Weekend on the Coast

 We drove along the coast this past weekend on our

way to San Juan, where we were going to stay on

Saturday night before we traveled on to our next

destination.  We took our time to stop along the

way to take pictures :-)  Here we stopped to see

some Elephant Seals.  They were huge (probably why

they're called "Elephant") & they sounded like pigs! :-)

 Some visitors were trying to feed this squirrel!

I realized later that there all these signs around

talking about not feeding the wildlife... 

Oh well, guess the squirrel appreciated it! :-)

 "Mmm... gotta stretch!" :-)

 "Oh, you're definitely more comfortable than the sand!"

(Can you tell we had a little fun talking for the seals

as to what we thought they might be saying?! :-))

 Aw look at those "puppy eyes"!

 Waving goodbye!  They've had enough gawkers! ;-)

 We drove most of the way on the edge of these cliffs :-)

Mom, you would've loved it! ;-)  And I'm sure that

Dr. Jim was dying most of the way!

 Can you see the road along the way??

 It really was beautiful, although it was a bit foggy!

 We stopped to take some pics on the edge...

 Here's looking over the cliff... just for you, Mom! ;-)

The guys looked over first and said, "Oh!  It's not

too bad!  You'd just bounce around some!" :-)

 The sun finally peaked through the 

clouds at the end of our trip.

Oh!  And we think we might've seen a whale!!!

We were driving by and there was a lady who

was pointing to something in the water.

We tried looking as we drove by, and I saw

a dark object come out of the water!

I guess it's the time for whales to come closer

to the shore, so someone had told Dr. Jim to

keep an eye out for them.  Well, then I thought

I saw it!  We all kept looking (well, hopefully

not the driver ;-)) and then we saw something

off in the distance... a dark object going up

and down out of the water!  Poor Ariel, though...

she couldn't see it... maybe next time? :-)

 On the way to our hotel

 The guys entertained themselves by watching

"Andy Griffith" some of the way :-)

 Here we are!  Home sweet home... for the night! :-)

 The view from our window

 Ariel pointed this out to me!  We'd never even heard

of a hotel doing this!  We were planning to have them

come "turn down our bed and freshen our room" for

us later, but then we told the guys about it and DJ

didn't think that'd be the safest and wisest idea for

some stranger to come into our room. I'm sure he's 

probably right.  Oh well!  The thought was fun at least! :-)

 We went to a Mexican place for dinner.

DJ helped teach Aquila how to eat Mexican :-)

 Do you think Thomas liked the Mango Salsa?! ;-)

 We went to North Valley Baptist Church on Sunday

morning.  This is also the home of Golden State

Baptist College.  It was an interesting experience! :-)

It was a HUGE church with a definite passion

for the lost!  It was so neat to see Tyler there, 

a guy who we'd met out traveling in Michigan!

He's going to college there now... small world!

 The pastor asked Ariel to play for him, and so

she got to play on this amazing, expensive

grand piano!  They had four pianos in the

auditorium (two full grands and two mini grands)

and they had someone playing on each of them for the

congregational singing!  Yeah... it was a big place :-)

 We took some pictures outdoor of the team that

will be traveling for Revival meetings next semester.

 And Aquila even got to visit the Statue of Liberty! ;-)

 After Sunday morning services, we went to Thomas'

house for lunch before going on to our final destination

for the evening and this coming week.

Rebekah, Thomas' sister as pictured above, had fun

showing the girls their pet birds :-)

Rebekah even got Ariel to hold the bird

for a few seconds!!!  Now, any of you

that know Ariel know that that is a

miracle! :-)  Didn't last long, though! ;-)

Santa Barbara, CA

 Welcome to First Baptist Church
with Jim Schettler as the pastor!

 They had amazing facilities!

It's a large Christian school.. about 350 total.

They had housing for some of the staff on campus as pictured above.

 I visited here many times... :-)

the office was the door on the right.

 They even had their own coffee shop!  Very cozy, too! :-)

 Ariel wanted to get a picture with the gym since her

name means "Lioness of God" :-)

 Their basketball court

 The church auditorium

Since Pastor Schettler has been at this church

(about four years now), the Lord has really used

him to see it grow!  I would guess that on

Sunday they probably had about 350!

 So, the guys were told that they were gonna stay

in a motor home.  They had to decided which one

of them would stay there.  DJ finally piped up and

said, "Okay, I'll stay in the motor home.  I'm just

gonna do it by faith!" :-)  Well, when we got there

this is what we saw... (pic above)

 Thankfully this is really where they stayed! :-)

 Not too bad!  DJ gives it a thumbs up! :-)

Actually, he was giving a thumbs up for the door.

He thought that was pretty cool so he could sneak

out late at night!  Now, to go where I'm not exactly

sure, but he still thought it was pretty cool :-)

 Aquila and Matt inspecting the trailer...

or, snooping around should we say! ;-)

 Well, Steph didn't want to use the front door to come

outside & visit Ariel and me who were eating out there... :-)

 It looks like all we do is eat, huh?! ;-)

This is our Sunday afternoon meal.  

We ate in the coffee shop.
It's a really cute, cozy place...

It even has massage chairs!

DJ enjoyed eating his lunch here... tough life! ;-)

Any of our team could also go and get coffee here, too.

DJ was super excited to hear that!  Ariel & I tried it too

a couple times... a bit too strong for us, though!

Hence why it's called "Common Groundz", I guess ;-)

Aquila also enjoyed the massage chair! :-)

Sufferin' over here in the US!

I loved this cute little pamphlet telling about the church!

Such a clever idea and so cute! :-)

The War Room

It was a pretty awesome teen room!

It was like a perfect room to set up with the War

banners & flags!  Looked pretty awesome, I thought!

Gettin' ready to "fiddle" again! ;-)

Welcome to our "school room"!

Actually we used the lobby area of the women's

bathroom!  Worked out nicely, though!

Need I make any comments about this one?? :-)

Splash Ball

I gave my testimony on Wednesday morning in chapel.

Actually this week was a bit unique in that they had

two chapels a day and a devotional time each morning

because it was their "spiritual emphasis week".

So, I ended up singing twice, all of us gave our testimonies,

and the girls played two or three times, I think...

it was a busy week but what's new, right?! ;-)

Janna's amazing creativity! ;-)

Theory time with Miss Ariel :-)

Also, this week was a bit different with how the War

nights worked.  We actually only had a full War night

on Thursday night.  Wednesday was a "preliminary

night", basically a shortened War night, and then

Friday the girls had a volleyball game, so we were

done by Friday afternoon!

Stephanie & Janna have enjoyed getting involved in

the competition more... well, Big Ball Bowling at least! :-)

I loved seeing the "mountains" in the distance!

Spoke Tackle... pretty much in the dark, too!

We stayed with two teachers... this is Jasmine :-)

And here they both are... Elizabeth (Winnie) and Jasmine.

It was so fun to stay with them!  They were awesome!

Actually both were former graduates of West Coast, so

we both knew some of the same people so that was

fun! :-)  Also, "Winnie" and I had a lot in common

with the nickname thing :-)  Few people at college

even really knew her as Elizabeth, I guess.. 

sound familiar?! ;-)

It was funny!  Jasmine reminded both Ariel and me

so much of Lauren Thompson! :-)  And then Winnie

reminded me some of Sarah Magnuson, although I

haven't really ever met her person... maybe from what

I imagine she might be like and some from her looks,

too :-)  And Winnie also reminds me of Summer :-)

I think it was more in the way she acted!

Made me miss you, Sum!

So, this was Thursday night's skit.

Matt, DJ, and I did the waitress skit on Wednesday

night.  At the end, when DJ is supposed to throw

water on me... well... he got me square in the face!  

I think he enjoys that just a bit too much!

As Mrs. Van and I were trying to find some lights

one night, she pointed this note out to me... :-)

It was so awesome!  Thomas recruited a lady and

her friends who ended up coming out on Wednesday

night.  This lady, Arlene, had brought with her a

younger boy, her boyfriend, and another friend.

All four of them responded to the gospel message

on Wednesday night.  Well, then on Thursday night

she came back with more people!  Actually, it was

 a whole family!  During the invitation that night

both the husband and wife responded to the message!

Mrs. Van was able to talk with the wife and Thomas

talked with the husband.  I believe that they both

accepted Christ as their Savior!  The boy in the picture

on far right was their son who had come on Wednesday

night and had responded to the message already!  It

was just absolutely awesome to see the Lord bringing

this whole family to Himself!

Anyone want some Zucchini???  Cause the girls didn't!

We had testimony chapel on Friday afternoon instead

of our normal Friday evening since we weren't going

to have a Friday evening service.

Honestly, this week was a harder week... we were

praying but it was a week where you didn't see

too many obvious answers to prayer... until

testimony time :-)  It was so awesome to see

the kids one by one (and many of them!) give

testimony of all that the Lord had done in their

lives and hearts this week!  The Lord was

definitely working "behind the scenes" as

testimonies were given one after another

for about an hour!  It was a unique

testimony time for me...  I was the

"mediator", as Mrs. Van referred to it :-)

I was standing behind the Seals team and

a younger girl came back sobbing.

DJ suggested that I talk with her, so

I took her out into another room so

we could talk.  She was broken over

how she'd treated her brothers!  I

encouraged her to get it settled right

then, so, after a short intermission,

I sent her outside, and I motioned

to her older brothers, who were both

seated in the War room, that they were

needed.  It was so precious to watch

them get "reunited"! :-)

And then, soon after, another girl came

back and went to Matt.  Matt motioned

her on to me, and so I took her out

to talk to her as well.  I found out that

she was bitter at a girl in the school,

so I told her to stay and pray and that

I'd go get the girl so she could talk

with her.  So, back in I went to get

another one! :-)  The girl I went to get

was crying already as well, so I'm guessing

that the Lord had been working in her

already too!  When I took her to talk

to the girl who was waiting in the

other room, she basically ran to her

and they embraced and then talked

for a while!  It's never quite

happened like that for me before,

but I was thankful to be the

"mediator" that day! :-)

On Friday night after supper we were cleaning up

our school room.  There were a couple wheelchairs

that had been in our room that we'd moved out,

so we were going to put them back.  Annaleese

wanted to give me a ride on one, though :-)

We had a grand, fun time! :-D

On Friday night, I "accompanied" the guys and some

of the teenage girls to Coldstone Creamery for some dessert :-) 

This is our ride for the week!

 

And here's where we stayed

Thanks so much, Winnie and Jasmine!

We had such a great time with you both! :-)