Dominican Republic Vol. 3

Wow.. I just realized that I never posted the third video from our trip to the DR!!!! well anyways. :P here it is:

Life...

Life is well... how should I put it...
A myriad* of different activities and responsibilities that all require a whole lot of my attention...
Needless to say its hard to keep up with everything.
Just a quick update for those of you who aren't totally up with what is going on in my life.

I am currently working to complete my senior year at Valeo Academy, a small private school that my parents have my sister Natalie and I going to this year. Coming from the background of homeschooling for my whole life (i.e. school out at 12ish, and no homework... EVER) This is a bit of shock treatment, going to school for 8 hours a day, then coming home with 3-4 hours of homework every night, yea, lets just say I have a new (forced) best friend :P

Basketball season is starting up really soon here, we are in training camp right now which is proving to be the hardest one i've ever had to go through, and we are really just beginning. But I am super amped about the upcoming season, I have a lot of confidence in our team... I really think we can go all the way this year.

I've also been leading worship at our church, Family Life Christian Center, it is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Preparing the sets, (trying to) schedule rehearsals... But I really enjoy doing it and people are getting blessed.

So yea, things are kinda stressful, but hey, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me right? =)


*. You may be asking where the heck did you get a word like Myriad? to tell you the truth, I'm not all that sure... it might have come from the fact that I just did 25 crazy old word definitions for modern lit... I'm not sure :P

been workin' out :P

I'm tellin' you guys... all this hardcore working out and exercise pays off!!!! :P lol

Very Very Powerful...

Check this video out... It is a VERY powerful drama.

Stayin' Alive...

Hey everyone!
I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that we are still alive down here! lol
The hurricane went by late sat. night, early sunday morning. But we were so high up in the mountains that all we got was a TON of rain and winds up to 13mph... lol

Our internet has been down here since the night of the hurricane, so my uncle hooked the computer up the phone and i'm on right now using this ancient method of connection called Dial-up. If you dont know what that is you can look it up in your family's Websters 1828 Dictionary. ;) lol
But its better then nothing...
Oh yea! Here is the 2nd video from the trip...

Thanks for the prayers everyone!
-Andrew

"Historic Hell Storm..."

We are somewhere in the middle of the right side of that divided island that Mr Dean is starting to go past... Its supposed to go past us south of the island but there are sustained winds of 155 mph and gusts of up to 184 mph... lol
So yea, keep us in your prayers!
We are high up in the mountains so we will only get a lot of rain and some strong gusts, and my aunts' house here is built of solid concrete, so we dont have to worry about anything... we just dont want any bridges to go out, cuz then we'd be stuck up here for a while...

We were out doing some painting today and then the first stages of rain started to come in, and the paint doesn't stick too well in the rain.
We also visited a graveyard today, it was insane! there are just a bunch of concrete containers that hold the bodies... I'll post a video later :P

Anyways, the worst of the hurricane is supposed to hit during the night tonight, so if you remember, keep us in your prayers =)
Love yall

Getting To the DR, and Crazy Drivin!!!

Update... and a small world

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are alive and well down here in the Dominican Republic... I made a video of the trip down here, but I am still waiting for it to finish encoding, so I will get that up asap...

P.S. Today we were working at a school down here called Jarabacoa Christian School, and Natalie was working with one of the teachers in the school, Miss Elmer, and after talking for a while they found out that she grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin with our friend David Jay. Apparently she was "going to marry DJ's brother" lol so that was pretty sweet, meeting her down here!!!
Natalie was like "DJ is now one of the worlds biggest wedding photographers!" And she was like "no! Little David???" lol
Just proves that just when you thought the world can't get any smaller, it still does =)

Here is a pic of us and her after a LONNGGGG day of hard work

Crazy way to start :P

Well, I thought that right now I'd be down in the Dominican Republic, at my aunt's house getting ready for a big day of work tomorrow...
Instead I am in the lobby of the Holiday Inn right by the Miami Airport, using their "business center" which is a computer on a desk in the middle of the lobby... :P But I am very thankful.

Ok so we made it to Miami fine...
And we went right to our assigned gate after we grabbed some Uno's "to-go" pizza, (both me and Nat said to each other at the same time after taking a bite... "you can tell were not in Chicago anymore" lol)
But our first plane broke (thats what they said) so they said that they were going to bring another plane to another gate for us... so we went to the counter right there, gave the lady our boarding pass, and asked her where we needed to go for the new gate.
Our original gate was A10, and she said the new gate was A17, so we went right over there, waited for about an hour, then it was finally time to board, they called our group, we handed the guy our boarding passes, and they wouldn't scan! So finally he was like "go check with them at the desk". So we ran over there, and she was like "oh, this is the gate for Santo Domingo... You are trying to go to Santiago!" She was like "let me check your real flight" so she checked, and it was supposed to take off at that same minute, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT!!!!!
So she called, and they said "yea send them over, we will hold the airplane" so me and Nat take off sprinting across the airport, and it was seriously about 3 miles, so after about 20 min of running, we get to the gate, and I look and the plane is still there with the ramp out to it, so i say hey we are the ones that they are holding the plane for!!! And the dude there was like "oh I tho thorry thirr... iths too late"
So yea... we missed our plane because of the stupid gate switch, and the lady who gave us the wrong gate...
At least they made it somewhat right... They bought us dinner, paid for the night in the hotel here, and gave us money for breakfast...
Anyways, our flight leaves at 10 tomorrow.
Pray for us!!!
-Andrew

Outta here... (at least for a while)

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you all know, (for those of you who didn't already) that I am going to be out of town for about 2 weeks.
Natalie and I are going down to the Dominican Republic from the 13th to the 25th on a missions trip. My aunt and uncle are the directors of a school for troubled kids down there, so I'm gonna be doing a ton of work, construction, fixing computers, networking, leading worship, feeding the homeless, a whole ton of stuff.
So PLEASE keep us in your prayers,
pray that it will be a very profitable time down there, and that many people will be blessed and touched by the way that God works through us.
Blessings,
-Andrew

We ride we ride...

This basically describes it,
Today I bought my first car, its a '93 BMW 740il in AMAZING condition.


The sweet thing about it is that my car is kinda like Sarah's Car's daddy! lol its the same color, same year, just bigger because its a 7 series.
Its a huge blessing that came at just the right time, because me and Natalie are going to be starting school on the 27th, (which is a whole other story in itself which I will post later) but we'll be able to take this car there and back every day.
God is so good!!!!

KIDZ RULE!!!!! ||Camp Day 2, and Airsoft...||

Kids totally rock... lol today was the second day of camp. And it was so amazing compared to yesterday!!! One of the group leaders had to be in the drama, so for the rest of the week I have to be the head leader of Group Metallic Silver!!! The kids voted today and the official name for our group is The Silver Surfers.
The kids in the group are so cool!

Thursday is Team Spirit Day, and our whole team has to come out and do a cheer about our team, so we started practicing some stuff, and I found out that like half of my kids are like gymnasts or break dancers!!! lol so like its gonna start out with some kids running opposite directions on the stage, then in the middle one kid is gonna spin and do a backflip and the other girl is gonna to a roundoff. Then a bunch of kids are gonna do the worm, lol and then one kid is gonna breakdance and even spin on his head!!! lol its gonna ROCK!!!!

The highlight story from today was we were bball in the gym, and I looked over and one of my girls (who has autism) was standing against the wall crying... I went over and asked her whats up, and she said "I can't make the ball go through the hole!!! lol so I took her over to the hoop and showed her how to shoot it right, and at the end she made 4 out of 5 baskets in a row!!! She was so excited she was clapping! =)



So then later tonight, Marky had his friend Jason over, so I took them outside and we played some airsoft! The boys loved it! lol so we got some shots of us after that...

Camp Day 1, and Shopping!!!

Well today was the first day of the 5 day day camp that Natalie and I are helping out at, and my younger siblings are all attending. Its 8-5 for us EVERY DAY this week.
Today was pretty hectic because we had registration going on, so I was going around helping lost children find their groups, so it was basically damage control :P
lol one memorable moment from the day was when I was leading the volleyball section of the sports part of the camp, and a 5 year old group came over, and they were all fine except for 1 kid who was just bawling his eyes out...
And the group counselor didn't seem to be doing anything about it, so I went over and I was like "buddy, whats the problem?" He mumbled a bunch of incomprehensible words, so I asked the counselor, I'm like, "whats wrong with him?" And he said "Oh, he doesn't have a partner." and this was causing the whole group to cease to function because of this kid, lol so I went to the kid and I'm like "hey, I'll be your buddy!" Immediately he stopped crying, looked up at me and was like "really???" I was like yea! So he grabbed my hand, and that totally stopped the whole problem! :P
lol later throughout the volleyball game he kept running over to me and saying "your still my partner right?" lol it was so sweet! =)

So we have another big day of that tomorrow...

Then later tonight, me and Bryant went over to the mall, cuz I wanted to grab some new shoes.
I found some sweet Pumas at Finish Line, then I stopped by AE (my second home) and grabbed a belt and some new boxers :P


But when I looked at the inside of the belt, I got a pleasant surprise... lol check it out... It's my new favorite belt! lol

Is It Official?

Does this...

...Officially make me a geek? haha lol
I have 3 computers set up here, 2 are mine one is the church computer that I work on all the time.
Oh yea, and I use this SWEET program called Synergy that lets me share a single mouse and keyboard between all three computers, and its as simple as just moving the mouse to the screen you want and you are immediately controlling that computer. :) Pretty amazing I know... :P

Oh yea! I just recently finished building my new computer! Lovingly dubbed "Natasha" or "Tasha" for short... hahaha :D
Here are a few shots of her...



So yea... good stuff... :)
For those who know.. or care...
Its has a Dual-Core 2.13 Ghz processor
2GB Dual-Channel DDR2 RAM
A 256MB XFX NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT

Coming Soon!!!

Player Homepage | Get Your Own

Workin' Away...

Well we're here at the reception, waiting for the people to finish eating and start dancing so we can start the sweet slideshow that we just finished! :)
But here is a shot from earlier when we were shooting the bride and groom and Sarah told me to to hold the bouquet. lol

Anyways... lol I'll post the slideshow later. :P

This Me, Sarah, Beth, and Kristen after the wedding.

Whats goin on?

Were in the car headed to a wedding and I'm on Sarah's laptop connected through her blackberry... its pretty sweet cuz you can be anywhere and be connected! Anyways, were going downtown for this wedding so it should be pretty sweet.



Sarah has a new girl coming in to intern with her for the month of August and shes gonna be staying with us, so her and her mom and sister came in last night to kinda meet the family and make sure we aren't crazy people... (little do they know..) ;) lol

But it was awesome because as we started talking at dinner, we found out that our families have SO much in common. Both families have 7 kids, homeschool, both moms are RNs and we both even have a dog next door named Jojo... lol

Her name is Kristen Snyder and she is really an AMAZING photographer, you can check out her blog here. Its gonna be so cool when she stays here in August, because she kinda just fits right in with the fam... :P

Hillsong United!!!

Last night we went to the most AMAZING concert EVER!!!!!!!!
The band is called Hillsong United and the worship experience that they created last night was indescribable!

Check out one of their concerts here^^

Their stuff is on Itunes and I would recommend any of it.

Our friend Kenny had a press pass for the event so he got a TON of amazing shots! Check them out here

Here is one of some of us in the group

Nashville... Day 4...

day 4...

Today we got to sleep in till 8:30!!!! OMG it was incredible!!! :P lol

So we got up and got ready for church, we decided to tryout this church that my cousins go to whenever they are down here. Its called Newsong, and it was absolutely amazing!!! :) The worship and the message was great! And during the "greet the visitors" time 2 of the girls that I know from the Barlowgirl Messageboards saw me and came up and said hey. It was Shay and Lindz so after the service I made sure I got a pic with the two of them :)

After church, well, I was on the phone with my mom for mothers day and I wasn't watching where we were going, so we went the wrong way on a highway for about 20 min... :-/ so I mapped us out a detour to get us back on track, and well, we finally got on the right highway and we were cruisin along and all of the sudden traffic stopped... dead....after waiting about 20 min, and seeing a helicopter land a ways up on the road, Matt, Josh, and I hopped out and started walking on the side of the road up to the accident. On the way up there... we saw some people gettin pretty comfortable, and settling in for the long wait.

If you look close you can see the guy in the lawn chair behind the trailer... :P

So anyways, we got up to the scene, and from what we heard there was a guy going over 100 who flipped his car and it went into the woods on the side of the road, so they had to land a chopper to airlift him.

So after waiting for about an hour, the chopper took off and we finally got through... after the we went to a dam. Commonly known around here as the "Downtgivay Dam". rotfl...

Anyways, 4:30 comes early... ugh... talk to yall soon :)

Nashville... Day 3...

Today was... pretty amazing...

We woke up at about 7 and headed over to help out a guy who runs his ministry off of the campus that we are working on. His ministry is called Layman's Lessons and its a ministry to the homeless. So basically we drove down to downtown Nashville and set up a bunch of tables, chairs, a stage, and a sound system. Then the show started, lol we blasted worship music, and when I took a walk it could be heard from 6 blocks away... lol but the homeless people came to see what is going on. And when they showed up we gave them a hot cup of coffee and then told them that we would give them a hot meal if they would sit for about 30 min and listen to a message. By the time the message was over we had about 75 people there. It was awesome!!! When he gave the alter call 9 people came up to receive Christ!!!! It was AMAZING!!!!

I took a ton of video, but barely any pictures... :-/

here are a few that I did take... lol

The (wet) Sound System that we used... lol

Never go anywhere without your korky flapper tank balls... :P

I can't wait to post the video when I get home... :)

Talk to you soon...

Nashville Day 2...

Hey yall... I'm down in Nashville right now, me and my best friend Matt, his brother/alien Josh lol, and their dad. We are putting a new roof on an old hospital that the ministry that Mr. swanson works for owns. I'll put together a whole video when I get back, but here are some pictures from what we've done so far...

Right now we are sitting in the hospital, and we had to hack their mainframe to get internet access... :P

Me and the hott pig (skinny white nut job) at famous daves... lol

Us all after day 2 of roofing

Commercial

Hey yall, I'm back in town, just for a few days, I'm heading out Wednesday Night for Nashville... ahh!!! Crazy story, but I'll post about whats goin on later... anyways.
Today Jeremy Flanagan and Mark Collins came over for a meeting for the web design ministry at the church. Bryant, (who is staying with the family here at the house for a while) joined us in the meeting. So after it was over one of the things we discussed doing was making a recruiting video for the web design ministry. So we got the camera and this is what we came up with...


haha so yea... that was it...
talk to yall soon :P

Outta Here... :P

Hey yall! I just wanted to let everyone know that I am going to be out of town a lot this month...
I'm leaving for michigan right now for 3 days, but I'll post later :)

Spring Formal 07!!!!

Hey Yall! Well last saturday me and my sister Natalie went to a homeschool formal. It was awesome! We went with a group of about 15 kids, first we went to our friends house to take pictures then we went to the place. We hung out for a while, dranks some (kiddie) cocktails, then they finally brought the food. So after we finished eating they started the dancing which was awesome!!! lol Here is a short little video of the dancing,


the camera was low on battery so I couldn't take a lot so its only like 30 sec... lol and kinda blurry cuz it was so small...

But anyways, here is the ** slideshow ** from the night.
It was great getting to see old friends and meeting new ones.

Anyways, ttyl

Chicago Thunder Oklahoma Trip

ROFL

Chicago Thunder Ohio Basketball Trip

Hey Guys, I'm finally posting!!!! lol This is the video I just finished from my bball team's trip to the regional championships in Cincinatti, OH... Hope you like it!