Thanksgiving and Thankfulness

Well, I know this is kind of late, but I wanted to post something about Thanksgiving. I returned to school from Thanksgiving Break yesterday. I had a great break. We were off for an entire week because the school decided to combine our fall break and Thanksgiving Break. I enjoyed having this much time off, but now that I am back at school I only have two weeks left before I go home for Christmas Break. I didn't really do much really. The main things I did were hang out with family and Christmas shopping. Overall, break was very relaxing and I enjoyed it.

Since we are still in a season of giving thanks, I thought I would mention that I have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful for my family, my friends, my professors, my house and roommates, the BSU, the two churches that I am apart of and their leaders, and the ways that I have seen God at work in my life over the last year. These are just to mention a few, but I think one of the things that has really hit me this year is my parents. I am so thankful for my parents. They sacrifice so much for me and help me out in so many ways. They have been so faithful to me and each other. They are such a good example of great parents to me and all my siblings. They have worked hard to raise all of us in a good home and have been so loving. I am so thankful for my parents and everything they have done for me.

A Scary Situation

Yesterday I passed out for the first time in the middle of lab class for Anatomy & Physiology. I know this is not necessarily a big deal for everyone, but for me it was because I had never passed out before. It was very scary and embarrassing all at the same time. We were doing several different breathing procedures to look at how our heart rate and breathing rate were affected by doing different things because we are studying the respiratory system and how it works. I was specifically doing the Valsalva's maneuver when I passed out. This is a maneuver where you try to forcibly exhale with a closed airway. They were trying to demonstrate how your heart rate changes when you do things like this. I still don't know exactly what happened, but apparently I put my head into a bucket of water that was out for a different part of the lab and then fell to the floor and took the bucket with me. This obviously got water everywhere. I woke up fairly soon after I hit the floor, but it took me a little while to figure out where I was and what had happened. The teachers then came over to help me out. One of the graduate assistants teaching my class went and got Dr. Lankford, who is my professor for the lecture part of the class. He was very nice and took me to the hospital. He also waited there until I knew I could get a ride home with one of my housemates. All of this was a very weird and scary experience. It was weird because I rode in the car with one of my professors and it was scary because I passed out for the first time. I keep having flashbacks of when I woke up and didn't know where I was or what was going on. Anyway, just an interesting experience I had in my lab class yesterday. I am back to normal now and they found out that there was nothing wrong with me. I apparently just passed out because of the exercise we were doing in class. I am very thankful that nothing is wrong with me.

Singles Fall Retreat

So last weekend I had the great opportunity of going on a singles retreat with Twin Oaks and several other presbyterian churches. It was a wonderful weekend. First of all, we went to Trout Lodge and Camp Lakewood, which obviously made it extra special because I worked there this past summer. I got to see a whole lot of people that I miss from this summer and got to remember the great things about camp. Second of all, it was absolutely awesome to get together with fellow Christians and worship God. I loved being able to fellowship with some people that I haven't seen for a long time and learn from great teaching. The people I was with were very nice and I enjoyed getting to meet so many new people. One of the last things I enjoyed was getting to see God's beautiful creation. The tree were so beautiful with all their different colors and the lake was so peaceful and quiet. Overall, I had a wonderful weekend, God taught me a whole lot and I was refreshed with fellow believers. Here are just a few pictures:


Beautiful trees on the way to the chapel

The chapel

The path from Trout Lodge to Camp Lakewood with the tennis courts in the background

The bench near the Waterwheel Country Store that I would always call my parents from during the summer, because that is the only place I could get good reception.

Trout Lodge's pontoon boat at their waterfront