Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in forever, but I have had the craziest winter break. I'm currently sitting in bed with a cup of coffee amidst what was supposed to be a crazy ice storm and I thought I'd take a break from staring at my pile of laundry to share everything I've been up to.
We went to the Celebration of Lights at the Botanical Gardens with my three best friends and their families!
The day after Christmas, my family piled into our best minivan for the annual trip down to Nashville to see my dad's side of the family.
(left) My sisters and I at the Opryland Hotel!
(right) My cousin brought the game Shout Out and it was thoroughly hilarious
Grandma was very happy to have us cousins all finally together!
A couple days after we got back from Nashville, I road tripped down to Atlanta with the college group at church for Passion! Passion is a conference for college students held at the Georgia Dome where we get to hear some amazing speakers and bands. It was really cool to worship in a building with 55,000 other people.
Mom rode down with us to stay in Atlanta with her best friend. We all stopped at the first Chick Fila ever- the Dwarf House- for lunch one day, which is a big deal for us Baptists because the unspoken 11th Commandment is "Thou shalt eat Chick Fila often"
(I'm kinda joking)
Mikayla and I met a great group of people in our small group from all over the country (shout out to Passion Fam, pictured above) It's crazy how in a stadium of thousands, we were placed with people that we could connect with. We had a lot in common and this made it easy to talk about what God was saying to us throughout the week. We got to hear some really amazing speakers; Beth Moore, Christine Caine, Louie Giglio, John Piper, Francis Chan, and Levi Lusko.
Our awesome seats in the Dome!
Through Passion, God reiterated the overarching theme of my first semester of college: God's plan is sometimes different than ours. That's okay. Life is better for us when we align our will with His. It was also a great chance to get away and focus on Him, after overcoming the distractions (20 minute line for the bathroom, no close restaurants, my dwindling patience, 3 hours of sleep several days in a row...) Every time I felt like complaining, God reminded me why we were there. If I don't want to do something, then God probably has a pretty good reason for putting me in that position. And if God is calling me to do something, I'd better put down the excuses and do it. Even though I feel very financially insecure right now, (saving up for a car, saving up to transfer to a university) God's been calling me for years to support a child living in poverty through Compassion and I finally did it! My child is Lilly from Bolivia and she is almost 9 years old! I can't wait to start corresponding with her and see where God leads us together.
My friend Ashley and I then flew out of Atlanta to Los Angeles!! We went with her parents for The Price is Right and for The Wheel of Fortune. We did a ton of fun stuff and it felt great to be back in my home state.
This view though:
We couldn't have our phones out while we were on set, but it was seriously the coolest thing ever to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff. We also went on a tour of Sony Studios!! Jeopardy was the only set we could take pictures of. I could literally never be on this show but a girl can pretend, right??
Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage: This was the coolest thing (for me) at Sony Studios. It's the first stage they built and they now use it for scoring movies. It's apparently the most acoustically-perfect room in the world so it's where everyone wants to score their movies: all the Harry Potter movies, all the Jurassic Park movies, most of the Pixar movies, all the Starwars movies, and more. The tour guide was just rambling on and on about the history in that room and I was sitting there, trying not to cry because I was standing in the same spot Judy Garland recorded Somewhere Over the Rainbow. And the same spot where John Williams conducted. And the same spot John Lasseter sat while Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, and all the Toy Story movies were finished. It's fine I'm fine.
We also went on a museum spree on Hollywood Boulevard to Ripley's Believe it or Not, Guinness World Record Museum, and the Wax Museum. It was a really fun few days and I'm so grateful the Liebermans took me along!!
Since I got home, I've just been spending a lot of time with my friends before they leave to go back to school and mentally preparing myself to take on another semester of college. I'm pretty excited about all my new classes!! I'm also pretty excited that summer is only 5 months away..
~Beth
