6 months to go?!

Hello everyone!! I know its been quite some time since I last blogged but life has been super busy. As many of you know Aric proposed to me on October 7th! And of course I said yes! Since then my life has been a flurry of wedding questions! (in no particular order) What kind of flowers? How many? Is this the dress? What about brides maid dresses? Where are we going to have the ceremony? How are we doing food? Who's going to be in the wedding party? Who's going to do the pictures? And DJ? What about the groom and his groomsmen? What are they wearing? Are we keeping the wedding small? Etc etc!! Luckily more of these questions are being answered every day! It's definitely an exciting time but with my finals going on right now too I have had little time to really sit and plan. My last tests are Friday and as I have told my maid of honor that's when the real fun begins! If anyone is curious about wedding planning or about our story (how we met, who we are etc.) click here for our wedding website. It's kind of crazy that we have gone through two months already and only have six to go. The kind of crazy thing about our wedding date, June 2nd, is that we will share the anniversary with my grandparents on my dad's side and my professor Dr. Eskew. It is a wonderful day for a wedding!
We got to spend Thanksgiving with both sets of family this year. We had dinner with Benny's in-laws on Thursday and Aric's family Friday. It was great getting to spend time with everyone! I love that we have such great families!
We have more exciting things coming up in our lives too! My dad is moving back to Colorado, since he graduated medical school (nursing school, my bad lol its finals week leave me alone haha thanks for pointing it out ma!)! Hopefully that will be happening sooner rather than later. He says he wants to move to Denver which I think will be great for him! Also I graduate May 5th which unfortunately is William and Lindsay's wedding date. My hope is to graduate early in the morning, take a few quick pictures, and then leave to Denver to catch at least the reception.
Sorry this is a short update filled with a bunch of updates and not much else but with it being finals I'm sure you understand! Another update with pictures (proposal, engagement, holiday etc.) and detail is soon to come! Love you all!

Soulmates...two halves of the same soul joining together in life's journey
~ Author Unknown ~

An Update!

Wow!! Its been a while since I blogged last and a lot of exciting things have happened, I don't even know where to start! I guess with my best news...

As many of you know, my mom started to

get sick about a year ago and took a major turn for the worst around November.I know, you're probably thinking "Thats good news?" Well no, its not. What is good news though is that she went to California in February/March and started to see an acupuncture doctor as a last hope. The doctor was really optimistic and she told mom that she would get better. Luckily she was right! Granted she isn't able to return to work just yet but from near wheel chair to just using a cane and not even that all of the time, its a miracle! I hope she continues on this path and is able to return to work and become independent again. Not that I mind helping her out, but just to see my mom glow again! She gets better every day! She started warm pool physical therapy last week and each time she goes she gets a little bit stronger! I am so proud of her for not losing hope even though I know there were many times that she wanted to. Keep your head up momma! And please everyone keep your thoughts and prayers coming! We sure do appreciate them!

The second exciting thing in my life now is my relationship. Thanks to my good friend William, I met an amazing guy named Aric. He has been a light in my life and I am so grateful for him. He has brought me so much joy and confidence in my life and I couldn't ask for anything more. We have a ton in common and can spend hours not doing much of anything but just enjoying our time together. The difficult part is that we live two hours apart from each other but we have been lucky enough to see each other every weekend. Generally we switch off weekends, I'll go up one weekend and he will come down the next, but occasionally something causes us to go off schedule lol. One of the best parts is, I absolutely adore his family. His mom (Cathy) is terrific, his sister (Cortney) is so great, his brother-in-law (Dean) is fun to talk to, his dad (Stan) is great and his nieces (Riley, Alexandra, and Scarlett) are absolutely precious! All three of them have melted my heart and I love spending time with them. Unfortunately I only have blurry pictures with the two oldest, Riley who is 10 and Alexandra who is 7. The littlest one is Scarlett and she will be 2 in June but when we took pictures we were in the van on the way to the mall and I sat in the back with Riley and Alexandra and Scarlett was in her car seat in the seat in front of us so I didn't get a picture but I will do that soon! Sorry they are blurry and don't get all three of us in one frame, van rides don't make for good pictures! After this we had fun sending Aric twenty or so texts! The girls just love their Uncle Aric and picking on him is fun too :D. His family is wonderful, I couldn't imagine better! They have made me feel welcome and loved! I can't wait to spend more time with them!

Alexandra and I (and Riley's eye :))

Riley and I

I do have a video of Scarlett playing with my phone so I think I will upload that too because its just too darn cute not to and this way Cortney can see it. I know its 6 minutes long but trust me its worth watching... there are parts I could edit out but for some reason movie maker and my videos from my camera don't play nicely! (In the background you can hear Cort and Cathy talking about a book that they got Dean for his birthday lol) The way that she interacts with the camera is soo cute! It's like she is trying to look through it backwards to figure out what it is :) after this video she noticed that she could see the pictures on the other side so she had fun looking at the screen and pressing the record button over and over so I got a few 2 second videos of the couch, her foot, anything interesting (which you will get a glimpse of at the end of the video lol) also in the video you will see her game of making her limbs disappear and asking where they went, she also points out that my phone is to say hello. Lol she is so smart and so cute I absolutely adore all of his nieces!

On a final note, I had another strong semester! I was hoping for a 4.0 but it was a really tough semester and I ended up with 2 A's, 1 A-, and 3 B's. I guess I should be stoked but I am merely content. Hopefully next semester I will get my 4.0! I also got inducted into Sigma Tau Delta (STD for short .. terrible I know lol) the English Honor Society at CSU-P! I am so happy and proud that I finally made it. I just had to find my passion :P!

Anyway, I will definitely be blogging more this summer now that I am out of school and have a little more time! Probably a lot more about the girls and Aric and of course updates on mom! I wanted everyone to know that I am happy, healthy and loving life! I definitely have lots to be thankful for and am very blessed. Until next time I love you all! And don't worry, I didn't forget the quote:

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses. ~Joyce Brothers

One HUGE update!

Wow SOOOO... yeah, I know... I didn't blog about GA. I just realized that today. I haven't done my teaching blog yet either... Well guess what! Its time for a super long probably long winded blog!!! I guess I will go back and start with GA since that was the first one I should have written :)

General Assembly... what is there to really say about being a YAAD at the 2010 219th General Assembly? Only one word comes to mind... YAADtastic!!!!! General Assembly has to be one of the best experiences of my life. It was absolutely insane, and absolutely hectic, and absolutely busy, and absolutely stressful, but most of all absolutely worth it. All of the days ran together when I was there, so there is no way I could do a day by day thing but I will try my best to categorize the events somehow... The first few days were great, I was extremely nervous going out there because I didn't know anyone (besides my pastor who didn't fly in until the next day) and had never been to the city before. Let me tell you one thing, God's children are amazing. Once in Minnesota, my fears quickly disappeared. I met my roommate Hannah almost immediately and we got along beautifully. She and I went downstairs to register and ran into an old friend of hers named Caroline (who by the way later became one of our co-moderators). And we agreed to all go to dinner together. Later that evening we met up with a large group of people (correct me if I am wrong YAADS, but there were 7 of us that first night right?) and went to chipotle for dinner. We then went to Target (Which by the way was HUGE) and laughed and had a ball (hahaha no pun intended YAADs). We all clicked really well together and the majority of the 7 of us spent a great deal of time together for the next ten days. YAAD orientation was long, informative, but long. We learned tons of new information about Robert's rules of order and how our meetings were going to be run and we worshiped and just got things done. Worship with the YAADs was something that I enjoyed. I loved looking around the room and seeing so many people my age just as in to God as I am. I haven't been able to see that in my home church so GA was a breath of fresh air for me. By Sunday, we were all oriented and ready to go, GA had begun. Sunday morning worship was ... well WOW! 10,000 presbyterians, god loving, children of our lord, came together to do one thing, Worship our lord and savior. The opening processional was a beautiful display of colors, animals, dancers, and all of god's creations coming from everywhere to join in that purpose. The four dancers represented the four winds (from the four edges of the world) and at the very end, each of them poured a pitcher of water into one single baptismal font. There was a call to worship, there were songs, Bruce Reyes Chow (former moderator) gave an extremely powerful service, there was more singing and more worshiping and then the service ended with all of us who had never witnessed a GA worship in awe. Business started either Monday or Tuesday I think it was monday... and we broke off into 19 committees. 1. Business referrals, 2. Bills and overtures, 3. General Assembly procedures, 4. Middle governing body issues, 5. Church Polity, 6. Church orders and ministry, 7. Form of government, 8. Ecumenical and interfaith relations, 9. Mission coordination, 10. Social Justice issues A: the promotion of social righteousness, 11. Social Justice issues B: the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world, 12. Civil Union and marriage issues, 13. Peacemaking and International issues, 14. Middle East peace making issues, 15. Church Growth, Christian education and PILP, 16. Theological issues and institutions, 17. Review of GA permanent committees, 18. Board of Pensions, Foundation and Presbyterian Publishing, and 19. Health Issues (my committee also the picture below which is almost all the YAADs from committee 19 I don't know where the rest of yall went!). Each committee was given overtures to read over, amend, and vote on whether to send it to plenary. These lasted until Wednesday and were pretty stressful. YAADS were allowed to discuss, and vote. Our input was welcome in committee and encouraged. After hours of discussing, debating, disagreeing and finally voting, we were all exhausted. Our committee was having issues sweating the small stuff (And trust me I mean the small stuff like using the word females instead of women in an overture) and it seemed like we were going to be stuck there until late on Wednesday. Tuesday night however we were all bit in the but by the same bug and just got everything done! We finished first on Wednesday afternoon in time to get lunch! It was great! All of the YAADs on my committee went out to eat at this place (a sports bar and I totally forgot what the name of it is!) where we watched the tail end of a soccer game and laughed and truly enjoyed ourselves. Later that day, the YAADs all got to go to the Mall of America. When they say the mall is big, they mean the mall is gigantic. You can't walk the whole thing in a day, heck they said if you spend ten minutes in each store it would take you three days. There is an amusement park IN the mall! There is even a little lego land too its great! We had a ton of fun and I really got to bond with one of my favorite people in the whole world on the roller coasters, you know who you are. The rest of the week was business. Plenary to be precise. Boy oh boy did that get stressful some times. For the most part though it wasn't terrible. The YAADs figured out a way to chat through PCbiz so at least we could hear each others' reasoning for voting the way we did. Granted we weren't allowed a real vote in plenary, just an advisory one, it was still nice to vote for good reason since some people really did take into account our votes. By July 10th, the final day of GA, I was exhausted. I flew home and could barely function. Sleep was not something that YAADs know how to do very well. All in all the experience was one I won't soon forget and I truly miss my fellow YAADs. Hopefully that day wasn't goodbye and in fact see you soon.

Ok, now teaching. The whole teaching experience was great. I loved being there to answer questions. I loved watching their faces light up when they knew an answer. I just loved the very act of teaching itself! I think I did a great job for it being my first time teaching. It wasn't perfect but it was my first time so I am ok with it. The students were engaged the entire time and overall it was fun. I know its not a very lengthy write up, but there isn't much to say other then I now know that I am doing the right thing with my life and let me just say, it is a wonderful feeling.

I wanted to share the freakiest story with you. I hate bees. I am absolutely am terrified of them and wasps. Well, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of CSU, reading for class and enjoying the fall weather with my windows down. Next thing I know, there is a bee in my car. I sit absolutely still and wait for it to fly out. It flies into my cheek a few times and I shut my eyes hard. Then it flies into my hair! But still, I sat as still as I could just waiting for it to leave. After a minute or two I figure it probably flew out and I just didn't notice so I gently run my hand across the back of my head where it had landed and feel nothing. So I relax and go back to my reading. The next thing I know, I feel something crawling on the side of my head! It was the stupid bee! So I literally sit perfectly still and try to coax the bee out by moving strands of hair that were blocking it from flying off my head. I don't hear any buzzing and can't tell if it flew away but i don't feel it any more. So I get out of my car and gently shake my head and turn my hair upside down to make sure it isn't there anymore. To this day I don't know if it stayed in my car or what but for the rest of the day any tickle I felt I freaked out. Luckily there is no bee in my hair any more but it was the scariest thing ever!


School is going well, I am starting to learn to love Shakespeare and am definitely loving being an English teacher. Hope you all are well!

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
-Ben Sweetland

(oh by the way I think I will finally get around to uploading the rest of my GA pictures onto facebook so take a look HERE)

Nerves!! I hate them...

Tomorrow is the big day... my first time teaching a full class. I have never been so nervous for anything in my life. I feel like this is a huge pivotal point in my life and if I mess it up, it will hurt my future. I love middle school students, I love English, and I love watching students learn... so this should be a piece of cake for me right? I mean, if you love something, it should come naturally... but I am so scared... My stomach is churning, I feel like I could throw up at any second, and I really feel like crying. I wish there were some way to shut off my ability to get nervous. It is my absolute least favorite feeling in the world! I hate feeling nauseous and unfortunately, I am a worrier. When I worry, my stomach immediately turns into nervous stomach. I really just hope I don't mess up. I know this blog is kind of all over the place but I had to do something to calm myself down and I suppose the one way I know best is to write. Though at this point I am so nervous I don't think anything could calm me down... my mom and my brother are the closest to being successful in calming me down, they both successfully did for a little while. My mom just told me all the things I was telling her when I was helping her to concur her fear of interviews, things like its just an irrational fear, the spirit is within me, just remember to breathe, something about the spirit of the fruit being self something I dont remember exactly but her good friend told her that and it seemed to help. I took some deep breaths and repeated all of that and it did help for a while. Then my brother gave me a list of five reasons why I shouldn't be nervous... he said dont be nerviousa sister, heres a top 5 list why:
5. Because you are Vaes and that automatically makes you cool
4. They are middle schoolers, if you say something silly, they wil laugh but they arent smart enough yet to realize you didn't do it on purpose
3. You are the sister of Bens and that automatically makes you cool
2. you have honestly found your calling and I can just tell you are really good at this. It's the first of something you will do the rest of your life and that is super exciting
and the number one reason why you shouldn't be nervous:
1. Because no one picks on a short teacher :P
I love that he made me smile and even attempt a small laugh, and that worked for as long as mom's advice... But now I am nervous again. I feel silly, but I can't calm myself down. I even took a hot bath! That helped too, but only briefly. I hope this feeling doesn't last. Sigh, wish me luck, I will post again with how it went. I would love as many thoughts and prayers as I can get. I love my family and friends. I am going to try and calm down some and get some sleep... wish me luck.

Neat Second Chance Story

Minnesota, how I love you! General Assembly, how I love you! New friends, how I love you! But most of all GOD!!! I LOVE YOU! I just wanted to take the time today to do one of my favorite things... write, and I figured that I could kill two birds with one stone and update my loving friends and family and blog. I had a bit of a break today (unfortunately I really need sleep) and figured, why not? General Assembly has been an absolutely amazing experience, mind you, stressful, but amazing!!! My brain is fried, my body is tired, my spirit is stretched to limits I didn't know it could begin to reach, but I feel amazing! I will update much more about my experiences here later but today I really just want to write about one thing. That one thing is a story, so here it goes...
In the late 1800's and early 1900's Northeastern Minnesota's main industry was lumber. Many of the local lakes were used as a way to transport logs to the mills. Some of the logs became water logged and sunk to the bottom of the lake. After 100 years or more of sitting on the bottom of the lake, some of the logs floated back to the surface. These logs are known as "Deadheads" because only one end of the log is visible and they are a great hazard to water craft. A few of those logs have now been harvested by a wonderful pastor named Bill and his wife Sherry. They named them Second chance logs. Just as jesus died on the cross and gave us a chance, these logs are representative of that love. The wood is otherwise useless. Bill sends them to another man who makes them into beautiful crosses. I wear one on a leather lanyard around my neck and will probably wear it forever. If anyone is interested in one of his crosses, he gives them away for free in any number. He doesn't want money, he just wants the crosses to be distributed to the world so that more people are hearing the word. Let me know if you are interested and I will give you his email to get into contact with him or you can let me know what you want and I will email him for you.
I will update everyone on how the trip is going in another post sometime this week or when I get back. I love you all! Fireworks were great! Mall of America was great! But I promise more updates will be coming.

You cannot go outside of A and Z in the realm of literature; likewise Christ Jesus is First and Last of God's new creation, and all that is in between; you cannot get outside of that.

-T. Austin Sparks

Healer, encourager, friend

I know after my post yesterday you may or may not want to hear my sentiments towards anyone or anything today, but this is different. For those of you that have had the pleasure of meeting my brother Ben (Benny) Mendoza, you will know just how true my words are. For those of you that haven't met him, you are missing out greatly and need to meet him. The reason I am writing about him today is because I know that he knows I love and appreciate him but I don't think he knows how much. From the time we were small children (from the time I was born really) Benny has been like a caretaker for me. He is my best friend and just overall amazing. He would be there for anyone that needed him at the drop of the hat and somehow always seems to know what to say to make your problems seem a little less hard to tackle. I just know he is going to make the most caring and awesome doctor the world has ever had the chance to see. It seems like he has this sixth sense to notice when I am having a rough day. On those days that everything seems to be going wrong, I get a phone call from the one and only brother of mine. We talk as often as we can (we both have insanely busy schedules most of the time) but when something is bothering me he can tell and before I know it, I am ranting my entire story in tears and he listens patiently. When I am done explaining the situation he generally says something that blows my mind. Just yesterday in fact, I was pretty upset about something and he told me that he knew I could get through this because he has learned that if I get knocked down, I always find a way back up, even if that means I get knocked down four more times. Wow! I didn't know he thought I was that strong, and to be honest, yesterday I was feeling pretty down on myself. His words made me stop crying and get back up, just like he had faith that I could do. Ben is an encourager, a healer, a great listener, an amazing brother, and most of all the best friend I have ever had. I don't know if he has time to read these but if you do Bens I love you and appreciate you.

One more quick update on my life and all things Vae, I am still searching for a job and am going to start applying to places in the food industry which I have wanted to avoid but at this point I can't be choosey so wish me luck and send me all the love and prayers you can. I appreciate it very much! I don't know how many people actually read these but thank you! Even if I only have one reader, thank you. I love writing and will be doing this blogging thing a lot more because it helps me to continue to write for myself and not because I have to. I forgot just how much I enjoyed blogging until yesterday so expect lots more from me. Have a wonderful day! If you could, if you are reading this, you should leave me a comment. It makes me so happy to hear from all my friends and family and anyone else reading this by pure chance. Love you all!

A brother is a friend provided by nature.

-Legouve Pere

America=Faith?

So I was driving in the car today listening to a song called gotta be more like falling in love. The song basically talks about how having Faith has to be more of a deep feeling. It can't be tangible because that isn't faith, but rather a desire so deep that it penetrates your very soul much like love but only stronger and even more beautiful (at least thats my interpretation of the song). Anyway, I'm driving down the road listening to this song and a thought pops into my head. Forgive me if its far fetched, but here's a glimpse into how my brain works:

Having a faith in God is like believing in one's country. Someone else established that this area we live in is called America and we have been told since we are young children that we should have pride in the USA. None of us were alive when the declaration of independence was signed. "Yes but Revae! What about the fact that we can visibly see the land we walk on, we can go to the edge of the country and feel the water! Doesn't that prove that America exists?" Well, yes and no. It proves that we have land to stand on, it proves that we have oceans, it proves that we are occupying a space, but it does not prove that we live in America. Someone had to come and identify it as so and the teachings have to be passed down. This is like believing in God. We are standing on this land we call America, and guess what?! It was made by God! Jesus came to be our messenger, to remind us and teach us of our loving God. Stories are passed down to our children, and the history is taught. We just have to believe and have pride in our God. Granted yes it is much more powerful a feeling and a much more beautiful relationship, but it works. Its a beautiful thing isn't it?

A quick update on GA, I have had a lot of reading to do, but todays was super exciting. Today we found out what the YAAD event is going to be. *Drumroll please!* We are going to Mall of America! Not only that but its sponsored by COLA so we get to do all kinds of neat stuff! There are opportunities to ride the amusement rides, a backstage tour of the facilities, shops, a ropes course, mini golf, scavenger hunts and much more! Dinner is included and when the mall closes we get to gather in the Great room for a performance by Comedy Sports a well-loved local improv group! I can't wait!!

I guess thats all for today, sorry its kind of a short update :)

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.

-Helen Keller