Meredith Johnson

There are many words that describe Meredith Johnson: funny, beautiful, caring, thoughtful, active, faithful, loving, kind...and the list goes on!

She is one of the most amazing people I know and am soo thankful that she was my host mom while in the USA.



Heres a pink pic for you Mer!

Weekend Fun!

I am thankful for all my amazing friends that God has placed in my life.

Here in particular I am thankful for Liv, that is Olivia Burt.

I ventured over the harbour bridge to the suburb of Bucklands Beach to have a slumber party at Liv's house in the weekend just past and what a fun time it was!

Sooo much fun packed into one weekend :)

We kayaked, walked, made pizza, grocery shopped, roller blade, made a trip to the airport, churched it up (yea I just invented that saying, cool huh?) and enjoyed good company (well I did!!).

Liv is an amazing woman of God who inspires me in my walk with God! Love you girl!

Ontop of Pigeon Mountain.

Aoteaora

Basically I get easily distracted. Right now I have been sitting at my desk for a about 2 hours (well I hung out my washing at some stage) supposedly studying for a human development quiz I need to do at some stage this weekend but I have not gotten far. I have banned myself from facebook until I go to bed (and have got a decent amount of work done!).
Soo I was just looking round the net, looking at old emails, and decieded to go to my old blog...yes it is very old. I did such an awful job of keeping it updated, I know a shocking job really! I thought to myself, why not start writing in it again when I get bored. So that is what I am going to attempt to do cos I have so much time for it (I could be going for a run now, writing emails, writing letters, homework)!
I guess I have been living on the north shore of Auckland for a month now and things are going well. Well into the swing of classes and everything at uni, can't say I am ontop of everything though.
It does not seem like 4 months since I left the states, its sureal. I love being back home and love NZ, but Minnesota will forever be apart of me now and I REALLY miss it!! In particular my family and friends, and also the city and state itself, what a beautiful place, its my mission in life to convince people to go visit Minnesota, definitely one of the places you should go to before you die!
Well that is all for now, lest I get too distracted....
My theme for 2010 is "My God is so Big"! For sure he is!! Yet waay to often I forget this "O thee of little faith" is probably what God is constantly thinking about me.
The creator of the universe, of life, of my life; nothing is too big for him! May I never forget this! I really want this to be a part of my life this year. A part of my thinking and daily walk with my Lord.
Here is a picture of downtown Auckland taken from a ferry that Miri and I caught from devonport one day.

Village Schools of the Bible

August - December



It never croseed my mind once that I would do some sort of Bible course while I was here in the USA.

Yet I did and I have! Keith and Meredith did this course together before they were married and they get newsletters in the mail from the school and one day Meredith said to me that I should look into doing this course and that its really good.

I proabaly said something like oh yea? Meaning I wasnt too interested but I will look into it! I don't know why that was my attitude, but I was probably thinking something stupid like well I did a year long Bible course last year!

But then I looked into it and the lectures were on Wednesday morning - perfect for me because Gracie is at school, Matty at daycare and Isaac at preschool! So I enrolled and went along.

The course was a New Testament Survey class, and our wednesday morning lectures were at Woodridge church (only 15min drive away down the freeway).

It was a womans class, and of course I was the youngest (it was good to have Rachel come along a few weeks with me, Rachel nannyed for the Johnsons the past few summers and we worked together when keith and Meredith were in Italy in June - a really great girl).

I really enjoyed this course!! Each week we would read a book of the New Testament (or more considering the length of the book) then write an essay about it then on that Wednesday we would then hear the lecture. So to re-word this, we were writing the essay before we heard the lecture on that book.

I really enjoyed doing it that way so I wasn't just writing what I had heard from someone else but havent to really think through it myself.

It was also really good to read through the New Testament that way and to really study it at the same time.

The course ran over the 'fall' (Autumn) semester and it was good to be back studying again and being made to do something with a deadline!!

And funny thing, through all this I remembered that when I was about 13, a woman came to my church in Putaruru from the US and she was, or had studied in a Bible school and I thought to myself I want to study in a Bible school one day in America and thats what happpened!! And that thought did not cross my mind until near the end of the course.

God is faithful! Its funny, those tiny dreams we have, whether we believe in them or not, if its something God wants for our lives he will fulfill them, not necessarily in our timing or our way but his way!

Illinois Vacation

Illinois was the 6th state I stayed in!

We (Keith, Meredith, Gracie, Isaac, Matty and I) drove approximately 10 hours (longest road trip ever!!) on the 3rd of July to Springfield (the capital of Illinois, and no not the Springifeld where Bart Simpson is from; in fact there are many Springfields throught the USA).

We stayed with family friends - Margie and Dard who were just great!!

We spent half the day with them on the '4th of July', hanging out by their pool which was lovely and then we traveled another 3 hours south to a small town Benton (like Putaruru size!) for Merediths' family reunion.

Had a tonne of fun there, hung out at the lake for a 4th of July picnic (now on the 5th of July), with all the family, went out on a boat one day which was nice as it was a beauitful day so just chilled in the water for a while.

On the Monday we drove up to St Louis (Missouri) where we went to an awesome kids museum with the relatives, and saw the gateway arch.

We dropped Keith of at the airoprt and went on back to Springfield.

That week we saw the Linclon museum, had donuts from 'mel-o-cream' yum yum and hung out at the pool.

We then went on to Chicago where we stayed with family friends, the Harters (Miris future home :P). They live in a suburb of Chicago so one day I took the train downtown (with a niece and friend of Karri Harters) and caught up with my cousin Dean, his fiance Emily and a friend of theirs. It was a big coinicidence that we were in the city the same day - Dean and Emily were driving cross country, moving from California to New York and we happened to be in Chicago the same day!! It was soo good to see Dean again and meet the very sweet Emily. It was fun to hang out and see a bit of the city with them.

It was great to see the Harters again, and spend time with them, but the following day it was time to head back to Minneapolis. Only a 6 hour drive (like from Putaruru to Wellignton I guess) this time, and it was nice to see the countryside of Wisconsin again.

Sport

I didn't expect many Americans to know what rugby was, let alone there be a women's rugby team in Minneapolis/St Paul (and more than one at that!).

I knew I had brought my mouthguard all the way to America for some reason! lol

So I found a team on the net and went along to a few trainings. They are a very good team - very skilled and also competitive which is great!

The team were vey nice and welcoming to me. I went along and watched them play their cross-town rivals one saturday in May, which was a great game to watch (I could have played for a little bit but I forgot to take along my mouthguard :S).

Their main rugby season is in the Fall (Autumn), so I had a month to think about whether I wanted to be a part of the team.

I decided not to be as it would have been a big commitment with trainings twice a week, and I would have had to travel quite a bit out of state to saturday games. They are a really good team who are hoping to get to the nationals, so I wish them all the best and hopefully I will get to see them play a few games this season.

So on that note I joined a soccer team :) We have just finished our season (which ran through summer) which I am disappointed about but I had a fun time!

It was a step up from saturday morning Putaruru High School girls team! So I learnt quite a bit from the players on my team - they are really good players!

Games were played on Tuesday and Thursday nights, all around the Minneapolis area, so through it I saw a few different places I wouldn't have necessarily gone to.

We had a mixture of wins, draws and losses but it was so much fun. The gals were really nice, and it was great soccer!

Even though the games were at night, it sould get soo hot. The humidity is huge here in Minnesota (well especially for me) so the games were definitly a great work out!

New York, New York!

On the 8th of May, Tessa and I arrived in New York(!!) - 11.30 Thursday night.

We were greeted at the airport by Bronwyn and Matt (my cousin and her husband).

It was soo good to see them, especially as I hadn't seen them for a while, and a bonus was them being kiwis, you sort of miss them after a while :P

We caught the bus with them back to their apratment - we couldn't have done it without them!

I made 'friends' with a guy on the bus. He kept on saying 'Don't go to Brooklyn, don't go to Brooklyn' and telling me all this scary stuff about it, then he would say haha just joking, yip I make the coolest friends :)

Bron and Matt lived by Columbia uni in Manhattan, was a pretty sweet apartment :)

On the Friday, Tessa and I went to the statue of liberty and Ellis Island. We caught the subway, which was easier than I thought it would be (thanks Matt for your help!).

It was a wet miserable day and we grabbed these plastic poncho raincoats thinking they were free but NO! nothing is free in NY!

We waited in the pouring rain for about half n hour before we went through security checkpoints before boarding the ferry to go to the islands.

We decided not to hop off at the staute of liberty cos of the rain, but had a good view from the ferry.

Ellis Island is an island where some of the first US imigrants came to get checked out etc, to see if they were allowed to stay in America. It was really interesting.

It was really cold and wet which kinda sucked, but it was an awesome experience to be there all the same!!

Tessa and I then meet up with Bronwyn at the Museum of Modern Art, then we also went to the wax museum which was a tonne of fun!

On the Saturday, we went to the Guggenheim museum - which was very interesting! We also went up the empire state building which was incredible!!! We were soo high and it was amazing to see New York that way - an absolute must do in NY!

On the way home from Times Square that night we ended up at the wrong subway station, but decided we could walk home from there..but we ended up in the wrong part of town (not quite the bronx but nearly!!) In the end we rang our saviours (Bronwyn and Matt) who directe us to the nearest subway station, it was good to get home safely that night~

On Sunday we did a tour of the NBC studio, a bike tour around Central Park - that was super fun! The park is soo huge, and it was kewl to be there and see different places where movies have been filmed. One of the highlights of the whole weekend was going to Legally blonde - the broadway! It was a hilarious show!! The scenes, the acting, the music - everything was amazing!!! It was fun to go there with Matt and Bronwyn too (secretly I think Matt enjoyed it the most :P)

On our last day in New York we rode the subway all the way to Brooklyn (across the Brooklyn Bridge) to go the DUB pie shop - the down under pie shop. Tessa had found out about it and we knew we had to go there. In America they don't have meat pies like they do back home!

And the trip was worth it, unfortuantely it was pouring down with rain so we didnt walk back over the Brooklyn bridge, which I heard gives a great view of New York.

Overall it was an awesome weekend. It was great to catch up with Matt and Bronwyn and stay with them, and also to spend the weekend with my fellow NZer Tessa :) (small town represent)!