Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Girly-Girl, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc
I love the thoughtfulness on campus for Valentine’s Day. People baked up a storm in my kitchen for other people. The guys from our brother dorm also came and surprised their sister wings. One wing wore all black and came in at 3:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, many of the girls on the wing they were surprising were awake and they got caught, but that is part of the fun. The put bubble wrap down the hallway and hung hearts and candy from the ceiling. They also put up advertisements for dates for one of the single guys in their dorm with a bio and tear off numbers at the bottom :). Another brother wing braided streamers and were thoughtful enough to ask ahead if there were cork boards or white boards by each door so that they would know whether they needed push pins or tape. Their willingness to craft and their thoughtfulness of the girls in the dorm warmed my heart. It was also very sweet because each treat the girls on a wing got whether it was from a brother wing or from their RA or ARA, I got one delivered to my door too. Here is a link to a video of one of the wings being decorated.
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In case that doesn’t work, here are some sub-par iphone pics that don’t give you the full effect of the festivities :).
Sweazy’s annual black-tie game night was this weekend. Here are a few pics of the set-up beforehand. It was a lot of fun!
Decor:
Metallic Garland Photo Wall and Photo Props
Lots of Silver and Gold
White Christmas Tree Lights (A Must at Almost Every Sweazy Event)
New Additions to the lounge:
Working Ping-pong Table
Pool Table from our Bigger and Better Christmas Event, but now with all the necessities to actually play.
Menu:
Flavored Popcorns
Gluten-free Pretzel Rolo Turtles
Red Vines
Snack Mix
Italian Cream Sodas (This was a first for me. Delish! A little ice, little half-and-half, lots of club soda, and some Italian syrup).
Filed under: Family, Friends, FUN!, My life, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, Travel, Vocation
- Adrienne and Raqel visited my family with me. My dad cleaned the house because he thought Adrienne might be a boy
- Spent Valentine’s Day with some of my favorite peeps: Joe and Heidi, Karrie, Dave and Tricia, Lisa, and Jess Stucky and then attended the big band concert
- Hosted Women to Women with Heidi
- Enjoyed the Idiot Abroad Dinner Club
- Had an informal interview on the beach for my dream job without realizing it
- Saw West Side Story :(, Beauty and the Beast :), Bill Cosby, The Gettys, as well as Miracle on 34th St. at The Million Dollar Theater in L.A.
- Discovered Cleo’s a trendy Middle Eastern restaurant close to the Pantages
- Enjoyed “Game Nights” and a bacon feast with RED, Adrienne, and Phil
- Made 500 cake pops and bars for the Ladies’ Tea at Church
- Went to Iowa and celebrated my Grandmother’s 90th birthday with the Wilhite Clan.
- Road Trip with Jessica Wiley Frederickson for Sarah Marquez Wiley’s Baby Shower
- Spent Easter with RED, Adrienne, and the Dennis Family
- Helped with Breakfast for Year End Show
- Said goodbye to dear friends: Jones Family and RED.
- Settled into my first apartment
- I became an RD after Dave and Karrie sang a job offer and after Joe gave me the RD Pep Talk
- Had my first and hopefully my last root canal
- Attended the Grand Baby Wedding for Bel and Bella
- I ran out of gas
- Survived August and learned a great deal about God as my rock, my defender, and advocate who knows my concerns, my needs, my fraility and my sin and despite all of that saved me and chooses to allow me to participate in His ministry
- RD, RA, and SLS Retreat and WOW Week
- Became friends with Sarah, Noelle, Natalie, Kaylin, Rae, Summer, and Stacey
- Had many house guests including Raqel, Kellie Zerlang, Laura and baby Garrett, Cynthia and Jodi
- Played Gotcha for the first time
- Went to the Pasadena Flea Market and became a fan of Good Will
- My sweet niece, Isabella, was born
- Became reacquainted with old friends
- Went back to school
- Completed C.E.R.T – Community Emergency Response Training
- Introduced to Dr. Mario, the best game ever :)
- Watched the Keller boys for a weekend when Mabel was born
- Celebrated 3 more holidays with the Kintner/Ramirez/Allen Families
- Started a new tradition of retreating to Mount Hermon for a few days after Christmas
So thankful for the days God ordained for me.
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Hospitality, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
Yesterday was WOW Saturday! So thankful for all the newbies that arrived yesterday and all the returners that will be coming.
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Filed under: FUN!, My life, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
Just a little update. I’m all moved into my new home which is actually my old home. I’m back in the dorm I was in, in college and I’m soooooooo excited! My heart pumps orange blood. Go Sweazy!!!!
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Quirky, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
What do you do when a monsoon swoops in on the very day you planned a lovely beach day on an island, these islands to be exact? That’s what we were asking ourselves yesterday at 4pm. The beach day was scheduled for today. Plans were needed for 20 people to have a this-is-better-than-my-first-trip-to-Disneyland day in a matter of hours. Yikes! But it was better than being a stick in the mud and not wavering from our originally-a-good-idea- until-the weather-report-came-in plan. Rather than experiencing sea sickness and frost bite, we opted for an old-school L.A. field trip.
Our first stop was Starbucks. Ok, ok, so I know there is nothing old-school-L.A. about Starbucks but on a drizzly, overcast, cold field trip day with a group of people who have been running a marathon all month treating them to a cup of Joe on Joe :) is a good idea.
Next stop: The Arboretum in Arcadia. Part jungle, part peacock haven, and part fun, it is the perfect place for a field trip. Literally. No, really. There were a lot of young school kids there on field trips. Now remember how we only thought of this yesterday afternoon? Well, it just so happens that when we got on the website, we found out that every third Tuesday is free. Tah-dah! Guess what today is? If you guessed the third Tuesday of the month, you would be correct.
After a lunch on the lawn with a little baguette, turkey, salami, spreads, and olives, we headed to our last stop… drum roll please…. BOWLING!!!!! I know there is nothing grandiose about bowling, but it’s fun and this place was incredibly cool. Montrose Bowl, located where else but Montrose, is a retro bowling alley. We rented the whole place for two hours; they gave us a good deal :). You have to keep your own score, there are no computers, but even that was part of the fun.
All in all, Plan B would have made an excellent Plan A.
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Filed under: Biblical Femininity, Christian Living, Community, Counseling, current issues, Discipleship, Friends, Good Advice, Lessons Learned, Life, My life, Questions, role models, school days, tmc
Enter friend #3 who was faithful to speak into my life. While chatting with a coworker/friend one day about how I thought I was antisocial, she said,
“Jenn, why do you feel like you don’t do well in social gatherings? How come you think you aren’t social?”
“I don’t know how to end conversations and I can’t talk to everyone in the room.”
“Do you have to talk to everyone in the room? Sometimes is it good to continue that conversation with that one person? I think you set up rules and standards for yourself.”
She was right. I did set up laws for myself. When I sets up rules, standards, and laws for myself and I failed, my law had been violated and now someone needed to pay or there needed to be some atonement. That left me with two options: punishment or run.
Filed under: Christian Living, Community, Cool Finds, Counseling, Discipleship, Friends, Lessons Learned, Life, My life, role models, school days, tmc
This is the first in a series of posts on guilt. A few months ago I was learning a lot about this subject, but my heart was too full of these things and my mind and time too busy to record anything about this here. Now, I’m recognizing that I need to hear these things again, so here it is.
God started working on my thinking with regard to this topic back in 2004. I’m a slow, stubborn learner and He is a gracious and patient teacher. I was weary and struggling with trying to do all that I felt called to do. I felt like a failure. I wasn’t going to please God, I was going to disappoint my favorite prof. who was so faithful, and I wasn’t going to be able to do my best. I don’t remember how it came up in conversation or even how the rest of the conversation with that professor went, but I remember this one statement which I have gone back to time and time again,
“Jenn, it sounds like your idea of doing your best is if you had an infinite amount of time, how would you do it. God has not given you an infinite amount of time but a finite amount of time. You need to be faithful with the time He gave you.”
I had made my standard perfectionism not faithfulness. I had set up my own laws and rules and they were burdensome. When I couldn’t keep them I felt a strong sense of guilt and failure. This small moment where my teacher called me out, started to change my thinking on that one area of guilt and schoolwork.
Filed under: Christian Living, Community, Friends, FUN!, geography / travel, My life, school days, Teaching, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc
I’ve recently been reminiscing about my trip to Peru the summer I graduated from college, and I thought I would share a few pics here.
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- Hellooooo, Lima!
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- Me with our sweet team leader Kristi.
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- It was very clear that God had prepared us beforehand for the work he had called us to. Kristi who had done competative jumproping, put her skills to use.
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- Recess with the kindergarteners.
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- We loved every minuted of playtime on the playground.
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- Christa – such a sweetheart.
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- During snack time at their desks in the first-grade classroom, our job was to help the kids practice English. No Spanish was allowed at the school, but they especially wanted to maximize our time with the kiddos.
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- This little boy LOVED to speak Spanish. “Please try again. This time in English.”
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- My phonics training came in very handy with this little pupil who was struggling to read. He had a hard time knowing what vowels made what sounds.
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- Welcome to SueEllen’s First Grade!
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- First Grade. We spent more time with the first and sixth graders than with any of the other classes.
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- Buddies.
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- Teammates.
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- Jump!
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- The sixth grade class was thrilled to be kept after school everyday for the duration of our stay. Can you tell?
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- Conversations with the sixth grade kiddos were my favorite part of the trip. We got to talk about how to glorify God with schoolwork and why it is important. I got to work with them on grammar, and I got to attempt to answer Axel’s question: “I know that God created everything, but where did He come from? Who created him?”
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- Regis was also one of my sixth grade tutoring students. He had mean soccer skills and an inquisative mind. We had a long discussion together when he asked me, “What is faith? People talk about that word, but what is it?”
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- Another example of how God prepared us beforehand. I tutored Siwa in math. Everyone knows math is not my forte, but he happened to be in my favorite section percentages. I have that section down thanks to my amazing Jr. High math teacher Mrs. McCuller and I had the same book when I was in school, so I knew how they taught it and didn’t confuse him.
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- A Beka phonics not my fave, but working with these kiddos I enjoyed immensly.
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- Monkey bars.
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- Now you got it!
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- Christa took care of her classmate with down syndrome inspite of the other little girl yelling that Christa needed a spanking when Christa did something she didn’t like.
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- Traveling around Lima was quite entertaining. You never knew if there would be a band on the bus or even live chickens. We lived with a group of single, female teachers and were responsible for getting to and from school on our own.
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- On Our Way Home – different than when we left LA and with more friends and people we cared about than we would have imagined.
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Discipleship, Friends, FUN!, pop culture, role models, school days, Student Comments, Teaching, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
Does it come as a surprise to anyone right now that I despirately need to do homework?