Mission: First Semester COMPLETE!

So, my first semester of graduate school is finished! Christmas break will be consumed with working, some pleasure reading (yay for no textbooks!), and some t-shirt quilting. I've made several quilts for myself and others in the past few years, and I'll be making a few more over the break.

Also, I'll get to go home to the east coast for a week in January! Super excited to go back in the South and visit family and friends. Unfortunately, I won't be home for Christmas. But I'll take what I can get. And it'll be awesome to be at two weddings of some dear friends back home.

The thing I miss most about being home often is doing fun things with my family. Like going to the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona at the end of January. I've been for the past two years, and I'll be foregoing attending that super race for the next two January's. I'll sorely miss hanging out in the garage area with my dad watching Porsche's and Ferrari's be fiddled with and banged on at 1am. *sigh*

So... fun things I get to do on the west coast have been chronicled on my Facebook page. I fully expect that this blog will not be updated very often in the near future. If you know me, you probably appreciate the randomness.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

California Living

I almost forgot about my silly little blog here. These posts may be few and far between from now on!

I'm all settled in here in the San Francisco Bay Area! Graduate school is everything I thought it would be -- lots of reading and writing! I have a new job... at Starbucks!

The area out here is beautiful, with the hills, water, and city sights. I have photos posted on Facebook, so if you're my friend on Facebook, go check those out! I often tweet pictures, too.

Amazingly, I have been here for over a month, and haven't made it to an MLB game yet! There are two teams easily accessible to me, and I've yet to see a game! I need to get on that if I hope to catch one before the season's over.... BUT, I did go to an NFL pre-season game with some new friends... watched the Saints maul the Raiders! :-)

The time difference between the east coast and west coast can be quite much, sometimes; college football starts pretty early on Saturday mornings out here! The good news is that the big Florida State/Oklahoma game this Saturday will start at 5 Pacific time! GO NOLES!

On that wonderful note, I shall go back to studying. Maybe I'll feel the urge to post another update soon, with fun stuff like pictures!

::In Christ alone my hope is found::
Check out this video for the song that has been a huge encouragement to me lately...

Real Life

I've had some pretty cool adventures in my young life. I'm only 24 years old, but have traveled the world, traveled this great country, and had the time of my life with friends and family.... and it's only getting started!

I'm moving in 3 short days to the San Francisco Bay area in northern California for graduate school. Even though I've seen the world, this Southern girl has never lived outside the great state of Florida. I'm greatly looking forward to living (for a few years) in the beautiful Bay Area (that I visited a few years ago with friends).

Here is a look back at a few great adventures I've had over the years that haven't been showcased in my (mostly pathetic) blog thus far...

Family cruise to the Bahamas... 2001

Istanbul, Turkey :: 2006

Building a church in Jamaica :: December, 2007

San Francisco cable car 2008
Rebekah, Lauren, David

Rebekah and Lauren :: Cruise to Mexico, 2009

Rachel, Sarah, Rebekah :: Brazil 2009

Asia Lovin'

I love Asia. Really love Asia. Even though I've only been to a handful of Asian countries, each time I step off the plane, I feel like I'm coming home.

Asian people are so kind and hospitable, and love to hear about America... and love to practice their English!

Asia has some absolutely beautiful places to see and visit, and some of the most breathtaking views I've seen around the world are in this beautiful place!

Parts of the continent of Asia are the darkest places on earth, spiritually speaking. Many people have never heard the name of Jesus. I also love sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ when I'm in Asia!

Me on the Great Wall of China :: Summer 2008

Me playing Wii in the home of Kevin, a student I taught in December of 2008 in China.

In front of Tanah Lot Temple in Bali, Indonesia :: November 2010

A park in southern China :: July 2011

A Civil War Summer ... (2007)

As this summer draws on, I am reminded of what my family was doing exactly four years ago. We were touring Civil War battlefields.

When I tell people that we spent a month on a "historical vacation", I receive different reactions. Some folks think it's really neat that we want to experience and view history firsthand. Some others think that a vacation like that is totally boring. My family loves history, loves the history of the United States, and loves the United States. So we set off in the summer of 2007 to see some of the most famous Civil War battlefields and to tour Washington, D.C.

Fun Fact: During the Civil War, the South named battles after the nearest towns, while the North named them after the nearest body of water.

We visited Manassas (Bull Run), Sharpsburg (Antietam), Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Courthouse Campaign. In D.C., we visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the National Botanic Garden, Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Navy Yard, Arlington National Cemetery, and the Library of Congress. We visited Mount Vernon, Great Falls National Park, and Hershey and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We drove down part of the Blue Ridge Parkway and finished up our trip in Atlanta. What a trip!

Here are some highlights:

Here is the family at Great Falls National Park!

Dad and AJ reading a marker in a field at Gettysburg, arguably the most famous battle of the Civil War.

The fam on the USS Barry at the Washington Navy Yard.

This isn't the best picture, but it's one of the funniest pictures of our trip. Dad and AJ are acting very upset in front of Jackson's Shrine, where Stonewall Jackson died. Stonewall is one of AJ's favorite Confederate Generals.

The view from some of the grave sites at Sharpsburg. Such a mix of somber history and beauty!



I am so grateful to have had the chance to see and experience important American history up close!

A quote by Robert E. Lee that I think sums up my life quite well:::
"Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret."

Friendcation Cruise 2011

Summer has begun, and with it comes a crazy time of year! The school year ended, bringing with it the end of my teaching job as music teacher at Floral City Elementary. It's also graduation season, and with family members, plus over 30 graduates from our church, we made the rounds to plenty of parties and celebrations!

But after all the wonderful and bittersweet times were over, it was time to get together with one of my best friends and head on our next Friendcation! Lauren and I decided that we should go on another cruise to relax, see God's beautiful creation, and spend time together before I move across the country later this summer.

Our western Caribbean cruise took us from Tampa to Cozumel, Mexico & Belize City, Belize. Then it was on to Isla Roatan, Honduras & Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We had a wonderful time!

Sailing under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to exit Tampa Bay!

One of my favorite things about cruises- the amazing sunsets!

Lauren and I eating at a rooftop Mexican restaurant in downtown Cozumel.

In Belize City, this is St. John's Cathedral, the oldest Anglican church in Central America! Built in 1812 from the bricks that were brought over as ballast on British ships.

Mahogany Beach- Isla Roatan, Honduras!

One of the shipwrecks in Mahogany Bay, Isla Roatan, Honduras.

Welcome to the town of Hell! On Grand Cayman Island. We got a kick out of visiting. It even rained in Hell for about 10 minutes while we were there!

We went swimming with stingrays while in Grand Cayman. I kissed one on the snout; they say it's 7 years of good luck!

The crystal clear water! You can see the rays swimming around on the sandbar with all of the people.



The cruise was wonderful! This was my third cruise, and my favorite one so far! If you haven't cruised, I highly recommend it as your next vacation!

Pirate Party!

This weekend, the FAMILY got together. Now, if you don't know my FAMILY, (my mom's side) then you just don't know what you're missing out on! We are brash, loud, and fun-loving! (no, we aren't even Italian!) This weekend we all headed to Georgia to celebrate my cousin Jordan's graduation from UGA, my Uncle Jim's 60th birthday, and my Aunt Cheryl's retirement... with a PIRATE PARTY! Arrrrrrrrrrrrr! It was a lot of fun!

Here are some of the highlights....

Everyone pitches in to help get ready for the par-tay!

There is ALWAYS yummy food at our events!

Games are a must! AJ and Ben had fun playing corn hole and avoiding karaoke!

The "old" people sing karaoke! Quite entertaining!

Cha cha slide, as requested by the graduate!

Congrats, Jordan!

What's a fun family trip without the car ride with extended family?!


As is proven here, I'm blessed to be a part of an awesome family who will do anything for each other! I love them all so much!

Living in Florida

Growing up in central Florida, I knew I had it good- beach vacations every summer, and it only took an hour and a half to reach our destination! I learned at an early age how to do the "stingray shuffle", to run in a zig-zag pattern if being chased by an alligator, how to tell different kinds of snakes apart (coral snake vs king snake), and how to build the perfect hurricane preparedness kit. No snow days were built into the school calendar, but hurricane days were (and still are).

One thing I never did much of growing up was visiting the big amusement parks that draw millions of tourists to Florida. In recent years, I have had the luxury of visiting several parks with friends. Now in my young adult years, I have seen Disney's Magic Kingdom, Busch Gardens, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Epcot Center, and Cypress Gardens (which is now closed). It's fun to see what brings people to your backyard... and even better to make memories with friends and people you love!

Me with the water skiing cast at Cypress Gardens a few years ago. (Not the most flattering picture of me!)

My friend Hillary and I with our Butterbeer in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure!

Sue and I on St. Patrick's day at Epcot!

I am blessed to live in a great state and to experience its diverse aspects with amazing people!

24 Hours in Jax

This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to go on a "30 hour mission trip" to Jacksonville. The trip is 30 hours total, but we spend 24 hours in Jacksonville. Our youth pastor, Bruce, has started leading these trips once every few months to Jacksonville to work with North Main Street Baptist Church and Words To Works Ministries.

Upon arrival on Friday, we went to His Warehouse to hang out with people from the neighborhood who come to get a meal, hang out, and play games in this safe spot. I got to color a picture with four year old Latrelle, and share the Evangecube with a little girl named Zoey. Zoey was so precious; she pointed to the picture of Jesus and gasped, holding her hands to her face and said "That's Jesus! He loves me! I love Him!"

This is Latrelle! He was so much fun to talk to!

Zoey and I. She's the best!

I went to college and lived in the dorms with Jessica Phoenix; her dad is the pastor of the church and ministry that we were working with! It was great to catch up with her!

On Saturday morning, our group of 19 split into smaller groups of 4 and 5 to prayer walk, pick up trash, and pray with anyone we may come in contact with.

Here is my group (minus me) cleaning trash on an empty lot.

This is one of the men part of our group shared with!

Saturday afternoon, we headed to Washington Heights, one of the roughest housing projects in Jacksonville. We told a Bible story, played with the kids, did crafts for Mothers Day, and just LOVED them.

Me with Angel. She just walked right up to me and put her arms up to be picked up! Such a sweetie.

Making Mothers Day cards and flowers!

My friend Chelsea with Ali, another precious little girl!

I'm so glad I had the chance to go minister, show Christ's love, and make a difference!

On another note, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
I am so very blessed to have a godly, loving, awesome, wonderful mom! I love her so very much!

This photo was taken last year. Momma and her kids.

I love you, Mom!

Knowledge is Power

What do you know? I'm not asking that as a prerequisite to announcing something big. Seriously. What do you know? How much knowledge do you posses?

I like knowledge. I like knowing things, knowing facts. Random facts are fun to know, too. I've always been like this. I think it's somewhat based on how my parents raised me. My brother and I grew up watching the Discovery channel, History channel, The Learning Channel (before TLC was just reality TV), watching biographies and sports. Not many cartoons. In fact, I don't like cartoons- at all. In order to watch something animated, I usually have to be forced.

Why do I bring this up? I'm thoroughly convinced that more and more people have less and less knowledge. Where are the facts? Why are people so blissfully ignorant? Everyone should know the history of their country, common geography of their country and the world, and other such facts. Yet more and more people have no idea what the answers are to common questions. For example, I am utterly shocked at how many people refer to Africa as a country, not a continent! And sports. I don't even want to start on people who think they know a certain stat but get it all wrong. Or people who call themselves a fan of a specific team and can't name 3 players. Get real! How about Bible knowledge? The Bible says to hide God's Word in your heart. To know it inside and out. Christ followers should know the Bible! It's downright fun to read some of those stories in the Old Testament. And refreshing to be encouraged and challenged by the New Testament. Christians, dig in! LEARN! Gain knowledge!

Anyway, my point is this: you sound dumb if you try to state a "fact" and it's wrong. Do some reading! Do some watching! Learning is fun! And if you don't like it when people spout off random facts, maybe some more learning would do you well. (People sometimes try to make fun of me for knowing random facts and sharing them. I don't apologize for having knowledge. Get over it and go learn it for yourself. Don't try to put down someone else because they know things.) There is no such thing as useless knowledge or useless facts, either. Knowledge is not useless.

"Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it." -Samuel Johnson

This is something that can really fire me up, obviously. So don't be "THAT" person who looks and sounds dumb for not knowing common facts. Arm yourself with knowledge. Knowledge is power. Having power will get you far!

So get some knowledge! Share some knowledge! Make the world a less dumb place!

"Knowledge is power." -Sir Frances Bacon

Reflection: Russia {and other ramblings}

What a week! My "baby" brother AJ turned 21 this week. I FINALLY caught up to the age of technology we live in and upgraded to a smartphone. I had a terrible stomach bug for three days this week- that hasn't happened since middle school! My Grandpa (who already doesn't have good health) is in the hospital again. There was a Royal Wedding (always enchanting to see those lovely events that take the world by storm) and there was a an unbelievably devastating wave of tornadoes that made its way through the Midwest and South. The Space Shuttle Endeavor was supposed to be launched for the last time today, but the launch was scrubbed. My Tampa Bay Rays are on a HOT streak and swept the Minnesota Twins this week. {I say this all so I can use this as a bookmark of sorts in the future for my personal reference in my blogging history.}

Onto the MAIN purpose of this post:

I love reflecting. In my 24 years, I've done an awful lot. I live such a blessed life! The Good Lord really has blessed me and given me so many neat opportunities to serve and to be served, to explore and to have adventure, to share and to see. One of the things I love most is looking back on my adventures and travels and reliving them.

With spring break season wrapping up, I was thinking about the spring breaks I've had over the years. Annually, I look forward to spring break, for the wonderful week off of school. Usually, my adventurous self does something fun! One of the most memorable spring break weeks was when I spent my break in Russia in 2007. As a Missions major at The Baptist College of Florida, I did get class credit for the trip. But it was about more than that. The trip was about sharing Jesus Christ's love with people who live in a cold, frozen, forgotten land in the rugged Ural mountains of Russia. To show young people that there was hope when they thought there was none. While most of our peers were soaking up the sun at the beach in sunny Florida, my teammates and I traded the sun and sand for clouds and snow. And it was totally worth it.

We fed teenagers living on the streets to get away from abusive, alcoholic parents. We told Bible stories and shared love and joy with kids in orphanages. We taught conversational English classes in some high schools and colleges. We prayer walked, encouraged some local Christian leaders, and we of course got some sightseeing and cultural experiences in, like straddling the border of Europe and Asia!

If you've never ridden a Moscow subway (and you're not claustrophobic), make sure you put it on your bucket list! You'll never experience anything else like it!

The Kremlin and part of Red Square in Moscow. (We had a day's layover in Moscow on our way to Ekaterinburg in the Urals, so we got a little sightseeing in.)

Our team and some of the homeless teenagers who live on and under the streets. We fed them hot soup and hot tea and talked to them, just trying to share the love of Christ. The two guys in the front row kneeling (wearing the black beanies and matching jackets) run a ministry that feeds these kids every week and builds relationships with them. Since we visited in '07, the ministry has exploded and they have seen many people come to Christ and have changed lives!

Here I am talking to some girls in one of our English classes. We circulated around the room to different groups, and they got to ask us all sorts of questions. They were all enthralled with our American lifestyles! Two of these three girls were teen moms.

Our team with a new friend! We were prayer walking, she heard us speaking English and stopped us to talk for a while! It was a great conversation!


If you have ever traveled abroad, gone on a mission trip, or had a fun adventure with family or friends, take some time to relive those moments! Look through a few pictures, daydream a bit about your fun time, and be thankful for the opportunity.

Memory Lane is now open!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Christ the Lord is Risen! He is not in the tomb!
Jesus overcame death! The victory is His!

Our traditional Easter family picture after church....