Birthday Present

When I got back from Trek, my parents had my birthday gift ready for me. I opened it up, and I saw a Arlington High Colts T-shirt, a pair of khakis, but the biggest gift was a Toshiba Laptop. I was very surprised. I am enjoying it greatly. I haven't had an official birthday celebration with family yet since school and Trek kind of overtook things.

Hurricane Gustav

Our church is taking in 150 evacuees from Hurricane Gustav, so be sure to remember them in your prayers. Also, pray for all of the workers working with the evacuees. Our Family Life Center has been turned into a room full of cots, chairs and tables in preparation for this event.

Trek

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of going on Wilderness Trek in Buena Vista, CO. Our youth group drove up to Amarillo, spent the night, and then drove to base camp at Noah's Ark. We spent the night in large weather tents. The next morning, we got ready, ate breakfast and went to go climb and rappel. I was not a very good rock climber, and I became very hesitant to go rappeling. Thankfully, my foot slipped on the giant rock where we were rappeling, and I had the experience of going rappeling. It was very nerveracking. That afternoon, we went whitewater rafting down the Arkansas River, which was adjacent to Noah's Ark. I went 10 miles down, with up to class 3 to 3 1/2 whitewater. Our guide was wonderful. He had us doing 360s and telling us what certain rocks looked like as we passed by them. The next day, we began our trek. My group was dropped off about less than 40 miles from Aspen, CO. We began, and I felt how physically tiring it was. Thankfully, we made it camp later that day, so I could rest! The next day was August 12th, which was my 17th birthday. It was the coldest it's ever been on my birthday. It just so happend that that day was the summit day. Thankfully, and with the Lord's strength, I made it to 13,200 feet at the Continental Divide. My group had our lunch up there. We later began going down, and with the elevation we were in, we crossed some snow. At that point, I was afraid that I might die. The snow was about a foot deep and tapered off to some rocks that continued to go down the mountain. Before anyone in our group had gone down, our fearless leader made tracks in the snow for us to put our feet in. Thankfully, one of the adult sponsors from our church helped me across the snow. Our packs were then picked up by our other leader, and sent down the snow to a small plateau where everyone was waiting for everyone to come down. Once the packs were sent down, we had to ladder climb with our hands down the snow to get to the plateau. For most of the way, I slid, which was a scary experience. I was able to make it down the rest of the main and rocky part of the mountain. We camped that night, and continued our trek the next day, with a much easier path (after crossing more rocks and coming farther down a mountain). We made it to base camp later that day, and to my liking discovered that there was a porto-potty right around the corner from camp. CIVILIZATION!!! Most of you who have been on trek know what biffing is, and the porto-potty took care of me not having to biff in the woods! At dusk, we were waiting for our fearless leader. And we were told that he had been helping another group. But, what really happend was that he had hitchhiked his way into Buena Vista to get us some ice cream and fixins, and had been brought back by a friend of his to our camp. We ate that evening and enjoyed the warmth of the fire. The next day, we didn't have anywhere to hike, so we just relaxed, shared a few life stories, ate lunch and jumped into a creek. There were some cylindrical culverts that everyone, including me, jumped off of. I jumped, hit my tailbone on a rock, but came out having trouble breathing because the water was so cold! Later, the bus came, got us and we went back to base camp where we spent the night, and went to Amarillo the next day. After spending the night at the Central Church of Christ in Amarillo, we came home. It was a very exciting, exhausting but fun trip to do. I am very blessed to be able to have the experience to do this.

2008 McGregor Family Vacation

At the end of July, our family took a vacation to Taos, Albuquerque and Canyon, TX. We decided to drive to Taos, which is about ten and a half hours from Arlington. We left at about seven in the morning and drove all the way to Taos, where our good friends were renting a vacation home. We decided to stay at the El Pueblo Lodge in Taos, which is a good place to stay at if you are ever in Taos. Over the next few days, we shopped and sightseed in the beautiful 70 to 80 degree mountain weather. On Sunday, I wanted to go to the Taos Church of Christ, so we did. There were fifteen people in attendance that day including our family and two friends. As expected, it was a very traditional Church of Christ. The people were very friendly, and even the preacher, his wife and his daughter and son-in-law went with us to lunch that day. Sunday afternoon, we took a little trip on the Enchanted Circle to Red River, NM. Red River was probably my favorite place on the trip, because it was like an old west town in the mountains. The weather was very nice there, too. On Monday, we drove down to Albuquerque. On our way there, we stopped in a small town called Madrid, which is where the film "Wild Hogs" was filmed. It seemed a little like a hippy town and was interesting. We made it to Albuquerque that evening and went to our bed and breakfast called "The Inn at Paradise", which is located on the Desert Greens Golf Course in the Paradise Hills portion of Albuquerque. I would recommend this place to anyone who is going to Albuquerque. The landscaping at the inn is beautiful, and you can look out over the golf course. While we were at "The Inn at Paradise", the New Mexico Junior PGA Tournament was taking place, so it was a treat to see all the young golfers golfing. The next day, we ate our breakfast and went to Old Town Albuquerque. We went around and shopped and went in an old Catholic Church. After Old Town, we hit the road for Canyon, TX. We made it to Canyon just in time to check into the Holiday Inn Express and to freshen up a little bit before we went to see the "Texas" show in Palo Duro Canyon. I would recommend the show to anyone. It is very entertaining. The next day, we got up, ate, and drove home. We had a very nice and relaxing five day vacation.

Kadesh

This past week, I was blessed to attend Kadesh camp at Abilene Christian University. This is a camp I had the privelege of going to last year, and it's a great camp. The theme this year was "Grace", and it was encouraging and freeing! I was placed in a group mixed with people from Baytown, Houston, Coppell, Denton, Abilene, Maypearl, Northwest Mississippi (Memphis, TN area), Boulder, CO and Boston, MA. Our group got close. Our leaders were from Amarillo, but they had both attended Harding University. One of the leaders was a youth minister at the Southwest Church of Christ in Amarillo, and the other girl was his girlfriend. One day, I was walking down the stairs from our room, and there was Laura! I went up to her and gave her big hug. She then walked with me to the Student Center and gave me her contact information. So later that day, I got permission from my hall counselor to go visit her during free time. While I was there, Dan walked in, so it was really neat to get to see them while I was out there. So far, out of the two Kadeshes that I've been to, this one has been my favorite topic. Once your kids get to high school age, send them to Kadesh, because it's a great camp!

Camp Goddard

I just remembered that I had not told everyone about my camp counselor experience. Back near the end of June, I went with our church to be a co-counselor for nine fifth grade boys at Camp Goddard in Sulphur, Oklahoma which is located in the Arbuckle Mountains. It was a very interesting experience. The theme was "God's Hand", which explored God's Hand in the creation. I don't see where the kids got all their energy from! The food was absolutely horrible! There were probably around forty kids there. The stars at night were beautiful! It was also hot, but thankfully we had air conditioning in our cabins. But, the last night there, I had a big theological conversation with a few of my friends in the youth group that got me involved in the conversation and our Children's Minister. It was a very neat conversation. Thankfully, I got to ride back with an adult and youth intern, plus two other counselors. I found out that the bus the kids and counselors were riding back on had air conditioning problems, so the kids didn't have ac pluse they couldn't get the movie player in the bus to work, so it was a miserable ride home for them.

4th of July

Our family celebrated the whole Fourth of July weekend. First, on Thursday night, Lake Arlington had a fireworks show. We pulled up to an out-of-business gas station at Green Oaks and 303 to watch the fireworks. The show was okay, but here's a funny story to tell y'all about that happend while our family was waiting to watch the fireworks. We had forgotten to get lawn chairs to take to sit on while watching the show. So, we turned the backseat over in our van which mommy and I sat on, but daddy decided to take out one of the captains chairs in the van and just perch it on the ground, it was funny. When he did that, it made us think that we were rednecks! Next, on Friday, our family woke up and went to the Arlington Parade, which is one of the best parades around! We had a nice spot, but we were a little late. I got to see my friend from church, who is one of the Drum Majors in her high school band. We also got to see other floats that came by our area. Later that day, our friends Doug and Annette, my grandmother came over for dinner and to go see the GOOD fireworks in Fort Worth. I invited our youth minister, Wes, because his wife and kids were back in Tennessee where they are from. He came over, too. After eating and talking we left westbound to Fort Worth with two freezers of homeade ice cream which daddy had made. He had made a strawberry sherbert and a vanilla ice cream. We have gone to the same spot in years past behind the Fort Worth Credit Union, to watch the fireworks from Concerts in the Park, which is where the Fort Worth Symphony plays. The fireworks are always great, with a grand finale at the end. More friends met us there, and we just talked and ate together. Finally, on Saturday night, mommy, daddy and I went to our shopping center called the "Arlington Highlands" to see a fireworks show. The show was probably the least best of the three shows that we saw. The shopping center had a jazz band that was there playing. All in all, our fourth was good, just like all the other ones.