I wish my life was like a musical

I love musicals. I did not get the gift of performing like my sister or my dad, but I love watching musicals. I remember going to my first musical when I was around 5 I think. It was My Fair Lady and we sat in the balcony of Knoxville Civic Auditorium. I am pretty sure we sat in the balcony in case I couldn't make it through the whole thing. Since then, my parents have taken us to many more musicals and I have fallen in love with the costumes, the scenes, and the drama. I think that musicals in one of the things that makes our family so unique. We have name that musical sing-a-longs and trivia at holiday gatherings.

My favorite thing about musicals is how the characters are in a middle of a conversation and break into song and dance. I wish we did this more in life. I actually have a friend who does this in real life. My friend Jamie has a special talent of making our lives into a musical. In college, she would write songs about our lives. It is truly a gift.


One thing I love about Nashville is that so many great Broadway shows come on tour here!
Last night Adrienne and I went to see Legally Blonde: The Musical. It was so much fun! It was a cute musical that had so much energy. I love musicals that just make me laugh so hard that I cry! While I was watching Legally Blonde, I seriously thought about trying out for a traveling show! Ever since then I have been thinking about which part I would try out for. It is a very serious question to be considered and I will let you know when I come up with my final answer!

Windy Gap

I love Windy Gap! Being there brings back amazing memories of times in high school where I felt so close to God. It was so neat to come back as a leader and have my precious high school girls feel that same closeness to God. Overall, it was an amazing week. I don't think words can do justice for how awesome it was! As Young Life leaders, we try to "sell" camp as the "Best Week of Your Life." I thought that girls coming from Brentwood Academy would not have the best week of their lives at Windy Gap. I thought, surely, they have cool vacation homes and trips with their family or school that would be better than Windy Gap. I was so wrong. These girls truly had the best week for other reasons. Let me explain with pictures.... it is what I do best.

Here are the three girls who came with me to camp.... L-R: Jessie, Chandler, and Katie.

Here we are again at Western Night. This was their favorite night of the week!
Here is a picture of our whole cabin -Reems Creek. It was so amazing to see how God put together this group of girls. We had girls from 4 different schools and all different grades, and they became so close this week. We had THE BEST cabin!
I have to say that I was so thankful for the other two leaders in the cabin. I was so lucky to have two of my dear friends in the cabin with me! It was such a blessing to have a good support and to be able to learn from them. I am so thankful for Adrienne and Laura Beth!

And another fun part of the week was being able to spend some good quality time with Sara Krimm! She was on Summer Staff for the whole month, and we got to spend her last week there with her. It was so much fun to hang out with her! And as you can see in the picture... I turned another year older while I was gone. How lucky am I that I get to spend my birthday at Windy Gap!
I have lots of stories from Windy Gap that I can't wait to tell. I have been trying to pin down the one main thing I took away from camp... and I can't do it. There are too many lessons that I learned from Windy Gap and I am so excited for that! I am excited to be back in Nashville with these girls and we can continue to walk together with the one who we felt close to at Windy Gap!

The Hills meets Green Hills

Well I am back from an amazing week at Windy Gap! Seriously, I have tons of stories about how fun and awesome this past week was! I will add another post with some pictures and a few stories.... it was amazing.

Today's post is very exciting as well. This is the reason I started a blog! I got to meet Lauren Conrad last night! I love Nashville!! So Lauren Conrad is on the MTV show "The Hills." I have been a fan of LC since she was Laguna Beach. I remember watching Laguna in Massey in Lindsey's dorm room. So Lauren wrote a book, LA Candy and she did a book signing last night at Davis Kid. It was so much fun!! Here are some pictures of the exciting night!

On the road again....

So I am leaving again! Tonight I am headed to East Tennessee for Lauren France's wedding!!! Lindsey and PJ are picking me up and all three of us are headed to Knoxville for the night. Then tomorrow morning we are headed to Johnson City for a fun wedding weekend!! I am so excited to see Lodie, Lauren, Lindsey and for us to be together again!! I am excited to share lots of pictures with you and I know we will have a great time!

After the wedding, Lindsey and PJ will drop me back off in Knoxville and from there I will catch the bus to Windy Gap for a week of camp with my Young Life girls!! I can't make it back to Nashville in time to get the bus so they are picking me up on the way! I am so excited for Windy Gap! I am sure I will have LOTS of pictures to share with you from there as well!! :)

So.... back on the road and probably won't be able to blog much which makes me so sad. But I would ask for your prayers while I am at camp. Please pray for all the campers as they will be having lots of fun, and also be asking tough questions. I am so excited to spend some quality time with these sweet sweet girls. It is going to be a fun week!!

Sweet Sleep

Praise God I almost slept through the night last night! (I sound like my niece Kaitlin ha!) But seriously, this jet lag thing is miserable! I am thankful that I slept most of the night and am feeling energized today! Hopefully I will be back to normal soon! When I woke up in the middle of the night, I started praying that I would fall back to sleep. Then I remembered what we told the sweet orphans when we prayed for them after we finished their rooms. I would say that when they get in bed and pull the covers up around them, it is like a big hug from Jesus. I love that! Here are a few more pictures of my trip!
One of my favorite parts of the week was the dance parties we had with the sweet orphans. If you know me, then you know that I LOVE a good dance party!!! Jerad saw this girl dancing and said, "Rachel I found your dancing twin!" And he was SO RIGHT!! We are dancing twins! We got a video of us dancing together. If I knew how to upload of video on here, I would! But until then, here is a picture of me and Vica my dancing twin!!
This is one of the 10 Jon's so we called him Little Jon or Jaaaaaaaan. He was one of my favorites! He always wore this red hat and was always so much fun! I think he looks like a little Heath Ledger. I wanted to bring him home with me!!

The last day we were in Moldova, our team got to have some fun and enjoy the country of Moldova. I was surprised how beautiful this country is!! One of my favorite things is when we went to a Monastery that is built all underground. All of the ceilings were built very low to help the monks remember to always be bowed down and have a humble heart.
When we got outside to the top of the Monastery there is an incredible view. My pictures do not do justice of the true beauty of this place. But when we got up there, our team spread out and took some time to be alone and pray for our kids we got really close to at the orphanage. Here is a group picture on top of the Monastery.

Sweet Sweet Moldova

Right now, it is 3:50 am and I am wide awake. I think it is the whole time zone thing that is keeping me awake. I turned on the tv, but nothing good comes on the five channels that I get so I thought I would blog about Moldova. Most of you who know me, read the Sweet Sleep blog while I was gone. So most of you know how unbelievable this experience was for everyone. I am still trying to process, and still trying to find the right words to explain about this trip. All I can say is it was incredible. Every aspect of this trip, totally blew my expectations. The children at the orhanage were precious. When I close my eyes at night, I can still see their faces. I will not forget sweet Elena, Victor, little Jon, dancing Jon, Galina, Vita, and many more. I have many stories I want to share, but think I will wait till another time to go into details. Right now, I want to share some pictures of the place that stole my heart!