These are a FEW of my favorite things :)

Today began like any other. I pulled myself out of bed - half asleep and in no shape to mingle. Sandy had been up a while and was asking me questions at what seemed a race-cars pace. As I fumbled with the coffee maker and gave her half blank/half confused stares I think she finally realized I wasn't coherent. Needless to say, it took me a while to hop on the bandwagon. A while and some coffee that is :) We opted for the early service this morning and I loved the message today. Not only did they play one of my favorite songs but we also spoke about giving to the Lord and having faith that we will receive what we give ten fold. Our pastor even pointed out different examples of when churches had challenged people to tithe for three months, or some other random number, and if they didn't receive blessings beyond that of what they gave, then the church would refund them the full amount they tithed. Of course nobody asked for their money back.

 I would love to believe this was due to the wonderful blessings they received but the skeptic in me wonders what type of person would  ask a church for their money back ha! Never the less, I have noticed that each time I give, I do in fact receive much more than I put in. It was also brought to our attention the blessings we fail to recognize. For instance the pastor considers penny's on the ground blessings. So if he finds a quarter he's really impressed because he's been blessed 25 times, and so on. The line I loved was "Don't miss the penny's, looking for the dimes" - amen. After church I rushed to get ready to go out on the boat! My friend Forrest invited me to go water-skiing with his family! Ahhhh!! 
I have never been water-skiing so obviously I jumped on the opportunity. Once out on the boat we decided to stop at this cliff and go cliff diving!!! Well, the water is really high right now so it was only a twelve foot drop but I still had a BLAST and it was such a rush!! After lunch it was time for ski lessons. Eeek! Autumn went first in order to show me the ropes, and then it was my turn! I got up on my very first try but somehow instantly hit a wave and biffed. The second and third time I decided that "lean back" meant "lay down" and we all laughed at the hilarity of me basically just stick falling backwards into the wake ha! Fourth times a charm and I got right up and skied for a good ten minutes before calling it quits. 
Somewhere around the second time up I pulled both of my forearms and now, 8 hours later, i'm finally starting to feel [a little] better. Oh and did I mention that I was experiencing all of this on one of the U.S's top ten most beautiful lakes! The lake was created by a dam but I cannot believe the gorgeous views of the Smoky Mountains and Cherokee National Park. Amazing! Once we got back home Forrest took me out on the four-wheeler and even let me drive! I had so much fun tearing up the trails behind their house. I was a master at even the deadly hills ha! So, church, lake, four-wheeling - and all with wonderful people!! Thank you God :)