memorial day weekend

We need to first make clear that this was my first memorial day weekend NOT spent at Rockbridge for leader weekend in a long time. I have been 6 times in the past 7 years. Heartbreaking doesn't even begin to describe it. I LOVE leader weekend at Rockbridge. Here are pictures of the past 4 Rockbridge weekends:

 (above: the boys were throwing water bottles at us while the picture was about to be taken. look at julie :) love it. )

Anyway...us leaders here in Lexington made the best of it, and had a good weekend. This is my only summer holiday weekend off this summer, which is exciting I guess, except that nobody ever does anything holiday weekends except for Memorial day when we go to Rockbridge. 

So to recap the fun:
I worked on Friday, came home, changed into a dress (just because I like dresses), and went to dinner with my friends Katie & Kyle. We talked about how great the old Robin Hood was (with Kevin Costner), and proceeded to go searching for a copy to watch. We failed miserably, but ended up watching Braveheart, which I had never seen. LOVED it. Great movie. No Robin Hood though. We may have stayed up until 1 am watching. When the movie ended I had been awake for 20 hours. 


Saturday was spent at the pool from 9am-2pm. It was sad to not have my camera with me, because it was Silas' first trip to the pool EVER. He loved it! You'll have to check out Angie's blog for pictures. I'm sure they'll be up :) Here is Silas from Sat night to make up for it:

Randi moved in Saturday!!! How fun?! I am super excited to live with her. It will be great. Once we get a roommate picture, I'll post it. :) I also went on a cleaning streak and got rid of a bunch of things. (i lost the screws and bolts to put the legs on the table...so it might be on the floor of the kitchen..)

Saturday night was spent cooking out with some wonderful friends. The only pictures I have from this are of the babies. I haven't become the girl that just sits around taking pictures of her friends while we all hang out (yet), so the babies will have to do. Here is precious Eden eating corn on the cob, and later reclining on pillows laughing. If you've never heard this kid laugh, you're missing out. 

Sunday was great as well. Donielle and I went to church together in the morning, then went to a new little Italian place for lunch. From there I went to a (not to be mentioned) pool to play in the sun with friends. The problem with sneaking into neighborhood pools with your friends is when your friend's husbands throw tennis balls and frisbees at each other other people while you give them apologetic looks, its like they know we don't live there. Very fun to watch though, no complaining here. 


Sunday night was spent with Katie Lindeman. She is great. We went to Donielle's to get all her hair chopped off. If you ever want to get your hair chopped off, Donielle is who to go to. I'll have to write about her on here sometime. :) Here is Katie post-cut. So precious! 

Monday was overcast, and weather.com told us it was going to rain all day, so Holly, Katie, Carly, and I went on a little trip to Ikea! So great. I love it there. We stocked up on things like picture frames, almost every item was under $6. Treat. After Ikea, we went a little further north to the outlets then headed back to Lex where my roommates and I ate a Little Caesar's Hot & Ready pizza while watching the made for TV Disney movie Wish Upon A Star (the one with little Katherine Heigel in it). Great end to a great weekend. I hope you all had wonderful weekends! Can't wait to read about them in blogland (or hear about them if you are one of my non-blogging friends of course) :) 

a new find

All credit for this musical find go to my dear friends (and soon to be roommates) Randi and Holly. His name? Coffey Anderson. 

He has two worship albums that are awesome. His songs are mostly covers of old worship tunes like trading my sorrows, open the eyes of my heart, holiness, and sanctuary. He has two volumes. I have volume 2 and love it. I blasted it in the Escape on the way to and from work today. 

Here are a few samples for you. I definitely reccommend you to purchase some of these songs. Very encouraging :) 

Open the eyes of my heart-- Coffey Anderson 

Trading my Sorrows-- Coffey Anderson


Love it. 

For you guitar players, he gives you the chords beforehand, which is super awesome to play along with him :) Yes, I know worship song are self-explanatory, but if you're like me, and can only play along with someone else strumming, this is a treat. 

Enjoy! I will leave you with a picture that will get you ready for pools opening and sun shining :) 

[fountain, lexington ky]

a weekend in illinois

After much anticipation, this weekend finally happened. I realized recently that I have 5 wonderful friends living in Illinois. Not far at all. So, I decided to go! These 5 friends are from my summer staff at Castaway 5 years ago. I've blogged about them before. There was just something about that month that makes us want to still see each other this long after. 

Stacy and Dan live in Naperville and Brad lives in Wheaton. My friend from home, Kari, also did summer staff with us and recently moved to Chicago after she got married. I said 5, but I only saw these 4. The other, Matt, lives in Champaign, which is further, and he ended up having stuff to do for Young Life this weekend, so couldn't come.

I headed up Friday morning and made it there around 5:45. Stacy had a soccer game to work (she is a teacher and YL leader at Waubonsie Valley HS), so we went to the game and ended up meeting Dan and Brad for a late dinner. 
It is so great to see people you haven't seen in awhile. The last time I saw Stacy and Dan was in October (not that long) but hadn't seen Brad in about 4 years, which is crazy! 

Saturday was a beautiful day. Stacy and I walked around downtown Naperville, ate at Portillos, went to Caribou to meet some of her friends, went to Super Target, then went back to her place to prepare to have our friends over! 

The rest of this post will be a picture re-cap of the weekend. The first few are from downtown Naperville, then ones from our get-together, and the very last ones are from I-65 in Indiana. I saw these windmills on the way up and knew I needed to find a way to take pictures on the drive home, so I pulled off a couple exits to get those shots. Well worth the 20 minutes it set me back :) Enjoy!

Thats all for now :) I am just really thankful to have been a part of such an awesome community. These people are just really great. I wish I could see all of them every day. We talked of how great it would be to do a 6 year reunion next summer with everyone. I would be so excited. We did a 5 month reunion the December after we came home and all but around 5 people came. Lets re-create that!

listening

"My life is a listening, His is a speaking"

 -Thomas Merton

"Our relationship with God would be greatly improved if we saw prayer as listening to God rather than talking to him. Think of those boring people who talk endlessly to others. All their words show that they are distanced from others rather than close to them. Could this also be the reason why our prayers lack insight into the character of God? Openness to God, submissiveness to God, listening to his 'still small voice' may give us far more insight than the constant chatter which we are used to calling prayer" -James Houston

"Prayer is not a matter of my calling in an attempt to get God's attention, but of my finally listening to the call of God, which has been constant, patient, and insistent in my inner being. In relationship with God, I am not the seeker, the initiator, the one who loves more greatly. In prayer, as in the whole salvation story unfolded by Scripture, God is reaching out to me, speaking to me, and it's up to me to be polite enough to pay attention. When I do have something to say to God, I am rendering a response to the divine initiative. So the questions of whether or not and how God answers prayers now seem to me bogus questions. God speaks, all right. The big question is do I answer, do I respond, to an invitation that is always open" -Virginia Ramey Mollenkott

"Our waiting on God, then, requires ongoing attentiveness if it is to be more than an empty exercise in passivity. When we pay attention, our awareness is sharpened. Then we hear God speak, predictably in sacred settings, but also in wildly unlikely places and circumstances: the subway, the shower, and the messy garage. After all, the Holy Spirit is blowing over us all the time, sometimes as genle as baby's breath and sometimes roaring like a Kansas tornado"  -Margaret Guenther

Holly Dawn

Today is Holly's day of birth! To return the favor, I will celebrate her special day via blog-world.

I love Holly. She is a wonderful friend and roommate. I am so blessed to live with her. Here are some pictures of precious Holly. 

She was sassy at a young age. It's one of my favorite things about her.

She takes beautiful pictures with beautiful faces.

And we like to laugh together. Hers out loud with tears. Mine silent..sometimes with tears.

She if full of joy from the Lord. You should check out her blog sometime. She is great.

Holly: I hope your day is full of cake and celebrating (also balloons, cinnamon rolls, and signs).

I wish really badly that I had all the pictures from your quilt to put on here. One day.

fun things on the horizon :)

There are a lot of things I feel really excited about that are all happening really soon. Here they are:

1. I am going to Chicago this weekend! I get to see some friends I haven't seen in about 5 years. They are from my first summer staff at Castaway, you can read more about them [here]

2. SUMMER CAMP! June 27-July3. I love nothing more than taking high school girls to camp for the best week of their lives. This year I have to leave camp early to work (it's going to rip my heart out). I am really pumped about this trip though :)

3. Cruise with my BFF. Shannon lives in nky now and I never ever see her. It's really sad. But we are taking an adventure on the high seas this July :) We may or may not pretend we're pirates the whole time. 

4. Hillsong is coming to Southland. I am so excited. This has potential to be the best concert ever. I love their worship so much, and I love corporate worship with all of my heart. 

5. RANDI IS MOVING IN!!! I feel pumped. Enough said. 

6. There may be a DIY project appearing on here in the next month or so :) 

That's all for now! I will probably be putting random pictures attached to blog posts from now on cause I've been taking a lot and have nothing to do with them. 

Speaking of, I want to sell prints on etsy or at coffeeshops to help girls pay for camp...does anyone have any advice on how to do these things? 

Playlist Tuesdays

Today I listened to a LOT of music. I drove from Lexington to NKY, and listened to everything from David Gray to Bruce to Dave Matthews and Over the Rhine. 

I will have a hard time choosing this week. Also, I have a confession. 

I've been listening to country. I don't know what happened. I just started liking it. Not all of it, but I like a lot of it. I think it's cause I bought cowboy boots. Its the only explanation. 

1. Thunder Road--Bruce Springsteen (my hands down favorite Bruce song. i love it. i never put it on playlists that my friends hear. i am probably depriving them by not including it, they just don't know it)

2. Show Me-- Over the Rhine (its very hard to pick just one of theirs...but today this was my favorite. they're pretty wonderful and i don't usually love girl singers)

3. 40 Acres-- Caedmon's Call (especially hard to pick one of theirs, and i usually pick derek webb on vocals, but i'm going to have to say this is high up on my favorites. if i had to pick only one favorite for music it would be them. thats a big statement, but well thought out. i love them)

Well friends, I hope you enjoy the music suggestions for the week! Sorry for my lack of consistency. :)

more beautiful places in lexington

The other day (possibly friday?) I drove out to Versailles Road to find some pretty things to take pictures of. So, of course, I went to Keeneland. I only have 2 pictures to show from that excursion because I didn't have my camera settings right (its hard to see the picture is too bright when it's too bright outside to see it well..) but I still kind of like these, even though they're incredibly washed out:

After Keeneland, I drove a litter further to Pisgah Pike. I love that street. The only problem with taking pictures there is that its a narrow road. But, thankfully, not a busy road. So I drove the length of it and took some pictures (while stopped). Here are my favorites :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Mothers Day weekend! I am headed up to NKY today to spend some time with my mom since I worked all weekend!

more wisdom from d.b.

"And they were in the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them the things that were to happen unto him." (Mark 10.32)

As if to bring home to them how serious was his call, to show them how impossible it was to follow in their own strength, and to emphasize that adherence to him means persecutions, Jesus goes on before to Jerusalem and to the cross, and they are filled with fear and amazement at the roads he calls them to follow

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship

Not much commentary on this one. I just like that Jesus wasn't concerned about scaring them away with the truth. He wasn't concerned about offending or making sure they were comfortable with what was coming ahead for them. I like that. He knows that He is what they truly need, and the cost is well worth gaining Him. 

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Phil 3.8)

Happy Mothers Day!

H

Happy Mothers Day!

I have a wonderful mother, and I am very thankful for her :)

Mom, if you read this, I love you and I'm sorry I have to work today! I think you're great. 

Love, Jenna (&Scott if he were with me writing this) :)

p.s. it's a good picture of you. i know you'll hate it.

dear south:

dear south, 
you have won over my heart. i will no longer be sad i wasn't born in NY like my brother. i love your sweet tea and fields and fences and winding back roads lined with trees and cowboy boots. 

i will always love the north for the ny yankees, bruce springsteen, fall, my childhood, bagels, spring lake, and massachusetts.

but don't worry, you're my favorite.


sincerely, jenna. 

today i got a new camera lens with birthday money and went on a photoshoot with miss katie lindeman. here are some pictures. i should mention that i am a lobster. i bought aloe and suncreen afterwards. someone at kroger did a double take and made a sound of compassion.