My sister, My best friend

I have been LITERALLY absent from blogging, and to be honest, I don't think I will be doing much of it anymore. Life has been nonstop in the fast lane since I moved back to Bama. I went to Mexico in July, came home and my sister got sick.

The thing is, she was diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome when she was 2 years old around (2001-2002). She was treated with oral chemo, steroids, and other meds and eventually she went into remission.

 She stayed completely symptom free until this August. She woke up one Sunday morning with a swollen face and we knew her illness was back.

Before swollen face:

Swollen face:

Little did we know, this time it's back with a vengeance.
Her doctor in Birmingham started her back on her steroids to try and get it back under control. Her swelling would not come down.
She was admitted to the Children's Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, for 4 days and 3 nights to pull the extra fluid off of her body, and she lost 15 lbs in 4 days of nothing  but water weight! We went home thinking it was over for the time being.

We were released from the hospital on that Friday... she started her first day of Junior High (7th Grade) that Monday. Went to school Monday, Tuesday, checked in late Wednesday because she started swelling again, went all day on Thursday and stayed out Friday because she started throwing up. That Saturday, she was still throwing up, so we took her to the local ER. They gave her some meds and sent us home because all of her lab work and tests looked fine. On Sunday evening she was STILL throwing up, so we packed a suitcase(with anticipation of being admitted to the hospital again)and headed on down to Birmingham (an hour and a half away from my house.)

That is where we have been since August 26. 3 and a half weeks in the hospital. My sister is currently having to do dialysis 3 days a week because she is in kidney failure. At 12 years old. She is still throwing up every day, and because of this, she also has a feeding tube. The Doctors think her kidneys shut down as a result of dehydration from throwing up so much, but in all honesty, they can't say for sure what happened. They are positive her kidneys will "wake up" and being working on their own. That is what we are hoping for. We are giving them 2 more months to start working again before we begin to think of more permanent and long term treatment options such as a permanent cath for dialysis and transplant options. As of now, those things aren't even on the table as options. If and ONLY if we get to three months and she hasn't responded, will we even begin to discuss more permanent treatment options. We have NO idea how long we will be in the hospital. They say once we get the throwing up part under control a little better, we can go home and come back basically 6 days a week for labs/dialysis, plus continue with the feeding through the tube at home so, even after discharge we will have to stay local in order for her to receive the treatment she needs. We have a Facebook page called Prayers for Lexus Helton where my mother and I regularly update her progress or lack of several times a day or as much as we can. I would love for you all to go "like" her page to keep up to date on her condition and to see pictures and tidbits of information LIKE the first official fundraiser we are doing in her benefit! We are selling GREEN for Kidney Disease Awareness bracelets that look like this:

for $8.50 each! That price INCLUDES having the bracelet shipped right to your front doorstep! This is to help off-set the prices for the equipment she will need for at home care when we get discharged, because our insurance pays 0%! Anyways, if you would like to buy one, I have a Paypal account (breannarains@gmail.com) for easy payment by Debit card or you can get in touch with me via breannarains@gmail.com to work out another form of payment that is more convenient for you!
If you pay through PayPal, in the designated message place, please include your shipping address so I can mail yours to you when we receive them. We have to receive 25 orders before we can get them for that price and the DEADLINE is September 30! There is more info on the Facebook page!

I really hope, if nothing else, you will go "like" the Facebook page and if you pray, PLEASE pray for my little sister! Thank you so much!

Mexico on the brain.

The day I look forward to twice a year every year has finally come! 

The day we head to Mexico!

Tonight about 7 pm or so, I will be leaving my church parking lot with 50 other people (our biggest group yet!)  to head towards my favorite place on the planet... the canal in Reynosa, Mexico. I am so excited!!! So, not that I have been blogging very much lately anyways... but I will be away from the computer and therefore away from the blog until I get back. But, once I return, it will be blog central updating with tons of photos of my favorite niños! Not only do I look forward to seeing all of my "familia" down in Mexico, I also look forward to serving with the amazing group of people that goes down. We really become like family... and it's truly so much fun and such a blessing to our team just as much (or more) as it is to the people we go to serve. 

I absolutely can't wait to see these sweet little faces on Sunday morning! 

adios ♥

Old friends

I love the Fourth of July so much! It's always fun to be with family and friends,

but this year was particularly fun for me because one of my old friends, Jacob Stiefel, is a super cool Southern Rock star in Nashville now and he was playing in Fort Payne for their Fourth of July celebration! 
Back when I was about 15(or16)Jacob used to be in this local band called Dixie Road with some other people that me and my mom were close with. 

They used to play a lot locally and they would come shower or crash at our house afterwards and we would go to almost all of their shows and spend all day, even through sound check. It was a lot of fun and some of my best memories of high school. ANYways, I haven't heard Jacob play (or seen him) since I was 16 so it was so fun getting to see him again. And of course there were some other old friends there as well that I haven't seen since the band was together. 

Jacob lives in Nashville now and his band is called Jacob Stiefel and The Truth and they were so good!

He plays at all these cool places in Nashville and travels up North some to play, as well. He also has an album AND he's on iTunes. 


It was so funny... after the show, we went to his merchandise table to see him and he had a LINE of people waiting to get his autograph. It was strange haha because we look back and remember him so differently than people see him now. 

Sometime around 2008.

Now.

(as you can tell, he still likes to wear his shirt unbuttoned haha; some things never change!)

The good thing is, he is still the same Jacob he was when I met him... just a little more famous haha! Either way, it was such a fun time... and the fireworks afterwards were awesome! It was totally worth driving an hour to Fort Payne to hear him and the band... and now I have their album on iTunes so next time I go to a show(and I will go to another show) I will be able to sing along! :)

pinteresting... very pinteresting

So, I've been in a DIY mood lately and yesterday I found this really cool (and super easy) tutorial for making a baggy, old t-shirt into a cute workout tank! *It needs to be a baggy shirt because it will end up being too tight otherwise!* I just happen to have a few old baggy t-shirts laying around that I normally have put away in a drawer until I take them to wear in Mexico... so they get worn a whole 2 times a year. Anyways, I wanted to share the tutorial with you all!

Here is the one I used from the web:

source.

Here is the shirt I started out with:

and here is how it turned out:

FRONT.

BACK.

I'm sure my next one will be a bit more neatly done, but I love this one! I was extremely happy with the way it turned out (even though I modified my version ever so slightly) and I love the fact that it only took about 5 minutes to do! 

Tonight I am trying another Pinterest DIY project. If it turns out well, I will post about it tomorrow! If anyone tries this, please let me know how yours turns out! 

Viva NashVegas, etc.

Look out blogging world, I am blogging 2 days in a row now! Woah Woah!
So as I mentioned in my last blog... and as you can probably see if you have been reading my blog for a while, there have been a lot of big changes happening here since yesterday! I have a new blog name(header props to my awesomely tech-savy and blogging genius friend Kerrie), color scheme, and URL (www.breannarains.blogspot.com if you had it previously bookmarked.) I am super excited about the changes and new things happening in my life and I hope you are excited to be joining me on this journey! Please be patient with me as I get my blog stuff straightened out(hopefully I will be finished by my next blog post!)

Anyways, enough with formalities. As I mentioned in my last post, when I came back to the South, I flew into Nashville airport. My sister's dad was coming down from Kentucky(to Nashville) to pick her and her friend up the next day and starting on that Monday, my mom had a conference for work to attend, so we had a little mini vacation in Nashville before returning to Alabama that Wednesday. It was really a lot of fun.

On Sunday we were waiting for my sister's dad to come down to get them, so we decided to do a little exploring of downtown Nashville, which was really fun because I have been to Nashville many times before for cheer competitions and dropping my sister off other times, but we never had the chance to explore until this trip.
For lunch we went to Dick's Last Resort which was really good and a lot of fun. The wait staff is paid to be rude and sarcastic to the customers and it's quite funny. They did things like giving me sweet tea twice when I asked for unsweet, giving me 20 lemons in my tea when I asked for tea with lemon, tying y sister's friend's straw in a knot inside her cup, giving my sister a HUGE pitcher full of coke when she asked for a refill, and made us really tall and obnoxious looking hats with funny sayings on them to wear while we were eating. My sister's hat said, "I eat my boogers." Her friend's said, "I still wet the bed." My mom's said, "I tried to give them back to the doctor," and mine said, "I'm more annoying than a midget in a limbo contest." haha. Here are some pics from the restaurant:

They had this body shape taped onto the floor... of course we had to play dead inside of it.  

My hat, lemons, and Lexus's huge pitcher of coke.

After Dick's Last Resort we went walking around downtown and my sister and her friend decided it would be fun to get stared at by wearing their hats outside. Silly girls.

Eventually we stumbled into Wildhorse Saloon, which is world famous, or so I hear. Anyways, they had a lot of random horse statue things everywhere. 

The next day started my mom's work conference, so I was by myself all day for three days in the hotel and it was a lot of fun considering it was SO sunny and hot... and I have been in Oregon for the past 10 months where it has been far from 95 degrees! That being said, I totally underestimated the power of the Southern sun... I was burned so bad after laying by the pool for like 15 minutes! It was horrible. 

All in all, it was an awesome time hanging out in Nashville for a few days before returning to real life back in Bama considering it was probably the only vacation I will get all summer! 

ch ch ch changes

So I have been totally slacking here lately on the whole blogosphere, and I have a big excuse why: I have had a lot of big changes happening lately and have not had the chance (or desire, to be honest) to sit down and blog about everything. Have you ever gotten so far behind in something that just the thought of trying to catch up seems super overwhelming and intimidating? That's exactly  how I have been feeling.

So first off, let me tell you that I have officially moved back to Alabama from Oregon. The timing was right and a lot of things fell  into place at the right time for me to move on; so I did. I am so forever grateful for all the friends and experiences that I gained during that chapter of my life and I will never regret moving there, and so far I don't regret moving back. I officially moved June 2 to come home, but I've only been back in Bama since June 6 because we had a mini vacation in Nashville after I flew in on the 2nd. I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing family and friends again and I am looking forward to jumping head first into ministry at Lifepoint. Man, I have missed that place. I went back for the first time this past Sunday and it was like I never left. Like a breath of fresh air after feeling like I was sinking for so long.  With all of that being said, my blog will be going through some major changes in the next few days/weeks. For starters, I'm still technically considering myself a part of The Crash team, but I am not currently with them in Oregon. I hope to join back up with the officially again wherever they head to next. I am kind of tossing around the idea of a blog name change, and while I contemplate that decision, I will be making some layout changes and possibly making new buttons(if I end up changing my blog name, obviously.)

One thing I ask is that you all please just hang in there with me as I make this transition into a new beginning of a new chapter in my life.

What will I do now? Good question. I do know that I will be going to Mexico in July(thank You, Jesus! I sure do miss that place!) and then I plan on getting a job in my hometown for the summer, going back to school in the fall to finish my Religious Studies degree(only one more semester!), and going to India in December. After that, good question. One thing I do know, it's all in God's hands from here!

Creation Celebration

In my last post on April 22(forever ago, I know. I know... I am slacking) I mentioned at the bottom of the post that The Beautiful Mess was having the first official service project in the Whiteaker neighborhood that night. Well, since it was Earth Day, we kind of unofficially named the project "The Beautiful Mess Earth Day Creation Celebration."
These are the posters(designed by Mr. Zach(Herb)Gideon) that were posted throughout the neighborhood to get the community talking and wondering who The Beautiful Mess is and to let them know what we were planning;

We met at 5:00 at the Eugene First Evangelical Church on Monroe and 8th on Sunday evening and broke up into teams to go into the community and clean up garbage, debris from the recent snow storm we had, old furniture, or anything else anyone in the area needed and wanted us to do. We then went on to invite them to dinner with one of these:

This was given to people we helped or just random people we met on the streets. We went back to the church to eat tacos/taco salads provided to us by a community group from The Shift Church in Albany, Oregon. 

There were a lot of good conversations and fellowship and all in all we had about 60+ people sign in at the registration table to join a clean up team. 

It was pretty awesome to see a community come together to serve and show the love of Jesus. Here are a couple of pictures... some taken by me and some not... of the evening.

And here is the sign up table crew(some of them):

Woo hoo! These guys did an awesome job setting this whole event up, and we were truly blessed at how the whole evening went and we look forward to doing the next project soon!
This coming Sunday... and every first Sunday of the month from here on(assuming it does well) we will be hosting an open mic night/coffee shop type deal and we hope to draw in people from the community to perform things like poems, art work, singing, telling a story or testimony... just whatever happens. We will serve coffee and desserts and hopefully get to have some really great conversations with people. Can't wait to see where God takes this crazy, Beautiful Mess.

Oh what a night

Or should I say day/weekend?! My birthday was on Thursday and it was so much better than I thought it would be seeing as how this was my first birthday away from home. I plan to give a play-by-play of my day... so just bear with me!
First, I was greeted with a coffee from my favorite coffee place when Audrey got home from taking Deci to school. Journey came in and told me "happy birthday" lots of times... well, she tried to tell me "happy birthday" and it's the thought and effort that makes it special!
The mailman came and brought me lots of birthday cards and a package! I was so excited, because while I was expecting the package... I was definitely NOT expecting cards from anyone!
I received one from Nick and Brandi Longshore that included a Starbucks gift card, one from Nancy, Anna, and Allison Montgomery, one from Miranda and Erik Emanuel(and their sweet children), one from my sweet mother, and one inside the package from my favorite cousin ever, Ashley who lives in Georgia! (and has a blog here, in case you are wondering)
Inside the package was a super awesome journal/scrapbook thing that I am SO excited about using, I just have to think of the perfect thing to do with it first, an awesome 2-3 page letter and, like I mentioned earlier, a card!
I was literally in tears at the outpouring of love from my friends and family back home that I was totally not expecting to experience! Just when I thought my birthday couldn't get any better(seeing as how my friends in Oregon already threw me a surprise birthday party on Monday!), my friend Kylee showed up at the front door with a HUGE chocolate cupcake and beautiful flowers for me! It was so sweet of her to stop by on her way to work... go out of her way(because my house is DEFINITELY not on the way to her job) just to make me feel special!
I'm telling you all... I have the best friends/family in the entire world. You could try to argue that statement with me all day, but I would win! I never expected gifts or anything from anyone(except maybe my mom), but I was blown away at the things I received!
Here is a pic of all my gifts(including the ones already mentioned in my blog about my surprise birthday party.)

Later on in the day, I skyped with my mom, sis, and brother back in Alabama for a while and that was such a fun time! I love getting to skype with my family, but with the 2 hour time difference it is so hard to coordinate a time where we can all sit down with nothing to do for a few minutes. I'm so glad it worked out where I could see them on my birthday. It was definitely more special than just a phone call. 

After our family skype date, Holleigh, Maribel, Audrey and I went out to the Granary (an awesome pizza place in Eugene) to eat. It was so good! Our awesome server took our picture for us:

There is no group of girls I would have rather spent my birthday with! I would have added a couple of people to this picture if I could, though. Since my birthday was a weird day of the week, a lot of people had to work... sad day. But, we had an awesome time and yummy pizza!

After this we went to the rose garden where there is this super old tree that sits smack in the middle of the rose bushes and such. It just so happened to be blooming and it was so beautiful! 

We left the rose garden and took Holleigh back to her car because she had some things to do at home, and Audrey, Maribel, and I went to Yogurt Extreme for dessert! I love frozen yogurt so much... it was only fitting to eat there on my birthday! It was so yummy! 

After Yogurt Extreme, I went to Maribel and Thania's apartment for Bible study and to hang out with my working friends who had finally gotten off work! When I got there, there was another cake waiting on me! It was an orange jello cake and it was awesome! 

I thought my birthday was over(and technically it was) but the next day I received another birthday card and some drawings from 2 of my favorite little girls from back in Alabama, Emma and Ava Rhoden. Also, my mom bought me a NOOK tablet from Barnes&Noble that came in that day as well! I have been playing with it nonstop and already have like 4 books downloaded to it. I love it so much! It's the best birthday gift I think I have ever gotten(thanks mother!)

My birthday festivities continued yesterday(sort of) when Holleigh and I got the chance to go to a Ducks baseball game for free! I love baseball here lately for some reason, and it was like 75 degrees outside... perfect day for baseball! It was an awesome time, for sure! 

I am so thankful that the Lord placed me in a place like this with so many people who care so much about me! I don't know how my birthday would have been without all of these amazing people He has placed in my life. Thank you, Jesus! 

*Tonight is our first service project in the Whiteaker district with The Beautiful Mess! We will be cleaning  up the neighborhood and inviting people back for dinner in the basement afterwards. Please be in prayer for our team as this happens. We really hope the Lord blesses our efforts and plants seeds and fosters relationships tonight.

I'm 20!

Happy birthday to meeeeeeee, 

Happy birthday to meeeeeeee, 

Happy birthday dear self... 

Happy birthday to meeeeee!

Happy birthday(week)to me!

My birthday is tomorrow and I am so excited! Honestly, I'm not sure why I am so excited about it... other than the fact that I will be 20! No longer a "teen." I don't consider myself a child as it is since I don't live with my mom or even in the same state as my mom, and I am totally independent, but it will be nice to have an age to reflect my responsibilities, ya know?!
I was a little worried that my day/week would be sad because this is my first birthday I will have spent away from home EVER, but it has been surprisingly spectacular so far!
On Monday, I went with my friends Thania, Derrick, and Maribel to the movies to see "The Vow" for the second time, and then they made up this big lie to get me to go into McMenamins where so many of my friends were waiting on me for a surprise party! It was totally awesome! :) and I am so blessed to be here with all of these guys who care so much about me to make me feel so at home during a time I have felt the most homesick.

McMenamins is my favorite place to eat in Eugene, and their strawberry lemonade is my favorite thing there! Audrey had ordered me one and had it waiting on me when I arrived at the party!
It was so special. Sharee made me a cake that was the most delicious cake I have ever had, they sang happy birthday to me TWICE, I received some birthday gifts, some homemade and some not, ....and SHAWN MCDONALD came to my birthday party! Yes, you read that right! Here is proof:

It took me forever to get the courage to ask him for a picture haha! But, I am so glad I did! He is good friends with Ethan, who is good friends with The Crash team... and he was in town and in Portland recording so decided to join Ethan at my party! Totally awesome! Check out this creeper stalker video my friend Holleigh made at the party. She was supposed to be taking a pic, but ended up videoing by accident. Look to my left and you can see Mr. McDonald sitting and chatting away at MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Here is a picture that Ethan took of the group at the party... 

Is that enough proof for you?! 

He was there... legit. And I felt like a little school girl because I was so excited and shy haha! BUT, it was the best birthday celebration so far and I am so blessed to have such great friends/family here in Oregon!

Please listen to and enjoy this Shawn McDonald song, which happens to be my favorite one by him.

Wooh!

Finally!

Oh my gosh.... I can't believe it has been so long since I have posted a blog post. To my faithful readers: thanks so much for emailing and commenting and checking on me, but I am still alive and well! Life just gets so hectic and I am the worst time manager EVER! Not an excuse, I know. But, I have been busy with Bible studies and moving houses and starting work(and then getting fired from work), looking for new work, school, and The Beautiful Mess which is our missional outpost/eventual church in downtown Eugene has officially started up and it has been so AWESOME and uplifting and encouraging, and busy! I love it so much, though and I am so glad God gives me great opportunities to serve and that my life has been consumed by Him! Our first service project  is scheduled for April 22! We will be cleaning up the neighborhood and then inviting people back to have dinner with us! Check out the website here.

I hope you all had an amazing Easter! I got to spend mine serving homeless with some other churches/ministries. We had a worship service, short message and then served dinner afterwards to a crowd that I don't think any of us expected to show up. It was so awesome to be able to serve alongside my friends and be able to share the love of Jesus with a group desperate for some kind of love. Below is a video taken by one of our friends of the dinner.

If you look when it goes to the water coolers you can see me standing there! woop woop!

Here are some random pics that describe what has been happening in my life in the past month or so!

.I got a hair cut! Rocking the new bangs and hanging out at a park on a beautiful sunny day! Notice the capri pants, sandals, and sun glasses!

Brooke came to visit and we took her to the coast! It was far from warm and sunny, but it was a BLAST!

Maribel and I took Brooke up to Skinner's Butte one sunny day to enjoy the day and soak up the vitamin D that we are all lacking due to NO sunshine ever haha!

Went to a new restaurant called Off The Waffle and had this amazing waffle. It was the waffle on bottom, a fried egg, bacon, and maple syrup. It was called something like Prophecy or Prodigal something or another haha! Anyways, yummiest waffle EVER.

The very first Beautiful Mess meeting in the basement of Eugene Evangelical Church. This is also where Hosea Youth Services meets on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

We had a snow day! So pretty, but it stayed around for days and got really annoying after the first 24 hours haha! Apparently Eugene was on the news back in Alabama because it was a freak snow storm... totally abnormal for this time of year.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering: my birthday is in 9 days! And I will be 20! I definitely don't consider myself a child by any means... but I will officially be out of my teens. People keep telling me it is all downhill from here. We will see! I am excited and sad at the same time, because it will be my first birthday away from home EVER!

I PROMISE to try and keep this updated more... there was no excuse other than not wanting to take the time away from my day to blog, and then logging on to post something today totally overwhelmed me because of how long it had been. Ugh! Definitely a motivator to never go that long without posting again! Thanks for sticking around, loyal friends!