Memorial Day Weekend

We spend our weekend as a family (with Jesse, Nate's best friend and stand-in-brother) at the lake. The Hartzells also camped at the end of the road, so we hung out with them a bit too! I ran my first over-distance since conference...13 miles! Boy am I sore! We played a lot of board games and read a lot, because it was rainy =) Heidi and I also had the privlige of joining the Hartzell crew in Hot Springs, MT, for a soak in the hot mineral water! That felt great! These are the only pictures I got. They are of Nate, Jesse, and Josie's fort:

[grace]

"So you thought you had to keep this up

All the work that you do

So we think that you're good

And you can't believe it's not enough

All the walls you built up

Are just glass on the outside

So let 'em fall down

There's freedom waiting in the sound

When you let your walls fall to the ground

We're here now"

Two Birthdays.

I flew Jason out to be with me, and he arrived on my [actual] birthday, the 12th. We went to Ikea and then back to Salem, where we joined most of the team for a trip to Silver Creek Falls. There we had hiked and played and had a bbq for my birthday! It was fun to be with all of them and especially awesome that Jason could be with me too!

After I got home, Josie was concerned that I never had a birthday party, since she didn't attend the first one. So exactly a week later, on May 19th, I made a dinner of poppy seed chicken casserole and ginger glazed carrots with a dessert of a fruit pizza cookie. It was just a family dinner, with Monz and Jason of course, and we put candles in the pizza cookie so Josie would think it was a real party. She helped blow them out!

Conference Steeplechase Pictures

Together

We held hands through fire and smoke

And hail that made us quake

We shook and trembled in tempest winds,

We bent but didn't break

We withstood snow and sleet

And many kinds of weather,

But the best part was, through all of this,

We grew old together.

by Mona Doebler

(about two trees that look like they're holding hands)

The More I Seek You

The more i seek you,

The more i find you

The more i find you, the more I love you

 

I wanna sit at your feet

Drink from the cup in your hand.

Lay back against you and breath, here your heart beat

This love is so deep, it's more than I can stand.

I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming

Bass Creek with the Gang

...summertime...

Conference Track, Gresham, OR

I don't have the pictures yet, but yesterday I raced steeplechase for the second time and at the Conference Meet! I was really happy about the race, I had a 13 second PR with a time of 12:23 and placed 7th, the only freshman to score in that race. I even did a lot better on most of the water jumps! It was good. And I have a lot more potential in that race, so I'm excited for next year and learning to "run smarter." It was such a good end to the season and I'm so thankful Jason could be there! My teammate Jen and I consider "Your Are My Joy" by David Crowder our theme song and I would sing the lines over and over in my head: "and He set me on fire, and I am burning alive; with His breath in my lungs, I am coming undone"...it was definitely God that got me through the race!

Enjoying Life...

(yes we have matching shorts! mine were my birthday present from him!!)

Jason got here on Wednesday, my birthday, morning, and it has been so wonderful being with him and showing him around here! After I picked him up from the airport in Portland, we went to Ikea, then came back to Salem to go to Costco and Walmart to get groceries for our team bbq (aka: my birthday party). Then most of the team piled into cars and drove up to Silver Creek Falls for an afternoon of hiking, having fun, and eating burgers! It was a very simple party and a lot of fun for everyone and a beautiful day! Then today Jase and I went to a yummy waffle place for breakfast and headed up to the outlet malls in Woodburn where I shopped with my birthday  money and got a nice pair of nike flip-flops, 2 running shorts, 2 running/summer tanks, a polo, and capris and a shirt for Jase! (thanks mom and dad!) We came back for my practice and then 2 rounds of disk-golf with some of the team, dinner, worship, and Chariots of Fire! It has been a great two days to spend with the love of my life!!!

Open Skies

Praise Him under open skies

Everything breathing praising God

In the company of all who love the King

I will dance, I will sing

It could be heavenly

Turn the music loud, lift my voice and shout

From where I am

From where I've been

He's been there with me

He's built a monument

His very people

So let his people

Sing, sing, sing

And it's so wonderful

Just to be here now

Praise Him under open skies

Everything breathing praising God

In the company of all who love the King

Let us dance, let us sing

It could be heavenly

Turn the music loud and sing

  Lift your voice to heaven

Lift up your head and sing

To the One who gave his love

This is our offering

Lift your voice to heaven

Lift up your head and sing

To the One who gave His son

Here our lives we bring

["Open Skies" by David Crowder -- our theme song]

Today the Jen, Courtney, Amy, Kate and I drove to Lincoln City and spent a beautiful day playing on the beach and then walking around the outlet mall. After that we drove 8 more miles south to Depoe Bay and ate this amazing and expensive seafood dinner at Tidal Rave. It was a very local, classy, and well known restaurant -- we were the youngest people in it! And we met about 4 elderly couples that were all very friendly to us! It was fun!

Questions and Observations:

{I'm going to start a new series of posts that I'll do periodically, along with the regular. It's called "questions and observations." You see, I tend to notice a lot of things and sometimes wonder why things are the way they are. Some will be silly. Some could be serious. But I'm just going to put my thoughts here on the blog. And hey - if you have answers, then share them!}

In Oregon, the road signs are white rectangles and say "DO NOT PASS" but in Montana they are yellow triangles that say "END PASSING ZONE." Interesting...

In Oregon they have speed limit signs that simply say, "End 50mph speed zone." So how do you know how fast to go after that? Is it whatever you want? Why don't they just say "55 mph"? or something....?

Shoot... I had a lot more but now I forgot them... I'll have to do better at remembering them!

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

A couple of weeks ago, Mel and I took an afternoon to drive up to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, OR. It was a rainy afternoon, but we still had fun, and for some reason we got in free too! Here are some pics that Mel took! (She is a great photographer!!) There were SO many pretty colors of tulips!!

 

Longest Weekend of My Life!!

This weekend has been the longest weekend of my life! On Friday night I went to bed at midnight, because I stayed up to pack. Then I got up at 9:30a on Saturday to eat, pack some more, and leave by 11 for the track meet, Pacific Twilight, in Forest Grove, OR. At the meet is raced in steeplechase for the first time ever. This is a 3K (almost 2 mile) race, which means it is 7.5 laps. Each lap has 5 steeple barriers on it, 4 "dry" and 1 "wet" (water-jump). As I posted before, my coach wanted me to try this race because he thought I had the endurance and stamina and would qualify for conference and score points for our team. Well, the qualifying time was 14:10. My goal was 7 min miles, and I finished mile 1 at 6:37. I finished the race at 12:36!! Which was faster than my goal AND qualified me for conference!!! Here are some pics:

Jumping one of the "dry' barriers. Notice my tongue. Yes, I stick my tongue out when I jump hurdles and they caught it on camera!

Approaching the "wet" barrier. My teammate Jen is in the water.

Landing the "wet" barrier. I need to work on my landings a bit...

Coming out of the water pit.

It was a really fun race and a lot easier than I thought it would be! I'm very happy I qualified and that it's in a race where I have a good chance of scoring for our team! And, because I qualified, I get to stay for Conference, which is May 13-15. I race on the 14th at 4:30. I told Jason that if I qualified and had to stay I wanted to fly him out here for my birthday (May 12th), Conference, and then the drive home with me. So last night I bought his ticket!! Woohoo!!! Nine days!!

After the meet I went to Solid Rock church in Portland. It was a great church service! I really enjoyed it! I got home around 11pm. Now, my team-mate Mel was going to leave at 4am on Sunday. The rest of us running girlies wanted to surprise her with breakfast and coffee and card, so we had to get up at 3am. Because I was gone most of the day Saturday and on Sunday by 5pm we had to be completely moved into our new dorm for these next two weeks, I had to stay up and pack. I took a short "nap" from 2-3am, got up and surprised Mel for breakfast. Then I took another short nap from 4:15 to 5:30am, when us running girlies again got up to be there for a team-mate. Two of our XC girls were running the Eugene Marathon, which was an hour away and started at 7am. So we drove down to that, spent the morning trying to figure our how to get to where they'd be on the course, missed them finishing, and then had to rush back for a 1pm mandatory orientation in our new dorm.

This is a picture of a dog I saw at the marathon:

After orientation, it was moving and cleaning. It took a car trip down for my stuff and later one for Kate's stuff. We had to move all our stuff down from a second floor room, to the car, and then up to a second floor room in a dorm with no elevator!! It was a lot of work!! And we had to deep clean our old room too which took about 1.5 hours!!

Once we finally got to our new room, I still had to get my over-distance (long run) in for the day. After I skyped my family, I drove to Bush Park to run. I had to quit the run 30 mins in because my shin was shooting pain up my leg and I couldn't put any weight on it, so I could barely move.

After my run I still had to come back and unpack my room before I could finally get to bed at 11:30pm.

Whew.

This was my weekend, on a little over 2 hours of sleep!!