Who Is Erika Anyway?

        My dad is the most incredible man I have ever met. I love that we have little traditions we do together, I love that we can have deep conversations or silly meaningless conversations. I love that he has always made being involved in my life important.  I love that he, like the rest of my family is incredibly supportive.         On a typical day my dad gets up, goes to work, works all day, then either goes and runs errands for the family or comes to a rehearsal or drives us to where we need to be or picks us up from practice. Basically both of my parents work together so no pieces get dropped in our life. If pieces do get dropped we wok together to pick them up or we realize that we can live without it.        Dad and I hung Christmas lights on our house on Saturday and it makes me happy. We have been doing that together for a couple years now and I love the time we spend together. We watch football games together...

     We are so blessed, I am so blessed. I have an amazing family  (as anyone who is a standard reader of this blog will hear me say quite often.) I am in good health and have a warm place to live. Not only do I have clothes on my back, but I have more clothes than I know what to do with.  I have the freedom to school at home and have amazing teachers who are patient and kind. I have sweet, crazy awesome friends who are always there for me and the town where I live is beautiful. These are just some of the basic blessings that come to my mind when asked what I am thankful for. Though the may be basic and mundane. However, these things must not get forgotten in our hearts of gratitude because many are not as fortunate as I am.    At our Thanksgiving Eve service at church last night we were challenged to come up with three things we were thankful for under the categories of Body, Soul, and Spirit. Me, always being shy in groups I was trying very hard not...

 In the season of thankfulness I am truly thankful for my relationship with my brother. Sure we argue and fight like siblings do. However, we are always there for each other too. This last year or maybe these last couple of years it has seemed like my brother has grown up a lot.   He has always been sweet, kind, extremely patient and funny. He is often the first to go out into the cold to retrieve a bag of pellets. Go to the kitchen to get us snacks when I am too lazy to leave the couch ( pitiful I know!!!) He will get that goofy grin on his face in the middle of a seemingly, world ending catastrophe. Because he remembered something funny from one of his TV shows.   I love watching him serve at church. Whether it is being an usher, running sound or taking time to talk to those who need a listening ear. Wednesday nights you can find him running around in the basement of our church leading games at Kid's Club.      At my 16th birthday party he danced with ...

    My mom is an amazing, beautiful, smart, and talented person. I am so lucky to have her as a mother. I also am the one who is often arguing, complaining and rolling my eyes at her. Though I may not always see the full picture clearly and get mad instead. She is still there calmly waiting until I am done freaking out.     My mom knew what she wanted to do in Elementary school. She wanted to become a music teacher and from that point on started studying her teachers to learn how they did things. I have even heard stories that she took notes while they were teaching. The point is she was dedicated. She worked incredibly hard at music and as a result is amazing at several instruments.     She spent hours upon hours practicing her music and taking lessons. She also took AP classes, worked a job and was in several performing groups. Which pretty much confirms the fact that I don't think she slept at all in high school.     Keeping on the topic of ...

    Student Representative? What's that? It is a great  role that one girl and one boy run for every year at my co-op. Last year two of my wonderful friends were elected. Rachel and Jakob did a fantastic job. They are part of the reason I decided to run for Student Rep this year.     To start this road of politics I had to write a speech. I spent some time trying to figure out what I wanted to say. I knew what I wanted to say, but I felt like I couldn't phrase it convincingly enough. In the end I decided to state a few ideas I had and not over promise. I went with the idea that we could worry about the election and then go from there with what we wanted to do as a group.     It was a fun election and in the end I was elected the girl student rep. Luke, the boy student rep won as well and he is such a great guy to work with. I have enjoyed getting to know him and sharing ideas back and forth. Luke is so funny, smart and has fantastic ideas about what ...