condiments.

Have you ever said to a friend "let's hang out all day today, but I'm only going to talk to you once in the morning, before we eat, and once before bed, okay?" I hope not, If you did, I hope your friend would be smart enough to stay away from you. I mean what on earth? Only talk at certain times even though they are standing right next to you all day? Yeah right, they aren't sticking around. But wait! What if you talk to them every time you NEED something, wouldn’t that be included as talking more? HA. They would leave even faster. Would you stay with a friend who did that? I wouldn't.

I have some bad news, most of us are guilty of doing this most days. And the friend we do this to isn't an acquaintance, isn't a good friend, not even our best friend. This friend is closer than a brother (or sister), loves us enough to give His only Son, and DOES stay with us even though we treat him so terribly. That's right, I'm talking about God and prayer. Honestly, go back and read that first paragraph, isn’t that what we do to God? I know it's what I did. How can I ignore so easily the creator of the universe and all the flavors I'm so passionate about? I how can I ignore the One who saved me, set me free, loves me unconditionally, keeps me smiling when I want to cry, keeps me whole when I want to fall apart, keeps me breathing EVERY SINGLE DAY. The one who brings Joy into every aspect of my life!? I mean HELLO!? Am I getting through? I hope so. When I first head Dannah Gresh talk about this at the true woman conference, I couldn’t stop the tears. How awful! We need to be sooooooooooo glad that this Friend wouldn't abandon us, even when we do stop talking to Him.

Well now I have some good news, it doesn't have to stay this way. Something Dannah challenged us to do was to get out of our prayer boxes. Don't we constantly talk to our close friends, whether face to face, by calling, texting, facebooking, tweeting, emailing, ETC,????? We find a way. God is even more available. All you have to do is think of Him, think of all He is, remember all you are not, and start talking. And yes, you can listen too. He talks back. Through His word, through others, even through random thoughts that make you go "wow I never thought of that!" yep, that’s Him too.

Something I've started doing is praying when I'm driving. And I drive a lot, meaning I am praying a lot. At first, it was hard, I didn’t know what to pray about, I'd never talked to God this much at once before. It's become so easy now. I don’t just ask for things now. You know, things like forgiveness, and prayer requests. Not that those are bad things to pray about, but use to be I would only pray when I needed something. Now, sometimes I find myself switching from "talking" in my head, to just thinking and I find I think of things I would have never thought of (whew, to many think words) had I never taken the time to just be silent. No music, no nothing. God’s putting those thoughts in my head. And I also just take time to thank Him for things he has blessed me with, time to thank Him for being so loving and AWEsome. Those are the times I have gotten to school feeling good, the days I have felt light. He asks us to cast all our burdens on Him. We don’t need to hold them in, and not only do we GET to pour out our hearts and give it all to Him, we get blessed with extras in return! I have seen so many blessings that are a result of prayer and faithfulness. When you have faith, even the size of a MUSTARD seed, everything can happen.

God is so amazingly simple when He deals with us. We forget about that sometimes. He loves us, we love Him back, and He will love us even more. We can never love God more than He loves us. So what are you waiting for? Right now, take a moment, thank God you're alive and love Him for it.

I hear the wedding bells.......oh wait, no I don't

God moves in wonderful mysterious ways. Today has been a day of tears. Happy tears, tears that have come from seeing the awesomeness of God displayed for all to see! He is using so many things in my life to help me grow and I hope my thick head will continue to respond to them.

Let's start with one of the majors. So, for those of you who know me, you know I was kinda obsessed with getting married. Okay, really obsessed. That was about a year ago. Frineds around me were getting into relationships and I felt that I would never find the "perfect guy." Then God decided to take my sinful (yes, they were sinful, being discontent is a sin!) thoughts on their heads and kick them right out. Well, maybe he didn't do it all at once, like I said, my head is thick, it takes time for things to come and go sometimes. Anyways through a series of scriptures, books, people and a conference I've been able to see that God can and will do so much with my life while I wait to get married, or dare I say it? If I never do. 

The mission trip this summer opened my eyes to people I could be helping in my singleness. Scripture has shown me how I need to be content and gloryfing God at ALL times, even now. A book called "singled out for Him" by Nancy Leigh Demoss showed me how much I can and should be doing RIGHT NOW with all the free time I have NOT being in a relationship. Another book and more scripture, and people and ect., have shown me how NOT ready I am to make that kind of commitment, how I need to be growing so that IF that right guy ever comes, I'll be ready. Oh and I also was given the thought that maybe "THE man" isn't ready either and we all just need to do some more growing. 

I am patiently waiting in Him now, and he satisfies me completely in every way. I just pray He will keep sending me the reminders!

I'll be posting other ways God's been amazing. At least till my laptop comes back to life and I can finally show you some awesome pictures.

but of course,

So I had like a few posts lined up that are actually interesting, about a greek festival, sprained ankles, new coffee shops, weird biscuits and more, but of course, my laptop charger quit working, and that's where the pictures are. No one wants to read a long post without pictures so I am going to wait until I can get the pictures. So don't lose heart, I really am not that boring. This has probably been one of he most interesting weeks since I stated school. But of course, no charger. So sorry, I hope I don't lose you forever.

I wish

I wish that you could continue enjoying food after you've swallowed it. It's very sad that the enjoyment of food only lasts in your mouth! I know it's weird to think about, but we should. What happens after we've chewed and enjoyed? Well we usually don't really care do we? Sure, this cake is going to taste totally AMAZING, but then what's my body going to do with it? Who cares right? Yeah, 20 pounds later you might care. My new goal is to eat and drink things that my mouth will enjoy an that my body will too. Like this Zen tea I'm drinking from tazo. It's a green tea, spearmint, and lemongrass blend. It's extremely tasty and good for me too. 

PASSION fruit

IF you haven't noticed, I get passionate about things very easily. It's very easy to please me, but also to make me sad or angry. In fact, pretty much any emotion comes to me as easily as breathing. It makes life scary and interesting all at the same time. I'm proud of friends who have stuck by me. I feel sorry for my future husband, but I'm thankful for God who keeps me sane. Anywho, I think my perfect fruit is the Passion Fruit. IT's a fruit that only grows in extremely tropical areas. And let me tell ya, it's the weirdest but best fruit ever. It's round and innocent looking on the outside, but what you find on the inside ISN'T. It looks like frog eggs, (gross i now) and EXTREMELY SOUR. However, add a little sugar, even just a pinch, and it's the most delicious thing you have ever tasted.  I'm serious. It's awesome in juice, in a desert, as a candy, frozen, or just straight up out of the skin. As long as you've got a little sugar, a spoon, and some love. You got a give it a chance and get to know it before you can really enjoy it. 

Which is just like a person. Almost everyone looks average on the outside, but you when you open them up, it's something unexpected, and there's a lot of little parts to them. When you add a little sugar, aka, kindness, they can be really sweet. Hog the sugar to yourself, aka, ignore them, they'll be as sour as lemons. So even if someone seems weird on the inside, show them some love! You might end up with a sweet treat, aka, friend. Wow, how did I get here? Anyways, here's some examples of DELISH passion fruit stuff I've had. All in the Dominican Republic.  

Passion fruit popsicles! The BEST popsicle I have EVER had in my life. I really can't describe what Passion Fruit tastes like, it's something you have to try yourself. 

At the resort they had "fruit punch" and since we were on a tropical island, I assumed it would be natural. It tasted like kool-aid. :p so I got a passion fruit from the fruit bar and squeezed it in. Yes those are seeds going up my straw. It was worth it. 

If you really want to try it, Welch has a passion fruit juice. However, while it might give you an IDEA of the flavor, you need to try an actual passion fruit to really enjoy it. Just like apple juice sort of reminds you of apples, but it never tastes like an actual bite of apple would. The juice is still really good though.

The END

I'm laughing in the rain.

Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner adventures are always the best. You eat what you like, with people you like, doing things you like, and usually you get to try something new.

Yesterday, Four friends, plus my sister and I went to Panera Bread for dinner.

 I had a greek salad, onion soup and a cup of hot tea. Oh and they threw in an orange scone for $1 which made my breakfast this morning absolutely heavenly. The flavor of each was so intense and different I had to take a sip of tea to "cleanse my palette" every so often. Ever tried that? It works wonders when you are eating something that is strongly flavored to take a break and have a sip of something. It "refreshes" your tongue and you can continue to enjoy your meal without getting sick of your rich food.  Anyways...I do think they went a little over board with the "extras" in the Greek Salad, it was lacking the amount of lettuce that is core to every salad. However, I forgive them for it, and everything else was great. There is something unique about eating things that taste so different in the same meal. It was like sensory overload but in a good way. And the night was made better that we were all enjoying our food and having a grand old time.

Afterwards we went to get some froyo, that's short for "frozen yogurt" for those of you don't know. ;) We then decided to walk ALL THE WAY to target from there. It didn't seem so far when we walked there, but little did we know what it would take to get back. I'm not sure what the other girls did, but me and syd had a grand ole time reading birthday cards. I tell ya, we could have spent an hour in there, there was an endless supply of funny, cheesy, obnoxious, you name it, cards. Next thing ya know, we hear thunder. Me and my easily distracted brain did not think about what that meant until we were walking out. Lo and Behold, there was a torrential rainstorm in between us and our cars. We debated, and debated, and debated. Finally, syd and I volunteered to get the cars. We took off our shoes and and headed out. Syd put a bag over her head. How wet could we possible get????
                                                                Very WET

While we were running we started laughing. I'm not sure why syd was laughing, but I suddenly found it hysterical that we were running in the rain and getting SO wet. I mean what were we thinking? I started laughing so hard I could barely run. Next thing we know two greasers ;) known as hayley and anna shriek past us. I don't know why they didn't wait. Maybe for the thrill of running in the rain. What I really don't know is why they thought getting to the car first would prevent them from getting wetter. You see, syd hadn't found her car keys yet. Yep, they just waited in the rain. Leslie and Katie were the only sensible ones to stay behind. We finally go to the cars and I squished on to my seat. I was soaked. 

Well life goes on. My seat was still a little wet this morning, and I'm pretty sure I'm getting a cold (I was an idiot and just walked around my freezing house in wet clothes). All in all it was an awesome night worth remembering for a very long time.

 p.s. I ate my scone with eggs cooked with tomatoes, salt and pepper, and a chai latte. It was a heavenly morning I tell ta.

Dominican Higlights

Best OJ ever. At that was just at the airport. Good start? I think so. 

The group! Over half of the group had been before, but every single trip has been different, so no one knew what to expect. But that's more fun isn't it?

Money money money, must be funny, in a rich man's world. 

Or rather, pesos. 

coolest chess set ever

While we were there, we did a VBS for the kids, the teachers were dominicans, but the ones who knew a little spanish in our group were helpers. I had the trial, ahem, *pleasure*, of doing the Wordless book lessons, IN SPANISH. God's grace got me through I tell ya, my spanish was full of cobwebs. 

I love their style in shoes. I KNOW that those aren't legit brands, but I wanna know how I can get me some. 

The guys did construction all week, helping the church expand, and occasionally they LET the girls help. We uh, did the best we could ;)

GLORY! I met here down there, and we still keep in touch online. She was so awesome, I can't wait to see her again, whenever that happens. 

That little girl in the middle was named Kendali. She had us and the domincans wrapped around her extremely little finger.

Cool view from Puerto Plata. We had mountains on one side and endless ocean on the other. Breathtaking. 

Also extremely windy,

Extremely

We worked in a large city called Santiago. This is a view from it's capital building. 

This is the view from the TOP of it. Definitely one of my top highlights. 

Lauren found a conk shell!!!!! In the dark! 

We woke up at 5:30 to go see the sunrise, turns out it rose BEHIND the building. Oh well, it was still beautiful. 

Sand pyramids at night with someone else's flash. I thought it looked ancient like this. 

My view in the car. nice huh?

After the mission trip was over, my family stayed afterwards with some of my mom's extended family. We went to a resort. This was me kayaking with the coolest kid ever. Another top moment.

Me, Monica, and Veronica (cousins). We had good taste in shoes. Les is tying to sneak in with her lame sandal. She wishes. 

CAVE OF WONDERS

no, we didn't find aladdin's lamp

These are our coolest cousins ever. Granted, we are barely related, but Dominicans don't pay attention to that sort of thing. Monica (far right), Veronica (middle), and Javier (left), oh and little Gabriel.