the fall: past and present

I'm tired today because I stayed up an extra 45 minutes or so last night looking at my old high school yearbooks. Mostly the one from senior year. This decision is a result of a few recent occurrences.

The first is that I went into Mr. Goodcents the other day (still not the same without Emjo), and I was wearing my Ted Drewes shirt. The guy at the counter says to me, "Oh are you from St. Louis?" So I said yeah and long story short the dude graduated a year behind me at Kirkwood High School. Weird. I didn't recognize him or his name though.

However when I was watching a Jay Leno that Mark had on his DVR the other night I did recognize someone. People from the show went to some comedy festival and had several different comedians tell a joke or say something funny for the camera. One of them turned out to be Nikki Glaser, who also graduated a year behind me at Kirkwood and apparently is making her way as a comedian these days. Weird, because she never struck me as all that funny. Oh, and she went to KU. Oh, and we were in To Kill A Mockingbird together in middle school. Awesome.

But I was mostly looking at my yearbook because I miss high school. I know I wrote about this a few months ago, so I won't really get into it completely. But lately I've been going to sports game after sports game and watching boys ask girls to homecoming and going to youth group and listening to first driving stories and I remember how freaking sweet high school was.

Last night especially hit me because I went to the Ralston Valley football game (on a Thursday night--weird, I know) and they were playing this team mostly made up of black players, which is rare for this area. And as insignificant as it seems, that little detail made me miss high school in St. Louis--especially high school football games in the fall.

I think I miss the simplicity of high school life. We had four years of high school, and when it was over, I knew I'd be in college for another four (or five) years. There were no decisions to really worry about. Well, most people worried about college I guess but I don't think I really did. Anyway I guess since I'm about to turn 25 I feel all these little pressures and worries that normal people don't have in high school. Like, when are you gonna get married? What are you gonna do next year? Why do you only have like 3 friends your own age and is that bad? You know, things like that.

I try to remember though, that those are mostly society pressures and I don't care about this so called "society" and what they think of me.

That being said, let me show you how sweet the beginning of the year has been.

That's me and Smiley, one of our junior boys at Junior High youth group the other night. We called this night banana night, which included an interview with "Banana Boy,"

A couple up front games of kids shoving bananas in their mouths,


as well as "Steal the Banana" and "Ultimate Banana."

Oh man. It was awesome. Especially since we all went to a high school volleyball game after that and Alan was still wearing the banana costume. I think there's like a prerequisite of being sort-of a weirdo in order to be a good youth leader. I'm fine with it.

Wednesday high school youth group was sweet too because it was "Man vs. Wild" night. You should really go watch the video Mark made from the night at www.youtube.com/highpointstuff because it was amazing. My favorite part, which you'll notice in the video, was when the students had to make "shelters" out of cardboard boxes and then see if the shelters could withstand the elements, which basically meant us pouring buckets of water on them and then shooting fans at them. I took great joy in getting them soaked.

I've lived here a little over one year now, and I can't imagine what it would be like to leave. I'm so blessed. And I'll leave it at that for now.

Satisfied Mark?

what in the name of me is going on in here

Yesterday was a sad day for me. Angie headed back to Chicago and Sophie started the first day of school. And you know what that means: the epic summer of 2007 has come to a close.

I wrote a blog in June about how blessed I have been this summer. And that was true for its entirety. Don't get me wrong, I love camp and I did miss working there this summer, but it was so refreshing to just be in Colorado, or on one of many summer trips, because it was a nice changed of pace. Plus, I am pumped for the beginning of the new school year.

But before that, I need to report on the last few weeks of summer. They have been very hectic and stressful at times, but I survived. And I finally got my stupid computer back. He had to spend way too much time in the hospital (aka Mac store).

A few weeks ago, there were some visitors in the CO.

I was way pumped to see my good friends Emjo and Maggles. I always get really excited when a piece of my life in Kansas is in Colorado. Plus, we all got to go to see The Fray.

It was a pretty awesome show. My favorite part was obviously when they covered Hips Don't Lie by Shakira. Who knew what an amazing song that was? Oh wait, Jub did. The only downside was that it poured down rain halfway through The Fray's set.

Well, it was actually pretty fun and sweet and reminded me of playing soccer in the pouring rain in El Salvador. The downside came when we were uncomfortably soaking wet afterward and Emily's phone broke. Sorry Emjo. I think it was still a good time though. My favorite part was how the girls were joking about how they would react when they met the band, but then I told them we're trying to be low-maintenance so we might not see them. At that point Maggie said, "Ok I'll put my low-maintenance face on." Oh I miss the Kansas people.

Unfortunately, my time in Colorado with those two got cut short, as Grandma Tate passed away that week. As most of you know, it was actually sort-of a blessing because she had been in such poor health. But still sad of course. The last time I saw her was in March.

She was a great lady. In all my mission trips and stuff she would write such encouraging notes and talk about how she and her church were praying for me. And she loved Easter. Every year she would make sure I wasn't too old for an Easter basket, and I said no way. I'm never too old for candy.

So Grandma will be missed, that's for sure.

It was cool being in St. Louis again too because I got to see some of my Kirkwood girls I haven't seen in forever. As in Alison, Sarah, Ellen and Kristi. Talking to them and just being with them in person again was great. Oh and I got to hang out with Nic and see his new church.

Even with all that going on, my parents and I still got to head down to the great state of Florida to meet up with Marjorie and the Nunns for a week.

Besides the fact that it was ridiculously hot, I had a good time with the fam. Playing in the ocean with my cousins Joey and Michael, doing crossword puzzles with Gammy (she's not my gammy but I call her that anyway), being treated to dinner every night by Gar and Mel, it was great. Plus how awesome does Gary look in this picture:

Yes. Also, my cousin Michael is pretty much obsessed with me and my dad, so that's always fun. I got him hooked on Scrubs. He's nine...is that wrong? It's fine. Plus I got to meet up with Danielle one day for lunch because she was in Pensacola for the week. Cool.

Oh and what is so exciting is that all the Africa people got home a week ago, safe and sound. I never thought about what the sound means in the phrase "safe and sound" and I don't think I really get it. But anyway, I was happy with their return. Things just feel normal again.

Sunday night I saw the Bourne Ultimatum for the third time. Awesome. I want to marry Jason Bourne.

And now...well now I'm just sitting at church. There's always stuff to do but sometimes I get bored of that stuff. But I'm excited because next week is our staff retreat and the week after that is the beginning of fall programming. Holler.

I think I'll go try to be productive until I have to pick up little Sophie from school. Peace.

love is all you need.

My computer is in the shop. My brand new computer. I don't want to talk about it.

In routine with the rest of my summer, the past few weeks have been nuts. And awesome.

This past week a bunch of my friends left me and went on the mission trip to Uganda. I was so pumped for them, but weirdly emotional about it at the same time. I still haven't figured out quite why, because I was fine with not going, but whatever.

The hardest part of them being gone though is the fact that I am holding things down in the youth ministry department at church. Alone. I got pretty stressed out like last Tuesday and wondered why Ev and Mark would leave me all by myself, but I'm over it now. I'll be fine.

But let's start where I left off. A couple weeks ago we went on a camping trip to Lake Glendo (Wyoming) with the high school kids. We stayed right by the beach, so the view was sweet.

Plus I got to drive a mini-van of some of the coolest girls ever. We had some serious in-car dance parties to Shakira and Justin Timberlake. It was awesome.

The girl there in the sweet board shorts and soccer socks just happens to be the sister of Mr. Jacob Stooke, Amanda, who was our speaker for the weekend. We were friends before but got to be pretty tight on the trip.

At one point me and her and Max swam across the lake to the other side, which for most people wasn't too far, but I'm not such a strong swimmer so it was a little tough. Plus both Max and I have an irrational phobia of sharks. It was quite an accomplishment to say the least. Plus once on the other side we pretended to be Bear from Man vs. Wild and discussed our survival tactics. Then we spent a good amount of time figuring out how to get across a small patch of 2-feet-deep water. It's hard to explain, but that adventure was the best part of Glendo.

I know I like hot weather, so what I'm about to talk about might be shocking. But I'm gonna say it: Glendo was too hot for me. I think mostly because there was no escape from the heat ever. And when I get hot my bangs drive me crazy, and I never looked in a mirror, so the whole weekend I apparently looked like this:

There are several other pictures of me looking like that and making almost that exact same face from the weekend.

Maybe camping is just not really my thing. But I did enjoy the occasional camping trip when I was younger. I remember the time we went camping with the Poshaks but we forgot the tent poles for one of the tents so Julie and I slept in one of the vans. Good times.

We got home from Glendo on a Saturday night, then went to two services Sunday morning, and met to leave for the Denver Mission Trip at 2 pm. A little rushed. Fortunately Denver is not too far.

Despite the fact we did only travel about 15 miles, the trip was incredibly impactful for the students as well as the leaders. The trip definitely had its challenges, among them being the obnoxiousness that can be Junior High kids, but the need to be patient with them at the same time. Like when they decide it's funny to paint each other even after I continually tell them to stop messing around.

They're just lucky I love them so much.

Back it up. So we were working with this church called Open Door Fellowship, right in the heart of homelessness, gangs, drug deals, liquor stores and strip clubs.

Don't worry, we took all the necessary safety precautions. Open Door ministers to all sorts of different people who are caught up in some of the above lifestyles. They own a handful of houses that people live in to get back on their feet. We did work projects like landscaping and painting to make all these buildings more welcoming and nice for the people in the area.

The church also had a drop-in day care center for kids, and in the afternoons we did a VBS for them. They were way cute and that was a favorite part for most of our students. Unfortunately I don't actually have any pictures of that at this time. Sorry.

But I think the most impactful experiences came from meeting homeless people on the streets. We did this during a prayer walk, a poverty scavenger hunt and when we handed out sandwiches to people. Every person we met hit us in a different way. The staff of Open Door that led us around were amazing at really helping us understand the truth of poverty and all the other problems that exist in the Inner-City.

For me, God put homelessness and poverty and what our response should be into a whole new light. It would take a really long time to explain here, so I'll just use one word:

Love.

God loves. We should love. God tells us to care for the poor, so we should, no questions asked. One thing Walter from Open Door told us was, "Poverty exists because of sin. As long as there's sin, there's going to be homelessness." Profound. Yet so simple. There's no need to judge or play the blame game.

All we need to do is love.

To me, that's a very freeing statement, and that's what I'm trying to go on these days. But I more and more realize how bad I am at it. But by the grace of God, I believe I can love the way He does. And that's a lot of love.

I could write more, but I need to go to sleep, seeing as I am a working girl these days. But...I love you! Seriously. I do.

mcginty family fun

Last night I went to Barnes and Noble and discovered something disturbing in the children's section. Actually, 2 disturbing things. One, they have a display rack dedicated to books on sharks. That is terrifying. Seeing images of sharks (namely the movie Jaws) scarred me for life. Granted, Jaws shows several instances of humans getting eaten by sharks, but still.

The second disturbing thing: I couldn't find any Baby-Sitter's Club books. What the heck? I loved those books when I was a kid, and I was so mad they didn't have any. Dumb.

But don't worry, I calmed myself down by performing some scenes from my 8th grade musical "How to Eat Like a Child" on the little stage for Sophie and Angie and Kristen. I'll have to bust that tape out the next time I'm in St. Louis. Especially to watch Alison's great solo about her birthday. Oh, and my incredible dance moves.

But anyway, the Baby-Sitter's Club. It turns out my cousin Jane, who in my head still should be like 3 but is actually 7, reads some of these books now and loves them. I'm so proud.

I got to see little Jane and the rest of my crazy McGinty family this past weekend in Dallas for Aunt Melinda's wedding celebration.

It was called a celebration because they were technically married a year ago but never had the party. And a party it was. For three nights.

One of the best parts of the weekend was being reunited with my cousin Bill.I can't really explain Bill, but just picture someone really loving and funny who doesn't hold his tongue much. And then picture that person on speed. That's Bill. There are very few instances when I'm around him that I stop laughing. But he lives in Boston, so I definitely don't see him enough.

That's us at the big event with Aunt Maureen. She loves us the most because I'm her namesake and Bill's her Godson. Holla.

The wedding celebration was crazy nice. Melinda and Bill went all out. The highlights for me were, obviously the dance...

...and also that chocolate fountain that you dip fruit and stuff in. So good. I wish I had a picture of it.

But besides the wedding and a dinner every night, we mostly just hung out at the pool. Here's me and my cousins Stacey and Charlie just chillin.

And by "the pool," I mean the pool at the hotel my parents stayed at, since our little Holiday Inn seemed to be lacking a pool. How can a hotel in Texas not have a pool? Plus the Four Seasons is probably the nicest hotel I've ever experienced, and I'm slightly convinced that it's a cult. Watch out for them. They'll win you with their charm. But not with their $10 a day charge for internet in the rooms.

So it was a great weekend. I wish my bro bro was there. He missed out for sure.

Tomorrow I head out for the high school lake camping trip. Should be fun, even though I'm not really into water sports.

Speaking of camp (sort-of), I never really got to write about that trip, but I'll just say it was awesome. It was camp. Plus I got to see some Lawrence peeps. Plus Emily and Maggie are coming to Denver in a couple weeks!!

I seriously love summer.