Here is very brief documentation of this year's Patty-Ellenwood-Hash vacation to Corsica and Germany! I don't have much time because we leave for JV Kids camp tomorrow morning, but I couldn't leave without leaving at least something for my faithful blog-watchers!

For now we'll leave it at just pictures, and you can make up your own stories to them! Eventually I'll tell you about them myself, with even more pictures! (We took about 1400 pictures on this vacation with our camera...I took about 90% of them, so there's lots to choose from!)

I also had a great time taking more artsy pics, so once I get back I'll hopefully post some of my favorites up. For now, enjoy!



























































































































































































































































Till next week! We're off to Croatia for camp!

Plus...a new banner up top next week too!

On July 20th 1990, I finally saw the light of this world! Seventeen years later, I'm still seeing lots of light, and feeling lots of heat! My birthday this year was very hot, just as it was last year, and very unlike the day of my birth, which was quite cold!

Anyway, this year, I really wanted to go see the new Harry Potter movie, in English, not in Czech. Mom found out that it was playing in English at a theater in Brno, so we decided to drive there! The theater ended up being right by the place where I got my guitar last year (on my birthday!) was! So that was cool. On the ride there I made everyone listen to Switchfoot...hehe =)

The movie (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) was really amazing. It's for sure one of my favorite movies now, and not just because it's Harry Potter. They did an amazing job making it still faithful to the books, but unlike the previous ones a well-flowing movie with a great message. If you haven't gotten a chance to see it yet I highly recommend it! We couldn't stop talking about how great it was on our drive back home!

For dinner we went to a mexican restaurant in Frydek-Mistek called La Bodega. After wonderful food, it was time for presents! Actually, only two presents were here at that time, the rest were still in the States! But I would have been very content even if those were my only gifts! So , thank you Caleb very much for the Lord of the Rings 50th Anniversary Edition books! Thank you mom, dad, grandma and bapa for my very awesome Toshiba laptop!!! It'll be a great help this next year in school, besides being useful for many other things! =)














And then some other thank-yous! Thank you Schroeders for the iTunes credit, I've already almost used it all up! =) Thank you Auntie Kristi and the rest of the Patty family for the cookies and the check! Thank you Grandpa and Nana for the check and wonderful card! Thank you Becca for the LOTR figure, the pencils and the awesome painting thingy! Thank you Claire for the Tolkien book and the two Spider-man comic books! =) Thank you dear mum for the paints and Lord of the Rings figures!!

It's been a great year being 16, and I'm really looking forward to all the adventures and troubles that come with being 17! Thanks to all my friends for being there for me when I needed you. I'm privileged to know you all. Thanks to my family for being such a great family! And thanks to God for always pulling me through the hard times and helping me learn from my mistakes.

Wednesday morning, Mark Krupa, Jacob Barr and I set off at 7 in the morning to Bratislava. Mark had to renew his visa there, and the embassy was only open from 9 to 11. We thought we'd get there no problem...we were wrong. We got stuck in a traffic jam before Bratislava and didn't get to the embassy until 11:40. Oh well! So we decided to continue the rest of our plan anyway, and come back the next morning and get the visa.

Jacob, being the funny person he is, decided to pretend he was chinese and ask for directions to the bus station in...you guessed it...chinese. Mark agreed to be his translator. So Jacob stopped this middle-aged woman, started quoting the chinese rap songs he knew, and Mark translated! I stood off to the side laughing my head off. I cannot keep a straight face when those two come up with something like that. =) Luckily she spoke great English and was headed to the bus station herself, so she took us there, asking Mark questions along the way. Eventually, she figured out that they were joking around with her, and thought it was quite amusing! She turned to Jacob and with a smile on her face said: "You're full of crap, you know that?" Jacob replied with a great big smile: "I'm so full of it my eyes are brown!" =) It was really funny.

So we got our bus tickets, walked around Bratislava a little bit, and then got on our bus to...yes, Vienna!!!

After an hour we arrived, and did many things that day. We went to Starbucks (YESSSSS), Burger King...you know, the important places in Vienna! =) We also went to the Hapsburg summer palace Schonbrunn, and walked in the AMAZING gardens all around there. It was the hottest day in Vienna in a hundred years according to some people, so Jacob and Mark decided to cool off in the river! I watched our belongings and listened to the audiobook of the Two Towers!

From 10 to 12 we hung out in Starbucks, and then decided to head back to the river. Wandering around a little bit, we found a pretty nice kid play area/water park, and decided to set up camp there! We weren't going to pay 15 Euro for 4 hours of sleep! Except, we didn't have anything with us, except for maybe an extra shirt! There was this mound in the center of the area with a windmill on the top, so i lied down while the other two went hedgehog hunting (not hunting, don't worry, just capturing!). And guess what?! The sprinklers turned on! So our stuff got soaked even though I got out of there with everything pretty quickly. We tried sleeping on benches, but the bugs were biting too much so we needed to find another temporary home. This was around 2:30 in the morning, and we had been walking all day, so we were pretty tired!

After about 30 minutes of walking, I noticed an interesting place...McDonald's! It was closed of course, but one thing wasn't....... The outside play area! =) So we took up residency and slept for about 4 blissful hours!!! It was one of my best ideas ever.

In the morning we missed our 6:30 bus so we had to wait for the next one at 8, got to Bratislava, got the visa, and drove back home! It was quite the experience!

well, the reason that i've taken so long to write about English Camp is...I'm lazy. Well, not entirely, it's also because it's so hard to write about such a surreal experience!! But i will attempt to capture as much of it as I can for your pleasure - or at least pull out the interesting parts!

I could write for hours and hours about what we did and how things went...but i won't, because who would want to do that??? Both write it and read it I mean. So. The basic outline of things was...

• Team from Illinois, first time doing English Camp. I was a little worried but for the first time they did great!
• Me, Caleb, Boza. Leading evening music. Much fun. Me - guitar, vocals, leading it all. Caleb - bass, looking hot. Boza - drums!!! He did awesome.
• English classes - different than other years, so it took a while to get used to, but fun. I led evening discussions in our group for the first time, that was an...interesting experience! =)

And now for some stories!!!














One thing we (team - CZ and USA) decided to do one day was a 24 hour continuous prayer time. To tell you the truth I was pretty skeptical about it...and I didn't want to sign up for an hour of prayer in the prayer room. It seemed like it would just drag on...that there's only so much you can pray about! But i felt that God really wanted me to join in on that...so i checked the sign-up sheet...and it was full. All the 24 hours of the day had been taken by someone. So, i glanced over the sheet...and Patrick's name caught my eye. Patrick, Patrick, Patrick... We've been going to school together for the past two years, and he's been a great friend to me especially lately. So I asked him if I could join him from 3-4 in the morning, and he said sure!

So we got up at about 2:30, made some coffee, and headed to the prayer room. And then it just started to roll! We took turns praying...and it's hard to explain but I knew that God was guiding our prayers and really keeping us focused on our task. I decided not to look at the time on my phone so I wouldn't be thinking: "Aaah...still a half hour to go...." or something of the sort. So I held out...but after quite a while I gave in, and glanced at my phone. I only looked at the minutes - 40. So 20 minutes to go. Before I knew it, someone came into the room to take her shift. So we packed it up, headed back to our rooms, and on the way looked closer at the time. It was already 5 in the morning! The person from 4-5 hadn't woken up, and we had prayed for 2 hours continuously. That was a shocker, but I really felt blessed by it; it was really strange, but great! I will for sure never forget that experience.


Our big hike day came, and we decided to hike (or walk) over to the dam called Sance. It took about 2 hours to get there, and it was great talking to people along the way. Once we had reached our destination we pulled out our food and talked some more. I could feel the wind starting to pick up, and so I took Lily (who had joined us at the request of Caleb) to a better place to hide her from the wind. Then the rain started to come...so our whole group went to wait until it subsided. It didn't.

I have never seen so much rain EVER here. Croatia two years ago rivals it, but it's definitely the winner here in my book. Maybe it just seemed like more since we were OUTSIDE and hiking back to the hotel. To make a long story short, I will skip a bit. We arrived at the hotel an hour and a half later soaked to the bone. If someone didn't see the rain, they would have thought we all jumped into the river together! It was really funny. =) But we got all dried up and ready for dinner and luckily no one drowned during our little adventure!

Overall it was an amazing camp. The Czech team did an awesome job leading the camp and creating relationships with the students. Evening program was great, Mark did a good job with the talks, and i learned a lot from leading music! Right now it looks like next year we'll be gone during English Camp in the States, which is kind of sad... But it'll just make me even more excited to serve in two years again!

Well, English Camp starts in two days! Everyone from our team and the American team are meeting at the place we're having it tomorrow in the afternoon to set up all the equipment, and for our teams to get to know each other! I'm looking forward to it...but it all seems so fast, i don't really feel ready for it all yet. Oh well! =)

As some of you may know, i've been taking an art class for the past few months. This last week was the big exhibition of everyone's creations from this past year, so of course i took my mom and Caleb and Claire (dad would have come too but he was gone) and we all went to check it out! Here are my favorite creations!




















This was one of my very first things i did in the class, and now looking back i have NO idea how i did it! =)















This one's of my dad and Mel Ellenwood on the Serbia-Macedonian border last summer with an unknown dog that just walked up and sat down! =) And here's the original picture!















One of many sketches!















This one is probably my favorite of them all...for those of you who are not well-learned in the lore of Tolkien, this is Gimli, a dwarf! =) I had a plaster board and first sketched it all, then slowly scraped everything out and this is what it turned out as! I really like it.

And i have some more exciting artsy news... This last week at school we re-painted our classroom, and I had the idea of doing a mural on the back wall. Our class was all for it and the principal said yes as well, so me and Patrick (and occasionally Patrick's sister, Lucy) have been painting!!! It's been lots of fun, and it looks good, but we've still got a ways to go! Here are some progress pictures. We did some more this morning but didn't have a camera so this will have to do for now! =)




























And some more information for ye "Tolkien-lorists" - it's Bag End, Bilbo's home, just in case you were wondering! We did quite a big more work today, so i hope i can get some more pictures up soon!

And now for some...possibly disturbing news... As you may have noticed in the previous picture...I HAVE CUT MY HAIR!!! Don't cry, take a deep breath...You'll get used to it! =) It feels a lot better now, and i needed it shorter for the summer, i would have died with it long. Caleb also cut his hair, take a look!














Aren't we so hot?! And of course Claire is pretty, which is normal! (also, on a side note...check out the height difference between me and Caleb...scary!)

That's all for now...next update will be after camp! Please pray that it would be a great week and that we would create lasting relationships with the kids that we would be able to use to share Christ with them! Thanks! I've got to go eat dinner now...And don't forget to comment if you know how! =)

I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books to get ready for the next and last one coming out July 20th - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I'm officially ready! I read the 5th and 6th one, then started over and read the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and just this last week i finished the 4th! So I feel good! =) I probably read 3000 pages during the re-reading, it was lots of fun! Now onto the next one!

Anyway, last weekend was a pretty special one - Caleb got baptized! The Hashes came for it and then spent dinner with us, and it was great. Let's see if I can get a few words out of Caleb about it...:

Yup. It was great! I was a little nervous at first because I had to give my testimony in Czech, but I was all good man. Ha-ha, and the water was freezing!! Our pastor said it was warm so I expected it to be, and then when I got in I was like WHOA!! But I was really glad the Hash’s got to be there. That meant a lot. ‘Cause the Ellenwood’s and Becca couldn’t make it, so it was awesome that Jacob, Dan and Laura were there. It was great though. And it meant a lot to me that Tyler and my mom did that song. It was just all good. =)

The song he mentioned is something me and mom decided to do about 5 minutes before the service...and as Caleb said it meant a lot to him. We played "You Alone" which is a song by David Crowder.














Last Saturday we also had some fun... So here's the story: For about two months, our family was planning to have the Pitcher family over for dinner to talk and just hang out. BUT what the Pitcher family did not know is that it was a secret "congrats for your ordination, Ken" party! Ken was just ordinated at instated as the official pastor of "CB Frydlant" two weeks ago, which is awesome! So the Pitchers didn't know anything about it, and everyone from church hid and our family went to greet them etc...and then when Ken came in he saw all the people screaming "Surprise!" It was great! We had lots of food and it was a great time being together as an official church! And also - The next day, on Sunday when Caleb (and another girl, Svatia) were baptized, it was Ken's first baptism as a pastor! So that's pretty cool too!














On Friday we had a Youth Group Team meeting and we were talking about what's up for this next school year. It was great being together and thinking up ideas and encouraging each other to be trying and doing new things. One thing that's up for me in September is that I'm going to start helping out at Tensing - the youth choir here in Frydlant. I'm going to be the leader of the Tensing band, and it's going to be lots of fun, but also lots of work. It's a big commitment, but I believe this is where God's wanting me to be, and I'm going for it! Two guys who trusted Christ through Exit 316 this last year (Honza and Robert) are going to form the band along with me and Caleb. Honza has been playing guitar for a couple of months and he has great promise, i'm really looking forward to teaching him more and playing with him! Robert (who i've mentioned before on my blog) is going to start taking drumming lessons and the music school, which is really cool. And Caleb is already great, and i'm okay =) so it's looking good! Here's a picture of Honza and one of Robert (from our trip to Slovakia)!





























Another thing that our youth group is going to have to be dealing with is the departure of our dear friend Mark Krupa for 10 months to get his masters in the States. This is going to be a big change for us, but luckily he'll be coming back, so we just have to survive those 10 months and then we can welcome him back to continue doing what he loves - working with youth!

And now some things that are coming up... This next week is our last week of school (thank goodness!) and then on the 4th is English Camp! I may have already said this, i'm not sure, but I'm going to be the music leader for camp, and Caleb and a guy that's coming from the States are going to play with me. I'm really excited about it, this is exactly the kind of thing I love to do. But still - it's a little scary. So if you could remember me in your prayers I would be very grateful!














And here's a picture that we took of our family last week...enjoy!

i've been meaning to get back to my wonderful blog for some time now (i have lots of things to write about!) but you know how it is... School is slowly coming to a close and studying and tests are a big time-taker. So. Now i'm back! Rejoice ye faithful readers!















Exactly two weeks ago on May 31st we set off on a 7 hour trip to Slovakia with our school. There were 25 of us altogether and it was a great time! We went to a place about an hour and a half north of Poprad on the Polish border. The scenery was amazing, unlike anything i'm used to - it felt like something from the Lord of the Rings!
















It rained a lot, but that didn't matter much. We stayed at a campground with cabins and spent lots of time in the restaurant playing card and board games. BANG! was the game of the week!

One day we went on a hike up to a place called "Tri Korony" or Three Crowns in English. I was listening to the Fellowship of the Ring audiobook on my iPod on the way up so that added to the coolness of the surroundings! Only half of us actually got all the way up to the top, the rest went down early and missed out on all the cool trees and rocks and random stuff like that!





























On the very last full day (Monday) we got into four rubber rafts and rafted down the river for about 15 km! It was lots of fun, and because I have some experience with rafts, I was named captain of ours, so i got to boss everyone around. It was great! =) I sat in the back of our six-person raft and steered most of the way, occasionally helping with catching up to everyone else. We reached this one spot which totally reminded me of the Fellowship's journey down the river Anduin - cliffs on both sides...it was really cool.















And then this Friday and Saturday something significant happened! Me and Caleb (but mostly me, Caleb abandoned me eventually) had our first real live performance! You see, every year, our youth group does a Streetball (basketball) tournament in town. This year we thought it would be fun to get a tent and make it into a little coffee-house, or "cajovna" in Czech. And of course they needed live music...who to call, who to call... Ah! Me!














So i prepared about 30 songs and with breaks in between and doing songs over again, played for about two hours on Friday. Caleb played for a while, and then his bass started acting up, so he left me to fend for myself, which i was fine about. Here's a picture of both of us when he was still loyal to me!














There weren't a whole lot of people who were in the tent, but on Saturday a LOT of people showed up for the Streetball tournament. So that was cool. I played on Saturday from about 6 to 9, and it really wore me out, but it was lots and lots of fun, i really enjoyed it!



























And so, we start to come to a close. Our grades are wrapped up next Wednesday, so after that, hardly any more classes and more freedom! Our English Camp starts July 4th, my Birthday is July 20th (for those of you who didn't know...hint hint!), then in the middle of August we're headed to the island of Corsica with our family and the Ellenwood and Hash family. JV Kids' camp starts on August 20th and before you know it...I'll be back in school! Aaah! It'll go by fast...Oh well, i guess i'll just have to enjoy the summer as much as I can while it lasts! Till next time!