Holly's Life Adventures!

NEW BLOG SITE!!

2011-07-02T16:23:00.002-06:00

Hey there.....

Sorry to mix things up on you. My Trip Leader, Dave, uses this great blog site called WordPres.... I was converted.

here is the link. Same stuff, better quality!

http://hollymikulas.wordpress.com/

Silence for the Soul

2011-06-30T21:56:00.004-06:00

(internet slow here, pictures tomorrow or Sat. sorry. and they are good ones too!!! Promise)

Greetings Earthlings!!

I definitely have been in some absolutely beautiful country this week. After arriving in Red Lodge we drove the Bear Tooth Pass. Lookouts to Yellowstone are absolutely amazing. The route had a land slide so it was closed that day and we didn’t make it all the way out there, but still got to see some beautiful mountain tops. The Rangers directed us to a pretty day hike that afternoon up to some falls and some lake. Not really sure where it was or what it was called, but it was beautiful as well. Nice to hike 3 or so miles without a pack on…really nice actually.

After our day and a half in Red Lodge our exiting was the best ever, Local Yokel. Some of the best organic and local lamb and asparagus I have ever had. Ok I will fill in a few people. I recently have been put on a no Dairy, Gluten, Wheat, Pineapple, and many other assorted foods. Basically, the lining in my stomach has disappeared due to various antibiotics in the past and certain foods pass through my stomach and leak into my body… gross I know. Buuuut, it has been proven difficult to have such a strict diet while on the trail and under a budget that only allows fast food meals and under 8$ meal budget. Therefore, Local Yokel = heaven!

Deciding that Red Lodge would not work for a group, Monday we headed into Cody. Rangers directed us to the Clark Creek Trail. You can do a, 2 miles to a waterfall, 8 miles to Yellowstone River, or a point to point to a 4WD road. We went straight up the TH and hiked to the waterfall and a footbridge 2.5 miles in to get a feel for the area. We got stuck at the end of a parade in the small town just before the trail head. It was pretty cute actually. I love small town stuff, makes me bummed I'll be missing Monument's 4th of July Parade this summer... :(

Deciding that we like it, Tuesday was spent in a few coffee shops, sport stores, and outdoor stores getting maps and talking with locals about the trail, water melt, and animals. O! we also got a free bear video showing from the park rangers! O Anita, how nice of her! It was classic. So, mother, I am totally bear educated and could totally tell you the difference between a defensive bear and a predatory bear! Boo ya! (I like to yell out “Hey Big Mama” as we’re walking on the trail. To scare them away of course!)

Wednesday we hit the trail bright and early. The motive for trekking the trail was to get a good handle on the terrain and know where good campsites would be. The terrain was more treacherous than I think we thought. Screamed through Sunday night’s, and successfully made it to Monday nights. Right alongside the Yellowstone River. In a canyon. So beautiful! However… mosquito galore! I honestly have never, EVER, seen that make of those little demons. They seriously made the hike MISERABLE! I would swat the air and hit at least 10 on one swing. UHG! I don’t even want to think about it now. GROSS!!! We needed to continue on to find Tuesday night’s site up the canyon. But…. Remember that whole water thing we have been dealing with this entire summer. Ya, still exists out here too. The Yellowstone consumed our trail. However, the streams were something else. I understand why it is called the "yellow"stone. Anyway, after bushwhacking alongside a canyon wall and realizing there is no possible way we could take students this way, we turn back.

Campfire smoke has never been more revealing in my whole life. Many say, “I hate white rabbits” to get the smoke out of their faces…. We were saying, “I love no mosquitoes!” as our eyes leaked and pinkend from the smoke. We were so desperate to get a fire going, we didn’t veer as much as 7 feet off the trail to set rocks up to make a fire pit. Yes, it was that bad! Our spirits were pretty low at this point. We found this trail and thought for sure it would work just as the overflowing river and gnarly mosquitoes nail us. I guess the beauty did put a smile on my face more than a few times, and the elk drinking from the river. That was pretty neat!

Waking up sweating from the sun beaming into my tent set the tone for the day. Despite the beauty, hiking out was not my favorite hike ever. It was awe-inspiring knowing I was entitled to step out of my tent where MILLIONS of mosquitoes awaited to gnaw on my arms for 6 hours while using both hands utilizing my trekking poles to get up the mountain side. Therefore, leaving me defenseless. Great… ya exactly what I intended as I yawned that morning half way in my unzipped sleeping bag.

You know, I am learning that nature is most definitely one of my passions. I burden for natural disasters and can’t help but to embrace the beauty that God has created and selfishly is sharing with us. But… why is it so hard to accept the sometimes not so good things that come from nature. Like over flowing streams, mosquitoes, wolves at 1am, snow at 2am, cold nights, hot mornings, scary bears, and even storms. All of these things are really cool, under the right conditions. Why can’t it always be the right conditions… well, I am learning that maybe it is always the right condition but we are not always in the right mindset. It is like wind. Many people hate wind, a lot, but when you are doing something (such as setting up a tent or crossing a river on a log) the wind makes everything so much more epic!
Why do we narrow certain circumstances out as hard/annoying/ scary/ dangerous? Why can’t they all just be epic!? Think about that… over a zillion (yes, zillion) mosquitoes while trekking along the Yellowstone River… I’d say that is epic. But before my mentality shift it was definitely considered miserable… looking back, dude…. That was pretty epic!
God is revealing many things to me. It is amazing how much He speaks to you when you listen…. Hm, imagine that. Most of it has to do with the fact that I am in the middle of beauty with no distractions. No cell phone, music, fashion worries. Nothing! It allows us to narrow down on the things that actually matter in this life. All the things we label as necessities like super nice car, iphone, makeup, blah blah blah. You get the picture. None of those things matter. Nothing! Not one bit. When it comes down to it, God’s word says everything that we need. Most of it is based off of the relationships that we have with each other and the relationships and interactions we create with others. We aren’t here to be the most fashionable or most popular, but we are here to fulfill the great commission. To be Disciples of Christ. No one said it would be an easy road. In fact, it warned against how hard it would be instead. But with God, all things are possible.

Love you guys. Thanks for reading and staying updated. Means a lot. Love you all… all you MO family and CO family. Friends too… you guys all rock!

Next group comes on Sunday. Still not 100% sure where we will take them. Black Hills at Sundance, Clark Creek in the Shoshone, or this new one we heard today called Dead Indian… we shall see…..

Peace and Blessins!

Two Weeks to Wander Begins

2011-06-24T08:49:00.008-06:00

Smello there friends and family. So, after that last group we were planning on heading to the Tetons to backpack for two weeks with just Robbie, Dave, and I and do some discipleship training. And of course, that didn't happen because of a number of things. The first being snow. Way too much snow to spend more than a few days up there. Also, because the Big Horns are snowed out for the next little bit we have to hunt for some places to take the next group or two why the snow melts off.

So, that brings me to where I am now. Billings, Montana. After the group left on Sat, we spend time cleaning stuff up and simply relaxing. It was quite a challenging week. We took off from Sheridan Sunday afternoon and headed south to find dry land. Arriving in Lander, we pull up to a ranger station who directs us to NOLS. (National Outdoor Leadership School- don't be surprised if I work there one day. It is quite the place!) They help us out by saying that everywhere they are leading trips they need snow shoes but have run out so that are post holing it. Great....

So we head out that night to get a jump start on traveling back up North. Finally arrive in Casper at another famous KOA. (such a life savor this summer) Wake up bright and early and continue North East to where we started the summer off in WY at a pit stop for lunch off I-90, in Sundance, WY.

We know for certain that the Black Hills up there are dry so we had to map out a route to take. After linking a few trails together, we decided to do it ourselves in a day and a half. We start about 8am and by noon have already traveled nearly 8 miles. Packs and everything. We have our tents, food, and warm cloths. Turns out we needed water and food only. We decided that we have a feel for the terrain and could map out a decent 5 night hike, so we hunker down and crack out the rest of the hike before 8pm. Yup, that's right! We killed 20 miles in 12 hours! Not to mention we had all the dumb unnecessary stuff in our packs. But hey, no one can complain when we drop a few extra pounds in a day!

(Pictures to come)

Yesterday morning we woke up at our KOA in Sundance and headed straight to see Devil's Tower. Pretty cool if you ask me. I was itching to climb it though. I am definitely starting to miss my climbing gear, slack line, and soccer ball more and more as we move forward. Then we headed straight up to Billings through an Indian Resorvation. Along the road were about 30 or 40 natives riding their horses. The front leaders had big head dressings and flag/staff things they were holding in their saddles. Pretty cool. It is a shame what the US has done to these people, I think they have every right to be mad!

So, brings me to this morning. We are scooping out some stuff to hike up here. Beautiful country up here. Our motive is to discover another place to take groups. We know Sundance area and want to use it as a back up because yes it is pretty, but it reminded me of Spruce Mnt for all you Monument people. It is more of a day hike area that we are linking stuff to make it longer. Not ideal...

Anyway. God is doing some cool stuff. Definitely reveal how the body of Christ is meant to operate and how we are to utilize the community and our brothers and sisters to help us. We can't do things on our own and I feel as though that is how I have lived much of my life. I considered myself independent and may have said I rely on God for everything, but in reality still tried to deal with a few things all on my own. God wants to help, He wants to be there through the joys and the pains. I am shifting my mentality of what an independent person looks like. I am now independent from this world and dependent on God.

John 15:4

Starting with a Twist, or a few....

2011-06-19T12:04:00.013-06:00

Well, it has been quite the adventure and I have only been in the Big Horns for 7 days…and won’t be here much longer. Alright so lets rewind about nine days to last Friday, June 10th.
It all started when we forgot to get gas at a lunch stop as we were driving to WY from Chicago. We discovered this just as we hit the middle of Buffalo and Gillette with 45 miles both ways. We decided no reason to turn around to chance the same distance, so we go as far as we can on what is left in our reserve tank of our rockin’ mini van. Just as Dave (my trip leader) starts to feel the gas spittin’ we cross ‘Crazy Women Creek.’

Just after the creek was an exit that goes straight into this house/farm. “Hepp Brother’s Farm.” During this time our car was pretty quiet with a few jokes here and there to keep our optimistic attitudes in check. We pull off at Crazy Women Creek exit, I mean come on, who wouldn’t with a name like that in our circumstances?! Haha. Not gunna lie, I was a little spectacle, but as we pulled into the drive there were two 5 gallon gas tanks right outside the garage. Of course there were! Robbie goes up to the front door and explains the situation to our newly made friend Paul. He offers as much as we need as if it wasn’t the first time this has happened to him. Thank goodness for Paul! In fact, he is the owner of the nearest gas station 15 miles down the hwy. He tells us to be sure to go to that one to fill up. Now, we have our gas, Dave, Robbie, and I are in shock of all that has happened. So random. Dave’s next task was to document this. How many people stop and bum gas from the Hepp Brother’s at Crazy Women Creek?! So we trek about ¼ mile back up the hwy to capture the photo Dave wanted to badly! … hilarious.

We finally make it into Sheridan and stay at a KOA (Kampgrounds of America for all you dumbies! ☺) for the night. Saturday’s plan was to get up and check out our trail heads, come back and take inventory, then spend some quiet alone time for a couple hours to prepare for the week. We should have known that because of the gas event on Friday that our plan would not be accurate.

THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A WEEK FULL OF THE UNEXPECTED…. Without going into extreme detail, I am going to list off all the events that took place this week.

_Saturday
1) 7:45am Drive to Burgess Junction Ranger Station to simply check in with them. Discover that the road we reach our Trail Head (TH) on is closed due to snow. This is the advise we got, “There is going to be anywhere from 1 to 10 feet of snow up on those trails.” Wonderful.

2) Check out the road for ourselves and pull in 200 yards before our sweet mini van can’t go on.
3) Begin traveling on HWY 14 south in the Big Horns to find dry land to plan a 5 night 6 day hike.
4) Discover Shell Canyon with Ranger Creek Station and Campground, Bench Trail at Post Creek, and Chimney Rock after nearly 3 hours of driving up and down a 3,000ft elevation difference canyon. The car remained positive, but an extremely quiet and thoughtful ride. With no food in our bellies and the altitude starting to kick in, we finally decide to head back to Sheridan to map out a route.
5) 3:00pm Find a book store and purchase some Topo Maps to begin linking different trails together to get a full trip in. After picking our brains we decide to sleep on it so we head back to KOA and take inventory and hit the hay.

_Sunday
6) Start fresh with breakfast and mapping routes. We finally have a TH and a TE and are eager for out team to meet us in Dayton to begin.
7) Our team arrives nearly 2 hours late as we wait at a park for them. We finally get to meet the team, full of energy of course, and head up the mnt!
8) We pull into our first TH and discover we cannot reach it because it is on Private Property. Of course. So we pull into the next road over about ¼ mile back up the road and find out it is a lady name Gal’s camp called Kedesh Ranch. She and her sons willingly allow us to unload and start our hike from their property until we reach BLM and back into the National Forest.
9) Finally begin hiking about 8pm with our Student Leaders of the day in the lead. Our only direction from the ranchers to get back to our trail was to “follow the fence to the gate.” Sweet… That didn’t work out so well. The terrane was intense. Mix desert and mountains.

10) Nearly an hour in we were still searching for water and our campsite that should have only been a 20min hike in.
11) About 11pm we discover a stream down a steep hill. As we trek down, our friend Jordan sprains his ankle pretty badly. Dave directs Robbie and I to take control of water fill up and lead the group to set up camp. We had to retrace our steps so we stayed of BLM property.
12) About midnight we have our tents up and dinner cooking.

_Monday
12) Dave and Tom (the youth pastor) wake up early to hike back to the camp to contact LeaderTreks and figure out an evac plan for our injured friend Jordan. My morning devos get interrupted by a four wheeler coming in to load up Jordan and evac him out. I am ordered to take two of the adults back to camp to drive up the canyon, pick up their vans at the TE in Ranger Creek and load up the kids.
13) I begin the drive up the canyon and see two red flashing lights…. ROAD CLOSED. There had been a landside on the canyon road.
14) Jordan is taken to a clinic 30 min away and Robbie and I stay with the students on the green grassy camp area doing team builders and lunch.
15) 3:30 rolls around and the canyon opens up and Jordan is back from the clinic on crutches. Gal offers a cabin for Jordan and an adult to stay at for the week as the rest of us head up to our trail end to set up base camp and do some day hikes.
16) We get to Rancher Creek and just as we begin setting up tents, it rains. The rain was off and on all night and into the morning.

_Tuesday
17) We do a day hike up snow show pass. With cold, wet shoes from the snow drifts we trekked through, we finally make it to the top. It was a fairly easy day on Tuesday.
18) That night a student’s stomach was not feeling well and we had to evac her in the morning to the cabin at the ranch with Jordan and Nora also.

_Wednesday
19) Decide to break camp and hike up Adelaide Lake Trail. We starting the trip with trouble finding water, and now that we were higher up we had trouble finding trails that were crossable. The river was roaring because of the glacier run off.
20) About 3 hours got us about 1.5 miles up and we struggled to cross the over flowing creeks. A few soaked shoes and one girl with wet pants from a slip. We set up a base camp at the first dry land we find. There was moose and bear poop everywhere. Definitely in some wildlife country. Robbie almost stepped on a baby dear, Bambie, as we were crossing through a valley. It was definitely sick and would not even lift his head as we stood less than 5 feet from it.

_Thursday
21) Time to tear down camp and take Old Mail Trail Loop to reach Ranger Creek that night. We hit 5 foot snow drifts ½ mile into the hike. Deciding to continue, we preserver through that mess.
22) With hope of the snow to clear, we only hit more and more. No one is prepared for this, shoes and clothes are soaked by now.
23) Things continue to get worse. We hit a ranging river that seems uncrossable. We find a sturdy tree that is over the water and set up some ropes to cross. A definite nail biting moment. If anyone where to fall in, bad news bears. Thank the Lord everyone made it across safe.
24) Reaching the top of the hill we know we must continue on. So back down the other side of the hill we hit a valley. Beautiful valley, but marsh land galore. The road we needed to cross over the river at was under the water too much. No way we could put 20 students through that depth of water.
25) 30 then 45 mins pass and we have searched up and down the river numerous times and cannot cross anywhere. Night was near, students are freezing, wet, and tired and we couldn’t go on.
26) We retrace steps again back up the hill to set up camp. We get two fires going, the tarp up, and tents stacked in. Then… guess what’s next, yup. Rain. Dinner and Team Time came and went fast.
27) Just as we were getting into tents for the night, the wolves just a few valleys away began howling. Yup, wolves. Great. Our bear bag was not hung and not placed far enough away from camp, the dinner pots didn’t get cleaned, and we had 20 kids up on top of a mountain. Sleep didn’t come that night…. But I will tell you what did.

_Friday
28) Snow. 1:30 am I hear “pitter patter, pitter patter.” Just as we thought all of our trials were over, we get showered with more. Boots outside, bags outside, and tent walls caving in, the morning never seemed to come.
29) Knowing the only way back to Ranger Creek was the way we came, we began our trek back from the way we came through the 5 foot drifts and log river crossing we already accomplished, but now with 5-7 inches of fresh snow. Wonderful.
30) Finally reaching the last mile stretch with the sun shining means mud everywhere. Muddy muddy trail back to the vans. The sight of two white vans never felt so good.
31) Pack up quickly and head back to Sheridan, about 1 hr 15 min drive… o wait, not this time. We get to HWY 14 North and yup, you guessed it, ROAD CLOSED. So we take the longest route possible back to Sheridan. 3 hour drive, with road construction….
32) It never seems to end!

So, quite the experience for a first LeaderTreks Trip. I am leaving out all the great stuff. I learned a lot about leading from the back. About the wilderness and backpacking. About unpredictability. About dealing and handling the unexpected. About honestly with self and others. I am learning how the body is meant to work together. Healing in lives is definitely taking place. God is expanding His love and leadership into the lives of youth, which is encouraging the older generations.

We are currently in the Starbucks in Sheridan getting ready to head south to discover a new trail that is not covered in snow. We have two weeks without any students because of one drop out. We were supposed to be in the Tetons walking through a discipleship devotional together, but instead we will be blazing a new place. I will keep you updated!

Thanks to all who are following. Love you all.

Daddy- Happy Father’s Day. You are the best Dad a girl could as for. You are the roots to the rose between the three thrones. Thanks for everything. Enjoy the condo at Table Rock.

Intern Training and Starting Out

2011-06-09T20:38:00.002-06:00

Intern training was great. With all 16 of us interns from all over the place, we traveled up to WI to a camp called Expeditions Unlimited. Lori, Juls, Justin, Abby, and LZ taught us all we need to know about LeaderTreks.

We went through all the principles, traits, values, teachable moments, and so much more of LT. Every time, learning something new.

The final full day was the most fun! It was called challenged day. Starting at 8am, my team of interns and freshly made friends got to play games all day long. This is where all our newly acquired skills were put to the test. A wide variety of challenges including marbles, spider webs, freezer maze, maps, blind folds, and even planks on survivor island out at the lake in Devils Lake Park. A totally blast!

God continues to reveal to me what it is like to be submerged in the community that Christ desires us to be in. That we need others to guide us as we walk this life that is not meant to be east. All the interns were so focused on what God's plan is for them. I loved hearing what everyone's gifts, strengths, and weaknesses are. It created automatic bondage between everyone. Which, in the end, makes it so much harder to leave as we all go to our separate work sites for the summer.

I am so blessed to be partnering with Robbie. He will be a senior at Ceaderville next year and grew up just outside Indianapolis. I loved going through the intern training books with him because our "gifts/talents/weaknesses" are really going to work really well together. It is a great balance and I think he is going to be a great co-worker. It is great to watch him constantly improving himself so that he can better other people. Its great!

Dave, He is awesome too. Extremely knowledgeable about the wilderness and has devoted so much of his life to helping youth discover their unique leadership abilities. Although traveling some today is really the most time I have spent with Dave, he seems to really have a genuine heart for students and the service he does. I can't wait to work along side him as well.

The plan for now is to get to Montana/Wyoming. We are at a hotel in South Dakota simply relaxing. Should only have about 7 hours drive time tomorrow before we get there. I believe we are camping tomorrow night. Our first group does not get to us until Sunday. In the mean time, we will be scoping out the trail heads and spending some solo time. Pretty eager to just get started!!!

Missing everyone and can't wait to let you know how next week goes! I will keep you updated as I go!

Luke

Starting with Leaer Treks!

2011-06-01T13:06:00.002-06:00

This blog is intended to keep my friends and family updated with my newly found adventure for this 2011 summer with LeaderTreks.

I will spend my summer back packing in Wyoming/Montana interning and leading wilderness trips for youth in Big Horn National Park with a nonprofit organization called Leader Treks.

Leader Treks (http://www.leadertreks.org) is an organization that offers adventure, mission, and wilderness trips to youth to help intensify their leadership abilities. The Lord has really placed all this in front of me filled with His Love and Guidance. God is continuing to put opportunities in my life that will build me and help me grow. Leader Treks is such a blessing because it falls perfectly into my passion for youth, the outdoors, and furthering God’s Kingdom. Leader Treks’ mission statement is to “Develop Leaders to Fulfill the Great Commission.”

After intern training in late May, all of June, July, and the first part of August will be spent developing high school students into effective leaders of the Church. These students have opportunities to learn through bible studies and the incomparable experiences of the wilderness. As an intern, my duty will be to help facilitate these 7-10 day trips by being a humble servant-leader. Servant Leadership is one of my greatest passions, as well as a great gift the Lord has blessed me with. Leader Treks is the perfect way to begin taking my passions into the professional world.

I have never been tested financially with Christ before, and I just successfully raised nearly $2,000 with the support of incredible friends and family. It is a big step of faith to count on other people financially, but ultimately I know that the Lord will provide, support, and take care of me. He always does. And a huge thanks and round of applause to all my friends and family members who were able to financially support me, thank you so very much!

I am in Seattle right now, visiting my brother Alex before I head to the LT office in Chicago. We will head straight up to MI for a cabin/camp to have some time together to train. I am extremely excited to meet and hang out with all the LT staff. They seem so great.

I will have the ability to hop on the computer every Saturday night to update a blog and get some school work turned in! Feel free to contact me, but know I wont get back until Saturdays.

Thank yo all so very much for your involvement in my life, and encouragement as I continue this summer on another adventure the Lord takes me on!

Love all you guys,

Peace and Blessings

Isaiah 58:9-12 <---- check it out!

Starting Fresh

2010-04-11T19:46:00.011-06:00

Well Well Well. How do I even begin this? I think I will just start with the beginning of January. School started up again for me and I was not a happy camper. Going from livin' on my own, to being told what to do and how to do it was not working. But, I went along with it and it hasn't turned out too bad. The first month back was easily the worst. I never realized that my experience in Iceland would really show my who my true friends are, but it did. I left Monument having people at the house day and night and constantly doing something with a lot of people, to come home and have to search and search for just one person to hang with. Not exactly my style. :) ---side note, I'm going to just start another story into this, so try to follow--- While I spent lots of time alone and hanging with the family, I decided I would try to memorize a verse each week. So I started with Ephesians 5:2 as I randomly turned to it. :) "Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that." Love that, don't you? So, I started to go by that more often.

Some awesome stuff began falling into place in my life. Finally decided on a college after an incredible visit in January. I will be playing soccer at Indiana Wesleyan University and studying Recreational Management. My dream job outside of college is to be a camp counselor. IWU is absolutely perfect for me. Everything about it, ok well maybe not that its in Indiana, but i know that is where I'm supposed to be. Maybe God will place some corn children into my life! :) The team was everything and more that i had hoped for also. I stayed with Kylie Dial and spent a lot of time with Megan Marshall. Both awesome, incredible girls. I cannot thank them enough for helping me make my decision to be there. I loved the week i was there, Summit. Once a week each semester guest speakers come in and do a morning and night 7 day lesson thing. I loved it. And Chapel was a perfect combination of Forest Ridge CC and New Life. Therefore, perfect! The coach is also super friendly. He is helping me possibly get hooked up with the rock wall there and maybe a job already! can things get any better?!?! i submit that they cannot! I still give and get encouraging txts and messages from the girls at IWU. Praying for them and being prayed for! So awesome!

Tuesday mornings there is a prayer meeting that takes place in Ms. Ferguson's room at 7am. There is a solid group of about 15-20 who have committed to come each week, then also people who come in and out. However, that solid group, I feel, has become the prayer warriors of Lewis Palmer. All year, especially this semester, we have been praying for a movement, a revolution, in the school. The mornings are powerful prayers full of passion and scripture. Austin Hawk, a dear friend, and I have shared on numerous occasions that God is doing work; strong, powerful, hidden, and meaningful. A few of us felt that in our hearts God was about to make a huge move. Not knowing what it was, we remained faithful and obedient to Him. The Saturday night before spring break, there was an event called Unify. It invited all the youth groups in Monument to come together for a night of worship. And it was just that. A night filled of unity and community. My friend Austin Hawk spoke. He preached on unity. God is doing work at Lewis Palmer and in Monument, and Austin is intoned to it. The scripture that he used during his message was none other than from the book that has been on my heart the past few months, Ephesians chapters 4 and 5. He read that, and I could feel God tugging on my shirt saying, "Yes, this is it! Become one and all I want you to do is love as my son loved you." It was time for something big to happen. Spring break was great, spent it in Mexico with my family, until the night I came home. My driveway was snowed in, so I got dropped off at Austin's house to hang out and watch bball with my friends until we could reach the house. About 45 min after my arrival, Tyler Yoder got a weird text message from a number in Cali saying RIP Levi Patrick. Levi Patrick was our dear friend, there was no way. We made a few frantic phone calls, just to find out it was true. No one believed it.
Saturday, May 2, 2010 Levi Patrick died in a car accident on his way home from a road trip from California with his friends.

The first day back from break was hard, really hard. Being a peer counselor, i took on the responsibility of being strong for my classmates that needed it most. The school auditorium was open all day for kids to come in if they couldn't sit in class. There were sheets of paper on the stage where they could write something to the family, to Levi, or just a prayer. Some incredible things were written. We also plugged in an ipod for the day. Worship music all day long. ok so i'm going to say just a little bit about Levi. He was a servant of God, a leader, a friend, a son, a brother, a homecoming king, a football star, elite athlete, gentalmen, colorado boy. Above all his many attributes, Levi is remembered for his heart for God. Even those who don't believe in God know this. They see what a man of Christ is capable of doing. Levi's death has saved so many lifes. We prayed for a movement, an awaking, and we got in. There is no doubt in my mind that we have recieved it. Thank you, God. Ok, so in the auditorium we had worship music playing and there were hundreds of students, facalty, and outsiders in and out throughout the day. Prayer, songs, readings, fellowship, tears, comforting, writing, and so much more took place in there on that monday. I witnessed so many miricales happen.

God is moving in some pretty crazy ways. Some of the stuff i can't even find words to describe to you right now, but i know what he is doing. One of the biggest and most evident things i saw God working on were different relationships. People realized that life is too short, and its not worth not being "ok" with someone. Broken relationships were mended. Old break-ups that resulted to not talking didn't exist any longer, and old friends with grudges became impossible to find. I saw one inparticular that broke my heart and all i could do was smile. My friend Jermey Dill has not spoken with a guy Richie Eaton in a long time. Jermey was sitting down in the front of the auditorium and Richie walked in, no one knew what would happen next. Jermey stud up, they starred at eachother for a moment or two, then simply embraced eachother with tears. As easy as that! God does things we can't understand and we would have never been able to, isn't that why he is the Almighty God? There are numerous stories similar to this one. I am a part of that number. AJ and I dated, broke up when i left the country. I was home and he had moved on to a new girl. Fine with me, not a problem at all, but for some reason we supconsciensly decided that talking and socializing was not an option. We broke that silent agreement quickly. Its just not neccassary in a world like this. Hundreds, i mean hundreds, of relationships are now standing at a much better place. God taught us that its pointless and not worth it to not be on good terms with someone. We are all human, we all have the same feelings, why act like thats different than what it really is? (Phil 5:2 ..to iron out their differences and make up. God doesn't want his children holding grudges.")

As that day moved on, i was feeling pretty drained by lunchtime. For some reason God gave me a strong heart and i remained composed for the day. Dispite the envirment i was in. However, lunchtime was slow and most of the other pc's had left to grab lunch. So i decided that i really needed a pick me up and a refreshment. So i went to the back chairs and i opened up to my bible in Philipians. I started reading. Read half of the book. God's timing is incredible beceause the begining of the book was about loving people and living a life like Jesus lived. That message is alive and will never be stripped from us, so we must use it. also on how we must rejoice together. that everything we do we must do it readily and cheerfully. I stopped reading in the middle of chapter 3 where Paul wrote on knowing God personally. "All things i once thought were so important are gone from my life. Capred to the high prvilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything i once thought i had going for me is insignificant." Phil 3:7-8 It was no accident that i chose to stop reading at that moment. The next hour or two had so many conversations with poeple on that exact subject, not sparked by my words but by theirs. God is sooo good! His timing is unbelievable. A number of girls came up to me and asked if we could start a bible study because.... then they would break down before Christ. All i could do was smile. The whole day people were morning and grieving for Levi, all i could do was rejoice in what Christ has done! I decided to pick up my bible again and finish Phil because it had so much to offer earlier. The rest of the book is about focussing on the goal and prayer. God spoke throgh Paul saying that, "If any of you have some else in mind, something less than total commitment, god will clear your blurred vision- you'll see it yet!" That is exactly what He has done with Levi. He has cleared our blurred vision and made it obvious that we are living for Him, nothing else. Nothing else even matters. Paul also wrote about prayer. " Dont fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray...Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come settle you down. It's wonderful wht happens when Christ displaces worry at the cener of your life."

Prayer is powerful. i beleive, scratch that- i know, that the silent prayer for someone is more powerful than prayers outloud for individuals. Don't get me wrong, praying for and with people is important and very much so needed, but God is a goofy God were we can pray al the time in our heads, and God will reveal things in crazy crazy ways. It has been so incredible to see kids i never would have imagined at this time in their lives to turn them around and follow Jesus! I lvoe it! The school is moving, and its not just students. Staff members are touched, changed, and encouraged. its a pretty cool thing to seee happening. Some of it is a slow process, really slow. but that is what we are meant to do, plant the seeds no matter how small they are. Now, i feel like this seed planted is slightly bigger than a mustard seed... but hey, what ever works ya know?

As that week moved on, i continued to see God working. No shock there. Nate Matteson, Jake Oakey, and Chase Yaegar were in the car with Levi. 3 walking miricals right there. Chase walked out of the hospital with some scratches and a concussion, Nate spent a few days with extra care just to leave with 27+ broken bones and head injuries, and Jake walked out with scratches, head injuries, and painful images in his head. I have known all three guys throughout high school, jake since 8th grade, and nate since 5th grade. The Matteson's and my family have soccer, summer boating, and family function memories together. Hearing that Nate came so near to death was hard to grasp, but knowing he and Christ are so solid now was quite the refresher. Chase, I think, was a believer before the accident but ever since has been a different man living for a different reason. And Jake, Jake is a morman. One of the sweetest guys I know. I got the chance to really sit down and be real with Jake. Scratches will heal, but pain and images take a different medication to remove. Jake never blacked out during that accident and got up running to help his friends, only to find one of them already gone. Imagine... I can't even. I did my best to comfort Jake and guide him through some of the trama. There is only so much a friend can do in a situation like this... The following week, Zack Meerkreebs (a dear friend to the Matteson's) started a bible study at the Matteson's on Tuesday nights. The first few weeks we had nearly 20+ people there. Eager to hear about this guy named Jesus that Levi was so in love with.

Levi's funneral was incredible. Held at New Life Church and packed full. Hundreds of people were there. The speakers and musicians all did so well. The conclusion of the ceremony was unbelievable. The pastor called for anyone who wanted to commite their life to Christ to the front steps. Nearly one hundred people, students, teachers, and adults came to the stairs to be saved. Just what Levi would have wanted. All he wanted to do was to save just one life, just one. His legacy will forever live, and the hundreds of lives he saved will forever thank him. God smiles towards Levi. I had yet to shed a tear over Levi's death. I had been so awstruck over God's movement and all that he had been doing that smiles powerfully replaced any sort of grieving or pain. One week after the funneral I decided to attend New Life sunday service with Bobby and the Howards. The end of the service Pastor Brady Boyd touched on the funneral service ealier that week. He didn't spend but 45 seconds on the subject, but for some reason it got to me. I couldn't stop crying! Now if you dont know me, I am not a cryer, especially in public. Nope, not me at all... but I just could not stop! I left realizing that I need to put some focus on myself and stop trying to make everyone better. I learned that everyone needs to take care of themself sooner rather than later in order to be a real help. Also, learned that you must greive; and that it is an ok thing to do...

The Lewis Palmer High School Class of 2010 became one after that saturday night. Not only did walking through the halls feel different, but it felt real. Love is a powerful word, I have always known that, but I am not sure I have ever seen it alive the way it was at school the last few months of high school.

God does wonders, His timing is simple perfection, and His love is extravagant.

Ephisians 5:1-2
Watch was God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He did not love in order get get something from us but he loved to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

2010-02-06T23:51:00.001-07:00

Sorry this is like 2 months late, didnt notice i never got it out....

Ok to start off, wanted to inform you of where I am. I am in a hotel in Seattle and its like 4 am. I left Iceland 5pm Iceland time. Landed in Seattle 445pm Seattle time. (went back in time- weird) and had to run to catch the denver flight that took off at 550…. Got there THREE minutes late. THREE minutes!! Gates closed at 540 and it was exactly 543. Pretty discouraged. But I was with my friend Toni who has been in Iceland to and we had been praying all day that we would make the flight. And secretly I thought I knew that we would never make it. But then she said something on one of the trains that made my mind change. She said, what is prayer without faith? She is totally right. So I changed my mind set and went go to the gate, we were actually way closer to making it than I thought we would ever be. Then I realized God was just slapping me in the face. He totally revealed to me exactly what Toni said. What is prayer without faith? I thought that was really cool. So, by that time it was about midnight my time and exhausted. Had to get a shuttle to a hotel across the street and book a room. Crashed in bed at 7 o’clock Seattle time and about 2 am my time. I woke up at 1130 pm Seattle time and totally ready to start my day! It was about 830am Iceland time and my body is so used to getting up at that time. So for that past like 5 hrs I have been wrestling in bed and now just wide awake. Haha. Its 4 am here! Funny funny. Prayer is becoming more and more important to me. It has always been there, but never to this extent. I have developed these habits when I’m walking to the bus or through downtown in Iceland that I just pray and think and talk to God. It’s awesome. He just wants to know what’s up. So why not tell him. Haha. This last month has been especially focused and narrowed down on faith for me. And what perfect timing for God to slap me in the face then on the last day of my travelings to make me 100% sure of how important prayer and faith go hand in hand. One won’t work right without the other.

But…. This last week has been great. I landed home from Poland on Monday night. Uh sort of a mix up at the airport that was really frustrating. Toni and I mixed up who was picking us up from there. My family dropped off and hers was supposed to pick up. IDK things just didn’t work out. –but it was all good. We took a bus into Reykjavik which then we had to connect onto Straeto to get back home. Worst part of that was that I was on the first buts and drove literally right past my backyard. I mean I could see inside my house, but had to pass it. Then had to stay on that bus for 30 more min, switch buses and ride another 45 min… so I was RIGHT THERE but couldn’t get off, talk about frustrating. Anyway, had a lovely dinner with the family then off to bed! Tuesday I headed into Glaetan that Christian café and hung out with a few of my friends there. Then my friend Beta picked Toni and I up from there and we went to her sister’s saloon and …. And I CUT MY HAIR! Yup. It’s virtually all gone. I think I cut like 10 inches or something. Really short. I have always said I wanted to do that, so decided to do it while in Iceland. But, I haven’t told anyone and home and pretended my skype camera didn’t work so no one at home knows… it’s going to be a cool surprise. Then that night helped Eric St. Clair sort of with the Tuesday night dinner things that he and his wife Kati put on. Kati was outta town so Toni and I kinda helped out, maybe, a little. Eric and Kati are the couple that live about Glaetan in a really cool loft. Really awesome couple, with an incredible testimony. They’re awesome! But every Tuesday night they make a dinner for 10 or 15 people and just have fellowship with whoever shows up. They just have an open invitation and love it when new people come, old people come. Just totally open and really cool. Wednesday I spent a lot of the day just hanging out with my friends and sort of saying goodbye. Cook Steinar Mac’n’Cheese. Went to the big church tower with Stebbi. Stopped by Colby and Annie’s place but missed them. Just sort of making my rounds saying buy to people. I wasn’t much of a fan of that. I am really gunna miss these people. At around 2 Toni and I took Eric out for a lunch and that was my goodbye because I knew I wouldn’t see him again. Its hard saying bye to people. I really honestly am not a fan of it. But, just means that we will have to meet back up someday in life! Excited already for that day to come! That night I spent time with my handball team. We went to café aroma for dinner and just had a nice time together, eating, talking, joking. It was really fun to be with everyone, but not the best when we had to say goodbye. I will really miss those girls as well. They became girls that I really enjoyed spending time with as well and got to know pretty well. So I know that I will most definitely have to meet up with them again someday too. They had practice at 9 so they all had to go, and I cant remember what I did actually… o well. But I do remember that about 1030 I sat on the coach with Tomas to watch some futbol and feel asleep in a second! But I was awaken around 1115 by the doorbell. 4 girls from the team came to the house with 2 sweatshirts and a jersey. I guess coach Aegir was going to give it to me but I didn’t make it to practice. That was really really nice of him. I got one Haukar sweatshirt and two Icelandic jerseys. Really awesome! Thursday was really fun for me. I packed some in the morning then went out around Hofnarfjordur and just went shopping and touring the things that I always wanted to do but never got to. I went into the Viking Hotel. I passed that 3 times a day and never went in it, so I did. And just sort of had a relaxing day taking the bus places and spending time alone. I had said my goodbyes to pretty much everyone by then, and didn’t want to have to do it again. Haha. Got back home around 2, and because it was thanks giving day my family decided to celebrate it. So Erla, Anna, and I began cooking at 2 and didn’t stop until about 730. It was really fun to spend time in the kitchen with the ladies cooking. We actually pulled off a pretty decent thanksgiving dinner. Not too shabby if you ask me! The whole family sat down together and ate. Grams and Gramps too. Then after dinner around 10 Erla and I went for a walk in search for some mountain grass. A while ago on a hike we got some and made this really good tea with it. So I wanted to get some to bring home to bobby because I knew he would love it! We spent like 2 hrs in the middle of a cold windy night searching for this stuff, finally got some and then in 2 min at the airport it gets taken away! Of course!!! I was sooo upset! That was bobby’s gift! So lame…. o well, that’s life right? But if it weren’t for that grass, I wouldn’t have learned what it’s like to pray with faith, real faith. So Toni keeps reminding me that if it takes a missed plane to learn a lesson like that, then it’s worth sleepless night in Seattle.
I don’t really know how to end all of this. There are way too many things to say and do and tell and describe from my time away. I have learned, changed, seen, and experienced so much. Too much probably! Lol. I really have enjoyed myself, to the max. I loved Iceland so much. I loved everything about it; to good and the bad. Both times I needed, and both times I learned something from them. If I could tell you everything I would, but I can’t. Now get me with bits and pieces, that I can do. So I guess this just means that you’ll have to sit down with me on more than once occasion and we can talk about life and how good God is. How does that sound? I cannot wait to be home and give all my friends the hugs and stories that have wished I could have been giving them throughout my entire time here. I am just so happy to be coming home, and more thankful than ever for the place I liv

Coming to an End....

2009-11-23T12:52:00.003-07:00

Well well....My time in Iceland rapidly made it to the final four days. I have lots to do, way to much to do actually, before I head home to the God all Might United States! O how I miss America! o dear. Time to come home, eat some Chipotle and Red Robbin! Yummy. Hoping to get Toni's little brother to get us Red Robbin as we get off the plane then stopping at Chipotle on the way home. haha! We shall see...But I have to update you on the rest of the Poland Trip.

I think I left off with our really cool game against the senior national team. That was an incredible day. Very fun. Tuesday I do believe. Then on Wed we traveled in the morning time to a city called Szczyrk where one of the four Olympic Training Centers in Poland is located. We took the bus there and it was about an hour and half drive or so I would guess. I hadn't been feeling to well the night before and I think I had a fever throughout the night. So on the bus I got really sick and pretty sure my fever picked up again. I haven't been sick in a long time, forgot how sucky it is. Anyway, we made it to this little "mountain" town with a small ski resort somewhere I think. (mountains about the size of mnt herman-not too big)We got our rooms put together, I got an awesome room with Molly and Kate. Both incredibly awesome girls. Love em to death. We had a practice in the afternoon right in the complex at the gym there. Really nice gym. Practice went well dispute me being sick. On Thursday we had two practices. At breakfast coach Marco and Dan Bush (trainer)suggested that I didn't practice and got healthy. So I had even intention on listening to them, however I rested up some after breakfast and felt that running around wouldn't do any harm. If anything it would just be good for me. So I went with everyone to practice and felt I actually did quite well. Then afternoon practice was a different story though. O well, guess you can't be on your game alll the time. I started to get really excited for Friday afternoon. The morning slowly came after a rough rough night. Not sleeping much because of a cough and a fever is not fun. Light 1 hr morning practice then game in the afternoon. We rode a bus just 15 min to a gym in town with the junior Norway team to compete against them. They are world champions... so basically the worst team in the world had to play the best team in the world... guess how that one turned out!? haha. Nei joke. It wasn't that bad... We held our own pretty nicely actually the first little bit. But they played a 4 2 defense and the girls that played most have never played against that. So that was a total disaster. Just about every goal they scored was off of a fast break. I played a few min in the first half and about 13 or 14 min in the second half. The last few min of the game we had two girls get a 2 min. That means we play down a man for 2 min. So I was one of the lucky 4 that got to play the ending of a game against the best team in the world 4vs6.... Lucky eh? But before they fouled out we did get 4 goals in. The final score was something like 11-48 or something. Pretty high score for handball. But we learned a lot and that is exactly why USA went. Saturday I started to feel a little better by morning. Rough night again, hate that. We had our last practice of the tournament, another short one in morning. Around 4 we played Czech Republic junior national team. That game actually turned out to be a little bit closer until second half. We played at the gym in town again. This actually was an upsetting day for me. I was looking forward so much to play Czech because my grandpa is Czech and so just playing our heritage was a cool idea to me. So I was really ready and excited, and turns out I am the only player that didn't get a chance to play. Anca thinks that Marco may have just forgot about me, guess we will never know that truth. I spoke with him later that night about it and he said that jugs sometimes games just don't go your way. He mentioned that Sunday's game would be a great game for the players who didn get to play much this week play a lot. So I was looking forward to that. Then on Sunday we just had an early game against Poland Junior National team. It was held just in the gym at the OTC that we had been staying at. The game started off with the starters and we were doing really well. Half time score was only 7-16 or something like that. It was a close game that we kept ourselves in. Our goals Toni and Sophie did bomb that game!!! So I was expecting to play second half because that is what Marco said he was going to do, that didn't happen. He kept the Europeans in for most of it. With 15 min left the bench finally got to go in. And just my luck, my shin splints would not go away. They were bothering me all week but the pain would escape my mind once I started playing. But this game was really bad for some reason. My vertical was maybe 2 inches, they were so painful. So I pulled myself off after about 7 min or so. I let them get so bad I couldn't straighten my feet. Not goood. I'm used to playing on nice soft grass, not hard courts. So the last two games did no go well for me. However, USA improved dramatically each game. It was really fun to be a part of and watch and see and cheer on. Each game got rougher and rougher.

I learned a lot in the 9 days I was in Poland. Learned even more about handball, as always, but beyond the sport, I learned a lot about myself. I went through some pretty intense emotions while I was there. First off, I was wearing a USA jersey. Now tell me that doesn't just rock your world in itself. Hearing the anthem play after your name was called before each game was just a feeling I will never be able to explain to you. Truly indescribable. Then coming together as a team before each game, wishing another country (not just team but country) good luck and then doing a USA cheer was awesome too. Really cool. So playing with those emotions was a task in itself. Then I feel like I showed a lot of character playing through the swine flu. I am pretty positive that is what I have been fight because its been in my house in Iceland for about 2 weeks now. I was bound to get it, I think that just traveling and lots of activity over did it and I finally caved in. Perfect timing eh? I learned a lot about mind games. If you let your thoughts win and take you over, there is no hope. But when you stay strong and focused, you're golden. I had to really focus down on that with my confidence this week. I do not feel like the coaches were able to see my full capability of handball because of various reasoning's. Didn't play in my position I have been training in for 3 months, was sick, and had shin splints. All lame factors, but alive and real to me. And because some of those things came into action when I didn't get to play in the only game that was personal to me, it crushed me. I had go dig deep and remember what I was doing in Poland. Had to remember that I wasn't there for my own glory and satisfaction. Had to remember that God brought me to Poland to glorify him and to serve him. I wore a USA on my jersey representing Him, not me, not even USA, but God. I was broken down to an altime sports low that would have been extremely hard to pull myself out of. Thinking it was merely impossible actually. Then Saturday night I got to the hotel; been holding back tears for about 2 hours now. Tears of anger, embarrassment, and frustration. Then I got an email. An email from mommy that God had perfect timing on. Mom's always know best and know when their baby's need the extra boost. She sent everything I needed to hear. And I couldn't hold my tears in any longer, but they weren't tears of those bad and hurtful feelings I was feeling.They were tears of pure joy and satisfaction. God is good. Tha is all I could say. God is good. He is so real, and is so powerful. He comes through to us when we need him most, we when think nothing else is important and we have a confidence radar at zero, God shows up in the weirdest yet most apparent ways. Its impossible for me to not believe in this Almighty God. He works in ways that I cannot descibe. He is incredible. He built up my confidence in a matter of minutes. Something that probably would have taken a long time, if ever at all. I was shown that no matter what happens, what is said, or how things turn out God is always the one in the end that matters. And he is the one that all the glory goes to, all the joy goes to, and all the satisfaction goes to. People, coaches, teammates, fans, referees may/will crush you and break you down, but that is when you have to let all those words and actions brush off you shoulders and at the end of the day lift them all up to God. We have to dig deep within ourselves to find the true meanings of htings. Whether its a love of a game, or a friendship, or a desire, want, wish. Whatever it may be, with God's help, the search and execution is only possible with God. He is good.

I have 4 more days here. 4 days that I have filled to the max with getting friends, shopping, dinners, practices, and last minute adventures in before I head home. It is going to be busy, hectic, and memorable. I cannot wait! I will write one last time just before I head home... Pray for safety, fun, and excitement for my last few days in Iceland! Thanks. love an dmiss you all! xoxo-hollinator!

Poland Baby!!

2009-11-17T15:46:00.004-07:00

This is a day late because the internet is off and on here... but this is from last night.

So, I have a few weeks to update you on. I think I will keep it short though.

Handball has been great. We flew to Akyerir. Not sure if I mentioned that a while ago or not. Think I did. It was fun. We went with no parents on a little 9 row propeller plane. 45 min flight through the “mountains” of Iceland. The flight was fun because we were level with the mountain tops the whole time. Flew next to a Glacier. Ya, that was cool. Then played against KA. We were tied 10 to 10 at half time. Came back really strong and then got ahead by 3 points with 5 min left. Ended up losing 20-22 because the last min and a half they got 3 brake aways and caught back up with us, and in the end defeated us. Coach Aegir was not a happy camper… Even though I couldn’t understand him, I knew he was not happy. Got back home around 6 o’clock and had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. Then not really sure what else I have been up to in regards to handball. Just practices mostly. I only got one more game in before I left the other day for Poland. So that was sort of a bummer. But lots of practices and hanging out before and after with the team. I love the girls so much! A lot of fun. I also have been doing separate work outs in the mornings at the gym. Just cardio and light lifting on my own. There is a guy that is ALWAYS there who hangs with me for a little bit. I swear he lifts like 5 times a day everyday! It’s crazy… But mostly just training and watching and learning for handball. It’s all good.

I have been doing tons of stuff… Meeting a lot of really cool people through Glaetan and Toni and my club and the bus. It’s just really fun to meet new people then exchange “facebook” info and meet up. As much as I sometimes hate facebook, it really has become such a powerful resource. Meet and Indian man named George who owns a restaurant named Indian Mango. He invited Toni, Petra, and I for a dinner on the house one Monday night. That was incredible. I got like a 50$ dinner and he was soo happy to have us there and buy it for us. It was awesome. Really genuine and joyful dude. I also have been tagging along with Toni at a Christian café called Glaetan. The people that live in the loft above are Katie and Erik. Totally awesome and amazing people. In their 30’s and have such an incredible testimony. Ask and I’d love to share some if it sometime. But Erik and I’s sense of humor is identical so its great to hang with him. And Eyore we call him and Petra and Guca. Just lots of fun awesome people at the café. Jason is this guy from south Africa, “man”. (He is always saying “man” after everything) “Ya you know that’s really cool, man.) I love it! But he and I have the same bus stop so we are always getting on and off together. He is cool because he is always asking questions and I can just tell that he really enjoys learning about new things. That’s awesome. Then there also my “regular” friends. Stebbi, Steinar, Halli, Beta, Elsa, Viktoria, Gudron, Svanquete, just whoever. Love hanging with them. O!! I met a guy names Bjorn. He is really cool. He took me out one night and had climbing rope and harnesses and we went climbing on this tower thing. Then walked around in the biggest “forest” in Reykjavik (which took like maybe 40 min) not big at all. Then drove around a bunch and just toured the city of all the places I haven’t been and talked a ton. We left at 8 oclock and got home at about 1 am. We went to an aluminum factor where he works every summer. The 3 buildings are 1 kilometer long. They are huge! We parked for like 20 min and looked over the harbor and across Hofnarfjordur. Drove 10 min outside the city limits to see if the northern lights were out… they weren’t. Um…o! we drove to the presidents house. OK this is crazy. So there weren’t any gates or anything like that. So we drove literally right up to the house. And we could have parked in his garage. I mean I couldn’t believe it. I asked if we were allowed to do this, he said, “Ya! We can knock on the door for a cup of tea if we wanted to.” It blew me away. Anyway, that was a fun night. My handball team got me tickets to go to a rock festival with them one night. Really fun. Just lots of music and dancing with my team. Good times. IDK, I have been really busy. O ya, Toni met some people on the bus a few weeks ago and one Friday they called and invited her for dinner and a bible study. I was with her so we both went. They are really awesome people. Kolbi and Annie. They have two daughters Darcy and Haley. They are here in Iceland form the states for 2 years so far just serving the Lord. They hang out at the university and just invite students to come for dinner and the bible study and stuff. So we went and had a lovely lamb dinner then an awesome bible study after. There were 3 other college girls there. One from the states and 2 from China. It was really cool. Awesome bible study on 1 Peter too.

Last weekend Halli took Toni and I out west. Not exactly sure all the places we went. But saw a glacier. We couldn’t go onto it because one the daylight is extremely limited by now, (11am – 330pm daylight) and two the road to the base was in no condition to drive to it. Saw the black sand beach. That was really really cool. I wish we could have stayed at some of the places longer, but we had a time crunch because of the daylight. We also went to these cliffs… wow those were incredible. I must say that after that experience, I have not been to a cliff before that. I mean it was an actual CLIFF. Not any steep hill or slight drop off to 20 feet. No! This thing was a cliff over the ocean. Into straight DEATH! Haha! I liked it… yes mom… I did dangle my feet over it. And I laid down and put my head over it to look down, but I am still alive so it was totally worth it.  There is so much more to tell… I don’t want to tell it all over stupid text online. So I guess that when I get home (which is extremely soon) you will all just have to join me for a long storytime session or just ask questions all the time!

The Present…
So I am currently in Poland actually… With the USA Junior National Team. The journey started, for me, on Saturday night. Toni slept over because we had to leave for the airport at 5am. So we went outside to do something and the northern lights were out. So we took the car and drove just outside city limits (only 10 min drive or so) to them better. It was so incredible. We saw this line in the sky and just knew it was the northern lights “warming up”. Then after about 15 min these green, yellow, and purple-blue lights started appearing and forming and stuff. It was truly indescribable. I couldn’t capture them on camera, but will never forget how they look. It was awesome. That was at about midnight. So we finally slept at 130 or so. Then the airport and flying and everything went well. Flew into Frankford, Germany airport. Had to get our bags and check back in with Lot Polish Airlines. That was a job in itself to find the check-in booth. That airport is crazy big! We sort of got ourselves in a maze/moosh pit trying to find it. There was a huge Arabian plane or something going and got totally intermingled and mixed with a bunch of Arabians that didn’t know English. Uh, that was a mess. But finally got to the gate and sat at this tv bar thing. Talked with the worker who was a 20 yr old German boy. Very nice to us. Knew we were Americans right away (Toni and I, could tell something different about Morgan) We were asking about the internet connection because he wanted to add us on facebook. So I tried with my laptop and couldn’t get it. So he said just come back here and use ours. I was like uh wont you get in trouble, he assured me that someone does it all the time and it’s fine. So of course right as I log in another employee that I guess treats everyone like he is the boss yelled at him. I felt so bad. But hey, I was just following what they told me! Woops. O well. And I guess it didn’t get Marcel in trouble, just miss communication or something. No big deal but it was funny. Then Steph, Anca, Marco, and Dan Bush come to the gate at about 13 o’clock or so. That was sooo nice to see some familiar faces. It’s been 3 months! So I like that. We played some foursquare and all that fun stuff. Some Portuguese people made a bet on me that I could juggle 15 times with the handball. So the dude asked if I could for him so he could win the bet… I got pretty nervous (nei joke) but I did it! Buuya! Then I talked with them and they were coming to Poland also for 2 weeks work. So they said they might stop by and watch us play or something. That could be cool I guess! Then last night we made it to the bus with the team and to the hotel just fine. I’m rooming with Toni…. haha! Got some USA warm-ups last night. That is still crazy for me. But get this. So practice this morning at 10 and we got to the gym and there was this huge sign and millions of posters. They were advertising our game against the Poland SENIOR National team tomorrow… Wow. This is the top, highest, best of the best in Poland. They are number one in all of Poland. The senior national team, meaning Olympic team. That’s crazy I am even in the same room as them let alone on the same court. Ugh it is blowing my mind. And never EVER have I had that much advertisement for anything that I have been a part of. I found out that the stadium is already sold out and it is getting broadcasted on live Polish television. Wow… I didn’t think I signed up for this. And it’s for the game tomorrow… which isn’t even part of the tournament that we are here for. It’s supposed to just be a friendly to help us out. But it’s a big deal here. The team is staying in our hotel… man they are some big girls. I mean big girls. We have a freakin 14 year old on our team. This is not ok!! Haha. But o well, hey it’s totally worth the experience and how else are we supposed to get better? It will be great. The facility is awesome! Really cool. It is like some of the gym’s in Iceland. Just different seating, but same deal. At our practice there were two younger teams that came just to watch us practice… I am still, even after Iceland, shocked at how much of an influence the states are. It’s a cool feeling to be a part of it. The afternoon practice went really well. Then had dinner and I just got out of a meeting with the team. The oldest on the team Jen is really awesome and felt that we needed to do a quick chalk talk. So we went through just basic defense and offense for those who haven’t been playing in clubs and in Europe. There is a huge gap in the players, but we are adapting. I think right now I am backup center back. Which I am more than happy with. I went in expecting nothing and going to be greatful and humble if I receive anything. So, can’t wait for tomorrow. We have a morning training then the game is at 4 o’clock! O dear…. Wish us good luck. It’s the first time in many many years (over 15 or 20) that USA and Poland played each other. And first time USA has played on Poland’s home court. So, making some history here! It’s the first event since the USA and Poland Handball Federations have made peace and agreement, so we have to show lots of respect and just learn from them! I can’t wait to hear the national anthem while standing on the court in a USA jersey… wow. This is really happening. God is good.

Miss and love you guys sooo much. I leave Poland the 23rd for Iceland. Then leave Iceland the 27th for home!! Can’t wait! Miss you guys soo much. Thanks for the support. And maybe check out the Polish television broadcast on line or something tomorrow. May get some of the game or something not sure! Xoxoxo.

-------------------------------------
all of ^ That info was from yesterday. So today... we had a practice at 10 o'clock. That went really well. There is so much to learn and so little time. Then back to the hotel for lunch and then nap or school or what ever the girls needed to do. I worked on some school. Got a lot done actually. Then....we got ready for our game at about 330. Went for a light walk and stuff. The Polish team is in the same hotel as us so we ran into them in the lobby, ended up taking a picture with them. That was awkward but really cool. Then we rode to the gym with them on the same bus and got together in the locker room with USA. That is were it really hit me... hit me that I was just about to step on the court to play for my country. For USA team handball. So incredible. I was just blow away. I man who am I to be playing at htis level? I am only 17 for crying out loud. But the gym was about half full when we started warm up. By game time, it was packed! The game was sold out! It was filmed on live Polish television. Cameras everywhere. Radio. Fans. Noise. Loud. Crazy. Before teh game stared we did the whole introduction thing... We walked out in a line and did individual introductions. That was really a feeling that I will never be able to express. Just hearing my name and number (19!) was realy cool. Then stepping out and waving to both sides. Man it was really really cool. Then we shuck hands with the Polish, exchanges gifts (stickers and pins) then we were off. We did pretty well the first little bit. Held our own for the first 10 min or so with only like 10-4 maybe. Then... as time went on we got dominated. Never ever gave up though. On the bus ride home we talked with them and they were so impressed on how hard we played all the way through. That is going to be our strongest part. And the fact that they are all pretty much over 21 or something and we are almost all under 21 is pretty cool. We didnt do too bad. I played about 15 min first half. But as right wing, that was a surprise. Got 3 shots off, didnt score! haha. but im learning. Then second half i played maybe 10 min, but as centerback. did alright, its hard to play wiht less experienced players. I am hoping I will get some time with some of the european girls in the tournament this weekend. I talked to Marco about htat, think the tournament will be better. Its hard for me to play with some of the girls now because I amsu used to playing at a high level in Iceland, that going down to a lower level is proving to be really hard. But, then again, I gotta work with what I have and make no excuses. Eh, it will be fine. Marco said that this game was just a learning thing for not only us, but for him as well. He played everyone. Wanted to see how we all played in different posistions and stuff. I think that the tournament will be a great place to prove what I really have learned. He said I will have plenty of chances to prove that.
Tomorrow we are traveling to the Polish Olympic Training Center to stay there for the remainder of the time. Not sure how long the bus ride is, but I think it will be fun! I will do my best to keep everyone updated. Check the blog when you can.

xoxoxo Holliday. #19 USA Team Handball.... <-- crazy huh?

Time is Getting Short

2009-11-03T02:53:00.004-07:00

Hey gang!! Well, have lots of stories, info, memories, and all of that jazz. But I have a lot of schooling to do today, so I may need to keep it short and sweet.

Handball-
It has been way awesome. Last week I just had normal practices that have been beneficial like always. Getting great technique and movement and drills and skills in. The whole shabang! We have been focusing mainly on a few plays that we are trying to get down to the science. Lots of crosses and fakes involved. Its really fun. My favorite thing in handball is when we pull a sweet play with lots of crossing and confuse the D like crazy and then find a wide open gap and get a totally free beautiful goal! That's what its all about. My coach is proving yet again to just be soo awesome! He talks with me after practices about things I'm doing well and things I can work on. A very awesome guy and full of encouragement. Rad dude - as we say it in Mo-town, CO!! We talked about doing a few extra sessions, but he and his wife just had a little baby girl about 2 and a half weeks ago, so he has is hands tied up at home. Understandable. ;) But that's ok, I still feel like I am gaining so much. Friday night was really fun with my team. Four of us went to Victoria's house and hung out for a bit. Just hanging with girls was fun, haven't done that in some time. Then her dad, who is awesome btw, made us a very nice dinner. Mexican food... so good! Her little brother is the cutest thing ever to. He can understand English, just not speak it. So he walked into the room with this crazy stare at me and asked me some question in Icelandic, I couldn't understand. Then he whispered to his sister, "Does the brown girl only speak English?" HAHAHA brown girl!!! It was really funny and one of the cutest things a four yr old has ever said I think. But then got in the hot tub (pottur) and chillaxed. After Saturday's practice a 4 girls met up at Haukup (the "walmart" of Iceland even though its not even close) in search of pumpkin carving. I somehow convinced a few girls to attempt to celebrate Halloween with me. But after our disastrous failure to find pumpkins anywhere, we went to my house and watched scary movies. Fun Fun day with the girls. Then on Sunday, we flew to Aeykiry (I think its called) to play a game. It is the second largest city in Iceland located about 6 hr drive north. The flight was only 45 min. It was really weird because we flew from Reyk airport, and there was absolutely NO security. I mean nothing. No metal detectors, anything. I am surprised they even checked our boarding passes, there was nothing! It blew me away. And the team traveled alone. No parents or anyone verifying everything was ok, coach was already up north and we just had to meet him. It was fun, just different ways then I am used to. I liked it. But when we got there we play against a team. Tied 10-10 at half. Second half we came out much stronger and were in the lead until the last 4 min. Tied once again at 20-20, they scored 2 points with just a min and half left. Big disappointment because I guess we needed to win that game. Coach was not happy... But, played really well, got lots of good goals in. The game was a good one, just needed a few touch ups here and there. We are working on it! I got the official email of going to Poland. That is going to be a blast! Nov 15-23! Be praying for me, I am really hoping I show well and get to play a lot!

Soccer- I am loving when I do get the chance to play because it has narrowed itself down just a little bit lately. Practice times have been all over the place this past week for handball, and handball is my priority here. But Monday, I did got to the fitness training and Tuesday did double back to back practices. We play indoor on a turf field. Just 7v7 5v5 and ball work stuff one those nights. It is really fun. I missed it Thursday night- bummer. Then Friday night got to go to another fitness practice. I am doing my best to get touches on the ball, but it has been pretty slim lately. Because Poland is coming up, my practice focus is on that. But, I will not lie to you, I love soccer so much. I am definitely having withdraws from it.

Social Life- Um... hm. What can I tell you about that? Not sure really, its been fun. Have actual friends not that I can just call and count on and hang out. Handball girls, school friends through Halli, coffee shop people. On Thursday I went with Toni to the place that she has been volunteering because she has no school. It is a Christian cafe that is really cool. I love the people there. We met this Indian man named George. He is one of the most humble men I have ever met. He has been in Iceland for 16 yrs and now owns his own restaurant called Indian Mango. He invited Toni, Petra, and I to dine there last Monday night (last night- and it was awesome! never tasted anything like it) on him. It was a very expensive dinner and he was so grateful that we came to eat it. Uh, really cool dude. Then Friday hanging with the handball girls was really fun, also again on Saturday afternoon was way fun. I miss just handing out with a group. I am all about the groups and lots of noise and chaos and people. Not getting too much of that here, which is a great thing and a bad thing. :) But then sat night I went to this Halloween dance at Broadway. It was really fun. Toni and I got dressed up as Mrs. Smith maybe, I am not really sure what we were actually. But we were definitely the most moderately dressed there, the girls were absolutely ridiculous! I couldn't believe it. We met up with this kid named Olli. He is really cool and we tagged along with him for the night. It was a good Halloween. Way different then trick-or-treating that's for sure. They don't even do that here. The most they do is go to shops dressed up and they have to sing to get candy, and not many do that and the ones that do are all under 10 yrs old. Its weird. But ya, that's a short short run down. I have turned out to be making quite a few friends. Steinar I probably see the most. He is sort of, well he is in love with Toni! haha. So I see lots of him. Andri and Frikki also tag along a bunch. Not much Frikkin anymore. Beta is awesome. She is so much fun, spunky crazy girl. Love chillen with here. Then there is like all of Halli's classmates; Orri, Glacier, Mushroom, Peter,... ugh can't remember the names. The names here are ridiculously hard to remember. The last three I just said are the translations because they are easier to remember! haha. O and Steppi. He is awesome. Takes me out for ice cream and cruzin and music and movies. He is really cool. He helped me with my computer last night. It has been so slow and virus filled, so he totally helped me out a bunch. It took like 2 and a half hrs, so we watched The Rock and fixed my computer. He is a nice kid. Elsa is also really cool. She is great and English and really wants to come to the states soon. Talks a lot! Gotta love it. There are all the people I have meet through Filadelphia (my Church) and through Glaetan (the christian cafe) as well. Tomas is the youth pastor, really cool dude. Petra, lovely 19 yr old girl. Eyore we call him. Petra's bf. funny kid. Katie and Eric who are married and basically live at Glaetan -live in the loft above it actually. They are really really cool down to earth people with a fire heart for God. It is fun to be around them. They joke and make fun of stuff just like back at home. Original form the states. Olli is sort of new, he is a handballer at FH and I met him just this weekend. We are going to hang out wed though. He is really nice, christian boy, lives in Hofnarfordur. Cool guy. Toni, Steinar, and I are gunna do a double date. haha! um... That's about it.

Family- My parents are still gone. Getting home on Thursday from a 3 week holiday in FL. Lucky Lucky ducks. But the house as been doing just fine without them. Rags has had a few people over on the weekends, Halli chills here all the time on the computer, and Erla has been sick since last week. I have been continuing to do dishes- not too happy about that one actually. I am NOT their mother! haha. No, it hasn't been too bad. O and Toni has been living here since Thursday night. Her family went on holiday until tomorrow so she has been crashing here. It has been fun, we have been working out in the mornings together at Hauker and doing devotions and stuff. She is really cool. We have been connecting tons. Which is good. :)

Well, that is once a gain a very general overview of my life here as you know it. It is still awesome! Getting busy more and more. I live for being busy, I go crazy without it. It fuels me, therefore, busy is good. School is hard of course, but still plugging along. All is well and appreciating all of your thoughts, prayers, and emails. Thanks everyone!

2009-10-24T07:54:00.003-06:00

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I am not the best at this whole thing. But anyway. Last weekend's handball was great....

Callie somehow got Toni and I an in with the U-20 national team's coaches and we got to do a weekend training thing with them. It was 5 practices and then watch a national game. So friday night we had a practices. Basically just played the whole time. They put me at left wing, I actually didn't do half bad down there considering I have never played there before. I scored some really great goals. Had and awesome fast break too, I was excited ;). Then on saturday we had a practice at noon and at 4. Again, we just played and did a few ball handling drills. To my surprise, I was keeping up with these girls fairly well. Then sunday we had an early morning, crack of dawn practice at 9am. You see, 9am on the weekends in Iceland is like 5am back home. It just doesn't fly so well with these people. And because I am basically a local and native (haha ya right) here now, I was a little sluggish to get out of bed too. But, the practice was well worth it. I was put on the second team of four and got a lot of play time in the scrimmages. In the afternoon there was a health speaker at Valur, but they told Toni and I to not come because it was all in Icelandic. But thats ok, it would have been boring cause we would of had no idea what was going on. But at 4 o'clock, all the US kids meet up at Valur for the Women's National game. They played Austria and destroyed them! It was really fun to watch them because we had front row seatings. Callie got us "season" tickets for free because we are representing the US. So we all sat together in the front row with our gray t-shirts on. The cameras were on us all the time. In between all stoppages and stuff. They were going to interview us at half time, but ran out of time so they just talked to Callie about us and she said a little about everyone and what not. It was pretty cool the have the cameras all around us for a little bit, and that wierd feeling that they are on you whenever hte play is stopped... kinda creepy. But cool I guess too. So ya, that was last weekend.... It went really well, opened my eyes to see sort of what I am going to be playing with in Poland hopefully. Looking more and more forward to that as the days count down. Then this past week, I just had soccer fitnes and handball practice monday, soccer kick around and handball practice tuesday, wed we played FH and beat them 28-22... great game. Then thurs until about 2 hours ago Toni and I have been at a summer house with a bunch of kids from Halli's (my host brother) class. They are on winter break and went out into the country for the weekend, we had a lot of fun just hanging out relaxing in the pools and hot tubs. Tomorrow I am playing IR at home. We should win I'm thinking.

Lets see.... what else have I done? Last weekend was really fun outside of handball. I hung out at my house with Ragnar's (host brother) friends friday night and got to go to Airwaves. Airwaves is a huge musical festival that happens once a year for about 8 days or something like that I think. But the tickets were sold out soo fast so I was disappointed I couldn't see any of it, but Raggi is a rapper and played in it one night so he has the ins there, so I got in with him. Really cool, just a bunch of people hanging around listening to really good artists from all around. There were different locations all around town with different people playing at different times all night long. Cool event. Then saturday I had a full day of handball and a relaxing night at home with Halli. He is a pretty cool kid. Then sunday after practice I went to church at Filadelphia. It was such an awesome service. There as this baptist speaker from Britian there. He had a lot of really aweosme powerful stuff to say. Talked a lot about purpose and stuff. He changed his serman for the international service for some reason. But he spoke on how we are all from different nations together in Iceland praising the same God. How cool is that?! We were all brought here for a reason. Somehow we ended up here, and that is not just by coincidence or any unconvience or antyhhig like that, God brought each and every one of us to Iceland for a purpose. IDK guess you sort of had to be in my head to understand what he was saying. But it hit home, it was really cool. Then we prayed for the pastor and his wife and the whole church (which started with 12 or so the first time I went and last week had around 40) had their hands stretched out praying over them. Then the guest pastor spoke about he has been to a lot of countries and preached, but this church had a burning fire and power to it. It was crazy cause that whole thing he was saying about how we are all in Iceland for a reason stuff... well in the back there was this man and his wife. And in hte middle of when he was talking he say them and said, "O there is a God" becuase this man and his wife were two pastors he spoke with in a country in Africa about 2 years ago. He hasn't seen him since, and then there is was the same weekend he was in Iceland... God is good. God is really good. Ok, enough about that service, but just know it was really cool. Then after that I meet up with everyone at Valur and we sat and watched the game I already told you about. That was fun.

Tuesday, Ton Ton and I got to take my families BMW into the country for a little site seeing. I definitely got lost getting out of the city. We went in the wrong direction for sure. But pulled over, asked for help, got laughed at, and then were on our way. We drove about 2 hrs in search for this waterfall called.... idk, somethign cool. The only way we knew where we were going was by google road maps b4 we left, and those were not accurate. ahha. So we just hoped we were doing it right. We were in the middle of the moon and finally came to this 20 person twon and asked if they knew were the waterfall was. To my surprise, we were headed in the right direction and only needed to drive about 15 more min. We did good! The waterfall was crazy beautiful!!! Really cool. I have never really seen anything like the waterfalls here. They are really really cool. Then we drove another 30 past that one to anothe waterfall, even bigger. Man, it blew me away. I can't even discribe these things, and the pictures do no justice to the real beauty or them. Wow. Thats all I can say. But the trip with Toni was really fun. Just ate food, listened to music, and talked. We are becoming bfffffffs. haha!

Then today I just got back from two nights at a cabin with a bunch of kids. That was fun. We left Thursday night and meet up with about 20 kids. Just hung out, played ping pong on a table, watched stars, hot tub, guitar, dance offs, cards, adventures into barns, pools, food, and nientendo. Just hung out. It was really fun. Made good friends with a few of them there. Good times good times.

But, overall I am doing well. Missing home of course, but doing well. My host parents have been in FL for 8 days now. I am still holding strong here at the house. I have been cooking and do the laundry. Walking the dog and getting the children to bed ontime as well! Ha, no it has been fun. I have been cooking and doing the dog a lot, but its been fun. Mom is definitely going to be using me to cook more back home I bet now. Thats ok, she needs a break from it. Its a lot of work to cook each night you know!? Well done to all mommies out there, you gals are champions.

Ok, I need ot take a nap ;). Love you all, and I wanna here how you guys are back home so write to me or email. Love love lvoe.

2009-10-07T17:35:00.004-06:00

Alright so I have gotten some feedback that I am not being detailed enough... here goes nothing.

So - I have been biking around this lake that is right on the other side of the road that is behind my house. The trail is on the way to my club where I practice, so really close. I have only gone around that three or four times, but its beautiful. I ride my bike around it usually, but I like to get off, leave it on the trial, and hike up the "mountian" next to it. Its fun cause I'm hiking on moss and rough rocks. Feels like the moon with carpet. Love it! I went climbing with Halli and Gunnar the other day. Just went to an indoor facility. My arms are really tired, haven't been climbing like that in a long time...all the walls but one were overhang type things, so it was really hard for me. Need lots and lots of upper body strength to get over the edge, forarms are KILLING me! But it was really fun and cool place.

More handball answers... I'm learning soo much. Each practice just gets better and better. I'm doing much better in defense. Attack is.... eh its getting better. I have been playing center back. Actually that is all I play. I can run a total of 5 plays left and right side. So that is good. Still need to learn more, but coach did give me a few of them on paper so thats good. On a scale from 1-10 i think that I have moved from a 2 to a 6 or so. That is pretty good I'd say. Still need lots of improvement, but definitely getting some things down. Foot work is much much better. League officially starts on sunday. Hoping for maybe 10 min in each half, if I'm lucky. That will probably only be in the easier games though. But watching it up close and personal is just as good to me.

I think it'd be easier if I could CONFIDENTLY say everyone's name correctly. I don't really know the exactly way to pronouce the names, only what I have picked up from hearing them, and let me tell you what... its a HARD LANGO!!! I went for about an hr long walk with Erla (lil sis) and she was teaching me a few things... I bet nearly 20 mins was spent on just one saying...its really hard to pronounce things. They use a totally different type of sound stuff... difficult for me. But I can say lots now.... thanks, sorry, excuse me, good day, good night, hello, my name is holly, light, dark, handball, line, here, there, food....some cool stuff. Few more things. I'm getting personal lessons from Erla. We go on walks together so its been really fun. I also have been knitting with Anna and Erla. I actually picked it up pretty quickly. I was surprised. I have about 6 rows finished on a 40 line. That probably makes no sense but o well.

I have been hanging out with a bunch of peole. Elizabeth has probably been the bestesteset for me. She is really fun and nice, lets me tag along with her a lot. Also, I have been chilling with Fridrik, Steinar, Andri, and Elsa a lot. They are really funny kids... doing stupid stuff all the time. Its a good time.

Ok, well thats enough. :)

More Awesomeness

2009-10-06T07:29:00.003-06:00

Sorry for not getting to you this weekend, I had a busy one!

But lets see.... last week's handball was awesome! Monday we lifted and did a few passing drills. Tuesday we practiced with the younger boy's team and scrimaged them the second half of practice. The first half was really fun! We had only 8 girls, so we did this really fun defensive drill. Girls had a group and boys had a group. and there were four girls about 10yrds apart, and one in the center of the circle (like the basketball cirle in middle of court), with the other other defending her. the object was to get the ball to either the hands of the circle runner, or get in placed on on the ground inside he circle. The defenders had to communicate "out" "circle" etc and when the ball was out in front of you, you had to go out and defend. It was god REALLY physical. Great practice. Then on Wed we had a friendly across twon... I got to play half of both halfs. We were losing when I came in first half, and ended the first half 17-13. Had a great goal! I intercepted a pass, took a fast break with 2v2, passed the ball off, and kept running, received it, and scored from he left side a right upper v! awesome goal! My skills are improving dramatically. After the game coach was yelling at the girls ( we tied 22-22) and he kept saying my name. I asked Gurdron what he was saying, she told me that he wasn't impressed with anyone but me. That I was the only one hustling back on D, and had my head in the game. So I think that is great news! We had Thurs off. Friday we sipp (jumprope) and did lunges and things like that, then did a shooting practice. Saturday was a fundraiser day, so he said I didn't need to go t that because I can't exactly pursuade people to buy carrots. So my older brother Halli took Toni and I to the Blue Lagoon on Sat! Really, really cool place!! Sunday we went running outside together, in the snow. Monday was set up for counting the money earned from sat, only a few girls helped so they just did it at lunch at school. So I didnt have practice yesterday. But my home has a tredmill and workout equiptment, so I do that when I dont have practice. Today I have weights and practice... Tomorrow is the first league game. It's against the other club in Hofnarfujordur. The girls told me its going to getu ugly... I'm excited. Not expecting to play, but I will let you know the outcome. I'm guessing it will be a great game! That is pretty much it in nut shell...

Ok, blue lagoon... only about a 35 min drive from Hofnarfujordur. Halli took Toni and I. It was a beautiful day, blue skys from morning to night... So the name is blue lagoon right? I jut thought it was bcause it was catching and what not. O no! It is the most blue I hve ever seen. I mean th water is BLUE! Like blue blue. Its crazy. But its basically this huge hott hott hott tube in the middle of rocks and stuff. Kinda neat. The hot water from the ground and stuff comes up and they mix colder water so it doesn't boil us to death. really enjoyable. Basically a spa outside. Had a cool little waterfall, sanas, mud to rub on your skin. I got out and put that mud over my entire body and let it dry. I was like this white snowball monster! its really only for your face, and all the other tourists only had it on thier faces. So I got pointed and laughed at.... what else is new?

There are just too many stories and things to update you on. But that is kinda a quick short overview of last week I suppose.

Continued Life in Hafnarfjordur

2009-09-24T15:32:00.004-06:00

Ok, what have you missed out on? Lots I'm going to assume. Well, last was really fun. I'll start with handball, move into friends, then finish with, uh idk something cool.

Soo my average week is wieghts on Mon, plays on tues, drills on wed, off on thurs, and friendlys on fri, and then random stuff on sat and sundays. i love going ot practice. each time i learn more and more.... my coach has a deal with asics so he hooked me up with some shoes... cost aobut 115$ which is way better than the prices i have been looking at on my own so that was such a blessing. They are bright blue though, i mean BRIGHT BLUE! ha. very nice though. I got pretty lucky. But yes, my coach is probably the best thing about handball. He is soo aweosme. Always asking if I understand, have questions, yatta yatta. Its just what I need. He has done a few one on one session with me to help me with my shot, me defense, and some foot work. So its been great. And the team...o the team. They are so aweosm. They have invited me out for dinner this weekend so they can get to know me better. ha they are so funny. Talking in english whenever im aroudn so that i can be involved. Its really funny to hear all their stories and stuff. I love it. We are gonig to a restuarnt called American Style... kinda funny i thought. but i have learned countless drills, Coach Kathy and Greg are going to be proud!... you too Anca! umm.... I have a huge smile everytime it rans cause i walk into practice dripping wet because i try to hit every puddle possible. its way awesome! and o, im like basically pro at riding my bike with no hands. If there was an Olympic sport for that, i'd win gold medal for sure! haha. anyway, yes handball is really really fun. I have a really wierd pain in my left calf/shin area. Not sure what it is, but its off and on. When its on, it hurts like the dickens though. Hopefully it'll get better. I think its from running on the gym floor, im not too used to hardwood. Im more of an outdoor soccerfield girl. :)

Last week was really fun with friends... i got contacts of a lot of people and tried to meet up with a few. but on thursday, i get invited to go to the school ball with Halli. So he bought me a ticket and i got to tag along. Really cool story. well kinda. not too cool. but whatever. So i had no idea what to wear so i was supposed to go with this girl named Elsa, but she had to study for a test. So i went into panic mood and called my handball girls and they totally hooked me up with some leggins, a dress t-shirth thing and some accessories. They got me all fancied up. and i went at like 8 to the pre-dance party with halli and hung out and met a bunch of kids and got some numbers. then we went ot the actual dance at about 11 at thsi place called broadway. WOW. ok so we got in (totally got frisked) and there was the circular balcony around the main dance floor. and we went donw to the main dance floor... so cool. and there was a band and stage and stuff. then we walked down,around, and up some stairs and there were two other dance rooms with a dj and a floor and everything playing seperate music. it was so sick. it was a lot of fun. over 1500 kids there. really fun. um, then friday night i hung out with a gril name Elsa, the one that was supposed to help me but couldnt. she was really nice. we got icecream, hung out, and watched a movie. it was really fun. I got home pretty late that night then some other friends called me up and we went to this graveyard, that was a lot of fun. just walked around and got creeped out. Ha it was fun, don't judge. Then sat i went to this pool that was by the presidents house. it was really fun. really hot hot tub and an awesome! water slide and wave pool. there are pools everywhere and no membership or anthyig is needed, you just go to pools. its really fun. And Halli took Toni and i to that. it was fun. then sat night toni slept at my house and we hung out with some friends all night and had a good time. Sunday wen to the international church and then got invited to go to one of our friends houses for more cake and coffee after church. it was really fun. they are a newly wed british couple... so funny. uh man bobby and zack would love the husband. his name was alex, uh! so funny. .... quality. then sunday night just kinda hung with the family and stuff. Monday i found some bouldering spots in reykjavik. toni and i kinda went exploring in the "forest" type area... we found some crazy like viking type places. definitely found a bunker of some sort. kinda creepy. but it was cool. ya idk.

losts has gone on. i totally feel like home here. doing my laudry. I cooked dinner lastnight for my family. made cookies for them today. going shopping and hiar cut tomorrow. have a sister bonding day planned for saturday. idk, its been fun. loving it here. loving handball, the friends.... my friends actually just left. theycame over to trysome cookies (its like almost midnight and they have a physics test at 8am tomrrow... haha gotta love em), loving the family a ton, loving iceland, loving God, loving life really. its just been really fun. I dont really know what to add in these blogss anymore because there is just so much. So maybe ill just pick a few things to talk abou tnext time.

alright, i love and miss all you guys soo much. i truly do, im not just saying that. You guys mean the world to me, and i probably talk about you at least twice a week... ha im always mentioning somethinga bout back home.... ok. love you all... o, and if yo uget a chance, check out Romans 12:12

xoxo ~holly~

Handball Update

2009-09-16T17:44:00.000-06:00

So I started off at a club called Valur. Locals told us that it is the best club in town. The coaches are best, ex-Olympians, and due to the house I was supposed to be at that was the closest club. Therefore, I would be playing with Valur. So the club facilities are really nice. Fun atmosphere and all that good stuff. Really cool place. Great teams. My team was the Division 3 ('93-'91) and the girls did not impress me all that much. Started off with not a warm welcoming at all. But that's ok, some aren't good at first impressions. The first practice was so lame. Basically walked around the whole time, scrimmaged (slow as malicious pace) and then slight conditioning at the end. And I OWNED that cause those girls were so outta shape. I couldn't believe it. But I decided to stick it out. So I went there rest of the week to Valur. The coach did not talk to me that much. All my directions and awarness to anything had to go through the girls. Most of them, I could tell, didn't really enjoy explaining stuff in English to me so I kinda felt bad asking. So I just kinda hid in the shadows until I knew what I was doing. Although, there was one girl there - Este maybe - who was super nice to me. She was easily the best on the team and you could see her genuine heart and friendly personality. So she was definitely my go-to girl!

Anyway, I started attending some of the Division 4 ('94-'95) practices to get a full load and as much possible in. That coach was really awesome. Spoke more English than the D3 coach and the girls were really young, but funny. The practices went a lot better too. They were working on tactics so even though I couldn't understand a thing, the coach was moving around and using great tone and actions so I could follow a lot easier. I learned a lot about defensive positioning. Which is good! I had no idea about any of that! ha.

Ok, moving on with the week, Callie got a phone call from one for the boy's houses and they decided they really wanted to take a girl. So with my original family still outta town I went to meet them one night, and moved in the next day. I was kinda upset about it at first because I was going to be an hr bus ride from Valur. Not fun with 930 practices... So, after I moved in I went to Valur twice and said I have got to find a closer club. And in Hofnarfjordur there are two, and one happens to be about a 5 min walk and 2 min bike ride from my house. It is called Hauker. So i called that coach and explained everything and why I was here, he loved it. I met him the next day at his younger boys team, watched that practice, then practiced with the girls D3 team on Sunday. The girls were SO excited to have me! All introduced themselves (still have no idea how to say over half their names) and I can tell they are eager to help me learn.

The first practices Coach Kathy actually got to come watch and we did some drills then worked on 1v1 moves. So unlucky for Karin, she got stuck with me. But lucky for me, she was SOOO helpful. We were working on the swim move. She taught me o so much- footwork, steps, arm position, a ton. And the coach was very positive and talkative. He explains stuff in Icelandic, then asks if I understand, usually I say no, then he tells me in simpler terms, aka English.

My average week will look like this (I am in the middle of my first week with Hauker so it could be different) but sundays is a slower practice were we work on 1v1 stuff. Mondays are weights. Tuesdays we work on tactics and different plays. Wed we do shooting. Thurs is the only off day. Fridays we play in friendlies. Sat I'm not sure what we will do. Then we shall start it all over again.

Monday was really fun because we were all in the weight room, no coach, just lifting weights and talking. I finally asked if they could have an English speaking contest so that I could know what the heck they were talking about! lol. So they laughed and it definitely broke the ice. They started involving me in more conversations and asking questions about me and stuff. A great way to start off everything. Learned a lot about them and stuff. That was cool.

So far my favorite drill has been a game we played to warm up. I would classify it as a dodgeball type game, but maybe not. So everyone gets inside the 6m and there is one ball. If you have the ball you don't have any steps and you have to hit someone. If you get hit, remember who it you and sit down. If the person who hit you gets hit and sits down, you get to stand up. The objective is to get everyone down. p.s. I won! haha.

Tonight was one of my favorite practices. Started off with an awesome bike ride in the rain through puddles to the gym! It was the shooting type practice tonight and I learned so much. I learned the proper way to fake a shot and drop it behind me. I have been playing center back and learning SO much. It is the play maker position so I have to keep up. But it took a little bit of watching and a few attempts to get it, but I am doing better. Then we did some shooting stuff, and I asked if coach could help me improve my shot. So while the team was doing the drill, he took me against a wall and helped me. He is way awesome. Totally wants me to improve...get quality of a good coach. Then I jumped back in line and did a lot better. After practice he stayed just 5 min extra with me and improved it even more ( I need to jump UP and not in, its a difficult task. Soccer skills do not mix with handball, I'll tell you that much).

Anyway, I love Hauker. It is just all around a better place for me to be. We play a friendly match on Fri night at 6. Not sure if I'll play, but I will definitely keep you updated. The girls all added me on facebook! and they want to do a team dinner or something to get to know me... I love those girls. Stay updated. I may do like a once a week handball blog. Maybe. This will most definitely be the longest, sorry about that! :)

Beginning life in Iceland

2009-09-10T18:23:00.000-06:00

Everything has been going great. Absolutely great! I arrived 8 days ago now. The first few days I was very disoriented. But when they throw you into city and say find your way home via bus it has to click pretty quickly. I am pretty sure I know downtown Reykjavik by heart now. But unfortunately I do not live there anymore. I was supposed to be staying with the congressman's family, but he and his wife Pala are on vacation for another two weeks. So I stayed at Callie's (our Icelandic/American helper coordinator lady) mother's guest house for a few days. That was located right in the middle of down town so I really enjoyed walking not even 10 min to a nice little pond and coffee houses everywhere each day. Then one of the boy's host families called and because the boys wouldn't get here until a week after us, they asked if they could get a girl instead. So I was very disappointed at first, but God has a plan for everything. And I got shuffled into their home fairly quickly actually. They called on Tues, I met them Tues night, and moved in Wed afternoon of this week. So Its been all new and fun and exciting. God really knows what he is doing. This family is way awesome. The parents are great! Halli and Ana. Helping me out with so much and feeding me plenty (food is awesome - dad....i like fish) and just being great. The kids are real cool too. Youngest is named Erla - 13. She showed me around town and stuff. Really nice. Funny too. Then middle is Halli - 19. Cool kid. Always has friends here so thats been nice cause I really need to start getting more plugged into people and stuff. But he is a super track star from what I've gathered. So thats cool. Oldests is Ragnar - 23. Cool cat. Does schooling in the afternoons, so we chill in the mornings sometimes. He is active I guess is what Ana was saying. So hopefully that means outdoor active type :). But he said he'd take me around and show me cool stuff. The family lived in FL from 96-02. So everyone knows english really well. The only one who needs to talk slower is Ana, but she does just fine. But most the time everyone is speaking Icelandic. So I'm lost almost always. But thats ok. I'll deal with it. I've learned to really read tone and actions. Its kinda cool. I can follow some of what they are saying, kinda. But Ragnar did a year of schooling in NY and has a Masters in English. So he is just dandy! Anyway, I think this weekend I get to go to their summer house with Ana and Erla. I'm really excited for that. And when I get back either at night on Sat or Sunday the boys are going to take me out. Not exactly sure what that entails, but hopefully something fun!

Handball... way awesome. I have been to 5 practices now. They started off not so good for me. Its hard to understand and know what I need to be doing when everything is in a different language. Some girls know english, but I guess the only learn to write it, not speak it. So that whole language barrier has been difficult, but definitely getting better. The actual handball part of it has been way cool though. Have learned a lot about positioning of the body on defense already.That is something I really need work on. You see, I learnd the basic idea of handball, but none of the tactics or fundamentals. It is very obvious here that I am missing those. So hopefully I can pick those up quickly. Fussy has been such an awesome coach. He is the younger teams coach that I practice with on my off days. My coach is names Joey(pronounced w/o the "j") and he doesn't speak much english to me. So Fussy has been my main source to getting better. Which is awesome. He was an Olympian not too many years ago. Knows his sutff thats for sure. Anyway, handball is all good. My club's name is Valur, well as of right now. Its about an hr bus ride to and from because of my new location. The clubs you get placed in are mainly based off of where you live. And now I live in Hofnarfjordur and Valur is in Hllemma or something like that. So I am going to try to switch clubs to the one that is a 2 min walk from home named Haukur. Hopefully that will work. But overall, learning a lot and having fun with it!

God is doing soem pretty amazing things here. He has really showed to me what patients really looks like. I mean really looks like. I have yet to worry about anyhting. I realized that no matter what you do, how hard you try or anyhting else, things will happen how they happen and how God wants them to. So there is no point to try to make things go your way. They wont, and if they do then God will totally make it a living hell for you! ha. Well maybe not that far, but it definitely does not go as wanted when you get "your way". He has showed up with me every step of my days here so far. Just the beauty of this place itself is such an eye opener to the creator of it all. He is pretty cool dude. But two words adventure and spontaneous have kinda been my theme for the trip so far. I haven't really planned much. Well nothing really actually. I just have taken each day at a time and figured out what I might or might not do. Its pretty fun. Mixture of school work, exploring, handball, food, coffee shops, playing with Toni. Its all a good time. Mornings are slow filled with school and email junk. Then usually in the afternoons I'll meet Toni in town somewhere and we will find somehting ufn to do. Like today, we walked down the main shopping street in Reykjavik, stumbled onto a Red Cross store. Stopped. Asked if there was a place we could volunteer at. Got directed to another location. Then to the main building. Stopped on our way at this crazy Ti Restaurant for lunch. Went into the headquarters. Got placed with the Youth Director right away no questions. And now I will be volunteering Thurs nights at a teen thing. Really cool because over the summer, after I decided I wasn't going to New Orleans God spoke to me through this crazy man in Manitue springs and said you have to be patient and your time will come... hints the whole Iceland thing. And he also said, "He wants you to use your gift with teens to glorify Him" so to just "stumble" upon all this today is no mistake. Its really cool because it wasn't a big deal, or any trouble, or out of the way or anything. Set no expectations what so ever, and look at where I find myself. Right where God wants me. Pretty cool stuff.

But its like 1 am here. I better get some sleep. Think I may have caught a cold. Have a stuffy nose and had a headache for 2 days now... o dear. Miss all and I can't express enough my thanks to all he support, thoughts, and prayers that have been coming my way."Takk" Thanks from the heart. Bless Bless.