A fun, but very long, weekend!

Last week was a long week. Everyone was high stressed because we had to pick our classes for spring semester. We were also assigned a lot of projects and found out about tests and such. Once Friday finally came we were all so excited to be free of classes for a few days. Lorah spent the night on Friday since we had to leave for our 4W so early the next morning. Kelsey, Meg, Rachel, Lorah, and I set out for a girl’s night of shopping at Victoria Gardens. We had a blast shopping and hanging out away from school. Unfortunately, close to the end of the night I started to feel a nasty cold coming on. On the way back to school we decided to make a detour to Walmart so that we could get some junk food for the next phase of our girl’s night. With chips, salsa, and sparkling cider we were set. When we got back to school we got ready for bed and picked out a movie to watch. The other 4 girls stayed up late until the night as I decided to go to bed so that my cold wouldn’t get any worse. It was so fun having Lorah and Meg sleep in our room. We were like one big happy family.

On Saturday, I had my last 4W of the fall semester. We went to San Diego to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. We left at 9:15am. My van consisted of Dr. Sabir and his son, Josh, Lorah, Meg, Kelsey, and Amy. We rode in the grey Providence van. About 20 minutes away from Balboa Park, Dr. Sabir pulled over on the side of the freeway and then these words came out of his mouth, “I think we are out of gas.” Instantly Meg turned around and looked at me and then started laughing uncontrollably. We then sat and waited for Julie, who was 30 minutes ahead of us, to come back and get us. In the process of waiting a tow truck pulled up in front of us and got out of his truck. After standing in front of the van just looking at us, he finally spoke. The mans asked if we were broken down and when we said that we were out of gas he went and got back in his truck and drove away. Again we all started laughing. After sitting on the side of the freeway for about 45 minutes Julie finally drove up. We quickly got into her van and grabbed the lunches that were in the back of our van.

We finally arrived at Balboa Park to go and see the Dead Sea scrolls. Lorah, Josh, Amy, and I walked around together throughout the exhibit. It was a really cool thing to see, but not something that I would probably ever do again. After getting out of the exhibit, Lorah, Jesse, and I decided to walk around the park. We found a cool pottery fair. Jesse was telling Lorah and I all about how he took ceramics in high school and how much he loved it. It was fun to listen to him talk about something that he is so passionate about. We then hung around Balboa Park for a few hours.

At about 3:30 we took a group picture and then set forth towards Seaport Village for dinner. A trip that took everyone else about 15 minutes to get to, took us an hour! We ate dinner and hung around Seaport Village for about any hour. It was so nice to be out of the car for a while! When it was time to leave I gave Tracie, Bethy, Andrew, and Jaclyn hugs just in case I never saw them again. Hahahaha. We ended up being the first vehicle back at school.

I was still not feeling so well, so I went to bed early so that I wouldn't fall asleep in church. Today Josh and I went to church. It was a good sermon today given by Pastor Don. Now I am sitting here in the wonderful lounge drinking a Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks and watching A Knight’s Tale with friends.

Tomorrow, I will be attempting to get some homework done.

Hesed Hall, Room 5

For those that don't already know I have 3 roommates. Kelsey from Sheldon, Iowa, Rachel from Bakersfield, and Kristen from Mesa, Arizona. Our room has been deemed the "messy room" in Hesed hall. On move in day we found out that we were the shopping room. Apparently when we filled out our roommate forms during the summer, the one main thing that all 4 of us had in common was that we liked to shop. Now answer me this question…Why would they put 4 girls, with the most stuff, in one of the smallest rooms? We try and keep our room as livable as possible. Most of the time when people come into our room they are going to have to step over or on something to get to the other side of the room.

I also have 2 adopted roomies. There is Megan, who spends more time in our room than her own, and Lorah, who is a commuter student and spends her days hanging out with us in our room. We gladly welcome them into our room whenever they want to and they come and go as they please. We love to have people come visit us in our room. We normally keep our door propped open. [[our door stop is an old gold fish box filled with rocks]]. Random people tend to stop by and say hello when they are bored.

Kelsey has the most clothes of us all. We tease that our closets "throw up" her clothes because she has so many. This is what her closet looked like the other night…

This can gives you a slight picture of how our room usually is. When we actually do have our room clean many people have surprised looks on their faces when they walk by our room. It is so nice when I can actually walk to my bed without having to step on something. Last night we had a little cleaning party and we all worked together and cleaned it. It looks pretty nice for now…

Tests, writing papers, candy, and hot tubs!

Writing Papers and reading many many pages seems like all I have been doing lately. On Thursday I had a Bible paper due. It took a lot of time and effort to get finished. On Tuesday night I was in the library from 7:00 to 10:00 pm and then on Wednesday I was in there from 12:30-5:00 and then from 8:30-12:00 and then was in the study room until about 1:30am. It was a long day. The paper was a critical reading report that required us to read one book off of a list of about 6. There are about 35 people in my Bible class. So imagine 35 procrastinating college students trying to write a paper and have to share 6 books between them all. It was quite a nightmare for some people. There rules for checking out these books are: You can only check them out for 2 hours at a time unless you check out after 10pm, then you can keep it until the next morning. If you sit in the library you can use it as long as you need or until someone comes in and needs to use it. I was a lucky one who picked a book that not many people picked. My friend Josh also read the same book and we just made sure that we sat next to each other so that we could easily share the book. The book that I chose to do was called, Making Sense of the Old Testament by Trember Longman III. It was actually a very interesting book to read. It was very helpful because it taught Christians how to better read and understand the Old Testament.

This weekend was nice and relaxing. The weather has been simply amazing. On Friday night Lorah, Rachel and I went to Ontario Mills and went shopping. We spent most of our time in Borders. We were going to see a movie, but it ended up being really expensive so we decided against it. When we got back to school we went and watched I Am Sam in Peter’s (guys RA) apartment. There were some tears shed by a few people in the room.

On Saturday Kelsey, Megan, Josh and I went to go get some ice cream at Cold Stone. We looked for an hour and a half and never found it. We ended up settling for frozen yogurt from Golden Spoon. After that we went to Wal-Mart Supercenter to get stuff for Kelsey to make her grandma’s homemade spaghetti. We have been hearing about this spaghetti since the beginning of the year so we were excited that she was going to make it for us. Come to find out this homemade spaghetti isn’t exactly homemade. It was actually canned Campbell’s spaghetti and hamburger added. Josh and I were quite confused on how it could actually be called homemade. Later that evening Josh, James, Rachel and I went over David Douma’s (Kelsey’s boyfriend) house and we ate her spaghetti. It was actually very good. Then we watched college football for a while and David and Josh were trying to shoot us with an air soft gun. Josh, James, Rachel, and I set out on our adventure to Lorah’s house in Anaheim. We only got lost once and it was because Lorah’s direction weren’t very clear, but that’s why we have cell phones. We watched Spiderman 1 & 2 and sat in the hot tub. Josh, Lorah, and I got into the 63 degree pool. It was quite cold, but it was super fun.

Josh, me, Rachel, and James displaying our "scary" faces.

Lorah, Rachel and I in the hot tub

On Sunday Josh and I went to church and James and Bethany came with us this week. Pastor Tim did a very good preaching yesterday. I liked his sermon a lot. After church we were invited over for lunch by the Jansen family. It was nice to eat a home cooked meal and not school food. Then we came back to school and I caught up on some phone calls and watched a couple movies.

Last Wednesday evening Megan got back from her tough weekend home. She appreciates all the prayers from everyone. Wednesday, October 31, was the funeral for little Maddox Lawrence. I ask that you still keep Lucas and Amy Hemnes [[Maddox's parents]] in your prayers. They are having an extremely tough time dealing with the death of their first born.

Wednesday was the Reformation Day Carnival here on campus for any kids from the area churches that wanted to come. We had bobbing for apples, face painting, a cake walk, a fishing game, bean bag toss, and lots of candy. It was so fun to see all the professor's kids dressed up and having fun. Professor McIlhenny's son Fisher was having a good time taking all the apples out of the bin and then throwing them in and getting me wet. He thought that it was pretty funny. Lorah and James dressed up as Jim and Pam, characters from The Office [[a favorite show of all of us here at PCC]]. It was overall a fun night filled with laughter and eating lots of candy.

Rachel and I after she painted my face :)

Jim (James), me, and Pam (Lorah)

In Loving Memory of Maddox Lawrence Hemnes

This morning I was woken up by my friend Bethany. And then she said, “Meg’s nephew died.” I could not believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. I quickly got out of bed and woke up Kels and told her what had happened. She quickly got out of bed and we walked into the hall where Meg’s roommates and Bethy, our RA, was standing. Meg was in the bathroom. She walked out and I quickly walked to her and hugged her. It was so hard to see her so incredibly upset. About half an hour later Meg got her computer and Bible and headed outside. All that were still there sat down and prayed. By the end of the prayer we were all in tears. Later on I went to see Meg, who was sitting under the gazebo. We sat there and cried and looked at a picture of little Maddox. So here’s the story…
Amy and Lucas, Meg’s sister-in-law and brother, had a baby last Saturday, October 20. His name is Maddox Lawrence Hemnes. Last weekend Meg went home so that she could be there to meet her new nephew. Everything went really well and Amy, Lucas, and Maddox went home late Sunday afternoon. Meg came back here to PCC on Monday evening. This morning at about 8:45 Meg got a call from her mom saying that little baby Maddox had passed away. This morning at 6, Amy woke up to feed Maddox and found that he wasn’t breathing. Both Lucas and Amy did CPR and when the ambulance got there the paramedics also tried to do CPR, but it didn’t work.
Today Meg’s family and some family friends were all at Lucas and Amy’s house. This whole ordeal has been very hard for Meg today because she isn’t there with her family. This would be hard for anyone. Kels, Meg, and I went over to Kel’s boyfriend, David Douma’s house and just hung out and watched TV. Meg got a call from her mom and sister Tess and found out that they were going to be able to fly her home so that she could be with them. I brought her to the airport tonight at 7:30.

Little Maddox was a huge blessing to this family and they are feeling like he has just been ripped away from them. There are going through an extremely tough time right now. Megan is now home with her family and they have planned the funeral service fro Wednesday. Please keep this family in your prayer. They appreciate prayers greatly.

Maddox Lawrence Hemnes on his first day in this world.
This is Maddox with Auntie Meg!

This picture of Maddox was taken the day that Meg came back to California.

So Cal Fires

The Southern California fires have surely affected the Providence campus, students, and staff. There was a fire approximately 2 miles away from the PCC campus. It was a hay fire and they were able to contain it so that it did not spread. The wind affected the PCC campus the most. On Monday morning there were various tree branches scattered about campus and all the grass is filled with leaves and different things. Our sand volleyball court became very flat and a lot of the sand is gone. The wind has completely died down. There have been ashes falling throughout the day yesterday and some today. Yesterday my car had ashes all over and when I turned on the air conditioner a lot of ashes came through. It was pretty weird. My friend Megan went home to Washington this weekend because her sister-in-law had a baby. She flew back home on Monday night and when she was landing she could see all the different fires from the air. One of my roommates, Rachel, a lot of her family has been evacuated from their homes. Her grandparents, who live in Malibu, were evacuated and their Presbyterian church burned down on early Sunday morning. Her aunt lives in Santa Clarita by Magic Mountain and she was also evacuated. Almost everyone here at Providence knows at least one person that was either evacuated or is packed and ready to go at any time. It's been pretty hectic around here and a lot of people are worried about their families and friends. My RA [[Resident Assistant aka dorm mom]] We have been assured that PCC will not get hit by the fires. We are in the middle of town and it would be almost impossible for any of the fires to hit us. We have been very fortunate and haven't lost power. We are all in constant prayer for the families that have been affected by the So Cal fires.

Today we had a campus clean up day to try and get everything back to normal. There were a lot of people that helped, but there is still a lot to be done. We have all been staying inside as much as possible because the air has been filled with smoke and it makes it hard to breathe. When you look at the mountains, you can hardly see them because there is a thick layer of smoke around them. The weather has been very hot this week. It’s been in the high 80s and there has been no wind. Hopefully within the next couple weeks it will improve.