My brother Cody!

So, I got an idea the other day. I was putting pictures up of my family, and I decided that I would like to do a blog post about each family member. So to start, I'm going to do Cody, my 17 year old brother.Cody is a really fun person. He always makes me laugh :)

We don't always get along, obviously, but we have gotten really close, especially this last year I think. Before he left for camp this summer we went a lot of places together and had a lot of fun. I really love going places with him, because usually it's just he and I in his truck, listening to music and talking. He's very sanguine and choleric, and if you don't know personality types, that means he's very fun, outgoing, and a strong personality. He's always been a really good worker. He'd usually rather be out working on cutting wood or mowing the lawn than washing dishes or something inside. He also snowboards and plays guitar, and is very good at both!!

He has mostly taught himself to do both, which is amazing because he's so good!! He also writes songs, and is quite good at that too. He's very protective of me, which I really appreciate. He's been a good listening ear throughout a lot of hard times for me, and I am SO thankful for him in so many ways!! Most of all, he is a strong Christian and lives to the glory of Jesus Christ alone.

He is such an awesome brother and such an encouragement to me! I have really missed him while he's been at camp.
If you want, you can go to his blog - livingextreme009.blogspot.com. He hasn't posted on it in a while because of camp, but there's still lots of great stuff on it!

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!

Pefect timing :)

Ahh... I just have to tell you all that our God is AMAZING! He does everything perfectly in his time. I have been learning that lately. For example, one of the bindings on my snowboard broke last Thursday. If I don't get it fixed, that means I'm done snowboarding. Getting it fixed, however, is expensive. Sounds like a no-win situation, right? Well, as it turns out, it's most definitely not! I still have one functioning binding, and the other one kind of functions. I can still use it on small hills, like the one at the town park or the bunny slope at Kissing Bridge. It's harder, though, because if I'm not careful, my foot will slip out of the binding. Yesterday I went to the town park, which has a great sledding hill, to meet one of my good friends whom I haven't seen in a long time. She has a snowboard and wants to learn to ride, so I was going to teach her the basics. We spent several hours and had a lot of fun. Then we got an idea... what if she could come to KB with me? After looking up the details, we decided it would be a great idea! So, she's coming snowboarding with our family at KB tomorrow and the staying overnight. It's going to be so awesome! The fact that my snowboard binding broke actual provides a new challenge for me. If it hadn't broke, it would be really easy for me to be on the bunny hill. Since it did, though, it will be fun and challenging to go on the bunny hill, AND I get to spend the day hanging out with a friend!! We're both really excited!

I probably could ramble on about hundreds of other things, but I won't ;) God is so awesome... in so many ways! I knew my binding would break eventually, (it was in lousy condition) but I was hoping it wouldn't be this year. God timed it perfectly though! Pretty cool! :)

The good, the bad, and the painful!

Hey everyone! I've had a great week! This post will be long, but bear with me!

Last Thursday I went snowboarding, as usual. Surprisingly, it was not a very good day. At the start of the day I was very tired, and I continued to be throughout the whole time I was boarding. I probably shouldn't have been snowboarding, because when you're tired you can't focus, and therefore you fall and get hurt. Anyway, I decided to go to my lesson in spite of my debility. I was learning rails. After trying the easiest one (which was a straight box, for those of you who ski/snowboard) a few times and not succeeding, I was totally worn out. But, I was NOT willing to quit! I also didn't want my instructors to consider me a wimp :P. So I tried again. Buuut... I was totally not ready for it and my toe side slipped off, causing me to fall forward and smash my shin REALLY hard! Deciding not to finish out my lesson, (for the sake of my safety and sanity) I headed down to the lodge with my instructor. I didn't really feel like snowboarding the rest of the day, and I only ended up going out a few more times. But still, I have to agree (for the most part) with this flair -

The nest day I had an appointment with a TMJ specialist. I think I've told most of you who read my blog about my TMJ, but in case there's someone who doesn't know what it is, it's where someone's (mine, obviously, in this case) jaw slips out of joint making the muscles have to strain, and causing a lot of pain in my jaw, neck, and head. It's been bothering me for several years now, and after trying 3 different physical therapists, the doctor recommended we see a specialist to tell us what we should do. I was hoping he would be able to recommend a definite fix, such as surgery, or wearing a brace for a certain amount of time, or something of the like. Physical therapists usually give you lots of exercises and rules that are very hard to keep up with. I wanted something easier. The specialist told me that my main problem is that I tighten my jaw up and am too stressed, which I have to agree. I'm very "type A" and tend to stress about everything. He said that really, all I needed to do, was learn to relax my jaw, along with some stretching and using heating pads to relax it. I was disappointed at first; I was hoping for something that wouldn't require a lot of work on my part. But, it's actually quite simple to maintain and it has made a lot of difference!!! I am SO thankful!

I have also been realizing how much I need to be trusting God. I am always putting unnecessary stress and pressure on myself because I don't trust God! He has been so gracious in teaching me about His love. I was struggling a lot in my spiritual walk - I was understanding God's holiness without understanding His grace and mercy. He is incredibly holy and righteous - we can't comprehend what it is to not sin. If it weren't for Christ's death, we would be doomed to the ultimate, unimaginable damnation. Jesus, however, took all of that on HIM. That is SOOOOO HUGE!!!!!! We are the one's who DESERVE every bad, horrible thing, every curse, everything awful. He was spotless, holy, and had never ever made a tiniest mistake. He had never NOT been in perfect communion with God. But yet, HE took the horror of the cross on himself. The awful physical death he endured wasn't nearly the worst of the cross though... the horror of it was the rejection He received from His father. Can you ever imagine how horrible it would be to hear God curse us, and reject us, and throw us out of His presence?! Now think... that was JESUS!! He endured something so awful, when He deserved the very best. WOOOWWW!! I can't stress this enough. Sometime you should listen to "The Cost of Not Following Christ" - a sermon by Paul Washer. It is SO good! If you want it you can ask me for it or look it up on Youtube. Anyway... back to the unimportant topic of me being stressed... ;) I has not been focused on God's forgiveness and loving kindness. I was afraid to make even the slightest mistake, and when I did I felt like dying. God reminded me, though, of all of His love, and that lifted a huge burden off of me. I have not been so stressed this week, and it has been wonderful!

There isn't much to report about the rest of this past week, it's been good though. I've been learning about weather in science and it's really cool! We've been studying clouds. I love it when my life is orderly, scheduled, and predictable. This week it has been exactly that, and I've loved it!

Oh, and another thing... I really beat my shin up that day snowboarding! It was swollen for a couple of days and had an enormous colorful, bruise. I've been doing everything possible to make it heal faster this week, and wow, it makes a difference! I've had small surface bruises that took just as long to heal. There's still a big bruise on my shin, but it's not nearly as big, and it's just a light one on the surface now. I'm glad, too, because I wouldn't want to go snowboarding tomorrow if it was still bad.

Over all I guess it's been kind of a painful week... I hurt my shin, I've been working on my jaw pain, (which, by the way, hurts more when you first start to relax it. It's been pretty painful this week but will get better, I hope.) and I've been learning spiritual lessons, which are always painful at first. But pain is not always a bad thing. Tomorrow I'm going snowboarding, and then I will be at snow camp from Fri.-Sun. That will be SO fun! God is so good to me!! Thanks for readin'! :)

Shelter amid the chaos

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't written much these past few weeks. I actually intended to write about more things than snowboarding in my last post, but I ran out of time. I guess now I'll have to double time to catch you up! I will summarize though; it won't be too long. :)

Saturday, 1/9 - Sunday, 1/10
My wonderful friend friend, Vicki, came over! Although Christmas was already over, we wanted to make a gingerbread house, so we did! We got a gingerbread house kit at Wal-Mart for a couple of dollars; it was on sale because Christmas was already over. We had a hilariously awesome time putting it together! We made a mess! After a lot of messy, fun work and lots of laughing, we were finished. Amazingly, we didn't destroy anything in the process. ;-) It looked creative and adorable. We watched Fireproof (a GREAT movie!) and then went to sleep.
The next day we went to the morning church service together. After it was finished we went home and had lunch, and then Vicki went home. We had a great time!

Tuesday, 1/12
Psalm 37 is such a great chapter! God is so incredibly good to us! Although we are sinners, He still continually takes us back. If not for Him, I would be nothing! I love Him so much!

Thursday, 1/14
Yay! Another Thursday! That means more snowboarding for me. :) The sun was shining cheerfully, the air was warm, and it was a fantastic day! Excitedly, we threw on our snow gear and went out to enjoy the day. I rode with my friend, Courtney, for most of the day. It was nice to have such a sweet friend to go with! Talking and riding with her was a lot of fun.
My lesson was at four o'clock. My instructor said that I was advanced enough to start learning jumps, if I wanted to. Nervously, I said I did. Although I was scared to try the jump at first, I got used to it. I learned a lot from the lesson, and continued to try the jump throughout the evening. I only tried a few small kickers and rollers(the two smaller types of jumps) because I'm not very good yet. I improved a lot! I can't wait to go again this Thursday.

Friday, 1/15
When I got done with all of my school I went to a Bible study. The study is held at the home of some friends of ours. The topic was love. It is so astonishing to see what true love is! The passage was from 1 Corinthians 13: "⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸Love never ends." We all fall miserably short of this level of love. Thankfully, God is forgiving!
We stayed for several hours after the Bible study and spent time with our friends. We laughed, talked, sang, danced, and had altogether a wonderful time.

Saturday, 1/16
I went shopping with my best friend! We went to Kohl's, which is my favorite store ever! I got a pair of nice jeans and two shirts. I was excited to be able to get a pair of jeans that were modest and feminine! It is so hard to find them.
Seeing my best friend is always SUCH a blessing. I love her SO much! Not surprisingly, we had a delightful time together! I thank God for her every time I remember her. (Philippians 1:3 =])

Sunday, 1/17 -Wednesday, 1/20
The message in the evening service was very good. It was about Ai from Joshua chapter 7, and avoiding defeat. God has been teaching me so much. I love reading His word; it is the only shelter amid the chaos in this world. Please pray for me. Specifically, please pray for me on Friday: I have an appointment with a TMJ specialist. Hopefully he will be able to help me know what to do from here on out. Thank you so much!

~Christy <3