juners: a tribute

For those of you who do not know what the term "Juners" refers to, let me enlighten you! A few years ago, Scott Meier, Tino Herrera, and Bryan Waldenville were conversing in Mexico about creating some type of extended Mexico mission trip that would immerse youth fully in the Mexico culture. After talking with our wonderful friend, Jorge Chacon, Juners was created.

Jorge!!! (circa 2008)

The first year Juners existed (2007), a group of 6 people lived in Rio Bravo, Mexico, for the entire month of June (hence the name). I was a part of Juners 2008, which was a truly life-changing experience for myself and the 8 other people who became my second family that summer. Unfortunately, I was unable to be a Juner for the summer of 2009, but the summer of 2010, I was blessed enough to lead this wonderful group of high school and college students :)

Juners 2010! At the FIRST graduation for the school that McFarlin built.

l to r: Nicole Waddle, Trey Pirtle, Gracie Conway, Lydia Frost, Maggie Rahhal, Maddie Chilless, Garrett Sickles, Britney Schumacher, and Kalli Wolf

My little amigo just after he graduated from kindergarten! (Please note how tan I am. This is a RARE occurrence in the life of Lydia!!!)

Speaking of tan lines... :) I've never known a red head to get so tan!!!

Juners 2010 after completing the third chunk of cement at the school (each chunk of cement was 20'x10' and used about 20 bags of concrete per chunk. Each bag of concrete weighs 120 pounds. You do the math!)

Thank goodness we had a mixer (note the freshly painted walls behind Trey and Gracie!!). And yes, Gracie is actually INSIDE of the mixer.

Pre-cement making.

Post-cement making.

G-Con and myself after a hard day of making cement. I don't think I've ever been so dirty in my life.

That is the CEMENT LINE on my ankles...I rolled my socks down a bit so you could see what color my skin was supposed to be!!

Hipolito, Mexico (about 6 hours south of the border) is nestled in the mountains. It used to be a very large town because of all of the trains that came through. However, now it almost feels like a ghost town. It did have some WONDERFUL photo opportunities though with all of the old, abandoned cars and train tracks.

Britney and myself goofing off :)

l to r (front); Esteban, Karla, Ana Elena, Maggie, Maddie, Andrea

l to r (middle): Gracie, Lydia, Kalli, Britney, Garrett

l to r (back): Trey, Nicole, and Ivan

While in Saltillo, we worked with the Chacon family's good friends, the Martinez family. The father is the pastor of a church in Saltillo, and there were a few things that needed finishing at his church. His daughters and son all came and helped out, along with Jorge's niece, Mariel, and Jorge's oldest daughter, Ana Elena!

Side story: the first day in Saltillo, we were working to lay block and remove some boards on a roof. About 10 am, we heard a series of BLOOD-CURDLING screams. As it turns out, Maggie Rahhal had a large nail go through her pinky finger while she loosening a board on the roof. The nail literally went in one side and out the other of her finger. She was fine later that afternoon, but it definitely was a scary moment for all of the Juners! We were blessed that it went in as clean as it did, missing bones and nerves in her finger.

Maggie's finger after she put a nail through it :)

In one side and out the other!!!!!!!!!

Juners 2010 in Hipolito, Mexico. Pastor Alicia (far right) and her husband (far left) drive an hour to serve the town of Hipolito. We replaced window panes in their 100 year old sanctuary and painted some of the exterior of the building. While there, we got to know Mariel's youth group from Saltillo because they came and helped pitch in!

Mariel and I were on the same Mexico team this past year during spring break. She is a wonderful young woman with a big heart :) It was a huge blessing to have her come help out!

Juners girls up on the roof that McFarlin poured 2 years on a college mission trip. I still have a few faint scars to this day from getting cement poisoning on my arm!

Right before we headed south to Saltillo/Hipolito, the girls decided to get our hair cornrowed. This actually ended up being a great way to keep our hair out of faces as we worked...but it did create some awesome tan lines. This picture symbolizes our feelings right before we took out our cornrows.

l to r: Lydia, Gracie, Britney

This is right after Maddie, Maggie, and Kalli took their corn rows out. Hysterical!!!

Our last project that we worked on was at the church that Jorge and his family put a lot of time into. It has a metal roof that is literally like an OVEN...so Jorge created this "false ceiling" that traps hot air in between the styrofoam and the metal roof, and lets cool air get down to the congregation. It truly was a 10-20 degree difference when you stood under the new false ceiling!

~Hope you enjoyed this tribute to J4 (Juners 4!)~

a trip to New England...

For the past 11 days, I have been crashing at the casa of my brother, Jeremy, and his fiance, Tina. They were WONDERFUL hosts to both me and my friends. While there, we went out and took advantage of beautiful New England. They didn't have many recent pics of them, and I wanted some for the rehearsal and Tina wanted some for the wedding. So over Labor Day weekend, we headed out to two different lakes and the Robert Frost farm. A lot of pictures later...I present you with these gems :) Drumroll please...

Might have to do another post another day with more edited pics!! About to board my plane :) Goodbye New England, hello Oklahoma!!!

the one with all the football...

IT'S FOOTBALL TIME IN OKLAHOMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although I am not in Norman to hear those words today, I can live vicariously through all of the memories of OU football that I have endured over the past 9 years of living in Norman. I decided to save old school OU/SAXET pictures for a post solely devoted to that game.

Jillian and I :)

A few years ago....Mitchell. If my memory serves me correct, this was one of the hottest games in history.

My dad is in this picture! Taken with my wonderful camera that zoomed in approximately 200 feet? I'll give you a clue: he is wearing a boat hat. Another clue: he's the only person in LONG PANTS :) haha

Old roomies! Allison, Stephanie, and me!

I think this was our first game to go to as students who sat in the student section. We ended up playing a team whose main color was green. Needless to say, Jill never wore that shirt again :)

Christina, Allison, Stephanie, Lydia, Jill, Janay, Clint

No big deal. Just Jason White.

Freezing game!!!!!!! Jill and myself

Frost Family Photo Op. This game was also INCREDIBLY cold.

Rachie, Jilly, Lydie, Allie

Allison, Lydia, Jill, Bert

Lydia, Jerry, and Jill

OU vs. BYU. Opening game 2009.

Mr. Jason Marshall! Larger than life on the world's biggest screen at the OU vs. BYU game!

Jill Ranch

The one and only Casey PRATER!!!!

Collin, Casey, and me :)

Had to save the best for last. The man in the black has sat in front of my parents and I for the 9 years we've had our season tickets. He is the father in what we call "The Family." There could be an entire post devoted to them and all of the funny things that have occurred over the past 9 years, but I'll save that for another day. What I will point out is his midriff showing when it was probably 30 or 40 degrees outside. Regardless of how cold it is, his but ALWAYS hangs out and provides a great source of comic relief for the Frost Family.

And to satisfy your Friends craving for the day, please watch this :) it is a guaranteed laugh.

Boomer.Sooner.

P.S. I don't know why this started underlining everything in my post, but I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it! Hopefully will be able to figure it out by next post :)

a reader request...

Greetings from NEW ENGLAND!!

A request has been made for a post devoted to wall ideas, so folks, today is the day! I am actually killing two birds with one stone in this posting because a) Rosemary and Kristen (I believe it was y'all!) requested some ideas for walls and b) I am currently at my brother's house in New Hampshire where I am "playing" (as I like to call it, aka decorating) in their living room. We are currently in the process of ordering some wall shelves/ledges for the space, so without further ado...

I absolutely adore anything that is symmetrical as I've said before...so obviously I would love this picture. However, numerous things made me go bonkers:

1) the brick wall behind the pictures (adding a subtle texture)

2) the black and white pictures in the photographs

3) the simplicity of the vertical pictures rather than horizontal (I believe that most people have trouble finding vertical pictures to place in frames...is this true?)

This picture does the opposite of the one before: by taking horizontal images, it allows you to take up a lot of wall space but in a very clean-lined way.

I have seen this done before (there are tons of options for the large background image that is cut up into the smaller pieces for frames) and must say it is a cheap way to take up a LOT of space. You can go buy unpainted frames at Michaels or Hobby Lobby (these typically run around $5)...paint them whatever color you want (1 can of spray paint for $4)...and grab a poster, map, fabric, large print, etc. (a lot of times these items can be free! You just have to know where to shop around)...and VOILA! You have an incredibly strong piece of wall art that looks like it came from a designer store.

Chalkboard paint...inexpensive but makes a huge impact. And the most important part: it's fun! If you paint a layer of magnetic paint underneath the chalkboard paint, then you can also hang up pictures and notes to yourself, or let kids put up their artwork without making holes in the wall with thumbtacks.

Wallpaper behind shelves is a BEAUTIFUL touch. Even painting a different color behind the shelves makes a big impact for not a lot of money.

These last three pics are what we are gearing up to do at my brother's house (ignore the little girls room colors and look at the items on the shelves!). Since they will be getting married in November, we wanted to leave a space for some wedding pictures to go, without just placing a collage of pictures on the wall. We're still deciding about what picture ledges to order because they don't have 10' ceilings and there is a chair rail in the living room, which limits the available space above the chair rail for the shelves (which ideally I would love to see three of them!). I hope that these ideas help in some way, shape, or form for how you can fill up your walls! Please let me know other requests for blog topics if you have any!