"All Old Men Look the Same!"

Funny Pictures

"All old men look the same!"

The other day my mother and I were coming out of Thrive Fitness center after a good workout. On the way out a nice old man held the door open for us and smiled. **For this story a side note is needed.** Before my church received its present pastor it had a interim pastor named Jerry Cook. Jerry Cook is an older, friendly man; a stereotypical great grandpa figure. Well on the way out of thrive fitness center my mom thought that this older gentleman was Jerry Cook. I knew it wasn't. Haha.. she began to carry a full on conversation with this older man who was simply so confused. 

Mother: "Hey Jerry!... How are you doing?"

"Jerry": "errhhhh... uhhhh?"

Mother: "It is me Kelly, from Living word"

"Jerry": "Ohhh uhhh?"

Mother: "How's Barbara?" 

"Jerry": "Oh yes, Hi Barbara.."

Mother: "No I'm not Barbara, Your wife. How is she doing? I heard you were going on vacation"

"Jerry": "oh erhhh.. yeah.. well we were going to Arizona and erhh..."

Mother: "Well it was good seeing you. Talk to you later" 

hahah.. Poor old man. He never saw it coming. Once the car doors were fully closed I burst into laughter. "Mom, that wasn't Jerry Cook."...... "What?!... Dangit.. All old men look the same!

Hahaha.. Mom. I love her. Poor old unsuspecting man though. Haha.. After this incident my mom said that it would be really funny to go up to random old guys and pretend like you know them. "They might start thinking the Alzheimer set in early" haha that was her exact wording. Oh man. Has this kind of incident ever happened to you? I would love to hear about it. Got to love the adventures of life.

Mayday Mayday!!

Sorry everyone... once again it has been awhile. This time I have a valuable excuse! The hard drive of my brand new computer crashed on Christmas day, leaving me computer-less. My new hard drive arrived yesterday so I of course promptly plugged it in and started blogging right away. =]

So Christmas has come and gone and winter break is soon coming to a close. I only have about 10 days left on Whidbey Island until I'm back to the wonderful town of Eugene. It's weird, I feel kind of divided. I find that I use the word "home" interchangeably. I consider the house I grew up in home but now my small dorm room has become home as well. Home is where the heart is? It's good to know that my heart is in two places =]. Anyway. I am so thankful for my Whidbey Island home but I am very excited to reunite with my NCU home. Being away from NCU has helped me realize the great friendships I have built there and how great and perfect the college stage is in my life right now. Being back in my home town I realized that many people will always view me for who I was and not what I can be.

I'm excited for next semester. Last semester I realized that the more you put in the more you will get out. I think last semester I focused more so on my grades and less on the benefit and awesomeness of learning. If I will let myself, next semester I'm not going to worry about grades so much and focus more on learning and gaining knowledge in the subjects that I am studying. I'm excited for my sister Megan though. Instead of coming back with me to NCU she gets to go to Uganda in Africa to study abroad. This is something she has been wanting to do for a long time. It is awesome to see that this is finally a reality for her. If you all could keep her in your prayers that would be awesome.

I hope you all had a marvelous Christmas and a great New Years!
 

The Glenwood Breakfast Club

Well, there isn't much else to report here in sleepy, rainy Eugene. However, one highlight of being stuck here for most of break is that my university meal plan has been moved to a restaurant around the corner from my dorm called the Glenwood. Talk about Yummy! The other morning I was enjoying sleeping in when I received a picture message on my phone from two of my teammates dressed as cow girls. The text said "come to breakfast, we're dressing up as cowboys!" Thinking that I was having an absurd dream, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Well, it turned out not to be a dream--my teammates really dressed up like that to go to breakfast. They also decided that the rest of the days we are here, there are going to be costumed breakfasts. So we went as gangsters the next day and nerds today. I believe tomorrow we are going as super heros. Good thing we are easily amused starving college kids! Hopefully there will be more pictures to follow. This one is from nerd day. Much love! It's almost Christmas!!!!

(p.s,) You can't appreciate our full nerd attire from the picture, but we all have tucked in polo shirts, our pants hiked up and obnoxious socks so go with out awesome glasses (yes, jen is wearing shop goggles)

Story of my life.

Well this next story that I am going to share with you guys describes my life to a T.

Since being back I have been starting to get back into running. Yesterday I decided to go running in some trails close to my house. Before my run I was dismayed to find that my family was out of water. Mustering up my courage anyway I decided to hit the trails. Even at the beginning of my short jog my throat had already become choked with dryness. "Oh joy.." After pushing myself hard on some steep hills through the misty, teasing, and provoking drizzle, my unquenched throat and I headed back on the main road to my car. Keep in mind these trails are very secluded and you often see no one around. Being who I am... my mind began to race as I looked at the moistened leaves just to the right of the path.  I then began to get little clips of Survivor moments or the movie Cast Away. Well... what happens next should be expected. I decided to let my imagination take me over (like any good homeschooler would do) and tried gathering water from the leaves. I first picked a leaf but that made all the water fall depressingly to the ground. I then proceeded to stick my tongue on the tips of high leaves and received a drop of water from each leaf. I knew that I wouldn't get adequate amount of water from these leaves but my actions were solely for the experience. Haha. Well, after about 5 or 6 licked leaves I just happened to look behind me. And what was there?.... About 15ft behind me was an older lady simply smiling at me. I quickly and awkwardly returned her smile and said hello as I promptly turned back around.  "It's ok Lindsey, pretty soon this lady will be past you and you will never see her again," I thought to myself. However, next thing I know the older gal is to the left of me and asks me if I could do her a favor. "I twisted my ankle back a ways and I didn't bring my car. If you are done would you be able to give me a ride to the hospital where I work?" Of course I couldn't refuse giving her a ride. So I agreed and we continued down the path together. Oh my goodness! For a hurt ankle that older lady sure did know how to book it! Haha.. My heart was pounding just to keep up with her. haha. She gave me permission to continue running if I wanted to... I quickly declined. haha. I told her that my walking was probably faster than my running away =P Hahaha.

We continued the rest of the mile to the car making casual conversation and I then drove her to the hospital. Turns out she is a nurse. I'm surprised she didn't talk to me about the bacteria one might receive from licking leaves. haha It all worked out, and I hope her ankle gets better.

I hope this story shows you all how comfortable and trusting I am of you. Thank you faithful readers (Mom, Siblings...) you are appreciated. =]


**Always look behind you**

Winter Fest.

You know that Christmas is almost here and that school has come to a close when HomeConnection has their annual "Winter Fest". Each year this homeschooling program has a winter party that's full of crafts, potluck delectables, sing-a-longs, and small, crazy children. The holidays would not be complete for my family or I if we didn't attend. This year my little, beautiful sister (Carly) was part of the choir performance during this partaaaay of a life time. I was able to capture her skill and there was nothing she could do about it. Trapped on stage she was forced to endure the agonizing attention she was receiving and try to sing like she was too cool for school. With one arm held casually to one side she tried giving the impression that she wasn't secretly enjoying her awesome singing ability... we weren't fooled. =] I love my sister. Luckily for you, I am now able to share it with all of you! Enjoy!

Oh! I forgot about my best friend, Kristen. It seems that because of those 9+ years in HomeConnection herself,  her heart still longs so desperately to be a part of the Homeconnection's "Vocal Technique" class. Don't worry Kristen, one day you shall be reunited. Shalom Chaverim, Kristen, Shalom Chaverim =] Peace be with you... I will ask about a alumni reunion with the board (aka our dads and Mr. Mouw =P)

Home Sweet Home.

Once again I have arrived home. I'm back in Oak Harbor, Washington, away from my beloved BBFL (Best Friend For Life; for those old people out there who don't know the modern lingo =P). The two peas in a pod have been split, they're no longer joined at the hip. I miss Keegan. It is going to be a lonely month without her. However, thanks to modern technology we are able to communicate through many various ways. We have skype, facebook, texting, calling, e-mailing, and even good ole fashion snail mail =]. It will be good. We will just continue to tell ourselves over and over again to breathe in, breathe out. Maybe we will even put our spanish speaking abilities to use and count to ten in spanish.

 *uno...dos...tres......BREATHE!* =]

Well anyway, my sister (Megan) and I snapped some pictures during our drive back. Hope you guys enjoy!

                                Happy Winter Break Everyone!

So long, farewell, adieu, good bye my friend!

Finals are almost done and everybody is packing up to head home for winter break! (well, most people are anyway). But one of our dearest friends, William Louis Traylor, isn't coming back next semester. Despite our sadness, we know he is destined for greatness in whatever he does and God is gonna use his talents elsewhere. 20 of his closest friends got together and went to Shari's to share memories and eat pie. (you can't go wrong with good friends and pie, after all) We are gonna miss you so much buddy, good luck with your endeavors and never forget all the good times we had at good old NCU!

much love,

Keegs

SANTA!! I KNOW HIM!!!

Well, 'tis the season.....for finals!!! It seems like I haven't really had to do any homework until this point in the semester. Lindsey and I have locked ourselves in the room and have been working on homework all day! (Well, I am taking this small break to write a blog post) We are very excited for the Christmas break to be here! This week we made Christmas ornaments and decorated Christmas cookies (in between studying for finals that is). Yes, pretty soon Lindsey will go back to her strange island in Washington and I'll be stuck here 'till Christmas Eve with Skeeter. Sad Face. You might also like to know that Skeeter is louder than ever! I swear that little heater monster never sleeps! Last night he was making creepy moaning noises.....

It has gotten really cold here! I've put my new coat to good use :) Maybe we'll even get some snow over break! That would be so exciting!

This is a picture of me and my friend Kristen meeting Santa! He said I was definitely on the good list this year. (Not that I was worried or anything...) Peace out and stay warm!

much love,

Keegs

You know you have...

You know you have driven for too long when you close your eyes and can still see the road.
You know you have driven for too long when your knee aches from simply keeping it in the same position.
You know you have driven for too long when you cup your hands full of water to wash your face only to remember that you forgot to take off your glasses. True Story.

Yay! Megan and I are back! We made it safely from Washington to the Oregonian wilderness (6ish hour drive). We both enjoyed our time in Oak Harbor immensely. We can't wait until two weeks when we can go back and stay for a month without the worry of homework.

Hanging out with friends, picking out a christmas tree and spend the nights definitely completed the home visit.

PRAY FOR KEEGAN AND I!
Finals week is coming up and we are going to need all the prayers we can get. Focus, determination, and intelligence is what we are hoping for... =]

Goodnight all.
I got to study and get some shut eye.  

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig Jig

I'm finally home again!


I love it sooo much. 
My sister Megan and I caught a ride with one of our fellow NCU comrades, Jeneca. 
We all piled into her red BMW Bug and made the great journey. I was so ecstatic to be home and couldn't wait to see my family, friends, and dogs. However, my energy to leave was quickly met with the worse traffic we have ever seen. It normally would take two hours to get to Portland but instead we got there in four =/. Finally we made it to WASHINGTON. It was so weird. Even though I was in a part of Washington that was unfamiliar to me I automatically felt at home. Washington is so much better than everywhere else! =P


You guys don't know how much comfort and joy I found in simply seeing the majority of the license plates being from Washington state. 


Well we finally made it to Stanwood where our friend Jack was going to pick us up to take us the rest of the way home. It was quite awesome! Jeneca dropped us off with our bags, pillows, blankets, backpacks, and Megan's loaf of bread that she brought for Jack. If I wasn't in heals and Megan wasn't as beautiful as she is then people would think we were homeless. However, there will always be those certain stupid people out there. When we unloaded all our stuff and shielded it from the rain at like 12:30am there was this one lady who gave us the most disapproving look. We continued into the store and she proceeded to walk ahead and turn around only to give us the stink eye. hahaha. I found it quite ridiculous that she would care so much. Her look shouted, "How dare these bums enter this respectful Haggens with all their stuff. I'm really trying to have a classy shopping experience and these bums are staining my presence." Good grief. Get over yourself lady. I guess you should have shopped at Safeway or Fred Meyer instead. Don't judge and label me. hahah


Once home, Megan and I woke up Carly to say that we loved her and missed her and then we went to Stevie's room. When we woke up Stevie he freaked out. He didn't recognize who we were so he started shouting "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa..." Haha.. We tried telling him that it was just his loving sisters but he was pretty delusional at 1:30 in the morning. He eventually realized it was us and laughed. Haha. It makes for a good story though. 


Lisle and Gretle (the BEST dogs ever) are still the same. Lisle is still my favorite and Gretle is still a beautiful brat. 


It's lovely but also weird being back home. Although I have only been gone about 4 months I still find it weird that I do things automatically. For example, when I finished brushing my teeth I almost automatically put my toothbrush in my former cupboard that has now been taken over by Jack. 


I am so thankful to be home!
Yay! I really don't think I have ever been so excited in such a long time. You don't even know. I realized last night that I should be pretty embarrassed at my excitement but I was just to happy to care.  


I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your families and food everyone!

My Heart Breaks

So this is one of my more serious blogs but God definitely laid it on my heart.

Today in my Introduction to Counseling class my teacher mentioned something that practically brought me to tears. “If I have a problem, the church is the not the first place I would go… The church is really good at shooting down our fallen comrades,” she stated. How saddening is this? But it is so true! My Christian professor admits it and I see it in my own life. If something happens that doesn’t seem like it would be the “right” thing I am prone not to take it to the church. As much as I hate admitting it, regarding things that would be considered “secular,”   it is easier for me to talk to my best friend who isn’t as tight knit with Jesus than it is to talk with my best friend who has loved Jesus her whole life. It seems like for most people it is easier to talk to non-Christians than it is Christians.  This shouldn’t be! The church needs to be just the opposite. We get so caught up in what is the “right” thing to do or say that we forget about the love. We forget that people are people. Each and every one of us is full of mistakes and sin. If someone has a problem or something is bothering them the church should be the first place that people feel comfortable coming to. It should be a place free of judgment and stereotypes. It should be a place embodying the true nature of the one we say we serve. Jesus was all about love. That is the only thing that he has called us to. God simply tells us to love Him and love others. When talking with my friends I mentioned we need to “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Daniel Jones then mentioned that he has heard it as “Love the sinner, love the sinner.” That’s what we need to do! LOVE THE SINNER, LOVE THE SINNER! That’s what we need to be about! LOVE IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

Why is it that we are so good at “shooting down our fallen comrades”? We are so quick to compare, measure, or size someone up. This shouldn’t be! This breaks my heart! That even within a congregation my own heart doesn’t long to run to the church in a time of weakness! How then can we expect others, anyone, to even consider the idea of opening up?

Especially as brothers and sisters in Christ we need to be building up and empowering each other; the church. Back home in Oak Harbor I worked as a swim instructor for many years. After every session each kid receives a progress report that tells them if they have passed or not. I’ll never forget one moment when I saw the greatest example of how we need to love each other displayed. In the water there was an older brother and sister. Their younger brother had ended his lesson, received his report card and found out that he passed. In his excitement he told his sister of his success and she simply said unexcitedly, “Oh yeah, that’s cool. Good job.” However, when the younger brother told his older brother, the oldest jumped for joy. He started exclaiming wildly, “My brother passed, my brother passed!” He even got the attention of the boy next to him just to tell him that his brother passed. He then proceeded to exclaim across the water to the sister, “Our brother passed! Our brother passed!”

I think often times we have the attitude of the sister. We simply say, “Yeah, good job” to the accomplishments of our fellow brothers and sisters. However, I believe that we need to have the enthusiasm of the older brother. We need to be so excited and bewildered at our brothers’ and sisters’ undertakings; acting as if they were our own accomplishments.

I don’t want the church to be the last place that we come to. I don’t want the church to be known for shooting down even our own members. When this world chews us up and spits us out (which it often does) let us simply pick each other up and continue in love. Please church, please, please, please let us stop our judging and let us stop our “sympathy.”

Let’s turn this around. I’m not trying to say these things to discourage or bash the church, but we have a lot of work to do. I know most of us, if not all, mean well. We have great intentions of loving on people and showing how awesome God’s love is. Why then are people not coming to the church, to Jesus, for sanctuary? Why then are Christians labeled as hypocrites? We want to incorporate or give advice pertaining to God and Jesus. And this isn’t bad. But it is so essential for us to quit the “Christianeze” that is so easy to speak and start loving on the individual. We don’t need to pretend things are alright. We don’t need to always be “right.” We don’t need to always give advice. We simply need to be real. We simply need to listen and care. I want an authentic church. I need a real church. Sometimes this world just sucks. Are we able to listen openly and love unconditionally? The church isn’t a building. We are the church. Let’s turn this around!  

Long Time, No Blog

Oh my goodness guys! I apologize. Keegan and I have slacked in our duties to keep you informed. We are very sorry.

There is so much to say but so little time to say it all.

Halloween was super fun! Keegan and I throw together costume fairly well I must say:

NCU had a halloween dance and we all were able to declare to the school population that we can't dance.



Skeeter (the one who lives in our heater) is still quite obnoxious. We yell at him all the time but it doesn't seem to help things. One of these days we will be able to muffle him.

Keegan drew this awesome picture of Skeeter

Fun story. 
I don't think I will be able to convey the funniness of this story through words but I will try my best.

Well a couple days ago Keegan was changing in her closet and when she was coming out (=]) I heard this **kurplunk bam bam crunch, cidsajFOi** I look over from my bed and see Keegan sprawled out on the floor half in her closet and half out. I couldn't help but to start laughing uncontrollably. However, even in the midst of my laughter and tears (tears were running down my face) I was able to get out an "Are you ok?" and a "I'm sorry" hahah..
After Keegan got up and recovered. I asked her what happened. She said that she had a lot of laundry in her room so she had to jump over her laundry and open the door to get out. Here is a 6'3" tall girljumping to get out of a 3' by 3' full closet. hahaha.
So.... I think we should just leave it at a "You had to be there" But believe me.. it was pretty hilarious.

I wish all of you guys could know all of our friends. The stories I could tell you would make them all the better.
Overall things are going great here. I am so ready for a break from school!!!

THANKSGIVING IS COMING!
I don't think I have ever been so thankful for thanksgiving. I can't wait to see my parents, my siblings, best friends, old friends, and all my animals. Familiarity is a gift in itself! I can't wait.
I'm leaving Wednesday!!
The count down has been going for quite sometime!

I will try to be posting some more..... but we all know how that usually ends up.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL if we don't post before hand!

Needtobreathe!

Last Friday I had the great joy of attending a NeedtoBreathe concert in Portland. About ten students from NCU went and we certainly had a blast. The concert was small enough that we were able to be pretty close to the band.
Here are some pictures and video clips from the concert.

There's something living in our heater....

Hello friends! So, last night, Lindsey and I got conned into watching a little bit of a scary movie (bad idea). After running up the stairs and dashing into the room for safety from all of the creepy things from the movie that were out to get us we discovered a clanging sound coming from the heater! Now, keep in mind the heater isn't even running and there's sporadic clanging sounds coming from the pipes in the walls! Ahhhhhhh!!!!! So Lindsey and I crawled under the covers (in our own beds, not together) and listened to some Jesus music in hopes of calming our nerves. Then, I decided to name the phantom heater menace so I call him Skeeter. It's considerably less scary to think about something named Skeeter making all that racket then, say, a demon-possessed spider or something. By the way, there is also a conspiracy amongst the spiders in the dorm to always end up on my side of the room and not Lindsey's (not cool giant spiders, not cool). BE QUIET SKEETER!!!!!!

love,

Keegs

My Adventure to the Coast!

Because I am from the middle of the desert, I decided to check out this crazy thing that people here call the "ocean." So, my buddy Kristen and I packed a picnic lunch and headed for New Port, Oregon last weekend for a sea side adventure! Woot Woot! Our first stop was the aquarium where we saw jelly fish and sharks and we got to touch star fish! Also, I got stuck inside a fish tank. See photo for vague explanation. After the aquarium we ventured to the beach for lunch. It was a glorious sunny day and about 65 degrees (apparently that's not normal). It was so beautiful!! We then walked around all the cute little coast shops (that were mostly full of junk, cute junk, but junk nonetheless) While there we saw huge sea lions lounging about on the docks being noisy and smelling of fish. And yet they're still so cute in an ugly, smelly sort of way :) Very entertaining to watch. All in all it was an awesome day. Thanks Kristen!!!

(p.s. due to some technical difficulty some of the photos turned out rather tiny. I'm working on it)

-Keegan

541-995-6487

Ok.. I have been meaning to put these pictures up for awhile but it has always slipped my mind.
These pictures are taken from my cell phone on one of our very first walmart runs.

Hahaha.. I love people. Our friends Josh and Will called this number the first time and only got an answering machine. Josh called this number a month later and left a message. I'll let you know if anything happens with that one. haha

People are so silly.
So guys, if you ever need a girlfriend just post something in your car or if you want to be reaaaaaal classy post it as your facebook status: GIRLFRIEND WANTED
I'm positive you will get some GREAT results.

Multnomah Falls!!!

I had one of the greatest times here in Oregon today. Today I visited Multnomah Falls in Portland area with my friend Daniel. We hiked up 1.25 miles up a superly steep trail. Despite our dying, out of shape legs we suffered through to experience the best beauty. Therefore, two mountaineers traveled up a winding, kaleidoscope of awesomeness to enjoy the wonderful beauty and people that surrounded it.


I hope these pictures somewhat capture the exquisiteness of the falls in real life.

It is on this bridge that a random, cute little girl decided to befriend me and take my hand without saying a word. =] I love little children.

These next few pictures are from a detour creek route leading to the falls.

I love looking up at trees!

All the way at the top of the falls!

At the top!

Sorry that it is sideways. I couldn’t find a way to rotate it.

After visiting the falls, Daniel and I decided to visit the local PREMIUM Outlets and mall. At the mall we ventured into Barnes & Nobles. I know you must think at this point what could make our day any better after seeing the falls… However! Lo and Behold, in Barnes & Nobles who did we see…. STORM TROOPERS! Daniel almost died and needed a picture with these men. After his picture was taken the storm troopers coerced me into a picture as well. However, unlike Daniel, they asked me to join the Empire. =] I’m afraid that Daniel’s world was slightly squashed into several pieces and he will need much therapy after being rejected from the infamous empire.

Overall, today was a great day!

Concluding remarks that none of you will get include:

IMPOSSIBLE --> POSSIBLE!!

Serendipitous: come upon or found by accident;

 Unexpected, opportune, unforeseen, unanticipated, chance

(Thank you Mr. Taco Bell man)

Lastly! OWL CITY is my new favorite band! Check them out! =]

Love you all! Miss you!