I'm a High Schooler

Hey, everybody!
Yep, I'm a high schooler and there's NO TURNING BACK. Never again will I be in elementary school!!!
Today was my first day of school!! (Not ever, of course...:) It was also my first day of high school!! It's really cool to be the one of the big kids. I felt like a big kid last year, but now I feel like I really am. I have a locker, decked out with pictures of my family and New Song. I get to look at Punkin' every time I open it!!!
Lunch was also a big thing. Last year, we weren't even supposed to get out of our seat to throw our garbage away without asking, and now we can go outside, and even walk down the street! Just walking around is such a novelty to me!! :)
Yet another novelty is the way we are to write. In elementary school and jr. high, we always had to use cursive, now, not only do we not have to use cursive, but our humanities teacher actually prefers that we don't!! (By the way, for those of you who know her, Becs, friend of Dorothy, is my History, English and Choir teacher, and Robyn Pickens is Gym and eventually, Lord-willing, volleyball coach to a real volleyball team!! Not just a club!!
Today was a great start, and I have already gotten to tell a little bit about my summer of freedom!!
Tomorrow is our first chapel of the year, and I am on the worship team singing!
God bless you all and I love you so very very very very much!! I miss you!

I want to go on a road trip!!!

Hey, everyone! Here are a couple pictures from my sister Elizabeth's wedding in May (well, one picture..they just take so long to upload! there is another I want to show you)! We had a lot of fun! Well, as my last post stated, my sister Amy is here, but tomorrow she and good friend Kim set out on their journey to Tacoma, Pac NW! Tomorrow night they'll be on a friend's family farm in South Dakota, and then the next days in Montana visiting Glacier National Park. They're gonna have a lot of fun!!! Today they were packing up the car, and it made me want to go with them!! But school starts next Tuesday! I'm excited to see Jesus' plans unfold during the year!

P.S. I will try to post a pic of orange room soon!!! :)

Amy's here!

My sister Amy just got here, to Chicago! She has been in Kansas City, MO for the last month. Soon she will be on her way to Tacoma-so you guys better get ready 'cause she's pretty awesome!!! :)
I just set up my new room today. I will try to post a picture of the new orange abode soon!!
Blessings!

Needed a picture...

So, I wanted to put a picture on this post, and I'm on my friend's computer and she had these!
I miss all of you in Tacoma! Know that I love you all so very much and you have such a SPECIAL place in my life!!!
I hope that I can come back and visit soon!
I haven't been back very long, but I have been pretty busy. I went to a Chicago Fire (the soccer team) game on Saturday night, and yesterday (Monday) I went shopping some for school with my mom. And then today I went swimming with my friend Laura (on whose computer I am on :) and am hanging out at her house, so I GOTTA GO! Love and blessings!

Zoo & Aquarium

Yesterday, we went to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. It was fun and it had some great views of the Bay. It's really cool that they can have it right near the water. It's kind of on a hill above the water. Apparently, at the Seattle Aquarium, they actually keep some of the animals in Puget Sound, and you can see them, they're just netted into the area. There are some native sharks in the Sound, which is interesting.
The Zoo was nice. You can see some pictures of Ariel experiencing the sting ray tank and the seahorses.

The other thing is that the Tacoma aquarium has a tank of quite a few sharks and they're not wimpy ones like in Chicago. This is sad because Chicago has such a great aquarium, but you have to pay $8 extra to go to Wild Reef, and then the sharks are kind of disappointing. Here the sharks were cool. I went in to look at them with a little boy named Adam. We went to the zoo with him, his mom, and his brother. It was fun!
They have tigers, but we didn't see them, and they have elephants, and monkeys, and whales and a giant millipede that I couldn't find in the tank and some big grasshoppers from the SE United States. As well as the sting rays.

And at the end of it all...

Blueberry Pie

Ariel has experienced blueberries. This picture is from a couple of days ago, but today we bought a half-flat of blueberries and made 2 blueberry pies for our guests tonight. A lot of people turned out not being able to come, but hopefully a few will come and we'll have lots of fun playing games and eating pie!
More on the picture... The hairs at the side of the head are affectionately known as "old man hairs" OJ chose to style them. I think she looks like Bozo the clown. She had a bath soon after the time of this picture and was all back to normal afterwards-blueberry free.
More on the pies... Sadly, 3 of the 4 crusts didn't work very well as dough. They fell apart, therefore the top of one pie is just some random circles of dough placed on blueberries and the other pie, both top and bottom crust is just pushed together with fingers. They accidentally got put into the freezer instead of the fridge to cool before using them, and, when tasted, the dough tasted like the freezer smells-you know that kind of cold, dry, stale smell. But Suzy says that it tastes good baked, (they are now out of the oven).
Prayer request: Joy!!
God bless you all!!!!
Annie

Rainier

Today, we went to Ranier! It was such a blessing! The weather was perfect, Ariel was happy mostly, we ate a great picnic lunch and did some hiking around the base! We went about 1.6 miles each way. We stopped to put our feet in a creek. It was cold! The water's from the mountain, melted. It was a lot of fun!
Ranier had been the only extra thing besides the church, people, and the family in my mind that I wanted to do, coming here! Now we have done it!
Praise Jesus! He made it so beautiful!

"For you shall go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing,

and all the treses of the field shall clap

their hands."

Isaiah 55:12

(there were a lot of trees :)

To be able to walk through there resting in the peace of the Lord, and then also to receive this gift of just plain having fun! He has made something beautiful and it is definitely another work to praise Him for! How much greater, though, is the work He has done in us and for us! He loves us!

Yes, He is the giver of joy and the Prince of Peace. Joy ,as well as peace, is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and if we are believers, we are promised the Holy Spirit!

God bless you all!

Psalm 90:2"Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God."

Just the Beginning

Hello, Friends!
How are you all? Filled with joy, I hope! Jesus is Good.
I have two more weeks in Tacoma! It can be really sad but also exciting at the prospect of being back in Chicago. It's sad because I love love love the people here and the church here! I've made so many new friends that I never want to lose contact with. The Lord has done so much and is going to do so much, I know! He has taken me through just trusting Him with the timing because He is ordering my steps and whatever plan He has for me is the best! I so look forward to being back with you all and telling you about what Jesus has done!!! I have to trust Him that He will have me equipped to His degree when He takes me back and that He will keep on working and the Holy Spirit will work inside me, too.
God bless all of you!!!
Taking back ground that will never be stolen again in Jesus' Name,
Annie