't think to snap a picture before it got dark; otherwise I would have put one up.