Hey all! Welcome to my blog!

I'm about to embark on a great journey to a land far away.......and I thought you might be interested in hearing about it! I'm writing this blog to keep people updated because it's easier than making 50 phone calls/week...but don't let this deter you from calling me, because I would still like to talk. I will be living by myself without any homework, so I'm sure I can spare a minute or two to chat.

Here's the deal: I will be a co-op at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana. There will be 15 of us co-oping, meaning we are still enrolled in college but instead of taking lecture classes, we will be taking the class of life by working in the real world for a bit. I'm hoping this will help me figure out what God wants me to do with my mechanical engineering degree.....design baby bottles, be a missionary in Bolivia, work with car manufacturing???

Also, I expect this to be an interesting time of spiritual growth. It's easy at Cedarville to live the Christian life with amazing, encouraging friends and chapel every day. I expect to be challenged in my faith. But, as James 1:3 says, the testing of faith develops perseverance.

Join in this adventure with me! I will keep you updated on what's going on and how to pray for me, and I hope you will update me on your lives as well. Despite distance, love never fails. As we prepare for this new year, let's bless this world with an outpouring of love!

The step I'm at right now with this transition process is looking for an apartment. My mom and I plan to go scope out the area tomorrow on a road trip and look at a couple of the apartments I found listed online. There's also a married couple that lives in Evansville that we might meet up with - not sure if they would let me live with them, but hopefully I will at least be involved with their weekly college Bible study.

Oh! And I've made a list of things I want to do during my co-op:

• Paint / draw (I found a great free online course at painting-course.com, so I'm excited to bust out my easel that has been under my bed for far too long.)
• Run a lot (I want to work my way up to a half-marathon eventually, but I will train for a 10k this semester.)
• Become a good cook (Feel free to give me recipes!)
• Take a fun free online statistics course (www.udacity.com)
• Skype people! (I did a bad job of that this past semester.)
• Sky dive! (My fantastic Cedarville friend Ella and I are planning on that for April sometime.)
• Play soccer (I'm sure I can find people. Evansville University is close-by.)
• Get a fish (I'm thinking a fierce, purple betta fish.)
• Make a t-shirt blanket (My friend Mary Kate and I have been talking about doing this for a long time because we have a surplus of shirts, and we still haven't done this. Maybe this if we both go home one weekend it will finally happen.)
• Read books (I haven't had time for this for a while. I want to read the Alcoholics Anonymous book - I'm not an alcoholic though, but it will be a good read I'm sure - the Narnia books, The Purpose Driven Life, the Book of Mormon - I'm not Mormon, but I want to see what they think - and perhaps others that I find at the library.)
• Read the newspaper (I will settle for online news, but I really need to know what's going on in the world. I never know when I'm at Cedarville except for what I see on TV at the gym.)
• Learn to play guitar (I doubt this will actually happen soon, but maybe at some point in my life. For now, I will settle for listening to my beautiful sister Laurel playing for me.)
• Find a church (Hopefully this will happen early on so I'm not floating around from place to place the entire time.)
• Volunteer (One of my favorite things to do at Cedarville was ministry involvement. Maybe I will find a jail to go talk to inmates at because that was AWESOME this past semester and God did great things.)
• Sing Karaoke (I will probably do this on a daily basis because there will be nobody around to annoy.)
• Country line dance (I'm gonna whip out my cowgirl boots and boogie with Mary Kate in BG - Bowling Green for all you non-Kentuckians.)
• Buy a puppy so Sarah can visit. (Not gonna happen, but Loafs added this to the list - she said she would settle for a hot tub though!)

Gonna be some good stuff coming, so stay tuned!

That's about it for now. Sorry for being verbose. Get used to it ;)