It's been a beautiful summer family and friends... so this is farewell... until next year... a whole new band of shennanigans. Enjoy the last little weekend Regeneration shared with Transparent, Huntington Beach, and life at Loma. Signing off...
Goodbye not quite yet, but yes ladies and gentlemen, soon your blog fix will cease to exist for this traveling ministry circus also known as Regeneration: SMT 08 (Booyah Edition.
We have safely arrived at So Cal camp in the beautiful foliaged Big Bear in our home state of California. Home sweet home. There are about 360 anxious campers seemingly stoked to be here and so are we...
There are morning services the campers themselves get to run and from the music to the drama to the preaching it is going to be an adventurous and beautiful ride. Here are some of the awesome shennanigans that have taken place so far!
She's multi talented... The camp: Night 1 Today in the desert of Apple Valley... I didn't see any apples. But lunch was good.
It's funny and awesome how worship spreads... our dear boss George wrote this beautiful song and it was so cool and different hearing it from the youth worship team...
And then there was Jeff and Kelsey... quite the dynamic dance duo!
Our adorable brothers at chillis... good times... Here's the band with our dear popper NOT breakdancer... Wes. Here is Special K in quarter heaven, it's the closest we could come to a post card. Sorry Calen. :) Here we are with our homestay family, the amazing Steve and Connie and their very popular son Drew. :) Here's some of our boys with the dentist and his beautiful wife and daughter Macey (sorry if I spelled it wrong)... Brent and Katrina opened up their home to us so much during our stay in New Mex. Thanks again! href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4hasApuG3oREqmRZotQKnIp6SdxkHklbIXIlesFn6l8N4ErMiMtIe4U3MwwYG9cM92VW7lwt1dizAsBUTXnB6GlVDUlQzmCMpYryxxdpgT1_Yle4cU584i2B7rKkVRn-D-ws4bnzwH8/s1600-h/Spesh+Camera+July+011.jpg">
Our dear boss George and his beautiful family met us up in the amazing mountains of Ruidoso New Mexico for Jr and Senior high summer camp at Bonita Park last week. It was so refreshing to be in the mountains... there hasn't been much of that all summer. The colors in the sky and the constant, random rain storms made for an interesting week. There was such a diverse group of kids at this camp... we had about 300 kids... kids from all sorts of age, race, social backgrounds. There was a huge group of girls from this Christian Home called GirlsTown. They were an incredible bunch. Our speaker Bryan Frye graduated from Loma a few years back and he brought the word in hilarity and truth. Things he touched on included but not limited to the following; diarrhea stories (thanks to nasty Aldos on Rosecrans, I knew Santanas was better) crazy friend stories, finding our identity in Christ's love, understanding that the Holy Spirit is working through God's hand to empower and transform us so that we can influence our world in love and grace, and other great stuff... I can't remember it all he sure did talk alot. :)
There was also a legit break dancer...I dont know where those pictures are right now but I will find them. The band had some bonding... it was time to take the time to affirm one another. We have been reminded of the greatness and the lameness of getting comfortable with one another. We cut eachother down without meaning to and we love eachother without question all at the same time. It is such a privilege to have these new brothers and sister... we took a morning to just talk about all the good we see in eachother from all aspects of life including music, growth, influence on the campers etc... I love them. It's coming down to our last two weeks and we are all getting ready to check out back to the other real world, but we all know it will be a little sad.
Other bonding that happened in New Mexico included the late nights and awesome footage we shared with the camera crew, Jesse, Korey and I suppose Kyle. Then there was Chan Van Soest. Enough said. Bonita Park was full of life this week. AMAZING camp staff and coordinators... They took care of us like no other. An elderly lady even hand stitched and washed my favorite pair of jeans that I have been ruining all summer from all the intense set up and tear down of the mic stands. :)
Here we are again in the Dentists house. Our dear Dr. Brent was gracious enough to take Jameson in for a supposed cracked tooth or some shennanigan and he ended up needing a root canal. An hour and a half later and 1/3 bottle of Tylenol, we were sound checking at the church in Farmington that we are playing at tomorrow. G od has really provided us with such an amazing crew of people... hospitality has been the name of their game. We have not gone without. Even tonight, we're going to see Batman. If that's not ministry I don't know what is. :)
Overall, this has been good freakin times... God loves us, and has shown up all summer, and especially at camp this past week... and there He was.
We have made it half way through our summer! Our reward: getting to hang out with the amazing people in Transparent- Jordan, Shelby, Mark, Lindsay, Garrett, Justin, and of course Rachel! Just try and picture this…Palm Springs, 1 house, 5 girls, 9 boys, 12 beds, 3 bathrooms, 1 pool, and a WHOLE lot of craziness! And if that is just too much for you to imagine…don’t worry, there will be plenty of pictures! The first night we arrived and immediately decided that this was going to be a week of nothing but relaxation! The house was huge and air conditioned and that is all we cared about! Ok, maybe not…the boys thought that the huge TV in every room was pretty legit too! Once the other band got there we decided that we wanted to cook dinner together so we made a grocery list and a few members of the gang headed off for the grocery store to spend our $500 budget on food for the following days, what a task! They did great and came back with some yummy food for us to munch on. We all picked up a knife or a peeler and got to work. We had a gourmet meal of teriyaki chicken, roasted vegetables, corn on the cob, asparagus, brown rice, grilled pineapple, watermelon, and a Justin Wright special salad (complete with candied nuts and strawberries!). The cook-off started off great with everyone in great spirits…we were singing and dancing around the kitchen and of course…MAKING A MESS! But…TWO HOURS LATER we were still waiting for our frozen chicken to cook! Haha, yes we put frozen chicken breast straight onto the BBQ (I promise I had no part of this…I am smarter than that!!! Haha just kidding guys!). Here is the trooper Taylor outside at the grill for TWO FREAKING HOURS with his trusty sidekick Garrett. Overall it was a great night of good food, good music, good laughs, and of course good people! Rach and I were spoiled and we actually got probably the biggest room in the house (thanks Kendall J!!!) complete with double headed shower…that was a hit with the boys, let me tell you! We had a constant flow in and out of our room of shower-goers and some would stop and hang with us for a while :-) It was so nice to be with Rachel again and get to just talk through our summer and everything else going on. It really made me realize how great of a friend she is to me, and I am looking forward to many nights like we had in Palm Springs back at Loma! I love you Pom Pom!
The next day Rachel, Lindsay and I headed out to the Cabazon Outlet Malls with our fabulous driver Jameson for a fun filled day of shopping! We actually didn’t come back with much, but it was great to shop around and just hang out. I got a blue dress and Rachel got these amazing anchor shorts, which only she could pull off!!! So much fun :-) We headed back to the house and got ready to head out to Kobe Japanese Steakhouse-George’s treat! We all were dressed to impress and got to enjoy some AMAZING food! If you haven’t been to one of these places, you need to go! It is crazy! Complete with your own iron chefs who battle against one another and feed you great food. I had shrimp for the first time and actually liked the halibut I tried! I am so grown up ;-) It was another great day with the group. This last one is just for Elisha and Katie! Love you girls!
Then, sadly the day came when Transparent and Regeneration were once again split up…Believe me, it wasn’t an easy split! Tearing apart Meg and Jordan, Taylor and Garrett, Evan and Mark, and Rachel and I was just so sad :-(
But, we made it through, and NOW our team is in Farmington, New Mexico!!! Woot woot! But first, we had a pit stop/sleepover in Flagstaff, AZ with the lovely Britta! It was great seeing her and we even made time for a short photo shoot: OH! AND THEN WE HAD MY FIRST SONIC STOP EVER!!!! That is right ladies and gentlemen, I have been to Sonic! And as you can see by my face, I WAS AMAZED, and astounded because I had no idea how it worked! I have been promised many more Sonic stops while we are here in AZ/NM and I look forward to more adventures! Next stop was Farmington New Mexico!!! Welcome to Cross Roads Church of the Nazarene where we played for a youth group on Thursday night and got to hang out with them and play some games! We had an intense dodge ball match with us competing against their whole youth group…yea, totally not fair, but we actually won a few matches! It was a lot of fun. Here is our group in an intense huddle before game time! Then, Meg and I headed to Steve and Connie’s house for our home stay. They were SO cute and we got to hear their life story before we went to bed. So great! The next day we headed over to Dr.J’s house for a pool party! It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. We ended up playing Rock Band for hours cracking up at how terrible we were! But no fear, once we all traded the instruments we normally play, we got better! I was rockin the drums and Taylor was wailin on the vocals!!! No joke! The next day we left Farmington and headed out to Bonita Park in beautiful, awe inspiring Ruidoso, New Mexico. We are going to be here for the next week hanging out with campers and doin all of that good stuff. On Sunday we played at the church here on campus and had an AMAZING potluck luck…you know we love food! They call it the “Point Loma Potluck” and apparently people come out of the woodworks to bring us food. Yes, so our day of good food continued as we headed over to the pastors house for some authentic New Mexico eats! We had some kind of tostada with pinto beans and of course, the staple, green chili. We also had THE BEST bread I have ever eaten! It was New Mexican Flat Bread and I will be getting the recipe so that I can share this delightful treat with ya’ll. Haha, that’s right, I said ya’ll. Ok, enough about the food. We miss you all so much and are counting down the days until we get home! Hope you all are ready for us! Next week we will be in Pasadena, CA so all of you close enough to come and visit should do so! Love you all!!!!
