Graduation picture.. jk

haha.. this is me.. president of the geek club!

More editing fun :)

The Finish Product :)

The previous post has the original picture, then this was the next layer..

Baseball...

Tess and Chelsea being sad because I'm leaving in one week :(

Tess and Chelsea being sad again, because not only am I leaving really soon, but Chelsea is leaving tomorrow :(

I was sure I was going to miss Megan doing this, but I didn't :D

Ashley, Mrs. Reifer, and Some other person who was there :)

Little sister Maggie!!! hehe we decided that since the Hamachers are my little siblings, that makes Chelsea my cousin :) so now I have another cool cousin to add to my collection :)

Three little girls :p

I actually got Jenny to pose for me!! :)

So, even though we didn't win, and this was the last game of the season, I had a fun time :)

New Photo editing software

Ok, so I got this new photo editing software today that is supposedly as powerful as photoshop. It's pretty hard to use, but I'm starting to get the hand of it a little. Here is something I tried my hand at :) It took me like an hour and a half when it should only take like 20-30 minutes, but I'm still new at this.. lol

The original picture :)

Hmm.. some hair dye here.. whoa.. bad lighting.. greenish skin.. LOL

Here, we'll offset the bad lighting with a bit of makeup.. lol it doesn't look super, but I can tell that once I get a little better at it this program will be able to do a lot more, and better too :)

In Him shall I find strength

Recently I've been going through one of the toughest times I've ever had to work through in my life. I'm not going to go into details, but let's just say I'm in a lot of pain emotionally and spiritually. I have to constantly remind myself that God is in control of the entire universe, including my life, and His will is going to be done no matter what people try to change. Sometimes His will and my will are the same, those are the easy times. It's times when God takes my life places that I truly do NOT want to go that I have to learn to trust Him. I'm no great man of amazing faith or anything like that, but I can say that I trust my Daddy in heaven and know that His will is the best. Although right now I feel like my heart is screaming at the top of my lungs, I know that even through this valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil, and I can impeccably trust my heavenly Father above to let His will be done with my life. Perhaps His will is the same as mine is, but at least for now, it definitely does not seem like it.
I must say that it's the times when my pain is greatest that I have learned to put my trust in Christ whole-heartedly. Sometimes I wonder if God just sees me not trusting Him, so he puts rough spots in my path so I have no choice but to hold His hand, or fall off the edge of the cliff. A lot of people who go through rough times just fall off the edge, and ruin their life. I personally choose to hold onto the hand of Christ Jesus, and know that He will never let me down.
In rough times, I tend to blame myself a lot, and especially here lately, I've been wondering if I'm even worth anything. I just feel like I've failed everybody around me, and haven't made the right decisions, and in general feel like a looser. The words of a song I have by Jason Grey keep running through my head:

Losers, all the lovely losers
who never thought you'd hear your name
Outside, always on the outside
empty at the wishing well, but time will tell

Blessed be the ones who know that they are weak
they shall see the kingdom come to the broken ones

I feed a lot off of music, it helps me to listen to songs that I can relate to the lyrics. These last few days I've been jumping all over musically in ways that I usually don't do. First, I'll be listening to sad country songs (which I hardly EVER do normally) then, I'll just start putting on Christian hardcore/metal, which helps me vent my anger at Satan instead of letting it get penned up inside. Then I'll start listening to more of my normal music, like punk/techno/alternative stuff. I think I've probably listened to these two or three songs I have by a band named "skillet" at least a hundred times in the last four days. In fact, the song I have on my blog I just put on repeat and sung along with while I was working for like three hours straight. Yea. weird. I know, but I can relate to the lyrics, and it just helps me deal with the pain I'm going through.

Today I'm leaving for a youth conference in Springfield for the rest of the weekend. I hope I will be able to connect with God better because of it, and hopefully get some healing inside. I know I'll have fun there, and although things may never be the same in my life, I know that God's will is going to be done, no matter how much we little humans try to change it. Two years from now I may look back at this time in my life and laugh at myself. Right now I sure don't feel like laughing though. It's a struggle for me to just keep a reasonable normal happy attitude on, let alone actually laugh. Please pray for me as I struggle through this mess that is my life right now. I feel closer than ever, yet further that usual with God at the same time, which really doesn't make sense unless you've been where I am now, but at any rate, I can use all your prayers :)

I raise my eyes toward the mountains. From where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth. God will not allow your foot to slip; your guardian does not sleep. Truly, the guardian of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps. The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. By day the sun cannot harm you, nor the moon by night. The LORD will guard you from all evil, will always guard your life. The LORD will guard your coming and going both now and forever.

~Psalm 121~

4th of July party

Last night I went to the Dalton's house for a big party they were having. We had TONS of fun, especially doing fireworks!! They had probably at least $300 worth of fireworks, and David Bauer, Matt McLuaughlin, Tom Dilly, and I lit them off. Also there was a really fun man there from Nigeria who was more excited about the fireworks than the kids were because they don't do fireworks over there. He got to light some off as well :)


here is a video of some of the fireworks we did. This was kinda the grand finale. We had a LOT of these kind of things there :) I got a really cool fountain (that's it in the first picture) that changed colors, and made stars, and bangs and all kinds of stuff like that, it was the best fountain there :) other than that I only had a few of the cool kind of fireworks there, mostly I was just lighting theirs.

We had lots of good food, and after our firework show we watched the Rolla city firework display which was about a mile or so away from their house. I had a really good time, though I wish more people had been there, because a lot of my best friends were doing other things :(
Anyway, that's basically it, I didn't get many pictures of the fireworks because I was the one lighting a lot of them off..

Happy Independance Day! (aka explosives day for us guys...)

Happy Fourth of July!

Remember that even though we may not like some of the things that the government is doing, and even if we are not as "free" as we're supposed to be, we have more freedom in this country than pretty much any other nation in the world.

Also, remember those fighting for our country, and their families as they are celebrating this holiday thousands of miles away from each other.

"It is only because rough men stand willing to do violent deeds that people can sleep peacefully in their beds at night in America"

Something that really bugs me is when people become almost Anti-American just because they don't like what's going on in politics. Sure, the government is kinda screwed up sometimes, but that doesn't give you the right to hate the country you live in. As a military personnel, like nearly all service men and women, I hold my patriotism very dear, even with my very life. It's sad to see how many people sit down, hats on, and talk while the national anthem is playing. While you don't have to stand at rigid attention arms presented, and all that a soldier has to do, you should at least give the flag some respect, if only in remembrance of the thousands of lives spent to protect that flag and the freedom that it symbolizes.

Have a great Independence Day! Remember what this day is all about, and the lives of so many who have sacrificed themselves "to protect and defend the constitution and the United States against all intruders both foreign and domestic"