A Doe

I’m listening to “I So Hate Consequences” by Relient K right now. It’s 9:45 in the morning. This has been one of the coolest weekends in quite awhile. After we said goodbye to Ploy and Joylynn on Friday morning, I worked on school until like 3:30. At 3:30 I drove (with Dad and Mike) to the Christian bookstore in Vernon Hills. Mike and I picked up a CD for Skyler. I saw a couple of CD’s that I really wanted to get. One of them was Relient K’s new CD and the other was one of the X: Christian Rock Hits CD’s that was on sale for 7 bucks. When I get a job…

We drove back to the house, I grabbed a sleeping bag and a change of clothes, and then we waited for like 20 minutes for Mike to get his stuff together. We went to the library first, and then the Clow’s. My dad told me to turn off of 12 too early, so I ended up in the middle of the highway, like where you can turn and get on the other side of the highway. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except for the fact that this guy followed me, kinda like the blind leading the blind! So with his big SUV in the way, I couldn’t see behind me to pull back out onto the highway. Eventually there was a window, and the dude honked for me. My mom was totally freaking out.

There were a lot of guys at Skyler’s party. There was probably like 25 or 30 people there! It was awesome! We played video games until like 2 am, at which point we went outside and made a fire. After getting the fire started we went to “The Back 40”, which is where we’ve played paintball. We made teams for Capture the Flag, and then we split up. I got assigned to guard duty, so I stuck the flag up in the tree fort, climbed down the ladder, and then hid in the brush about 10 feet away from the ladder. I was laying down, all in black, so I was pretty well concealed. All the action was at the other end of the field, so I was kinda just sitting there with the snow falling and the wind blowing. It was pretty cool, just being out in the woods and stuff. I was sitting there for about 10 minutes when 2 guys walked up to the tree fort and started talking. I realized from what they were saying that they were not playing the game, so I just disregarded them. They didn’t see me at all, which was pretty awesome. Those guys left and I was sitting there alone again. About 15 minutes went by, when all of a sudden I hear something big move behind me. I kind looked behind me and to my left, and there’s a big old deer like 6 feet away! I just sat there for a few minutes, when all of a sudden this little kid appears out of nowhere, and is like “RUN!” So I was like “What? Why? Ok, whatever.” So I took off running right behind him. Now, this next part needs a bit of explanation. There was a bunch of boys at this party who were like 10 years old. It was cold outside, so everybody was all bundled up. Basically, all of the 10 year old boys looked the same. So I’m running right on the heels of this 10-year old kid, and all of a sudden he turns around, tags me, and says “Alright, go to the jail.” Yep, I got sucked right into that one!

So after the game we went back to the fire, which by this time was quite big. We started throwing stuff in, like a full pop can, which made a big pop when it exploded. Then we threw in a lighter, which made a bigger pop. Then Mike and Travis decided to go look in the barn for something combustible. I told them to grab an aerosol can. They ended up coming back with a can of compressed silicone. I was like “Silicone, that’s not going to do anything!” We decided to throw it in the fire anyway. Everybody got back like 20 feet, and then I went up to the fire and put the can in the hottest part of the fire. The whole time I’m thinking “Nothings going to happen, we’ll just stick it in there, wait 5 minutes, and then go back to the fire.” So I walk over to where the other guys are (20 feet away), and I’m still thinking “This is not gonna work!” All of a sudden…BOOM! The can erupted in a huge mushroom cloud and made a sound like a gunshot! It was awesome! Through the course of the night/morning, we ended up blowing up like 9 cans of spray paint and other aerosols. Those went off like rockets! They exploded with a big bang and sent the can sailing like 100 feet in the air, and 100 feet out! It was crazy! We also made a couple of Molotov Cocktails. Those were pretty cool. Dirk and his crew on the NUMA boat are about to use those in the book I’m reading…

We got back to my house around 11 am. I hit the couch with my book and fell asleep until about 1. At 1 we left for my grandma’s house. Once a year in the fall we go rake her leaves, clean the gutters, and trim the bushes. I slept on the way down listening to my iPod. I grabbed the ladder, and got up on the roof to do the gutters. It was COLD! It took me like 40 minutes to do all the gutters, with Mike’s help. After doing the gutters, I helped with the leaves. Uncle Todd, Vika, and Sergei were there helping also. I raked leaves for like an hour, and then as it was starting to get dark I grabbed the box of tree-fertilizer stakes, and spent another 45 minutes or so getting those in. I was really cold by the time I was done! I walked into the house, and both Grandma AND Aunt Sue had made soup, so there was 2 different kinds of (amazing) soups, apple dumplings (oh man were they good!), cinnamon rolls, and lots of hot chocolate! It was the perfect end to a cold day! I had never had apple dumplings before, and they were absolutely amazing.

I woke up yesterday, got ready for church, and grabbed a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll. I was still eating the cinnamon roll when I got to church. John Ramer walked up and wanted me to help him with the lights, and he was like “Hey, Good Morning!” So I was like “Good Morning!” but it was totally garbled because my mouth was full. We started laughing; it was pretty awesome. They announced in service that John is going to be our interim pastor, which is pretty sweet. I wouldn’t mind seeing him as our full-time pastor. He’s a great guy.

After church Chris took Mike and I to her house, because Chuck is laid up with back problems and they needed yard work done. On the way there we passed a Jimmy Johns, and we were talking about it, and I was like “Oh yeah, that’s my favorite place to eat!” So Chris was like “Well hey, let’s get that for lunch!” Oh yeaaaah! We raked 5 garbage cans full of leaves, moved patio furniture into the garage, and drained the hoses.

I got home and pretty much worked on all kinds of different stuff until midnight, including (but not limited to!) calling back Ryker and Alyssa, cleaning up the house for small group, fixing the printer, making our snow-shoveling flyer, fixing my update letter, printing off a copy of that, etc, etc. Today is pretty much just school and small group. I just got done preparing for small-group, and I’m really excited about what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be studying James with the aid of the Lifechange book aptly titled: James. I’ve used these study books in the past for my personal study, and I really really enjoy them. They teach you to study the Bible very, very thoroughly, and to then take what you’ve learned and apply it to your life. I can’t wait to get started!