Hello all friends!!  I would just like to announce that we dont have Internet at our house, so i cant check my email or anything.  I am doing this at Hannahs house, and her computer wont let me do anything else.  So.  This will just have to do to say how much i miss you people i havent seen in a while.  I will add more as soon as possible

love to all

Corrie

Here at the end of all things....

Well beloved people of the earth, this is my last blog from Spain.  So much has happened since my last post.  In fact, I dont really remember what i said in my last post.  But that is irrelevant.  We're packing and cleaning today.  We move out tomorrow, and leave Thursday.  We said goodbye to the Bocks on Friday, and I have to say goodbye to the Mussers today, the Steffens tomorrow, and the Muckles on Thursday.  So.  Pretty much i just feel numb and go on.  I think God provides that when its just too much. 

Well enough of the dramatic trauma.  I probably wont be answering emails or comments for a while, please forgive me.  Its cause im changing continents.    This year has been totally amazing.  Pretty much leave it up to God to do unexpected things. 

I love you all so much.  See you on the other side. :o)

Corrie

Currently Reading The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, Book 2) By Robert Jordan see related

This i would like to dedicate to my beautiful friend Hannah, and also all my other friends who i am leaving. 

Packing my bags this morning
Was the hardest thing to do.
Packing my bags was so easy
Compared to standing outside your door
Right now to say goodbye to you.

Think of me.
I know you've never seen me cry.
Think of me.
But its so hard to say goodbye.
Think of me.
What can I say to show you
Ill never give up on you,
I will be waiting for you?

I will be there when you call.
I will see you through it all;
And even in your darkest hour,
I pray that the love we´ve found
Will set you on solid ground.

I know that it feels like leavin
Is a part of letting go.
But Im prayin with hope and believin
That Ill see you once again down this road...
I hope it wont be long!

Think of me.
I know God brought you as a friend.
Think of me.
I know He´ll bring you back again!
Think of me.
What can I say to show you
Ill never give up on you,
I will be waiting for you?

I will be there when you call.
I will see you through it all;
And even in your darkest hour,
I pray that the love we´ve found
Will set you on solid ground.

Think of me.
I know youve never seen me cry.
Think of me.
But its so hard to say goodbye!
Think of me!
What can I say to show you
Ill never give up on you,
I will be waiting for you?

I will be there when you call.
I will see you through it all;
And even in your darkest hour,
I pray that the Lord we found...

I will be there when you call.
I will see you through it all;
And even in your darkest hour,
I pray that the Lord we found
Will set you on solid ground.

So it all draws to an end.  The seniors left on their trip...Tuesday.  That was hard cause it is only the beginning.  But they come back tonight!!!!  So thats happy.  But we wont see them until tomorrow.  And graduation is Wednesday.  And Cristy leaves Friday.  And we leave next Thursday.  Wow.  I can remember leaving Dallas to come here so well.  I cant even believe that we are almost finished.  My last Spanish lesson is today!  Which is good because i hate work, but bad because i will miss my awesome teacher!  JM´s finals will be done tomorrow.  So im sure he is happy about that

Lynnette and I went to Plaza Norte Saturday.  Its a HUGE mall.  I mean ginormis.  It was so cool.  I could have stayed their a really long time. :o)  We bought some cool stuff. 

Our house is slowly and slowly getting packed up.  We rolled up the carpet in our living room the other day, (cause its not ours) so that is kind of annoying.  At least we dont have to clean it now.    Mom keeps buying stuff to take back, and saying, oh I guess Corrie will have to leave some of her clothes. My butt.  :o) 

I turn 20 the 26th.  That is utterly and completely weird. 

Well, I have much love for all of you.  I shall now go do...something else. :o)

Corrie

Currently Reading The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book 1) By Robert Jordan see related

I am alive!  Just really busy.  Or lazy.  One of the two.  Ok lets see...

1.  Driving with Lynnette.  Umm, last Sunday?  I cant remember.  I went with Lynnette and her dad for her first driving lesson!!  And of course their van is a stick cause all cars here are.  And she did amazing!!!  I wanted to kick her. :o)  She only killed it three times and that was like at the end when she'd already proven she could do it. :o)  Way to go, babe!

2.  Mom's birthday.  My mom is very very hard to surprise, but we pulled it off!  We secretly planned (well, mostly the Musser's.  I have no resources!! :o)) to get substitutes for her classes on her birthday, and have some of the ladies take her out to the Botanical gardens and lunch.  Also, I made some cards and had as many students as I could get my hands on sign them.  And the school passed out a paper in the classes telling everyone to bring a 50 centimo coin since she is turning 50.  And i made a cake for her Tuesday morning at the Mussers, all without her knowing!!  She was so concerned that nothing was getting done, that she was trying to get me to make a cake under her supervision Tuesday night.  I told her that i was sure it was all under control. :o)  So she had a happy birthday.

3.  8th grade Chapel.  For some unknown reason, the 8th graders decided, "oh, lets make everyone cry and be sad, 3 weeks before they actually have to leave!"  Yes that sounds like a good idea to me, yep.  So they did.  First they tore down our defenses by asking everyone who was leaving to stand up, and having the people around them pray for them.  Then they went in for the kill with a time of reconciliation and affirmation, aka, tell eachother how special they are to you and how much you will miss them.  There was no hope for us after that.  Well, for the girls anyway.  The guys were like, "uh, guys, we're going to see you next period."  Pft.  Not the point!  Graduation is going to be...words fail me.  Sad.  How about that?

4.  Fiddler performances!!!!  There was a full run-through monday night.  I was like wow, they have a long way to go.  But then Wednesday dress rehearsal was amazing (so i heard.  I missed that one).  And Thursday and Friday performances were astounding!!!  I almost cried Thursday night and i most definitely did cry Friday.  I had much proud feelings for everyone.

5.  Warner Brothers!  I had so much fun!  My poor brother got sick.  He always does when we go to theme parks.  Poor guy. Anyway, to me the only difference between this park and an American park was the shows we went to were in Spanish. :o)  It was fun.

And those are the highlights that i can remember from the past...however long.  Yesterday was uneventful, except i took a 4 hour nap.  And then i felt yucky.  And today was the seniors last day of school!!!!  Very happy for them but kind of sad because that means we are coming to the end of all things...and of course tomorrow they leave on their senior trip to Italy, and i am extremely jealous.  But i will shop and hang out and stuff so that will be ok. :o) And Graduation is the 7th.  And Cristy leaves the 9th.  And the Musser's leave the 14th, and we leave the 15th.  I dont like thinking about it.  Its still surreal right now. 

So!  That is the latest.  I need to get some pictures on here of whats been going on! 

Much love to all

Corrie

"I keep a xanga in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life.  If I didn't write them down I should probably forget all about them."

There you have it.  Oscar Wilde, the last word in pretty much everything.

All in all, I had a successful weekend.  Friday night was loads of fun, mostly because we played on grass the whole time.  The party at Parque Juan Carlos was more of a relaxed affair, with only a few structured games and lots of lounging about talking and doing random tricks.  And we made a pyramid at the end.  What outdoor party is complete without that? :o)

Saturday Mom wanted to go into Alcala.  Our first clue that the fates were not with us as far as public transportation goes should have been when Jon-Michael, taking his jolly sweet time getting ready, missed the bus.  Mom and i decided to get on with out him, and called the Mussers to tell him to get the 12:30 bus.  The joys of having only one phone.  So.  Mom and wondered around Alcala for a while, made some exciting purchases, and met Joe and Hannah at Cervantes.  By then it was time to meet JM.  Then it was decided that we were going to go to Carrefore.  So we hopped on the bus.  Everything had gone smoothly up till this point.  The bus went around the entire city of Alcala, excluding Carrefore.  We finally arrived half an hour later.  Turns out the sole purpose of our visit (practically :o)) was to buy JM some tennis shoes.  Mom decided it would be shorter to walk to a bus stop we believed was somewhere along the Camarma road, instead of taking the circuitous route through Alcala.  Suffice it to say that we walked on the edge of the highway, two inches from passing cars, in the heat, to discover that if we walked to the bus stop, we might as well walk home.  Joe chose this moment to announce that if any cops came along, we would be in big trouble.  Thats one way to never be allowed back to our house:  "Dad, I went to the Bontrager's, and now I'm in jail."  In the end we had to call someone from Camarma to pick us up off the roadside.  The moral of the story is: buy a car.

Sunday we went to the Rastro, probably for the last time.  How sad.  I could spend so much money there.  We got some stuff to take back, and mom got me some amazing sparkly Indian slippers.  Yeah!  Also an Egyptian scarf with small coins around the edges that jingle when i move.  SOME PEOPLE say its going to be obnoxious.  I think its awesome. :o)  And after church we went to the TEAM picnic.  Why we sat in the area with the nasty dirt and dead grass the whole time, I'm not sure.  I think it was probably because we were too lazy to move.  Too bad for us. 

I just finished reading The DaVinci Code.  It is sooooooo blatantly anti-Christian and claims among other things the Bible is false.  I dont think I will see the movie, at least while it is in theaters. 

Well, I was planning on posting some pictures, but now i must be off to Spanish.  Only one hour today, thank goodness.

Much love to all!

Corrie