hailey marshall !

today is the birthday of one of my good apu friends, hailey marshall.
we were roommates for a semester. she is so good! so today i'm going to share her with you and we can celebrate hailey together!
hail is one of the sweetest girls i know. she is always volunteering to take care of us when we're sick, makes us pancakes, cleans extra..
she's always up for a good cuddle.
one of my favorite things about hail is how empathetic she is. if you want someone to laugh with you, go to hailey. if you want someone to jump around and scream in excitement, hail. cry with you? hail.
and the most important thing about her? hailey's heart for the lord. she has a real love for him and it's so evident- especially as a bible/youth ministry major!

freshman year welcome something!

sillily sending bethany off in our mod last fall!

brianna's visit. so good!

happy birthday hail! i'm so thankful to have you in my life!

vbs week and calvin crest.

the past week and a half has been filled with church. which is good. so good. but it's been loud and tiring too.
last week was my second favorite week of the year- vbs week.
i love vbs. and this was my 16th one. no worries, i've just spent the past 16 summers giving each night of a week in july to spending time in fellowship at ipc.
regardless of whether i was in vbs, guiding it, or interning for it, i've loved each year and this one was no different. 
seeing the elementary schoolers excited about their memory verses, pumped to see what they learn about jesus through the skit, and loving on each other during the benediction made my heart happy.
watching preschoolers do crafts, playing at recreation with 1st graders, taking high school guides to starbucks after vbs was over for the night, and singing songs with other college friends at their thousandth vbs made my body tired.
but it was good. so good. jesus is so good.

my favorite kindergartner. rocking her vbs shirt i rhinestoned for her

the craziest week of vbs ever. summer 2008.

yesterday morning neal, eric, gabi and i drove up to calvin crest. we're taking high schoolers in 3 weeks and wanted to check the cabin flow, and meet with some people since things are a little different this year.
five and a half hours, a few hundred miles, an in n out, and two rounds of the alphabet game later, we made it. (complete with messy monday gear in tow)
after a few business meetings and some super good pizza (eric is the resident pizza guru. he flew in gino's east from chicago for this) we went to bed, got up early this morning, and drove back. (with a stop at in n out, of course.)
we love our high schoolers and want their week to be the best!

hanging out on the calvin crest fieldddd! 

neal and i love bus rides to calvin crest.

idaho again.

last wednesday i flew back to idaho.
elise tore up her knee, and i just thought that it would be more fun for her to have someone sitting next to her on the couch. so i came over. and let me just say, i am so thankful i did.
the only thing better than hanging out with a best friend for a week with nothing pressing to do is hanging out with a best friend for a week with nothing pressing to do and a brother who makes every meal for you.
even though we don't move around a lot, we've been having fun. we've watched excessive amounts of tv, found our wedding dresses, ate lots of toast and jam, picked strawberries (well, elise watched me and laughed at how slow i was) and took a weekend vacation to mccall where i fell off a four wheeler, we got sunburned and watched legit fireworks. not to mention our endless hours of talking, the laughter started by a look, and our unique ability to drive brittan crazy in a short amount of time. 
as always, idaho has surprised me. it's been good.
i loved hanging out with you this week, elise and brittan!

strawberries i picked from the garden!

sweet cuts from my four wheeling fall.

oh, you know. just our view for fireworks..

sorry woodbridge lake fans.. this trumps it hardcore.

happy birthday, america!

one of our least favorite brittan creations. soup  in salad instead of soup and salad.