Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I am enjoying being home with my family, although I am missing a certain someone in Ohio! :-) We had an interesting trip home from Virginia, driving through a snowstorm. We made it without any problems though. My time at home so far has been filled with spending time with my family, running, and...spending more time with family! We have gotten a ton of snow here and it is just beautiful out, although I did notice the other day while I was running that we only saw the sun once this week and there was a tiny bit of blue sky in the eastern horizon this morning, otherwise the sky has been white...along with everything else because of the snow. At least the temperature is bearable! We are now waiting for our Christmas feast to finish baking and then after we eat and dishes are done, we are opening presents! We only wish Brodie and his family could be with us today.

Have a blessed day!

Halloween

My new love.....Boone, NC

Snuggled in our sleeping bags!
making s'mores

David 'warming' his butt ?????
At Cove Manor with Bass Lake in the background


Cone Manor - amazing mansion! We ran here from Bass Lake on Saturday and then came back Sunday for a while before we headed back to Lynchburg.
Josh and Jake petting the friendly calf.
Khristina was ready to fight the cows! Enjoying the pizza we waited almost 2 hours for....was it worth it??? I guess...

The beginning of our wait for the pizza. 30 minutes outside, 1 hr 45 minutes at our table...yeah INSANITY! Elk Falls! We wanted to go swimming (and Jake wanted to jump off the falls) but the water was freezing so we settled for an ice bath.



Sunrise on the first morning

Driving through the mountains! Absolutely gorgeous!
Grandfather Mountain (above)
chilling out the sunroof..... :-)

All of us at Elk Falls.

Just got my EARS pierced!

Yeah, I know. I'm old. 22 in fact. And yes, I just got my ears pierced. Why now, you might ask?? well, because until about 6 months ago, I thought it was too girly and I kinda liked my 'virgin' ears. However, I FINALLY got in the mood to pierce them and took along one of my sisters and some friends to get theirs done too! Here are some pictures that were taken to document the great event.

Kinda scared.....












I had to prove that I was over 18....just by a few years.










The Beautiful Jennifer Klugh!



























Going in for the kill....






The new look! :)


















Khristina got her cartilage done...it was painful!












Just got my ears pierced!!!!!!!!!!!!












.....and I LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Rag Mountain

On Sunday, Jake and I hiked Old Rag Mountain. Jake ran this last spring with Dr. Horten (crazy running professor at LU) and suggested we hike. When we decided to hike Old Rag, little did we know that it was over 2 hours away....but we went anyway and it was AMAZING!! Probably the best hike I have ever been on.

Old Rag Mountain


When we got there at 3:00 in the afternoon and headed out on the hike, we met about 30 people that were finishing the hike. We also did not realize until we got there that the hike was 8.8 miles...and we had a super hard workout on Monday. Oh well. We didn't drive all that way to NOT hike Old Rag! So, we headed up. Here are some pictures of the hike:

Beginning of the hike :-)



Checking out the awesome views!



Going through the 'squeeze'


One word: WOW!!!!!


Picnic lunch near the top!





At the summit: 3,291 feet!!!! It was FREEZING up there, but SO worth it!!!











We finished it in the dark. Jake had his head lamp with him, but didn't even need to use it because we were on the road by the time it got dark.












Then we had to stop at Chipotles while we were in Charlottesville. It was my first Chipotle experience and I'll just say it was amazing. I will definitely be going back there!!!!!












Needless to say, it was an amazing day! :-)

Paul Short Cross Country

On Friday, the Liberty XC team raced at the Paul Short invite at LeHigh University in Bethlehem, PA. It was an interesting trip to Bethlehem, with it raining hard the whole way there and having a broken windshield wiper. Coach Scott was awesome and tried to fix it, but to no avail so we drove most of the 6 hours to PA with only one windshield wiper. Good thing the one that worked was on the drivers side!


The course was super muddy because of the tropical storm that was heading up the coast. We got really dirty....

But it was so much fun!We ended up with a school record (Jenn Klugh - 20:57, 18th place), 3rd fastest time in school history (Me - 23 second PR, 21:17, 28th place) and Hailey Neal was right behind me. I actually felt mentally tough and raced really well - I passed so many people instead of having so many people pass me like what usually happens - at least the last couple of years.

Anyway, moral of the story is this: I love my team, and I am feeling great running (I think I'm still on a running high from last week.....)

Have a wonderful day!

I LOVE my team!

I seriously have the best cross country team a person could ever ask for! The are all AWESOME and we get along very well. And on top of that, they are all great runners (imagine that!). :-) This picture here is of most of the team at the Virginia Tech relays. I did not race but I definitely was not going to miss an opportunity to support my teammates.

I realize this picture is a little funny. I mean, the girls are all normal (as usual), the guys, however, are shirtless, have short shorts on, and David Ricksecker is proudly modeling for us in the front. Yes, this is the typical Liberty team. Crazy, but OH SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!

I am excited for the season ahead. It is going to be a good one. A Double Double Triple Crown sounds like a good goal to me! :)

Happy running everyone!

Critical Care

Hey y'all!

Right now, I am writing my second to last profile...EVER!! I am very excited, and I am actually (surprisingly) kinda of enjoying writing my profile. It is fun to read about a disease process in one - or more - of my nursing books and then connect what the book says with the treatments, meds, and procedures that my patient has had. So far, my profile is 19 pages...and I still have a lot left! I have already written several pages on small bowel obstruction (lovely topic, I know..) and am now starting on COPD - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. My patient is in the end-stages of COPD and would most likely not be able to even breathe if it were not for all the breathing treatments and inhalers that she takes. While it sounds really bad, I can't feel too bad for her because she smoked a half pack for most of her life, and smoking just happens to be the leading cause of COPD, so it could very well have been prevented - if only she hadn't smoked so much!

Other than writing profiles, I have been having fun running and am trying to get back in shape. Not running since February makes it a little hard to get back into shape, but I am getting there! It is really hot right now in VA, so yesterday, a small group of us girls ran to Camp Hydaway, a camp that Thomas Road Baptist Church (Jerry Falwell's church) owns. At the camp, there is a lake...with a really cool BIG slide!! Even though the trails to Camp Hydaway are very hilly, we decided a quick dip in the lake would feel really good! As we came around the corner to the camp, I saw a bunch of guys already swimming and going down the slide. A lot of Liberty kids like to hang out at Camp Hydaway so I just thought it was a bunch of 'normal' students. Nope, it was about half of the guys cross country team. Then more showed up...and then even Coach Scott showed up!! We all went down the slide a couple of times and then put our shoes back on and headed back to LU, feeling very refreshed and cooled down. Then, today, because it is supposed to be close to 100 today, we decided to do our workout in the morning. The only problem, was that a lot of people have class at 7:40, which means REALLY early in the morning...like 5:50! However, it was a beautiful morning, a great workout, and I am so relieved that it is OVER with, and I don't have to run in the heat (my absolute least favorite thing to do). Now I am back home, already took a nap, just working on my profile until I have class at 2:00. I have a hard life, huh?! =)

I hope you all have a glorious day!

Senior year has begun

How crazy is it that I have started my SENIOR year of COLLEGE?!?!?! It is so strange to me! Today, I had my first day of school and it was a very long (but could have been longer) clinical orientation for Critical Care nursing. It went very well except for the overwhelming fact that I will be writing a crit care profile this coming weekend. EEEK! And I start clinical on MONDAY!!! I do not think I am ready for this, but regardless, HERE I GO!!!!!!!!!!

So, as a senior in college, I have noticed that many things have changed. Especially from the typical junior nursing student who can only think about the clinicals, profiles, AND tests that are all coming up way too soon. So, here are the main topics of conversation today at lab....

1) So, what are you doing when you graduate??

2) Oh, you're engaged?? Congratulations! Let me see your ring! Have you picked a date for the wedding yet? (seriously, just about the whole nursing class, except for me that is, is either married, or got engaged this summer)

3) How was your summer? Did you do anything fun? (ok, so this is happening among students of all ages, but I thought I better include it since that has been heard a lot lately...)

Ok, so that was about it for conversation among us SENIORS, but many other things that changed as well.

The PROFESSORS treat us DIFFERENTLY!

"oh, you're a senior now, you know this stuff"...as I'm thinking "I do?!??!"

the professors seem to be MUCH MORE CHILL with us....it's kinda nice :-)

Other exciting things that happened on the first day of school was getting our NEW lockers in our NEW locker room. It is a beautiful place, let me tell you! We are quite spoiled here at LU! We also got to meet our NEW distance coach! How exciting to finally have a distance coach again! Coach Tolsma is an amazing man and did a great job as a coach, but being in charge of over 100 athletes is a lot...so now he has a little less to do.

While I'm talking about all the new things this year, I would like to mention my NEW roommate! She just moved in last night. She is from New Jersey, and though I don't know her very well yet, she seems very cool and I am excited to get to know her more!

So, lots of change for my senior year but I believe it is all going to be good! And, what's a year of school without change anyway? I don't think it is possible...especially in college!

Only one class tomorrow, and it's not until 2:00! WOOHOO!

I should probably still get to bed though, so goodnight y'all!

Back home in Iowa

I'm sorry I have been so horrible about writing on here. The last week in Costa Rica was very busy and we had limited access to computers.

The final week of VBS went very well. We were told when the last group left the first week that they would be bringing up to 40 kids and they would be between the ages of 10-14 - much older than we had the first week. This meant we had to revamp the VBS a bit to make it geared more towards older kids. Sarah found a couple of new songs that we thought older kids would enjoy more and Rose and I came up with some new crafts that were a bit more challenging.

Picking up supplies from Orosi.



Cutting out crowns - the kids learned about becoming a Child of the King.



I was very nervous for the kids to come Monday morning, but of course, everything went fine. I think we had about 30 kids on Monday and most of the kids were older, although some were younger and there were even some kids that had come the week before!

The most kids we had last week was about 35. It was a lot but the kids seemed to behave much better because they were older so it wasn't problem. It was just hard to plan for the next day because we never knew how many kids would show up. We just had to be ready for 40 even if only 20 would end up coming.

I think one of my favorite parts of the whole VBS was hearing the kids memorize Bible verses! We had a new verse for each day that we would teach them first thing in the morning. We would then review it about 4 times during the remainder of the day. Although we would try to get the kids to say the verse together by saying "uno, dos, tres!" they would all speed through the verse and it would just be jumbled mess. But, the most important thing is that kids learned the verses very well. Hanzel, a Costa Rican who came to help with the VBS, usually led the memory verses and he did a great job.



On Monday, during craft time, I heard a huge crack - it sounds like a tree falling. Sure enough, 3/4 of the huge water-apple tree at the camp broke off. I think it was because of the weight of all the apples. We were very grateful that none of the kids were under the tree picking apples when the tree fell. A bunch of us helped cleaned up the tree which made the work go quickly.
The result of cleaning up was this:



During the last week we went on two hikes. The first hike was halfway up a mountain for a great view of Orosi. It was a very steep hike but the view was amazing!
The second hike was to a waterfall up in the mountains. It took us off the beaten path and through coffee trees and a long a banana plantation (I don't know how those trees could grow on the side of the mountain - it was crazy!). We then had to climb up the side of rocks while holding onto a rope. It was a fun hike! the waterfall was amazing. It was kind of like Dunning Springs only much higher and about straight up. We had fun taking pictures in the water and trying to stand up underneath the waterfall.




The last night we were in Costa Rica Ken took us out for supper so that the cooks could have the night off. We went to a restaurant up on the mountain. Because the Dundon's van was not fixed yet, we took the city bus up the mountain (it cost 410 colones, which is about 70 cents to ride the bus). We then had to walk at least a mile to get to the restaurant. Tico's (Costa Ricans) walk very slow so when we walked back to the rode to catch the bus, Ken, Sarah and I made it to the bus stop first (which was a 3 foot long yellow line on the side of the road) just as a bus was coming. Ken jumped on that bus so he could go pick up his van and we waited for the next bus because the Tico's that had come with us were too far away to catch the first bus. Although we had to wait 30 minutes for the next bus to come, we had fun as we stood in the dark and rain. We were attempting to hitch a ride from people driving past but no one stopped. It was humorous!

When we got back to Orosi, Sarah and I bought some pastries for a trip back. They very large but very tasty! We had to be up at 4:45 in the morning so that we could leave by 5:30. Ken flew out at 9:00 to go back to the States for a couple of weeks to see his new grandson. Sarah and I didn't fly out until 12:50 so we had a lot of time to hang out in the airport. We raided the free coffee samples and ate our pastries.



The first flight was uneventful and in Houston, we made it through customs fine. However, a storm that came through just as we were supposed to be leaving delayed our flight by almost two hours. Because of this, we didn't get into Minneapolis until midnight so we didn't get home until 3 a.m. whew...that was a long day!

Overall, the trip was very good and I am so grateful I was able to go to Costa Rica and minister to Orphans. Thank you all for your prayers and support as I went on this trip. God Bless!