Well, tomorrow is Christmas. Needless to say for my fellow Southern Californians, it does NOT feel like Christmas at all. In fact, tomorrow is supposed to be a pleasant 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Lovely. It's been over a month since I last posted (hehe) so there's a lot to catch you faithful readers up on.

Let's see...

School...

I applied to four colleges and have so far been accepted at three of them. At WJU, I have an $8000 academic scholarship waiting for me, and it can be renewed every year with a maintenance GPA of 3.0. Whoohoo!! And then at SDCC I potentially can get $32000 or $24000 over four years depending on how I do in the competition I have to participate in to get it. Confusing I know. Read it a few times and it will make sense. I promise! I also got accepted to SU, where Stephanie is going, but I don't really want to go there. I'm really excited about going down to SDCC in a couple months for a preview weekend. I was driving down the 5 yesterday through SD, and I really love that area. Big trees, big houses, big freeways, the ritzy beach feel, if you've been down there you'll know what I'm talking about...Right now that's my top choice.

So why was I driving that far down the 5 yesterday you ask? Well, it was because I was on my way to Mexico for the first time. Our little "youth group" and Sid and Linda and their neighbors Mark and Diane took shoebox presents down to an orphanage in Rosarito and then had lunch and went shopping. =) It is truly amazing how much poverty is there. I've seen pictures and TV reports or whatever, but it's quite a different thing to see it in person. Even the "clean and neat" neighborhoods are still what we would consider the poor section of town. I can't imagine living like these people do.

We went to this orphanage and it was amazing. Well, the experience was amazing, not the orphanage. I was told that this location was a 1000 times better than the place they were in last year, but there's also no guarantee that they'll be in this place next year. We met Mark and Diane's son, who is the pastor at the Calvary Chapel in Rosarito, and drove to the orphanage with Cindy, who lives in Rosarito and spends most of her time in the orphanage, and Jesus, who is the associate pastor at Calvary Chapilla.

Some of the kids there are so affectionate! Within 30 seconds of arriving there over a washboard road, Stephanie had two kids hanging off her. One of them wouldn't leave her for the rest of the time. I found a little boy I wanted to adopt and got to hold him and open his shoebox for him. They were all so loving and unselfish. Everyone helped everyone else open their presents without shoving or grabbing or "That's mine!"'s. One little boy even shared his gum with Drew and Sid, even though he only got one 5-pack. Pictures can tell the story somewhat better...