the 'meet the parents' story

the week before leaving for south dakota, my folks came over for a visit and got to meet nick for the first time. there were the occasional awkwardnesses, but over all, it was a great week (at least from my end... i can't speak for my parents or for nick!)

our many activities included going for a stroll around branson landing...

riding a duck...




and spending a day in eureka springs.


we came upon this cool ampitheater type stage overlooking one of the many springs in eureka. it was so much fun to play on -- and take a billion dramatic shots on, of course. what fun would there be without cameras in the world?





cool wall color, eh? very artsy.

i admit to having rolled my eyes a time or two at couples who take billions of pictrues of themselves in as many combinations as possible in as many different locations as possible...
now having confessed the mocking of said couples, i can confess further that yes, we're becoming one of those couples!
i know it's only fun for us... somehow that knowledge hasn't seemed to change our narcissistic photographing ways.



i really enjoyed nick and my parents meeting each other. it made me feel like two of the pieces of my life were coming together in a small way. turns out, these two pieces might just fit together.
i care about both pieces a whole lot, so it makes me happy to see them interacting with each other.

toward the end of july, nick & i are going to colorado to hang out with that side of the corleys -- dan & cari & kids, ben & mia, along with the folks again. i'm very excited for more of my family to meet nick! i'll keep you posted on how it goes.

the wakpala story

my church is so great at teaching the importance of community. that's my favorite thing about harvest, actually. they are a family to me in so many ways.
they've been sending a group to wakpala, an indian reservation in south dakota, for the last 4 years, and every year i feel no particular inclination to go. but this year i felt a little tiny inkling. i'm always for any and all ways to develop community more deeply, and this trip always brings the participants back more bonded than before, more a family than they started out as.

so i went, to be a part of my community.

while there, i learned some cool things.

this is pastor king, a sioux indian from a different reservation, but who moved to wakpala to build a church and minister. he was my favorite part of the trip -- listening to him, watching him with the people, getting to know his heart. he has the most sincere compassion for the dakota indians that he ministers to. he's very humble and loves to talk, even though he's pretty reserved. this picture is at the sitting bull monument, we're hanging out on the steps (with our shadows) and he's telling us about the history of the area, who sitting bull was, what the people were like then, what they're like now, plus much more.
it was fascinating to hear from a man who knows these people and cares so much about them. he understands their cultural downfalls and knows in what specific ways they need jesus. he's someone who has found the truth of the gospel, then has gone to his own people to live and share the truths he's found.
pastor king's been living in wakpala for over 20 years, but still says he's an outsider and that he always has to be careful to not step on any toes of the people who are actually from wakpala.
i just really liked that feller.

here's sara and i with him -- she's been to wakpala every year they've gone, so pastor king is her grandpa figure. it's pretty cute.


this is some of us out at the sitting bull monument -- it was so incredibly beautiful out there! we all marveled at the rolling green hills all around. there were about 30 people on the team, with a wide range of ages -- from 10 year olds to high schoolers to college age and on up.

we went for two main reasons -- #1 to do some construction in the church -- converting some rooms for better useability -- and #2, to have VBS with the reservation kids at wakpala, and at another place called little eagle. i was on the kitchen crew with two other ladies, so i didn't interact much with the VBS.
cathy, valerie and i made the meals for our team plus any locals and/or kids who might still be around for lunch and dinner.
(i tried to teach cathy the excited face)

after dinner every night we had a little service where we'd sing a few songs and one of the guys on the team would share for a while. erica, ann victoria & mark led the music, and sometimes benny. he suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and has some disabilities, but he's the smilingest guy with the most sensitive heart. he'd stand up and sing with them on the songs he knew.



this is what the reservation looked like -- green hills and lakes for miles and miles around, then this little cluster of ill-kempt suburban-type houses. not really what i'd imagined, having come from sawmill towns in the mountains of mexico. i was expecting dirt roads and wood shacks (maybe a tepee or two? just kidding...)


and of course, the bonding was abundant. every day we got to know each other a little more...


sara, erica & i were like peas and carrots, plus randall (a random green bean). that kid has wayyyy too much energy, but when channeled in the right direction, he is so incredibly helpful! he made the trip exciting.

billy was the fearless leader of our group -- his family used to work with wakpala back when he was a rebellious youth.


cody, mark, rand & brendon -- some of the good guys.

abbie, marcia, sara, erica & i


zach & ann victoria, the young newlyweds, enjoying the scenery...


sara copping a feelskie...

the pantry is the happenin' place to be, i tell you what...


this bench was made entirely out of horseshoes!!
amazing, i know.

and this concludes story #2.
just 2 more to be caught up!! stay tuned!

the zatoo story

some of ya'll are geniuses. you guessed it, zatoo does indeed rhyme with tatoo.

erica & i celebrated our last day of school this year by getting tatoos! last year we got nose rings... next year we're getting mohawks. real ones.

but i'm getting ahead of myself here...
erica went with a tree, her favorite scriptural metaphor of life and being planted by the stream and flourishing and whatnot. i'm sure she'll blog about her meaning more in depth so i'll not steal her thunder.
this is her assuming the position -- she got it on the left side of her back (notice inky red spot...) and she'll tell you that it was one of the most painful things she's ever experienced. they said she actually chose one of the most sensitive spots on your body to get a tatoo, but they didn't tell her this until after the guy had started tatooing :-)

she was a trooper though. she pushed through the pain.


i chose a dove on my back. doves are a symbol of purity (which is what my name means) as well as of the holy spirit. when you combine the two, it's the presence of the holy spirit that creates in us the ability to live in our identity.
because i have the holy spirit in me, i can live a life of purity.
the flowers are just for prettiness :-)



this is our tatoo artist, mikey, who has a few tatoos of his own. to just glance in his general direction you might feel some intimidation perhaps, but when he starts talking to you, he's the most polite and pleasant person you could ever wish for. it's so funny how fast our minds automatically stereotype people.

here we are, contemplating the yard, thinking deep thoughts... with our tatoos conveniently showing.

story starter...

i feel like a kinked water hose these days -- all the great stories of things that have been happened are just building up and the pressure is getting more and more... without blowing you away with the force of my stored up bransonian goings-on, i'll give you just one of those stories and hope it suffices for now.
soon, you'll be inundated beyond tolerance and might all stop reading. but tell you them i must. it's a compulsion. i'll start slow with some recent happy animal happenings.

first let me introduce you to fantasia.

from the hooded look of her eyes you might guess that she's a street cat, with low morals and a jaded outlook... she came to me, single and knocked up, permanantly implanting herself in my carport, claiming the rights to all cat food and ear scratching that my other outside cat, tozer, was getting. fantasia successfully scared tozer off with deliberate and vehement chasings, then gratefully took over her territory. nick chose her name, an appropriate corner hustler type name, i thought.
her hard luck story has a happy twist -- she had 4 tiny kittens a couple of weeks ago! and she's transformed into the most doting of mother.
she's on her way up, folks.
here's ransom pendragon, the biggest headed one -- he reminds me of an ewok. he's nick's favorite so he named him.

here's my favorite, asia. named after her mother and also on account of the cutest little chinesey eyes she had before they opened... she's the littlest and cutest, of course. i'll be keeping her.

and then there's yellow & white twinsies named malcolm & milo -- here's one of them (who knows which...)

i love them, also... i think they need to go to somebody's home together -- they're too cute to be split up.

so there's the story teaser to get you started. i'll wait to inundate you with them all so as to let you enjoy them slowly... hopefully nothing else will happen that will be story-worthy or else i'll be forever behind...





p.s. the turtle must've gotten the memo that i'm collecting animals...

camping

a little group of us went camping friday night, then canoeing saturday and had the best time EVER in the history of best times. it was truly restorative in so many ways to be out in the woods and on the water, in nature and free.

this is what i look like when i'm in nature and free.
also when i'm giving my impassioned rendition of 'quisiera ser un pez'.
we had fun passing the guitar around the campfire. also there seemed to be much quoting of 'the 3 amigos'. it's not my personal favorite, but i found out that it can be funny when quoted in the right context, and at great length. i think we heard pretty much every joke in that movie at some point in the weekend.

nick and i's dirty camping feet were 'seen canoodling by the fire, late into the night', as one of the gossip magazines might report.

nick was the master breakfast chef -- not only with the cast iron skillet action, but he even brought his own homemade bread that was hearty and delicious.
i'm a very lucky girl.


not long after breaking camp and starting the canoe adventure there was another kind of breaking that happened, much to erica's chagrin...

but the situation was rectified in good time and we continued on our merry way, enjoying a little rowing, a little cliff-jumping...


a little near-drowning...

sandy's lifeguard skills came in handy.

the trip was just the right length -- not too short that we were wanting more, but not too long that we passed out with exhaustion.

back to the trucks we went, with the help of an antiquated bus, the likes of which you might see on a pot-holey road in some third world country...

we rounded out the weekend with some good touristy type things -- frequenting the local 'junk museum' and dining at the ozark cafe. sometimes it's nice to get away from all the branson tourists and do a little touring ourselves.

despite moderate inter-relational tensions from time to time, it's safe to say we bonded.

i also remembered my long-forgotten desire to be on a college rowing team. i know, i know, my college years are behind me, and my college didn't even have a rowing team...
but that doesn't stop me from wishing.

coming soon, a post about a special end-of-the-school-year tradition! erica and i will be doing something drastic to our bodies that's a step up from nose piercings. not to give it away or anything, but it rhymes with 'zatoo'. that's all i'll say.

you'll just have to stay tuned.