Candy Land Christmas Banquet

Just a few of the Plam beauties.

Lizzy, myself, and "J" are ready for the evening.

These girls...are so beautiful!

"J" and "E" are beautful on the outside and inside.

Just a few of the beautiful Palm girls before they left the dorm.

"A" is a huge supporter of the Sevilla Soccer team (it is a Spanish team) and she always wears their flag when they play. "L" is looking great as always.

Look at these beautiful girls, "K" and "H". Both were excited for their evening out with their dates.

Here Luke the Dorm Dad gives "J" some wise words before the banquet.

Here Stephanie (Dorm Mom), myself and CB are ready to enjoy a fun filled evening.

Here is "K" with her date "H" for the Chrismtas Banquet. The theme was candy land and you can see the candy on the talbes and in the goblets with candy.

Some of the Palm girls sang "When Christmas Comes to Town" which is on the Polar Express soundtrack.

My friend and myself enjoyed the even as we watched the students preform. This is CB, myself, Katie and Amanda.

2009 RA Thanksgiving

The RAs all decided that even though the dorms celebrated Thanksgiving on Nov. 19, we were going to celebrate it on the REAL Thanksgiving day! Here are Tommy, Timmy, and Candy enjoying our feast. This year we had the event at Palmgarten.

Here Erin, Anna, Amanda, and Julie are partaking in the wonderful yummy food.

Some of the RAs dressed up in festive clothes. Here is the crazy Native American Indian girl, Cara, with the prim and proper Pilgrim, Anna.

Those who dressed up pose for a pic. Cara a Native American, Chris a Native American, Tommy a Traditional German (who knows?), and Brandon as Abraham Lincoln since he is the one who declared Thanksgiving an American Holiday, and Anna a Pilgrim woman.

H1N1 & The Play

This year the high school play was during the time when BFA was hit with the H1N1 flu! Palm had 2 girls involved... Here is "R" being a Brooklyn diva in the play. She was awesome.


everyone in the audience had to wear these very stylish masks! It was slightly uncomfortable.

Lizzy and Brandon watch the play with their masks.

The play was on Friday and Saturday and then the next Monday and Tuesday school was canceled due to the H1N1 flu. Every dorm was quarantined. Lizzy, my fellow RA, and I were the only staff on that weekend. We did have some AMAZING dorm subs who helped us survive the long weekend. At one point there were 10 Palm girls sick and the one girl who was tested did have H1N1. It was an eventful week.

Adelboden: Palmgarten Retreat!

The dorm staff took our 19 Palm girls to Adelboden, Switzerland to have a little retreat. We packed for snow and yes I even brought my snow shoes...and as you can see...NO SNOW!! As you can see the hills are pretty steep here. Well to get to this quaint little town we had to drive in the night 2 hours and 15 minutes. My stick shift van was loaded down with 8 girls and most of the food. I was following Stephine in her van (she had the GPS) up this tiny little windy road and because the hills were so steep and I had to drive so slowly my van began to stall out. Then it wouldn't start going up hill and would only go downhill. At this point we were totally lost. So I put on the parking brake and ran to talk to Stephanie in her van. It was at this point that the van began to roll backward. Needless to say the girls began screaming in fear. WE all avoided death when I got back into the van. At this point, I was in a sticky situation...then with the parking break on and my foot on the brake we began to roll BACKWARDS! This is NOT good! We were rolling down the hill and yes, I did get a bit off the road and ran over a small road marker...but I was able to back up into a tiny driveway. God took care of us...but boy did that car smell of burnt rubber and I am pretty sure that I won't be the maintenance guys favorite person...but we LIVED!

When I woke up after that scary night I had this view out of my window.

The girls enjoying relaxing and making cards for each other.

Here "H", "J", and "E" enjoy a quiet breakfast with a view.

Later in the morning we set off for a little hike. Here are some fans of the Alps!

This is the Janz Chalet that we stayed at. It was the perfect place to relax at.

The girls admire the Alps before we set off to explore the village.

My hiking buddies: "S", "J", "E", "R", and "J". How cute are they!

Bonnie...the happy Swiss girl in the Swiss Alps.

Here "E" and "J" are actually standing on the road! What an incline!

What a view!

Walking down the road....can you imagine passing another car on this thing! Yikes!

Here is a typical Swiss house. If you look closely at the center of the house you will see that it was built in 1771! It is just a few years old!

The Alps in the morning...what a beautiful thing!

The peaks tower above the clouds.

Dorm Thanksgiving

You are correct if you are thinking..."But Thanksgiving has not happened yet." Since we live in an international community, we have Thanksgiving between the American and Canadian holidays. Here "A" and "E" check out the appetizer table. It was "E's" first Thanksgiving since she is Korean and grew up in Turkey. It was fun explaining all of the the new foods to her.

The appetisers are yummy. I and "K" and "E" are trying hard to to eat too much before the meal actually begins!

The Thanksgiving Fest is about to begin. What a beautiful table setting! Mrs. Shuman and Stephanie put these decorations together.

We also invited all of our dorm subs to partake in the feast. Here little Katie is trying to decide what she would like to eat! Her parents were a huge help during our swine flu quarentine time!

Here "J" and myself wait anxiously for the feast to begin!

The girls were so full after the HUGE meal that they had to roll around on the floor after they heard that it was a family tradition in "Dorm Dad's" family.

The whole Palmgarten dorm. What a cute bunch of girls...and Luke!

A Weekend in Geneva!

Stephanie, a fellow RA, and myself were excited to take a break from the dorm on the first week of November. One of the BFA student's in Stephanie's dorm lives in Fance, next to Geneva, Switzerland. Her parents were kind enough to invite Stephaine and I to stay with them for the weekend. We spent a day in Geneva and the rest of the time just chilling out! It was wonderful!
We did find a free museum. Check out these ancient pieces of armor. I could not imagine putting that on and then being expected to fight someone. I think I would topple over!

Geneva also boast the reformation wall. This is pretty impressive and important to Christian history. Here Stephanie, an Alma mater of Calvin College, poses in front of CALVIN. He is the guy in the middle. If you look closely he is also put just a bit in front of the other men.

I am enjoying the rain, the reformation wall and the really cool Swiss emblem.

Palmgarten & Maugenhard Open House

Palmgarten and Maugenhard dorms had a joint open house with the theme "Evolution of Music." Each floor was playing music from a different time. Palmgarten's first floor had classic music and the second floor had jazz. Maugenhard's first floor (the 3rd floor) had rock music and their top floor had techno music. We all dressed up in one of the styles of music. Sunny and Cher made an appearance at Palmgarten. Luke and Stephanie the Palm dorm parents are rockin out!

Lizzy (RA) and "S" and "K" are enjoying the jazzy style of flappers.

The classic music is elegantly worn by "J" and "S." What beauties who also can actually play classical music very well. "J" is amazing at the piano and "S" is the 1st cello!

Here "E" and "K", two of Palm's quieter girls, show us what they are made of as the "rock out!"

Volleyball Champions!

The BFA varsity volleyball team took the Championship. This is fairly impressive since all of the schools we play are US military schools. We had 2 Palmgarten girls in volleyball this year. Here "H" are strong and tough junior prepares to attack the ball. She was on the JV, but for the championship game the coaches saw fit to take her with them!

Here "K" our varsity volleyball girl spots me as I snap her picture.

The varsity team physics themselves up for the upcoming game!