Sustained Silent Reading

I'm not sure if any of you came from elementary schools where silent reading was a built in part of your school day, but I did, and I loved it. Every day after lunch time we all came in and knew that it was time to get out our books and we had about 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to read to ourselves. And here's the best part...we could read whatever we wanted! So most of my title selections as a 6th grader were not all that sophisticated...in fact, I'll be honest, I probably was reading the latest Baby-Sitter's Club book or the newest Sweet Valley Twins book, but that was the best part--it got to be our choice as to what we sat down with as long as we were quiet and actually reading. Many of you who are no longer full time students are probably thinking "um Sarah, you're an adult, you can choose whatever you want to read, we do it every day," but that's just it....my reading time for the last several years has been fairly well dictated by whatever course syllabus I happen to be working my way through. Which in some ways is great--it's forcing me to pick up books I never would normally choose on my own, but in other ways has left me little time or energy for my favorite past time ever--reading stories. I've tried so hard to always have a fiction book going at all times while I've been in school--even if that means I only have the energy for a few pages a night at least I am involved in a story, but I've been frustrated because I love to dive in to books, to read them in just a few days, to fully immerse myself in the lives of the characters for those few days, and when you read only three pages a night, it's A) a little tough to immerse yourself in their world, and B) takes a REALLY long time to get through a book! (I'm reading the 5th Harry Potter book right now--I know, I'm WAY behind...but at this rate it is going to take me forever to finish...) Anyways, so all that to say, I've decided that this summer I am re-instating Sustained Silent Reading (we used to commonly refer to it as our SSR time) into my life. I'll be taking intensive Hebrew all summer (where they teach you two quarters of Hebrew in one ten-week period) but I've decided that for one hour each afternoon, either before or after class, I am going to read for fun--a fictional story that has absolutely nothing to do with theology, scripture, pastoral counseling, exegesis, homiletics or anything else I've studied this past year. Anyone else in the Fuller-world care to join me?! I feel like I have a long list of books I want to get through, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has a fiction book you have read in the past couple years while I've been buried behind theological treatises--I'd love to know about them! I was asking a pastor recently where they find their sermon illustrations, and he said "in fiction. If you are not reading fiction books, you are missing a treasure trove of stories about humanity, about the human condition, about life, love, redemption, scandal, forgiveness and grace." So, in efforts to take his advice, and to give my poor tired brain a break, I'm going on sabbatical from theology. Well at least for an hour each day.

Midwestern Fun

Each spring my dad, my uncle Vaughn, and my cousin Jason take my Papa for a 4 day fishing trip to his favorite lake in South Dakota (I'm not really sure how they discovered this place since none of us are from South Dakota...) and this past weekend was their annual adventure. On the drive over to SD from Minneapolis, my dad got to see some crazy storms and managed to catch some pictures. I thought I'd post them because really, we don't have weather remotely this cool out west!

And here is the happy fisherman!

And the not so happy--or lucky--fishermen...don't worry, they came home with more than 2 fish from 4 days of fishing! I think we might be eating walleye for awhile this summer actually!

Happy Memorial Day!

This weekend was a wonderful weekend full of friends and celebrating. On Friday night I flew up to Sacramento for the world's shortest trip! Silja, my friend from high school was graduating from Sacramento State, and so Jenn, Miranda, and I (the 4 of us all were super tight throughout all of our time at GBHS) decided to meet there to celebrate her. I flew back early Sunday morning to be able to be at church, and then of course, today was a holiday! It was a fabulous, relaxing, and sun-filled day--every Monday should be like this in my opinion! About 25 of us Presbys spent the day at Garfield Park bbq-ing, playing volleyball, frisbee, napping, reading, chatting, and of course, eating. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and a wonderful way to spend the holiday! Here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

This BBQ was serious business--good thing Bob, Alan and George look like they have it all under control!Dave and Denise's small pony...er...Golden Retriever...DaisySome of the girls lathering up with sunscreen--I warned them from personal experience last year that it doesn't take long to turn into a lobster out there! Especially on the sun-soaked volleyball court!Alan, the floating head, enjoying his lunch from a lawn chair.Pocket enjoying her corn on the cob.me, Sophie, Alethia, Becca and Jenn enjoying the sunshine and each other's company.Bob and Kristi--our newly engaged and adorable couple!I'm not exactly sure how it started but some of the little kids from the next table over decided to start chasing two of our guys around with squirt guns--looks like Dave is about to surrender!Sophie and I post-volleyballOne of our wonderful preaching professors, Doug Nason, happens to be Presbyterian and enjoys hanging out with us--so he came to spend the day with us as well! Here he is bonding with Daisy. Snack time for Kernie! Here he is eating grapes with Aunt PocketAnd eating watermelon with Aunt Sarah (hey, playing volleyball makes for one hungry monkey!)The "500-Club"--I am not at liberty to say what that means....but you are welcome to venture a guess and I'll let you know if you're right!Jenn and SophieAlan and Dave showed up dressed almost identically--khaki shorts, green t-shirts, with yellow writing. My very favorite part of living in Southern California--seriously. So there are these unbelievable trees (the Jacaranda Tree) that bloom in the month of May--and pretty much only for the month of May. They don't exist in most parts of the US--in fact according to wikpedia (yes, I think they are cool enough that I actually researched them) they grow in South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. There are some streets in Pasadena that are literally lined on both sides of the street with these trees, and until May they are just normal green trees. But then, these brilliant purple flowers show up and are dazzlingly brilliant.

Congratulations Graduates!

Last night the Presbyterian student leaders threw our annual graduation banquet to honor our graduates. We had a great time honoring them, hearing from Rev. Jeff O'Grady, the pastor at San Marino Community Church, and enjoying a wonderful meal together.
Dave Barry and I were the MC's of the eveningLaura and JennSophie and ChristinaSophie, Chris and Lisa scoping out the dessert table. One of the things we always do at the banquet is pray for each of the graduates at our table, here is our table praying for Sophie

Praying for Mary
Becca's table praying for her
our beatiful graduates, Becca and Sophie (Marian)--known together as "Bearian"

our speaker, Jeff O'Grady, who is remarkably tall, with Pocket and Tina--who are...well, not remarkably tall.

part of the clean up crew--me, Jenn and Ryan

Fun in the Sun!

Last Sunday was our church BBQ at a local park. We had a wonderful turn out as a large part of our congregation came together to enjoy a huge potluck, crazy games, sunbathing, conversation, and the fresh air. Here are some photos from the day:

The beginning of the sack race

What kind of church picnic would it be without a water balloon toss?!The best part of the whole day was these gigantic beach balls--they provided all of us with hours of entertainment!And for our grand finale of games they had people searching for a piece of bubble gum in a plate of whipped cream without using their hands, and then once they found the gum they had to blow a bubble to win. It was quite disgusting to watch actually, and then of course various people ended up with plates of whipped cream thrown in their faces.

SAB Retreat

This past weekend next year's Student Advisory Board (the leadership team of Presbyterian students that help plan events, chapel, retreats, etc) went up to Lake Arrowhead for a weekend of team building exercises, getting to know one another, relaxing a bit, and brainstorming about what makes a good team, good leaders, and great community. It was wonderful to get out of the city and up in the mountain air for a couple days, and the weekend provided us with some entertaining photos as we worked together to complete our team building initiatives. Our first task was to move a hula hoop from one end of the line to the other without letting go of hands--we did this several ways, including simply throwing the hoop to the person at the other end, using only our feet, and using our necks.

Our next task was to create a circle and move the hoop around the circle without letting go of one another's hands.

Holly and GeorgeWe did it! Our final challenge on Sunday morning proved to be a bit complicated, but we did it! We were each blindfolded, and then Denise handed us a rope and told us to make a perfect square with the rope. Since we couldn't see, this obviously required a great deal of verbal communication, constantly checking in with one another, and oh yeah...six of the eight of us were tied to another person. Laura was left untied and so was I but I was made mute and couldn't talk, so Laura found me and took over making sure I was ok since I couldn't verbally communicate. So here we are at the beginning when we originally were fiuring out who was tied, who was handicapped in other ways, and where people were located. We figured out that most of us were fairly close together, and they thought it might be easier to start all together in a smaller group and then back out until the slack in the rope was gone. So Ryan and Dave made their way over to the rest of the group.What the team did not know was that Denise never put a blindfold on Ryan, she wanted him to be able to watch what was going on, but he did a great job of not giving us the solution and only made suggestions every now and then. So one original idea was to somehow make diagonals with the rope to help us make a square, so we were trying to cross our part of the rope with the couple diagonal from us, but because we couldn't see what we were doing, we couldn't tell if the ropes were getting sent across the square straightly--it turns out they weren't, we managed to make a tangled mess! But that's ok, we eventually got ourselves untangled (thanks to some subtle help from Ryan).Although this picture makes it look like Ryan is wondering if we were ever going to untangle ourselves!Eventually we untangled ourselves and managed to decide we could back out to take up the slack in the rope and started forming some of the corners. Here are Laura and I--because I couldn't talk, we figured out a system of stamping--Laura was great at asking yes or no questions of me and I would stamp my foot once or twice depending on my answer and then she would report to the group what I was thinking. It was actually kind of fun NOT to be able to talk!We did it! Each group made a corner and Laura, our only free standing person decided to pace the interior of the squre measuring how many of her arm lengths each side was to tell if we had equal sides.