I love the smell of freshly sharpened pencils in the morning...

School has begun. And will soon come to an end, at least for me! On Wednesday, I started my last semester of school! I started my internship at ARC Headwaters on Thursday. Friday was my last day working as a PCA. Quite a week!
I'll be busy enough this semester, between my internship every morning, class every afternoon, working in the kitchen 3 nights a week, babysitting 2 days a week, 2 independent studies, and homework! But I'm looking forward to it all. I'm even looking forward to some of the papers and projects this semester. One of my independent studies is a youth ministry special topic in special needs youth ministry, my passion. My other independent study is basically spending the whole semester researching and writing a 15-20 page paper on a topic of my choice, then presenting it to faculty and students. The topic I've chosen is something I have very strong feelings about and can't wait to find more information on.
I noticed yesterday that some of the leaves on campus are already starting to turn, and I'm ok with that. I do love fall up here, and the closer we get to fall, the closer I am to being done with school!
Justin is keeping busy at KMart, supporting our little family. Even so, we're learning how tight money is getting to be as prices of everything continue to rise, but we're still thankful for what we have. We are looking forward to the arrival of our loan refund check in 3 weeks!!
That's all for now.
Michelle

Prayer requests

Justin and I very strongly believe in the power of prayer, and I was thinking it might not be such a bad idea to post some of our prayer requests on a somewhat regular basis. So if you think of us, send one up for us!

~ Financial security and stability: Everyone knows what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck. Please pray that we will be wise with the money we have and that God will always provide what we need.
~ School: The fall semester gets underway on August 27, and it will be my last semester! Pray that it will be a good last semester for me and that I'll graduate with my sanity and more knowledge and wisdom than I started with. Justin will not be going to back to school until January, so pray that we are able to handle all of the school and work changes we're heading towards.
~ Car health: Cars always break, and ours are no exception. Pray that our vehicles (at least our car!) will last as long as we need it, and that when the time comes for us to get a new one, we're able to.
~ Health and safety: We're doing a lot of traveling in the next few months, around MN, to Wisconsin, and to Colorado. Pray for safety in our travels. Also, with the start of school comes cold season! Pray that we stay healthy so we can get everything done that we need to.
~ Our faith: Our #1 priority; pray that we are able to keep it that way and always have the courage and the wisdom to trust and follow God wherever and whenever He leads us.

Thanks all. Know that we keep our loved ones in our prayers always.

Michelle

Before I get in more trouble...

I got a talking-to last weekend about not blogging for awhile... sorry, my dear aunties!! Our life has been pretty dull, but things picked up recently, so I hope you enjoy...

Last weekend was the annual Koep family weekend at the lake, and we had a blast. The weather didn't cooperate quite as well as it usually does, but we still got to enjoy the water on our floaties, drinks in hand! We played games when we weren't on the lake, and discovered just how competitive we can all get... Of course, we ate way too much, some sustained sunburns, and there were lots of laughs. Another successful weekend, and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Katie came back to Bemidji with Justin and I on Sunday night and spent the week with us. Justin had to work quite a bit, but I had most of the week off, so Katie and I had some quality sister bonding time! We did a lot of shopping, especially at Target! We went to Animal Land (the local zoo) again, ate a lot of food, watched a lot of movies, and the big event of the week: Katie's tattoo. We had some great chats and it was fun to hang out together. We met Mom and Dad in Fargo yesterday and did some shopping, then Katie went home with them and we came back to Bemidji. The week was much more enjoyable than last year when Katie came: we didn't have AC last year, and now we do!! It was a great week, and I hope she'll come back to stay.

We made new friends at Animal Land, like Lloyd the pesky llama, the camels, and our new best friend and favorite Animal Land find, the sweet donkey.

Eureka! We discovered Gander Mountain and all the possibilities within!

Now that I've lived in Bemidji for over 3 years, I finally made it to visit Paul and Babe.

And now, the main event, the drama of the week.... drumroll please....

Katie's tattoo! (That's her foot... in case you couldn't tell...)

In other news, I'm wrapping up the summer in the kitchen, and I'm glad to have a couple weeks to wind down and switch gears for school. Only 2 weeks until Tammy and Aaron's wedding, and then school starts! The next blog probably won't be until after the wedding, since there's just nothing interesting to write about until then!

Michelle