~Erik~

So I was just realizing that my most popular posts are about my brothers, (except Cody's didn't make it on there... weird! I promise it's definitely NOT because he's not interesting! lol. It's because many of the people who read my blog already know him well and wanted to know Erik and Zach) but those posts are very old! Looking back at them, I realize that my brothers have changed a LOT since I wrote those posts, so I decided to write new ones. Hope you enjoy them!

Let's start with Erik.

Headed to church during a visit home to NY in May. And if you're thinking, "He looks like a move character, but I can't figure out who," the answer is Mr. Tumnus from Narnia :)

Erik is my oldest brother, who just turned 23 on September 26. He moved to Kentucky just over two years ago, where he works full time at the Creation Museum as a web editor. He edits the grammar on all sorts of things, as well as writing and designing things. He's even been published in a book - he wrote 2 chapters in a book by Answers in Genesis about supposed Bible contradictions. He also write many of the devotionals that AIG puts online. So if you "like" Answers in Genesis on facebook, keep an eye out for devotionals by him! :) (And if you aren't familiar with Answers in Genesis - GASP! Get familiar right away!! It will seriously help your apologetics and your faith.) It's so neat that he is contributing to such an important ministry.

And the two of us together :)

How would I describe Erik? A lot of words come to mind. Mature. Weird. Country. Smart. Wise. Silly. Deep. Intuitive. Over all, he is a person who has a lot of depth and ideals, but is also very, well, weird. :)

Erik and Cody at a staff meeting at AIG... I can tell they were really paying attention ;)

He is very "guy" and he loves guns, woods, hunting, and all that. He also is somewhat of a cowboy, except that he lives in a small town and doesn't have much interaction with horses. But his dream is to live on a family farm someday.

I LOVE this picture! So handsome :)

He's not shy (as in, afraid to step out and meet people) but he's not a loud, outgoing personality, so it takes a while to get to know him. Once you do, you'll find out he has a lot of love for people and is a great listener, always helping people bear their burdens. He enjoys talking and having quality conversations with people, not just making small talk. You'll also find that he does the weirdest, most random things sometimes! And he's very intelligent. He has a thirst for knowledge and a capability to understand things that definitely surpasses mine.

Celebrating his 23rd birthday with his "second family" in Kentucky. They live down the road. Patty (left) is 17, Autumn (right) is 12, and they also have Gwen who is 16 and Otto (Erik's best friend) who is 19. Candy (center) is their momma and their dad is pastor of Erik's church. They are such a wonderful family!!

The "2" was falling down and his face is PRICELESS! Hahaha love it!

But, you don't have to get to know Him at all to see that he has a love and passion for Jesus Christ. He has a lot of understanding and wisdom about scripture and doctrine, but what's more, he knows the Lord personally and walks with Him. He is an amazing brother and sets an amazing example to me!

I love this guy! :)

Spring in Kentucky!

Well, I suppose it's about time I gave an update on my life! And before I do I might as well confess that I should be doing math right now. But I'd rather bog and listen to music, quite frankly. :)

Over Easter weekend we (Mom, Cody, and I) went to Erik's house in Kentucky. It was wonderful! Cody got a job at Answers in Genesis' warehouse, so he moved into Erik's house. Erik's best friend, Otto, also lives with him, so now Erik's house has become a houseful of guys. I can hardly believe Cody's actually gone for good... it's strange to think that he'll never live here at home again. Also, Erik's girl, Leah, was volunteering at the Creation Museum for a couple of weeks, so I got to see her too. She's such an amazing girl - I really enjoy spending time with her! The weather is absolutely beautiful in Kentucky right now. Where I live, spring is just mud, rain, and snow with a few pathetic flowers. At Erik's house, however, it's green, sunshine, and floods of gorgeous flowers covering the ground! Hearing the birds sing made my heart sing. We got to go on lots of walks in the woods, on beautiful trails, by the Ohio river, and just all over the place.  I love his little town and all of my wonderful friends there. Oh, I miss it so much! And of course, I visited the gardens at the Creation Museum and thoroughly enjoyed it. I got to sit by the waterfalls and flowers and just enjoy reading my Bible for a long time. I just keep praising God for what a fabulous visit it was.

Left to right: Otto, Erik, Leah, Me

Uhhh.. cute couple?? Haha!

I've also been thinking about the future quite a bit lately.  God seems to be leading me to some awesome things, and I am just praying and trying to figure out how they all fit together! It's exciting to know that He has ordered all of my steps, and all of my days. I am hopeful and eager to see all that he has in store!

Well, I had better get back to it. We're headed to Florida in less than a week and there's lot's to be done before that. Enjoy your day, everyone - and just remember, it's almost the weekend! :D

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."

Jeremiah 29:11

Craziness!!!

Wow, where do I begin?! The past 2 days have absolutely crazy! But yet, they have been so full of God’s mighty hand. Well, lets start at the very beginning... a very good place to start. :)

We left for Kentucky at about 12:30 PM on Friday. After about 45 minutes of driving, our minivan started having serious issues! We weren’t sure what to do... it was looking like we would have to wait at least another day before we left! We prayed about it, and after looking the vehicle over carefully I guess Mom and Erik were able to figure out why it was having a problem, and somehow we were able to be one our way again in less than an hour! Now, from were we live in NY to Erik’s house in KY, it’s about an 8-hour drive. With a couple of stops for restrooms and gasoline, we got there at 10:00 PM.

Erik’s house is kind of a fixer-upper - the whole place is dirty, old, and somewhat run-down. Since it’s not clean yet, we brought out camper to sleep in. But... it doesn’t really fit as many people as its supposed to. I mean, our family has 4 men that are all about 6 feet tall! So, Cody and Dad slept in the camper, Erik and I slept outside, Mom slept in the van and Zach slept inside. None of this situation has been ideal... we have no water (that means none to drink, shower or wash with), no beds, no appliances (no cooking, no laundry, no fridge... yeah.) But you see, that is how God has been shown to be so mighty through it all! We’ve truly had to rely on Him. And, we have been so blessed! The staff at the Creation Museum are such wonderful people! They are like a family. They’re letting us shower at the Museum!!! YAY!

There are so, so many more details I’d love to tell, but it would take too long. This post is getting long already! But PLEASE, PLEASE pray for us!!!! Everything is very difficult, and there’s tons to work to do. Thank you so much!! :)

Me? Fun? Is it possible?

So I was thinking today. (Amazing, right?) And I realized that most people write blogs that are actually fun to read, and well, my blog is usually pretty boring. So that made me even more thankful for the followers I do have! And it also made me think that I would like to make my blog more fun and interesting. Aren't you excited?! Haha, I am!

Anyway. I was also thinking about how amazing it is that God just will NOT let go of me! I couldn't run from Him if I wanted to! Despite all of my sin, my selfishness, and everything about me, HE is still GOD! He is an amazing Lover and Friend.

And guess what! I'm going to Kentucky this week! Erik, as I have mentioned, is moving to Kentucky - only a few miles from the Creation Museum! I am going to miss Him so much. :'( So we are going down for about 9 days (including travel time) to help him clean, fix, and set up his new home. I think it will be really fun! Whenever I have access to internet, I let you know how it's going. :D

God bless!
~Christy

My, oh my!

My goodness! Life has been good but very busy lately. I turned 15! So now I'm all old and wise and mature and all that - NOT! :-) God's been doing such amazing stuff in my life!

For my fifteenth birthday, I had 4 of my very close freinds over - Kyla, Emily, Kara, and Kelsea. Great girls! We stayed up til 5:00 AM (or later ;) ). We atched 4 episodes of my very favorite show ever - Sue Thomas F.B.Eye. It's about a deaf woman who's an F.B.I. agent and it's really awesome (minus a couple of moments in a couple of episodes, which I do not give my approval to.) Also, we did our nails, talked laughed, sat around the fire, and took a walk out to the beautiful field with the windmills, which I do believe I have mentioned before. It was asuch a wonderful time!

Cody is back from Circle C! I missed him SOSOSOSO much, as you know! He's such an amazingly awesome brother. :)

Erik is moving to Kentucky in less than a month!!! Wow... it seems so crazy. He will be 6 miles away from the Creation Museum, which is why he's moving there. That way, he will be able to work at the office. He's bought a little 2-bedroom house, and we're going down in a couple weeks to help him get it fixed up and ready to live in!

Our youth group went on a camping tip this past weekend. It was really neat! We stayed at the home of one of the guys in our youth group - they have a big yard and were very generous to let us all camp out there! We went rafting on the Genesee river at Letchworth, and we also went hiking and swimming there to. It's SUCH a beautiful place! For those of you who are reading this and are not from New York: Letchworth is a state park with a huge gorge and some spectacular views! God's creation truly is amazing. I grew a lot closer to God this weekend, too!

Today is my dad's birthday! We didn't do much for it though. :( We wanted to, but life's been so crazy that we didn't end up getting anything ready in time. So we will probably celebrate it more another day.

Cody, Erik and I went to my wonderful friend Abby's presentation about her missions trip to Mexico this evening. She went on a missions trip to Chiapas, Mexico this summer and tonight she told us all about it. Afterward we all stayer around for a while and had a TON of fun!!

All in all, God had been really, really amazing lately, and has been teaching me a lot about standing up for my faith - especially when it costs me something! I need Him so much... may He get all the glory in my life!

Day 3 - A walk in the woods

Day Three - "A walk in the woods" :) I LOVE this outfit! It's so feminine and pretty! I have actually not worn this skirt more than a couple times before, because I didn't have anything to go with it. But then I got this shrug, and it's so perfect!
I also looove that I can go out into the beautiful woods to get the pictures! I love where we live!


Skirt: $1 at a garage sale, Brand: Sixty-Two East
White tank: On-sale at Sears, don't know how much it cost, Brand: Classic Elements
Shrug: Hand-me-down from Katy, Brand: Arizona
Shoes: $1 at a garage sale, Brand: MontegoBay Club
Purse: $.50 at a garage sale :)

P.S. -- Photo credit goes to Erik, my awesome 20-year-old brother *who works for Answers In Genesis, by the way!* Love him so much! :)

So much to say, so little space!

Goodness! Has it really been 2 weeks since I've written? I guess I have this idea in my head that I'll write every couple of days, but that never happens, does it!

Well, my trip snowboarding on the bunny hill with McKayla was wonderful! Added to the coolness of that, she's letting me borrow her snowboard for a couple of weeks to finish out my season! It's so neat how God works things out like that. I didn't go snowboarding last Thursday because I was REALLY tired! I think that's the first time in a long time that I've been home on a Thursday. Hopefully I can go this week though. I'm excited to be hitting the slopes again!

Another thing I am exited about: My month without sugar is almost over!!! :D I have SOOO missed my chocolate and ice cream! I will be done this Sunday, and I'm going to eat a whole chocolate bar!

Today my oldest brother had his first day working full-time with Answers in Genesis! Yay! Congratulations, Erik! He has been working part-time with them for a couple of months now, and to celebrate him going full-time we went to Pizza Hut yesterday! Yummy! I also made him some fudge because he loooves fudge. I had never made it before so I was afraid it wouldn't turn out right. It turned out quite well though. Too bad I couldn't have any!

Tomorrow is the first day of a new challenge! Try it with me - you'll like this one! This one isn't as hard though. It's called "Seven Days in a Dress," and is hosted by Simply Sarah-Anne. It's a challenge to wear only skirts or dresses every day for 7 days, and to do your hair differently each day. The principle behind it is learning to dress in a way that is feminine, orderly, and modest. I can't wait! I'm not a skirts-only girl, but I do love wearing skirts! It is quite possible to dress in a way that is feminine, modest, and neat wearing pants, but wearing skirts is also a great way to do it! Dressing modestly makes a statement to the world that a girl is not "for sale" and is set-apart. Now if you're not accustomed to wearing skirts, this might be more of a challenge for you. But try it! It really is a lot of fun, and wearing skirts is certainly becoming of a Christian woman, so it's so worth it! I hope you all will try it with me! :)

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'll end with some scripture to ponder...
James 4:6-10
^"6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you."

May God bless you in all that you do! Stay strong in Him!