Kathryn turns 18! (And she spends it at the races!)

So my sweet little sister turned the big 18 yesterday. And to celebrate we went to Emerald Downs to watch the races. We had never been there before so it sounded like a good idea. And I have to say it is quite interesting. i am not sure if all horse tracks are like Emerald Downs, but this one sure seemed nice.
We had no idea how the racing and betting thing worked. It seems pretty complicated if you ask me. They parade the horses through this nice looking courtyard, then the riders get on them and they go out onto the track, escorted by their companion horses. (I think they are to quiet the racing horse's nerves but I really don't know.) Then they all go to the starting gate and begin. The whole race probably lasts about a minute at the most. And then its 25 minuets until the next race, giving you time to go collect your mulah and bet on the next race. The winning horse of course gets his picture taken in the winners circle surrounded by his trainers and owners and all their friends. And that is about it. We just stood along the chain link fence to watch. Nothing fancy, unless you wanted to pay more for the rich people seats.
It seems strange to me the sort of people that are attracted to the races. There were a medium amount of elderly people (most of those seemed to be single men), a lot of parents with younger kids, a lot of Hispanics, and a few punks that would fall into the age range of 18-25. Seems like a strange mix to me. Some people looked like they really knew what they were doing others I think were just there for the fun of it.
We tried our luck at gambling and came out with about $12 more than when we came in. Beginners luck probably. I was a little surprised that they never even asked Kathryn for i.d. They would look at her a little funny, but never asked. So any daring 17 or 16 year old could get away with gambling their parents money away. This was a winning jockey, Kathryn made some mulah off of him.
We ended the day at one of the best hamburger places ever, Red Robin. I tried the Whiskey River hamburger and I will have to say it is very delicious. We made sure to have the waiters come sing to her and thoroughly embarass her! Overall, it was a great day. (I got her one of our fav movies - Howl's Moving Castle.) Have fun watching it Kathryn!

Texas trip

These are just some pictures from our trip to Texas to visit Alison. It is a little brief, but you get the idea. I pretty much just wanted to try out the picasa photo thing.

Random sign found in Texas:

Hmmm. That's a deep one.

Sushi, A dream come true

So one of my other goals for this year, besides driving a mini cooper, was to make sushi.*
So on my spring break I hung out with my twin cousins, Carlia ad Tilana. While we were trying to figure out goals for them to write down I showed them mine. When they saw that I had put down make sushi, they said "hey we can make that right now if you want." I'm thinking 'what? my 13 year old cousins know how to make sushi? and they wouldn't mind making some right now with me?' Yeah they are pretty much amazing.

So we decided to bust out some sushi. This is my account of how you make sushi:
1. Make some rice. This can be tricky if you have never made rice before. Be sure to wash the rice until the water is semi clear. We had to defrost the fish eggs in the rice bowl.
2. Get out some fish cake, pickled radishes, avocados, and fish eggs. Cut up the fish cake into strips, the pickled radishes into chunks, and the avocados into slices. The yellow log is the pickled radish.
3. Make sure you have some seaweed paper stuff (I really don't remember the official name.)
4. Once the rice is done, lay out the seaweed paper on a sushi maker (a little bamboo mat thing) and spread on the rice. Don't go all the way to the edges.
5. Pile on the goods and roll er up.

6. Enjoy!!

Me and my cousins also went to the Great Wall Shopping Mall and bought some goods from a Filipino bakery. They were pretty good. The stuff I'm holding is either called something like siopao or humbow. I have no idea what the purple stuff is.

*Some people argue that if you don't have raw fish it isn't really sushi, it's a California roll. When I made the goal I was thinking of what my cousins made so whatever.

And the winner is....

So I am at my cousin's house in Kent for Easter right now. I am on Easter break, finally!!! I would like to give a little shout out to the best roommate ever, Julianna Willey. Happy Birthday Julianna!! Woot Woot!!!
Anyways, last night there was a little competition. It was a classic boys against girls competition. The only unusual thing was that it was a dessert bake-off. All us girls thought "this is going to be good."
We raced to Safeway (my car won) and instantly we were all wandering around looking for those special ingredients, the ones that would sway the judges. We saw the boys looking in the magazines at Safeway and started feeling sorry for them. They looked so pathetic and desperate trying to find ideas. Us girls had a great idea for a recipe, we kind of made up our own. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate pudding, caramel syrup, and Heath topping, with a strawberry garnish. Sounds good huh?
The girls cooked at the Bates and the boys cooked at Chris Moore's house. We had a blast cooking! Kim is working so hard on making sure the caramel is perfectly spread evenly. And MaryBeth is using her crafty talents to arrange the garnish strawberries. And of course we had to have an appetitizer; a yummy strawberry banana smoothie.
At about 10:30 we got the call. The boys were almost ready! The girls were having a few issues with our cake not cooking evenly, but we made it work. Look at that masterpiece! Don't we look cute?
The boys did a nice job though as you can see. WOW! That's all I have to say. It wasn't desperation that drove them to look through the magazines, it was wisdom! They found a recipie called Mountain Dew Apple Turnovers and trust me it was GOOD!!! Here are the two competitors awaiting their fate. Who wil be consumed with vigor and the other with disgust.
Our judges were Jonathan Willey, Ryan Bates, and Pastor Bill. We were judged on creativity, presentation, and taste. The judges deliberated on the creativity and presentation while Whitney, our neutral party, dished up the goods.
The moment we had waited all night for, the big decision, the shining moment. Oh the suspense was making me hungry. Miss Becca made the announcement.
The BOYS won! Even though there is a rumor that the judges knew which one the boys made, I would have picked theirs if I was a judge. It was sooo good! Oh, it just melted in your mouth. Now we hope to have a full course meal cook off some time since the boys now think they are first class chefs. But props to the boys, it sure was yummy.

Barbequed Frog?!

The friend and the foe, the predator and the prey...

It all started when I was at the Willey's for dinner, nothing out of the ordinary. We were watching some lame show (I don't even remember the name it was so lame) and as I had promised, I began to make some yummy peanut butter cookies. Well Jonathan, as he is doing the dishes, suddenly says "hey Megan, if you go out and catch a frog I'll cook it for you." At first I was a little hesitant about this. 'Cook a frog? What has a frog ever done to me?' But then I thought it would be interesting to see if Jonathan actually would cook it. So, me and Julianna went out into the night searching for frogs.

Of course as soon as we took two steps out the door the chorus of frogs stopped. There were a few brave froggy souls that would let out a teasing croak, but not many, only in the far off distance could you hear croaks telling of the ensuing doom. Luckily for me, one of those brave froggy souls was near were I stood like a statue, a hunter waiting for the kill. I waited...he croaked...I moved a few steps closer and waited again. His croaks were fewer between the closer I got, but I had him now. Then the tale-telling sound of a splash. That was the end of him, he might as well have jumped into a pot of boiling water. He made a good run, but I caught him. Oh yes, I got the little guy. He actually was a good size, I did a little research to find out the proper name for this noted singer and decided he must be a Red-Legged Frog (Rana aurora.) Note the red legs. Some believe that the red legs are from some parasite, but no worries, they are totally fine.
See!!! The beast is vicious. That could have been my finger he chomped off!

Well Jonathan did not actually think that I would catch a frog at all, let alone with in 5 minutes. He put up a little fuss, but because he is a man of his word he agreed to cook it. We were not really sure about the best way to cook it. We eventually decided to go with the old 'put it in a pot and slowly turn up the heat' recipe. But then a voice from the back room shouted, "don't you dare cook that frog in my house, in my pot." So we had to go with the barbeque. I really couldn't wait for the barbeque to heat up, I almost ate him raw! As we started out the door my heart just went out to the little guy. I couldn't do it. Like I said earlier, "what has the frog done to me?" I gave him a little kiss before we let him go back into the wild just in case he was my prince. No luck. It was really Robin that saved Rana (that's his nickname) that night from a cruel and certain death, so any comments of heroism and animal-loving will have to go to her.

P.S. Jonathan agreed to make me something else later just because I did catch a frog so we will see what he makes...
But seriously, can't you just see the blood thirsty look in his eyes?

Fun at GC Conference!!!

This past weekend GTC went to Generation Conference at the City Church in Kirkland. It's fun just because we get to hang out and we don't have to worry about staffing anything. We heard Bishop TD Jakes on Thursday night, Joel Stockstill, Shaun Alexander, Judah Smith Friday night, and Jude Fouquier on Saturday. We definately heard some good stuff! Worship was done by Jonathan Stockstill, which was amazing of course!
My favorite speaker was Pastor Judah Smith. He spoke on the difference between the 'have to' and the 'want to.' A good point that was made by I think Jude Fouquier, was the importance of making sure you have a personal spiritual growth plan if you want to see your ministry grow. That was huge for me. Overall it was a good time to relax and be poured into. Me, Kim and MaryBeth had fun checking out all the cute clothes people had. There are some fun styles out there!
One fun thing that I got to do there was go beyond the security guard (he was a volunteer but it sounds cool to say security gaurd) and get a tour of their children's department. It was huge!!! I had fun hearing what they do, and how they run things. I'm trying to gather as many ideas as I can from other churches; espescially bigger churches just so I can have an idea of what big vision looks like.

Random cookie fortune: yeah, so... watch those splinters....

New look for the Imagine room

For those of you who don't know I am the Children's Director at Destiny Christian Center. One of my goals has been to repaint the kids room since during the remodeling process of the church someone filled the holes in the walls leaving white polka dots all over. But then we couldn't find the matching paint to paint over the spots. So it basically needed a whole new paint job. (The room was originally orange and green with blue trim.)
I recruited two of my sixth grade girls to help out, along with Kim (fellow GTC student) and Darla (church secretary). It was quite the process. And of course we could not leave the room with clean shirts, jeans or shoes. The girls ended up painting each others shirts and initialing our pants.

Maraya decided to make herself paint gloves.

The room still has one more day of painting to truly call it done, although we finished all the primer. The room is now simply yellow and blue. We plan to decorate it with a few more things, so I will have to post another blog when that is all finished!

Dream Come True!

I am finally home from our trip to Eastern Washington. Unfortunately I was sick the whole time, but I still had a good time. Let me tell you briefly what we did.
We braved the artic blasts on Wednesday and made our way through White Pass to the Stone church in the thriving metropolis of Yakima.
We had a little scare as the boys van did skid across traffic and into a ditch at one point but everyone was fine and we all made over after 6 hours of driving. We staffed the youth pastor's conference until Saturday and then we went to a church in Moses Lake and stayed with host famlies for two nights. We did both Sunday services and then went on to Leavenworth for a little fun and relaxation in the snow.
What really made the whole trip was that I got to fulfuill one of my goals for the year. In Feberuary all of us who are doing a second year at GTC were asked to write down our goals for the next year, for the next 5 years, and for our lifetime. Well one of my goals for this year was to drive a mini cooper.
Just so happens that Pastor Skip at the church in Moses Lake owns a mini. So I jumped on the opportunity to ask him if he would let me drive it. Pastor Skip loved to show off his car. He took quite a few people out.
The only embarrassing thing was that... well... Since I don't put my e-brake on in my car I never thought to check in his car. Yeah, he had his emergency brake on the whole time I was driving. When I finally parked there was smoke coming out! I was so emabraased. He was too since he was in the car with me and didn't notice. It was fun to drive though!

A Night With the Pirates

So I thought I would start a blog so I can keep in touch with my fan club back home, mostly so that my family can easily see pictures of me and what I am doing.
For my birthday Lindsey took me out to see Peter Pan at Centralia College. I was so excited to get my picture taken with Peter Pan, but then I found out that Peter Pan was played by a girl. (Apparently only girls play Peter Pan. This is kind of an interesting fact in itself. Why only girls play a male role in this play, I don't know. Anyone know?) The play was pretty cute, although it was opening night so it had a few quirks. Tink falling out of the bottle, no splashing sound effects, wierd looking Nana and crocodile...
So then I wanted to get my picture taken with Hook (just so I could ask him if I could put his hook on), but he also played Mr. Darling, so after the show he was in his Mr. Darling costume.
But the higlight of my night was getting my picture taken with the pirates. They were awesome, kinda cute too. ; )

Yeah, notice the one pirate has his hand on my shoulder. Whoa, getting chummy with the pirates. I had no idea they were so friendly! So I decided I want to be a pirate. Some of you know I do a little ninja work on the side, but I am kind of interested in taking up piracy. Sounds so exciting. Plundering villages, living on the high seas, singing pirate songs... what a life!