Well that was fun!

We had a very busy week last week. We finished the birthday festivities and then our only rests day was Thursday, but we had to prepare for our trip, so we didn't get a rest day. We went to Tennessee on Friday morning to go rafting. It was wonderful! We had 16 people total, most of them being teenagers. We rafted the Ocoee river. It was awesome! Last year we rafted the Nantahala. It was fun, but kind of boring, especially compared to this year. We only rafted the upper part of the Ocoee, but I think next time we are going to try to do the whole thing. That should be fun. What was not fun is that I was scared to death that I was going to be thrown from the raft. I was up front and I have a broken toe and I couldn't get my foot positioned correctly. It was very fun though. My hiney hurt for a few days afterwards and my hip popped out of place, and that wasn't fun, but over all it was a great trip. I must also say that I love summer camp. I think that was the best sleep ever. I have not been to camp in ages. When I did go, we did not have air conditioning. Heck, we didn't even have windows. We had these screened walls that had wood over them that you could raise with rope. That was our air conditioning. We stayed at Coker Creek Village and it is quite a nice facility. We had a hay ride, a hoe down and huge meals every day. Oh, guess what? We saw Scott Steiner at Cracker Barrell. We stalked him pretty much. He was NOT friendly!!!! My brother spoke to him and he was not cordial to say the least. He should have just ordered take out if he was going to be so unfriendly. He kept his sunglasses on the entire time. As if that could hide that you are a buff wrestler. Umm, next time try wearing long sleeves and maybe dye the facial hair. Let's see what else, oh we went to this place up on the mountain where you can see 3 states. I can't remember the name of it, like Buck Bald or something weird like that. Anyway, when we got there it was beautiful!!! What was even more beautiful is that there was another youth group there and they were singing songs and just praising God. They invited us to join them and then everyone had a chance to give their tetimony. That was awesome not only to see the greatness of God and his abilities, but to also be able to share in that with fellow believers and just forget about the world for a while. I just sat and stared at the mountains. I took pictures, of course, but nothing could recapture that feeling of worshipping God and feeling Him so close and so magestic. God truely is an Awesome God!!
I hope seeing the fire in the youth group on the mountain will make our group get a little more serious about their faith. I hope with the new pastor our youth will be able to take a more leadership role in the church and start to become alive!!

Oh one thing that was so funny- my brother and I were both on the rafting trip together. He organized it, and did a great job btw. Anyway, so it was our sister's birthday Saturday. Well of course we had to call her since we oculdn't convince her to join us, well there was NO CELL PHONE RECEPTION ANYWHERE CLOSE TO THERE!! So what did we do? We called her COLLECT!!! It was so funny. Of course she did not accept the charges. We simply said, collect call from, "Happy Birthday." Then we heard, click! Later we did have a bit of service on Robbie's work phone so we called her to explain.

I have found that I love books. Books of every kind. When I was teaching, that was one of the higlights of my day- reading to the children. I think my favorite kind are kids books, but I like the ones with a lesson to them. I joined a book club and have ordered some Paula Deen cookbooks lol, hey they were only a quarter a piece. I also ordered a cleaning book and a Dr. Seuss book. It has 13 stories from Dr. Seuss in it. I cannot wait to get it. I was starting my wish list and all that I was adding was cookbooks and children's books. I really had to refrain from getting all of my nieces books for every upcoming occassion. I don't quite think they love books like I do. Although the should, because everyone else in my family loves books. Oh well. I really should go to the library more, but I don't. I get too over my head when I read a book. I can't put it down. I remember even in school putting my book inside a textbook to keep reading. I guess I am on a reading fast because the last books I have read were the Left Behind series. I caught up on those and had to wiat for the new ones to be written, so I had to stop all together because I couldn't wait that long. Now I need to go back and reread them, because I don't know where I stopped. So, one of my service projects with Junior Service League this year is Knight Enloe. I was NOT happy about this. I do not like Roanoke City Schools and I certainly did NOT want to volunteer there. At least it is at the elementary school and my niece goes there. That will be nice to spend some time at her school. I don't have much experience with KES since I went there, so maybe it will be fun. Maybe I will get to read to the kids. lol

So our pool is green!!! It was beautiful, now it's not! Apparently we had a storm here while we were in Tennessee. A cup blew into the skimmer. Not sure how that happened, since the lid was supposed to be on there, but it did. water could not filter and water that sits still in the sunshine turns green! So, we have to clean it again. Ugh! A bit of shock should do the trick. I guess that is about all the I have to ramble about for now. Until next time- Ciao!