Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a very blessed Thanksgiving, as you celebrate with your family and friends. Whatever your activities for today are, take a minute to thank God for your blessings.
I am thankful for:
My family
A nice warm house
Clothes
My friends
Mike
My church
Salvation
Food
My car
My health
Those are just a few things I am thankful for...there are so very many more!!!

Happy birthday Mike!!

Happy 20th birthday Mike! I never would have guessed that when we met that day in January, we'd be where we're at today. Like the pictures above show, you can be serious, but you have an amazing sense of humor and you can always make me laugh. We always have a blast when we're together and I wouldn't trade a minute of these past months for anything. You're not just my boyfriend, you're my best friend and I'm so thankful that God brought you into my life! I love you Mike!!!

A ray of sunshine

I have to apologize for slacking on my blog. This semester, especially these past couple weeks, has been insanely busy for me! All my classes are ones that I really have to work at, no easy classes this semester.

I spent all Friday evening, probably 3 hours Saturday, and most of the day Sunday working on homework. No, not for all my classes...but for just one class! My management class has an insane amount of work, and it doesn't help at all when your team members don't contribute or do their work on time. I was supposed to study for my accounting test today as well, and I was able to squeeze in about an hour of study time for that, but most of my time was spent on this ridiculous paper.

Mike came over yesterday afternoon, so he could help me a bit with my paper, and while I worked on mine, he also worked on a paper he had to write. Toward the end of the night, I was just so frustrated, I couldn't take any more. We ended up watching a movie, which helped a bit, but I was so stressed out. I've never been this stressed for any other classes, in all my other semesters.

So Mike knew how frustrated I was feeling. Unbeknownst to me, he stopped at the store and bought me my favorite candies. When he saw me today, he handed me not one, but two bags of these...

I was so surprised when he pulled them out of his backpack this morning! Just another thing I love about him, how he's so sensitive and thinks of the little things like this to make my day better. Thanks Mike!!!

Carroms

Have you ever heard of Carroms? It's a game that Mike introduced me to last Sunday. It was his favorite game when he was growing up and on Sunday afternoon we decided to pull it out and play for a while. I had no idea what to expect, but it was so much fun!

The only way I could really describe it is that it's like playing pool. The object is to use the little stick and your white shooter puck and shoot your color puck into the holes on the board.

We played probably 4 or 5 games. Mike won all but one, and that's only because he sunk the black puck so I won that round. I think I need more practice so I can beat him. But I'm pretty sure neither of us will complain if we play some more!!!

I've learned a lot, and I'm still learning.

In my last post, I asked you to tell me how you would define love...these are the answers I recieved...

Jennifer-It has to be a choice. If it is based all on feelings it won't survive. That is kinda what the movie talked about also. Put the actions in place and your heart will follow. Smiles!

Kim- Love is a decision you make! When you first meet "the one" there is alot of emotion and electricity. In the everyday life that electricity fades, and regularity comes in. When you choose to continue to love someone, you are willing to work at it, to talk it out, to give of yourself, to put them first (after God of course). When you love like that your love grows deeper and more meaningful then that first initial passionate love! It's better!

I couldn't agree more with what both of my friends said. In the past 8 months, I've learned a lot about love. I have learned that it is not always easy, but it is worth it. And love doesn't have to be perfect. People are not perfect, so only God's love can be perfect. People are normal and they get upset with each other and annoyed over little things. But I've found that that can only make love grow stronger. Love is unconditional. Nothing you do should cause a person to just stop loving you, if they love you in the first place. I've learned that there has to be more than just physical attraction, it's an emotional attraction. When you're best friends with the person you love and you can connect on that level. I've learned a lot about love, and I know I have a long ways to go, God's not finished with me yet!!

Fireproof

Saturday night Mike and I went to see Fireproof. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend that you go see it. It is completely worth the money you spend on the ticket.
The movie is based on a man and his wife who are going through a rough time. The wife files for divorce and the husband sets out on a 40 day love dare. It's a really neat plot line and we both really enjoyed the movie.
It's kind of interesting because I have been reading the Karen Kingsbury Baxter Family series and the book I just finished was talking about ways to have a forever love. It seems like a lot of things are all relating to the same topic...unconditional love.
So I want to get your input. How would you define or describe love?

Silver Lake Sand Dunes

Sunday afternoon, Mike, Brett, Kevin, and I went up to Silver Lake to go on the sand dunes with Brett's truck. He has a 2001 Dodge Ram. The weather wasn't the greatest, but we figured that didn't really matter because we would be in the truck the whole time anyway.

The drive up was fun. Between the 4 of us, we ate a whole bag of Doritos and drank lots of Mountain Dew...in less than an hour :)

When we got there, the guys put the orange flag on the truck and let a lot of the air out of the tires. They were chivalrous and allowed me to stay in the nice warm truck. It's kind of hard to describe the feeling of bouncing around up and down the huge dunes and through the water, unless someone has done it before. We took a video, so I thought I'd share it. (Enjoy our random conversation!!) I laugh every time I watch this video!!!



About halfway through the video, you'll see a huge puddle that we went through and the water completely covered the truck! It was awesome!! But it caused some problems with the truck, because things got wet. We decided that rather than sacrifice the truck, we'd call it a day, because we'd already had a blast.

We had to fill up the tires (again the guys were so nice to me :D ). We took it easy on the way home because we weren't sure what damage had been done to the truck. When we reached Muskegon, we noticed how dark the sky had gotten. Suddenly, the truck started going to the right and Brett noticed we were sliding! The road was covered in slush and huge chunks of hail began pelting down. It lasted probably 10 minutes...absolutely crazy! Cars had like an inch of this slushy snow stuff pile up on them. We stopped at Auto Zone and found out that there were 6 codes causing the check engine light to turn on. Turns out that they were all caused by cylinder misfires. The truck fixed itself because as it ran, the water dried out. That's a Dodge for you!!

We all had a blast, and we decided that next year, we'll go again when it's a bit warmer outside!!

Haunted Corn Maze

Saturday night, Mike and I, his sister Jen and her boyfriend Tyler, went to a haunted corn maze in Fennville. It was the first time I had gone to anything like this, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew it would be fun, because Mike loves going, but he couldn't tell me much about it without ruining the effect of the maze.

We had to stand in line for a while when we first arrived. They were showing clips from horror movies to add to the atmosphere and creep everyone out. Some of the clips were a bit freaky, but I found most of them to be more funny that scary.

When we made it to the front of the line, we all got green glow sticks to light up the way. And off we went. It's too hard to describe what happen in order of how it happened, but basically, there were a lot of masked creatures that jumped out at us from the corn, or they'd just make creepy noises, or follow us. Mike and I were in the front and Jen and Tyler were behind us for most of the maze. So we got the people who jumped out in front of us... I'll share some of the most memorable ones...

One of the first creatures was crouched down on the ground, it jumped up at us and the thing was all covered in hair and monstrous! I'm pretty sure that's when I screamed and Mike jumped and screamed too!

There were sections that we went over that had a trampoline on the ground, so it was really unstable and it felt wierd. That kind of freaked me out because the ground wasn't solid under our feet.

There was an old lady sitting in a wheelchair rocking back and forth. We thought that was just wierd until she started making creepy groaning noises and then we thought she was freaky. We went around a corner and she came through the corn making noises at us!

At one point there were a series of scarecrows. Turns out one of them was a person and he moved right when I was by him.

Other people would jump out at us or chase us from behind with chainsaws.

We were almost through the maze when we passed a grave yard set up and there was a lady dressed in white standing to the edge. I was so concentrated on her that I didn't see a guy on the ground reaching to grab my leg. I jumped to the side and practically pushed Mike into the corn!

The most memorable one for me was...We were walking and nothing had happened for a few minutes. I felt something tapping on my back and I said "That better be Jen or Tyler." Mike told me to turn around, but I was scared to see what was behind me, so I refused. Finally I turned around and it was this hideous looking creature who had been following us and poking me!! (Disclaimer: They're not actually supposed to touch us when we go through the maze. But when he crept up behind us, Mike saw him and the guy told Mike to be quiet. So basically he knew it was okay because Mike didn't object)

After we got throroughly scared by the maze, we went through a 3-D maze. It was really cool. At one point, we had to walk through a tunnel that was spinning. We walked on a bridge through it, but it felt like we were going to fall over!!

It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to go back next year!!

No school=Road trip!!!

Yesterday we didn't have classes because of academic advising day. So Mike and I tried to think of something to do.

Mike works for a carpet cleaning company and they often travel a little ways to do some cleaning. Earlier this summer he was working at some jobs out in Saugatuck, and he had said he would like to show me some things there. We decided to go down there yesterday. We left his house around 11:30 and got to Saugatuck about noon. We went to a coffee shop and got some hot chocolate before walking around. Mike wanted to show me a boat he worked on, but all the boats were already out of the water. We walked around and looked in the windows of the stores and just talked. After we walked basically through the whole town, we got back in the car.

We decided we were just going to go South, with no destination in mind, just drive. We drove until we were both kind of hungry, so we stopped at McDonald's. I don't even know what town we were in. We were there for a long time, just talking and hanging out.

We continued driving until we got to Indiana. We turned around in Michigan City. On the way back up, we decided to stop at Four Winds Casino. Neither of us have been to a casino before and we thought it would be kind of fun to check it out. It was amazing! We had to follow a long twisty road to get to it. Then we walked in and it's all outdoorish styled. We couldn't do anything because you have to be 21 to go on the floor (what happened to being able to gamble at 18? Can anyone explain that law to me?) It was fun to just walk around and look at the machines and watch people. We decided that we'll go back when we're 21.

Then we kept driving north and stopped at a State Park/Trail in South Haven. We didn't want to walk or anything, just get up and take a bathroom break. It was nice outside so we stood out of the car for a while. We made one more stop in Fennville so Mike could show me some other big houses that he's worked at.

We stopped at Mike's house for a few minutes and then we went to a Chinese buffet. It was delicious! We rented a movie and went back to his house to watch it and just relax.

It was a lot of fun. Not just because we didn't have school. But just driving with no place in mind and no time contraints, just being free to drive where-ever and stop when-ever. I think we need on day off of school each week! :)

I'm baaaaack! And I need your help!

I finally have my computer back and it's all fixed and running great!!! So that means I should be back to posting and leaving comments more regularly instead of letting it go for a week and a half!!

So, on Tuesday, we have a much needed break from school. Let's just say Mike and I are totally ready! I have a mix of classes this semester. Some are no-brainers (like English, that is a review of stuff I learned in middle school), but others are nearly impossible. Like Business Law. If it wasn't required, I'd drop it in a heartbeat!

So anyway, no school Tuesday. Mike and I decided that we wanted to get away and enjoy the day together. We kind of want to go out and do something, rather than sit at home all day, because that's what we typically do. So here's where I need your help...What are some things to do or places to go, that would take up a good chunk of the day, that aren't terrible far away from the A-town/Z-land area? Any suggestions will be so helpful!!!