Mall of America Trip

Like I said before, last Wed. we went up north to the Z's house because plans were to have a get-together at their house with a bunch of people and have supper, a celebration for Lucy Z. and her fiance, Matt (they were engaged on Labor Day), a bible study, and a bonfire --with lots of volleyball in between!! ;) -- and then the next morning we would go to the MOA.

That evening was a lot of fun. Quite a few people brought instruments and we jammed around the fire for a while. Then, as midnight wound around, people began dispersing to their homes and others finding their beds.

Most of us that were crazy enough to still be up (we had to get up in 6 hours!) stayed outside talking. Actually, it was mostly us listening to Sid tell us about how much he loves people. lol.

But anyways, after that we all trooped off to bed. Us girls were staying up at the cabin set back in the woods a little ways. Kaylene, Kelsey, and I were sitting on the bed talking and what not, when suddenly we heard this crunching/rattling noise at one of the doors; the one that isn't used very much.

Kaylene exclaimed, "THERE'S A HUMAN OUT THERE!!! Quick! Lock the other door!"

Kelsey flew off the bed, locked the door and then plopped right down in front of it with this terrified look on her face. We all held our breath, waiting for something to happen. When it didn't, we started giggling and laughing at our reactions. All the rest of that night and the next day we kept saying "THERE'S A HUMAN OUT THERE!" :D We're not sure what made that noise, first we thought it was one of the guys playing a trick on us, then maybe it was a bear, but then we agreed was that it was probably a falling branch right outside the door. haha! :) We're such girls. ;)

Anyways, the next day we had a BLAST at the Mall! We went on the rides SO many times that I got dizzy and nauseous at the end. But it was lots of fun anyways. :)


Kaylene and I went looking for Areopostale but they were moving to a different floor and both the old and new stores were closed off so we gave up. We kept an eye out for Hollister too but never found that one either. :P But then, right before we left, Levi came over and showed us all the things he got at Areo! He wouldn't tell us where it was because it was "too hard to find". Ugh. Sorry Deborah! AE. was all we could find. lol! :P

cool gurlz!

forever friends

Happy Birthday Zack!

Zack's Birthday was on Labor Day this year and he got a small celebration on that day (because we were up North) and then, on Tuesday, he got his cake, and presents.

19 yr. old birthday smile

a tool box for building his "cabin"!!

he got just what he wanted!!! (after much HINTING and talking about getting a "radio, and cd player, and then I can listen to Big George!")

Labor Day Weekend

We met the O'Brien family about 4 months ago at some mutual friends' house. We saw them a couple different times throughout the summer and then, about the middle of last week, they called us and invited us to visit them the coming weekend (Labor Day wknd). They were putting on a little variety show for the campers that weekend and they asked us to sing a song or two for it. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of the different acts (I've kicked myself for not doing that ever since), but it definitely was a VARIETY! The Director's family, the Klawitters, sang two songs as the opening act. There was a guy who acted out/sang different scenes to the Wizard of Oz, he could sing extremely high but go very low too! A standup comedian. A couple different singing skits. A family of three sang "Standing on the Promises". Shane O'Brien solved the Rubiks cube. Last year he got 33 seconds but this year, because of late notice and lack of practice, he was hoping to get under 40 seconds. He got 30. lol. The O'Brien and Klawitter kids (pro. name: The O.K. Wingnutz) sang their "version" of I Saw The Light. ;) We sang two songs. Then, as a Grand Finale, the Northwestern College Choir blessed us with two beautiful accapella songs.

Here is a small glimpse of the GREAT rest-of-the-time we had with the O'Brien family up at Wilderness Fellowship. Enjoy :)

Mr. O (middle) was our tour guide... "Let ME tell the story!" ;)

best friends

swinging with big sis is always a fun thing

Charlie O. and carpet ball. He beat me a couple times at it!

one of the many beautiful, wooded trails

the menfolk visited outside

while Mom gave Mrs. O a piano lesson. :)

The O.K. Wingnutz (minus two band members)

"Man of Constant Sorrow"

from left to right: Shane, Caitlyn, Bailey, & Ethan

jammin' is most fun with friends!

see what I mean? ;)

The Klawitter family plus Bailey O. filling in on the bass.

You May Think That My Life Must Be Pretty Boring But It...

...just doesn't seem to be slowing down at all!!! I haven't even had time to write about this Summer's activities and here we are at the beginning of Fall! And I thought this summer was busy, but I figured surely September would slow down a bit. WRONG! It's about as hectic. Ahhh!!!!!

But it's a nice kind of busy. :) I wouldn't trade it for the world!

I'm gonna do some separate posts just to make things easier. But to give you a brief overview of this past week...

• We stayed 3 days, last weekend, with the host family of a Christian Retreat/Camp, came home late Monday (Labor Day) night.
  

• On Tuesday, we had a close family friend over and had another late night having our perpetual grass/corn silk/and-whatever-else-you-can-find-to-throw-at-someone's-hair fight and watching a movie.

• Then on Wed. we went up north to another family's house and that night we played volleyball, had a bible study, played more volleyball, sang and jammed with a bunch of other people around the bonfire, played more volleyball, went inside and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me at midnight (if I would've known that they were going to sing to me, I would'n't have even gone in the house. :P), and then everyone went off to bed.

• Then on Thursday, we all left in the morning and drove 3 hrs. to the Twin Cities to the Mall of America. We were there all day and it was a BLAST! All of the fun rides we rode a couple times and after a bit, I got pretty dizzy and sick to my stomach which was really sad because I LOVED the rides. :( But all in all, it was a great way to spend my 17th birthday. :D

• Yesterday, Aunt and cousin came over because Levi and Jo (cousin) are hunting this weekend. Jo brought his big, goofy, not-quite-full-grown-Black Lab and he keeps things really interesting around here.
  

• And today, well it wasn't really busy but I took 115 pictures this morning of just random, COOL (well, I thought they were cool at least) things outside which I don't normally do that. lol.
  

Now I'm working on getting all my pics uploaded and edited. A large feat considering the fact that this computer is running really slow. Grrrr. One of these days my ship is going to come in and I'm going to get a laptop for my own personal stuff. Not sure when it'll happen but hopefully soon! ;)

Until then, be on the lookout for some pics and more news... hopefully I'll have time to post before something else comes up and steals all my time away. ;P :) I'll leave you with a picture that sorta kinda didn't turn out but with a lot of photo editing, it turned out sorta kinda cool. whatcha think?