Glaciers and ATVs

So another mega post coming up. Strap in.

Marcus, it is indeed Eternal Sunshine. Good Job! Of course you should all know that this is my fav. movie right now. Speaking of good movies though, I watched Cast Away again last night. That movie is pretty brilliant as far as Tom Hanks goes. It falls a little short in the heavy handed metaphores at the end but...eh? Tom Hanks is so goddam awesome (Please, Please, forgive the cuss). He is though. He just rox. Is there a better actor out there? Let me hear your best case.

Anywho. Lauri, good to hear from you I will try and give you a call soon. Please post what day you leave for the Air force.

So We have Nat back with us, that's good. It's been fun to have her along again. It's taken some readjusting, but that's totally expected so as far as I'm concerned, no big deal. Our team struggled for awhile with it though. Mostly because our team likes to make bigger deals out of things than is necessary (in my esteemed opinion). So the first week Nat was back we got to hang out at her church's rocking camp on the Flathead Lake near Big Fork, MT. Yeah, sweet. The kids were cool. I met one camper who was a total faith questioner person like me. It was nice to have a chat with her about some of my faith struggles in the last few years. And assure her that the Bible is full of questioners like her and I :). There were some lame aspects too. Like the curiculum for the week was all about witnessing and the book that we used was so simplistic and indoctrinating. It made me kinda sick to my stomach to eat up so much cookie-cutter-christian content. Dan McMahon would have snapped after the first lesson. But, I was just honest with my group about my feelings about the book (as were most of my teammates) and we had good discussions about the content anyways.

Then onto Missoula, MT for a week for a VBS. Pretty standard really, although I had to play a tight-rope walker named....Walker every single day during the opening celebration time. I had a script every day. I didn't have it quite as bad as Mariah who was a clown named Pelle. It cracked me up at times though because it was so bad. Like one day Pelle was looking for her Sun...("No walker, not Son you silly...Sun"; "I know a story from the Bible about a man with two sons" "Two sons, how did he see anything, it had to be so bright" "Now who's being silly Pelle. Two boys.") And at the end of the skit she turns around and it's taped to her butt. She says, "Where could my Sun be Walker." And I say, "I wouldn't worry about it Pelle, I'm sure we will get to the bottom of it." Oh yeah, that's right. Good stuff. It was a really awesome week though. And I went hiking for 4 out of the 7 days which was super good for me spiritually. I was feeling so down about being on team for another 3 weeks or whatever, as well as team drama stuff. But when you get up in the mountains, and look down on everything it reminds you how absolutly stupid most everything is :). Okay maybe it just does that for me. I got to make some good phone calls. I saw a bunch of dear. Here's the kicker though. So the whole week (as well as numerous other times this year) my one goal was to see a black bear. I fig. if I went hiking a bunch I would have to see one right? Wrong. Instead, one day while hiking up to the top of this mountain I turn to Sarah, who is hiking with me, and say, "Hey sarah I think I'm gonna pick up the pace and just go up a little further. Then I'll meet you on the way back down the mountain." So her and I part ways. I end up on this awesome yet lengthy trail back to the main trail that involves me running for about 45min because I realized it was taking too long and sarah might begin to worry. I get back to sarah only to find she had seen a bear and its cub only minutes before I met up with her. I had three cameras on me...did I give her even one...NOOO. Anyway, not bitter.

After Missoula it was back up to Kalispell where I am now. Today we had a day off so we drove up to Glacier National Park which is the size of Yellowstone. The mountains there were huge, I took tons of pictures. I saw some mountain goats, marmets, and ground hogs...good pictures of them too. I have a picture of a ground hog drinking out of a miller Lite can, I kid you not. Then just now before this post I went on an ATV (4 wheeler). Mom and Dad please don't hate me. I told my host brother I was nervous about it and he was very careful and respectful. By the end of our first stint out in the woods I decided to drive one myself and had a fun time doing it too.

So that's life for now. I love you all and look forward to being back Aug. 15th or so.

in Christ,
jason

Yeah updates

So seriously, I know. I know you've been dying in this blog drought of mine. I can just tell by the overwhelming comments made suggesting, no...pleading for more blog. Well here's your dose.

I've been really fricking busy. Surprise surprise. Not only that I've been sans internet for the most part. But I've been having fun and meating some cool people.

First off I need to say I'm thoroughly impressed with Dan getting NTMQ from my last post. You are right on buddy...dead on. And that's not one of the more known quotes from that movie. Some other notable ones are:
"Where does he get those wonderful toys"
"This town needs an enima"
"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moon light?"
To name a few.

Anyways, I also want to add to the last post that my tiredness caused by paintball turned into intense upper thigh soarness that forced me to walk down stairs sideways and staggering for the better part of a week. Guess I'm just not used to using those muscles.

So I met back up with my team after the wedding & yeah it was wierd somewhat. I'm tired yall. Please pray that I can stay focused for this last month. But I met up with my team in Billings and was thrown into a VBS involving 200 or so preschoolers. Man, if you wanna know exhausting give 5 gaming sessions a day to preschoolers. Granted, they are easily amused...but you can only play Follow-the-Leader, Red Light Green Light, Simon Says, and Duck Duck Goose so many times before you are mentally and physically taxed. On top of that we were trying to tie it all into the themes for the day. Oh I forgot the best parts of this. It was a VBS being held and "run" by a nursing home ministry. So we got to eat breakfast in an awesome restaurant-like cafeteria and get some sweet food every breakfast and lunch. But, we were playing our music under a gazebo which means that we had to set up and tear down our full system every day. I had some really good times chilling with my teammates at our host home though. We had a hot tub and sitting it and chit-chatting about serious, funny, and seriously funny topics reminded me of good 'ol rockford and the hot tubbiness that goes on there. Our hosts computer got screwed up while we were there...virus style. And I tried so long to fix it to no avail. And since they aren't computer literate I KNOW it seems like we messed up there computer. That totally sucks when that happens. I also saw Batman Begins while in Billings. Good superhero movie over all. Sure it had the cheesy dialogue that accompanies most all superhero movies, but I'm excited for the sequels.

We went onward to Casper, WY. Stayed there only a couple of nights but had some fun. We totally surprised Maria for her B-day. Well, actually it was two days before her birthday, but we thought that would be the best way to surprise her. So at the end of a one on one in which sarah led maria away from the rest of us...we bum rushed Maria dressed like pirates and fairies with a ton of waterbaloons in our arsenal. I had a peg leg and everything. We played Danish rules UNO (ask me about this sometime, it's intense), and went and sang karoake at this tiny country bar. We walked in an they were singing slow country ballad after slow country ballad. So what did I do to start off with...Vanilla Ice. They were a little shocked, but cool about it. And the karoake DJ was awesome. He had been in the entertainment industry forever. First, travelling around in a band, then signing bands up while working as some head dood at AMC records, then working as the head entertainment booker for a Vegas casino, met a women there, got married, she left him when she found out he had cancer, he no longer has cancer, she wanted him back, he said "no way, I could never trust you", and he's only doing karoake till the end of the year and then he has a position back in Vegas (after a short stint of studio recording in Nasheville). Anyway interesting. We drank, we sang, it was fun to feel normal. Soooo good to feel normal.

Then on to the AALC youth gathering in Estes Park, CO. We were at the YMCA camp of the rockies. It is such a cool camp area. Mini-put, frisbee golf, and beautiful mountains. I took advantage of all but the frisbee golf. We were the "mixer" band. There was a seperate worship band for the week, but it was our equipment so we still had to be "on" all the time whether it was with sound or powerpoint. We totally had to stretch ourselves though. We had been missing Nat for awhile (did I post about that? Her sister got really sick and she had to go back home. She's back now). And on top of that they wanted "mixer" type songs for high school age kids. Most of our action songs are for ages 1-6 ya know? And our high schooler type songs are mostly worship or performance. So we re-worked a hip-hop song that we were working on when Nat left, and I sang the main part. This was so fun you guys. I totally went into rap mode. I sound like a rapper. So many people came up to me and asked me to freestyle for them...they were saddened to hear that I'm not really a rapper at all, I just memorized one rap song. It starts out with a beat-box solo and then it goes into a group dance phrase "Step to the left, step to the right, hands in the air and keep it keep it tight, spin around and listen to the rap and clap clap clap." And it includes phrases like "I said keep it tight" and "say Aight Aight" and then there's some mixer raps that occur. Here are the two original verses plus three that myself and Nat made up:
We got God's love and it makes us all equal,
right now touch at least 18 people.
Yo, we're keeping it tight, we're keeping it live,
find 8 people and give them a high five (and say wassup!).
God's love is great, he loves us so,
find 10 people and touch some elbows.
God's love makes us humble, it makes us meek,
find 5 people and pinch their cheek.
Christ loved us so much he came down as man,
find 7 people and shake their hand.

Anyway, it was such a hit that the last time we sang it we had two stage divers. I met some awesome kids from New Mexico. And overall just had a great time. I went up to Bible Point to do some bible reading on the last day and man...the rockies right? Beauty. Good stuff.

Then on to Kalispell, MT to meet up with Nat and do yet another camp. Another set of awesome kids. And we had full day schedules...Ya know what I'm gonna save this for the next post because I'm burn out on this update already.

Okay you can tell this was a quick update but I will try harder to keep it better in the near future. I miss you guys and look forward to seeing you all again.

in Christ,
jason

N.T.M.Q. "Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours."