Puerto Rico: Day 1

I've decided that I'm going to post blogs for each of the days I was in Puerto Rico. So I'm going to post Saturday through Wednesday today and then post about last Thursday's tomorrow...Friday's on Friday...etc.

Saturday...:

A group of 35 youth & adult leaders left our church at 5:30AM Saturday, July 17th. (Our group totals 37, but more on that a little later.)

We arrived at the Charlotte Airport around 8AM and our plane left around 9:30AM....

We had a few of first time flyers and a few nervous flyers (I'm included in the latter group). Needless to say that I have a lot of pictures of the clouds and such....not by me, but by one of the nervous flyers sitting next to me.

Once we arrived in San Juan around 1:30ish, we waited patiently for a couple of our youth leaders to get vans for us...some of the youth entertained themselves with the game "Ninja". We also had one of our other group members meet us

there (his dad is a pilot for another airline and he used a buddy pass).

After loading up our stuff and ourselves into the vans, we arrived about 3PM at the church we were staying at for the week, which was literally across the street from the airport, and unpacked our stuff.

There were 2 restaurant choices down the road for lunch/dinner: McDonald's & Subway. We split up and immediately there was a language barrier.

Luckily we had a youth that spoke Spanish fairly well, but I didn't realize how ignorant I was prior to going...I guess because I knew it was a US Territory I assumed everyone there would know English.

After getting back to the church and settling down for a little bit, we loaded up the vans and went to Old San Juan.

Old San Juan is a cute downtown area and it was really neat to see the Saturday night life in Puerto Rico. We had the opportunity to buy souvenirs and get Starbucks (of course).

Below you can see various pictures from the plane ride, airport and Old San Juan.

...to be continued...

Photo of the Day 7/27

Okay, call this a teaser if you will, but this is just one of several to come from my recent mission trip with my church's youth to Puerto Rico.
This was taken on one of our free time breaks at the beach....edited to show more of the sky's true color that day.
Enjoy =)

Photo of the Day 7/17

First, Happy Birthday to my cousin Sam who turns 2 today!! Crazy stuff.

Anywho...today, a group of 37 from my church are headed to Puerto Rico for a week-long mission trip. I am so excited to see what God has in store for us as we travel down and minister to His people...that brings me to today's photo of the day...I am sure by the time this blog posts I am going to need one of these right here.... =)

I'll be back in a week...can't wait to share what happens with everyone.

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."

Mark 16:15

Photo of the Day 7/16

I almost forgot to post today! Today has been so crazy at work making sure that everything that needs to get done for the next week gets done!! I am so excited about leaving for PR tomorrow...now I just have to wait for 5 o'clock (which is only an hour away) to get off work and go pack! And I still have work to finish...ahhhh!!!!

So, quick story about this picture: Georgia is the place I called home for about 9 years...so here's one of the towns that I normally pass through when I go visit my brother and some friends down there. The fact that the city is called Hoboken just makes me smile. =)

Hope everyone is having a great day and has a wonderful weekend and week next week....

See ya on the flip side ;)

Photo of the Day 7/15

Here's a picture I took at Boone Hall Plantation in Mt. Pleasant, SC, a few weeks ago.

To find out more about my trip to Boone Hall, click here to see my blog about it.

Photo of the Day 7/14

This is Jasmine...better known as Jazz. If you can't already tell from this picture, this is a puppy with a LOT of personality.
Every time I go visit my parents in Ohio, I love chasing after this one with my camera...and she's very fast..

Photo of the Day 7/13

So I've been taking a lot of pictures of the sky lately...but at least I've posted a picture 2 days in a row!!

This may sound like a tiny accomplishment, but it's a great one...especially for me. =)

Photo of the Day 7/12

I took this one night last week. The sun was setting and it was such a vibrant color.

I'm going to try my hand at this again and post a picture every day (this week at least). With the exception of next week...because I will be in Puerto Rico for a Mission Trip with my church's youth group.

A Graduation Weekend.

I just realized that I never posted this blog...which I wrote over a month ago, go figure. So here's some info of the extended weekend I was above the Mason-Dixon Line.
My baby cousin (on my Dad's side) graduated this year from Washington Community High School (my dad's Alma Mater). I am so very proud of her! She's off to college in the Fall. She decided to start at ICC and then transfer to NIU after 2 years. Tear....these are the times when I feel old.
But it was a great weekend with family, and it's times like this that I also wish I was a lot closer to family all the time.
So I've put 2 collages together from the weekend. The first is from her graduation party on Saturday and the graduation cermony on Sunday afternoon.
Enjoy.

Reading.

Lately I've been really slack in my reading. Reading anything...books, articles, etc. So when a friend from work recommending a series to me, I was very excited.

I must say that the first chapter was slow starting and the second chapter kind of lost my interest a little, partially because I wasn't really sure what the book was all about.

You can image my excitement when I came across a blog that had a review on the book (semicolonblog.com). After I read the review this morning, I'm excited to dive back into the book again.

I've never been one to do book reviews, but this may start a trend. And maybe this will be something I actually stick with...we shall see.

Currently reading: A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers

Boone Hall Plantation

Monday the 21st, I got a phone call saying that my Great Uncle Allen (who lives in Texas) was in Charleston visiting his brother, my other Great Uncle Gary. I knew that I had to go and visit because he was so close. Now, I've never really met my Uncle Gary and his wife Aunt Gail. I honestly don't know why...but that's not really the point of this blog, now is it?
So Uncle Allen and his wife Aunt Donna were doing some site-seeing on Tuesday and my (awesome) boss was nice enough to let me take some last minute time off.
So I got off early on Tuesday and drove down to Charleston for the day.
I met them at a place called Boone Hall Plantation. I had never really heard of the place. It was so beautiful. Lovely gardens and grounds. Even saw some filming of Army Wives that was going on. Among other things, the plantation has also been the shooting grounds for the 2 mini-series' "North & South" (the version with Patrick Swayze) and "Queen" (with Halle Berry) and the movie, "The Notebook" (yes, the Nicholas Sparks book-turned movie).
Below are just a few pictures that I took (in collage form, of course).
If you ever get the chance, I definitely recommend it for a visit....even though it did cost $17.50 to get in.....