"Happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat."

if you can name that movie you rock my face off.

"AND WILL I LOSE MY MIND IF IT COMES BACK THIS TIME?"
--THOUSAND FOOT KRUTCH

today was an interesting day...

i woke up at 9 AM to start cleaning house, because we had company coming. around noon-ish, my parents and i left the house to go meet said company (they're old friends from when i was a wee little kid) at Marcus, where their only daughter, who is my age, had a basketball game. spent some time with them this afternoon and ate pizza! have i mentioned how much i prefer american pizza to european pizza? cause i do.

around 3ish i left the house to go help anne move some stuff from her mom's house to her dad's new house. that was fun. it was really hot outside tho--yay for air conditioning! then i went home and fell asleep watching alias.

my brother (who else?) woke me up at around 6 and i left to hang out with heather. we got oreo blasts from sonic, watched some movies, and ate a late chick-fil-a dinner: we were the last customer...they were turning the lights off as we pulled out of the drive through. so anywho...big fun!!! gotta love it!!! peace out everyone.

france was wonderful. i wish i could tell the whole story in full, vivid details, but i will refrain. basically, it was all that i could have hoped for. i got to speak french--to native speakers. i've always been petrified of doing that, because it's like, i just know they're thinking "these stupid americans always butcher our language," or something to that effect. but i didn't butcher the language completely, and i actually was able to get our family out of more than a few fixes by being able to speak french. that's kinda cool.

well, other than france, music camp has dominated my life this week. like, seriously. i think it has been the main thing keeping me far away from any funk-type zone i might have been getting close to again. oh my gosh, i can't even explain how incredible it was. God amazes me. i had a small group of 4th grade girls this week, and it was so refreshing to see their reactions when they learned new things about God. I heard a lot of "wow...i never thought about it that way" and "that's so cool!" and i must say i never got tired of hearing it. my girls were so open to discussion, and they were just so amazed--and rightly so--at things about God that we often take for granted. i want to have the kind of faith and trust in Him that they expressed this week. praise God for this opportunity for me to learn about trusting Him!

one last thing...i have a newfound respect for the man who invented the life jacket. i always took them for granted--they're bulky and altogether uncomfortable, and just not fun to wear. i mean, what's the point, right?

oh, there's a point.

you see, without life jackets, heather and i probably would have died yesterday, or at least come very very close to it. my dad was pulling us on the tube, and he had stirred up a lot of waves. now, normally, when he sees us coming close to waves, he slows down. well, in short, he didn't see the waves. there was no slow-age. we hit a considerably large wave at top speed. you can guess what happened next. i remember it in slow motion: i saw the wave, knew what was coming, but couldn't jump off before we hit. so i braced myself for impact. we bounced off of one smaller wave, then slammed into the much bigger one behind it with excessive force. while the tube was still in the air, i found myself no longer able to hold on, and i figured it would be best to let go before the situation got worse, anyway. so i let go--and flew through the air. sources say i was about 5 feet above the water, and i know i flew pretty far horizontally before i smacked onto the water. when i hit the water, i hit directly on the small of my back--right at the center of my chronic back pain, and i bounced off like a skipping stone, but not before my body was forced to kind of fold itself in half so that when i hit the water again, my head snapped back and i'm pretty sure i hurt a muscle in my neck, judging by the severe pain. anyhow, the pain from hitting the water was most likely the worst i've ever felt in my life. when i came up out of the water (solely because of my life jacket!) i found that i was pretty much unable to move. it was like my body was paralyzed from shock because of the pain. so i sat there, not even able to try to swim, for the longest 30-45 seconds of my life, trying to make my lungs take in the air i was gasping for while also trying to keep from crying. so, once i composed myself enough, it was either cry...or laugh. so i started laughing uncontrollably. weird. anywho, when heather and i talked about it later, we found that our stories were very similar, with the exception that she hit the water on her right side, and her head hit first. so, yeah...we were really sore. and that blog was a lot longer than i originally intended. ah, the curse that is rambling!

it seems that my life is merely a series of awkward moments, one right after the other in rapid succession. dang it.

i leave my house in about half an hour. for france. OH MY GOSH I'M GOING TO FRANCE!!!!!

this will probably be my last post before i leave for family vacation. there's not really much to update on right now...life is normal. i've got some summer reading i have to finish, and other than that there's really nothing for me to do the rest of the summer. so, i don't have anything to stress over! anywho, i'm so excited about my vacation to france. i'm not gonna be able to communicate with the people there as much as i would have hoped, but i think i know enough of the language to survive over there.

i had an x-ray done yesterday morning (at freaking 6:30 am!!) on my gallbladder to make sure there were no problems with it, and i had to lay completely still for a little over 2 hours with an IV in my arm. for those of you who don't know, needles and anything of that sort tend to freak me out, so it was a bit difficult, and i definitely had to rely on God for peace about it. i turned out alright, and we got the results back. i'm perfectly normal! yay!! so i think no more IV's for a while.

well, we had a 4th of July party at our house, and that was loads of fun. a bunch of people, mostly college group, came over and we went out on the boat and stuff. we got to watch fireworks from the boat-until the lightning started. then we thought it best to go inside. lol.

my friends are officially gone to russia!!! i shall miss them. but i'm glad that i will be out of town at the same time they are, so at least i won't have to stay here without them!!! and i will see them all when music camp starts, and i'm SO excited about that!!! i think music camp is probably the best part of my summer every year. working with those kids is a blast.

okay, so maybe i did have some stuff to update on....lol. but anywho, i am off to Paris!! au revoir, mes amis!!! je vous aime tous!!!

ok so i'm back from pine cove!! it was amazing and incredible and completely indescribable. God moved in my heart so much this week. as i had hoped, this week away was exactly what i needed. Brent, i am most definitely out of the funk.

God has been pursuing me always, and recently i have been walking in the other direction. but the bible studies we did at pine cove, among some amazing conversations and experiences, helped me turn around. yes, this is only the beginning of a radical movement in my heart. God has already changed me so much in one week. i never would have thought it possible, but He has. and it's not a "camp high"... i can tell the difference by now. it's me genuinely giving my heart to Him that He might mold it. i can only hope and pray that i will grow stronger in my passion for the Lord and not stray from the path that He has me on right now. praise Him, for He is worthy of all praise!!

on a side note, i did a few things this week that i would never have thought i could do. first of all, i sang on stage...in front of 300 people...alone. no accompaniment, nothing. scary. second, i danced...i never dance. not even at pine cove. but this week, i danced. third, i shared my heart with said group of 300 people. lastly...i bawled like a baby for the past three days. you see, i have been sort of emotionally numb while in this whole funk, and when i began to break that barrier i just cried. actually it was more like weeping. and it was in public...and even though i have cried in public a few times this year, i have never cried that much. the girls in my cabin this week became as much of sisters to me as many of my friends here at home. oh, and i most definitely will be at least applying for a job at pine cove next summer.

"All of You
Is more than enough for
All of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You
Is more than enough

More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I can know
More than all I can say
You are more than enough."