Adventures
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A Gateway to Awesome
My parents took my sister and me on a trip to the St. Louis Missouri in summer of 2006 I believe, here’s why it was great and what a kid (like myself at the time) can learn from this kind of trip. We saw a local Zoo, a unique museum as well as the Gateway Arch. But in this post, I want to touch on the experience of camping. My family was fortunate enough to have a small camper when my sister and I were very young. A little later on my parents found a pop-up camper, and we took many trips with both, and in between a few tent…
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Carved In Stone
My parents took my sister and me on a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota in summer of 2004, here’s why it was great and what a kid (like myself at the time) can learn from this kind of trip. Before this trip, we hadn’t really taken long family road trips. We had done weekend camping trips, numerous trips across the state to my grandparents home, and maybe a couple of local adventures. But this was big, we brought the pop-up camper my parents had at the time and started driving. One of our first stops to my knowledge was Wall Drug, the best tourist trap in South…
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A Whole New World
My parents took my sister and me on a trip to Disney world in summer of 2005, here’s why it was great and what a kid (like myself at the time) can learn from this kind of trip. I love Disney, even in college when asked to come up with what my favorite brand was I decided to write down Disney. I know it’s a huge corporation and everything, but I still grew up with this stuff, and love many of the movies to this day. Let me first acknowledge that my parents took me at a nearly perfect age. Just before I turned 10, I was old enough to…
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Don’t stop with awesome, keep going.
I learned a lot at FEEcon this past weekend, and although I won’t be able to repeat all of it, here are some more thoughts. One of my favorite speakers was Dewitt Jones, a National Geographic photographer who did his first film project at 23 and has traveled the globe grabbing wonderful shots and learning about his skills along the way. See his website here: https://dewittjones.com/ (all quotes in this post are from Jones’) I want to share some of what he shared during his keynote presentation and add some of my own analysis. “Don’t be competitive with anyone else, you have your own set of skills.” (paraphrased). Understand that…
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A Year with High School Ministries
Holy moly I just finished up a year volunteering in high school ministries, and goodness did I love it and learn a lot. All the grades of kids who were in senior high this year I had as students in junior high. It was quite an experience seeing kids through these ministries and seeing them grow into young adults. Not only that, but we also had a number of families join the church in the past couple of years, and they’ve students have been great additions to the group. It’s been crazy to put myself back in these students shoes, and deal with very different questions through the years. I’ve…
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Send Me a Postcard
My parents recently left on a vacation that’s been a decade in the making. I kid you not. They just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary (congrats Mom and Dad!). They had a celebratory dinner on the actual day at the cafe (read: restaurant) where they had their wedding rehearsal dinner, and now they’re celebrating together on the trip of a lifetime to Hawaii. They’ve gone on trips before but neither one of them has been there yet, and it’s been on their bucket lists for, again, at least a decade, probably longer. Before they left my Mom and I talked in the car about what they should bring home for…
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Where I Want to Travel Next
Within the states I would love to get to New York, Tennessee, or Hawaii next. My parents have recently traveled to 2 of the 3 of these and have ocme back with fun stories. New York just seems like an interesting place and a good place for an extrovert like myself to explore. Outside the US I would love to get to Greece, Thailand, and the Holy Land. Greece seems beautiful…from the pictures, I would love to hang out by the ocean in a different country, it looks like an interesting place. Thailand is said to be budget friendly, and again, gorgeous. The Holy Land on the other hand is…
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Consume Responsibly
I’m on a church retreat with the high school youth group I volunteer with as a leader, we’re staying at a camp in the middle of Minnesota, we call the retreat Snow Camp and our theme this year is “consume responsibly”. It’s based on a candy land theme, where we’re talking about how we can be responsible Christians. Friday night a student spoke about responsibility in relationships and how we as Christian’s need to build each other up in our relationships. On Saturday another spoke, about our responsibility to tell the truth, he spoke about good examples, and how truth affects our lives. For Snow Camp we have teams every…
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Snow Camp
: noun, /snō/-/kamp/, a ridiculously fun activity for high schoolers in the GracePoint youth group, filled with snow, ice, chapel sessions, awesome conversations, and other crazy fun antics This weekend I’m at snow camp with my church, GracepPoint, senior high ministries. It’s a yearly event with tons of traditions, from the polar plunge to the black light dodge ball, and sliding across the ice playing broomball. Tubing is also a fun part of the weekend, we hike up a giant hill and sail down the cavern. After that? Well we put on our swimsuits and like true Minnesotans dunk in the lake and then hide out in a sauna on…
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One for the Books
As I sit here in the LAX airport waiting for my flight I find myself thinking about everything that has happened on this trip, the new sites I’ve seen, the new people I’ve met, the ways I’ve challenged myself, I want to share some favorite moments and thoughts. I have been able to see things that I’ve been waiting for, like the ocean, which was fun, even if it was too cold to swim. Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the trip was visiting the Warner Brothers Studio, I had a great tour and learned a lot, and saw even more, from costumes from some of my favorite movies.…
