The Simple Joys of Life!: August 2011

Monday, August 22, 2011

Graduation, Wedding, and a new Baby!

First off I have to say Welcome to the World Baby Bryson! These last two weeks have been so crazy and full of many great things! I finally graduated from Texas A&M University on Friday, August 12th. Immediately after the ceremony, I rushed back to San Antonio to be a part of two really great friends wedding the next day! My friends Harry and Kerri have been together for as long as I've known them and I could not have been more excited to be in their wedding let alone be Kerri's Maid of Honor! They are such a great couple and I could not have been happier for them to finally become married! But this whole time from the time I came back from Alaska up till the wedding on Saturday, we have all been waiting for my beautiful sister to have her second baby, Bryson. I decided that I would spend the week with her and on Monday August 15 he was born. He waited for me to get there! or at least that is what I want to think. I spent the rest of the week helping her and their beautiful little family, and could not have grown more attached to my nephew Caden. Once the weekend approached I needed a small break and my sister was getting use to a baby in the house again, so I came back to San Antonio. Well now that I'm back at home, I'm determined to find a job becuase that is what people do when they graduate from college. So for any people that know people, please let me know! I would post up pics of Bryson but my sister doesn't want that quite yet but when she does I will be the first! Until then here are some from graduation and the wedding!

Peace & Love,

Megan

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Welcome to the HOT Texas!!!!

Well it is true I'm back in Texas! It is really hot here too! On the last few days in Nome I had been watching the weather hoping that it would get cooler before I headed back but it did not. Well on my last few days there we had our community event which I was able to talk with kids about the effects of smoking tobacco and how it will be bad for their health later on in life. As I was sitting at at my booth and kids were coloring pages, when a lady walks up to me to start talking about how and why she quit smoking. As it turns out she quit smoking for her children and has been smoke free for 9 months and at this point cannot even stand the smell of cigarettes. Since she quit she has also worked on improving her health by walking to places. To this day she has walked over 100 miles total and has gone through over 10 pairs of shoes. Wow she really inspired me to become healthier in my lifestyle. Over this summer in Alaska I have set a few goals of my own. I took a step towards becoming healthier by stop drinking sodas. It was a really easy to become healthier and I managed to only treat myself to one during the summer. Since I'm back in Texas, I decided to make another goal for myself. While in Alaska I would workout and I was starting to get used to running again. Well now my new goals are to run a 1/2 marathon in February. Hopefully I won't be alone with this goal. With the support of my dad, sister and friend Alex from Wisconsin we will be participating in the Austin Marathon. So not only will training begin but I will also be looking for a job and trying to find a new path in my life with God.
I don't know how many times I have thanked you for all your support but you have truly been very helpful to me and my journey!

Here are some last pictures from Alaska.

The boys taking down the tent from our camping trip

The mountain view from the campsite

Mountains and clouds

The ocean and beach on the other side of the campsite

Melanie, Me, Alex, and Chase with our Kuspuks on ( it's Native Alaskan Attire)

And the hoods

Alex, Me, Tina, Anna, and Becca with our Kuspuks before boarding the plane

Thank you for being in this adventure with me.

"Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter: the one which keeps faith."

Isaiah 26:2

Peace&Love,

Megan

Monday, August 1, 2011

Only a few day's left!

So last week went by so fast and we are slowly getting down to the final day's left of the amazing experience. With the last week of summercise and and then taking everything down it really has been a slow progression to something that just seems so weird. Is it really almost the end. I have been thinking about how I would feel about this all summer and now that it's here, I don't know if I'm ready for the new change. So summercise went on as usual this week and finally the weekend came. It was a really great weekend. On Friday, Alex, Renee, Seiji, and I went out to this place called Cripple River. It's a gold miner's camp site that stays out there all year and they serve dinner and have a gold drawing and dance the night away! It was really a blast and I finally got to see some gold for the first time. After the dinner we went to go dance and karaoke the rest of the night. So at around 1am we were getting ready to leave and making our way back down the beach about 20 miles and crossing a river in a truck was an adventure. Well when we only had about 7 or so miles left, seiji's truck felt like we hit a wall of sand but really the transmission went out and we were stuck in the sand with about 10 feet from the water and it was almost high tide! After a hour of trying to get the truck unstuck we decided to call some people for help. Well there is not cell phone service out there so we try to start walking up the tundra to find some service. Finally after numerous attempts to call people Renee's phone dies and Seiji's just doesn't work. I'm still trying to use mine and Alex can't get a signal at all. Alex looks ahead and see's a small cabin that could have some people in it so Seiji and her try to get help. Well sure enough even at 3am people are still willing to help us get unstuck. After we are unstuck we still can't drive the truck into town, so we continue to call people, then finally we call our local church pastor Bruce and he and Chase (another intern that helped with summercise) drove out to save us in the wee hours of the morning. As we sat in the cabin and waited the two miners were telling us about how bears have been in the area lately and if we would have tried to walk back to town we could have been killed! Well when Chase and Pastor Bruce showed up we could not have been more thankful to them for getting us. On the quad ride back Pastor Bruce tells us that they saw a bear on the beach when they were going down to get us. Great to know that they both had guns with them! Well we get back to the apt at around 5am and freezing cold but I just wanted to sleep and be warm. After taking a shower and going to sleep I woke up around 9:30 and was really energized for the day!
Alex, Renee, and I went for a hike with one of our supervisors Kendra. She is so awesome to take us out on a hike with her, but don't worry she brought a gun too! So this hike was about 6 hours long and only because I fell and hurt my ankle and my pride was in the way of asking for help so I crawled some of the way back to the car. But other then that it was such an awesome hike. Because of the adventures of Friday and the hike, Alex, Melanie, Trinity (who is 7) and I decided to have a girls night and paint our nails, and bake cookies! That was a really fun night. On Sunday it was a great day to spend at church and with our friends before the community event. I will tell you more about the community event in the next blog! But here are some great pics from the hike and such!