Sister lovin'

My sisters are quickly becoming some of the most important people in my life. They are always there for me with listening ears and understanding words. They know where I've been, and they have insight into who I am and where I'm going. They say a sister is a forever friend... well, for me and my sisters, that's so true. So here's a shout out to sisterhood. Love your siblings, cause that's a friend that's always around :)

Today

i love sun :)

A beautiful Denver spring

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day in Denver. Let me brag, just a little:

- I went skiing at A-basin. There was fresh powder. It was cold, but lovely.
- Then I came home and went for a bike ride
- to meet Pastor Sam at the Lime for a margarita and a chat about life.

Three of my favorite things: skiing, biking, and community.
And a fourth: tequila.
What a great city.

Scrabble

I love word games. I really do. My family has always been addicted to scrabble, and now we love Quiddler as well (a word game with cards. If you've never played you should). Well, I was reading through the BBC the other day on my Google reader, and found that Mattel has decided to change the rules of Scrabble to add proper nouns! (check out the article here) I was excited - I'm always finding names and places I want to play, but am not able to! Of course, I e-mailed the article to my family - I can't have them all quibble next time I want to play a proper noun. And they all reject it! They like the old rules; and I always thought I was the traditionalist in the family! Come on guys... this is a good change!

Oh well - I guess I'll have to suffer through the old rules.

Here's a picture of Quiddler. Like I said, if you haven't tried it, you should. It may be telling, though, that my sisters and I rarely are all together, and when we do have a morning together as Renee flies through Denver to a vacation with her college friends, this is what we end up doing :)

Community Group

One of the things I appreciate most about Denver has been my involvement in my community group through City Pres Church this year. Our community group is 12-14 individuals who meet together weekly for Bible study and prayer, and once a month just get together for a "social" to eat and chat and hang out, getting to know one another better. The neat thing is that our groups are not formed based on age, demographic, or common interest, but rather on neighborhood. This is a loose association, since when people move they often stay in the same group (once you've gotten to know people for a year or two, you don't want to leave them!) but basically it is people who all live near each other. My group, for example, has a 23-year-old recently married couple, a couple with 2 kids, and a single guy in his upper 50's (or so... i've never asked). And all sorts in between, both single and married. This, I feel, gives me a sense of true community. I'm not just talking to these people because we are at the same place in life or because we have so much in common, but because we are brothers and sisters in Christ we work together, from our different backgrounds, Biblical knowledge levels, and current life situations to learn and grow together. We pray and we care for each other, and it ends up being not because we have to, but because we want to.

A few weeks ago my friend Katie Sytsema visited on one of our social nights. I had described the variety of the group to her, and she went expecting a bit of awkwardness, since we didn't come together because of commonalities we have. Her overwhelming impression was one of love and acceptance. Though we are not the same, we realize we all come together in the end for the same goal: to be in community with fellow Christians in a city where those can be hard to find sometimes :) No matter where life brings me, I will always have fond memories in my heart of the people I have gotten to know this past year in community group.