Ms. Emma Pidgeon.

Yesterday, I had the immense pleasure of going on a hike with the wonderful Emma Pidgeon.
I have known this girl forever. We met at Victoria Community Church at the age where everyone immediately becomes your friend. I wish I could remember that first day and see if I would ever think that we would remain friends this long. As the years went on we didn't necessarily always hang out. We had other friends at school and in our other extracurricular activities. But we always seemed to connect at church, whether it be a mission trip to Chile or being on the same team at camp (Running Noses) or even just a regular youth group night.

I think this is why our relationship has lasted so long. God was always at our center. There was a time where we would come with analogies about our walks with God and tell them to each other. I mean it also helped our relationship that we were similar in some ways, like our tendency to remember obscure movie facts.

When we were on our hike, we talked about everything. Garcia Trail is almost straight up the mountain so a lot of the time we were huffing and puffing but there was a lot of talking about life, roommates, boys, the future, China, Texas, etc.

This girl has become such a great woman of God. She is confident and ready to continue learning because she knows that there is always something to be taught in this crazy world. The best thing is that she is fully ready to let God lead her where ever. Like China. To go teach English.

I am so proud of her.

And at the top this was waiting for us. It was absolutely breathtaking.

We saw it and we literally fell silent.

Dear friends,

After much consideration, I am taking the job at Baylor. Meaning, I am moving to Waco, Texas in July sometime.

Green and yellow, here I come.

Love, Jane

This past weekend

Circumstances led me to going home this past weekend and staying the night. I stayed from Saturday to Sunday evening. It made me realize how much my little ones are growing up.

Here is Ally (with my mom creeping in the background) and she is making sentences and being a two-year old (which entails being a brat at times. but she is an adorable little brat) But it was the first time I actually felt like an aunt. After dinner I went with Wyatt and Ally to play with some play dough. It was nice that they were not running from me or saying no when I tried to talk to them (this especially happens when Ally decides to be her two year old self). I even stopped some arguments. I can't wait till they're older and I can really spoil them.

And really, I can't blame them when they don't really trust me yet. I'm barely around. I live here, in Azusa. Forty miles is a long time for an aunt.

And then there's Garrett who is at the age who loves me no matter what. I like to believe his crying is him telling me he loves me. That's why I'm ok with it.

P.S. Boy babies look like little old men.

Bear Country

So on Tuesday morning, I boarded a plane to go check out Baylor University. Through a series of emails I planned it out with program director of the graduate program. My thoughts about the trip was that it would be a formal interview for a position as a graduate assistant.

This was the sign that greeted me when I got off at the aiport (it only had three terminals - it was smaller than the airport in Helena, Mt. )

When I got there I stayed with two GAs who cooked me dinner and answered any questions I may have had. I'm not going to lie, there were times of extreme awkwardness but they were super nice and I'm glad I got to meet them.

Apparently, the forecast involved ice rain. So we woke up to a bitter cold with roads and sidewalks of slippery ice. I was almost completely prepared but considering my plans were to look professional, wearing tennis shoes with nice black slacks was not going to work out. Thank goodness I did not pack a skirt or anything. And thankfully, I did not eat it.

It had been on the schedule for me to check out the high school I would be interning at but the weather caused the school to be shut down. Too much ice on the ground. Texas drivers do not know how to drive on ice roads apparently: I was told that between the times of 8:00 and 10:00 there were forty wrecks in the town of Waco. ... Dang.

So instead I spent the day with Jessica, one of the GA's for football and we got to stay cozy warm in this indoor facility:

Sweet huh?

The facilities at the campus are amazing. Both the athletic training rooms for the athletes and the athletic training labs for the program. It will be a huge growing experience in the field of athletic training if I choose to go here.

I also got to sit with the program director, but it really was not a formal interview, like I thought it would be. It was more of a "Here's the program, are you interested?" And I honestly do not know anymore. I can see myself here and I loved the people I met and there will be so many experiences and I liked the classroom set up but I can also see myself elsewhere. And I don't want to give up on UIUC - even though they have not contacted me yet. Because I'm pretty sure those facilities are also just as nice as these are. (After I reread this paragraph, I realize there are a lot of run-on sentences, but that is how streams of consciousness go, so I'm not changing it. Figure it out.)

But it would be warmer in Texas. . .

Anyway, the flight home was an adventure,too. The ice in Dallas made the plane I was supposed to board late. So we took off around 6:00, landed in Houston about 6:55 and I had fifteen minutes to make it to my connection.

I made it. But just barely.

Here's the plane that only had about 24 seats and six people on the plane. It was a very new experience of me.

But the sunset was beautiful.

Brrrrrrr

Maybe I don't want to live here?

My car.

I just want my car back. I hope its done by Friday.

Intramurals

I have another job on campus besides my wonderful laundry job.

I am a first responder for intramurals. This means that I have a backpack with bandaids and icebags and a cooler of ice and when someone gets hurt I ask them what's wrong. Technically, I'm not allowed to fully eval any injury that occurs but I sometimes do and just tell them to ice it and take it easy.

Last night there was a kid that got elbowed in the head and blood was gushing everywhere. My friend Brad works with me and he was the one that had to deal with it. I'm all for blood and guts but sometimes I just don't want to deal with some people especially when they don't seem very grateful.

Another aspect of my job is keeping score and keeping track of fouls. It is sometimes a stressful task especially when the teams take this type of competition way too seriously. One good thing about this job is that I am learning more about the nuances of basketball and the little hand signals and things like that. Some of the refs I work with make the job so much more fun. They are usually basketball players for the school and they are just there to have fun. Which is what it should be.


This is my view during the game. And the score clock that I had to figure out. Last night, I also learned how to set it all up because of people being late and what not. I have many hats on when it comes to intramurals.

Soccer starts soon. It will be my first time playing since freshman year. I'm excited.