Birthdays & Blowholes

     On Monday, July 8th, I turned 15. I didn't ask for very much, but the one thing I really wanted to do was go to Ensenada with my dad and visit La Bufadora. La Bufadora means "The Blowhole" in English. It's basically a cave, and when the ocean water gets pushed into it, it explodes through a hole in the top. The past three times I visited La Bufadora, we only watched it blow for a short while. Our group either wanted to get back or to go to the market to go shopping.

     My dad and I have a lot on common. Along with a shared love for God, loud hard music, technology, surfing, physics, and sleeping in, we are really the only ones who could enjoy just sitting there watching La Bufadora blow over and over again - all day long with no other agenda. So, a while ago I asked my dad if he would take me to Ensenada for my birthday so that we could just sit there and watch La Bufafora for as long as we wanted without being in a hurry to move on.

Enjoying the day at La Bufadora

     I packed a lunch for the two of us and we left our house early Tuesday morning for Ensenada. We sat for hours just watching La Bufadora blow. We timed it so that we would be there during high tide, and luckily for us there was a little bit of a south swell left over from a hurricane so it exploded pretty high. As we sat there and watched the Bufadora blow, we also did one of our other favorite things - people watch. Throughout the day several conversations were repeated by different sets of visitors. It was fun to just listen, make eye contact with my dad and smile, knowing he was thinking what I was thinking. Once we figured out the period time between sets, we left during the lull to buy some churros and potato chips, but hurried back to watch some more.

Driving around the EOC

     When we left the Bufadora we headed to the Ensenada Outreach Center (EOC) which was about 30 minutes from where we were. My dad fixed some computer problems, and then let me drive around the neighborhood for a little bit since all of the roads are dirt. After our short stop at the EOC, we started the 2 hour long drive home. It was a super fun day. On this birthday I am so thankful for God's awesome creations and a Dad who enjoys them like I do.

Freshman in High School - Check!

Yearbook Headshot

          Today I finished my freshman year of high school! If you didn’t know, I attend Calvary Chapel Online High School. My teacher is Mrs. Russell, and there are several others in my grade. When I look back on the whole year, I still can’t believe that I made it through. ​

Yearbook Hobby

          During the school year, I was the secretary of the Leadership Team. I guess you could say that the Leadership Team is kind of like Student Council. We had different committees such as teacher appreciation, welcoming committee, treasurers, and yearbook. The team started out great. We had people in all different committees, we had a president and vice president, a chaplain, and also a sergeant at arms. However, all of this only lasted until Christmas break. After break, there were only about 4 or 5 of us that came back. I was still the secretary, and we still had a president, but that was about it. Since there weren't very many of us, we had to drop all of the committees, and decide on one project to work on. 

Yearbook - My Classroom

          We decided to do the yearbook, since it would be a benefit to all of the students. I took the job of setting up an email account for students to send in their photos and organized them by category. Some of the categories we came up with were headshots, hobbies, classroom (a photo of students working at their computer), landmarks (since we have students all around the world, we though it would be cool to have pictures of where the students live), and leadership. I loved looking at everybody’s pictures and then being the one to organize them (I love organization). 

          The last couple weeks of school were kind of stressful, as we worked to put the book together. I had many ideas about how to organize our small group to work efficiently, such as assigning pages for people to work on, but our president had different ideas. Her ideas weren’t bad, they just took more time. Though it really bugged me to not have control, I learned many personal lessons through the process. 

        

Yearbook - Landmark (Mexico Sunset)

           In my experience with the leadership team, I learned to have patience when people weren’t doing things the way I wanted them to. I also learned to respect other people’s ideas and opinions, because sometimes they are better than my own. I learned self control when I closed my mouth and listened to others. I know that my experience wasn’t that big of a deal, but if I hadn’t gone through it, I wouldn’t have grown in respect, patience or self-control. These Fruits of the Spirit bring me closer to God. So if I hadn’t gone through it, I wouldn’t be as close to God as I am now. 

          Anyways, the yearbook was finished and it turned out great. I am so glad that we all stuck with it and finished it out. I do think I might run for president next year though;) 

          God has shown me so many different things over the school year. I am so glad that I had a Christian teacher and Christian classmates to talk to. Patience, respect, and self-control are only a few of the lessons I learned. Please pray for me as God shows me even more things over the next school year, and I will be praying for all of you as well. Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”