2 days to go!

I can't believe that in 2 days, (not even) I am getting in a van with 14 other people (well maybe 12...) and driving to Chicago. Well I'm not driving, someone else is :) Oh and in case you didn't get this yet, most of the passengers are still in high school [not that far behind me, but it's still going to be an adventure!]

Matt, Kristan, and Jaxson had lunch with me today at Senor Panchos and finalized some last minute details. I am so unbelievably excited!! Prayers are much appreciated. For safety, for guidance, for being stretched, for having open minds and hearts, and to just be the hands and feet of Christ. The kids are ready to head out, the adults are ready to just say there is absolutely no more planning we could possibly do, and the countdown really has begun.... And packing should probably begin too.... About that..

Anywho, so like I said, I want to show you my new shoes [Check out their website here]. Here's what they look like:

My shoes enjoying the observation deck at
the wilderness center

Kind of weird, yes. But oh so comfortable. I'm not a runner. Ask anyone and they will tell you that Cross Country was a bad mistake I made in Jr. High... One season of it. I will repeat, I'm not a runner. These shoes were originally made for barefoot runners. Now they have expanded quite a bit, and I am using mine for hiking, hopefully some bouldering, and just 'traveling.'

I wore them to VBS last week and can't tell you the strange looks/remarks I got. They look like gorilla feet. I love them. I walk barefoot as much as possible anyways, and now I can go on rougher trails and still feel like I'm barefoot.

Brandy and I went to the Wilderness Center this past weekend and had a lot of fun going everywhere in them. (She's had a pair for about 10 months now) Let me tell you, these shoes rock. My feet are still getting used to them, as it forces your foot to use way different muscles than we are used to, but they rock.

I'm looking forward to sporting them in Chicago, and you can bet there will be pictures!!

Because this was a little more of a boring post, I leave you with a funny Corey-dote (like an anecdote, only Corey-er) [my friend Ashley, the linguistics specialist, who is actually going to be an English teacher will probably cringe from that, but I think she'll laugh too]

First, a bit of background. Corey has opened a repair shop in our house. If you call our home, you will most likely hear him answer: Hello, this is Corey's repair shop. Can I help you? It is really amusing. It is open 10-10 M-F and closed on the weekends. So if you need something fixed, give us a ring :)

Tuesday Morning: 5am. Corey wakes up singing what sounds like the Barney song, minus the words. Who knows. 5:30am. I'm leaving to have breakfast at Mrs. J's when I look over and Corey is at his repair shop. I say, Corey, your shop doesn't open until ten.

His response: I have paperwork to fill out.

Oh, rest assured that life in the Bennethum household is never dull.

[for those who don't know Corey, he's 18 and is also mentally and physically handicapped, and for him to even know what paperwork is, much less that a business has it is highly astounding, hence the Corey-dote]

Recap!

As I get ready to head to Chicago, I want to get caught up on the blog so that I can start fresh when we get back.

So let's recap:

Horses: Well, as Pastor Dale always says, confession is good for the soul. I confess that I haven't actually went out to the farm for a bit. Joe and I braved the weather and headed out and stayed for a few hours two weeks ago. Poor Joe got completely stuck (sorry-no pictures) and we ended up letting the horse go to get him unstuck, but beyond that, all we did was hang out with the horses for a bit. Oh and move a hot tub? We had fun. Hope to do it again after Chicago


We went to Cedar Point a few Saturday's ago. I took a good friend, Ben with me. It was his first time being there. We had a blast (once we finally got there... I took forever getting ready and then forgot the tickets at home... yeah at least we only got to Dalton before it hit me). This was the first time I went to Cedar Point and didn't ride any big coasters. We walked around, visited places, rode the train (like 3 times, no surprise there for those of you that know Ben), and went on a few rides. We want to get a group together to go back and ride the big rides :) --Note it will be in August before I head back to school--

Ben after a long day at Cedar Point

God- Wow, He has been doing some major work. But then again, He always is. I can't believe the stuff He has placed into my life and what He is allowing me to do. I already wrote about VBS (read about it here) Those kids are amazing! Corey did amazing at VBS and he's going to start going to church with me. I'm super excited.

Right now there are major preps going on for Chicago. For those of you who don't know, I'm going with 4 other adults and 24 high school students to Chicago to work with Inner City Impact (click here to go to their website). The youth are running a day camp for K-5th graders for the week (amongst some other tasks). So we are in the process of finalizing games, crafts, songs, etc. [I've been dubbed game queen due to my camp experience - special shout out to Marmon Valley for equipping me with such great training and experience] It's going to be fun. Expect to see more about Chicago later.

So if you've managed to get this far in my blog, hopefully you'll stay for two last parts.... If not, comment and tell me to write less :)

Unexpected Visitor (almost) - Brandy got a chance to visit again. It's funny how when I left Cali this past January, I didn't know if I'd ever really see her again... and she's been to my house twice since then. :) Once again, God is good.

We talked, reminisced, and went hiking at the Wilderness Center (in our nice Vibram shoes <- the next post will be on my shoes)! I love that place. Someday, I will go and get pictures of the trail, and not just the observation deck that Brandy and I prefer to spend hours on. [i.e. there are pictures coming... wait for it... wait for it]

Gorgeous LilyPad


Evil Goose (where they got mother
goose from this is so beyond me)


We were both so tired

Our two shoes hanging out :)
^Brandy on the left, me on the right^

Last bit... be on the lookout for cornhole. Dad got boards for his bday and we've been playing a lot. So much fun. Pictures to come.

Leave comments and humor me... anyone can. I enjoy knowing people actually see this :)

Awe Inspiring

What an amazing week! Vacation Bible School started this past Sunday, and I cannot even begin to tell you just what a blessing it was to be a part of this year's program.

Hannah, my fearless co-family leader, was thrown into the midst last Thursday when we convinced her to join us for VBS. Kristan was our third family leader, and let me tell you, the Giza crew from this year was a phenomenal 'family.'

If you've never volunteered for something like VBS, I highly recommend doing it at least once. You may go in thinking that this is all about the kids, but then God does His own thing (like He is normally prone to do) and turns the table on you, effectively letting you hear and experience exactly what you needed to do. And as always, I was not an exception to this ordeal. I like to call it 'Divine Timing.' I tend to feel behind in something, or feel like I should be doing something else, or feel like maybe I'm not doing anything worth doing at the moment, and there God is to tell me otherwise. I am always right where I need to be.

Anyways, back to VBS. We had a 'family' of about 14 kids. I'm not sure how old they are, now that I think about it, but I'd assume 2nd-4th grade... Don't quote me, but that's a rough estimate. What cuties. I love working with kids, seeing their innocence and just raw faith. It is unbelievably encouraging. I had a blast doing crafts, games, Bible story time (we followed Joseph through his life story), singing, dancing, oh and of course snacks.

I can't wait for this Sunday to hear the kids sing again and tell us about their week. If you feel up to it, this Sunday, church will be an amazing experience. Seeing the kids just having fun and praising God is just awe inspiring. 10:15, Stanwood Church.. You should be there.

I will try to post some pictures whenever they come out. Oh and tell you about the past week. Fun stuff.

One Month!

The past few weeks have been fun. We've had a lot nicer weather, so I've definitely been enjoying that! I have been able to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while. The softball team I used to scorekeep for is still playing, and some of the guys are still on the team. It's awesome to see Steve, Geoff, Dan (both of them), Mike, Nick and the others play.

Reata and I are going out to play with the horses tonight. I'm excited; I haven't been out there for a few weeks. Should be fun.
UPDATE: Reata and I got there and had just got to the horses when the Dalton Tornado sirens went off. Needless to say, we did not ride. We did however get to catch up and spend some time together. God is good.

So the big event in the past week was spending last Saturday with Bryon, my godson. His mom was in a dance recital, so he got to spend the day with his godmom :) We had so much fun. We went shopping for graduation stuff, crashed Joe Schaers grad party.. that was fun. Then we got to play outside in the corn fields, on the playset, watching tractors, playing with chickens. Oh the little city boy that he is had so much fun on a farm :) He loves being outside. I never found out how he slept that night because the minute we got home from playing, he crashed. He slept for a good two hours before his mom came to get him.








Yesterday, my friends little girl Makaila had her 2nd birthday party. It was really nice to catch up with that group of friends and swap stories. I'm loving being home and being able to catch up.

My room has made no progress, but it will. I'm looking for some cheap white paint to start to paint the walls to get rid of their dark color so I can put the real paint on it. I can't wait for it to start!

Its definitely a bit shorter than most my posts, but that's about all I've been up to. Oh and planning for a mission trip in a few weeks. I'm trying to remember all of my camp games and songs to take with us to Chicago to teach the kids that come to our day camp. If anyone has suggestions of games for elementary kids that are appropriate, and if they can have a Bibical lesson applied, that would be awesome, but if not, I will still welcome any suggestion!


Oh I forgot one other thing. So fireworks show in Brewster. So cool. We got to sit by the rail yard and watch the trains as well as go through the rail yard after the show. So cool. Awesome friends, awesome show, awesome time :)

A little mud never hurt anybody

Another week has come and gone, and this one is almost over too. Wow, I need to stay on top of this a little bit more.

It's been a crazy, amazing week and a half! Last week, we got hit with a lot of rain (which I guess isn't that much of news considering the entire country got hit). However, I don't think I've ever seen the flooding that I got to experience driving back roads on my way home from work. No, I didn't drive on flooded roads, but the fields were quite a sight! Our house also has some kind of bubble over it apparently as every major storm last week passed right over us. Take a look:



Thankfully the weather cleared up, and following suit as Ohio does, we are now in the complete opposite weather: Hot and Humid! But it's definitely a nice change :)

Last week I got to spend an evening with Bill and Mary Hoover. It was such a blessing to spend time talking and just enjoying each others company. I'm very grateful to all of the people that God has placed in my life.

Speaking of the Lord and the people He has blessed me with, I never mentioned that I became a member of the Stanwood Church. I'm really excited about it and am very thankful for all of their support. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the summer.

Saturday, the gals all went to Portage Lake for a few hours. Ashley brought Makaila and Kay and I followed Andrea. We had a lot of fun. It was kind of cold due to the wind, but once we waded out into the water (all the way up to our ankles, we were so brave &lt;-haha) it started to warm up. Makaila absolutely loved it! After lunch and playing on the slides, we called it a day.

Sunday came along and I was excited to see Brandy! She decided to come out and visit for the day and next morning before heading off to camp. We had so much fun. After getting her fed with some lovely Dariette food, we headed out to the Lovette's to have some fun with the horses. We ended up being there for quite a while. After messing around with all of the other animals, we finally got to ride. Brandy rode Wes, the draft horse I fell off last week (he's a big teddy bear though) and I rode Mel again. We had a lot of fun. It was cooler by that time in the day, so we rode bareback for about an hour. I almost got a canter out of Mel, but we didn't quite get there. Brandy had a fun ride too :)

Oh funny story that I forgot to mention: So while trying to catch the two horses, it took us quite a bit and the rest of the horses wanted the grain we had. Well trying to catch a blind horse that is getting nipped by the head horse doesn't quite work. By the time I got her going back to the barn, I had broken a sweat. Oh did I mention it had rained and the pasture was a little muddy?

Well it was and about 15 feet from the barn, I was stuck. Stuck with a lot of horses around me. Jeff offered to help, and when he had Mel, the other horse Lady thought it was appropriate to steal the bucket from me. She did and Mel spooked a bit and walked towards me. I had no where to go (not that I could go anyways, I was def. stuck in the mud). So in about a second, I had a hundred thoughts go through my brain, all summing up to faceplant or footplant. My decision was to take my foot out of my boot and step right into almost knee deep pasture mud (which is not just dirt... I'll let you figure that one out).

Okay, so that's the funny story right? Wrong. I go back to get my boot and in the process, the 2 year old comes back for more and I'm forced to abandon my other boot. There I stand, knee deep in the pasture with no shoes on. Fun stuff there. Brandy was laughing so hard at me. Needless to say, I went through a lot of clothes that day.

It's never dull here :)