Count Your Blessings

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I have to say that I have many things to be thankful for this holiday season. I have a family that loves and supports me and I have close friends that care about me. I had a friend e-mail me and wish that I could have spent Thanksgiving with him and his family this year, or that he could spend it with me and mine. And I have to say that I am very thankful for him being in my life. That brightened my day since we have postponed our Thanksgiving dinner to next week after church. Just gives me that much more time to prepare the pies that I want to make and see if there is something else I can bring to the table.

Another thing that I have to be very thankful for is that yesterday my mom called Bethel University because she and Dad have been receiving a lot of mail from them inviting them to this event and that one, but yesterday they got a letter asking for a deposit check. Mom wanted to know what was going on. So she called my admissions counselor and he looked up my name and saw that I had been accepted!!! I was so excited when she told me. I should be receiving my acceptence letter in the mail soon. I find it kind of funny that I keep receiving word about my colleges on special occations. I heard about Northwesten on my birthday and Bethel on Thanksgiving. It is truely a time of year to be thankful.

I still have not found my dog. I am strongly believing that she did go somewhere to pass away. I still have to do a good search in the woods, but I trust that I will find her when the time is right. But I can be thankful for having Angel to buffer the pain. She has been a great blessing to me, she seems to really understand what has been going on and can sense that it is now her responsibility to take care of the family now.

Dad and I have started to put up the Christmas decorations. We haven't gotten out the famous Christmas village yet, but we do have the Precious Moments village that he picked up somewhere. That has been placed on the piano. We will have the main village up very soon. Until it is up it just doesn't seem like the holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you again and seriously count all your blessing. Focus on them and not the hard times, for in the hard times God gives us even more blessings.

I want to share part of a song that I am working on. I just have one verse and the chorus, but I'll come up with the other parts soon when they are given to me.

When you feel that life has you down, just look up and all around. Look at all the beauty all around.

Thanks God for the sky. Thank the Lord for the sea. Thank God for this day; the day he loves you and me.

Lost Dog Alert.

I've been in a frenzy all weekend. I haven't seen my dog Belle since Thrusday night (Nov. 15). It's not like her to go missing, especially for this long. We've checked around the house and the yard; I went down to the creek with my other dog Angel and she kept sniffing around, it was almost like she was picking up some kind of scent but I didn't see any sign of Belle being down there. Dad and I have been looking in the ditches everytime we come home to see if maybe she got hit. We talked to the neighbors and they haven't noticed her around either. Dad also checked with with the animal hospital in Kasson where the kennels are and they didn't have any information for us, but they will keep an eye and ear out for her. Tomorrow Dad and I are going to continue in our search. We noticed that for the past month or so she has been getting very thin and she's been eating the same as she had been before. I also noticed that she was starting to get slower and she didn't like to run and play like she used to. It makes me wonder if maybe she sensed that she was sick and would be dying so she left. Dogs have been known to leave home and die somewhere else so they didn't do it infront of their family. I hope we find something out soon.

Senior Pictures

Hey Everyone,

I finally decided on my senior pictures. Let me know what you think of them. The one with me and the flower will be going into the year book. The one that I'm looking off to the side will most likely be going on the wall. I'd like to get some feedback from whomever will give it.

18 years ago, I was born!

I had a very good birthday today. I woke up to balloons and roses in my bathroom (that's quite the sight to someone who is half awake at 6:30 in the morning). I was greeted at school by many people wishing me a happy birthday and my choir sang to me. I had supper at on of the diners in town where I got my meal for free. I ate with my parents, my brother Jeff, my sister Jaci and her four kids.

I got a lot of the things I wanted like the first seaon of "Little House on the Prairie," and a dvd of "Seven Brides for Seven Brother." Dad gave me a bunch of shirts that have Snoopy on them. He also gave me a pink mustang shirt and my brother saw it and said "That is supposed to be mine." We all laughed because it was pink. But the best gift was not from a family member or even a friend, it was from a stranger. I got a call from an admissions advisor from Northwestern College in St. Paul. He was calling to tell me that I have officially been accepted to that college! It's not Bethel, my first choice, but I still cryed because I was happy. At least I know that if things don't turn out for me to go to Bethel I have a place to go. And Northwestern is still a good school.

So today was a very good birthday.

The Homecoming votes are in and the crowns are set.

This week is homecoming and we had our coronation tonight. It was quite an interesting night. The band got there really early so we played through about six pep band songs instead of only two and the choir sang songs from Queen and as usual "Be True to Your School." The rest of the evening went just as before, the different organizations would get up and introduce everybody and tell what their up coming events were. Then came the time we were all waiting for, the crowning of the king and queen.

Before our MCs even asked the kind candidates to stand up the all got up and went behind stage and no one knew what was going on. When they came back they all had put on funny hats and white face masks so no one knew who anyone was. (Leave it to my class to go against the grain) Mark Huber, the king from last year walked behind them trying to figure out who each one was, he couldn't figure it out that way so he went in front of them and slightly pulled their masks up and then began to jump the crown from each one's head finally resting it on Jacob Butcher's head. Our guys sure are crazy. Of course the audience still had no idea who our king was because he still had the mask on. They then crowned Meghan Jensen our queen. The MCs announced "And these are your Homecoming 2007 King and Queen," but we all were still wondering who our king was. After a while Jacob took the off the mask and all was well.

Quite the homecoming. Now let's just see how we do at the football game on Friday and how our volleyball team does tomorrow.

School Update

School is still going really well. I absolutely love my concurrent English class. We get a writing assignment every week which is really nice because since I am not the editor of the Beacon in the Sabbath Recorder anymore it gives me chance to keep writing essays. We're using a book called "30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary" and I'm loving that because I'm learning new words that will make my writing better. I even used one in a college application. "Altruist"- some one who puts the needs of others before their own. Like every other year we are learning grammar but we are learning more in depth which is a nice change because I've always done pretty well in grammar in the past and now I can challenge myself a little bit more.

I'm loving my psychology class and I feel like I'm really learning things and all I'm doing is reading the text and then doing worksheets. Last night I was working on it before I went to bed which wasn't a very good idea because it's a chapter on sleep, so reading it was making me very tired.

In a few weeks I will be starting to practice for the HVL (Hiawatha Valley League) Honor Choir. I was in the honor band last year because they knew I would be in the choir this year.

We have also started our fall play "Greater Tuna." I forget who wrote it, but it is about the town Tuna, Texas and it's wacky and hilarious. I play a very outspoken lady who is stern and sometimes very mean but has a sympathetic side to her. It's kind of a stretch as an actress for me because I have some lines that are half a page long and one scene that I speak for about a page and a half. But I'm up for the challenge. Bring it on!!

My LAST FIRST Day of School!! (as a high schooler anyway)

Today was the best first day of school in a really long time. Not just because I am a senior, but because I turned over a new leaf and became a slightly newer me! For the past three years I've been hanging out with the same three girls, talking to them, sitting at the same lunch table and at assemblies with them and all that kind of jazz. And for those same three years they have kind of treated me like dirt. Not really seeming to care about what was going on in my life, not being excited for the same things I was excited about and not really listening to me or understanding who I was and what I stood for. But all that changed today.

For the longest time I've been wanting to get myself out of this situation and be with people who seem to appreciate me a lot more. I finally sat at a new lunch table with friends that I've known for years and who I enjoy to be around a lot more. Last year I sat with them sometimes and really wanted to leave my three girlfriends and join with my group of about ten. There is one girl in particular who I really get along well with. Her name is Amanda. We are in a lot of the same classes and the same study hall. We both decided to be a teacher's assistant for our band teacher during one of our study halls we had together. It's going to be a lot of fun. She really listens to what I have to say and it's great!

We also have new up to date science rooms with some pretty cool technology! We have computers with wireless keyboards and mice at each lab station, and remote control devises that will allow us to take our own attendance, answer lecture questions (so that everyone can answer not just one or two people) and we can use them on tests! It's great!

I was also able to take one of the classes I wasn't able to take because it was offered during choir, so I'm able to take psychology as an independent study during my other study hall but also still be able to use that time for a study hall. I get all the assignments every Friday and then they aren't due until the next Friday! It's great! I still get the credit for doing it but also am allowed to have the freedom to use that time as a study hall for other classes. And if Mr. Gepson, who I'm a teacher's assistant for, doesn't have things for me to do some days, I can still do homework and get the credit!

Everything seems to going well for me! I'm taking two college level courses and calculus is meant to be a college preparatory course, so I will be able to learn how to pace myself and manage my time as if I was in college already and not get burnt out! It's really exciting! I enjoy all of my teachers and I'm sure I will have fun this year. I'm glad I get the chance to be the new me and really do something I love. Today was just a marvelous day!!