day 083. [c. tuts & poggie]

As my final days here in Oak Harbor are wrapping up I find that they are very low key. To top it off, some people have already left for their college campuses. So my leaving will just add to the people leaving for school.

The 27th of August is the day I peace out! ;)

Anyways, like I said, things have been low key for me. Just finishing up working and packing above all things. I'm really just at home now for the most part if I'm not at work. I'm trying to get some last minute hangouts together. Especially with people who are from camp and don't live in Oak Harbor. I'm crossing my fingers that Kevin, Steven, and I get to hangout before I leave. I also really want to hangout with Theo, Stephen, and Dan before I leave. Ugh, so many people to hangout with and not enough time to really hang out.

The plus side is that I'll be home for breaks AND my winter break is 4 weeks long this year. That's a whole extra week for me to hangout with people! Let's not think about that right now though, haha. I'm kind of thinking about now and what I really need to bring with me to school X)

As for what I did today though I got to meet up with Miss Laura Nagel. We sat down and just talked to each other about camp. Again, camp was so amazing this year I'm still in the process of working on my [three part] blog on my personal blogspot. I'll let you know when it's up. You can then read it then.

It was good getting to talking about what God did in us at camp. If you haven't read, Laura and I had a very special God moment at camp. Again though, it was so good to talk to someone about what God was doing at camp. It was also just a lot of fun hanging out with Laura seeing as she's leaving tomorrow for Michigan!

I hope you have fun there, and not to offend you Laura, although it was nice hanging out with you I definitely got a kick out of hanging with Matt & Courtney. I should mention that both of them showed up at Starbucks while I was with Laura. I thought it was funny because I was going to spend the next part of my day with them!

So sometime a few weeks ago [I think] I was asked to do photos of Matt & Courtney. I did. That's what we did today actually. It was actually a lot of fun. Gave me a break from doing senior photos where I tend to pose most of the seniors. Also, it was just an opportunity to do something different photography wise.

Obviously though, if you've been looking at my work, you'll notice that I've done portraits before, but having done senior photos almost all summer makes doing couples photos fun. I should mention though that as far as I know Courtney & Matt aren't together, haha.

As Matt said earlier, Courtney and I were being "divas" because we both got really hungry after awhile. So from there we went to Little Caesar's to get some pizza and crazy bread. From there we headed over to Matt's apartment where I finally got to see his Christmas present that Baily made him. Yeah I know, took me awhile to see that present.

The three of us went to go meet up with Ally and Jordan at West Beach where we saw what was left of the sunset. Seeing as summer is coming to an end the sunset is definitely a tad bit earlier than what it has been this whole summer. Afterwards the 5 of us went over to Dairy Queen where we ran into Laura and Caytie. How'd we know that Laura was there? Her car has "Jose" written on the back window. ha.

Overall it was a good hangout day. I really wish I could have hung out with Matt more often this summer. Oh well, haha. We hung out today and hanging out with him once is better than not hanging out with him at all.

On another note. Courtney is leaving on Tuesday :(

I've known her since she was in kindergarten. CRAZY!!

PS. Be sure to check out my flickr to see some of the other shots of Matt & Courtney :)

day 051. [flustered]

Seeing as I don't have Summer Deployment or Senior Portraits to put up, I figured I could put up the three-day-late self portrait.

If you're wondering why today's post is titled flustered, it's because that's how I feel right now. Maybe even a little frustrated. It all started with a phone call last night. I'm not going to go into details, but that phone call has made today seem like the longest day ever.

Anyways, I started today by having to force myself out of bed to get ready for church. I'm not going to lie, I almost didn't want to go to church because it would have meant having to see people that would potentially ask me if I'm alright. There would be some people who would know just by looking past the fake smile that something was wrong.

I even told myself this morning that whatever tears that felt the need to surface to my face, I would hold them back. But then Laura (worship leader) said something that pretty much was my cue to let all the tears go. She said something along the lines of how it's hard to go to church sometimes when there's so much going on, but that we have to let it go and give up to him. That was my cue because then I found myself letting all those tears go.

He's teaching me how to be real.

Seeing as I had a break from taking senior photos today, it didn't mean that it was a complete break. I still met with two of the seniors today to help them pick their clothes out. One of them was James, who I'm doing his photos tomorrow. The other was Caytie and her photos are on Tuesday. It should be tons of fun doing their pictures. By the way, more seniors to come this week, so definitely keep an eye out on that!

After picking clothes out, ha, I went to Youth Group. It was another awesome night. Tommy Guns spoke tonight on what God looks like. It was really what I needed. I guess you could say that I'm emotionally broken right now because I've just been in tears today. I've also just felt the need to cry for awhile. What Tommy had to say though was so awesome. He really is preaching the word of the Lord. Love ya Tommy!

As usual, ended up at Applebee's tonight with the Youth Group. I definitely miss the times with these guys, ha.

That was about it for today. Senior photos tomorrow!

Tomorrow's Senior: James Middleton

day 048. [SD: day 004]

OH MAN!! Today is the 4th day of Summer Deployment. Technically it's the last day seeing as tomorrow is the big BBQ at Living Word!! It's SUPER insane at how fast this week seemed to have gone by. Luckily, I get to go to Kid's Camp for a good solid week with some of the Living Word Kids!

Anyways, worship today was more personal than how we usually have it. We let the kids help out! You could definitely tell that the kids had a lot of fun, and that's one of the things we ask of the kids; that they have FUN!

Today's game consisted of an obstacle course and getting wet. Obviously with the lack of motor skills (haha) the kids took some hard falls and some pretty funny spills, ha. The good thing is that the kids were able to laugh at themselves as well as each other. I'm really glad that all of them were able to have fun with the last game of the week. I even decided to get wet; I obviously gave my stuff to someone so I wouldn't get my camera and backpack wet, ha.

If you've been following, we went to the memory verse station. Today's verse was probably the longest one, but my kids were able to memorize it!! Not only that, but they all remembered their other verses from this past week. That's four verses that they all know, Man! Today's verse was:

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. - Joshua 1:9

Is that not a long verse? Yeah. Proud of those kids. Their craft today was making a boat. It definitely goes with the water theme this year, haha. Speaking of crafts, they got their frames back today with the group picture in it. We look pretty awesome if you ask me. GO 4TH/5TH GRADERS!!

Snacks today was mainly Goldfish and Skittles. Surprisingly when you eat the two together, it's really good.

If you can't tell, as the week has gone on it's been getting low key. There's a bunch of reasons for that. Leader's get tired, but we still have to keep the intensity of the week going. Less kids show up, which makes it not as hyped up. But a lot of it probably has to do with the level of energy.

As for closing up, we had another leader's challenge. This leader's challenge was dealing with who could make the biggest beard using shaving cream. Red Team won ... making it TWO WINS for Red Team!!

Yellow Team: 1 - 3
Green Team: 1 - 3
Red Team: 2 - 2

That's how we roll!
----------------------------------------
So I know that every 15th of the month I would post up a self-portrait. Seeing as I kind of had a theme going on this week, I'll have to put up a self-portrait up another time. Probably on a day where I don't have senior portraits up. Yeah! I'll get it up :)

Seeing as Summer Deployment is ending (tomorrow) I will start up putting the pictures of the seniors upon these pages. Tomorrow will be the first of the several seniors I take photos of.

day 046. [SD: day 002]

Today was yet another day of Summer Deployment!! Day 002 as I would call it. Just like yesterday we started the day off with some good worship. Ms. Novella, Ms. Tasha, and I definitely got a good workout from that, but it wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday, haha.

Once worship was done Ms. Janelle and Ms. Tasha put on yet another skit to open up the theme of today, which later was elaborated on during the memory verse station.

Working with the 4th/5th Graders today was a bit more manageable seeing as Tasha and I had 5 less kids. You might be thinking that 5 less kids isn't that big of a deal, but remember the kids are around the ages of 9-11. It makes a difference, haha.

Like yesterday our first station was games where they started out with a water balloon toss. After seeing how fast the groups got out, I can see why water balloon tosses don't go over all that well with kids their age. I don't doubt their motor skills, but it's the fact that some of them haven't developed yet ... Let's just say that game lasted for not even close to three minutes, haha. Once the last group was out the next game they played was crab soccer, which inevitably turned into just regular soccer. Soccer that is with a big gigantic beach ball that kept blowing away everytime it got airborne. Smart move on Greg and Joel by putting water in it to keep it from getting too airborne.

Once done with games the group moved over to the memory verse station where Kristen gave the kids some helpful gestures and movements. Whatever you want to call them, ha. First off, I want to say how proud I am of my group. So many of them remembered yesterday's verse! In return they got life savers from Kristen. Good job today guys! Moving on, today's verse was:

Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. - Matthew 4:19

Yet another good verse and a verse that deals with more water. Hopefully tomorrow my kids will be able to not only remember this verse and yesterday's verse, but their verse for tomorrow as well. Because with verses we have a lot of free time once we've gone through the hand gestures, we always end the station with a game. Today's game was red light/green light. Kids can get a little out of hand I might say, haha.

Crafts was too much fun today. It was simple, but really fun. I in fact got to make today's craft. It was this little boat with a fisherman or fisherwoman in it with the verse of the day. The funny thing is, the verse of the day on the craft is from Mark rather than Matthew.

Side note: Because of what I learned in BibTrad, it totally makes sense as to why Mark and Matthew have a similar passage, ha.

After crafts the kids moved to snacks. I should probably say that the snacks are usually made from other snacks. Most things aren't already brought pre-made. I say this because today's snack was trail mix. It was so good that I ...

1. Had a bag during the memory verse station
2. I had another bag during our snack time
3. I saved the second bag because it was that good.

Because we didn't actually make the snacks for ourselves today, thanks Ms. Teresa, the kids had some more down time to play games. So we did, we played Quack Delioso and Red Rover. Those two games combined were enough time to end the station and bring today to a close.

The leader's challenge today was to CHUG a slurpee. Thanks to Jonah for being here because he represented the Red Team today, which might I add ... WON. Good thing that Sean was at work, haha, otherwise Yellow Team might have come out with another win. Green Team, you'll get that win. I know it. I can smell that win coming for you guys!

day 042. [starbucks]

Part of me wishes that today would never happen again, but then again, it was quite the day, haha.

I managed to go to Starbucks today ... three times. For three different accounts. Well, now that I think about it, I went to Starbucks for the same reason twice, but with two different people.
Note to self and readers: When you have an income like I do, Starbucks should be the last place you go daily. In my case of today, it should be the last place you go multiple times.

I was first at Starbucks today at 11:30 meeting with one of the seniors that I'm going to do photos for. Luckily, I had gone running with Allison yesterday so we kind of got the boring details out of the way. So today when we met up it was just to get ideas out and locations as to where we want to do her photos. While there one of our friends showed up. It was really nice to see Keriann just because it's tons of fun seeing her, as well as the other people that are still in high school.

When I was done there, I went home for a bit to just chill and read. But around 3:30 I went to Starbucks again to do my devos. I re-read Philippians 2:1-4 and got some really good stuff out of that passage. I also read the first chapter of Hosea and got some much needed stuff out of that as well. It's good to know that God will always love me no matter how much, or how bad I mess up. But it was a good time spent in Starbucks.

From there I went to the beach for a bit to snap some shots. I might put them on flickr, but we'll see, ha.

The final and last time I went to Starbucks was later at 8. It was to talk with Caytie Matthews, one of the other seniors, about her senior photos and to just get some ideas out there. It was a good planning and we got some really good ideas for shots down. I myself am really excited because Caytie does ballet so we can do some artsy photos as well as the typical senior photos. But yeah, those are the seniors for this year that I'm shooting. I can't wait for you guys to see some of their photos as they grace these pages. Also, just keep an eye out for them on my flickr page as well.

Alright, so I've got an early day tomorrow. Night everyone :)

day 034. [faith]

Today was one hell of a day, ha. I started work today down in Redmond coaching for my old club team. Who by the way, won nationals just this last Saturday (June 26th, 2010). I really missed these guys. We had a good run while I was in the club program.Tons of fun hanging/coaching with the guys. *For those that I ended up telling that I originally quite this job, they were hurting on summer staff. Because of that I took up the job again.

To the real part of today.

I hung out with my brother Sean Welch. He's pretty much my brother because we're so close. When I hang out, or for that matter talk to Sean, it's about some really serious stuff. If you guys really want to know what we talked about, I wouldn't mind sharing, but it'll take me a few years probably to really feel alright sharing this with anyone. The only reason why I shared this with Sean is because we are so close that I can tell him things like what I told him today. I mean my senior year Sean was someone who really got me through the hard times in my walk with God. As much as I would love to say that I'm walking with God on my own, I'd be lying - slightly. Sean is still there.

Anyways, ummm ... like I said we talked about some hard stuff today. We talked about my freshman year of college - faith wise. We talked about relationships with people. All relationships, by the way. And for those of you reading this, on paper my freshman year looked AMAZING, but deep down there was a hurricane brewing. By the end of my freshman year, actually by the time I came home from summer classes that hurricane had gotten out. It had taken control of me. Yeah I said I was Christian and that I believed in God, but you know what? That's not enough. You gotta live it out. I wasn't. I was hiding it. Not figuratively, but literally. I hid it. I hid every ounce of faith that was in me. Why? I got scared. I got scared as to what God was doing to and with me. I got to a point where I almost had enough and wanted to call quits. (For those of you who know me, this is something hard for me to do because I don't like pointing out my flaws). I started to ask myself: What am I getting out of this? Why do I care? What's the point of this?

College was hard on my faith.

Talking to Sean was a really good thing for me. I just came out of some crappy stuff that was going on at school and instead of me taking the punches, I put my faith in front of me to take the punches. I know I've hung out with friends these past few days, but the reason why I am really wanting personal time this summer is because I need to get back in touch with myself. I lost all sense as to who I was this past semester. I locked the Rick that everyone knew in a box. As much as it hurts me to say this, right now the Rick walking around is semi putting up a front. I'm trying to get me back. I'll get myself back, and I'll just need to trust in God and put a little more faith into him.

For those of you I've hurt these past three months I'm sorry. Sorry I lost connection with some of you guys, I didn't do it on purpose. I know you guys know I still love you. I'm just trying to figure out who I am again.

Lesson of the year: Don't compromise yourself for your feelings and emotions.