Read Angie's Thoughts

Annual 100 list of things I'm thankful for this year....GO! 1) My Jesus...He loves me, forgives me, and died for me. 2) My dad 3) My brothers Bryan and Mark 4) My (soon to be) sister-in-law Kris 5) My niece Lilly 6) Ryan Joe McClelland...still has my heart at 4 years old 7) My job at Ashgrove 8) My kids at church 9) My Grandma Judy...blessed beyond words by her 10) Ella 11) Lola 12) Frankie 13) Bruce Jenner (the cat) 14) My Jeep Lucy 15) My Florida family - Nate, Cassey, Noah, and Sydni 16) My students at Ashgrove 17) Pumpkin spiced chai 18) Heat 19) My co-workers at Ashgrove 20) The first snow storm of the season 21) The last snow storm of the season 22) Turkey 23) Depot salsa 24) Naps 25) Cracking myself up 26) Life cereal 27) My church family 28) My friend Beckie...love her to pieces 29) Beckie's St. Bernard Blue 30) Flip-flops 31) Perrett's veggie sub 31) The fact that my dad loves musicals 32) My cell phone 33) Toilet paper 34) The B...

In Years Past This Summer I love camping. It's one of my favorite things to do each summer. My dad and I load up the truck and the dogs and head into the mountains to our spot - Dutch Oven Springs. It's the same place we've camped for as long as I can remember, at least the past 20 years. We camp right at the bottom of a small hill with the river directly on the other side, within a stones throw. I love falling asleep and waking up to the sound of the river. I always make sure to pack a good book (or two), some good snacks, and my fishing gear and I spend my days alternating between those three things. I could walk for hours looking for petrified wood that lies among the rocks surrounding the river and hunting for wild strawberries to munch on. I've seen bear tracks, a mama moose with her baby, and even a wolf up there and I love it. In years past, my dad and I would go camping every weekend but life has gotten so busy that I have to purposely schedule a we...

Exactly a year ago this weekend, I was down in Arizona visiting my brother and his family, celebrating my niece's 7th birthday. I had left Maggie with Ryan and his family while I was gone, knowing she was in good hands and very comfortable there. I called Kristen one evening to check in and she broke down sobbing as she told me Maggie had somehow gotten out of the yard while they were gone that afternoon and she was no where to be found. Even as she was telling me this, I had a peace in my heart that Maggie would be found and all would be well. Ryan's family lives out of town with houses spread out and there were tons of places Maggie could have wandered to. Eventually she was found at a house down the road, laying on their deck just waiting for someone to come rescue her. She got lots of lovin' from Ryan's family that evening and I imagine she had a story of her own to tell! I never imagined that as I sit here a year later, she has been gone from my life for a mo...

As the tears have fallen over the past several days, these few words are all I can manage when talking to God. I miss Maggie more than I ever thought possible. It's only been a week but it seems like an eternity since I last pet her, buried my face in the fur on her neck when we cuddled, or held open the door to the backseat of my Jeep so she could jump in and ride along wherever I was going. My house seems so quiet and still without her following my every move, either with just her eyes or by getting up to move wherever I was. The nights are the hardest as she used to sleep right beside me in bed and now there's just an empty space. Her food dish still sits on the floor as I don't have the heart to put away quite yet and the other end of the couch sits empty in the evening while I'm watching tv. Her absence has been deafening at times, and completely heartbreaking at others. Maggie had a few quirks that made me laugh but the biggest was her obsession with bur...

"This task before me may seem unclear...but it, my Master holds" ~ Bebo Norman Lately I've been feeling restless. I'm thinking it might be time to move on, to move onto something new and different. Something exciting. Something big. This is not where I expected my life to end up. Please don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE my job as a nanny watching Ryan and I LOVE my job with the kids at church. I truly believe God led me to these jobs as part of His will. However, there is a chance I could be out of a job in the coming weeks or months and along with other reasons, I'm wondering if God has something else in store for me. If you had asked me in college what I saw myself doing 15 years from then, I would have listed many possibilities - working with orphans in India...rocking thrown away babies with AIDS in Africa...speaking publically about God's work in me through the abuse in my past...ministering to women who had been rescued from sex trafficking...

This girl...THIS GIRL. Cassey and I are going on 13 years of friendship - 13!! We met when we were in our first years of college, free from responsibility and high on life and faith in Jesus. We were assigned as summer missionaries in Riverton, at different churches, with guy partners. We bonded that summer and became fast friends. Deep friends. Friends that laid on the living room floor late at night in the house where I was staying, telling each other things we had never told anyone before. Friends that hid under path bridge at camp during the Counselor Hunt laughing so hard, I'm pretty sure I peed my pants. Friends that promised to do mission work together the next summer and planned out where we would go and what we would do. Friends that bawled when the summer was over and we parted ways. Real friends. Then life happened, or got in the way, and we found ourselves walking down different paths. Angry and hurtful words caused months and years of not talk...