Family Road Trip Day 1

So I have been pretty busy lately getting home from camp (which I plan on blogging about) then hitting the open road to Colorado with my family for a wedding. Now I'm back up at school and living with 2 of the same girls from last year and another couple of girls. But anyways... Family Road Trip.

One of our family friends Sarah was getting married so we all, my family and 7 other families over all we totaled 30 people. Came out from Minnesota to Colorado for the wedding. My family, like many of the others had decided that we were going to drive from our homes (on the Wisconsin side of Minnesota) to Vail, Colorado. My family left on Sunday morning and drove into South Dakota. Our drive we super fun, full of sleeping, listening to music and watching movies. Sorry to say, as much as I like South Dakota it's not super fun to drive through..

After driving for what felt like a year, but in reality it was only 5 hours, our first "fun" tourist attraction was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Unfortunately it wasn't nearly as exciting as we were hoping it would be. The decorations outside are completely made of corn and I'd suggest going to see it, I wouldn't say it's a MUST but it was fun to just get out of the car and enjoy being silly with my sisters.

We also hit up this super cool old drug store called Wall Drug. It had been there for a super long time and we got some free ice water (which is funny cuz Aly bought some tap water at the subway earlier that day).

Dad was feeling ready to be done driving by this point and probably a little sick of us at this point too. 

That night we stayed in Rapid City, South Dakota. The next morning we were going to be heading over to Mount Rushmore which is one place that my dad hasn't seen before my sisters and me. Our mom had been there before but it was back when she was a kid.

Alterations

SO! You know how I said that I wanted to start altering dresses from thrift stores? WELLLL, I DID IT! My friend E and I went to the thrift store and we picked up three dresses and I got to work. Here's the before and after of one of the dresses.

Before

  After


Here's another that I did for Natalie.

Before

 After

Summer

Growing up and getting a big girl job is so of terrifying. I have a part time job at a company called REM. I get to work with mentally handicapped adults. I love the job, I love it so much. The girls are wonderful, they are so much fun to be with, to talk to and I really like how they help me see the world in a different light. I'd love to stay there for the next few years, while I'm in Bemidji and going to school.
Then there's camp. I love camp. I've worked at two different camps the past two summers and I love it. I can see myself staying at camp for a year round position, having that as an amazing job. I'm going back to the same camp this summer, back to NeSoDak in South Dakota. I can't wait.

That joy is what's keeping me from regretting the decision I've made. I'm going to go to camp. I was worried that I was going to make the wrong choice in going back to camp. But I've realized that the fact that I'm so incredibly excited to go back to camp means that I'm making the right choice. Growing up means making the right choice, not the one that always sounds more fun. But the fact that I can't imagine a summer without camp and that I'm so excited to go back to camp says that I made the right choice.

Chelsea! Hey Chelsea!

So as you know it was retreat weekend this weekend and you were very missed. But since I'm writing a whole blog for you I thought I'd get into a bit of detail.

Friday- We (Jake, Kristi, Sara and I) left at 2:30 a half hour later than we'd planned but since when do we ever leave on time? We stopped for food and continued to NeSoDak, we got here around 8:30-9. The rest of the Bemidji folk were coming after us so we had a little while to hang out and chat before we had worship.

Saturday- Morning we had breakfast, then worship and a talk by Larry Olson from Dakota Road (which I forgot to record on my computer for the podcast). We then broke into our small groups and had a little chat, I got to lead a group of three people!
Our service projects were after lunch and a second worship (which I did record). I took 8 people to Lake Enemy Swim Day School and we sorted through books to keep or recycle. We were going to send them to better world books but it was more work than we had time for. But Ellen (our contact there) really liked that idea and is going to try to do that next time. We also had people helping out around camp and some wrote letters to the armed forces.
After dinner and another worship (which I recorded) we had our lovely variety show. Which we did differently, we let people sign up to do some talent stuff as well as having some improv. It was then that Shawna and I decided that it was time to share a bit of information about the sword...and how MSUM could get it back. We had them preform a musical skit this morning at breakfast. Which was hilarious but more later on that.
When the Variety show was over Jeremy and James acted out some movies for Emeline, Maggie, David and me. Which of course was HILARIOUS. Let's be real though, it's those two.

Sunday: Had a super quick board meeting, where we decided that we're going to nominate Pastor Randy for some award for campus ministry Pastor (it's two kids that passed away in a car crash on their way to a retreat, their names). The musical skit was at brunch and they did like a Improv Everywhere where they would randomly stand up and start singing about being tired then they changed it to being how they were so wonderfully excited about being here to praise God. We decided that it was good enough and time to get them their sword back. We had another group here with us that was eating with us so we got to explain what in the world was going on.
After brunch we had one last worship with Larry (which I didn't record cuz I was writing this (shhhh)) and the SCSU group. Sadly Waldorf couldn't make it and we only had the PJ's with us.

But everyone says, "Hello" and "We miss you" God be with you Chels.

Invisible Children and Kony

So I've been reading and watching somethings about Josph Kony. He is a leader of the LRA, an army in Africa that is made up of some pretty awful people. This army takes kids from their homes, forces them to kill their parents and then to kill and maim others. One of the biggest problems is that not many people know about Kony and what he is doing. That's where Invisible Children come in. They want to make Kony famous. Not in a good way, but in the we're going to hunt you down and arrest you kind of famous.

I'm hoping to join this fight and help bring Kony to justice. On April 20th I'm going to plaster my school and town with Kony posters and I'm going to put stuff in the back of my car window so that the world can learn about Kony and we can put his reign of terror to an end.

Stars

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." -Galileo

I have reciently fallen in love with the above quote. I don't know exactly what it is that makes me love it so much but I do. Maybe it's because I don't fear the night. I don't fear the darkness in which monsters hide. Because even in the darkest part of night you can find the stars.

"Chelsea was obsessed with the stars. She thought they were signals from heaven showing people the way home." -Bones s2 e21

Isn't that a beautiful thought? That the stars are there to guide us home to Christ. I don't know if the intent of the quote was to imply home was heaven but that's what it is for me. Home. Heaven. Our final destination. A place where family can watch over us after they're gone. Something that we can see, heaven is hard to imagine. None of us know what it looks like unless we've died and come back (like the "Heaven is for Real" kid). For me the stars are a reminder that heaven is up there. It might not be a star, might be beyond them but won't they be beautiful surrounding the Earth?

Side thought. Isn't it amazing that God can make the stars, these beautiful amazing things and he takes time to make us? Like he made every inch of me, every grain of sand and every star. So. Cool. I love that He is so damn cool. I hope God is okay with me saying he's "damn cool" cuz he is. SO COOL. 

Faith

Sometimes I worry that people judge me because of my faith. I know that I shouldn't care but I kind of do. Like, just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean that I'm perfect. Just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean that everything in my life is perfect. My mom gave me this little plaque thing that says "When life gets tough, toughen your Faith." I love this quote because of what's been going on in my life. I've recently lost a grandparent and my dog. It's been hard and I don't like the feeling. It's hard to let go of the pain and it's hard to understand why I'm being put through all of this. It sucks. But I know that I won't loose the Faith I have just so that people won't judge me. I rather be judged for that than anything else.