Trips, engagements, and vampires, oh my!

So after weeks of looking and OCDing, I finally baht (haha) my plane ticket to Thailand yesterday. I must say, I am glad I finally have one so I can't stressing about it. And now that I think about it, I don't know why it was stressful at all to begin with. I guess the idea of spending nearly 1300$ on something kind of got me stressed. That's the largest purchase I've ever made! Hope it helps my credit score. Anyway, I fly from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Atlanta to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok. Coming back I do all of that again, but I go to Portland instead of Minneapolis. I have a 6 hour layover in Minneapolis and I found out the Mall of America is 5 minutes away with buses that run to and from. Visit the largest mall I've ever seen: Check. I'm excited now. September will be here before I know it.

Oh, speaking of September, it reminds me of school. I got my graduate assistantship! And not only did I get it, I got it full time instead of part time, meaning ALL of my school is paid for for all of next year. No more tuition to UTC! And I get paid! How is this fair to the school money suckers? It's not, but hey, I'll take it. Oh and I got my professor that I love so much. I'm hoping this will be good. Praise Jesus!

So I finished my math workshop this week. Glad that's officially over. I always dread these things because it's ALL day math, but I end up enjoying them in the end because we have a good time and I have friends there. Well, I didn't hate this year, but it wasn't as fun as previous years even if I did have a fun table. The crazy Nasa man was my favorite. He was wild and on something I'm sure. Who gets THAT jazzed about science, other than Christin Walker?

So I attended an Eclipse party last night that was KILLER! This place was awesome! I saw pictures of the New Moon party they had and was amazed at all they did/had. I'll get some pics from FB soon and post them. All of the food was Twilight themed in some way, they're was a photographer to take your picture with the Jacob and Edward cut outs, black and red everywhere, people dressed up, movies playing, etc. So much fun. I kinda wish I had gone as Jane now. I figured everyone would stare and I didn't know most people, so I didn't wanna look like a fool. But I guess I will know less people Tuesday night and everyone will stare? But we're all fools there, so it won't matter, right? Haha oh well. Anyway, it was a good time. I wore my Team Cullen - Vegetarian Vampire shirt. So fun. I wish I had my Team Edwisle shirt made with the "Who's your daddy" on the back. That would have been fun. Next Twilight party, next time.

Oh, on a lighter note, my friend Leigh Anne asked me if I was talking/seeing anyone last night and I said that was an obvious NO. She told me she had someone she wanted to hook me up with from church :/ I was skeptical but she said he's 22, just graduated from Tech, he's an engineer at TVA now. I saw a picture of him on FB and he's CUTE. He also has massive arms, which got me excited. I'm suppose to go to her house for Farkle night and meet him there. He said he was interested, but we'll see just how interested once he sees me. Bleh. I'm huge. Dad agreed to pay for us to join the gym in Ooltewah, so that's what we're doing next week. I'm kind of excited. I'm not paying for it which is a bonus. Oh and Kerra is now engaged, so I will be in her wedding next June, so I NEED TO LOSE SOME WEIGHT. And I just realized, that means I need to lose it earlier than June because dresses will have to be picked out and ordered. Oh yay. I hope skinny Cortney resurfaces. She hides and reappears every few years.

The oil is coming.

So I know it's a little late, but I've had a busy week. Anyway, I went to the beach last week with Becca and her parents and my parentals again like last year. Good times, good times. We went to Oliver's house in Destin too. We beat the oil too! We thought it would hit right when we got there but it didn't come in at all until Friday and it was just a tar ball or two. It's probably coming in good now.

But there's not much to say about it. We went to the beach everyday and out to dinner at night. I came back at lunch when everyone made a sandwich and stayed there to take a nap. That was so nice. I had to recooperate from New Mexico. Sleep was definitely my friend. Can I just BITCH for a minute please? I love her to death and she's one of my best friends, but I want to take Becca's phone and throw it in the ocean. She doesn't stay off the freakin thing EVER. And it's always to talk to Kevin. He's a whole other blog. She even texts while she drives and that REALLY bothers me considering I'm the passenger. She can do that while she's driving herself. I wish she would just quit him for a week or whenever we're busy/doing something. She did that at Bible study the other night too. I couldn't concentrate on the lesson because her phone kept buzzing with texts! UGH. She needs to learn to prioritize her boyfriend and friends separately. We don't want to hear about him 24/7 or see you talking to him or texting him. BLEH. I remember those times with Dustin and know how first love is and feels and how amazing it is. I also remember him consuming my life and I dropped everything to do whatever he wanted and was there at his beck and call. That's the part I will change next time. I WILL change it (if there is a next time). Becca doesn't see that unfortunately because she's in the bubble. We've all been there and seen the outside of it as well. You can't explain the outside bubble view unless you've been there. It's like talking to a brick wall. Sorry had to vent.

Otherwise, I had a great time, but I was ready to come home by like Wednesday. I was tired of the beach because that's all we do and was sick of sand being everywhere. I was also getting tired of seafood. I was mostly ready to be home since I'd been gone for a week already. I wanted to play with Elvis :( I felt bad for leaving her even though Adrian had a marvelous time. He will be my next cat sitter for sure.

Now I'm on to math workshop this week. Monday-Friday, 9am-3:30. In the words of Christin, BONK. I know I get paid a crap ton of money to eat good food, get free stuff and socialize with friends, but I hate doing math all day long. I think this will be my last summer to do it all week. 2 more days.

ECLIPSE COMES OUT NEXT WEEK! YES! Costume dress up here I come! I will be Jane! Don't laugh. I've become one of those Harry Potter people *coughchristincough* Don't hate.

New Mexico Mission - Days 5-9

So, let me tell you a little bit about the Navajo people to make this blog a little less confusing.

1. The Navajo Nation is comprised of 170,000 people, living in 4 states. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.

2. The vast majority of people are alcoholics, especially the men, who are non-existent in the home. We all know how that turns out.

3. The children are abused. At Bible school, we would give them hugs or rub/pat their backs, etc. to show good affection. Some of them would flinch or jerk if we moved too close or fast near them as a reaction to being hit I'm sure. Made us all so sad. At the end of the week, when they realized we wouldn't do that, they were all over us. Climbing in laps, getting hugs, etc. So sad.

4. Their is none or very poor dental care. Most people were missing teeth and the children had mouths full of silver.

5. The Navajo received 9$ billion dollars before Obama became president. They now receive 6$ billion and hate him for it. The money is given to the chief/tribal council and is dispersed how they see fit. That means, the chief lives in a mansion and flies around on his jet while the rest of the nation live in shacks.

6. The Navajo live in trailers or other poorly developed homes that could blow over if the wind blew hard enough. They're made up of plastic, wood, tires, any scrap material they can find. Most also have round homes called Hogans that most people use to live in. Three families use to live in them and they compare to the size of a dog house practically.

7. People live on welfare/food stamps/government funding so they don't work or don't want to work. If they do, they make the same amount of money they would get from the government, so why work at all?

8. People don't fix broken cars, they buy another car instead. So they're homes look like car parks.

9. 40-50% of the Navajo don't have electricity or water.

10. The suicide rate is extremely high. Within a 2 week period, 15 people had killed themselves. They have no hope for anything.

11. The rate of pregnancy is 70-80% of all high school senior girls. The more babies a family has, the more food stamps/welfare they receive.

12. The altitude is 7,000 feet. Needless to say, you need a lot of water. To add to that, you swell. BIG time. My feet looked like a pregnant woman's. When I got off the plane in Albuquerque, my chacos were tight. I loosened my shoes all week continuously. I'll talk about this more later.

So, on Tuesday, Bible School began! We waited in anticipation to see how many kiddos would show up. Well, to begin with, we had about 4 or 5 SUVS that people had rented like vans and tahoes. These kids can't get to the church usually because the family may have just one car or have some other reason, so, people go out and pick them up and take them home. And you have to realize, these kids live so far out on the reservation, it takes a good hour to pick everyone up and get back. So Bible school usually started at like 10am instead of 9am like it was suppose to. But anyway, we kept looking for the vans to get back to see how many we would have and we had arguments about what age each child was to see if we had more kids than the other groups haha. So it turns out on Tuesday we only had 14, which seems very low compared to last year when they had 50+. And we decided that since there were so few, we would have all elementary ages together instead of separate, which worked out great.

Is it sad that we kinda hoped less kids would come so it wouldn't be wild? We all were torn because we wanted more kids to witness to, but less to take care of haha. So Bible school ends every day at 12:30. And we give them breakfast and lunch. We heard stories from the adults helping with the older kids (middle and high school) about the students asking to take food home to their parents because they just knew they're mama would love it. So they would eat half their lunch and ask to take the rest home. It was only peanut butter and jelly. It was so sad. Needless to say, we gave those kids an extra lunch to go home with. And the little ones would save a sip of juice they had or the scraps of their sandwiches to take home. And what makes it even worse is that some of the teachers would tease the kids and say, "Are those M&Ms for me? I'm gonna take them!", obviously kidding, and they would hand the entire pack to them and say here you go. Or, when they got something like that, they would immediately start handing them out to all of the other kids so they would have some too. They all know what it's like to need, want, be hungry and have nothing. They don't want others to feel that way. Sad day :(

So on Monday we didn't have an afternoon activity to go chaperone on for the big kids. So we went out to eat at this restaurant called Earl's. It's in the "downtown" area of Gallup and is suppose to be great. I was not impressed at all. The food wasn't bad, but nothing like I was expecting. Bleh. But anyway, we stopped at this store beforehand and I got some moccassins! SO EXCITED! They're so pretty with little beads on them. Beautiful. Just beautiful. So we ate and went to the hotel and went to bed. I was in bed every night around 9 or 9:30. I was zonked. Getting up at 5:30am blows, just so you know. Anyway, Jennie and I met some SUPER nice ladies that worked at the hotel named Della and Eugina. Well we tried to witness to them/invite them to Bible school or anyone they knew or their kids, etc. So Eugina ended up having 2 kids who came to Bible school for 2 days and at the end, they accepted Christ! Praise Jesus hallelujah! We also invited Eugina to come if she wanted. We heard stories of many adults, parents, grandparents, etc. coming to Bible school to drop their kids off and they would stay and make crafts and eat lunch. They were so thrilled to do that so we offered for Eugina to come too. She ended up coming on Thursday afternoon to bowl with the kids. I know she had a good time :)

So on Wednesday we had about 16 kids at Bible school. We lost a few and gained a few. But most of the kids were the same ones all week. And I forgot to mention earlier that I was in charge of games. So I had a bunch of games planned that we had to do in the classroom because it was dangerous outside with wind, heat, and gravel. We had accidents already. So we played musical chairs, over/under, simon says, we did the "freeze" song. They had the best time playing those simple games. And of course the teachers had a big time too acting like big ol' kids. After Bible school officially ended on Tuesday, the big kids had an afternoon activity to go to the aquatic center. It's kind of like a YMCA. We later found out that it would probably be the only time that year that they would get to swim. And it had been a year for some of those kids since they had last swum at that place from VBS. Sad day. They had the biggest time. We also realized later that there is no water anywhere in New Mexico. There are no ponds, lakes, streams, etc. Nada. Zilch. So those kids were dying for a pool obviously.

Oh, Christin will be pleased to know that on Wednesday I grew some kahunas and decided to practice singing to see how it sounded in that little church. Well, amazingly, it sounded good. And I wasn't near as nervous and Eric and Jennie were in there the whole time! So I sung it twice and I definitely notice that I sound WAY better on the second time. I have to remember that from now on. So I decided on Wednesday that I'd sing at church on Thursday night.
That was about it for Wednesday. Jennie and myself took Eugina's children home that day too, Bryant and Orrianna. Let's just say their home had tired on the roof holding it up and barely four walls. So sad. So after that, Jennie and I decided to take a van to walmart and buy Eugina and her children food, toiletries and other essentials that they normally wouldn't get. We felt so great about that. We split the cost and filled up a huge tub, bin thing they had. Water, bread, ramen noodles, potatoes, juice, toilet paper, etc. Oh that's another thing, Walmart apparently is always out of white bread, water and ramen noodles because it's cheap and feeds a lot of people. We left it for her on Friday morning before we left. I'll come back to that in a minute.

We went out to eat at Cracker Barrel that night I believe. I talked to HOTT wolfpack boy: Jaime. 20. Wants to be a pastor. Yum. Wish I could have found more like him on that trip.

On Thursday it was our last day of Bible school and we had 16 little ones and 1 or 2 accept Christ! Yay! We had a great day. Me and Jennie also went bowling with the middle and high schoolers for their afternoon activities. We chaperoned again. Initially, the adults watched/helped the kids, but then we decided to bowl too haha. Let me just tell you, I beat Eric in 2 games! That is quite a feat I must say. Eric is like 6'1 and 215 lbs, big guy, Mr. All American, can sing, has 2 kids, good at everything, HANDSOME, and I beat him. I felt so proud. He called me the dress lady since I wore one almost every day. He also told me that was why I was so good at bowling haha.

Thursday was also when I was suppose to sing. I had the runs all day long. I'm not kidding. I don't think it helped that I had coffee and mini wheats for breakfast, but I was going all day here and there. That made me decide to wait to eat dinner too, which was pizza. I didn't think that would go over real well. It may come out one or both ends. TMI I know, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want. Anyway, I felt like my doom was coming all day long. I was dreading it. The time was coming closer and closer. So I practiced after bowling. Three times. And I have to admit, I felt much more confident than I ever had. If anyone was in the room, they all told me I sounded great. I was just worried that since I always sound better after I sing the first time, I wouldn't sound as good at the actual performance since it was time 1 again. Does that make sense? Anyway, I felt guilty about singing anyway, I was gonna chicken out earlier in the week and Angie said to me, "Cortney, you're singing for the glory of God. It doesn't matter what it sounds like." Great. Thanks Angie. You make me feel so good. So I'm assuming God wants to hear me sound like a dying cat?

Well we went to church and were waiting for people to come. I swear, people kept coming, kept coming, and kept coming! AH. I thought I was gonna pass out from the sight of everyone. I had to keep turning around to look so I wouldn't be so shocked when I got up there. Well it turned out to be around 50-60 people, MUCH higher than the 20 or so from Sunday. Well the time came and I walked up there and prayed HELP ME LORD, please don't let me forget the words or my voice to crack. I had worried about that. I also worried about looking like a deer in headlights while singing, even if I did sound okay. When I practiced at home, there were only 2 people in the room and I had to look at the floor with locked knees. SO nervous. So I made a conscious effort to look around and move my body some instead of being an ice cube up there. So, can I just tell you, I was somewhat amazed when I got to the chorus that my voice came out like that. No joke. I was like, "OMGOSH! I SOUND GOOD!" So Angie sat in the front row and cried the whole time. During a musical break, which was after the first chorus, she mouthed to me, "You are amazing." Her face the entire time was in shock haha. Made me feel good! I sang in front of the hott wolfpack boy too. Life is good. Everyone also knew how terrified I was since I'd never sung in front of people like that before and when they found that out, they were like, you're kidding me right? They also told me I looked like I was a professional up there. Someone told me I didn't just sound good, but I had stage presence. So no deer in headlights for Cortney. Anyway, I had like 4 people immediately turn around and tell me how great I had done. It was such a high. I was so glad I did it. It had been gnawing at me all week to do it or not. I knew if I hadn't, I would have regretted it so much and always wondered what would have happened. Praise Jesus for the help! Oh and I sang "Tanzania" by Alli Rogers. It's a song about two different cultures on different sides of the world who are different but both children of God and who will both live on ground that doesn't shake one day. It also mentions Chattanooga. Cool points for that. I'll post the lyrics at the end of this blog to make it massively longer.

So after the service, I had numerous people come and tell me how great I sounded. And to top off the night, we had a final mission trip meeting and Eric (our preacher) made a comment about how great I did and everyone cheered :D Now, to make this night even better, let me tell you about an awesome story. Someone had mentioned there was a box of boots we could buy/take. I was like, nah, I didn't need any boots. Well, I found out they were real Ugg boots. For. FREE. NO. JOKE. All of us ladies ran over there to see and sure enough there was a massive box full. We all got free Uggs! But that's not the crazy part. Apparently, the church/school we were at receives donations and stuff all the time. Well, a truck driver from Cleveland, TN comes out every year on his own, and gives them stuff. He got Ugg boots from window displays and such for free. So these boots have either never been worn or worn once by people who returned them. How cool is that?

Oh, Jennie and I tried to take our tub'o food to Eugina on Thursday night. Well, we went down to the lobby and started talking to a lady at the front desk. She was like, you're leaving that for Eugina right? And we started talking and she was eyeing that tub of stuff and saying stuff like how great those honey buns, chips, etc. looked. I was thinking, how sad is this? Everyone is dying for food here. Just basics to live on. Well we decided Eugina may not have any food left by the time she got the tub, so we decided to take it another time. We took it Friday morning and left it with a note. And she called Jennie and said she got it and thanks. So praise Jesus for that. Hope that family enjoys it. On Friday, everyone on the trip split up to go different places. So, me, Jennie, and her son Daniel took a van to Santa Fe. It's about 45 minutes from Albuquerque. The scenery was beautiful. We decided Santa Fe was the Gatlinburg of New Mexico. It was all shops and such. But everything was made of adobe bricks, so cool. So expensive. And can I just tell you how convicted and awful I felt for being there at all? I saw people walking by holding their Starbucks, wearing their hats, dressed nicely, etc. I just kept thinking, you have no idea. You have no earthly idea what's 3 hours down the road. It hurt my heart so much. It hurt even more to realize that I was one of those people. Buying crap I didn't need at whim because it was "cool" or "pretty" and throwing money away here and there when there were people I had met that lived in shacks. Those Navajo homes made the slums of Chattanooga look like palaces. No joke. Makes me rethink everything I have and what I should be doing with my life to help others. Such an eye opener. I've never seen poverty like this trip.

So we went to see the Miraculous Staircase. I'm not gonna go into the super long story about it, you can google it. But it was cool. Jesus may have been there working :) We also went to see the Georgia O'Keefe museum. Boring. Jennie loves her and wanted to go so badly, so she bought my ticket actually, which was good, because it was very disappointing for $10. After that, we headed back to Albuquerque to the hotel. Early to bed, early to rise. 10pm to 4am to be exact. Woah 4am came early. We also had a long day of flying before us. 2 hour flight from Albuquerque to Dallas. 2 hour flight from Dallas to Nashville. 2 hour drive from Nashville to Chattanooga. So I came home and packed again and went to bed, got up and went to Destin! Here I am now! So I'll have more to blog after this trip. Nothing near as exciting as New Mexico I'm sure.


I do have to say though that I left a piece of my heart in New Mexico with those Navajo people and how awful they are treated. I'm glad the church goes every year. I definitely wanna go back. So here's my last super cool Jesus story. God was at work. There are a lot of rocks behind the church. We went and climbed on them. Well a man lives back there and came to the church and cussed everyone out, drunk, saying to get off his land. Well some people had not been up there yet and were gonna go one night after dinner. They were obviously stopped from going for safety. Well, Eric decided to go on a drive through the reservation, way back in there, to show people. Earlier in the week, he had met a family at the gas station and witnessed to them. Well, he had no clue where they lived at all. When they were driving way back on the res, they saw the family they had met at the gas station. Here's what's wild: They said, We've been waiting for you. We knew you were coming. They accepted Christ right there and then. If that man hadn't come down and cussed everyone out, our group would have gone climbing instead of driving and not met those people. SO amazing.

God has a plan. We have to remember that.

"Tanzania" by Alli Rogers
It’s eight hours later in Tanzania.
When Jen lays down
Mary’s just opening her eyes.
Her child’s feet land on the ground
and dirt scatters,
And she feels left out in the open,
always left out in the open.
She says, “son, wear my shoes to school today”.
He turns and smiles and walks away,
and she thinks to herself…

Someday I will wake
where the earth is clean and safe.
My children have a place to play,
not here in Tanzania.
And someday I will live
in a house that’s built by
hands that hold the world.

It’s eight hours earlier in Chattanooga.
Mary sits down and Jen’s just put the coffee on.
Katie Couric is talking news and fashion,
and Jen feels pushed into a corner,
always pushed into a corner, she says
“Baby I know what girls at school are like”.
And her daughter rides off on her bike,
and Jen thinks to herself…

Someday I will wake
where my children get a break,
And there are chances that they’ll take,
not here in Chattanooga.
Someday I will live
in a house that’s built by
hands that hold the world.

Well it’s hard to be mother,
and it’s hard to be a woman,
and it’s hard to live in Africa sometimes.
It’s hard to be mother,
and it’s hard to be a woman,
and it’s hard to live in America sometimes.

But someday I will wake
in a body that won’t break,
On ground that doesn’t shake, not here.
And someday I will live
in a house that’s built by
hands that hold the world.

New Mexico Mission - Days 1-4

And the adventure begins! New Mexico finally arrived after so much waiting. So I get to church to hop on the bus and I see Angie who says she is driving separate and I can go with her if I want, so I jumped on that train quick. So we beat everyone and drive to Nashville quick and check in and all. Then I meet the other 5 people going with us on the Friday flight. We had others coming in on other days. And just a sidebar, 80% of this trip was full of old people, just so you know. So I hung out with old people all week :) So we flew from Nashville to Dallas and stop to have dinner. Then we flew from Dallas to Albuquerque. And the plan was to get to Albuquerque, rent a car, drive 2 hours to Gallup and sleep on the reservation - fail. The last thing I wanted to do was drive 2 more hours and then sleep on a whatever was there. Very humble of me I know considering I was on a mission trip. But Angie thought it would be great if we rented our own car and spent the night in Albuquerque, then we could go do whatever we wanted the next day. So that's just what we did. It was so nice to go to bed early too and sleep. I don't think I got that much sleep for the rest of the trip.

But anyway we got up and ate breakfast at this awesome, hole in the wall diner we found. This place looked kinda sketchy and had bars on the windows. But nonetheless we went in haha. This place probably only held 20-30 people max. The food was AWESOME though and you got a crap-ton of it for cheap. I think everything on the menu was 7$ and under. I got a whole plate of french toast that came with eggs, 4 pieces of bacon and hashbrowns. It was great. So then me and Angie decided to head to Gallup. The scenery was breathtaking. I could not get enough of it. It amazed me how something so bare and desolate could be just as stunning as my green Tennessee. So we arrive in Gallup and meet the other ladies at Walmart. Big mistake. Can I just tell you that we later found out, it was the first Saturday of the month which means the Navajo had received their food stamps/welfare money and went to town for food basically. So here me and Angie are, 2 blondes, walking around Walmart with only 5 or 6 other white people in the entire store, probably 1 other blonde. So needless to say we got stared down big time. The entire store was Navajo. Everywhere. More. Navajo.

So after our fun Walmart adventure we went to the reservation. I learned some interesting facts along the way. Let me share with you.

1. There is a stretch of highway called a Safety Corridor. It is the only part of the road that is well lit with street lights and a big shoulder on the side. This is for the alcoholic indians that need to get home at night and can't drive. The lights are for them to see and the shoulder is to walk on. There are also sobriety check points almost every night.

2. I have never seen more hitch hikers in my life. To make it even better, they hold up money to catch rides.

Anyway, the reservation is apparently the most desolate, ugly part of the area. Obviously. What else would the government give the Indians? The place we did all of our work was a church/school. This itty bitty place has been there for 20+ years. Bayside goes every year. But anyway, we spent most of our time in the gym/kitchen area. The school's gym floor was cracked and uneven. So the men's construction job this time was to tear it up and put a new floor down. P.S. They tore that floor up and cleared it out in 1 day. Amazing. So for half of Saturday, most of Sunday and Monday, we sat there and did a lot of nothing. I'll remember next time not to volunteer to go early on the trip. If you're not fixing food, buying food or cleaning dishes, you're sitting, staring at the wall. So that's what we did a lot of. But the other 7 people showed up Saturday afternoon. And my person for the trip was Jennie. She's 30 and awesome! She brought her 9 year old son, Daniel, who was an amazing 9 year old. Plus, he went to Boyd :) So we became BFF on the trip. We were originally suppose to room together, but she brought Daniel, so I ended up rooming with Joyce for a night and my OWN room for the rest of the week. Now let me tell you how nice that was :) All the ladies were worried about me and were like you can stay with us, etc, etc, and I said ladies, I want my own room lol.

So Saturday I believe we just all had dinner and then went to the hotel early. I was so tired. It was hard work doing nothing all day haha. So I shared a room with Joyce that night who was so fun and sweet. We got along so well the entire trip.

We got up Sunday and headed back to the Res for church. Okay, now the entire trip, none of us knew what kind of denomination the church was. They sang out of ancient hymn books, with a few instruments, and some other odd stuff. The ladies all wore skirts every day too. Eric told us they were some sort of independent Baptist. But, church was quite an experience. There were only about 25 people there, 14 of those being our group and the others were Indian, but related to the preacher and his family. So not very many Indians had come on their own. It looked kind of pitiful actually. But they had some sort of super old school wooden board that had how many bibles were brought, offering, people, etc. The offering jumped from 65$ to 236$ from the previous week. Guess all of Bayside gave well. Anyway, we sang songs, split up for Sunday School and then sang some more songs. The whole service was kind of weird. But it was good nonetheless. This gave me an idea of how singing would be for Wednesday night church. I was toying with the idea of deciding to sing again after seeing how few people were there.

So I believe after church we all ate and then sat around. Me and Jennie were so bored so we went to Walmart. We stole a rental van lol. I'll definitely remember this important tidbit next time: If you wanna go anywhere you want and not be at everyone else's mercy, rent your own car. We couldn't do anything unless we had a car. So I think we did that and that was about it. We had church that night at 6pm. It had about as many as Sunday morning. Not much interesting.

So on Monday we went and had to plan for Bible school. There were 6 of us doing the little ones. We were gonna split it up Prek-K, 1-2, 3-4. The year before there were 50+ kids and 3 teachers total. Fail. Ugh. They said it was wild. So we expected a large crowd. The day is basically full of food, crafts and games with a little Jesus thrown in there lol. So we planned and made stuff, then we all went to eat at Earl's restaurant, which was suppose to be some great place. It definitely wasn't. I was so annoyed the whole time, Indians come in and show you jewelry, etc. to buy while you sit there. The food was okay, but not nearly as good as they all described it being. But I also bought some moccassins before dinner! They are gorgeous! I was so excited! My other cheap, mall ones were falling apart. So now I've got some new ones from Indian land :)

Waiting.

Here's hoping New Mexico actually looks like this.

So I finally finished posting all of my other entries from my livejournal. Glad to have it done, it took a lot of time! So I figured it was important to start this again and force myself to blog. Since I'm gonna be going on so many trips in the coming months I figured I needed to document them starting now. This is all in part to my BFF Teacher Christin. For the record I wanna be Teacher Cortney. Just saying.

Anyway, I thought I would begin my discussing my dread for part of my New Mexico mission trip. I for some reason thought that since I sing karaoke, I could sing a real song with a real track in front of a lot of real people. Wrong. As it turns out, the track I fiddled with does work, so I could sing it, but now after practicing on a real mic, I don't want to. And I'm pretty much making myself sick over it. I sounded awful on the mic, even though 2 people told me I didn't. They also informed me that I'm doing this for the Lord, not for anyone else. So, it really shouldn't matter if I sound like a dying cat, I need to sing to glorify God, not myself for my semi-musical abilities. Ugh. When someone puts it into that perspective, I feel even worse. I almost don't wanna go because of it. Like I'm worrying about it that much. I wish I had more time to practice there at the church, on that mic, on that sound system, on that stage. Ugh. Vomit. I guess I'll take the CD regardless and see what happens. Pray about it. I know I am.

Other than that, I'm gearing up to go! I am pretty excited, minus the changing of rooms and roommates situation. I was kinda looking forward to a room alone. I don't have to worry with anyone. Sharing bathrooms, TV, hearing snoring, loud sleepers, when I/her have to crap and smell the bathroom up, etc. You know. All the roommate things you worry with. Oh well. I'll have a nice bed and shower. That's all I need. But I was informed yesterday that after our 2 hour drive to Nashville, 2 hour flight to Dallas, 2 hour flight to Albuquerque, we have a 2 hour drive at night to Gallup. Through the mountains. Yes, through the mountains. Help us. I can just picture what's going to happen. All those movies in the West along a dirt, desert road, have people who get stranded on the side of the road when they have car trouble. They get abducted by those deformed, incestuous people who suffer from the effects of the nuclear bomb test. You know. Think the Hills Have Eyes. AH. That's what I imagine the desert West as being. Pray that doesn't happen.

So I'm interested to see how just me and another girl are gonna teach 40-60 PreK-K kids. Just two of us. Pray for that! Kinda scary. I guess I have to realize that if it's the Lord's will for all of those children to come, then He's providing a way to teach/take care of all of them as well. This certainly will test my love for Prek.

So I took Lauren to the shuttle at 5:30am this morning. Meaning, I had to get up at 4:45am, but my body decided to play pee pie and wake up at 4:30am instead. Bleh. Granted, I came home and slept for 2.5-3 hours, I still wanna take a nap.

Excited to go to Destin when I get back from New Mexico! Yay for vacationing with the Capetezzzz. Boo for getting home at like 6pm on Saturday evening from NM and going to Destin at 9am the next morning. Yay for washers and dryers in FL.

There better not be any oil.

So it says I haven't updated in 32 weeks. It seems like that long too. Well I know I said this last time but I do need to force myself to update much more. Christin has motivated me immensely lol.

So I'm trying to see what's gone on in the past 32 weeks. Hmm...

I started Nutrisystem and I love it! It's gone well. I've lost 10 lbs in 3 weeks. The food has been good, which I didn't expect and I eat ALL day long. That's the best part, plus dessert every night :) I'm still learning how to eat right though on the days I don't eat the actual food. I still try to follow the right amount of carbs, fats, dairys, fruits and veggies. It's a pretty simple process. It makes me eat all of my vegetables and fruits, plus drink my water. That's a great thing.

So I finally graduated with my undergrad degree! On December 13, 2009 I believe it was. Now I'm doing my Masters in Elementary Ed. So I'm still a full time student. No job for me yet lol. It was me, mom and dad, Michael and Lauren. Good times!

And I just realized I haven't blogged about student teaching yet. UGH and Yay! So after I left the amazing Apison, I went to the craptastic school in Cleveland that I won't name. Anyway, the school wasn't necessarily bad, it was my 2nd grade teacher. The thought of the entire experience still irritates me. So in a nutshell, I didn't like my teacher who also didn't like me. I didn't like my PIR who tortured my life and then my teacher took her side. So I went down to UTC and had a meeting with Raus, Rutledge and my mom. I decided to go to another school in the fall and redo my 2nd placement. The only bad part was that I had 8 days left at my school :( It was that bad.

Anyway, I held my breath for a great school and grade. I was beyond blessed and got McConnell Elementary in Hixson (almost Soddy Daisy) and was suppose to have 1st grade. Well luckily, UTC or McConnell messed up and I ended up with KINDERGARTEN! I thought that it was too good to be true and just knew that they would move me because I needed an upper grade to complete my student teaching. Well Rutledge said I could stay there as long as I did some observation hours in the upper grades. So needless to say I had the most amazing teacher that helped me tremendously every day and loved having me. The kids were just as precious as Pre-K too. And just a few weeks ago she basically told me I was her favorite student teacher ever. She's had like 20 in her career so I felt very honored and made my mental state so much calmer since leaving my old school on such bad terms. It felt like a weight was lifted that told me, "No Cortney, it's not you, it's them. You weren't wrong." Ah. So needless to say, things went well with my PIR too. I had an amazing time at McConnell, met lots of new friends and teachers there. Even more so than at Apison. God is good.

I believe I will be getting a kitten soon! YAY! It will be named Elvis :) I'll put a pic up when I get him or her.

OH and we definitely went on our first family cruise to Cozumel, Mexico and Grand Cayman Islands this past October. 4 nights, 5 days. We flew there bright and early from Chattanooga to Ft. Lauderdale. Got on the boat and it rocked from then on. Adam was sick the entire trip because we walked around like drunks the whole time since the boat wouldn't quit rocking. Overall we had a good trip, it just wasn't as thrilling as I thought it would be. I wish now I had blogged about it when I got back :( Mexico was my favorite. Beautiful beaches and water. And tequila :) I even found my name spelled correctly into a handmade bracelet! Beautiful!

Hmm..I'm trying to ponder if there has been any other BIG things happening in 2009...I'll re-blog later if I remember any!

Twilight Convention

So I know I went to the Twilight Convention about a month ago, but I just decided to make myself start blogging about it so I will remember. I probably should have been smart and done this while on the trip during spare time, but never did. Nevertheless, here's what I got:

So, I head over to pick Becca up Thursday morning about 8:30am. She is almost ready, not on time, as usual lol. She had made us fun weight watcher twilight muffins! They were SO cute. There's a picture on my Facebook of one of them. It was chocolate with little eyes, nose and teeth. It was suppose to be a vampire, but looked more like a werewolf actually. It was so funny. Super cute.

So we were off to DeLand to see Vicky! Yay! Love her so much. Her and Chip are so funny. So anyway, we drive for a while and stop for gas somewhere in Georgia. Then we stopped for lunch at a rest stop and ate our lunches we made. And then we drove some more and made a pitstop to pee and get some gas. I could definitely feel the heat as we stopped in Florida for gas. We found out later on that there was a record breaking heatwave that weekend we were there! It was like 95-99 degrees! Craziness for the beginning of May! But anyway, It suppose to be like a 10 hour trip or more, but me and Becca got there in about 8 haha. We drive faster than necessary so our trip was short lol. So we can't go to Vickys house until 7:30ish, so we drove to Daytona and ate at Bucca Di Beppo Italian restaurant. Becca said there was one of those in Nashville and the food was fab. And it was! Our waiter was hott too. Super yummy.

So we headed off to Vickys and got there and talked to Vicky and Chip for a while since I haven't seen them in years. They're so funny. Well then we headed to bed kinda early since we were beat from driving/riding all day. The convention wasn't until Friday afternoon, so we got up Friday morning and met Vicky to go to the flea market and eat lunch. The flea is always great. Lots of fun stuff there. It was so hot though. But I got 2 fun rings to match some dresses and a picture frame. After that we drove down by the beach and ate at a restaurant on the water and got fried fish! SO yummy! Then we drove to the beach and stayed there for about 15 minutes, literally. We didn't have alot of time because we had to drive to Orlando. But we put our feet in the water and took some pictures. It was fun to say i'd been to the beach haha.

So we headed back and drove to Orlando! It was about 40 mins but we hit Friday afternoon traffic. Ugh. It took us like 20 minutes to go 2 miles. But we made it to the hotel! The convention was at the Florida Hotel and Convention Center. So it was a great hotel attached to a huge mall. It was super cool. So anyway, we got there and went to check in. Then we took our luggage to our room on the top floor. Our room was super nice and it was just a regular room. It had a flat screen on the wall and a desk and couch and a pretty big bathroom. We were pleased.

So then we ate some dinner and got dressed to go to the Cocktail Party that was at 8. So there was never any dresscode for the weekend or for these events and all, so we dressed semi-formal/casual, if that makes sense. But some people were in jeans and others in dresses. So anyway, it was an open bar, which I didn't know, so drinks were free! We got lucky and sat down at a table since there were so few and there was a mom and daughter sitting there and another girl came up and sat down. Well the mother and daughter were odd, but the other girl was super nice. She came to the convention by herself! I said, you came alone to all of this? And she was like yeah I didn't have anyone to go with me. So I volunteered and said she could hang out with us all weekend if she wanted and she jumped on that offer quick. But she was super sweet and was thrilled to have some friends. She lived in Fort Meyers a few hours away. From the way it looked, me and Becca had come the farthest of anyone we talked to the whole weekend! Woo! 10 hours! People were amazed when we said Tennessee lol.

Anyway, we were sitting there waiting and all of a sudden, Peter Facinelli (Carlisle) walked in! Ah! I was like, wow, he's here. I knew he was coming obviously but it was very surreal. And all of a sudden people hounded him. Omgoodness it was crazy. Then Edi Gathegi (Laurent) came in and so did Kellan Lutz (Emmett). You should have heard the screams and squeals. People just pretty much attacked them. They were there like an hour, but once they were gone, everyone else left. Me and Becca sat at our table and didn't want to bother them, but then they left! But we had a good time anyway. So after that we called it a night and headed off to bed.

Well sleeping was quite an adventure. I was tired, but couldn't fall asleep. I laid there a good hour and a half and then started hearing loud people next door. I knew Becca was asleep but then she rolled over and checked her phone and I asked her if she'd heard all of that stuff? She said no, but I told her I heard someone screaming obsenities and something like, "F**k you! F**k your mom's a**hole! Stuff it! Stuff your a**hole with salad! And lettuce and tomatoes and dressing! Stuff it in there!" OMG I was about to bust out laughing, and I thought, who is wasted in there? My word. Well the noise didn't stop and got louder, so I told Becca if they werent any quieter, I was calling the front desk to complain. And I didn't want to be one of those guests that complain about everything, but it was ridiculous and like 2 in the morning. So I called and said what room we were in and that the people next to us were very loud. Well it turns out, other people had already called and complained and that they were sending security up. Haha!

So I heard security come and snuck to the door to listen. I don't really remember what they said they weren't happy. So then it got quiet. And then I finally went to sleep. So we got up and started getting ready on saturday morning. We pretty much primped all weekend long. Me and Becca just laughed and said how vain we were since we wanted to look perfect all weekend lol. Plus we had our photo op with the Cullen boys that day! So we tried to look our best. So then we head down to the main room and there are probably 500-1,000 seats. We were flabbergasted. But we had reserved seats and got to sit near the front! Woo! Our seats were awesome and we got to sit there all weekend! We had some weird girl next to me though and she was there solo, because the other 2 girls next to her had come together and she had no one to sit with. But she semi-big and I had to cram next to Becca. Anyway, we were awaiting the question and answer session with Peter! It was suppose to be an hour long. So they introduced him and he walked in all cool with his shades on. He's so hott. O.M.G. haha. He was gorgeous actually. I decided all weekend he was my favorite. We were pretty much team Jasper on the way to the convention, but changed our minds.

Peter wore this blue shirt and his eyes matched it perfectly. SO hott! Becca's pictures of him were gorgeous too. Ahh. Anyway, he picked fans and they got to ask questions. I could of asked one, but I got too nervous and never thought of a decent question to ask. So anyway, that ended and we walked over to the vendor's hall to look at the Twilight stuff and were somewhat disappointed. They didn't have that much. I was hoping to see a crapload of stuff but was disappointed. But I did buy a little button that says Cullen Baseball to put in my car.

So we went back to the room and ate lunch and primped before our big photo! Ahh! We were so nervous! We had paid to get a photo with Kellan, Jackson and Peter (Emmett, Jasper and Carlisle). So we stood in line and we noticed they ushered the fans in quickly. They herded us like sheep actually. So we didn't stand in line very long. Well, we got up there and started hyperventilating. They just tell you to come in and stand in with them. So I was first and stood by Jackson and Peter. Well they were crammed in pretty close and I stepped on Peter's foot! I said, Oh I'm sorry! And started giggling. He said it was alright and he and Jackson put their arms around me! Jackson was kinda short too. Woah. That was the first time we'd seen Jackson too. Ahhh, Becca said that Kellan was rock hard when she touched him haha! It was a fabulous moment we savored lol. So after that we rehashed every second of the 20 seconds we were there lol. After that we went to the mall for a while. We had some time to kill so we went shopping! I got a cute dress at Delias and that was about it. After that we went back for the Q&A session with Edi. He was SO funny. Edi cracked us up. It was great.

Well after that we had alot of time to kill because they were having autograph sessions for like 3 hours or so and Becca and I hadn't bought any autographs. So we went to the vendor hall and I saw some earrings I liked. Well I left my wallet in the room and we had to go back and get it. So we're unlocking the door and Becca looks down at the other end of the hall, the FAR end of the hall and says the guy down there looks like Kellan! I looked and sure enough it looked like his shirt he'd been wearing. So we got all excited and went in the room and spent about 4 minutes and then I opened the door and held it for Becca. Well I look over in the hall and there goes Peter walking by! I was stunned. I choked out a "hey" to him and he said hi. And then Jackson and Kellan come walking by too! Ahh!!! It was fabulous! We flipped out in the elevator! We decided that they were staying on our floor! Ohh how lucky were we? They all were staying at the other end of the hall. Wow. Fun stuff.

So we went to the autograph session to stare at them. Becca became a paparazzo and took I don't know how many photos since they were so close. Well we were asked to leave a while later and we killed some time before the Banquet dinner. We changed and then got in line to go into the banquet room. There were like 8-10 tables that held about 8-10 people each. Sandra had gotten in there early and saved us 2 seats at her table which was a "Peter" table. That meant he'd come around to our table and talk with us! Kellan sat at the table across from us for a while too. So we ate our food and then Peter came over and sat down. He looked at me quite a few times, but I never could find anything interesting to say. Becca talked to him for a few minutes about a movie! Lucky thing! But it was great. He was super nice and gorgeoussss! So then later on, we saw some of the celebs getting photos made with their tablemates and we wanted one! Well we found out it had to get cleared first but it would be fine probably. So we all stood behind the table and waited for Peter to jump in.

Well there was a girl there that was from another table and was getting her pic made with us since her table had left. Well I was on the end and wanted to be in the middle, knowing Peter would probably be right next to me. Well she switched with me and LO AND BEHOLD here comes Peter and he slides right on in next to me and put his arm around me AGAIN! Ah!! I was so excited. Well then, all weekend, the goal of everyone was to get personal photos made with personal cameras rather than paying for them with the professional photographer. Well Becca was sneaky and got someone to take our pic with him before the photographer did. Well lucky us, Peter, me and Becca looked at her camera! Therefore, we didn't have to pay for the pro photo! Woo! It was great! How lucky are we? We had a great time. The girls at our table were really cool too. No drama or weirdos lol.

So after that we chilled in the room again and changed for the concert that night with The Nova Echo and 100 Monkeys (this was Jackson Rathbone's band!). So there was drama before the concert and we had to wait a good hour before we could go in, which sucked. The only peeve I had all weekend was the time. They were late for everything. The company that is. Nothing started on time. But anyway, The Nova Echo played, and they were good, but the lead singer was odd. Very odd. But then the 100 Monkeys performed and they were good too. It was funny because each member would switch instruments and sing. They all did everything lol. And then everyone kept turning around and staring and I saw that Peter and Kellan had come in and were standing on their chairs. They took out their lighters during one song haha. It was funny. Well since the concert started late, it ended around midnight and we were beat. The 100 monkeys were also playing a second show later that night at Ruby Tuesdays but we decided not to go. Sandra later told us that she went and got to talk to Jackson and get a photo! So awesome.

Well after we went to our room, we decided to walk down the hall toward Peter's, Kellan's, Edi's and Jackson's rooms just in case we saw one of them. Well lucky us we saw Peter and Becca said hi. Then we saw Edi from a far. So funny. How lucky could we get being on their floor?

Oh and another note. I followed the company who held the event on Twitter and they posted a few tweets during the weekend. Well the night after the loud people were next to us, the tweet said that the 100 Monkeys were getting restless and they had to find them another room to jam in, and they were up till 4am. So we had some 100 Monkeys bandmembers next door to us. We had the celeb floor. So awesome.

So Sunday we packed up, and checked out. Then we had lunch in the mall with Sandra and then went to the Q&A sessions for Jackson and Kellan. They were back to back and there was loads of screaming for Kellan. Well, Jackson's was very quiet. For one, he held the mic too close to his mouth and we couldn't understand a word he said and then he was different. Definitely a band guy. He was super nice and all, but everyone else was so funny and had a very sociable personality and he just didnt seem to. But anyway, Kellan was last and his session was fun. He's so gorgeous. After that, they had more autographs and we stayed to watch. Well, so many fans had asked Kellan for hugs during the session and he said afterward. Well, there were a bunch of lingering girls after the autograph session and they announced that Kellan was willing to give hugs if we stood in line! No joke! There was like a 30 person line and he gave awesome 2 second bear hugs! Me and Becca about had a heartache. He was so strong. I told Becca I now knew what Bella felt when hugging Edward, because it was like hugging stone. Haha that left us on cloud nine. I was so glad we stayed to chance getting a hug. It was so worth it.

So after that we headed back to Vickys and went to eat at a Mexican restaurant and got ice cream! Yum! We swam in the pool that night too. And then we went to bed. We got up and left about 7 in the morning I believe. We thought we'd try and miss Atlanta afternoon traffic. So we drove and stopped a few times again, but poor Becca was driving through Atlanta and got a ticket. A big FAT ticket. She was going 28 over and we of all cars got stopped. Everyone else was flying but we got lucky. Ahh. Not fun. The policeman wasn't a douche which was good, but it blew. Ahh. No fun. Other than the ticket, the trip was excellent and I could not have asked for a better time.

Theres a new Twilight Convention in Nashville in January! Ah! We're SO going! We'll have wolfpack members this time too! Maybe Mr. Jacob will come :)