Dare2Share

*sigh* Our crazy February is almost over!! :) It has been an incredible month, though, so I'm definitely not complaining!! :) Both of our youth retreats went sooooo well!! We bonded as a group and learned alot about Christ! This past weekend, we went to Nebraska to the annual Dare2Share conference.Our group all ready to go!

One of the most interesting things we did was go door to door asking people for cans of food. We then proceeded to ask people if we could pray for them and if an opportunity arose, we witnessed to them! It was scary but SUCH a cool experience!!

So we have a tradition of having an '80's night. :) haha, this is our 80's hair night!

The girls proudly wore their hair like this during supper and the last session! It was hilarious!

Walking downtown Lincoln

I've been a REALLY bad blogger lately. :) I shall try to do better in the coming days/months! Today I have a day off due to ice on the ground! We have parent teacher conferences this week (and no students!) so it was easy to cancel and reschedule! I've been trying to catch up on my house...not an easy task when we've been gone so much :) We hope you're all doing well and enjoying the warmer weather! A few days ago it was 50-55 here! :) How lovely...I can't wait for nice weather again :) Well, off to cleaning!

The Valentine Surprise

Friday felt like any other normal day. I woke up, went to work, cleaned my office, talked to my coworkers, and tried to get as much work done as possible. However, at 3:30, my day turned into a wonderfully relaxing, fun-filled Valentine's getaway with my husband. Aaron and I packed our bags and traveled to Storm Lake to stay at the King's Pointe Resort (a resort right by the lake!) Those of you who don't live around here don't know that this is a new hotel and has an indoor and an outdoor waterpark (obviously the indoor one was the only one open! Ha!)! We got to our lakeside room and went right to the waterpark! King's Pointe!

The view from our room...I want to go back in the summer and see it!

The waterpark that we spent alot of time at!

After swimming, we got dressed up and went to a really nice restaurant for our Valentine's dinner. The food was DELICIOUS and it was candelit!

Obviously, we don't celebrate like this every year (in fact, this is the first year we've done something like this!) however, it was so relaxing and fun just to get away for a day! Thank you to my wonderful husband for such a great getaway! Oh yeah, and our celebration didn't end there! When we got home yesterday, we ordered a Casey's Pizza (a big Iowa thing!) and watched an old Bob Hope movie! A getaway AND a relaxing night at home :) We hope you all had a fantastic Valentine's Day celebration as well!! :) Happy Valentine's Day!

Winter Blast!

Last weekend we took our junior highers to Winter Blast at Hidden Acres (the camp I used to counsel at) It was good to be at my "second home". I miss every second of working there and it always makes me a little teary eyed going back :) However, it was so fun going back with our junior highers and experiencing camp in the winter! Also, I was able to see some old friends including my boss and his family, and....old campers! But, not any old campers...these girls were 4, 5, and 6 when I had them!!! Now, they're junior highers??? I about fainted because I couldn't believe it! They remembered me and we got reacquainted. Again, the people God keeps putting into my life is just unbelievable! :)

Iced coffee from the new coffee bar!!

We played this CRAZY game like steal the bacon, only steal the inner tube. Now, imagine playing it in a couple inches of water and mud! Lovely, eh?


Our Junior High Group :)

Tonsils

Well, it had been about 2-3 years since my last case of tonsillitis so I knew it was about time for another round :) I thought my throat was just really sore from practicing a song I sang at church on Sunday. However, when Sunday came and went and my throat was getting worse, I knew something was up. Tuesday was the worst when I couldn't even swallow a small bite of my pancake at school. I went to the doctor and found out I had tonsillitis. One thing I found out through this whole experience is: I talk WAY too much. I think if only I would have kept my mouth closed, my throat would be perfect by now. Today I finally had to force myself quiet while my preschoolers were playing. I sat and played with playdough with a group of kids...very therapeutic really :) Haha! I feel like life has been blah in the last few weeks but I'm not going to let that stop me from blogging, so I'm going to scrounge up a few random things that have happened lately:

*I felt the power of a parent on Wednesday when two junior highers asked me to write notes to get them out of practice so they can come on our retreat tomorrow. I have the power to get kids out of things? haha...I like being a "parent"!

*I've been sick for the last two weekends in a row. First time: I ate ice cream without taking my lactose intolerant pills. What was I thinking? I was SOOO sick. Second time: Well, the tonsillitis

*Because I've been sick, I've been terribly obsessed with tv lately (Biggest Loser, LOST, any reality show-why do they have to be so addicting?)....I'm REALLY working on finding other things to do with my time

*I turned down a subbing job for tomorrow....which I usually never do....and feel really bad now even though I have so much to do tomorrow before our retreat. Why can't I just say "no" and be done with it??

*Really, it's been a pretty uneventful few days which is probably okay once in a while. My energy level has been down due to being sick. However, I'm looking forward to a retreat this weekend, a surprise Valentine's date next weekend planned by my romantic husband (I've decided I'm not even going to attempt to figure it out this time), and a Senior High retreat the following weekend. Well, off to packing for a weekend of fun with junior highers!!! :) I'm excited!