Hello all! I've decided to end my time here on Blogger. But don't you fear! You can now find me at Xanga. Yes, I've joined the Xanga crew. I'm sorry Blogger...please forgive me. It's not you, it's me. You give me all my basic needs, but I want more. I want more features, more fun things to do with my site. Please don't cry. There are still plenty of users here to keep you occupied. I'm sorry if I've hurt you. It's just time for me to move on. You can keep in touch. You can now find me at http://xanga.com/qpdoll50. I've enjoyed my time here on Blogger, but it's just time to move on to bigger and better things. Blogger, I will always love you, for you were my first blog...goodbye...


(Wow, I'm the biggest dork in the entire world...)

Hello faithful and loyal readers! It's been a while since an acutal "update" update, not a Venezuela update. So, I will now tell you what's been going on in my life over the past few weeks. :)

Got back from Venezuela just in time for Mike's wedding. It was amazing, absolutely amazing! It was so simple, yet so romanic. Andrea was absolutely beautiful!! Mike cried when she walked downe the aisle! It was so cute. So, yeah the wedding was amazing. The reception was a lot of fun, too. The whole weekend was just great. We had the rehersal Friday night and then had a big cook-out over at our house afterwards for everyone. It was a lot of fun. This wedding was just absolutely perfect. The decorations all turned out beautiful. The ceremony was just awesome. It's still kinda weird to think that my brother is married now. It hasn't really hit yet. Mike and Andrea came and visited us on Friday on their way home from Gatlinburg. They had a great time. I'm just so happy for the two of them. They're so perfect together and I just absolutely love Andrea! By the way, you can look at all the awesome pictures from the wedding here:

http://http://photos.yahoo.com/michaelandandreabrewerwedding

Ok, so what's been going on in Kim's life....

My birthday was last Thursday and I kinda had a four day long celebration of it. I went to B-Town on Thursday and got to spend the day with Cory which was awesome. We hung out all day and then went to Connexion that night and then just hung out some more. Nothing like some great QT. :)

Friday, I got my haircut after work and then came home and got ready for the family b-day party. Cory came down and Mike and Andrea stopped by one their way home. Stacey, Madi, adn Grandma came over too and we ordered pizza and had yellow cake with chocolate icing. YUMMY!!

Saturday I took a break from my birthday activities and just worked all day.

Sunday, I had a little get together after church. Dad grilled hamburgers and Cory showed off his grilling skills and made some delicious chicken. Had a pretty good turn out. Josh surprised me by showing up. It was really great to get to see him and catch up. Sarah Blair and I had some much needed talking time. It was just a great day. I got to spend it will all my Sullivan friends who I won't see much of anymore after this next week. : ( This summer has gone by soooo fast. I can't believe it already over. I'm really excited about going back to school, but I am going to miss everyone a lot. This summer was just so busy for everyone. If it wasn't for church, I don't think I would have hardly seen any of my friends. Oh well, I guess that's just a part of growing up...

Souls Harbour had it's first real practice last night. We have a new addition to our band...the one..the only...Chris Parrish! YAY! Last night was awesome. We busted out some awesome tunes. Harmonies were awesome, bass lines were really awesome. This is seriously a dream come true for me. For those of you who may not know, I'm in a band now. It's awesome. Our first gig is Friday, Septemeber 17 at 8 p.m. at Comfortzone Coffeehouse in Plainfield, Indiana. It's going to be awesome! The band consists of me, my amazing boyfriend Cory, my amazingly talented friend Dusty (aka 'D'), and my other amazing talented friend who busts out awesome bass lines like no other, Chris. It seriously is just so much fun. I can't even describe how excited I am about this. I get to sing and play with some of the most talented people I know. It's awesome. We also have a band blog:
http://http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=CountryEmonaut
You can go there to read about any news about the band and what not. It's pretty cool. So yeah, I'll keep you updated on here as much as I can about the band.

Well, I guess I should wrap this up. I need to start getting some stuff organized and packed. I move back to B-Town in 5 days!!! YAY!!! This year is going to rock! I could list all the reasons why this year is going to rock, but I'll leave that for the next post!

Until then, I send my love to you all!!!

Well, I'm a few days late, but here's part two of my trip to Venezuela:

Wednesday we got up muy temprano (very early) to meet to go to camp. We ended up sitting around for at least an hour or so. (BTW, Venezuelans are never on time. Time is just not an important issue to them. In a way, this is cool, but it isn't when you are starving and everyone is running an hour late picking you up for dinner. Anyway...) We finally all loaded on to the bus and headed to camp. The bus ride was long and hot, but fun. It gave us time to sit and chit chat with some of the youth. We got to camp around noon or so. Upon our arrival, we were informed that the camp had lost all electricity. This was a very bad thing. Especially when you've got about 30 hungry kids around. We ended up being without power for about the first few hours. Johnny and Paul had driven up separately and were running late so by the time they got to the camp with all of the food, the electricity was back on. We mainly just hung out most of the afternoon. Some people played futbolito which is just soccer played on a basketball court. Others swam in the big green pool which Jenny was completely grossed out by. She cringed every time she walked past it. I found it amusing. :) We had dinner and then had our first main session. It was really good. The drama team did skits every night and they were funny even though I had no idea what they were saying! Once again, the worship was amazing. And I'm sure the sermons were good too, but that stupid language barrier thing got in the way again. ;)

Every day at camp was pretty much the same. We had a morning devotion at 7:30. Actually, by the time everyone got there, it was more like 8:30. The CSF gang was in charge of the devos. Jenny gave hers Thursday, I gave mine Friday, and Daniela gave hers Saturday. Then we had breakfast. After breakfast, we had two sessions. During the first session, we could choose between two electives to go to. On Thursday, I went to the one that was going to be taught in English. Luke, a missionary in training if you will, taught it. It was about the world and not being consumed by it. It was really good. He focused on 1st Corinthians and compared the Corinthian Church to the church today. For the second session, we divided up, girls and boys. This was the sex talk, hence why guys went to one and girls went to another. It was really good. All I have to say is that Julie, another missionary in training, is amazing. She is definitely one of those girls that you just love to be around. Her talk was amazing and she was just amazing the entire time at camp. On Friday, I skipped the first elective because we all had to help Julie orgainze a skit for her session that day. Friday was the dating talk. Some of the girls put on a hilarious version of "The Dating Game." All I have to say is that Daniela plays the best geek ever! That session was definitely my favorite. Julie taught it as well and she was awesome.

We had a lot of free time during the day between lunch and dinner. This was spent in various ways. Futbolito, swimming, the climbing wall, the zip line, and playing hide and seek were the most popular activities. This was a fun time of the day because it gave us time to just kidna hang out with the youth. I love futbolito! It was so much fun playing with everyone!

Both main sessions Thursday and Friday were just as good as Wednesday's. Thursday, the CSF group sat in the back and prayed throughout the entire evening main session. It was an awesome experience. There were a couple specific things that we were asked to pray for, but mainly we just prayed that God would break these kids. The theme for camp was "Transformation" so we prayed that God would touch the hearts of everyone there and that he would transform them into what he wanted them to be. I don't really know exactly how to describe that night. It was definitely one of the most spiritual experience I've ever had. It was also awesome to see some of our prayers answered by the end of the week.

Friday's main session was really really good. At the beginning of worship, Johnny asked everyone to just get into a comfortable and humbling position, whether that meant laying down on the ground, standing up, falling to your knees, whatever. A lot of the kids were just bowing down before God. It was awesome to see them worship and humble themselves before God. After the main session, we built a bonfire and a few people shared their testimonies. Daniela gave hers and then a guy named Hannibal gave his. His testimony was very emotional and moving. His mother was Catholic but wasn't very involved in the church and his father was an atheist. He grew up as an atheist and believed in science. He had a rough couple years. He had a nasty break up with a girl and his life kinda went downhill. He was depressed and was diagnosed with some kind of depression, but I'm not really sure what. He tried to kill himself and he got mixed up with just a lot of bad stuff. He started hanging out with the youth group a few years back and finally gave his life to Christ about a year or so ago. His testimony was very emotional and moving. I definitely shed a few tears throughout that one. He is such an amazing guy. He has such a strong faith and you can see that in everything that he does. He is only one of the amazing people I met while in Venezuela. Anyway, after the testimonies, the CSF crew got the opportunity to share an amazing American tradition with the Venezuelans...making s'mores! It was so much fun! Some of these kids had never had a s'more before! One kid, Gabo, ate 10 s'mores! TEN!! And he never got sick! It was hilarious! I asked him how he felt and he just got this huge smile on his face, patted his belly, and said "I feel good"! It was great! He was such a fun guy! Anyway, despite the stress of melted chocolate bars and broken graham crackers, it was a lot of fun to make s'mores for everyone. I think I had one too many. I was insanely hyper that night. If you know me well, you know how I can get when I have a lot of sugar and I get into one of those hyper, annoying, slap-happy Kim moods. Yeah, I was totally in one of those that night, but it was fun. We all ended up hanging out till 1 am that night. It was a lot of fun, but getting up for the 7:30 devotion the next morning was not very fun...

Saturday, we just had one main session after breakfast. Paul gave the sermon. It was awesome. He hates to preach, but when he does, he does an awesome job! After the main session we had lunch and then just started cleaning up and packing to head home. We got back to Caracas later on that evening and just went home to get showered and do some laundry. We were supposed to go to dinner at 8, but that turned into about 9 or 9:30, but it was definitely worth the wait! We (being Me, Jenny, Daniela, Joel, Paul, Johnny, and his wife, Zandra) went to Outback for dinner (yes, they have an Outback Steakhouse in Caracas, as well as a TGIFriday's and a Hooter's!). It was a blast. We were all so exhausted and slap happy, it was great! If you don't know any better, you would have thought we were all drunk. Between Paul's Chocolate Thunder from Down Under and hearing him and Johnny talk about the big ass they saw earlier that day, it was hilarious! (Ass referring to a donkey, mind you) :) It was hilarious! Anyway...

Sunday, was the same as the last Sunday except more fun because we actually knew everyone. We went to Wendy's for lunch again after church and got to hang out with everone. Youth group was awesome! I gave my testimony which was nerve racking but everyone said I did good and that they enjoyed it. Then we all talked about our favorite parts of camp and what not. The end was the saddest part. :( I had to say goodbye to everyone. It was soooo sad. It was so hard to say goodbye. I mean, these people were amazing. I can't even describe how amazing they were! They were just the most loving, friendly, and God filled people I've ever met. We were supposed to go to there to help encourage this kids, but I honestly think I got encouraged more than I encouraged. Everyone shed a few tears while saying our goodbyes. Ok, everyone shed a lot of tears while saying goodbye, especially me.

Well, there you have it. My trip in a nutshell. I'm not the best at telling stories and I apologize if you were bored throughout any of this. If you want to know any more about my trip or have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment or drop me an email. It's just really hard to put into words all the amazing things I experienced while in Venezuela. I'll leave you now with some memorable quotes from the trip:

Kim: "Mi casa duele! Wait, I mean mi cabeza duele!"

Jenny: "Anyone want any chicle? Did you like that, I said it in Espanol!"

Francisco: "It's an internal joke between the two of us."

Daniela: "The butt's open!" (referring to the back of the Explorer)

Paul: "That's the biggest ass I've ever seen!"

Jenny: "I cannot do the work on God in this condition!"

Everyone: "Da Moose, Da Moose..."

Linda: "Why you do that?"

Johnny: "But it's my birthday cake..."

*Sigh* Good times! I just wanna send a big thank you out to everyone who supported me throughout this trip. Whether it be financially or through prayer or thoughts. I really appreciate it and I love you all!!!!

Oh yeah, one last thing....here's the link to all my pics! http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/qpdoll50/my_photos

Check 'em out...they're fun!

Well, goodnight all, I hope you all are well!!

BTW, Tomorrow's my 19th Birthday!!!!! YAY!!! :)

The whole Venezuela gang! :) 

Hola Amigos! So, the time has come for me to tell you about my trip to Venezuela! YAY! First off, if you are wanting the short "how was it" version, it was absolutely AMAZING!! By far the best trip ever!! I got to meet some of the coolest people in the world and I experienced God in a way I never had before. It was AWESOME! Now for the little longer, more in detail version of my trip. Be prepared, I hope you aren't in a hurry........:)

So, I got to Paul's house around 9:15 Friday morning, the 23rd, and we headed to the airport. At the airport, we met up with the rest of our group, Joel and Jenny (my future roommate!). Friday was kinda boring, we just flew the whole day. The flights were good. We flew from Indy to Atlanta to Caracas. The plane rides gave plenty of time for some much needed bonding and filling in of each other's lives. It was nice. We got to Caracas around 8 or 9. Johnny, the missionary we worked with, and his family were all there to pick us up as well as Daniela who is a girl from CSF who is Venezuelan and came down a week early to visit family. When we got into the city, we were greeted my thousands of beautiful lights. The mountains looked like Christmas trees. We were later informed that those beautiful lights were coming from the "barrios" which are houses that are pretty much just stacked on top of each other. The poorer people live in the barrios, and during the day, it is not pretty at all. Anyway, we were all then taken to where we would be making our homes for the next 10 days. We three girls stayed with Senora Aura. Her house is amazing! When I walked in, I thought I walked into a castle. First off, she has tons of paintings hanging everywhere. They were gorgeous! Her furniture is kinda victorianish, if that's a word. Either way, the house was amazing! It made a nice home for 10 days.

Saturday, we got up and headed to the park where all the youth hang out. Now, I will refer to the people we hung out with as the "youth" or "kids" but most of them are older than me. We worked with kids from 17- mid 20's. We met a few of them at the park. They all go there to play soccer. It was fun. We then sat down with Johnny and had kinda an orientation type thing. He just let us know exactly what we would be doing and what not. Then we went to a Venezuelan restaurant for lunch. It was amazing! Arepas and Cachapas are delicious! We spent the rest of the day getting all of our souvenir shopping out of the way. Then just kinda hung out.

Sunday was a long, but great day. All we did all day was go to church and eat! Their church doesn't start until 12:30 or 1, something I definitely think we should do here in the states! That morning, Senora Aura made us an amazing breakfast. We went to church and were there till about 2:30 or 3. Then we went to Wendy's for lunch and just hung out until it was time for youth group. Youth group was a lot of fun. Jenny and I got up with Paul and taught a few English praise songs to the youth group. That's another thing...Worship was awesome! It was so cool because even though we weren't exactly sure what we were singing, we could still feel the spirit. We knew most of the songs because they were songs we sing here, they were just in Spanish. It was just really cool to be able to worship in another language. Jenny also gave her testimony that night at youth group. It was really good. Then we just hung out with the youth some more. It was a lot of fun. I got to practice my Spanish on some of them. They are so encouraging! Even if you totally mess up and say something really stupid, they just kinda laugh it off and correct you. They love it when you try to talk to them in Spanish. After youth group, we went to grab some dinner and then headed home for the night.

Monday we got up met some of the youth and we climbed up the mountain to Avila. I'm not sure if Avila is the name of the mountain or the name of the peak that we went to. Not sure...either way it was gorgeous. It was definitely a workout hiking up it, but it was definitely worth it. We could see the entire city and it was beautiful. The way down the mountain was a lot of fun because we were able to talk a little more since we weren't so out of breath. We were able to chit chat. It was fun. After the mountain, we just hung out for a little bit and showered and went to the mall that night. This mall is outrageous! It is the biggest mall in South America. It is HUGE! The girl that we hung out with most of the time, Linda (pronounced Leendah), said that she hasn't even seen the entire mall, and she's lived there her whole life! It was insane! But it was really nice because stuff was really cheap, at least for us. After the mall, we went back to Linda's place and watched "13 Going on 30." Great chick flick! After the movie, it was bed time and we all headed home.

Tuesday was kinda a blah day. We didn't really do much. We slept in and got some stuff ready for camp and then went to the mall again and went to dinner with a bunch of people. Other than that, not much happened.

Well, I think I'm going to leave it at that for now. Wednesday we headed to camp so I'll post more tomorrow or Friday and let you know how all of that went. I'll give you a hint...it was AWESOME! Hopefully you enjoyed the first half of my trip to Venezuela. If you did, great! And it gets even better!!! If you didn't and were totally bored out of your mind while reading this, don't worry, it gets better!!!

Until then... Adios! Necesito acostarme. Estoy muy cansada. Te quiero!