Brother.

David and I have never really gotten along. We fought all the time and were too cool for each other growing up. Luckily for me, this past year we have both matured a lot and have become really good friends. "Big Dave" makes me laugh all the time. However, He recently openly admitted to getting a lot of his humor from me. He laughs at my jokes all the time which makes getting along a breeze. We have also spent car rides talking about life and real stuff that's been on our hearts. We have also picked up the hobby of baking. Trying new cookies and making time to bake them are precious moments spent with me huge little brother. That six foot boy has become one of my best friends and it makes my heart happy to know it will just get better as we get older. I am blessed to have such a good friend to grow up with

Thanks

Thankful for :

1. Nick. Obviously. But really. He is a constant encourager and blesses me with his unending kindness and joy. He tells me I am beautiful everyday. He is careful with his words cause sometimes I am very fragile. He writes me letters and believes in my dreams.His prayers for me are honest and his walk with The Lord is real an beautiful. I am blessed by him daily.

2. Da rents. My parents have a love for each other that most teenagers don't get to see growing up. My Dad is an outstanding leader and my Mom treats every guest that comes into our house incredibly well. Their patience with me is astounding.

3. Sibs. I am thankful for Bethany because her heart is pure and her faith is authentic. Christa for her gift of giving and her unconditional faithfulness to our King. Danae for her honest kindness and the fact that she always likes my pictures. Andrew for being an outstanding big brother and his habit of doing things whole heartily. Emily for spending time with me buying me breakfast and caring about my life. David for making me laugh and for laughing at my jokes.

October Highlights:

1. I got to go visit Nick at his school, North Dakota State in Fargo,ND. We went thrifting and watched a lot of Fresh Prince with our friends Jenny and Trevor ( awesome travel buddies)

2. Learned the entire thriller dance and performed it in my high school cafeteria. Social suicide? Probably. Great story to tell my children someday? Oh, absolutely.

3. Successfully escaped Stats class by jumping out the window. Three times.

4. Dressed up as Princess Leia for Halloween. ( Nick was Han Solo)

5. Scored a pair of Ugg moccasins for four dollars.

Refreshed

The past two months have been filled with so much sadness. Sparks of happiness come and go but I often found my self genuinely sad. Before my best friend moved away I was rarely sad and when I was it usually only lasted a moment. The week Nick moved away my sister sent me a letter listing all the good things about long distance. The fourth on the last was " The feeling you get when you see each other again after a long time of being apart...It is the best. Like excited/nervous butterflies in your stomach." That perfectly describes how I felt as I stood in the chilled rain waiting for him to come to the parking lot. He finally game in his red zip up hoodie and I ran ( which never happens) into his wet warms. We spent the weekend thrifting with our friends, touring campus, eating college food, and going on walks. We went on a long walk. It was exactly what my heart needed. We talked about everything and it was good. The eleven hour drive was worth every moment I got to spend holding his hand and every story I got to hear him tell. We spent time in prayer and talked about our mighty king. We are blessed to have a relationship that is overflowing with joy.

My heart has been refreshed.

September.

September was a good month. A hard and long month but one filled with smiles, friends, and joy as well. Highlights of September? Here they are.

- Nick and I celebrated our one year anniversary with an extra long face time.
- I was warmly welcomed into the Illuminate Leadership Team!
- Spent one of my days off from school at a barbecue with some of my favorite people.
- Participated in cardboard testimonies with kids from the high school.
- Sent about a dozen letters to college friends who I miss.
- Joined worship band at youth group.
- Got a job.
- Survived a full five day week of school.
- Started to learn thriller.
- Managed to maintain an A in math after the first month of school.
- Spent lots of time with Jessie, Jonathan and their precious baby girl, Luci.
- Wore my sushi dress, went down a zip line, danced, and had brownies on the same night.
- Made new friends and deepened many other friendships.
- Got red TOMS. ( from Nick)
- Started attending the Sunday night service at our church. SO GOOD.
- Had a double sister date with Jessie Jill and Emily.

September was a very hard month but there are still numerous blessings I can count. God is good.

Heartache.

Nick, my best friend, is leaving on Thursday. He is off to North Dakota State ( GO BYZEN ) to make new friends, be a part of a new community, and learn new things about buildings and such. After seeing him almost everyday for the past year, seeing him every three months is going to be quite the shock. All summer I've been praying that the Lord would prepare me for this huge change and slowly he has been in many different ways. At the beginning of the summer during camp training I met a couple, Andrew and Callie. They have been dating long distance for a while and their relationship is beautiful. I have had a number of people tell me how hard it is to date long distance and sigh big sighs when they hear we're going to try so it is very encouraging to know it can be done. Andrew has been encouraging me about the change and I dont think he understands how much that means to me.  Last night, Jessie Grider, my mentor, asked if her and her husband could pray for us before Nick peaces out for college. They prayed peace over us and prayed for wisdom and joy during these up coming difficult times. Jessie spoke of the reality of heartache while he is away, not heart break, but heartache. It meant the world to me and after we finished I knew that I was fully prepared for him to leave. Maybe not fully prepared but as ready as I'll ever be. That's good. Right? I am so excited for him and knowing that he is ready makes me feel so much more relaxed.  We will spend hours on skype and on the phone and will send lots of packages and hand written letters. THAT makes me very excited. God is good and his preparation for me during this time has been real and precious. My heart will be aching but I am excited to see the depth that our relationship will be at when it is all over.

how sweet the sound

Wednesday started off the same as any Wednesday at camp. The kids were crazy the counselors were worn out (maybe it was just me) and there was no song time. A long bus ride took us to the bottom of a hiking trail and surprisingly my little girls took a very limited amount of breaks. We wrapped up and finished the day so I headed to an empty house to enjoy dinner alone. At seven I headed to impact groups where we would talk about the bible and its goodness. During girl time we talked about the power of praying and about love and friends and it was so good. We closed our time together but singing amazing grace. Harmonies were sung loudly and our voices were lifted high to our beautiful savior. The night was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Gabby.

I went on a ten day trip to EFCA's national youth conference, Challenge. Challenge is pretty much six thousand students in one room praising God. We listen to well known speakers and popular christian artists lead worship. This year the venue included Francis Chan ( who I love), Eric Mason, Bryan McWhite, Kristian Stanfill ( worship leader), Craig Gross, and Shane Stacy.  The music was powerful and the speakers were great but, a little girl at a baptist church in the suburbs impacted me more than any of the speakers. Her name was Gabby and she was wearing a pink pool floaty when she first moseyed into the sharks and minnows playing field. She was extremely shy but clung tightly to my hand once the game began. One of our team leaders, Jill, asked Gabby if she liked camp. Gabby said no because she gets picked on and the kids are mean to her. Her counselors don't do anything about it. This quiet girl is made fun of daily and no one does anything about it. She asked if I would be her friend and was filled with joy when I agreed. Her face lite up and she squeezed my hand even tighter. As we pulled away I watched Gabby run to the fence and wave goodbye and then walk slowly to the corner of the field all by herself. Gabby was lonely and it broke my heart knowing she hated day camp. Day camp should be a blast. She dreaded it. I fell in love with this little girl after only one hour and leaving her was wrenching to my heart.

Eat.Drink.BeMaui

Just found this and forgot to post it. Its from July.

One of my friends, Mikayla Pearon, recently graduated and invited me to go on her graduation trip to Hawaii with her family. Uhmm heck to the yes! I was totally down. Not going to write a whole ton about it but I'll give you the highlights.

- Surf Lessons given by a professional snowboarder. Whaaa?
- Walks on the beach with Squirt and our cameras.
- Star gazing by the pool
- All eight of the beaches we went to
- Snorkeling. Absolutely breath taking all three times.
- Finding Gill ( Fish from Nemo)
- Boogie Boarding with a large group of kids all under the age of eight.
- Dinner cruise. Squirt and I were the only ones not married. Awks.
- Meeting people from all over the place.
- Attending a church of twenty where we were informed NO church allows food inside.
- Singing Jesus loves me in Hawaiian.
-Eating green tea and honey shaved ice.
- Trying lots of new food.
- Cliff Jumping
- Swimming with Sea Turtles
- Henna tattoos
- Watching the sunset from the deck every single night.

Unique

Tonight was the last night of Illuminate for the school year. Eight seniors savored every moment of their very last evening at illuminate. One by one the seniors got up to give advice to the rest of us youngins. The amount of truth and wisdom that was shared by each senior was so powerful. Scripture was read and stories were told and each senior had something unique to say. One girl advised us to come to God with everything. With our joy, happiness, our heart ache , and pain. Another senior told us to do everything as if doing it for the Lord. ( This included school....not easy to hear) Seniors continued to share the wisdom they had learned over their four years of high school and every bit of it was beautiful. After each one shared we had the chance to lay hands on them and send them out in prayer. We celebrated a successful year of illuminate with foamy root beer floats and spent the rest of the evening laughing lots (which is normal for Tuesday nights). As I was driving home in the rain I was blown away by how unique and completely different every person and every situation is. I know its been said a million times and I've heard people give long talks about how God created each of us differently and how unique we are but its true were all so...different. Anyway, while I was on my way home I saw these two girls from Illuminate who I dont know at all walking home in the cold rain. I offered them a ride and they politely said "We're alright" but after finding out how far away they lived, I insisted. They got in and introduced them selves to me and were extremely polite. One was a freshman and the other a junior. I wasn't planning on having anything in common with either of them but it turned out we were all terrible with directions and love bunnies. Our mutual sympathy for bunnies was quickly discovered right after I nearly plastered a bunny. We all screamed and talked about how dreadful it would have been to actually crush the poor animal. We found their bright blue trailer home and as they got out I was again reminded at the beauty and creativity of my majestic God. I am blessed to know so many completely different and beautiful people. God is good.

Saturday Night with Nick

Got to spend my Saturday night with this sweet guy.

We started off by playing one on one basketball at my house and of course, I won. Okay that is kind of a lie. The boy has got a solid seven inches on me. How can I  dominate that? After losing terribly, we hopped into his jeep and listened to happy and summery songs as we drove out to his house for dinner. Before dinner we went to his neighborhood pond to take a ride in the paddle boat. We floated around the pond and talked for a long time about lots of good stuff. We walked back to his house with sandy feet to eat tacos with his wonderful parents. We drank ice cold lemonade that was perfectly sweet and had the most soft and delectable brownies for dessert. His sweet mother makes dessert every night and it is always delicious. After dinner we went outside to jump on the trampoline I never knew he had. After jumping we went on a walk up a little hill behind his house to watch the sunset. We watched the city as the sky turned vibrant pinks and oranges and laughed a lot because I would speak to him and Spanish and he would speak to me in German. Neither of us had any idea what the other was saying which lead to lots and lots of laughing. He told me my smile was sweet in German. I suggested we go to the supermarket and told him he had nice legs in Spanish. Seven years of Spanish has gotten me far. We walked back to his house with numb feet and put wool socks on the moment we stepped into his house. As our feet began to defrost we played Halo. For those of you who don't know, its a game where you kill bad guys and use big guns and swords to do so. I died about fifteen times but I was a first timer so it was acceptable. The night was perfect and we laughed so much. I love laughing.

Nine more weeks.

As the weather starts to become warmer, being in the classroom becomes much harder. Only nine more weeks of school and then summer begins. Mondays are always tough and today was no exception. It was a good day but it was very long and was filled with cranky student teachers and old school videos that are impossible to take seriously. Junior year has not been my favorite academic year. I have very few classes I actually enjoy and have multiple classes that I struggle with greatly. I am truly thankful to be blessed with a good education but I just don't like school. I had the chance to talk to a lady from our church about high school and plans after. She helped me get excited about my senior year even with many friends leaving. She reminded me it would be a great year to make lots of new friends. I was greatly encouraged and suddenly became strangely excited about my senior school year. I am still so excited for summer though. Excited for snow cones, tan lines, sunglasses, and beach volleyball. Nine more weeks till I am no longer a junior. holla back.

Faithful Provider

He stood in front with one hand in his pocket

and the other loosely holding the microphone.

You could tell he was comfortable 

even though he was not a natural speaker. 

His joy was abundant 

and you could see it clearly through 

his never ending grin. 

His story was powerful and it 

evidently showed the faithfulness 

and provision of our God. 

Life Saver

Cool Pirate towel from World Market

Because Nick was a hero and saved two lives by giving blood, we were unable to do any strenuous activity Friday night. So swing dancing and ice skating were no longer options for our Friday night  festivities. We decided to take it easy by driving around town and going to a couple of our favorite places.  We went to Cold Stone and enjoyed cheesecake ice cream with Heath bars, Nick's most recent favorite candy bar. After looking at the ice cream cakes and being amused by the tip jar, we left. We decided to go to the Christian book store to see if they had the book we wanted to read together in February. No Luck. We left and randomly decided to go to World Market, one of my favorite places. We had been there before to buy root beer kegs but never just to look around. We spent over an hour at World Market, a pretty solid amount of time. We looked at scarves, lamp shades, candy, water bottles,  greeting cards, and posters. We both looked through a stack of posters and picked our favorites. Then we switched, looked through the other persons pile and had to guess which one they picked as their favorite. Nick got mine half right and I got his TOTALLY wrong. We went back to my house and spent the rest of our time watching 30 Rock, a wonderful television program. It wasn't swing dancing and it wasn't ice skating, but it was still an excellent night with an excellent life saver.

Maybe not the best bakers?

We CLEARLY need help.  Stupid Brownies.

Nick and I were invited to have dinner with two of our favorite people ever, Jessie and Jonathan. I am a lot like Jessie and Nick is a lot like Jonathan so it was bound to be a perfect night. Earlier this week, Nick and I were reading in our schools newspaper and found a recipe for eggshell brownies. Sounded difficult, but considering the fact that Nick and I bake often, we thought it would be an easy task. Wrong. While trying to blow the egg out of its shell, the entire egg shattered in Nick's mouth. Gross. We also had a spoon slip and fling batter all over me. We had managed to get brownie batter everywhere, all over the counters, on the floor, and even inside cabinets. Trying to pipe the perfect amount of batter into the shells was nearly impossible and I was frustrated easily. Thankfully, Nick is extremely patient and piped the rest. We took our weird dessert to the Grider's house because if anyone was willing to try our eggshell brownies, it was them. They were so pumped to try our dessert that was most definitely NOT picture perfect. They were good sports and ate the brownies even with the risk of finding pieces of shell in the brownie. After eating our messed up brownies we were planning on playing lots of games. Nick and I were obviously going to win. We ended up only playing one game and then spent the rest of the night talking. It was perfect. I got to talk with three of my favorite people ever for hours. It got late and Nick and I had to rush out the door but the night was absolutely perfect even though our brownies were not.

so excited (:

MORE than twelve.

More than twelve things to do in 2012:

1.  Bake a cheesecake

2. Sew something

3. Memorize James 1

4. Read 12 books with Nick

5. Hike with Squirt 

( She has lived in Montana her whole life 

and has never gone hiking!) 

6. Plan a game night

7. Get a job

8. Shoot something

9. Play Broomball

10. Grow something

11. Go to breakfast with Emily once a month

12. Buy red TOMS

13. Go to Oklahoma

14. Perform with Nick

Blessed.

Finals are next week and I am about to lose it. I have no motivation what so ever. I want to be done with school. FOREVER. I do not learn well in a classroom. Not at all. Teachers aggravate me and I don't know why I want to be one. My psych final is tomorrow and earlier today I was stressin cause I didn't feel prepared. Luckily for me, I have been blessed with Nick. Right before he left for folf club, he talked to me for a long time. He helped me change the way I look at school and my attitude about it. I still want to be done with it but somehow Nick always knows what to say to me. He talked to me about suffering and it was what I needed to hear. After folf club he came back to school to help me understand stuff a little better. Did you catch that? HE CAME BACK TO SCHOOL TO HELP ME! I was still having my own pity party and had a very little desire to learn this stuff. He was more patient than any teacher I have ever had. When most people would have given up on me, he didn't. He made sure I stayed focused and repeated things over and over and over again for me. He wasn't upset when I would say " i dunno.." to every question. I don't know why he wants to help me cause I am not an easy one to teach, but I am so thankful he does.

Thank you Nick, for your incredible amount of patience and for not giving up on me.

All over the Place.

My goal for the year is to blog more. I asked the little sibs what I should blog about. They said " write about...

- How much you love us

- Our game of loaded questions

-How many balls are on this chain

- Going to Hawaii

-Football

- How Jealous you are that you didnt get 

to see all that awesome wild life today

 - About how David loves Trent.

-How I am counting all these balls

I really love my siblings a lot. Our game of loaded questions involved lots of repetitive answers like Soy Sauce. ( Holler Back Danae) Emily has a long chain and she needs me to write about how many of them there are. I am going to Hawaii in June with my friend, Mikayla ! Ahh! Insaneee. I do not really like football. I wish I did but I do not. I do love Tim Tebow though. Today, Andrew Emily and Deborah went to Yellowstone and they went swimming with otters. I am super Jealous. That is a true fact. I have no idea who Trent is so sorry about that one. Emily is still counting the balls. She reminded me to write about her counting the balls. She is at six hundred and something. 

This post is all over the place. 

Just a small glimpse into my life at home.

Crazy & Wonderful.

TwentyTwelve.

Last year was the first year I successfully completed my new years resolution. I went the whole year without soda. At 12:00am Sunday morning, I was DOWNING the root beer. I was challenged to do another one that I would be able to complete. The idea of going a year without chocolate ended right after I ate brownies at 1 in the morning.  2011 was a great year, it truly was. I went overseas, passed geometry, spent another summer with wild children, made lots of new friends, and started dating Nick. Incredible year? Absolutely.  I am excited for the new year and for my new resolution, blog more often. ( resolution idea credit : Nick Braaksma). I have already had the privilege of sitting in a circle with some of my favorite people while talking, eating, and listening to beautiful guitar music. Looks like its going to be a good year. 

Here's to the New Year. 

Happy Twenty Twelve, folks.

navidad.

Seventeen people were packed inside the Keena household for Christmas this past year. Doug and Danae came first. They brought their perfect baby, Henry. He truly is perfect. He has huge blue eyes and silky smooth skin. Later, Bethany came. She is so sweet. Next, was the G-rents, and the Clarks. Bailey walked in the house talking about her hood. I was in shock, that baby girl was TALKING. phew. And Caden was  huge. Devan, just like Henry,  was perfect. I got to spend a lot of quality time with that boy.  There were many wonderful things i loved about my break. Here are a few of them...

1) Big sister hugs (the hugs were big, not the sisters)

2) "Therapy" from Brother Doug

3) Coffee shops and book stores with sisters

4) Nerf wars

5) Kisses from Granny & Gramps

6) Giggling toddlers who love chips

7) Game nights with the whole fam

8) Building Gingerbread trees

9) Sushi night (new tradish)

10) Being all together

Being all together was absolutely perfect. I miss being all together. Cause when we're all together, everything is right. I know that sounds strange but that's the only way to describe it. Right. Like it is always supposed to be like that. Luckily, we all have texting, facebook, and skype. I miss being all together. My family is wonderful. Every single one them. I simply can not wait till I see all of them again.