I now understand the meaning of this quote: "a friend is someone who knows the song on your heart and can sing it back when you've forgotten the words." Today I got to hang out with Monz and Corie and Kate and her best friend Mikayla at the Oregon State Fair. It was totally awesome...but it also made me realize how much I miss Monz and my family and Jason, and how much I miss being around people who know me and how I work and what I struggle with and how I think and all...who know what I'm trying to say even when I cannot find words...

For those of you who have never been to college or want to live vicariously through my college experience, I will occasionally be posting tips to aid you in your experience or memory recall.

College 101: Poor hungry college student needs dinner. After volleyball game (that students get into for FREE...ya that's right...free entertainment!) the concessions stand wants to get rid of hot dogs. Bam- you've got yourself free dinner!

We had our first cross-country meet today! It was just us and Warner Pacific, so it was pretty small =) the course was on our campus and it was only a 3k (1.8 miles). It was raining SO HARD we were all soaking wet but it was a blast!! Mud splattered legs are the best! =) I love that we start the meet with prayer and our girls team sings this song...

"We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love"

So that is just really cool to publicly glorify God before we even start running!

And...don't get to excited cause like I said it was a SMALL race and a short course...but I was 5th overall and 4th on my team! =) I even got a shirt that says "top 7 finisher" =) God is great! =)

The above picture is Josie on the first day of third grade =) They had gotten back from Oregon late the night before, so she was very tired! =)

Yes this is a camel and yes it is by my campus. Drive less than 5 minutes past the campus and there you find a rich attorney who has a fetish for exotic animals! He has a coupe camels (and a baby one!) and some zebras...and that's all we could see through the fence =) So who knows what else he has! =)

The above pictures are of my dorm from the outside, the lobby in the dorm and my dorm room. My roommate is Kate Tracy a freshman basketball player from Idaho. We roomed together for the basketball camp and then requested to be roommates cause we got a long great! Our dorm is the only co-ed dorm on campus (=() but they are separate wings obviously! It's called "PVG" or Prewitt Van-Gilder.

This is random pictures of class rooms and paths and the gym and chapel...and some of the MANY stairs! The campus is on a hill...so there are A LOT of stairs!

We started classes on Wednesday...a lot of homework! So far classes are mostly good. I'm taking Old Testament, Evangelism (probably will be my favorite!), Freshman Seminar, Speech, Anatomy & Physiology and American Thought & Culture (probably my least favorite!).



I've met a great group of girls between the ones in cross-country (Becca, Courtney, Jen, Alethea, Grace, Josilyn, Amy, Kaitlyn, Becca S., & Mel), my roommate Kate, Claire and Rian from my freshman seminar (core group), and Emilee and Kyra (from Montana!!!), so that has been a huge blessing!



Cross-country is going great! The coach thought I would really benefit the team but after watching me practice he said I'll do even better for them than he thought! And the girls are so nice! We had a girl-team bonding time tonight where they lead us in prayer and gave us our uniforms and cute team bracelets =) We also have an encouragement partner that we have to do special encouraging things for throughout the season! I love the dynamics of our girls team =) We have our first meet tomorrow, but it's pretty casual. It's at our campus and only one other school (Warner Pacific) is coming. And I guess we're gonna "team" run it anyway, so it won't really be an all out race...



Chapel this morning was really neat... We had it outside and it was a worship chapel with verses shared for you to reflect on. They also asked us to reflect on what God has been doing in our lives for the past couple years and that was incredible to think about! God has been doing some amazing things...and the most amazing thing is He isn't even finished yet!



Well I've got to go to homework now =)

The picture above is from the morning Jason left =) The morning of a new phase of us that we're so excited for! =)

And these pics I forgot to talk about, but a couple weekends before going to the lake Monz & Jason and I were gonna go floating with his youth group, but the weather wasn't hot enough so they did a bbq instead. Monz & I went to Jason's house and hung out and we went to Bass Creek and hiked. It's such a beautiful hike! With the two people outside of my family that I love the most! So those are pics from that day =)

These are pics from my dad's nasty cut and his great surgeon! I put 5 staples in it! =) It's healing great now!

These are from the lake =) Notice the horse!! =) And that really handsom guy =)