Gideon & McHammer

Thronson gave me these little fellas for my birthday. Gideon is on the left, and McHammer on the right. Unfortunately, I found Gideon floating on the top today. You know what that means. Poor McHammer is without a friend. I am a first time fish owner, but I expected them to last a little more than 3 days. :P Oh well, it was a good three days Gideon!! Now I must get McHammer a new friend.

"Why did you name him McHammer?," you ask. Good question. On Saturday when I received the two fish, I wasn't sure what to name them. So I asked each friend to put a name on a piece of paper and I would draw one and that's what the name would be. Mark Pearson put "M.C. Hammer" on a piece of paper, but when I read it aloud I said "McHammer" as in "McDonald." hahaha! So, we decided we'd keep it that way--just for a story to tell :P
Brooke was the lucky winner in naming Gideon!
RIP Gideon.

Cel-a-brate Good Times, C'mon!

Thanks to everyone who helped celebrate my 19th! The gifts, the thoughts, your presence, etc.
A lot of laughs...
A lot of fun!
Thanks.



January 30th:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait...

...Wasn't it just yesterday I was begging my mom to let me stay home from the first day of kindergarten?

...Wasn't it just yesterday I just started the youth group?

...Wasn't it just yesterday that Brianna (not purposely) made me get stitches on the first day of 8th grade?

...Wasn't it just yesterday that I was in Costa Rica?

...Wasn't it just yesterday that I graduated from high school?

And here I am at age 19...wondering where the time has gone...

Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Grandma. I don't think I'll be keeping the getting married at age 19 tradition alive :)

Happy birthday to Daunte Culpepper and Elijah Woods! :)

Have a great weekend everyone.

Spring Break

Spring Break: Another benefit of being in college!
On March 4th I will be heading to Texas for one week to see Bobbie! I bought my tickets online today--for pretty cheap- thanks to cheaptickets.com! I didn't want to have to wait until May to see her again, so, to Texas I go!!
Bring on the sun!
Bring on the fun!
This will be the my first time flying alone, but hey,
it will be worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Only 40 more days! =)

What's New With Amber?

Hey friends!
Warning: I just got back from Caribou. I am hyper. Imagine that!!! Tonight was splendid!!!... no specific reason or anything. =)
Anywho, I haven't posted for a whole 3 days. Not normal for me. I just thought I'll think of some things that are going on in my life.
Let's see...I am loving the community college! I seriously am. I didn't think I would enjoy seeing people from high school again (bad, I know), but it's so nice reminiscing with people. It's nice actually KNOWING people :) I love each and every one of my teachers. They are so nice! I am taking a speech class this semester....which should be interesting. It's required sometime throughout your college life, so I figured I might as well get it done with (thanks to Stacy for encouraging me to do so:D) It's nice though because I only have around 10 people in my class! I would much rather have 10 people to speak in front of rather than let's say 200 or so! Yikes. I am kind of excited for the class in a way. I'm not much for public speaking, but I think I will learn a lot...I really really do. So yeah, college should be pretty sweet this semester.
What next?
OH YES! How could I forget? I am painting my room!!! Guess what color? hahaha. As if you have to think hard! PURPLE, of course! Before it was maroon and tanish (no, not mixed...you'd have to see it), so we are painting it all tan before we go purple- to make it easier. My mom bought new purple curtains that look sweet! And I brought all of my purple stuff from Austin that Aunt Bonnie bought me as a graduation present. It's going to look sweet! And of course, I'll post before and after pics. :D Gotta love digital cameras!
Next subject...
My birthday's in 10 days! No, I do not think it is a national holiday or anything and I am NOT begging for attention. I will be turning 19....last year of teenhood! I'm still a little kid at heart though, and I love it! I wish I could stay a teen forever, but then again I don't. Oh well, I will make the most out of this next year! It will be sweet. I want to plan a party of some sort.......so maybe you guys can open your calendar for January 28tH? Don't feel like u have to though. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I'll quit now. I could blab on and on (no......i'm serious........)
I love you all! Please have a good day.
Love, Amber (I copied Natalie)

Meet Charlyn!

Hey guys! If you went to church this morning you know that the missionary (Dallagher..don't know first name..I think it's Pastor Ken) shared some stories of what's happening in Latin America. Then, he encouraged people to sponsor a child. I have always wanted to, but then always blew it off and thought "...eventually...." but today I knew I had to do something about it. So I decided to sponsor this precious girl from Costa Rica. I chose Costa Rica not only because he talked about it some, but because I have personally been there and got so attached to the children there! Not that children from any other country aren't precious, but I just felt my heart gearing towards a Costa Rican child. So I went on www.lacc4hope.org and looked at the children who are available for sponsorship in Costa Rica. I wanted to choose someone who lived with a single parent. I went through all of the profiles and found two (of 13) living with one parent. It was hard to choose because I didn't want to leave one out.....but I finally chose this cutie. Charlyn. The missionary made a really good point today. He said that he heard from someone that "every American should have a picture of one of these children on their fridge, because that is what we're called for....to reach out to the nations."
"Ask and I'll give the nations to you!" So yeah, I encourage you all that can and want to......it's going towards a great cause. I'm glad I got my act together.

Charlyn


They are precious in His sight...

A Temporary Change

Hey I switched my template for now to see if I switch back to my other one, if it will go back to normal. It was bothering me! I hope you are having a great weekend! Enjoy the holiday off tomorrow. Martin Luther King Jr. ... i salute you!

Road Trip

Hey guys. Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow I am heading to the cities. I am taking Brooke Devine along w/me. Don't worry, we aren't skipping school or anything. We probably won't leave until 3:30ish or later. We are going to stay at Shannon and Jon's house tomorrow night, then head to Austin the next day to pack up my stuff. We will be back sometime Saturday just so you know. I DO want to hang out with people on Saturday and Sunday since there is
NO SCHOOL MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeahhhhhhhh!
So that's the scoop. Feel free to call me or text me if you need and/or want to! See you later!
Man....I think i messed up my blog. I tried putting that blog patrol on here (Pastor Al was explaining how to do it on his blog) and I didn't exactly do it right. I think it just bothers me because I am an introvert and one characteristic of being an introvert is not liking change (no, not the coins). haha! Oh well...it's just a blog.
Let's hear it for NO SCHOOL!!!

Back to School

Notice how there isn't an exclamation point at the end of my title. :) haha. Well, tomorrow starts a new day for me. I have dropped my classes in Austin, and now I will be making my way to HCC. As most of you could tell, I was pretty bummed about the arrangement; however, this past week I've started to realize that things will be okay and that God's in control. I will miss living with my aunt, but I am sure I will be there to visit often. I have yet to notify my Austin friends and pastors that I won't be returning. I have been putting it off, but I will soon have to bring myself to doing so. It will be sad, but they are very understanding, so I'm sure all will go well with that. This weekend I will be headed down to Spam Town to pack up my stuff. I didn't know that I would be moving back here until AFTER i left for Christmas vacation, or else I would have had my stuff all packed and ready to go by now. That will also be hard, but you know what? I'm thankful for what I have and pretty content with life right now. Just because I'm not sure what I want to major in or where the road will bring me after this semester, I'm not going to get stressed out about it. I am going to take it one step at a time. Give us this day our DAILY bread. Not tomorrow, not next month's, not 10 years from now, but DAILY bread. Yes, I did get that from a sermon. An excellent sermon I must say.

Lord, I ask that you would direct my steps today and give me an assurrance and peace about what the future holds for me. You are mighty and just, and I shall not second guess you!

Happy Birthday Justine!

Oh, how i love birthdays! Just want to wish Justine Hendrickson a very Happy 20th Birthday! Woah...it was just a year ago today when I said "Isn't it crazy that next year at this time you WON'T be a teenager?" Wow...time sure does fly.
I hope you're having a great time in Rockford!
Have a great birthday, beava diva(#2)! love you!

It's True. Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

Last night I hosted my second annual (actually 2nd one in about 8 months...annually just sounds better!) baking party. Yup, it's just what it sounds like. Invite a bunch of gals over to do some bakin! I always have so much fun!! It's nice to have a "girls night out" once in awhile. Not that guys are horrible to hang out with, but it's nice being able to talk about stuff and being our normal silly selves! There were a total of 10 girls that came over. 'Twas a full house! I think everything turned out fine. We even experimented with a new recipe, and luckily, it turned out yummy! We made three desserts: O'Henry bars (no oven involved), These really yummy caramel/chocoate bars, and peanutty oatmeal criss-crosses. In other words, peanut butter cookies w/oatmel added to them. Here are some pics from the party.


Silly Britt. You're supposed to wait until AFTER it's done baking! :)


Jessie and Jenni rolling the cookie dough. Jenni takes no blame for the cookies turning out "bad." haha :) I, however, thought they turned out just fine!


Natalie (with her adorable apron) and Kari!


Ruuuuuuth showing off her baking skills


Sydney stirring some ingredients :)

I was going to post pictures of our final products, but they are taking WAY too long to download, so, you'll just have to trust me that they were good. Haha! Thanks to all the chicas who came! I love you girls.