Block Buddies

My senior year in college I had "block" with Erin and Eliza in the fall. We had soooo much fun together in our classes. Looking back I remember being "stressed" (oh how fooled I was) (and how easy I have it now) but loving carpooling up to ETSU for class with the girls on Monday and Wednesday. We were in class from 8 until 4:30 and we stayed on the same floor all day. We had one of the meanest teachers, one of the craziest teachers, and 3 really cool and amazing teachers. We did a lot of studying goofying off in the back row and have lots of fun memories to look back on from that semester.

After graduation we were all hired as first grade teachers and have almost completed the first half of year 2. Last weekend Eliza came in and we had dinner and dessert together in JC. We ate at a German restaurant and  after we were all stuffed we walked around downtown before we decided it was to cold. We then headed over to dessert for coffee and dessert and had to call it a night.  I am so thankful for both of these girls and the friendship that blossomed in the back row of class. 

Red Ribbon Week Fun

In high school I loved homecoming week. As a teacher, I still look forward to the dress up weeks throughout the year. I obviously love pj day because teaching in my mickey pants couldn't get any better. However, tacky day and decade day are my personal favorites. I honestly spend more time preparing my outfit in hair on these two days than I do on any other day. I wanted to be originial and not follow the typical 80s wear by wearing leggings which I wear everyday anyway. I snooped through my mom's old clothes and found the perfect outfit. I tried to poof my hair, but it didn't quite have the effect that I wanted it to. One of my students even tattooed my name on his arm for decade day, now thats a way to get extra credit. Tacky day is one of my favorites because it is just an excuse to be extra silly and crazy.

Awkward Middle School Years- Take 2

When Pastor Andy came down to visit our church for the first time I got to meet with him with a couple of the boards from the church. I had the priviledge of getting to ask him the first question. I already knew what I wanted to ask him and I was pleased with his answer. I asked him what his plan was for my generation- the second take of the awkward middle school years. After high school and even more so after college there really isn't a place for you, just like when you are an awkward 12 year old. As a 24 year old I feel as if I'm not an adult but I'm not a kid either. We're stuck in the middle, but that doesn't mean that churches should forget about this age group. I honestly feel that, like middle schoolers, we are at a very vulnerable time in our lives. If we don't reach out to the unchurched at this age, it will be even harder to grab their attention and get them into church once they have established families.  I have gone to my church my entire life and I have always felt loved and welcomed. However, there has never really been a ministry or even a place for 20 somethings to turn to. I never really experienced this problem when I was in college because I was blessed to find a college ministry I loved. After college I felt that I didn't really belong anywhere, but I was searching for a place to grow. I tried going to youth, but quickly realized I wasn't getting what I needed from the lessons. I attended the adult class (and still do), but felt out of place. I wanted our new pastor to do something about this because I was growing more and more frustrated. I've already made my church my home church, but I thought about how a new 20 something might feel if he or she came to visit. I knew that creating a ministry for the round 2 of middle school years would be important if we wanted our church to grow in the future. Andy agreed that we needed to do something about that and he and his wife made sure that happened.

 At the beginning of August we had our young adult kick off party. Warren and Kim (who used to be state youth directors) and Becca have aggreed to lead our young adult group. I was so excited that my prayers had been answered. I finally had a place that was especially for me. We have been meeting weekly on Sunday nights to dig deeper into doctrine and  discuss tough questions about why we beleive what we believe. Our weekly discussions have been very intense and deep, but even though I have left class confused it has allowed me to grow in Christ. We have talked about many questions that we as young adults, have had for years, Warren has led us in great disussions using scripture to back our beliefs. I am so glad that we have left confused  at times because that allows our faith to grow because it creates a deeper desire to learn and dig into scripture even more. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to grow along side of people who are my age through great disucssions about scripture.


At the end of fall break we had a campout at the Pastor's house. We had a great time fellowshiping, eating enourmous hamburgers, and sitting around the campfire. Shiana, Erin, and I decided we would be brave souls and campout on the trampoline. We stayed pretty warm because with a trampoline you have no choice but to use each other's body heat. :)

1000 Gifts

I want to get back in the habit of posting ten gifts each time I post. I've been busy preparing for fall retreat this weekend so I don't have time for an actual post, but here's to being thankful for the small things.
46. A great fall break relaxing with Nathan and my family
47. Roasting marshmallows by the fire
48. days when the Sun is out, the windows are down, and the music is loud
49. Phone dates with my best bud Ashley
50. A new pastor and pastor's wife he have hearts for young adults
51. Carry in dinners
52 boots and scarves
53. Gifts from my kiddos after fall break
54. A clean room
55. Free butterfingers

Bedroom Redo

After many years I decided it was time to get ride of the bright orange. Since I was a teenager my room has been a bright bright orange color. With a bright bright pink comforter. Most people said "how do you sleep in here?" when they walked into my room. I decided to tone it done a little bit since I'm still living at home.

Giraffes & Birds

Last week we went on our first field trip to a local zoo. I was really worried about the weather, but it turned out to be a beautiful day. It literally just started to rain as we were loading the bus to come home. One of my favorite parts about this zoo is that it allows you to feed birds and giraffes. Here are a few pictures of the adventures from the zoo.

Fall Break Trip

I have officialy fniished my 2nd first nine weeks as a teacher. Wahoo! It has been a good first nine weeks of year two. I have a bigger class this year, but I love my kiddos. However, I defintiely needed a break. I was super excited about our week long fall break this year. My family planned a trip to Virginia to meet my brother and his family. Nathan even decided to join along and I was super excited about that. My parents left Friday morning, but Nathan and I left after I got out of work on Friday. It wasn't too long of a drive and we got there just in time to see the kiddos before they went to bed. We of course fit in a game of cards after the kids were tucked in. What would a family vacation be without cards?

I slept in the floor next to C in his blow up bed and every night he ended up crawling beside of me and sleeping with me the rest of the morning. It was nice to get these extra snuggles in. Saturday we got up and ate pancakes for breakfast before heading to a festival at the resort we stayed at. The resort has a really neat chair lift through the mountains but because of the heavy fog we decided to pass on the chair lift. I was pretty disappointed about not getting to take some pictures of the mountains, but Nathan and I enjoyed sharing a turkey leg from the festival. R got to ride a pony and get a face painted like wonder woman. She is certainly a spunky little girl. We headed back to the room Mom and Dad stayed back with the kiddos so the four of us could go to dinner. After dinner we played Taboo couple against couple. Nathan and I ended up edging out Jason and Traci before the girls kicked butt against the guys. I loved games like Taboo because it is a lot of fun and creates a lot of laughter, plus it is still competition (which is super imporatant to my family).

Sunday  the weather was a little bit better, but still wasn't a sunny day. We ended up playing two rounds of putt putt in the sprinkling rain. C loved playing and Nathan was a good helper. We went back to the room and watched movies and napped. Then, we sang happy birthday to Nathan and enjoyed some cookie cake. That night we picked up BBQ and relaxed in the room before playing more cards before going to bed.

Monday the kiddos and Jason and Traci headed back home after lunch which was super sad. Nathan and I planned to stay another day since he was on spring break as well. We played putt putt again with my parents before going shopping and going to dinner at Texas Road House. We ended the night with another game of cards before heading to bed. We had planned on spending most of the day at the resort but because of the rainy day we decided to head home in the morning. We had to stop at  Bass Pro on the way home, but I figured I owed him one.

It was such a fun, relaxing, and much needed weekend with my family.

Summer Sweep

I had every intention of blogging regularly over the summer, but my inention turned into a failure. I had intentions of blogging about all the sweet summer happings individually, but I spent my time wasting away on netflix haha. Then school got started and well it's October now. However, I've had this post in my drafts for quite a while so I thought I'd go ahead and post a quick sweep of my wonderful summer.

I had plenty of days and nights by the pool and even got pedicures with Erin! I am always barefoot so my feet needed it badly.

We went to visit my Aunt and spent the day on the lake on her new boat. This day was adventure just getting to the lake. Nathan and I drove seperately, and I am not as good as a navigator as we would have hoped. Those garmin things come in handy when you need to get somewhere and aren't sure of how to get there, however you might want to enter the correct address. After driving up and down what I thought was the correct road more the once we realized we were on the wrong side of the lake. About 30 minutes later we arrived safely as my parents were pulling in the driveway, who happened to leave home about 45 minutes after we did. Needless to say, Nathan is even more patient than I thought he was.

The next day my parents and I went to visit my brother and his family at the beach. It was such a fun trip with my sweet niece and nephew. R and I spent time walking back and forth and back forth on the beach. C loved playing wiffle ball on the beach. He fell down every time he missed, told me I was doing it wrong, or told me it was broken. We went to the Ocean City Board Walk and road rides with the kiddos a couple nights while we were there and of course what would a family vacation be without  some friendly competition.

Erin and I drove to Virginia to visit Eliza. We spent a lot of our time eating, talking, shopping, talking, and visiting around Virginia. We did make a trip to the beach in the rain and clouds. We also went to Bush Gardens for the day. If you know me, you know I love roller coasters. It was my idea to go to Bush Gardens. Erin and I found a way to get 20% off each ticket and off we went. I just bought a super cool (and corny) shirt and I was so excited to wear it. I packed it for this very day of our trip. We got there as soon as the park opened and as luck would have it we picked the super hot sunny day for our park day. We rode a motion ride and a roller coaster first thing. We rode the roller coaster two times in a row. Then we decided to ride the Aplengiest. I already felt a little bit queasy, but I took a couple of deep breath and told myself to suck it up. BAD IDEA SELF!!! We got on and the ride began to start, then it hit me. That feeling of sickness which is a no return feeling. The entire ride as Erin is screaming "I HATE THIS!", I am doing breathing techniques to stop myself from getting sick. Luckily, the ride ended, however, not soon enough. As we are awkwardly stopped, yet still strapped down the feeling of sickness was only getting worse. It was uncontrollable at this point. I could do nothing to make the feeling go away. Needless to say, I upchucked/threw up/barfed/vomicked/whatever you may call it, all of myself. Yep, that's right I am one of those people. It happens, people really do throw up on roller coasters, it isn't a myth. Erin ever so politely waved me off with the words "I Love you, but I just can't". Eliza, not so politely laughed in my face. Yes, what a sweet compassionate friend I have. Please keep in mind that I am still strapped in my seat...with throw up allll over me. As soon as I was set free, "I ran for my life". Erin simply told the next riders that "We've had an accident" and Eliza told the workers what happened .Meanwhile, I was quickly walking/running as discreetly as one could with throw up all over them to the bathroom. After my wonderful friends bought me a new shirt we slowly continued with our day. However, while riding one of those slow boring trains we noticed that Erin had a little gift from me...funniest moment of the day. Needless to say, I didn't ride anymore rides this rest of the day. However, the trip was a blast and I will forever remember this trip and look back and laugh at the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.

I also worked a lot on my classroom to declutter and organizer before school got started. I had planned to do a lot more, but I still was proud of how my classroom looked before school started.

Eliza came in to visit her boyfriend and we all went on a triple date to Max Patch. It was really fun to hang out with the fellas this time.

Junior High Camp

After two days not spent recovering from week one of camp I headed back to the campground for week two. This week was for the middle school ages, and I was so glad that I didn't have to leave any for school this week. We had a lot of help that week so I got to be camp photographer, kitchen aid, game leader...aka high strung Hannah. Camp started on Monday like usual and went smoothly all week long.

Monday night began with some group games including the ever popular "ships and sailors", a great service led by my church's praise band and the amazing Sara Aiken, and of course gutter goo.

Tuesday we spent the day eating watermelon, spray painting t-shirts, and hiking up Margarette Falls. Surprisingly I believe the kids really enjoyed the hike. It is so beautiful up there and we ended the hike with devotions at the falls.

Wednesday we had a great time swimming at a couples house from my church and were super thankful for their kindness and hospitality to allow 50 campers to come hang out at their pool. 

Thursday was a day filled with shaving cream, water slide, and skit night yet again. We also rented inflatables and had a blast with those. 

Week two was another sucesssful, fun, God filled week. I  am so beyond thankul for another summer spent at Camp Greene. 

Junior Church Camp

This was my 14th year at church camp and a dream came true of mine. I've attended Camp Greene since I was 10 and got saved in my top bunk late in the night when I was 11 years old. Camp Greene has played such an important part in my walk with Christ and this year I had the privliedge of being able to help direct the 2nd-5th grade kiddo camp. Unfortunetly I had to leave everyday but Thursday because of inservice, but I enjoyed helping plan and direct Junior Camp. Camp started on Monday evening with some group games after the kids came and registered. We had two traditions take place on Monday with eclair cake and gutter goo, two of my favorite things about camp.

Tuesday Erin and I both had to leave for inservice which was pretty sad, but we got out pretty early and was able to head back to camp in time for some fun activities. We had a pretty fun activity with aluminum foil for the afternoon and watched Frozen that evening. 

Wednesday we rented infltables and the kids had a blast on them. We also had Comedy Night with Ken which is always a blast for the kiddos. 

Thursday is one of my favorite days. We usually do shaving cream fights along with the water slide and skit night on Thursday. That week we also had the kids decorate a puzzle piece. That night Ken talked about how we all night only have a place at Camp Greene, but also a plan for our lives and a place in His kingdom. At the end of the service we all put our puzzle pieces together to form one big puzzle to represent "the church". 

Camp Greene week 1 was another successful week thanks to our Heavenly Father who watches over and works through our camp. His watch over our camp was even more evident this year and I am so thankful that He allowed me to be a bigger part of serving Him at a place that I have grown to love with my whole heart.