Still failing at

posting more from my laptop! Hahaha :P Reeeeally gotta work on this...

At this moment I am feeling extremely sleepy. And it's not even ten o'clock. I think I've been staying up too late...

Anyway, let's get to the things I wanted to post about! :) I don't plan on going in any particular order...considering that that is not how my mind works, in the least. ;)

But I guess I'll start with the most recent: Tonight in our church's praise gathering, I sang on praise team for the first time ever!!! It was amazing! I absolutely loved it, despite how nervous I was beforehand. :) I felt that I worshiped more...I think because I was able to focus better than when I'm just in the congregation singing along. And I don't think I had ever felt so confident singing before. :)
And then The Tipos sang our TI song! That went very well, also. I did mess up...my throat got all dry  (even though I wasn't nervous) and my voice cut off for a second. But apparently it wasn't noticeable...except for the fact that my hand involuntarily went to my throat when I messed up. But oh well! haha :) The message was still the same, whether we sang it perfectly or not. :) And I hope it was a blessing to people...because that's the important part.
Our practices before the service went VERY poorly, and so we were nervous about it. But then we prayed together, and we felt much better. :)
Oh! This is so terrible...every time we perform our Tipos song this year, even if I'm not nervous, my face starts twitching!! It's awful!! It makes me laugh, but it's super embarrassing WHILE we're singing! Hahaha :)

So, another thing I wanted to post about is our Senior Banquet. Our church hosts a banquet every year for our youth group (well, the Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors), and it was yesterday! This was my first year going, and can I just say that it was one of the most amazing things I've ever been to? It was one of the best days ever... :) We got all dressed up and ate a gourmet meal (and I mean GOURMET). There was a salad bar type of thing first, and that was amazing! A beautiful salad with good toppings, they had shrimp and cocktail sauce, and plates of fruit (my favorite! They had pineapple, blueberries, raspberries, kiwi fruit, and strawberries). The main course - or courses - was lemon and herb chicken, beef brisket, and cucumber salsa salmon (which is what I got...amazing!!). The side dishes were zucchini and yellow squash, green beans and onions, garlic mashed potatoes, and rolls. :) And then there was dessert....my plan was to sample one thing. So much for that. :P There was cheesecake with a mixed berry sauce and a strawberry sauce, mint brownies, two chocolate chip cookies with chocolate between them, and three different types of gourmet brownies. O.O So. Yum.
Anywho, enough about the food. Pastor Kent wrote and read a poem about the Seniors. Apparently he does this every year...it's a poem with about two lines about each of the seniors. It's so sweet and personal...I loved it! Made me tear up... :)
The dads of the seniors did a skit...that was funny! :) Pastor Kent presented a charge to the seniors. His messages are always so good. :)
And there was a video slide show at the end... there was a collection of photos (birth to senior portraits) of each senior, with a message from each of their parents playing in the background. That was so sweet. :)
And then there was an activity afterward that was apparently EPIC, but I didn't go to it. Mrs. B (my DIA  leader) and her son, Anthony, created it. And they always make the best parties and activities. :D It was a Survivor game...it sounded pretty intense! :)
Yep, so...I can't wait until next year when I'm a senior. Just sayin'. :)

So, I started this post over an hour ago. Haha! My parents and Ben got home and they wanted to read, so blog post had to go on hold. :) My mom is reading this epic series out loud to us...it's by the same author  (Suzanne Collins) as The Hunger Games (LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE), and it's called Gregor the Overlander. They're a teensy bit more juvenile, but not drastically. Like, adults can for sure enjoy them. :D

Okay well, I was probably going to write more...but I'm dying to go to bed at the moment. Hopefully I'll have the willpower to get up and work out in the morning *crosses fingers*. haha ;)
Goodnight and ipml! :)


P.S. - Pictures! :)

This weekend

is very exciting for me!! I have so much going on and...it's all super duper fun! :)

Okay, so Friday night is an event at our church called FunForAll. It's a kids program as an alternative to Halloween. :) The kids dress up and come to the church for games, candy, bounce houses, and a Bible story time. :) It's a lot of fun for the kids AND the helpers! ^_^ Last year I dressed up as a superhero, and I did facepainting. (Which was cool because that's one of the things I ended up helping with at the carnivals we hosted on our missions trip this summer) :)
This year, I don't have a costume. :( I am quite saddened by this fact. But hey, I'll still have fun! :) I think I'm doing face painting again this year!! Yay! ^_^

And then on Saturday, Ben and I are going to help with GROW club. It's a program that some people from our church started a few years ago downtown as an outreach to children there. It's so neat, and I got to interact with a lot of these kids during our missions trip. I've been wanting to go to GROW club, but haven't been able to until this Saturday. So yeah...I'm pretty excited about it. :) You could be praying for the kids to listen to the lesson, and pray for the guy who is giving it (Josh), and that we will all be good examples to the kids. That would be greatly appreciated! :)

On Saturday evening (GROW club ends at 4ish), beginning at 4 (!), there is a medieval dance that I am going to! I cannot wait!! I'm dressing up as a pirate. It's going to be so much fun! I have a couple of friends whose costumes are going to be so epic...but it's a secret, so I'll have to tell y'all about it later... ;)

I'm also really looking forward to Sunday because I get to be in the service! Yay! :) I work in a children's class every other Sunday, and lately we seem to have been gone on all the Sundays when I'm NOT working in a class, so I feel like I haven't been in the service in a long time... So, I'm happy about that. And also, I'm looking forward to an entire afternoon in which I have nothing to do! ^_^ I think I shall either take a nap or read a book... :)

Last Sunday was really really fun. I was at Jacob's birthday party (he is 18 now!!! O.O ) and a song from The Lion King was playing (I just can't WAIT to be kiiiiing! ;) ), and then Me, Erin, and Matt (and I think Alek?) were discussing how Matt had never seen that movie (*gasp!!*). So...long story short, I invited Erin, Matt, and Alek to come over to watch The Lion King at my house on Sunday afternoon. Erin, sadly, could not come :(((( But Alek and Matt did, and we had a blast :) We ate pizza, listened to random music, watched the movie, unloaded my family's van from camping, and then played video games. :) It was so fun. :) My guy friends are THE BEST! Just saying...like....y'all might have guy friends, too...but mine are better. haha ;) I'm a little prejudiced, I suppose, though... :P

Anywhosies...I should probably end this and go read or something :) OH! I finished Wuthering Heights (by Emily Bronte) today!! It was really good! And incredibly weird...but still good! :) And tomorrow I'm starting 1984 by George Orwell. This is my favorite thing about being homeschooled: I get to pick out the classics I read for school! :)

Okay, well, ttyl! Ipml! ;) Hope you all have a wonderest, spectacumous, fabular, awezing, amasome, perfect weekend! ^_^

~Beth

I was trying to decide

what to do: read a little in Wings of Dawn (by Sigmund Brouwer...amazing book, lemme tell ya. This is my third time reading it), write some more of the story I'm working on, or write in my journal. And then I was like "Hey! I should blog!" ^_^

So, anyway, I honestly have like, nothing interesting to blog about. haha. I'm so brilliant. "Hey yeah! I'll blog even though there's nothing to write!" Oh well...I'll make SOMETHING sound interesting...

Well...I ate peanuts today. They were yummy. But a little too salty for my liking.

I also read a chapter in the boringest (yes that is a word. "Why?", you ask. Because I said so. Which reminds me! So like, you know how sometimes you ask someone "why" and they say "because"? Okay, so in Spanish it's "Por que?" and "porque." hahaha...yeah...I find that amusing...) book ever. It is called "Stanley". Okay, actually it's called "The Scottish Chiefs". But I named it Stanley... This book belongs to my dear friend, Matt. Although, I might not consider him so "dear" anymore by the time I'm finally finished with this horrid book. It's his favorite (FAVORITE!?!?) book. And unfortunately, I made a deal with him to read it if he read 8 books that I wanted him to read. But see, here's the thing: Matt is a speed reader, and I am not. And the books I wanted him to read were EASY and AWESOME books!!! The book that he wanted me to read is hard to read and boring!!! :'( So, my mom has now put it on my school reading schedule...so I'm just considering it to be schoolwork. :P Bleh. B to the L to the E to the H. :PPPPPPPPP
Okay, I am finished ranting now, I suppose.

Aaaaaanywho, OH! I actually do have interestingness to post about! :D My best friend, Erin, had a birthday party on saturday! ^_^ It was SOOO fun!!!! And I loved getting to know some of her friends from school! Cause, ya know, it's like I hear about them all the time, see them on facebook and everything, but I've just never gotten to actually hang out with them. So it was awesome actually getting to do that! :) AND we got to dance. ^_^
Which reminds me...I am going to yet another birthday party on Friday night! My friend, Jaymee, is having her sixteenth birthday party, and it is going to be epic. Once again, we will be dancing :) I'm excited cause I'll get to learn more dances :) I only know a few, so this will be awesome. :):):):)

ALSO, I am SO pumped cause my aunts are coming to visit this week/weekend!!! YAY!!!!!! And Ant Janet and I are, at some point while she is here, going to see "African Cats". :) Ant Janet says she wants to go with me because I'm the only one who will appreciate it as much as she will. Haha :) I'm excited :)

Okay, so for school right now, I have to write a paper comparing William Golding's Lord of the Flies to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It's pretty funny, because I brought this upon myself. I simply mentioned to my mom that the books had some similarities, and then she was like "Hey! You should write a paper on that!". I was like "oh...snap." haha :P But I actually think it's gonna be kind of cool :) I liked both of the books...especially A Tale of Two Cities. In fact, I really want to read it again. I was just SO confused for the first like, 2/3 of it, that I feel like I didn't get much out of it. But now that I understand what was going on, I want to read it again! :) It's really a good book! I sobbed at the end of it. hahaha

Oh! So, the Blue Angels were doing an airshow here over the weekend, and to raise money for our missions trip, our youth group was selling parking spaces near the show. Erin and I helped out on Sunday afternoon, and it was SO fun!! :) Matt was with us for a couple hours, too, which added to the funness :)  The Blue Angels were soooooo cool, though! We could see them a little from the parking lot, and we could DEFINITELY hear them! It was awesome :) AND we made a lot of money! :) That's always nice! haha :)

Have I told you about our missions trip? If so, y'all can just skip this part...lol :) It's a local trip. We'll be staying at the church all week, and hosting a VBS for kids from downtown. I think it will be great :) I've gotten to meet some of the kids that we'll be working with, and they're so sweet :) I'm very excited to get to do an outreach for them. We'll also be helping a lady in our town who is in need. Her house is full of her belongings, like she just has a LOT of stuff, and it needs to be sorted through, and cleaned out. So, we're going to be taking all of her stuff out of her house, and then cleaning the house while she sorts through the stuff. I am so excited that we have the opportunity to help someone out in such a big way! She is so excited...she apparently sees this as the day when she will "get her life back". How cool is that??? We would appreciate your prayers for her and her son, that they will come to Christ through this experience. :) And also, for all of the kids we'll be working with at the VBS! :) Thank you! Oh, and the missions trip is close to the end of June, by the way.

Another thing I'm really excited about (although, it is completely different) is going to King's Dominion in June!!!!!!!! :DDD Yup. It's gonna be sweet. I've never gone with our youth group before, so I'm pumped. :) :):) HOPEFULLY, at least Erin, Laura, and Matt will be going on this trip (if not more of my friends), so it's going to be sooooo muuuuuuuuch fuuuuuun! :):):)

Okay, well, I'm done for now. Probably none of that was interesting to anyone but myself...but oh well! It was fun to type! haha :) ipml! Have a good night!

~Beth

guess what...

IT'S SUMMMMMMERRRRR!!!!! well...not the actual season...but as far as school goes....IT'S SUMMMMMERRRRR!!!! :D haha
so, today we went to the pool, and it was awesome! :) i hung out with jaymee and a little with leanna. and then i finished reading "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. best. book. ever. period. it's my favorite of all time, and i read it once a year :)
i'm also going to be reading The Firstborn Series by Karen Kingsbury this summer. well, finishing it. i've already read all the books except one. and then after that, i'll read The Sunrise Series by the same author. these books are awesome! the first series is The Redemption Series. that one is my favorite so far i think. but i really like Firstborn, too.
anyway, i like reading. jtlyk :) hahaha, okay, i just remembered. a few weeks ago, i said "jtlyk" (which means 'just to let you know') in an email to jacob, and he was like "what does that mean? 'just touching large yellow kangaroos?" hahahaha! yeah, i found that quite amusing.
so...i might be getting contacts! i'm very happy :) i really don't like wearing glasses...first of all, they annoy me, second, they don't look very good on me. i would love to have contacts. and since i need my prescription updated anyway, my parents decided that i might be able to get them :)
oh yeah! okay, so idk if i already told y'all this or not, but i got the job as a JC at that summer camp!!! :D i'm so excited! i'll be there for two weeks next month. it's going to be quite a new experience, and i'm really excited/nervous about it. OH! but i recently found out that the children's pastor and his wife MIGHT be there for one of the weeks that i'm there! so that would be amazing if they happened to be there the first week that i'm working at camp. it would be nice actually knowing someone there! :)
wow. i just tripped up the stairs while running away from shadow! i hurt my shin really bad...i have no idea what i did to it, but it hurts like crazy and it's already swollen...
well, i gotta go. oh yeah, my best friend, erin, is going on a missions trip tomorrow. she's going to mexico and she'll be gone about a week. so, if you could pray for her, that'd be awesome :) she asked that i pray specifically that she doesn't get sick, and no migraines. she gets them a lot, so it would be awesome if she didn't have any while she's there!
ipml!

~beth 

ok, i just wanted to say that EVERYONE

should read ted dekker's "circle trilogy" because it is......................................................................................................................................................................................
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIINGGGGGGGGGGG

yeah. and also, the "paradise novels" by him are awesome! i'm reading "sinner" right now, and IT IS SO GOOD! :D ok, just had to say that :D bye!

~beth