So this has been my past week...Berean...Berean...Berean...and more Berean. I have two weeks to finish 4 more books.Some of you look at that as impossible but last weekend I did 3 books and then a book on Tuesday.  Just goes to show you that Ginger will somehow become a pastor.  It always seems like things won't come together--but someone explain why they always do. It's awesome.  Can't really say all that I remember a whole lot of what I read in those book just trying to Get ' R' Done!!!

Wedding update...I am so excited!!! Only 147 DAYS TILL THE BIG DAY!We're getting married July 7, 2007-Hey hey 7-7-7! Perfect number for the perfect people right :) I got my dress and I love it :) We're getting married at Klehm Arboretum and the reception will be there too in a tent! I think we're going with the colors coral and some little pink, yellow. I found a beautiful bridesmaid dress too and beautiful calla lillies for the girls to carry! And Ben and I were blessed with a huge big screen TV! God is so good to us! I think tonight Ben and I are planning on going to go register-that should be fun picking out a bunch of stuff that you can't afford but hope that other people can-it's going to be awesome! Can't wait to see what Ben decides to scan--all toys and power tools!

Engagement pics :)

   Finally decided to post some pictures from when Ben proposed to me at Siesta Keys in Florida!!! Guess what...I'M GETTING MARRIED!!! I know...I know...I am just really excited! Soon I will be Mrs. Carter :)

here is us on the bus headed to Ohare at like 4:30 in the morning Thursday morning

here is us on the beach at Siesta Keys right before it happened--soooo cute

This is the spot where he proposed on the beach-look how beautiful it is

I love this picture!!!!!

this is us at Ybor later that night

showing the BLING!

us going to the beach the next day

Friday night hanging out downtown Tampa

here is the newly engaged couple!!!!!

the BLING!!!

So here is a little bit of what has been happening...

A couple of weeks ago I got the opportunity to go on Ben's retreat with his youth group 623 and it was awesome! Can I just say that he is so incredible and an anointed man of God! I never get to see him do what he does because we are at seperate youth groups but it was incredible! You can tell that God has him where he is supposed to be! I was in awe at the way he spoke, and the way he just loves on kids!!!  But like an hour before I was supposed to leave with them, I got pulled over on Perryville and got not just one ticket, BUT TWO! Ginger gets to appear in court on December 4th...yea.  I guess they were doing some random pull over thing, I don't know all I know is that I wasn't alone, there were like 100 other people that got pulled over together.

And I got to go on the C.C fall retreat last weekend and that was awesome too! I feel like retreat queen or something. It was great watching my old small group kids with their new ones and watching one of my old girls come down and rededicate her life! God moves in awesome ways.  My brother and I had a great time too! He is hilarious and I love him so much!But I think I am done with retreats for awhile.

I am so looking forward to next Thursday-TURKEY DAY!!! I can't wait to be with my family and eat and then eat some more! Also, 37 days till CHRISTMAS! I already started listening to Christmas music and baking cookies while being surrounded with Christmas decorations! It is great!

The retreat is over and can I just say that it was absolutely incredible!!! While I was on the retreat reminded me of the calling He has on my life and that is simply to love on junior highers.  The way they worshipped  with their whole hearts and pursued God as 11, 12, & 13 year olds made me cry.  But I would just have to say that it is all about Fireproof, Fireproof, Fire, Fire, Fireproof!!!

So now my life is semi back to normal again! It's been great being able to see my family and friends, and Ben now! Sorry guys!  The day after the retreat, the most incredible man took me to the apple orchard and we ate yummy donuts and ate yummy apples and then found the biggest pumpkin in the entire world so we can carve it.  For those of you who don't know already, Ben is a DIE HARD BEARS FAN--we carved a pumpkin together and guess what it is?  The Bears head!!! He cracks me up! It has also been great to eat dinner with my family again.  I honestly love it.  My mom and brother are so good to me. It's nice to finally eat real food again and actually spend time with the people that I live with.

One last thing....Wednesdays are usually pretty crazy days because we are always trying to get everything done for service that night and make sure it is all perfect and ready to go.  One of my jobs as an intern is running lights.  Most of you won't quite understand all of this-but let me try and tell you what last night was like. We have two sets of lights-ones that are called Source 4's and then these really cool moving lights that are called trackspots.  These all hang in the ceiling, one set in the back of the room to shine on the backside of the stage and then one set in the front to light up what is on the stage.  Well me being ambitious and wanting to spice it up decided-let's set up two more sets of lights on each side of the drums and put some Source 4's on it to make like crowd blinders!!! I was pumped!

All of my lighting controls sit up top with me at the tech booth.  So now I have one light board to control our normal Source 4's , then our trackspot controller, and now I have a 3rd board to control what I put by the drums.  Total of 3 boards-may I remind you I only have 2 hands.  Then I have a controller that sits up there to that controls the fog-cuz fog always makes the lights stand out!  Feeling a little overwhelmed but I could handle it.  Earlier this week we had a guy resoder our trackspot cord so that the cord wasn't loose anymore, and I guess while he fixed it something happened and we lost all the memory.  What this means is that most of our trackspots (the cool moving lights) can just move by a touch of a button beacuse it has already been programmed.  Well now I lost everything and it is 2:00 on a Wednesday afternoon.  I am trying to reprogram everything-but something went really wrong and it wouldn't let me.  It said that something was damaged.  I'm getting sick to my stomach cuz I am like we need these lights-this is why kids come to JV.  So I go into panic mode, I have two hours to finish this before our run through.  Trying to give myself a pep talk that it is going to be ok.  The controller is not letting me keep anything which means that I will have to manually throughout the service make the lights move.  May I remind you I already have 3 other boards that I have to use along with this one-BUT ONLY 2 HANDS.  Needless to say-I did it-don't know how.  After praise I was literally exhausted.  i think I was using my toes to help me control all the boards.jk. Anyways I survived and it was great-I'm talking about the service!!!!