A Wonderful Weekend

I love this time of year.  From now to the first part of January, I will be {for the most part} a very happy person. It begins with the hint of fall in early September, and ends with the celebration of a new year in early January.  In reality, it's all the stuff in the in-between that I love the most:  crisp, cool (maybe rainy) days, my sister's birthday, Thanksgiving, the day AFTER Thanksgiving, my birthday, another sister's birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and my precious niece's birthday in mid January.
Anyhow, this weekend was the beginning of my favorite time of year.  The weather was simply fantastic!  I love rainy, cool fall(ish) days when all you want to do is curl up by the window, crawl under a blanket, and read a book or watch a movie.  If I hadn't kicked my Spanish class to the curb last Tuesday, I'd have been cuddled up with a big binder of garbage I didn't want to study and my laptop.  Thankfully, instead, I was able to be curled up with my favorite two little girls: Bethany & Alexxa.  My cousin and second best friend, April, and her sister Alisa came over for awhile to watch a movie.  Verrrrryyy relaxing!
On Saturday, I started working the sales floor at Peebles.  I think I'm really going to love my job. After work, I went with the fam to celebrate "Grandma" Edith's 80th birthday.  "Aunt" Nancy was home for the occasion, so it's been really fun catching up with her this weekend.

Well... I guess it's time to get back to the homework for this fresh, new week!  Hope you all have an amazing week!

Alexxa and I ended up matching (for real... it was NOT planned!).  

I sure do love these girls!

Teaching & A Parade

Upon my sisters untimely (at least in my opinion) departure, the role of 3-6 year old Sunday School teacher became mine... kinda.  I didn't actually start teaching until... today! Anyhow, most of you won't care whatsoever about this, but for my wonderful sister, here are a few pictures of my first bulletin boards in my new classroom.  Enjoy!

Attendance: each student chooses a leaf to staple to the board

Harvesting Love, Joy, Peace, Faith, & Gentleness 

 The somewhat festive hallway...

We also took in the Rodeo parade in Ft. Madison this weekend.  

Bethy is a huge fan of parades where they throw candy!

It says "Cute & Adorable Cowgirl in charge"

And In Other News...

Yikes!  I can't believe I'm already two weeks in to the new school year!  Where on earth did the time go?  I'm really enjoying my classes, or at the very least, I've done a fairly good job of convincing myself (and my professors) that I am.  I started the semester with 19 credit hours (one freebie), but after a little discussion and common sense, I dropped two classes (3 credit hours) and am down to 16. What classes am I taking, you may ask?  Well, here ya go:

• Composition (a 4-credit writing intensive course for Freshmen)
• Developmental Psychology
• Education of Exceptional & Diverse Persons
• Readings in Literature for Adolescents
• Spanish I

Three of the five courses also have a service learning component, which means part of my grade will be based on a community service type project.  I have to have so many service learning hours completed in order to graduate, so this is a great way to get some of those taken care of.  The work isn't too hard, nor is it terribly time consuming... at least not yet. I'm sure these things will come.

In other news, Lindsey and Alexxa finally arrived this morning.  Bethy was ecstatic, as was the rest of the family.  Baby A is so cute!  I can't believe how tiny she still is; she looks like a newborn even though she's actually 2 months old (on Tuesday). So stinkin' adorable!  Now I actually get to actively be the favorite aunt of two! I guess we'll see how that goes... having a baby in the house while I'm trying to do homework. :)

Not much else to report.  Yes, Laura is still gone.  She needs to come home, or I need to move there.  Either way would be fine.  I miss her sooooo much!  I haven't seen her in three weeks, which is far too long!  She and I are still both seriously in need of jobs.  Nothing seems to be opening up for either of us, so if anyone out there knows of something, let us know. We're trying to keep ourselves from being anxious.  God will supply our needs (Phil. 4:19), and all we need to do is actively trust and pray (Phil. 4:6).  I'll keep ya posted!

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Vacation Illustrated

Vacation is wonderful!  Every summer for as long as I can remember, long about August, my family piles into the mini van and drives 600 miles to see my grandparents (Mom's parents) in Nebraska.  This year was no different.  Well, maybe it was a little different.  We had the World's Cutest 6 1/2-year-old with us this year, but that was different in a fun way.  :)

We didn't really do much during the week we were gone.  Mostly we just did things locally, like celebrate hick-stick days (or Brule (little dinky town) Days... something totally Podunk-y!), go to church, and laze about the house. So, rather than bore you with the details, here are a few pictures of Bethy enjoying her first ever parade with candy (apparently they don't throw candy at parades in California. Weirdos!!).

Waiting for the parade to start

 Getting candy in the street!!

With the horses...

Learning to be "attractive" with Aunt Looney

Face painting :)

Penny Toss!!!! Yay for free money!

Penny collection :)

The highlight of the trip for Laura and me was spending a day and a half in Denver with Aunt Lisa, Uncle Dave, and Téa.  We left Sunday after church from our Grandparents' house and arrived in Denver in the late afternoon. On Monday, we had the house to ourselves.  An entire day just for us to relax and not have to interact with anyone.  Laura chose to spend her "Me" day lazing on the couch reading a book.  I chose to spend my "Me" day at the mall.  There's just something about going to the mall alone that totally relaxes me.  I know... weird, right? But I've learned to live with it...

Anyhow, Laura has to be at Faith on Thursday, so this week will consist of cleaning, sorting, packing, & repeating.  We both begin classes on Monday (Aug. 22), so it could be a very busy week in the Vance house! 

 Thanks for stopping by! :)

Somewhere Between Here and the End of the Book

Have you ever met one of those people who think reading the last chapter of a book is a good way to decide whether or not to read the entire thing? Ya, I'm not one of those people.  And to be perfectly honest, those people annoy me!

Life has been pretty crazy over the last couple of months.  For those of you who've been keeping up with me, you know exactly what I mean.  For those of you who haven't, well... read some of my posts from the last few months, and you'll figure it out. The latest development hit me Saturday night.  My best friend and little sister, Laura, dropped the bomb on us that, in accordance with the Lord's leading in her life, she would be attending Faith Baptist Bible College for her education.  The original plan was for both of us to attend Iowa Wesleyan College together in the fall.

I was a big fan of the original plan.  In fact, I was a big advocate of the original plan.  We were both excited about going to school together again.  Then there's the bomb shell: Faith. Now, before you think I'm  being totally hypocritical (considering that FBBC was my first college of choice), I'd like to say that I am SUPER excited for Laura!  She feels the Lord leading her into missions/education.  What better place to mesh the two than Faith?  I know she's gonna love it... I just also know that I'm going to MISS HER like crazy!

I've been sitting here for over two hours processing it all just one more time.  I'm not ready for my best friend to leave.  I'm not ready to things to change.  I'm not ready to lose my constant ally, companion, and  confidant. I'm definitely not ready to give up my personal dessert chef! But God doesn't work on my timetable, and although it doesn't feel like it right this second, I'm glad for that.  Isaiah 55:8-9 promises that His thoughts/ways are higher/better than ours, so who am I to argue?!

But for the first time in my life, I kinda feel like one of those people.  You know... the ones I was talking about in the beginning... the ones who always have to read the last chapter first. I used to think of my life as one big book with many chapters.  Then one day, I realized that all the BEST books always have a sequel... or better yet (Karen Kingsbury) dozens of others to follow.  So I decided my life is more like a series of books. Each one uniquely titled and written by the best Author of all. I just think if I could skip to the last chapter of this particular book and see how it all ends, I might enjoy the rest of the story a little more.  Thankfully, with God in control, I don't have to worry about how it will end.  I just have to trust that it will work out for our good and for His glory.  For now, I guess I'm just stuck somewhere between here and the end of the book.