My Graduation

Well, with the Lord's help, I finally made it through school and I graduated on June 3, 2007. That was a very hard day for me. About a week before graduation, Danielle (my sister) was telling my dad that about a week before my mom died, she was saying that she had to get better because she had to get on stage and hand me my diploma for graduation. Hearing that just crushed me. I wasn't apart of that conversation when it took place so I didn't know that. That made graduation day very very hard. I couldn't stop crying before we had to walk down the aisle. Some really good friends of mine had some very comforting things to say and they were there for me throughout the whole thing. I never realized how hard something like that would be.
After I was able to stop crying, seconds before walking down the aisle, the ceremony went pretty well. All 5 of us graduates had so speak in front of everyone whether it was introducing guest speakers, announcers, giving the speech or anything else. That was hard for me, but I made it through, but barely! :)
Also, I had to play a trio with Stephen and Gorden. I played guitar and they played violin. We played the hymn, "To God Be the Glory." When we practiced prior to the ceremony, it sounded really bad. I'm not sure why, but it did. At the ceremony, everyone said it sounded really good, so praise the Lord for that! I was surprised.
After the ceremony we had set up tables of things that describe us and pictures and different things like that. It was a good time to visit with everyone who came to the ceremony.

Then, after the reception everyone came over to our house for a party!!!! That went okay. We played volleyball a lot, but there were too many people to get a real game going.
So, the whole day was a trial in itself and I'm glad it's over, but I'm really glad I followed through with it and didn't back out. I almost did before walking down the aisle, but I remembered that one of the things my mom included in things she wanted to see before she died was my graduation. So, although she didn't make it, I had to do my part and go through with it.

Then, just last weekend, (July 14th) I had another graduation party with my dad's side of the family. It was fun. We played volleyball most of the time. I had a really neat cake! My step-mom designed it and had a lady she knows make it. There was a lot of thought put into it. I was so greatful for that.

Trip to Oklahoma!

About 2 weeks ago, our family took a trip to Guthrie, Oklahoma to visit some very close friends of ours, the Naylors. My step-dad was able to meet the rest of their family since he'd only met 4 of them prior. We had such a great visit with them. We did all kinds of fun things together and just had a really nice and encouraging time!



Sarah, me, and Tera at Fireworks!

When we arrived we started out by playing volleyball. They Naylors were having their friends over as usual and we joined in. It was a lot of fun. I was also able to meet a friend of mind that I had met online, and finally got to meet her in person. The second day that we were there, it was the 4th of July! Tera and Sage at Fireworks!
We had a really delicious meal for dinner and a very fancy red, white, and blue dessert and some homemade ice cream! We went to a parking lot to watch a really cool firework display! That was fun. We played a little bit of Frisbee before the show started. Later, during the trip, we went to a baker's house who bakes breads and pizzas and stuff out of his home and sells them. He had a nice commercial kitchen and we bought a little of everything that he had. It was all very delicious. A few of us stayed away from the blue cheese bread though. :D LOL He had a really cool brick


The Baker's Place

oven outside that he would bake things in. It was really neat!
Sage took us into the town of Guthrie to do a little shopping and we went to a coffee shop and that was fun! Sage knew everybody, everywhere we went! That was neat!
Another really fun thing that we did was that we got to go to the ranch where Jesse works and rode horses.
I had never really ever ridden one before so it Me learning how to tie a good knot

was a really neat experience. I knew that I was allergic to horses, but I figured that if I told anyone, they would suggest that I didn't ride, so I never mentioned it, but they found out later when my eyes were swollen and itchy. I was able to work up to a trot!!!! I know that's not much for good riders, but to me it was exciting!!! I had a hard time trying to get my horse to go where I wanted him to go though. I didn't want to kick him since it could hurt him and I figured since I was the one on his back, and he was carrying me, I would let him decide where he wanted to go. Jesse said, "He's got you wrapped around his finger." (or something like that)
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and such a great experience!


Jesse and Me Riding (well I guess posing)

Another neat thing that we did was that we went skeet shooting one morning with some friends of the Naylors. Everyone brought their guns and stuff and we had a good time. Before going to the Naylors, the only guns that I've ever been able to shoot was a 22 rifle and a Bebe gun. Mr. Naylor and John helped me to shoot a 410 and that was so scary. I was really afraid to do it and I finally did it, and I was glad it was over. Then,

Anna, Jeremy, and John at skeet shooting

we went to go skeet shooting and I wanted to shoot, but I was afraid again. Jesse helped me this time and I shot a 20 guage shotgun. Again, it was exciting to do it, but NEVER AGAIN!!! Caleb, Jesse, Anna, and Kate at Shooting
After we went shooting, sometime later in the day, we went to the Davis' for church. We met some really neat people there. Church was really good and everyone had some great things to say.
We had such a great trip and had some really great fellowship time! The Naylors played a few songs for us and that was wonderful to listen to! The Lord has blessed them with such great talent. Now, we're trying to plan a time for them to come here and do a concert. It will probably be in October! :)

We never got a picture with everyone together and I really regret that, but I guess we'll get that next time. Another great part about the trip was being able to have a few conversations with Sage. I love talking to her and I was really glad that we
Me and Sage being funny really late at night!

had some time for that! Whether it was late at night or in the car driving... :) Good conversations!
Well, I guess that's everything pretty much! Well, it's not everything, but it's a few of the highlights! Everything we did was very enjoyable.
Including the video of juggling and cherry swallowing! :) lol

(you can see how swollen my left eye was in the picture from riding the horses. This was about 9 hours later too!)

Okay, well, that's all for now!


John, Me, and Sage hanging out

Dancing With Angels

My sister and I had developed an interest in filmmaking about 3 years ago. We used to make short comedies and just had a lot of fun with it. Well, last year, my sister and I got really serious about movie making so we decided to change a story that my sister wrote into a screenplay. It took a long time to do all of this. My mom helped me a lot by reading over everything and changing words to make them fit better in the dialogue. My mom was just as much into the project as my sister and I were. Information on the movie can be found here... www.dancingwithangelsmovie.net

Well, anyway, we had shot 3/4 of the movie last summer with our friends. My sister and I directed it and acted in it and my mom helped direct and she filmed it. In the middle of production, my mom started having very bad migraine headaches. So, after awhile, she went to the emergency room to see what could be wrong. Well, to our surprise, she had brain cancer. The doctors gave her a year to live with all the treatments possible. So, there wasn't much hope. We decided to go for alternative medicine to see if that would help. I really believed the Lord would heal my mom. I had so much faith, almost too much, if there's such a thing. Well, She was diagnosed in August of 2006 and she past away January 2007. She didn't live long, and God did not choose to heal her, but I know he has a plan for my life and taking her out of the picture must have something to do with it. Although this is so hard to grasp and understand, I know I have to continue to put my faith and trust Him.
So, back to the movie. My mom had told us before she died that she wanted us to continue with this movie. She must have seen something that we couldn't see because she just knew this movie would change people's lives. After a few months, my sister and I agreed to continue with the movie. Not only continue, but to start completely over! That wasn't easy and without the help of our friends, they Naylors, that wouldn't have been possible. So, we worked more on the script and we did all the preparation for production.
On May 8th 2007 we started production!
It was such a great experience.
We learned so much about filming, directing, lighting, and even trusting more in the Lord!


Production lasted for about 10 days. Some days were such a blast and some were so hard. We had an average of about 4 hours of sleep per night so that didn't help on the hard days.
The entire cast and crew were so great and fun to work with.
The Lord has definitely blessed me so much by being able to be apart of something like this. I really wish my mom could have helped us finish though.

We had a lot of really neat things happen while filming. Well, maybe at first they weren't considered "neat", but God ended up provided so that's why I say "neat!"
We had 2 actors that decided they couldn't do their parts last minute. Well, it's not easy finding someone who can give up their time to fill a part last minute, but the Lord provided the people and things turned out okay. For one scene, we were shooting at a restaurant. When we got home, John (camera operator) was importing the video footage and he couldn't find the restaurant scene. We were all very bummed about this. It would have cost me a whole bunch of money to reshoot the scene. Then, we decided to just pray about it and turn our problem over the the Lord. Then, we decided to go play some volleyball to get our minds off of it for awhile. After we played, we came back inside finding that the footage was there on the tapes! Not only that, but when John went back home, he brought the tapes and started looking back through them. He couldn't find the restaurant scene! The Lord must have put the scene there on the tape for us so that we could import it! Since it's nowhere to be found to this day!!!!
God is Awesome!!!

We also didn't have anyone to play a doctor for us and we didn't have a waiting room to use for the movie. After walking into a doctor's office asking, they said yes without any hesitation! The Lord has definitely provided!

During production, we had 3 news reporters come to interview us about our project. It was a great witnessing opportunity for us! We ended up being in several newspapers and on Channel 11 news.
The best part about it all was that one of the newspaper reporters emailed me and told me how she had changed her life and become a Christian after reporting our movie and story. I was just so overwhelmed with God's goodness and how he has been changing lives with the movie before it was even finished! My mom was right, she knew it would change lives, and a big part of it changing a life was the part about my mom dying. Somehow it doesn't seem worth it to me because I'm very selfish and I want my mom here, but I know it was WELL worth it for my mom.

Right now, the movie is in post-production. We are doing a lot of editing and seeking the Lord's will for what he wants us to do with the movie after it's finished.
What is so hard for me is that I know what I want to do, but I have to make sure to take myself out of the picture and do what God wants me to do. After all this movie is for Him!

My First Entry

Well, I've never really done a blog like this before, but any other blog I've done in the past is no longer available.
So, I'm hoping to catch up and post some of the things that have been going on recently!