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!