"Oak Springs Insurance, How Can I Help You?"

I sat on the couch Friday morning, scanning craigslist.com for any job openings that seemed appealing. I sighed and said aloud, "God, I need a job." My phone rang. "Hello?" The manager of Gov Cup wanted an interview. I was so excited. Unfortunately, I didn't get the job. As I was driving along the other day, wrestling with the red flag in my mind about the job and the need for a job, a thought suddenly popped into my head, causing me to nearly panic. It was the picture I had seen in some children's Bible, or on a children's movie of the Israelites demanding that God give them a king so they could be like everyone else. The situation didn't quite turn out the way that they had wanted. "God, I don't want the job unless it's where You want me to be. I won't tell You what to do anymore!" I prayed, fearful that I had made a big mistake and the consequences would be disastrous.

Well, I don't know if the thought was a warning from God or just my own musings, but it did the trick. And in His wisdom and faithfulness, He has provided a job at an insurance group. The situation is remarkably better. I will be working for a Christian. I will be able to work after class and get done with time to feed the horses. And, as my boss is on the board for the horse program, she will work around that once it gets going. Only God could have orchestrated this job. The connections are too crazy to be anything else. It's really an amazing story.

17...Almost

Saturday, August 7th is my baby sister's 17th birthday. It is also the day of the staff banquet at Black Lake, so our birthday celebration came early. I'm rather glad because, contrary to all of my childhood beliefs, I have missed my sister this last month while she lived so close, yet so far away.

I picked the brains of a couple of people for fun things to do and came up with Pike's Place Market in Seattle. Apparently we've been there before, but neither of us remembered anything except the ferry ride and the fish tossing.

After work/lunch on Saturday, Katie, Audrey, and I climbed into my little pick-up and drove to Seattle.

After much wandering and asking for directions we finally found the original Starbucks.
Although we have a new appreciation for Starbucks after spending so much time out of the country (me) and living in a country where Starbucks is the only good coffee (Katie) we did not buy any there. Instead we went across the street to a local coffee shop.


These were the juciest most delicious peaches ever!

Audrey is our honorary sister.
Katie and her Pike's Place Market sunflower.

We maneuvered around a parade and a couple blocks of mall stores until we finally found a Mexican restaurant.
It was a lot of fun and so hard to say good bye the next day. Uncle Steve treated us to breakfast after church (best eggs benedict I've ever had! - okay, I'm not really an eggs benedict connessieur, but Aunt Nea said they were delicious too, so I think I'm pretty accurate in my assessment).

"What I love about Sundays..."

...the song, for one, is a great song.

...my church. I actually like going to church now. I never did as a child, but now I look forward to it every week. My church is so welcoming and I feel like I belong there.

...getting dressed up. I still haven't outgrown my girlhood love of dresses (although I wear them a little more fashionably these days).

...going to the river with Heather and David.

...having a picnic

...swimming in fresh water

...soaking in the sun

...taking a picture with my roommate.

...rushing back to church for work because I was having too much fun to pay close attention to the time (don't worry, I made it on time and I was very careful driving).

Midsummer Night's Dream

Heather and I don't get to spend a ton of time together. Our schedules sort of pass-by each other. We generally share our day's activities right before falling asleep. Wednesday is her last work day in the week and I don't work on Thursdays, so we like to do something Wednesday night. Tuesday night I googled cheap, fun things to do in Salem at night (the list came up short with several frustrated college age people complaining of the lack of nightlife in Salem).

However, I was not discouraged. While traveling in Germany, our student life administrator told us to look at blogs for where we were visiting as they are first hand accounts of people who may have the same interests as us. So, when I found a blog about Salem, I jumped on it. The very latest post was about the Historic Elsinore Theater downtown.

The theater was featuring a classic movie series for the spring and summer on Wednesday nights. The price $5. Perfect! The feature last night was the 1935 version of Midsummer Night's Dream. The movie itself was rather long, the acting in itself was comical, if you know the story you know that it is a comedy.

The audience was - well - a little older than us, but we didn't mind.

The theater was beautiful. It looked like a small opera house. It was so fun to do something special with my roommate. The Elsinore theatre also hosts concerts and plays. I recommend checking it out. It's a pretty cool piece of Salem's history.
*I decided not to take my camera, so these are not my pictures.

Lisa's Gallery, Created by Heather

Our trip to Europe provided Heather and I with ample pictures to decorate our apartment with. We went through my pictures and picked the ones that we liked best. The other day, I came home and they were all mounted in frames in our hallway, sitting on our steamer trunk, and hanging among the German garlands on our wall. It was a wonderful surprise. It's so very exciting and almost unbelievable that we were at those places and that I took those pictures.

I love how excited kids get when someone mentions horses. I was watching Ben and Nano yesterday and I was also supposed to feed the horses, so when 4:15 rolled around I asked the boys what they would think about going to see the horses with me. Nano, just up from his nap, dropped his blanket and pulled his yellow boots out of the shoe box and Ben pulled on his more traditional black cowboy boots. We had to gather a few things and I was holding my breath, hoping Andrea wouldn't be back before we left because the boys were so excited. I was so upset that I didn't bring my camera! They were such cute little helpers. Nano was shy at first, but warmed up to the horses. Ben was quite fascinated by Chex, who was following him up and down the fence, looking for his dinner.

It was so much fun!

Next time maybe I can convince them to help me clean too. :)

Katie is safely delivered to Black Lake and it sounds like she is having a lot of fun.

I have been very busy. Saturday Heather, David, and I went to the St. Paul rodeo. It was so much fun! The decision was made: it's a tradition.

There was a carnival and a barbecue before-hand. We skipped the carnival and enjoyed the barbecue while we watched the rodeo. The team ropers and the steer wrestlers didn't do so great, but there were some good bronc riders and bull riders; and one adorable junior bull rider who couldn't quite get his horse to go forward for his victory lap after he won the junior bull ride. It was a late rodeo, so there were fireworks when it was over, which was pretty cool.

Sunday I experienced a 4th of July party (unknown until this year because I've always been at camp and my Independence Day celebration consisted of a parade through camp). Paul and Andrea had a party at their house. There was a barbecue and games and then fireworks at Riverfront Park (apparently this is what most Americans do on the Fourth of July).

I began my first week working for Heather to pay for my horse. It is rather fun and I am enjoying feeding and cleaning stalls. I used to hate feeding. I remember all the adults I worked with looking at me strangely and speaking about how they loved to hear the horses munching on their hay. Now I can say that it is one of the most peaceful noises and I love feeding.

I have also been working with the horses who will be my partners in ministry. I've been making lists of things needed before day #1, planning the first day rather than the big picture, and getting advice from those wiser in the ways of horse programs than myself. So exciting!