The Last 5 years (Year 1 Semester 2 and Year 2)

    The 2nd semester of my freshman year of college was a lot happier. I became closer friends with the people in the Christian group on campus and got to go to Minneapolis with them during Winter Break and bring in the new year with them. I also met people from church, and met two really lovely friends during a bible study lead by the other Christian group on campus. I was still running after God, and even became one of the student leaders for the Christian group on campus as a freshman due to some convincing with leadership from the guy who had invited me to his church. Having friends I could trust, and a solid church lead to more fun/positive experiences.
    I had a solid group of friends who were passionate about God and it was great. We had a lot of fun together. There was a small celebration for my 19th birthday, insomnia due to fear of missing out, staying up into the late hours of the night, an acting class, etc.
   To end my first year I went to an event called Trek put on through the Christian group. Before making our way to LaCrosse some of my friends also going on the trip slept over at my house. Sitting around in the living room watching TV at night we saw a show called Flipping ships with a commercial about how Snoop Dogg was now called Snoop Lion. I said Snoop and named the first animal that came to mind which happened to be a whale. So when we were actually at the retreat we coined our team with "Snoopwhales" (Snoopwhales flipping ships, and even acquired two inflatable whales as our mascots.) At Trek UW Parkside was paired up with UW Washington County. Being that I had been born and raised in Washington County I excitedly talked to them about Washington County. (In hindsight I am so glad I went on this trip due to the people I met.) Trek included Christian teachings, games against other school teams, canoeing (which I failed tremendously at), ziplining, and a giant swing. Also a hike at in the woods. The trip also included one of my friends cars breaking down after dancing hard to the first listen through of twenty-one-pilots freshly released album, "Blurryface" I also went all the way to Pennsylvania with one of the friends I had made at Parkside for a week for a Christian missions conference (NWMC). Started my first job working with those with Special Needs, and helped planned events for the Christian club for the next school year.
    Pictures from Year 1, 2nd semester.

Year 2 : Semester 1

     It was a nice change going back to college and knowing people this time. I was also pretty stoked to not have to live in the dorms anymore, and moved into my first apartment on campus. I was originally going to live with one of the girls from the Christian group but she ended up moving home to help out her grandma, so I was assigned a roommate. (Over all my semesters at college I never picked who I would live with.) The guy who had invited me to church originally started a worship group with other strong Christians to meet at his house about once a week before classes. This was probably one of my favorite parts of my college years. We always had really fruitful times, and it was always exciting for me to attend these worship times, even though they were right in the morning. We would also sometimes meet for breakfast or lunch, and formed great friendships with deep talks. I was also in my first wedding for my brother's wedding. I grew even more in my faith and probably hit my peak point as a Christian. I was excited about my faith, and put a lot of energy into it. Reading Scripture, falling in love with God, I was always really excited to go to church. (I hope in the future I can feel this again and exceed it even more). I got baptized at Living Light during all of this.
     Then some trouble hit. I grew so much in my faith that I started questioning the way the Christian group on campus had been doing things. What they were doing felt surface level, and contradictory at times. I respected the group even though I was starting not to agree with them on things, because the group had helped me my Freshman year, and I was excited for it to help others as well. I made what I thought would be a simple suggestion to the group and was immediately torn to pieces. I suggested that using specific questions and guidelines for evangelism that we just prayed and shared the word how we felt lead. Instead of saying: "Thank you for the suggestion Alex, however we don't want to do that at this time" they called the new church I had been going to a cult, and that by doing evangelism not by a specific booklet I was shoving Christianity down people's throats which seemed to contradictory to me. The President of the club couldn't believe I had made such a suggestion, and the others stood up for her when she tore me down. Looking back I think it was a misunderstanding that heightened quickly. Nonetheless I decided to resign from the church group leadership after that. It was a toxic situation, and I felt like the main group of leaders had formed like a clique. I strived so hard to be in the inner circle only to realize it wasn't that great. I kept calm and was nice to them while this was all happening and it blew over for the most part, and I still remained friends with the people still in the group. (They weren't bad people, they just handled situations wrong, which everyone does, so I have completely forgiven them since then). One of my close friends from the 1st year of college had quit college to join the Marines so I wasn't able to rely on her as much while on campus, but we still hung out a lot when we were able to get time together.

Year 2: Semester 2
  My first roommate had moved out, and I was assigned a new one for the semester. This one was a Chinese exchange student. I remember the first time talking to her I spoke really fast, and she was so confused. Throughout the semester she got better and better with English but I guess I just assumed she would know English well when I met her. She would end up being my favorite roommate that I had throughout my college career, out of five roommates total. (who lived in the same bedroom as me). I had fun showing her new experiences like Lake Michigan, Chicago for a Chinese New Year parade, and Six Flags. I started out this semester advocating in Chicago for kids with Special Needs. It was an extremely cold day and my hands went numb, and we weren't able to stay there as long as we thought but we survived. Most of the semester was time spent with my Chinese roommate, and issues with a boy which I will not go into any further. That summer I moved in with a couple from church. It seemed so crazy, but so is the fact the people at our church act like a family unit. That summer I decided I would attend the School of Worship that Fall. I had toured it during the Spring of my Freshman year and knew I would attend 2 years later after my sophomore year of college. I auditioned badly, but still made it into the program.
   Added: I was thinking back and remembered that I totally forgot an important detail of what happened this semester. One of the guys that was in the Christian group on campus (remember the smiley one I thought was a Jesus freak?) We had become really good friends. So much so we would spend most nights talking into the late hours of the night, not wanting to go to sleep. We became so much alike even our mannerisms were starting to match. I figured that we shared a lot of the same interests, hung out a ton, and liked to talk to each other all the time that it was inevitable that we would start dating. A lot of my Facebook friends and family thought so too, when I would post pictures of our adventures online. One day with full courage I asked him if he liked me. I had never been so nervous. He said no, that he didn't see me that way, and it was hard, but I understood, and our friendship stayed strong for a little while until it didn't anymore. I became self-conscious about my looks and questioned how he found a ton of girls to be pretty, but not me, That thought really messed with me for awhile, so I remember explaining this to him after the fact (probably shouldn't have), some people we aren't attracted to and that's okay. He started dropping subtle hints that he was done with our friendship after awhile. It went on for months but I didn't see them. I thought maybe he was dealing with something in his life, and that's why he had become distant from me, so after it had gone on for a bit I confronted him about it. His answer was I thought I was making it obvious that I didn't want to be your friend anymore. I think after this another meeting occurred where I apologized for being self-conscious and saying that he was immature, and he apologized for some things to and we forgave each other. We did end the friendship figuring it would be healthier for us both for now, and that was the end of that.

The Last 5 Years (1st Semester of College)

      After just graduating college I was inspired to write an overview, since so much was packed into those five years, since I graduated high school. A lot of good memories, but also bad ones. Meeting so many amazing people, but losing friends along the way.They weren't lying when they said you'd change a lot between 18 and 23.  I've felt myself grow so much in every area of life.
     I went to Parkside knowing absolutely no one, but with my brother going to Carthage in the same city about 5 minutes away. I had very little experience staying somewhere away from home for even a couple days, so making a move even just a little over an hour away was a big thing for me. Especially with frequent panic attacks. Going somewhere without knowing anyone and living there, in a room with someone I had never met was also intimidating. I had no one to lean on in the beginning which was really hard, but it really gave me a opportunity to start over in away after being categorized as an outcast all throughout high school. That label stuck with me there, but when I removed myself from those people then I had the opportunity to be who I really was. Not having anyone to lean on also forced me to interact with many different  people, because I didn't want to feel alone on the campus. It also made me vulnerable, because I didn't know who to stay away from. I had mixed results with who I befriended those first couple of weeks at college. A popular Christian guy who played guitar, a group of theatre kids, my roommate and on of her good friends, the people on my floor, and a girl who became a really close friend of mine. I would always be able to count on her to go places with, eat dinner with, hang out, or just talk. I am so thankful that I befriended her so early on, even though she has currently walked out of my life.
        There were a few guys who lived on my floor that I put at a distance from me. They seemed suspicious to me, and I felt like when they said hi to me when we crossed paths it was mocking like I had experienced with the guys in high school. I felt that way, until one of the guys showed interest in me.In hindsight I wouldn't have let this situation happen today, but back then it did. I wanted my freedom from having to follow God, since college was a place of new freedoms, but God quickly showed me within a month and a half of being at college that life without him, sucked. It really sucked. This guy showed interest in me, and we had a fling for like a week. A fling because he didn't care to make it anything more than that and it was very short-lived due to it's intensity, and the fact I wasn't the only girl in his life. It sucked, the first guy I had put trust in ended up betraying me. Looking back I feel bad for him though, he was in a bad place himself. Depression, drugs, alcohol, is what mattered most to him, and being that I'm an empath I thought I could help him. I couldn't. I tried to remain friends with the people on my floor, but I began to realize they were way different than I was/wanted to be. Drama, drinking, partying, doing drugs, low self-esteem, I ended up moving to a different floor at the end of the semester.
      Before that things got worse, but they also got way better too in a short amount of time. When I was dealing with the loss of trust from the first guy I was preyed on by a guy a significant amount older than me. I was 18 and he was 25 which may not seem like much, but as we established at the beginning a ton has happened to me between just 18-23. He was in one of my classes, but got to know him more at a karaoke event the college was putting on that week. I was aware of the age difference when I first met him, and it mattered to me. I didn't even see him as anymore than like an older brother figure and remember telling him that. He made me laugh and cheered me up, and I wanted nothing more than to be his friends. We could have been friends, but unfortunately he was a manipulator, and I was his prey. Recently entering college, unsure of what I wanted, dealing with getting hurt. He could tell, and he wormed himself in. In hindsight I would have never let this happen, but it did. He made me believe he just wanted me to be his friend then at the right/wrong time he made his move. I remember being really conflicted about the whole situation. Is this what I wanted, no not really, but he was telling me I did, so maybe I should just give in. When I was conflicted about one of the things he was doing he would assure me it was okay, so I thought it probably was. Looking bad I feel so stupid for not seeing the red flags, but also still angry about what he had done. It was very inconsistent he'd blow me off then beg me to come over, and I made the mistake of actually going. I would never as a single lady go into a guys room alone unless I knew them really really well so that was my first mistake.
   As I writing this I realize that a whole bunch happened my first year of college, and the paragraphs I've written so far only encompass the first month of college. Since so many things happened at once I may have written some things out of order. About the 2nd week into the semester I decided I wanted to check out the Christian group on campus, since I had been semi-involved in high school and have probably been to at least 12 churches with friends at this point. I remember one guy specifically smiling super big,super excited about the club meeting for the night. I remember thinking the words "Jesus Freak" when I first met him. His biggest joys in life turned out to be loving Jesus, music, apple products, Pokemon, tie-dye, and girl, and would become one of my closest friends for about a year and a half before we stopped talking altogether. From the first meeting I learned about the Fall Retreat that would be happening the very next weekend. I decided that I wanted to go, even after knowing basically no one in the group. It was at that retreat where I decided to take my Christianity seriously and gave my life to God fully. I got to know the other people in that group better as well. It was there I knew I had to get rid of the 25 year old guy completely, so the week after the retreat I told him I didn't want to ever talk again. He didn't seem to care about losing contact with me, and did leave me alone.....until one day in the class we had together he tried to be in my group for a class project. I was not having it and emailed my feminist teacher about the situation and about why he couldn't be in my group and she made sure he was not in my group, and made a big deal of him walking in late to the next class. Throughout the rest of his time at Parkside I was on the look out to make sure he didn't take advantage of anymore younger girls.
   During the days before the Fall retreat the smiley Jesus Freak guy was on my dorm floor inviting everyone to a bible study that was going on that same day. Before he had appeared on my dorm floor I had also been asked if I wanted to go to a frat party. So I had a dilemma, do to the bible study, or go to a frat party with a dude I had never met. I thankfully chose to go to the bible study. The week after the fall retreat I met the guy who lead worship for the Christian group on campus. We both liked the same music so each week we would exchange song suggestions with each other. Later in the semester he invited me to go to church with him. (The church I have been in going on 5 years now.) He had a passion for God, was encouraging to everyone he met, and was very kind. His encouragement and passion for God caused the same within me, and I became in love with church and things related to Jesus, and I am so appreciative that he believed in me.
(Side note: this was really long but the following years won't be as long, not as much content as this one).
(Pictures from Year 1, Semester 1).

LA Trip Day 4: Missed Flight

   As you can probably tell by the title, things didn't go as expected. Stay tuned to find out why.

   Getting up this morning, I was paranoid by even the thought of missing our flight, so in the morning I was quick to get ready. For our last day we decided to go to Hollywood. We scheduled a horseback riding thing in Hollywood Hills for 11am. They were set for every hour. I thought 9am would be impossible, and that 10am would still be pushing it, for us to get there in time with getting ready and LA traffic, so we settled for 11am which may have been our first mistake. Online when I was making reservations, you could do a 1 hour reservation or a 2 hour reservation. I went with the 1 hour, thinking we would get done by noon and have a little time to explore Hollywood before returning our rental car and getting to the airport. We got to the horse ranch, at 10:40am which gave us plenty of time to fill out the safety forms, and get the equipment. (back to the drama later.) We were then assigned horses and started our ride. Shayna's horse decided to rebel and went far away from all the horses to eat grass, and my horse ended up getting bit by another horse so it got away from that one. Before we started our journey our instructors told us that the horses felt safest walking on the edge of cliffs. This was a little frightening, but I thought as long as my horse feels safe, I guess that's all that matters. It turned out not to be as scary as they made it seem. We were never actually in danger of falling down a cliff. I had to keep my horse in line, because it would either walk too slowly (don't blame him it was a steep cliff) or try to cut in line. At the beginning of the ride, you walk past a place with a view of the Hollywood sign. But you could also see LA and the Griffith Observatory in the distance most of the walk, which was cool. I appreciated the fact that the tour guides took out time to get a couple of picture of everyone while riding their horses. On the way back to the stable my horse ended up tripping but caught his balance again while going down the hill, which was a little terrifying. When we did return to the stable there were ducks in the water trough, and my horse wanted to drink the water, but the tour guides said that it wasn't a good idea, so I had to pull him away from the trough which didn't make him very happy. (My horses name was Rocky.).

   When we got back to the car after horseback riding, I noticed it was 12:40. The horseback riding had gone 40 minutes longer that it said it would. Shayna said that we didn't actually start riding until 11:20 which is why it was so late. This made me stressed out knowing we had a lot less time afterwards then we had figured. Which is reason 1 we probably missed our flight. We decided to get lunch in Hollywood quick and then go drop off our car before heading to the airport. We managed to get free parking again because it was a holiday (Columbus Day?). We got there and ate lunch which takes us to around 1:30, with our flight leaving at 3:15. I was still incredibly nervous about missing the flight. We ended up taking the leftovers with to eat later in the airport (bc we would have time :) ) We were going to leave....but our restaurant was across the street from a huge record store that people had recommended me to go to, Amoeba. Now I know I didn't have a lot of time, so I rushed through that store fairly quickly. Only checking out the things I wanted too, and none of the extra things. We were in there 7 minutes tops, as I am efficient in a time crunch or so I thought. I purchased two Beatles records and we were on our way. This is reason 2 on why we missed our flight, had we just skipped Amoeba we would have had a couple more minutes at least. We saw a couple Hollywood stars on the way back to our car. 

     Reason #3 happens when we stop to get gas, to make sure our rental car has a full tank. Neither of my cards worked when I scanned them outside, so the monitor told me to see the cashier. I went in by the cashier and he said that my card worked and to go out and try again. (Like we had time). So I went out and again both of my cards were declined so I rushed back into the gas station, he then says I can select an amount and that's how much gas would go in, so I said $30 worth. I pumped $30 worth and turned on the car and realized it wasn't a full tank, so I ran back inside. I figured $10 more would be enough, but who could be sure. So I asked him while breaking down crying, (which probably wasted more time). He was foreign and very calm and told me to not get upset over it and be accepting of the stress. I told him how I was afraid we'd miss our flight since it was now 2:15. He assured me that even if that happened the airport would help me, and there would be plenty of flights to get me home that night, for a low cost. (He was wrong). It turns out $10 was enough, and we continued our journey.

      Reason #4 and the final reason we missed our flight is because our specific rental company we used for our car had two locations. One in Beverly Hills and one next to the airport. However when you looked up Black and White Rental, only the Beverly Hills address showed up. I didn't know the area to well, but I noticed we got to the rental place pretty quickly after first arriving, so I figured there had to be a closer location to LAX, and assumed LAX and Beverly Hills weren't close to each other. I figured it must be my mistake after Shayna said it was the only location she could find on Google Maps. (Not blaming her for us missing our flight, but Google :P) So we drove to the Beverly Hills location, and I soon began to realize, I recognized none of this. Sure enough, the Beverly Hills building looked different then the one we had been too. We decided to call and ask if we could just drop off the rental at that location, but they said it wouldn't probably save any time to do that, and we'd still have to Uber to LAX, so we decided to drive to the correct location a half hour away. It was 2:30 when we got to the Beverly Hills location. At this point, most hope had left me that we would make our flight. There was still a little hope that God would cause a flight delay, but as you can tell by the title that didn't happen. We returned the car then headed back to LAX where we talked to the airport staff about our options. There were 3

1) Buy a whole new ticket and switch over to American Airlines for $372, but make it back to WI that night like we had planned.

2) Fly out the next day with Spirit Airlines again with a $100 fee since it wasn't our original flight, and a layover in Atlanta, not getting to Chicago until 9:30pm the next night. 

3) Flying out on Wednesday with Spirit Airlines. 

    Since all of the options sucked, I broke down again and cried at the airport. Shayna's parents wanted us to choose Option 1 so that we would get home that night, however my mom thought Option 2 would be best, which is what we ended up choosing. $400 extra unexpected isn't a fun idea. However we still needed to pay the $100 fee to switch flights, and a fee to stay at the hotel for the night. It wasn't all bad though because we got an extra night in LA, and our hotel had a hot tub which I utilized. We bought from a hotel that had a shuttle from LAX, however the shuttle only came once an hour so we had to wait around 40minutes to be picked up, but at last we got to our hotel. I looked at footage from the concert the night before as Shayna slept off the stress with a long nap. 

LA Trip Day 3 (10/13/19)

   This is being written a week after it happened, so bear with me. (We love some good procrastination.)
     I ate one of the 3am donuts since we had gotten a half dozen at 3am the night before. Three for each of us. We then headed off to hike in Topanga State Park in Topanga Canyon. We were going to hike in Runyan Canyon, but after research I found out that was usually a pretty crowded place to hike. Topanga Canyon had trails that looked over the ocean, and was a lot less busy. The drive there was fun, we got to take the Pacific Coast highway, and the road was very windy within the canyon. It was beautiful too. We realized as we were driving that we were heading towards the direction of the Saddleridge Fire, which was located North of Malibu which is about where the canyon was. We also saw fire warnings when entering the canyon, however it was not smoky  when we were there. The actual hike was a little confusing since there were barely any signs along the way (like maybe 3 total) to let you know you were still going the right way. At multiple points there was a fork in the road, and I was a little worried we'd end up on a 10mile trail instead of the 3mile total trail we wanted to hike. About half way through our hike we stopped at a picnic area to eat snacks. An overthetop tourist guy let us have chocolate (It was wrapped up, so not laced with anything). While we were eating our apple and chocolate we saw some baby lizards crawling around the fence to the picnic area. We tried to catch them, but they were really fast, and I was afraid they'd be poisonous or something. On the trail we also saw a Blue Jay. Unfortunately that was it for wildlife. We walked up a little more from the picnic area then decided to walk back the way we came, in case we were on the wrong trail, and as to not miss the meet n' greet going on later that day. It was great anyway, with stunning views, even though we didn't go far enough to see the view of the ocean. Shayna and I both realized how unfit we were, while doing this hike.

     After our hike we decided to hangout on the beach. What's a trip to a coastal city, if you don't hang out on the beach? To go along with the theme of the canyon, we went to Topanga Beach for a little bit, after being thoroughly exhausted and hot from our hike. (As we were hiking I realized, I'd be talking to my favorite musician after having had gone on a hike and gotten sweaty.) (Ryan Ross also included Topanga Beach in one of his lyrics, which was even more reason to go.) We realized when we parked to go to the beach that we hadn't gotten towels from the Air BNB so laying in the sand wouldn't really be possible. We ended up getting some sand in the rental car, and in the bed at the Air BNB house.  It was still relaxing to play in the water, and walk on the shore in hunt for sea life. I was brave enough to go all in the water, however it was still pretty cold. While walking on the beach we spotted three suicidal honey bees that had been hit by waves and were struggling to fly, a couple unknown squishy things, snails, sea shells, and a big black sea slug which Shayna picked up. There were actually multiple. I also found an empty crayfish shell. After collecting our shells we layed them out in the sand to get a better look. I planned on keeping the cute, tiny, shells until a few minutes later they began walking away. It turned out they were baby hermit crabs. (Shayna and I also noticed we both had the same swimsuit.)

  After the beach, we went to Sunset Boulevard (Echo Park) to be closer to the venue for the concert. We went to a vegan burger restaurant for dinner. Monty's Good Burger, and although it had a cool atmosphere and cute dog mascot, I didn't particularly enjoy it. I got a vegan burger and vegan milkshake. Both were alright but I didn't finish either. At the venue I got on my outfit for the night, that I'd wear to the concert. We then parked the car, and got free parking since it was a Sunday. We waited in the car for a little while before walking up to the venue.
   For those of you who don't know, this was my main reason for wanting to go to LA, this concert. Although I made a trip out of it, instead of just going for the concert. For the fans there was a small group of fans who were my age, and a group of fans who were around 15 years old accompanied by their mom or dad. One California mom was sporting a cute outfit with a bowtie. It's a little weird being apart of such a young fanbase sometimes. While waiting in line I got to talk to and meet other fans.I bought a VIP package so I could ensure getting to talk to the performers. However with this particular tour, if you stayed after the show they were also meeting people then. But the VIP package also came with a poster, vinyl, and t-shirt with tour dates. The main musician I wanted to talk to was Ryan Ross, who started Panic! At the Disco and wrote most of their early songs, as well as being their guitarist. Ryan Ross's friends who performed alongside him were also super talented, and fun to watch as well. Ryan has not been on tour in 9 years, nor has he really released any songs so this was a big deal.

   The meet and greet goes as follows. (So a little bit of context, I saw online that the meet n greet included a group photo with the main musicians, so in the days heading up to the concert I thought of a group pose).
     I was sure to tell them that they all looked amazing, then told them the idea for the picture. "Can you lift me" I asked. "Lift you how" was the reply. I repeated the request to one of the other musicians, now feeling stupid about my request but hoping they would know what I meant. They were concerned about messing up my dress but I assured them it was cool. Z, the girl musician was impressed by my outfit, and Ryan commented about how he liked the 20's/flapper vibe of it. (Originally I wasn't going for a flapper vibe, but after pairing the pearl necklace with my dress while trying it on, I decided to buy a headband, gloves, and pearl earrings.) (One of the pearl earrings ended up going down the sink drain that night, rip, although they were cheap, and the pearls were fake). They then lifted me up as the photographer took a few pics, and they shook from lack of upper arm strength. (the tour photographer liked my outfit, and ended up taking a lot of pics of me, which will eventually get posted somewhere. :P)

  The people who got VIP, got early access into the venue so we were able to get close to the stage. I was in like the 2nd row. However I had to hold the stuff I had gotten from the VIP package the whole show which was a bummer. The show was incredible. The venue was called "The Echo" and the acoustics there were flawless. Most of the songs performed there, had not yet been released, including three new songs from Ryan. Ryan ended the show by singing my favorite Panic! song, Northern Downpour. There's a couple videos of me, that I found online where you can see me swaying while Ryan is playing his songs. The person taking the videos was stood right behind me, so that was cool to see. I won't bore you with the details since, most of you don't know anything about these musicians, but I did get to talk with Ryan after for a few minutes, and he signed the picture that was taken of me watching him perform at the Christmas show. I showed him the picture, and told him I had traveled from WI to be there. We hugged and took a really 20's vibe photo next to the bar, and he wished me a safe flight, and I said you too, in which he replied I'm not going anywhere. :P But Ryan Ross is an awkward person, so it's fine. When I first walked up to him and said hi, he asked me if I had enjoyed the show (as if I wouldn't have. :P). 

Shayna and I then headed back to the AirBNB for our final night. We slept really good that night. 

LA Trip Day 2

   I never sleep well my first time in a new place. So I didn't sleep real well at the Air BNB. Neither did Shayna, although we both eventually fell asleep. At our Air BNB they provided cereal, orange juice, and bananas. So we had that, then got ready for the day. While I was getting ready I noticed the Air BNB's owner's dog was wandering the around the street. I guess it's a normal thing for her to do. (People seem really trusting of others to not steal their dogs in LA). Our first stop of the day was the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

   We decided to go the cheaper route, and bought parking about a mile away from the boardwalk. It was cool to walk along Ocean Avenue, and look at all the LA houses. I am so amazed by the plants in the LA area. There's tons of different flowers, and succulents, it's really beautiful. We ended up getting vegan pizza on the boardwalk and I got lemonade too. The lemonade tasted like pure lemon juice and burned my throat going down. I thought I would eventually get used to it, but I never did. The boardwalk was a lot of fun, and had a lot of unique shops and street vendors. A lot of the street vendors were artists as well, and tried to sell their products.

    The boardwalk stretched on longer than we thought it would, and we didn't get to see it all. We realized that walking back to our parking spot after having had walked about 3 miles would be way too much work, so we got an Uber to our parking spot. We then drove to an icecream place with different icecream flavors from around the world called Wanderlust Creamery. At Wanderlust you can buy a tray of all 14 flavors but we both just got one icecream instead. I bought the European Kinder icecream, which was chocolate with hazelnuts.
      After walking we were pretty tired, so we decided to go back to the AirBNB for a little while and rest. Shayna took a nap and I laid out in the hammock in the backyard. We then had out dinner from the night before then went to Little Tokyo. Little Tokyo had a lot of super cute shops, and again we stopped at an Asian tea place. At one of the shops we went in, there was a ton of Beatles merchandise, however a lot of it wasn't for sale. I asked the owner about it, and it turns out the stuff was from her personal collection, and she was a big John Lennon fan.
    After leaving Little Tokyo we tried to go to a place that would give us a good view of LA at night, but we were unsuccessful. One of the places was a tourist trap, and cost way too much to go up. We decided to go back to the AirBNB for the night, and had trouble sleeping again, so we ended up getting Donuts down the street at 3am while having deep talks.

LA Trip 2019 Day 1 (10/11/19)

     I left Parkside at around 8:30am. Our flight from Chicago to LA was at 10:35 with us arriving around 2pm. Everything went smoothly with the flight, so the next step was to go to the car rental place. The car rental we used Black and White car rental, sent us someone to pick us up and take us to the rental place free of charge. The ride was very short, like 5 minutes. Once there, there were two rich middle-aged Californian women looking to rent a Mercedes. They acted like any other rich middle-aged women stereotype, and at one point one woman asked me if I had change for $100 with me. The rental building was really nice, and was decked out for Halloween. I ended up picking the car rental place with the cheapest cars but best reviews, so we wouldn't end up at some sketchy place. I was very pleased with this place. We got a super nice 20/20 vehicle from Friday afternoon- Monday afternoon for a good price.
      Having not had much experience driving in big cities, I didn't feel to confident about my ability to drive in LA. Driving with a new vehicle in itself is always an interesting experience too. It was like I was learning to drive all over again the first couple of minutes. You hardly had to push on the breaks, the steering was easy, and the blinkers were really sensitive. So when you went to turn them off they would switch and light up the other direction. However I soon came accustomed to it, and am super proud of how well I did considering we probably drove a total of 8+ hours total.
     The first thing Shayna wanted to get in LA was boba tea which is a big thing in California. They have a lot of places everywhere in California with it. It's a tea drink with milk and tapioca balls at the bottom. The GPS took us to a mall, which we had fun exploring, especially with the fashion styled clothes of LA. The boba tea place had a drink called magic lemonade which was purple, yellow, and orange and tasted peachy. At one of the stores there was a feather duster looking sweater which I had to try on. (It was pretty soft actually). The mall had tons of "extra" fashion things. I ended up buying heart glasses that were blue and yellow, along with ripped jeggings at probably the cheapest store there. I am amazed by how comfortable those jeggings are. I did have a picture of the lemonade but it somehow got deleted off of my phone so rip.

   After visiting the mall we headed to the Santa Monica pier, and  got there right during sunset. The sunset looked exactly like the lemonade I had, had. My friend Shayna and I, who I had brought along rushed to pay parking then ran onto the beach to take pictures. 

    After taking a couple of pictures we went onto the pier to look at some of the shops, then decided to get dinner. I decided to get a bread bowl with clam chowder soup. The bread bowl was huge, and was able to be reheated again for dinner the next day as well. After dinner we went on the ferris wheel, but unfortunately couldn't get any good pictures of the amazing views, due in part to the smokiness of the air that particular night, from the Saddleridge Fire. I noticed that the girl operating the Ferris Wheel was even wearing a mask. Here's a picture attempt anyway.

     After this we decided to go to our Air BNB for the next couple of days. On our way there we learned a lot about LA traffic. How when you're about to exit and get to the way right lane, suddenly before you exit there are three more lanes that you need to cross quickly, and how people with nice cars weren't as kind. How curvy the LA roads were. How there are a ton of stoplights and stop signs, etc. We missed a lot of exits, due to a lot of them appearing out of nowhere. 

    We got to the AirBNB and the owner gave us a tour of the house. The house was in a safe neighborhood, and the owners were very hospitable, and everything was nice and clean. The AirBNB owners had a chihuahua, which I guess a lot of LA people do. (They weren't kidding with the movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua I guess). The AirBNB was just South of LA and had less traffic, located in Bellflower/Inglewood California. 

I Don't Know What to Title This

    I've heard this analogy before, but it really hit home when I could somewhat imagine how this feels. The analogy has to due with how God's relationship with us can be like a child and a father. We are his children so it makes sense, but I am more so focused on the negative aspects of the children. Let me explain.

    I was spending time with God on my way home from work this evening and thought about this analogy, and compared it to the work I do. (I work with kids with Autism, if that was something you didn't know about me yet.) I thought about the kids I worked with, and how they each illustrate a different aspect of this. One of the girls I work with particularly annoyed me today, because she wouldn't listen, and instead was super sassy towards me. Sometimes I'll have given her the answer to a question, and she'll still wonder what the answer is. To avoid doing work she'll ask me the same questions over and over again, but won't answer the questions I ask of her without a lot of prompting. Lastly she apologizes for misbehaving, but seconds later does the thing she apologized for.

   What's that have to do with God? It depicts God's patience with us. He's not angry with us, he has a lot of patience. I feel like I have a lot of patience, but today was hard. God might plainly give us an answer to a question. It should be frustrating to him if he puts something in plain sight but we still don't see it. But thank God for his patience. How many times do we ask God questions without listening what he has to say to us? He might be giving us certain questions to ponder, but instead we interrupt him with our own not as important questions. Finally how often do we repent, but wind up going back and doing the thing we just repented of? In a fallen world, it is so, so common.

   One of the kids I work with is non-verbal (I work with a few non-verbal kids). He easily gets overwhelmed, starts to freak out of nowhere. When he is having an episode he starts yelling and comes towards you. Usually accompanied by kicking, pinching, or pulling your hair. Usually these episodes are set off by something minor. Today it was not wanting to read anymore.  We have techniques to try and get him to calm down, but sometimes it takes awhile. This just reminded me of how in life we sometimes freak out over such minor things. God is right there trying to comfort us, even if we don't feel like he is. He sees that we are upset, and he doesn't want us to be. He wants to help, but we need to let him help us when in these states. Know that we have the power that it takes to overcome.

  A common thing among the kids I work with, and probably kids in general is how badly they take the word "no" sometimes. We make our requests known to God, and sometimes he says no in order to protect us, or because he has something better, or it's not the right time yet. Here is an example of something that happened this week.
    *One of the girls I work with was stepping on a bottle cap with her bare feet*
    Me: Don't do that, the bottlecap is dirty, and we shouldn't play with things we find on the ground, also it is sharp and could cut your foot
    Her: *listens but then eventually steps on it again*
   Me: (I ended up just taking it away from her, but I was trying to protect her from cutting her feet)

 So this was a long ramble but I hope it can help someone out.