Leap Day!

This is the day which the lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24



Just a random pretty Lilac that I can't wait to see this spring :)

Happy Leap Day!

In Christ
~Michelle

Minnesota

The U of I yg was invited up to Minneapolis for the weekend. We left Friday afternoon and drove late into the night. We arrived at the Dill's around 1:00am.


Saturday the fun began.
A bunch of other people joined us including Lena, who I went to the BWCA with and her sisters, and Susie K. who I knew from Christmas cards. It was a lot of fun to spend time with them.
The Dill's showed us around Minneapolis and took us to the Mill City Museum. It's a museum about the flour industry. Sounds boring but, actually it was really interesting. (I know, us nerds from U of I :) )
We walked around by the river a bit and took a driving tour of St. Paul.





Flour Factory/Museum



cool view from the factory



That afternoon we played some ice hockey on the pond. Supper was at the Mogler's. We sang and played games for a while.


Hockey!!!


A group of us went back out to play more hockey until it got too late. We had to stop when we couldn't see the puck anymore.  I fell a lot and I have many bruises to show for it. Skating extremely fast in the dark in the freezing cold is exhilarating. :)
After hockey, we headed back to the Mogler's and played dutch blitz for a really long time.


Let's just say we didn't get much sleep.


Sunday, we dragged ourselves out of bed and went to church in Minneapolis. We left pretty much right after church.



The main group we spent the weekend with.
(Back row: Ben, Reid, Sarah, Micah M, Micah Z, Matt, Tristen, Ben, Nathan.
Front row: Heather, Laura, Suzie, Emily, me, Claire, Lena)

 I love road trips. So many great conversations and absolutely hilarious moments.


It was good to get back even though I had a ton to do still. But,  I managed to finish my homework before 2:00am :)
The sign of a great weekend.


In Christ
~Michelle

crazy

Last week seemed like a wild and crazy ride.

A large percentage of the U of I young group (mostly girls)  were struck down with the flu.  I thankfully avoided it, so far.

Monday night's girls Bible study was canceled due to the extremely low number of healthy girls. But, I wasn't bored. Homework has taken care of my boredom.

Tuesday, I got out of class at 5:00 and at 7:30 we recorded songs for the Sunday school kids to practice with for the Easter program.

I also started volunteering at a local grade school. I help some of the second graders with math. It's a lot of fun but it take up most of the free time I have during the day. Pretty much it goes like this:
me: what does it say?
kid: 2...
me: .....plus. what's this number?
kid: ...3.....
me: equals...
kid: (blank stare)  What's your name?
me: Michelle. ....You have two beans in the pot. You put three more in how many do you have?
kid: 1..2...3...4...5...6
me: count again.
kid: 1,2,3,4,5
me: good job! so...
kid: Did you know I pick my boogers at home?

Those kids are wild and absolutely adorable. :)

On Thursday after class I drove back to Eureka for Katie's Personal shower. It was a blast.  As usual, I haven't seen a lot of those girls in a long time. We had a lot of fun but I had to leave early and head back to Champaign. I stopped by the house on the way back to pick up a few things and I was on my way. An hour and a half on the road, three hours at the shower, ten minutes back home, and an hour and a half drive followed by a night of homework.

Friday, I was in class most of the day. At four we loaded up and a group of us from U of I headed up to Minnesota.

And, here comes another week.

In Christ
~Michelle

There are strange things done

here in Urbana.

Today, I walked past a guy who was walking rather slowly carrying a mushroom and whistling.

yah... It made me grin.

funny how the strangest things can brighten your day. :)

Ginger Tea

takes me back to the mountains of India.

The beautiful lake ...

 The incredible fog...

I just take a sip and close my eyes.... :)

Its so much more pleasent than doing homework.

My excitement for the best tea ever.

I hope I never run out of tea.

And, I hope these memories never go away. 

In Christ

~Michelle

Oakville

This past weekend I was in Oakville. Kaylyn had invited us girls out long ago and after much anguish I decided to skip parent appreciation at U of I (yikes) and go to Oakville. It turns out that my parents got sick anyway and they wouldn't have been there for me to appreciate them.

We rode out with Layne, Adam, Seth, and Nathaniel on Saturday. KatieandReilly and Kaylyn were there and they took us to the local mall for a while.

For supper we went to Hachi. It's a Mongolian stir fry restaurant, similar to Flat Top. The food was really good.

  

Me and Kaylyn

After supper we cleaned up and went to a singing. Brooke was there. :) She had her man with her but we didn't feel like braving the crowd to go meet him.

We went back to Kaylyn's house a played games with her family and her cousins until really late.  I felt so bad for her parents. Pit is probably not the smartest game to play at midnight. :)

Sunday we were fed a wonderful breakfast and headed off to church. We finally met Cory and got to see him and Brooke together. So cute. And, I saw a ton of people who knew me or someone else I am related to.  Its always a bit overwhelming to have to take all of those greetings back home.

Kendra, Wendi, Kaylyn, me

                                       

After church we took naps. :)

On the way to supper we drove past the new church building. It is going to be nice. 

Supper was at the Wagenbach's. They raise puppies and we got to see them all. They were cute but I definitely like big dogs better.

The food was wonderful, as usual and it was followed by a taffy pull. I got to taste strawberry taffy for the first time. I think I like vanilla better. The taffy didn't pull the best but I've decided that it is almost more fun when it doesn't go well. People slipping and sliding all over, grabbing for the pieces that are about to fall on the floor, watching four guys struggling together to pull their chunk of taffy... :)

pull! :)

It was a great weekend and I made it home in decent time. I made it to the apartment late that night to find out that our furnace was broken. Thank goodness it is fixed now but it was extremely cold that night.

In Christ

~Michelle

Spontaneous

Well, Last night I got hungry.

My roommate asked me what I was hungry for and ... before you know it (with a little prodding) we were heading off at 11:00pm for McDonald's.

Chicken nuggets never tasted so good. :) 

And to those of you who are grossing out that I would eat something so unhealthy with X number of calories and carbs etc. and yucky amounts of preservatives:   :P hehe 

In Christ
~Michelle

This Old Apartment

It may be more than character when you have to remember to take the doorknob into the bathroom with you. :)

And, you better be careful opening our back door. The doorknob may fall off and leave you locked inside.  

Yup. The doorknobs are all falling off and I've fixed them so many times that the screws no longer tighten.

What else...

I'm finally on my last week of malaria pills. It's kind of sad though to think it has almost been a month since I was in India.

With the exception of four weekends, I am booked all the way into June. I feel like I should have one of those commercial caption voices saying in a creepily fast low voice "Call Now for reservations! Weekends available for limited time only." Really though... I keep making plans. :(

Ellie was in Washington last weekend. :) We went over to Doug and Peg's after WCV so, I got to spend some time with her. She was also in church on Sunday. It felt like old times...the front bench was full again. :)

Life down here at the good old U of I is great. Who would expect any different? ;)

In Christ

~Michelle