Thanksgiving time :)

Why do breaks go by so fast? I feel like I was home for two minutes. Oh well. In exactly two weeks from right now I will be at home again :)

Wednesday, November 23rd
I got to wake up at one in the morning (Minnesota time) to get ready to come home! I was home by 10 and spent the day in St. Cloud with my mom. At church that night there was the annual Thanksgiving pie social. It was so nice to see people that I hadn't seen since August!  

Thursday, November 24th
Madison, her dad, her aunt, and I woke up early to go to St. Paul and run in the Thanksgiving 5k. We felt accomplished :) and then we didn't have to be guilty for all the food we ate later!

We were with my dad's side this year so 15 of us were at my house. It was a very relaxing, fun day! We ate (obviously!), talked, went for a walk in the woods, and played games. So much fun!

 Me with my cousins, Marina and Britta

I ended the day watching Iron Man 1 with my dad and Hunter. We are preparing for the movie The Avengers that comes out this summer :)

Friday, November 25th
I slept in. That right there made my day. haha.

Kelly came over for a bit in the afternoon and it was so good to see her and catch up again! 

I had been waiting for this night for a long time. I finally got an anchor tattoo like the one my grandpa has! My cousins Wendy, Lynsi, and I went together and took Grandpa with us to get our tattoos :)

 Lynsi's first tattoo!

It was more painful than my last one

 My Grandpa and I :)

Live fast, die young ;)

 Love this picture of them with their matching tattoos!

 Mine and my Grandpa's tattoos

 family :) is what I am thankful for!

I am so glad my Grandpa was there for that experience! It meant so much :)

Over the rest of the weekend I got to see Amber and Kaitie, went to a movie with my mom, hung out and did nothing, and got a haircut. I'm counting down the days until I am back home again!

Creation Museum!

 Chelsea, Madison, and I went to the Creation Museum on Saturday. I have wanted to go there for awhile and since we got extra credit in our science class for going, it was a must!

I wasn't really sure what to expect. I think my expectations were a little too high though. It was really cool, but I thought it would be mind-blowing amazing. It was interesting to see how much of the stuff I already knew after having taken this earth science course this semester! I didn't even have to read everything since I already knew about it!

By far, my favorite part of the museum was the exhibit on Noah's ark.  I think because I learned about Noah's ark when I was really young and I heard it taught throughout my childhood, I grew up not being as amazed by it as I should have been. Seeing this exhibit really put it more into perspective for me and made me think about things that I hadn't before.

 This model of the ship compared to the trees, animals, and people surrounding it helped me to visualize what a massive structure it had been.  It is hard for me to visualize things if I don't have something to compare it to.  I couldn't even imagine working on a ship that size for over a hundred years and then being on it for a year!  I wonder how often they had to feed the animals, how they fed the animals that whole time, or how badly it smelled in there.  Did the animals ever get out?  Or did they ever fight each other?  I also wonder if the animals were mean and if Noah and the others were afraid of any of them.

Until taking the earth science course and going to the museum I hadn't thought about the fact that dinosaurs also had to go on the ark.  For some reason I always just thought that God wanted them all to have been wiped out by the flood and it did not matter if they were on the ark.  Now that I think about it and know that dinosaurs did actually go on the ark it does not really make sense that God would care about all of the other animals but the dinosaurs. It's so crazy to think that Noah had dinosaurs on the ship! 

One thing that was hard to see was the model where the ark was in the water and there were people and animals on the rocks trying to get to higher ground and not go in the water.  When reading the story in Genesis it is easy to just forget about all of the people because they were evil and it was there time to die anyways.  However, when I actually saw the people fighting on the rocks and being pushed into the water it made me realize what an awful experience that would be.  I don't know how I would feel if I was one of those people who watched the ark sail away as I was waiting on a rock preparing to die.  It must have been completely miserable knowing that they had years to repent and turn to God and they never did; now their time was over.

 

Overall, visiting the Creation Museum was a great experience and I would go back again!  It is a good place to go and learn about how God created our planet and we do not have to believe in the explanations science tries to give us.