Yay for a great weekend!!!

September has turned into super duper busy time for me and especially Kyle. Poor fella. Last Monday-Wednesday, he was in Birmingham, AL for a youth conference (drove the 10+ hours by himself there and back). Wednesday night he taught youth. Thursday, he had classes and then that night we had soccer practice. Friday he spent much of the day with one of our youth who will be heading off for basic training soon. Then we went to Camp Eagle for the retreat and didn't return until Sunday night.

Yesterday, he worked on homework, laundry, drove one youth to work and took another to Sonic, and then had class that night. The rest of the week is looking just as busy since he has class today, FedEx tonight, youth on Wednesday night, classes and soccer on Thursday, and Friday we have our senior retreat. The seniors will spend the night Friday night and then we'll head out early Saturday morning to go towards Tyler, TX for the retreat. Sunday night, Kyle is preaching. Oh yeah...and Rylie is being spayed this Thursday. Craziness! Hopefully things will slow down a bit, particularly on the weekends, after this week.

Our College and Career Retreat was fantabulous. The ladies I went with were wonderful, as expected, and John and Kyle had a great time as well. At 6:30pm Friday night our group hopped into the van to head to the Hill Country (beautiful!!!). We arrived at Camp Eagle at 12:30 am after a few bathroom stops and one missed road. Kyle did a great job driving to and from the camp, my little trooper. Stacy kept asking where he was taking us because it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, literally. No one had cell phone service and we drove down a dirt road for 8 miles to get to this place. Fun times. It was great to be so disconnected and have a chance to breath. Kyle challenged us through some Bible studies on the life of Noah to be obedient in the little and big things. We shouldn't be afraid obediently pursue great things for God. Here are some pictures from our trip. I hope you enjoy them! I've added some captions that should tell a bit of what we did. Those things not captured on film to show here are: kayaking, blobbing, swimming, hiking, zip lining (at least, not on my camera), and just tons of beautiful scenery.

View from the building we stayed in at Camp Eagle

Stacy, John, and Katie with Cedar the dog (amazing retriever that would dive down in the lake, deep into the lake, to retrieve rocks we'd thrown in). John really loved him as shown in the picture. Cedar really loved John because he fed him Honey Buns. Poor thing probably has diabetes now.

Quiet time next to the river

Pierre David Deer from the wild game farm across the river

Kellie blazing up the rock cliff we were climbing (I just love her expression in this picture)

We all made it to the top alive (sans John who hung out at the bottom with Cedar).

Now begins our Sherpa trek and then rappelling!

John and Kyle went mountain biking (wonderful trails) while Stacy, Katie, and I went kayaking and Kellie studied for an exam she had today (hope you did well, Kellie!).

Update and our little monkey

Just a quick update. Tonight we have our one and probably only soccer practice for our intramural soccer team. I think we're going to name ourselves the "B Team" since we don't expect to be a real threat to the competition. We just want to play for fun. And fun it will be! We'll see how my knees hold up. I played a few games of indoor and outdoor soccer my senior year of college with no major injuries. Amazing, I know. We'll have to see how this goes. (For those of you who don't understand the context of these comments...I tend to have trouble with soccer though I love it. I've had surgery on both knees, a broken clavicle, a broken foot, several sprained ankles, busted lips, etc. I guess it's more of a nonreciprocal relationship. I love soccer; it hates me).

Kyle and I are leaving on Friday for a retreat with part of the college and career class. I am really excited about the opportunity to get to know the ladies more who will be going. They are so much fun! I hope to post pictures of the trip soon (Note to self: remember to take your camera and charge your batteries and download the pictures you currently have on the camera).

Oh yeah, here's quick update on Rylie for all of you who care (Mom does because she calls Rylie her granddog since we don't have children yet). Here's a picture of Rylie on the way home from Lake Mineral Wells State Park. We stopped by DQ and gave her a small ice cream as a treat for her good behavior (she's just like Kyle in her love for ice cream) and this is a picture of her after her post-ice cream nap. :)We took her up there on Labor Day weekend to go hiking. She did really well on the car ride there and back. She did fairly well during the hike except towards the end when she got tired (she's still a puppy). The car was back up the hill but she only wanted to walk downhill because it was easier. She didn't understand that she had to go uphill to stop hiking and to get to rest (very deep and applicable to life but I won't go there). We're having her spayed on September 18 so I hope all of that goes well.

Some of you may know that she's been getting out lately and we first thought that someone was letting her out because we couldn't find any spot that she would've climbed under. Next we figured out there there were some spots in the fence where the chain-link wasn't attached to the top bar so she could put her weight on it and climb up it, wiggling herself out to freedom. Last Saturday we were outside fixing all of these suspected routes of escape. I was outside the fence helping Kyle secure the chain-link to the top bar. All of a sudden Rylie begins to climb the chain-link fence to get outside to me. She put her paws in the holes and climbed up and over. I wish I had a video because she strained terribly to make it and it's a very cute face. But now she must remain tied up in the backyard until we think of some solution. We're leaning towards the underground electrice fence but we aren't sure yet. In the meantime, she's awfully pitiful being tied up all the time. Poor thing. Anyone have any advice? We'll gladly consider it!