just to make everyone jealous...

This is my view from work...







and this is what we do if we are not busy and the sun is out!

An even longer time!

So I (Autumn) am now in Butte, Montana for my last semester of school. Yeah, I know what you're all thinking....but it's not so bad here. I'm doing my student teaching at Butte high school where I teach a few different subjects to 9-12th graders, so I have a nice variety to my day! I have a regular sophomore biology class, and honors biology class, an anatomy class with mostly seniors, and then two applied biology classes which range in grades from 9-12th. I've also joined up with a college group from a local church here which provides me with my weekly entertainment on Sundays! They've also got InterVarsity here at Butte Tech so I've been going to that as well. On the weekends (usually every other weekend, but lately it's been at least one of the weekend days) I work at the hospital as a Physical Therapist Assistant. Fancy name but not too technical.

There is also this guy that goes to my church who is paying me to work out with his son. His son is disabled (has mostly a limp left arm and leg) and he just needs someone to make him workout and strenghten his left side. And since I'm at the gym most days I get paid to be that person! Pretty sweet if you ask me! So, I'm pretty busy but I really did not like being bored...so now I'm content. I'm liking my student teaching, I'm glad to have gotten connected with the friends that I have, and I like my jobs, but I do miss my friends back in Bozeman.
Unitl next time.

long time

Wow, it has been a long time since either of us have written. It was a crazy semester. Right now I (Sarah) am working at bridger bowl. It is an awesome job! I am a liftie, so i help people get on the lifts or check their tickets. It is such a blast, but sometimes it is really cold. Today it was -12 all day long. brr! The most amazing part of the job is the fact that i get a free season pass and $5 rentals! So basically, i am either working or skiing right now!

I am living in an apartment for the first time ever. I also have to grocery shop and cook for myself for the first time. Everywhere i have lived away from home has had a cook. It's horribly frustrating because for some reason i am a bad cook. I'm used to picking up things pretty quickly, but not this. I am resorting to soup, sandwiches, and frozen meals as to not ruin anymore food.

I'm still planning on going to Spain. I bought my ticket in the fall, so i'm all ready to go! We are going to leave on March 29th. I'm taking this semester off of school, so i am going to finish up next year as a super senior. Even though i'm not going to be taking classes, i'm still around Bozeman, so i am lucky to still be able to be involved with Campus Crusade and the greek bible study. We've made some changes this semester to the group, and i am really excited to see what is going to come from it! I'm excited to start planning what is going to now be our annual superbowl party. We started doing it last year to raise money to help send people to greek conference. I'm so excited to go again this year!

here's a cute picture of Autumn, me, and 2 amazing ladies from our greek study!

That's right...4 ladies from 3 different sororities all getting along! :)

horray!

I'm going to spain!!!!

sadly...it's over...

It's that time of year again...by that i (sarah) mean that i will be leaving amazing yellowstone park to head back to school. It was by far the best summer i've ever spent here, and i am pretty much positive that i want to come back for at least one more summer. This picture is our entire staff. Maybe i should explain it. We give the students gag gifts at the end of the summer, and this was taken for one of those gifts. A girl's boyfriend got a new truck and sent her a ton of pictures of him on the truck. She then showed ALL of us these pictures for weeks and was obviously super excited about it. (i felt i needed to clarify in case anyone thought we posed on our rigs regularly...)

I look like i'm really mad in this picture...i'm not. For some reason i decided to pose looking right into the sun...go figure










Yellowstone is such an amazing place. One of the highlights of my summer was getting our entire camp on top of avalanche peak. It was a STEEP climb up and a real challenge for a lot of our students.

This is everyone on top of the peak. Amazing view!!!

The next step in my chaos of a life right now is going back to school. I move back into my sorority tomorrow. However, in the next few weeks i have to decide what i am doing in the spring. I have an opportunity to hike the camino de santiago in spain with some great friends who also happen to be yellowstone co-workers. It would be an epic trip (yes autumn...i said epic...) We would actually be gone for about 5 and a half weeks. 4 weeks would be spent hiking the actual trail (it is about 400 miles long), a week would be spent traveling in spain, and half a week would probably be spent visiting a great friend of ours in new york on the way.

In order to do this trip i would have to take a semester off of school. We would be hiking the month of april so i wouldn't be able to take finals. I would spend jan-march probably just working. I am definitely very scared and excited about this possibility. I think it would be so good for me in so many ways! (one huge one that just occured to me is that i would live on my own for 3 months. Us sorority girls are not used to shopping and cooking for ourselves. That would be really exciting!) A lot of prayer is for sure needed on my part as i try and make this decision. It is huge!

That's all i have for now!

Another day at work....

So, at work lately I've been trying to view my summer job like I did last summer when I was working at Baskin Robbins in Lake Tahoe. I KNEW that, besides working, my other "job" was to show Christ's love and to talk to my co-workers about Him. Well, I've been getting to know a lot of people really well and have been hanging out with some of them a lot. (Either I'm at work or hanging out with people from work!). Anyways, there is this girl, Robyn in the bakery from Lousiana. She is a very strong Christian and I enjoy talking to her about anything and everything since she is my age and we've even gone to church together a few times. (don't worry Sarah, she's no you though!) It's good to have her around for encouragement and a good smile. Then there is this other guy who works in produce with me who is very liberal, does not like "Shrub" (president Bush), and who is not religious at all. Half of his family is Jewish and the other half is Catholic and he's had some strong religious friends in his life in the past though so he's very open minded and asks lots of good questions. Most recently there is an older guy who works in the deli who used to be a pimp (seriously). He's really funny and nice and we're always giving each other a hard time. And he knows I'm a "good girl", so I'm just trying to get to know him better to see if he has a religious background or an opinion or anything. It's kind of funny because I've never had so many friends from a job and at least once a week a handful of us will go get something to eat after work, or float the river together, have dinner at someone's house, play basketball, or go shopping. Well, just thought I'd let you know about the good ol' Albertson's crew. Maybe you could pray for opportunity to talk to some of them (we can't talk much at work because we get in trouble even when there is no customers!)

A 15 mile hike!

So, I had Friday and Saturday off so my dad came up from Billings to hang out. We fished all day on Friday and hit up Quake Lake, Hebgin Lake, and the Gallatin. I didn't catch anything (my dad caught a lil' rainbow), but there is nothing like standing in the middle of the river casting a line! I don't think the fish wanted what I had though, because they were jumping all around me but not biting my line! Then on Saturday we got to the trail head of Hyalite Peak at 8am (45 degrees outside!) and hiked the 7.5 miles to the summit. We got to get wet while crossing rivers and we even had to cross some snow (which I slipped on and almost went sledding down the mountain like a penguin!). The view from the top is sooo amazing and way worth the adventure. You can see everything up there and for a minute I thought I was was Queen of the world! Even thought I was a tasty feast for a lot of bugs, it was well worth it! Here are some pics of the day. Try not to be too jealous!