Ninja Thursday's and Fajitas

Last night was so fun. Allison and I went to Trader Joe's and bought stuff to make dinner-we got stuff to make fajitas. Then we went over to Brian, Brian, Josh, and Jared's house and cooked it! It was pretty simple, just dinner and a movie with friends, but it's so fun to have those friends that you can just hang out with and not do a whole lot. We did decide however, that from now on all Thursdays are Ninja Thursday's which means that we either have to watch a movie staring ninjas (or there has to be a ninja in it-last night we watched 3 Ninjas).Or, if we don't watch a movie that has a ninja in it then one of us has to dress up like Ninja, or we have to eat pizza (because the ninja turtles eat). it was a good night.

On the Road Again...

So I promised an update of the road trip that all the interns took on Wednesday... sorry it's been a couple days.

We all showed up to the church around 7:30 and all 12 of us piled into this HUGE 13 passenger van. Those kinds of vans scare me simply because they are so huge and when I was little I had this phobia of the front of the van separating from the back of the van. And, in my head, if you were sitting in the back of the van you would be lost in the middle of no where because the driver wouldn't even realize that the back of the van had completely fallen off. Crazy, I know, but, somewhere in my mind it still scares me. Anyways, we took off for the 5 freeway and still had no idea where we are going, I was surprised that we didn't hit very much traffic, but we made it to Hollywood in about 2 hours.

The van ride there was probably my favorite part of the whole trip because we all had to sit in a very specific order and I sat next to some people that I didn't know very well, so it was fun getting to know them a little bit better. Once we got to Hollywood we drove around for a little bit looking for this breakfast place called the griddle. It was AMAZING. If I had been walking down the street I would have never walked into there to eat, because it is such a hole in the wall kind of a place, but it was delicious. All of us decided that it would be fun if everyone ordered something different, that way everyone could taste everyone else's breakfast. I don't remember what everyone got, but i do remember that my french toast was amazing and that Stephen's pancakes were bigger than his face and that they had oreo's mixed in the pancake batter!!

After breakfast, we took off to the second mystery place of the day which was this little cupcake place called Sprinkles. Jana jumped out and picked up some cupcakes and when she got back in the car she said, "Ok, this game is just for the ladies! Guess how many cupcakes I bought and how much they were each!" we all guessed and my guess was the closest, so she gave me a shirt from the Sprinkles shop!! SO FUN!!

Our third mystery stop was at NBC Studios. We got to be the audience for a filming of Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader. It was super fun! My friend Shaun and I sat right next to the contestants family members so we for sure will be on TV!!! We screamed and clapped so much that it hurt to talk and our hands were tingling when we left!

After leaving the Studio, we got back on the freeway and went to Ruby's on Huntington Beach Pier. And, if that had been the only thing that we had done all day, I would have been more than happy, because eating at Ruby's on the Pier, either in Newport or Huntington Beach, is one of my most favorite things in the whole wide world. We had a great lunch/dinner and then came home.

It was seriously the BEST day ever! Jana, Ryanne and Josh all said that we're going to be having another road trip sometime, and I CAN'T WAIT!

Intern Road Trip

Today, in about 10 minutes all of the Saddleback interns leave for a road trip. We have a strict dress code, are not allowed to bring our cell phones, and WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE GOING!!!!!


I'M SOOOOOO EXCITED!!

... more when i return.

Usually i don't believe what fortune cookies say, BUT...

I just opened a fortune cookie and it said, "Today will be lucky and memorable for you". Well... today was probably the funnest day EVER! First of all, i got to sleep in because I asked if I could come in late so that i could go to a Tyrone Wells concert with my friend Josh, and so I did, and It was so great!! The concert was up at Fullerton College, it was out doors, the weather was perfect, AND there was only like 150 people there! It was AWESOME! My friend josh who has been a huge fan of Tyrone since he was playing in little coffee shops, and I went to talk to him after AND not only did he remember josh, he also recorded a video for Mariah and John's wedding (telling them that he is so honored to have his song playing and God bless) since they are playing one of his songs while the bridesmaids and groomsmen walk down the isle. SO COOL. Once we left the concert Josh and I went to go grab lunch at this little Hawaiian restaurant that i never would have found on my own... but it was DELICIOUS. To make my day even better, when I got back into the office I saw some friends that i hadn't seen in a while! It was the best day! My fortune cookie was right!!

Rob Bell rocks my socks

Tonight at c-group with my girls we did something a little different. We watched a Rob Bell Video, and my girls loved it. He talked about what the difference is between Christianity and what being a Christian really looks like. And, how God doesn't want rituals he wants your heart. He talked about how if he brought his wife a bouquet of flowers and said that he was doing it because he "had to because he was her husband", his wife wouldn't want the flowers anymore. Not unlike if we show up to church because "we should" or "we have to because we're Christians" God doesn't want us there. Basically, don't say your a Christian and not act like it... God hates that more than anything.

It was so cool to see the light bulb go on in some for my girls and how they got so much out of it. We talked almost the whole c-group time (an hour and a half)! Rob Bell has such an amazing ability to make things so simple and so clear and so applicable. Yeah...He's pretty awesome.

feel the beat of the rhythm of the night...

I don't know why but i woke up this morning with a Gloria Estephan song stuck in my head, which means two terrible things:

1. it will probably be stuck in my head all day which means that i will be singing it. AND... i don't even know all the words so it will sound like, "TURN THE BEAT AROUND! TIME TO FE A NA NA!! TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN... DUH NA NA NA NA NAAAA!!" ... terrible.

2. it also means that I probably had a dream involving Gloria. I can't remember the dream, but i must have been in hell.

Also, last night... I slept with Allison. Not in a shady way, in a girl sleepover kind of way, it was VERY fun!

Campstastic

I know that this is far away, but I am SO excited for Summer camp. I just got an e-mail today from a mom asking what the dates were. And, it got me to thinking about last years camp, and how fun it was, and, I know that I'm getting ahead of myself because we have tons of other fun things in between now and summer camp. But I'M SO EXCITED! Camp is my FAVORITE thing in the whole wide world!

Annie v. Josh

At Disneyland, Josh and I got in a debate becasue I told him that if he was a Disney character he would be Peter Pan becasue Peter Pan has red hair. And he said that I was wrong because Peter Pan has brown hair. BUT REALLY.... look at this picture. Peter Pan clearly has RED hair.

Circus-o-Pencaps

Last Sunday between the 9:00 service and the 11:15, Jaime and I had the task of taking off pen caps from 500 pens. We did this becasue if we put pens in the baskets with the bullitins and they have pen caps on, they will end up all chewed and all over the floor of the tent. So, as we were taking off all the pen caps we started thinking of all the different things that we could do with them. We decided that it would be super fun if we linked all of the pen caps together and see how tall we could get it. 128 pen caps later...

It kept breaking somewhere in the middle because the top would get so heavy and it would start bending... but we finally secured enough of the caps so that i wouldn't break and we got it to stand up strait!.... for about 5 seconds. But, we did it!

Then... becasue making the pen tower was so fun, we decided to see what esle we could do with the pen caps, so we made giant blue mustache's with them! Because.. what esle would we do with them? Seriously.

I think that is probably the BEST idea that Jaime and I have ever had inbetween services. I wonder what we will think of next week... any ideas for bordom busters??

The Spanish Bowlers

Last night I went Bowling. My friends and I showed up at Saddleback Lanes around 8:30 thinking that it wouldn't be too busy, but we were so wrong. I put in my name and the guy said that it would be about 45 minutes. We thought about maybe going somewhere else and hanging out while we were waiting, but we decided not to, just because if they called my name and we weren't there, that would lame. Sooo... we decided to play a game while we waited. We called it the name game, and while people would walk by we would try to think of their name. Once we all agreed on what we thought their name was, one of us would call it out about 5 times to see if that person would turn around. That was fun for about 20 minutes, but then it got old.

We started to get a little bored so my friend Josh said that he could convince the guy at the bowling counter to let us go next- by giving him a one dollar bill. sure Josh. Well... as ridiculous as i thought he was, it worked (maybe the guy at the counter was just super intimidated because Josh is the tallest Human ever) because we got to go next!

I feel like I need to tell you some back ground on my bowling history before I go on so the title of this blog will make sense. Every time that I go bowling with Elizabeth and her boyfriend, Justin (which is the ONLY time i ever go bowling) we always choose a theme for the night and then pick our names around it. The first time that we went the theme was Hippie and our names were: Wild Poppy Seed (me), Flower Child (Elizabeth), and Moon Beam (Justin). Another time that we went our theme was Cereal. Our names were Coco (Justin), Trixy (Elizabeth), and Tony (me). Last night's theme was Spanishish (Spanish-ish is how you would pronounce it) and so our names were: Antonio (Elizabeth), Azul (Justin), Marco (Josh), and Polo (me).

I don't have a while lot else to say about the night except that it was very fun. Bowling is only great when you do it with fun people, some people take it WAY too seriously.

Fudruckers (i don't think i spelled that right)

Sometimes when I'm driving past Fudruckers i think part of it says a bad word. And even though I know it doesn't... every time I drive past I still think that I see that bad word.

Well... tonight I went to fudruckers with my friend Allison. She's pretty great, and by pretty great... I mean really great. I had never really eaten there before, so she told me how to make the best hamburger ever. This is what you do:

1. Oder a # 2 (i like mine well done)

2. tell them you do NOT want cheese on it (yes, i like cheese burgers-they are my favorite kind of burgers, but you put different cheese on it, not the american kind that they put on there for you... trust me.)

3. once your burger is done, you take it around to all of the things that you put on it, BUT, the thing that Allison says you have to put on first is the cheese (the kind that you squeeze out of the thing next to all the other condiments). And this is very important you HAVE to put the cheese stuff on the top part of the bun not the bottom part.

4. add lettus, tomoato and pickles...

5. enjoy.

It was SO fun going to fudruckers! We even took some sweet pictures becasue we had to move some tables around and i sat with my head right under a hanging lamp. It was very fun!

Coffee Bean v. Tully's

Yesterday I went to Tully's. And, I don't know if i like it better than Coffee Bean... but it was pretty delicious. I got their ginger peach Ice tea, and even though I am a HUGE fan of ice tea... I think that even if i hated ice tea, i still would have thought it was amazing... becasue it was! I went with my friend Josh and we sat in there and talked forever about his trip to Africa and all kinds of fun things... but the best thing that happened there was that we sat next to this AWESOME painting of a dog that looks like a box. The dog had a green apple balanced on his head. so funny. I think that what we named him was Motts Dog (like the apple sauce), but I'm not sure, becasue we had a lot of different other possible names.

I really don't know how many different coffee shops there are, and I also don't know how they can all survive with Starbucks gobbling them all up and being on every corner (seriously). Where I live i feel like I am in a box with four starbucks on all four sides of me... but two of them used to be Dedrichs... is starbucks taking over the world??? I THINK MAYBE THEY ARE. Now, don't get me wrong, i do love Starbucks.... BUT, their coffee always tastes kind of burnt? Right? Maybe it's just me...

To wrap up this blog, because I feel like I am rambling now... I love Tully's and if Starbucks takes over Tully's I'd be pretty sad. Really REALLY sad.

Dear Digital Camera...

Dear Digital Camera,

Oh how I love you. You make putting pictures on my computer so easy. I can remember getting so mad at my old scanner that never worked... so thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a better friend than the scanner.

Love,

Your friend Annie

Winter Camp

Hi everyone... Sorry its been so long since i have blogged. i really don't have any excuse. ANYWAYS... Winter camp was was SO MUCH FUN!! The bus ride up was a little long because we hit traffic, but it was super fun to be on a buss full of girls singing their hearts out and not caring how much longer the ride was, we were having so much fun! I felt like I was in junior high all over again. I LOVE JUNIOR HIGHERS!!! Once we got to camp it was a lot colder than I expected. And, i guess I should have really known better since I knew that there was going to be snow... but it was FREEZING. I'm SO glad that i brought my uggs.

Camp was awesome, I think my favorite part was going up with 3 other churches. It was cool to have four different speakers and meet new students and hang out with everyone. The theme of camp was Mythbusters and it was all about different myths of being a Christian. My cabin of girls really got a lot out of all the speakers and it was fun to talk to them and answer questions. And to hear them want to apply it to their lives.

My cabin of girls was a BLAST. I had about four of my c-group girls and then they had brought some of their friends, so there was 14 of us all together. They wanted a theme (even though cabins don't get judged for their theme during winter camp- they didn't care they wanted to have a princess theme anyways). So, they brought pink streamers, colored pictures in coloring books of princesses and put them up all over the room, and we even made princess crowns. SO FUN.

I can't wait until next year!!!