i sometimes... end march at the beach

hannah is super cool and loves the ocean and waves just as much as i do. and its pretty rad to get to live life with her. hannah is you read this i am sorry i am not staying this summer... but april will get tons of beach time in.

sometimes i end up in florida...

in case you didn't know i am from a smallish town in texas thats called amarillo. yes there are lots of songs about my town and if you have been to my town its probably on your drive to colorado. anyways, i moved to corpus christi texas two years ago for college. just to let you know texas is HUGE my drive home is roughly ten hours and i only stop once in a town called eden. so its the end of my sophomore years first semester so its going to be winter break. i knew i didn't want to spend all my time in amarillo but i didn't have a plan of when i wanted to go home. one day i woke up super early and i thought well if i started driving now i could be half way home by the time my friends wake up so i left. i didn't tell my parents i was coming home my attempt to surprise them it worked as i pulled up my dad and sister were leaving. my mom was slightly freaking out when she saw me that was kinda cool to watch. then i asked my mom if we could look at flights to florida, my cousin was graduating and commissioning in to the airfare the next week. we got online and looked i had found a 69$ flight to tampa florida on southwest that left from dallas the next morning. if you don't travel much let me tell you this NEVER HAPPENS. you never get flights for this price ever. my mom called her best friend who was going to dallas the next morning and asked if she could take me to the airport and she said yes. so we booked it and i was off on my next adventure!! i unpacked my things and repacked them (if it was my choice this is how i would live my life). i was only in amarillo for 13 hours and i had driven 10 to get there, 5 to the dallas airport, 3 1/2 hour flight, and a 1 hour drive to lake wood ranch which is where my cousin lives. my flight to go back to amarillo was in two weeks and only 129$ which also is super cheap! lets just say it was a great christmas gift!

 meet tanner he is my cousin 

 meet gran gran! 

 the pyramid we accomplished 

 they are a creative family we were adding on to this statue 

 this is what my ten hour drive looks like (very exciting)

 tanner at lunch on the beach after we picked gran gran up

 austin's graduation UCF (this was 1 of the 8 ceremonies)

 me at drum circle at siesta keys beach (these were my people)

austin at commissioning into the air force so proud of you!! 

i sometimes end up bringing 22 friends home (sorry mom)

so if you have read my past few blogs you would know I'm involved in younglife. every year they go on a trip from corpus christi tx to a camp called wilderness about 30 minutes outside of creed colorado.  the purpose of this trip is to get the camp ready for the summer so younglife leaders and there highschoolers could come here and learn about christ and see his beauty. if you have never been to texas well lets just say the state is HUGE. the drive to creed is 16 hours and about 12 or so of that is just in texas. amarillo (which is where I'm from) is 10 hours from corpus a good half way point for this road trip. Joel the dude who was in charge of the trip called me and asked if we could stay at my house. i was all over this my new friends that i had told my parents all about would actually get to see what my life before corpus looked like! i called my mom told her hey I'm coming home in two days and I'm bringing a few friends then we are going to go to colorado for work week. she was very excited but she asked how many people and i hesitated to answer.. just 22.. she flipped started asking all these question where is everyone going to stay we only have two open bathrooms (besides hers) i just said chill we are college kids we will be fine don't worry! she is a major worrier so to help her i left corpus at 4 am to be there by 2pm to set everything up and see her for a little bit before i left again. here are all the people that stayed at my house

we all fit just fine and it went perfectly (told you mom) 

this is kayla and it was her first time to colorado and she had never seen snow!!

 this was in creed (i swear its not a green screen)

 this was us going backpacking and still smiling!!

 we couldn't peak because of the amount of snow then that night we slept through a blizzard and got 6 more inches!

 before the blizzard

the next morning... 

i sometimes end up taking high school freshman to YOUNG LIFE CAMP....!

its been two days since we got back and i have to say that weekend rocked my world... in a great way. as i reflect on things i could have done better to serve my girls and stare at my unpacked bag sitting on my bedroom floor i just thank God for the opportunity to be able to live life with these girls. so lets start out at the beginning i am a young life leader for king high school in corpus christi tx, every year we take freshman to a camp called polar bear. its a weekend long camp for them to have the chance to be totally shut out from the world (theres no cell service its funny to watch them kind of panic, but i love not having a phone for the weekend) and learn about this great God that wants to be there and love them through whatever is thrown at them. this weekend in my mind was supposed to be me getting to know my girls better and doing cool things with them but, there were boys and they are freshman girls that are away from there parents and are pumped to be free!!!! moral of the story we did little hanging out and more what i thought of me bird dogging my girls and following them around like a lost puppy. haha. but God works in cool ways and on the way home (a four and a half hour drive) we talked for an hour and a half and didn't even turn on the radio. i was super pumped to be able to hear what my girls thought of the weekend and what there walk with Christ looks like. even though they ditched me all weekend yesterday they showed up for CLUBBBBB!!! (yay they still want to hangout with me) it was a relief! and i met the coolest young life leaders from san marco!

                                 these are my two freshman girls that are sometimes to cool for me ;)

                                            us with are plus two's from san marcos

                                          time for a group photo!!!!!
                                           

my super cool rad fellow young life leaders from san marcos 

right after the paint war

if you were wondering where we were in that group photo

-where my girls you may ask??
- hanging with the boys or running away from me! (best young life leader award goes to me) 

i swear I'm not to cool for this 

i sometimes get talked into backing packing up a mountain...

we drove to a camp called sunlight, which was outside of pagosa springs colorado to climb the san juan mountains!  this trip was one of the hardest things i think i have ever done in my life... imagine carrying all your items need for seven days in one bag. ummmm what??? that was a foreign idea for me but some how i ended up going. something they tell first time backpackers is only bring things you really need so i brought a new shirt for everyday, a few to change into in the evening, a few pairs of shorts, a few pairs of socks, two shoes other then my hiking boots, a pair of sweats, and a few jackets. well lets just say that all of that didn't fit into my backpack. so our guide came over to help me narrow out (thank goodness she did) i guess i didn't realize i was going to have to carry this backpack up the mountain till i had to lift it.. may i remind you it weighed 50 pounds. doesn't sound like a lot till your climbing up the mountain. lets just say i will never bring that much stuff backpacking ever again... after walking 15 miles round trip i learned a lot about my self and things i actually needed haha.

 we stayed at this lake for a couple of nights and are food was supposed to be fish from that lake but we didn't catch any...

the most beautiful waterfall with the most beautiful people!

i sometimes end up going on tour for one night

when you ask a senior in high school what there favorite memory in high school was you probably would hear things like: prom, a sports game, or homecoming. if you asked me what mine was i would with out hesitation say the one night i went on tour. then i would proceed to explain that there is a fundraiser every year that supports a orphanage in amarillo texas and they raise money by having volunteers put dance routines together and acting like idiots. (which is right up my alley) my junior year of high school a group of my closets friends got the pleasure of participating. we chose the song "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi, and we had a great choreographer that made everything as easy as possible to learn. after one sunday afternoon practice we got placed as the final (we were that good). after a great performance with little error ( madi taylor sitting on the keyboard and hardly pulling it back together to finish) we got a standing ovation. going on tour one night and dressing up and acting goofy with my people is one of my favorite memories in high school.

i sometimes... end up hanging off the edge of a cliff at the grand canyon.

my first spring break of my college experience i had a choice i could go to a rave in south padre or i could go to the grand canyon with a few people i kind of knew but would consider strangers at the time. i obviously chose to go the the GRAND CANYON!!! little did i know but this choice was life changing for me, i met three girls who in a short 16 hour drive became some of my closest friends to this day.  

of course we stood out on a ledge (we like to push the limits)

my girls!!! regan and i look a ton alike!! starting from the left hannah, alyssa, regan me!