07-08 RA Reunion

My RA team from last year wanted to get together one more time this year - partly because three of them are graduating this year and won't be around for reunion meals next year and partly because they just like hanging out together & eating my food! We are a very busy group and the only day we could find that worked for all of us was Taylor's birthday! She agreed to spend her 21st birthday celebrating with us...I let her choose the menu (chicken curry in a hurry) and made a special treat of brownies and ice cream for dessert. It was a wonderful time of catching up with one another and sending the graduates off to a bright future!

Taylor and her birthday brownies!

The 07-08 Crew
front - Taylor, Heather, Grace, and Kat
back - Rachel, Ben, Bryce, and Kaleem

Final RA fun

For our final RA fun event I took my staff out for dinner. Due to some scheduling issues we had to stay in Goshen rather than going to The Boathouse, my favorite place to take them. Instead we went to Mancino's - a little pizza/sub shop in Goshen. We had a tasty meal and a good time reminiscing about the year. I took some time to thank each of them publicly for the things they had brought to the group and they ways in which I have seen them grow this year.

Final Photo
back - Julie, Ashley, Bryce, & Josh
front - Jenna, me, Kelly, & Jon

April CNL

April's Connector Night Life was a busy evening! We had several big things going on. We started with Karaoke at 9:00 - accompanied by our favorite treat of Walking Tacos, followed by a Cake Walk featuring cakes made by my friends in Student Life, then there was a game of Capture the Flag that was played across campus until the wee hours of the morning.

Here are some photos of our fun.....

K1 gals singing some Karaoke tunes!

The cakes that were donated for the Cake Walk...they look yummy don't they?!

People walking for cake....Nate, the dude in the middle, is going to be one of my RAs next year!

Kelly & Jules were in charge of the tunes for the Cake Walk.

Some the winners sharing their cakes with friends!

Colleen and I. Colleen and her husband, Terry, are parents of one of my former RAs. They come to campus once a year to do Karaoke for us...no charge, just out of their love for GC and belief in the good things we are doing here!

Cooking with the Housholder kiddos!

April 14th there was a concert on campus that my friends Paul & Kirsten wanted to go to. They brought their adorable children over to my place to hang out with "Auntie" Susie for the evening. We did what everyone associates with me...we baked cookies - one of my favorites, peanut blossoms - the peanut butter cookies iwth the Hershey's kiss in the middle!

Modeling some of Auntie Susie's aprons.

Working with the mixer.

More mixing!

Marcus used the scoop to make peanut butter balls.

Simon smoothed out the rough edges on the peanut butter balls.

Leah rolled the peanut butter balls in sugar.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos of the finished product. Trust me though, they were pretty to look at and delightful to the tastebuds! :)

Easter at Nana's

Easter was the first time that my family has had any sort of official gathering since Christmas at Camp Mack. And even with that there were only about 1/3 of us there. Despite the smaller crowd, I thought we had a very enjoyable time. We had a delicious meal followed by 2 Easter egg hunts....one with plastic eggs hidden outside for the little kids and one with real eggs hidden in Nana's basement for the big kids.

Here are some photos from the afternoon...

Gavin cheesin' it up!

Jake making a face

Mike - happy guy with a full stomach!

Josh-thinking he's all gangsta...HA!

Kathy - pretty as can be!

Photos from the Easter egg hunt and other sillyness outside...

Lily & Gavin

Gavin gets a boost to get a high up egg!

Jake reverted back to his childhood for a bit

More childlike behavior.

The impossible puzzle

My mom gave me a puzzle to do. The box called it "The Impossible Puzzle." For a few days I thought that term was accurate! It took me over 2 weeks to complete this extremely difficult puzzle, but I DID IT!!!! It was a 750 piece puzzle of many flowers of similar color. It did not have any edge pieces and there were 5 extra pieces included. It was crazy hard, but I certainly enjoyed the sense of accomplishment when it was done!

Photos of ME!

My friends like to make fun of me because I take lots of photos of myself! I think the term I found in the urban dictionary online is "Photo Whore." Not that I particularly enjoy that term be associated with me, but I do find it mildly amusing! Here are a few photos I took of myself one morning last week when I thought my hair was looking pretty good! :)

Kratz n Miller

For part of our housing sign up process I had to take a photo of the residence halls that I manage. So, this is where my life happens 9 months out of the year. The building on the left is Kratz and the one on the right is Miller.

New RAs!

A few days after the new RAs were initiated we had a meeting with them where they signed their contracts and we began the process of "bonding" with one another. I took a few photos of them...so that people could see that they look better than the out of bed tumbled look you saw in my initiation post!

Ashley, Sarah, Mary, David, and Nate

Look! The love each other already!

New RAs need to be initiated!

We announced our new RAs for the 2009-2010 school year on Friday, March 27th. The current RAs woke the new RAs up at 4:00 AM on Wednesday, April 1st to initiate them! Here are some photos of the craziness....

Blindfolded in the holding tank...the elevator.

Raising a hand to speak.

Blindfolded back rubs

The new Kratz/Miller RAs!

me with my new RAs
David, me, Nate, Ashley, Mary, and Sarah

me with my current RAs
Josh, Julie, Kelly, Ashley, me, Jenna, Bryce, and Jon

the current and new K/M RAs with me

All the RAs..Kratz/Miller and Yoder - current and new!

Another progressive dinner

This year all of my female RAs have done a Progressive dinner as a floor activity. They utilized the homes of local students and some welcoming members of the Student Life Department to pull the event off. I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of each meal. One gal asked me to make appetizers, but the rest have all requested that I be the dessert stop. These are photos of the desserts I made for the Miller 3 gals last Monday...

Chocolate Caramel WOW cake.
I've heard it's also called "Better than Sex Cake"
I told the gals that couldn't confirm whether that's a true statement or not.

Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake

Book release

Dan Vadar is a senior here at GC. He lived in my building his first 2 years and has attended church with me at LifeSpring all 4 years of college. As a project for senior seminar course he was encouraged to publish a book. He did so via our campus publishing house "Pinchpenny Press." He had a book release party on March 29th. He read some pieces from the book, shared about his journey as a writer, and sold his books. It was the first book release party I had attended. It was a rather fun experience and I enjoyed seeing this other side of Dan.

I tend to see the more social or emotional component of students experiences here in the residence halls. I am always impressed when I see the academic piece of their GC experience and the level of accomplishment that many of them achieve.

Dan autographing his book.

Dan talking to friends from LifeSpring - Sandy & Rob Huston.

Deanna's birthday!

It was Deanna and Denise's birthday on Sunday, March 29th. Denise had small group after church, but Deanna didn't have any plans. I didn't want her to have to go home and eat lunch alone...a sentence that I would hate on a normal day, but on my birthday would just KILL me! So, Deanna and I drove over to Mishawaka for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants...Chipotle! We had yummy burritos and then went over to Sonic and got Cherry Limeades for the ride home!

Deanna with her burrito remains and a dirty napkin!

Birthday trip to Chicago

Deanna and Denise were born 2 days after me on March 29th. We often do something fun to celebrate our birthdays together. This year we took a day trip to Chicago!

Our first stop was at the Bean!

Many photos were taken there....


Then we went to find lunch...a Chicago style hot dog! Several of my students from the CHicago area recomended going to Gold Coast Dogs, so we did...


We looked at lots of sculpture art in the city...

"Momument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet

"God Bless America" by J. Steward Johnson

"Picasso" by Picasso

"The Four Seasons" by Marc Chagall

We made a stop at Ethel's Chocolate Lounge...partly to get a photo for my Mom (her first name is Ethel, shhhh....she doesn't like people to know that!) and partly to enjoy some tasty chocolate!

We took torns wearing the now famous Birthday hat!

We did some shopping/looking at stores...

And we ate dinner at Giordano's! Yummmm!


It was a day full of famous sites, good shopping, delicious food, and time spent with very good friends! Happy birthday to us!