christmas break!

AHH! like in a week it will have been a whole month since i've blogged!!! that's insane!!! sos... i gots a tons of pictures to shows you!! :) lol. like my s's? here's what's been going down in the life of kara joy burkey....

MAKOM!!!

classes started tuesday here at lovely olivet and this past weekend was makom, which is kind of like a student led revival weekend. it was so incredibly awesome!! God really moved in my life. oh... and i got a job this weekend at barnes and noble. my first REAL day is tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. i'm super excited though! :) here's some shots of makom. sorry they're not the greatest, i need to work on my photography skillage levels! ;)

this is matt cook and his band. they were great.

this was our speaker... mike something or other, sorry i don't remember. he was awesome... and HILARIOUS!!!!!! :)

this is me and carolyn and amy before saturday night makom started!

the gospel choir got to sing saturday night, the last night. this night was so amazing. the first night mike spoke about surrender, second night intimacy, and this third night like, where do we go from there. and the whole theme was expecting greatly. this night was amazing because after the service they had this humungo cross and we were invited to nail our stuff to it on sticky notes (so not really nails, but you get the picture) and then for forty-five minutes or so, we sang our God is an awesome God acapella over and over again. it was so incredible. i am so awed by my Jesus right now! he is so amazing!! and AWESOME!!!

OHIO!!!

i got to hang out with nicole a lot... that was awesome! i miss her when i'm at school... i really miss not being a part of the lives of my friends in lima like nicole when i'm in illinois. it's so hard to come home and try to rush them all into a few days. it makes me stress out!! but i'm glad for the time i got to spend with nicole!

BASKETBALL....
jobo's on varsity so we went to his game one friday night, verses bluffton. it was sad, they lost but i had a whole lot of fun!

matt fuhrman, wes sprague, james hall, micah, matt, and ashley ray all showed up for the game. i love those boys!! then we all went to mcdonalds afterwards and played euchre for a while. good times, good times!

above is me and fuhrman, and below i am sandwiched between james hall dean junior and wesley logan sprague-oo0! :)


HOT PINK PHOTO SHOOT!!

so i got anna this really kewl frame for her birthday in november, and we had a special hot pink photo shoot with anna's friend alayna. it was a lot of fun. here's my favorite picture!!


VACATE, VACATE, VACATE!!!!!!!!!

over new years we went to pennsylvania for a couple days: dad, mom, me cabes and aj for nathan and ruth's wedding. (my cousin). it was a whole lot of fun. we hung out in gettysburg all day friday, went to the wedding saturday and then went outlet shopping and played scrabble backwards and partied for the new year long and hard, and then went to mom's cousin's church and then ate lunch with them. it was so much fun!! here's some pictures...

ON THE WAY

so um, on the way there... and the way back, our van died several times. it has issues. i think it's possessed. i was singing my death song tho, just in case we blew up... "i'll love thee in death, i will love thee in life. and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath. and say when the death dew lies cold on my brow... 'if ever i loved thee, my Jesus tis now!'" but we didn't blow up and caleb didn't really push the van anywhere although that is a great picture!

when we broke down one time like 10 miles from the next exit, we putted there and we all had to pee sooo bad and when we finally got to a gas station it was turkey hill which i thought was awesome cuz we're so the burkeys!! on turkey hill!! ha ha!!!

cabey had to go to the bathroom so bad he was dancing like a psycho person. and i stood in front of the door and wouldn't let him go and took his picture. it was funny. i'm such a mean sister!

GETTYSBURG

i toured gettysburg with uncle steve, aunt pat and annie while mom and dad and caleb and anna went with uncle jery and aunt joyce. i had a blast with annie and uncle steve absolutley cracks me up. aunt pat does too. like we're driving along and we're trying to get to robert e. lee and nobody has any idea where it is except that "it's that way, i know it!" so finally uncle steve tells aunt pat to look at the map and she's like "it won't do any good" and she opens it and says "oh, turn right here". i laughed SO hard!! it was awesome!!

this is in the graveyard where tons of civil war soldiers are buried and honored and this is the cemetary where Abraham Lincoln gave the famous gettysburg address "fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this great nation..." it was awesome!

here are annie and i getting ready to shoot you!

this guy could have been related to annie... that is until she realized that mcbride is not her mom's maiden name. ha ha. she's funny!

and this guy could be related to me if only nelson were the lastname and caldwell the middle. :)

doesn't annie look JUST like that monument? i think it's perfect!!

here we all are hanging out in the hotel playing scrabble backwards.

THE WEDDING!

nathan and ruth got married at a pretty chapel off in the country outside of gettysburg. she looked so pretty and nathan was like going psycho he was so excited it was hilarious!

we all laughed really hard... uncle john fell asleep... and the wedding hadn't even started yet!!

awe!! about to become mr. and mrs. nathan ehresman!

the reception was kewl. it was really different... it felt more like a family reunion! there were some breakfasty foods (the wedding was at 8:30 in the morning) and then we all hung out and three lucky couples played the newlywed game. mom and dad were in it and they were hilarious!!

here we are, beautiful cousins... annie and kara joy!

do you SEE how goofy nathan was this day!?! i love this picture though of him and jeremy and caleb. it's great!! :)

me and grandma nelson!

the whole ehresman family... aunt judi, ruth, nathan, uncle dick, and luke!

GOING HOME!!

we stopped at the rawley's... david, cindy and their son amos who's jonathan and annie's age, for lunch and church that morning. it was a lot of fun! they are awesome!

amos and cindy and david are above!

here's everyone... (uncle john and annie went home early and uncle jery and aunt joyce went to visit friends by d.c.) but here is... uncle steve, cindy, me, grandma, jeremy, david, anna, aunt nancy, aunt pat, dad, mom, and caleb.

we took aunt nancy with us and on the way home we stopped at cabella's and i got to see a real live, well, dead and stuffed moose... for the first time in my life!!! not so sure i wanna meet one anymore. they are HUGE!!! cabella's was awesome though!

this picture is for my lovely roommate amanda who is at oxford right now and i miss her so much. but she always calls me karibou and so this picture goes out in her honor!! :)

CHRISTMAS

i love our house at christmas!! it's like transformed and beautiful!!

penny came over for christmas and here she is with anna and jonathan and caleb being goofy on the couch!

our christmas tradition is that on christmas eve we all make yummies (fudge, toffee, peanut butter kiss cookies and chocolate covered pretzels) and then go caroling to the neighbors on our way to the christmas eve service. then afterwards, we have a chinese meal at home which is totally amazing and then sit around the christmas tree and give and read about Jesus. it's totally awesome! so here we all are at the table getting ready to sing and pray and eat!!! i love christmas eve!!! :)


other than all of that above, i worked a lot at lazeza, visited lots of friends and just had fun being home with the family for christmas. break rocked!! thanks for looking at my pictures! you are awesome!! :)