10,000 Reasons

It's been way to long!

After two years I finally got back home. Kimmy said that today when I talked to her in church: "I didn't know you are home yet." - that made me smile!

I arrived at MSP at 6pm on Saturday July 20, 2013 after a long journey from Germany over the Netherlands, to Iceland and finally to America. As Steph mentioned in her blog post already the timing was perfect and neither of us had to wait for a long time :)

We stopped at the Albertville Outlet Mall on our way home where I bought new Nike shoes since I didn't bring any tennis shoes. Luckily I didn't have any problems with the time difference so that I just went to bed and woke up when everybody else did.

Church the next morning was so much fun! Just seeing everybody again and their reactions of seeing me again :) I saw Tracey and walked over to her and she looked so surprised! "I thought I would never see you again in MY LIFE!", is all she said for a while.
Missed my second church family so much!

On Friday Allie and I went to Panera for lunch. It was so nice to talk to you again girl! Sally picked me up later that day and we went out for dinner and saw a movie later. I just missed my little Japanerin and her humor :)

I didn't get a lot of sleep before we left on Saturday morning to go camping down by Rochester at Whitewater State Park. I just realized that the last time I went camping was probably two years ago when I went to Sonshine :) Steph also posted about our camping trip in multiple blog posts with 100 pictures os make sure you check that out!

Speaking of pictures, I brought my SLR camera that uses films - so no digital pictures to post here :) I will scan and post a few after I get home and got them developed but for now you'll only have my texts and Steph's pictures.

Anyway, we got home from camping on Wednesday and I left again on Thursday afternoon to go camping with the Youth Group up North in Schroeder.
The landscape up there is just so beautiful! It was so much fun! We focused on "being still and know that He is God", going through different Psalms and the Lord's Prayer. Besides that we went cliff jumping, swimming, hiking and climbing - such a great trip!

I just got home last night and was very happy to finally be able to sleep in my bed again. However, Tirzah claimed it back during my second camping trip so that she really wanted to sleep in it too - we ended up sharing it which was really funny since she is about half my size but used twice the room!

Church this morning was again really awesome, I met Kimmy - so great to see her :)

I'm going horseback riding now and to Youth Group later tonight... Life is GOOD!

10,000 Reasons

Blue Sky

On Monday I took a couple of pictures in the neighborhood for a Photography class.
The weather is great these days - it's finally getting warmer and even I really want to see the sun now :)

Here are some of the pictures!

 

 

Blue Sky 

Eagles

Finally there's a new blog post :)

As a few of you (the Facebook-readers) already know, we won our second game :)

It was a home game this Thursday vs. Brainerd and it was sooo much fun! Rhonda - our coach - had made a deal with us before we started playing: If we win one of the three games, we would get chocolate chip cookies afterward. When we won the first one she said if we would win the whole match, we wouldn't have practice the next day (Friday). So we just went to 'practice' to finally get our volleyball clothes (t-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts) and talked for about an hour.

We also had our homecoming kickoff on Friday where they presented the homecoming (king&queen) candidates, the homecoming week themes for each day (Hippie Day, Fake injury, Workout, Pajama, Spirit Day) and then the teacher played basketball vs. the students.

For those of you who follow Steph's blog as well probably already know that I'm pretty busy with my full schedule. Sometime I really think I'm getting crazy because I'm never at home and I don't see my family, so that I miss them when I'm out of the house - which is ridiculous, how would it be once I'm back in Germany?!

And now that I had my first YFU Orientation today (which was awesome) I feel horrible because we had a couple of sheets where they ask how many time we spend together with our family and what kind of activities we're doing together. I really try hard to spend time with them but it's just so hard with all my volleyball practice and the games (I'm glad that I have my last game on October 19th). Don't get me wrong, I really love to play volleyball and the experience of being a team member and get to know the American team spirit is awesome, but I feel like I'm drifting away from my family. 

That thought is running through my head for like a week now and I can't find anything to change that feeling except getting an 48-hour-day. 

I planned to skype with my brother Marcel and I forgot about the YFU Orientation so I send him a message via facebook that it's going to be later, but he didn't had the time 'later' so we couldn't skype again (he was at his girlfriend's house the last time I skyped with my family). The last time I talked to him is over a month ago and now the emotions kind of overwhelm me. I won't say that I'm homesick, because I really don't want to go home (sorry Germany). It's more that I miss the feeling of family, simply because I'm never home to be part of it :(  

(I don't know why but I'm kind of too emotional today.)

When I wrote this Eden came into the room and asked me if I would like to watch Letters to God. I said yes, because I reeeeeally wanted to watch it ^^ 

When we watched it, Zeke came and laid down next to me - and gave me the family feeling I need :) 

All of these kids are amazing! I'm so glad to be here :)

Eagles

P.S.: I got an A+ in Language Arts and Math  :)