Thanksgiving Cooking Adventures...

For Thanksgiving I flew to Colorado to be with my family, but I didn't leave until Thanksgiving morning, so on Wednesday night I helped some of our Presby group cook dinner that they would be enjoying together on Thursday. It was quite the adventure in cooking! :)






Here are Jenn and Sophie--Jenn was in charge of the cranberries and they looked like they were awesome, even if she had to cook them in a skillet because all the pots were gone! The other photo is what happens to the oven when you cook sweet potatoes--I think they are still trying to clean it days later!

I was put in charge of the apple pies, which is crazy because I don't know the first thing about making apple pies except that my mom uses this cool apple peeler/corer contraption which we didn't have. So Reese and I peeled all the apples with knives and vegetable peelers and he sliced them all--I think it took a little longer than mom's pies seemed to! But everyone said they turned out awesome, so that is good to hear! Here is Reese, George and I on Wednesday night.


And here is Reese on Thursday morning demonstrating his amazing apple-peeling skills, I was quite impressed--he tried teaching me to do that and I didn't seem to have quite the same talent that he did :)

Girls Nite Out

So a couple of weekends ago us presbyterian women got together for the first of many girls nights. We had a meal together and time to fellowship and then we had our wonderful friend Denise share with us. She talked about how we lead with our hearts, about protecting our hearts, and about recognizing that our true identity is in Christ, it isn't based upon what the world thinks of us. She shared an amazing song by Mark Shultz with us called Child of Mine, and the chorus goes like this:

You are a child of Mine
Born of My own design
And you bear the heart of life.
No matter where you go,
Oh, you will always know
You have been made free in Christ.
You are a child of Mine

It was an wonderful night of reminders and creating new friendships. So here are some photos from the night. I forgot to mention that the meal we ate was homemade pizza--including dough from scratch made my yours truly! I was quite proud of myself, I had no idea how it would turn out but it was awesome! If anyone's going to be in Minnesota over Christmas I'll make you some homemade pizza!

me, Sophie and Jenn Arnold

Ok, so the pizzas didn't end up being very round, but they tasted good!

Bowling with the Presby Group

Last weekend the Presby group went bowling together--it was quite an entertaining evening! Here's the whole group


Reese, Sophie and Denise giving Jenn bowling lessons--she got a 34 her first game and by the third game had over 60! Yay Jenn!


Sarah and Sophie

My team--you know you're bowling with Presbyterians when your team name ends up being "The Calvinists"

Happy Thanksgiving!

So we're officially in week 9 of the quarter, and I think all of us are ready for a break! I know I am! It has been a crazy first quarter here in LA, as I've been adjusting to being a full time student, living in a place where I don't know anyone really well, and getting used to how incredibly intense everything is in seminary. Academics are intense because each quarter is only 10 weeks and the professors have SO much information to give us, and the emotional side of life is intense too as God is constantly working through lectures, chapel speakers, conversations with people, prayer time with people, and one-on-one time with Him. The other day I had a couple of conversations with people and after walking away from my second hard conversation of the day I remember thinking to myself "I think I am officially a grown up now, these conversations don't happen unless you're an adult--am i ready to be an adult?! how did that happen?!" But I do LOVE Fuller and love being a student here--I have had it confirmed over and over again this fall that I made the right decision and this really is where I am supposed to be.

Midterms came and went, and I actually did really well--and then came the apathy and laziness of weeks 7 & 8 as we all kind of recovered from midterms and tried to motivate ourselves to get started on all the stuff we need to do before the end of the quarter! I leave on Thanksgiving morning to fly to Colorado to meet my parents and spend time at my grandparent's house which I am really looking forward to even though I have to haul a lot of schoolwork with me. Then in just a couple weeks I'll be back in Seattle with friends for 10 whole days--YAY!! I am very excited to be back in the rain, the cold, the coffee shops, and the company of people who know me so well. I get to spend time there and then get to head to Minneapolis for a week and a 1/2 for my first white Christmas--I think I might freeze to death though--it is about a 50 degree temperature difference right now between LA and Minnesota--my body might go through a bit of a shock!

The other AMAZING thing God has done this quarter is put me in the midst of a wonderful group on campus--the presbyterian students. We meet weekly for chapel together and have had several social events, and this is where I feel like a lot of my community is going to come from these next few years as we support one another through the long ordination process. Because the PCUSA ordains women, there are a great group of women in this group at varying stages of life and of the ordination process, and just in these few weeks I have already felt an incredible amount of care and support from them. Praise God for leading me to a group I connected with so well so quickly!

Ok, that's it for now, I need to go study some Greek! Check back in a few weeks--I'll write more over Christmas break :) Blessings on your holiday weekend!

Disneyland Photos!

My roommate, Alicia, my upstairs neighbor, Jenn, and I headed to the happiest place on earth the weekend after midterms to relieve stress, tackle rollercoasters for the first time, and pretend we were kids again!

Look how brave we are! (Jenn and I had never been on any rollercoaters before and we were terrified but quite proud of ourselves--in fact by the end of the night we'd ridden Splash Mountain twice, Matterhorn twice, and Thunder Mountain Railroad!) Alicia of course was an old pro and couldn't quite help hamming it up for the camera while Jenn and I screamed ourselves hoarse!

The beginning of a fabulous day! (Disneyland is WAY more fun as an adult by the way!)