Tim Goeglein: The man in the middle. feat. Amanda Haas

Speak Night @ the Sacher House

                              Speaker: Tim Goeglein             Host:  Amanda Haas

"So tonight I was the host of Timothy Goeglein at our LI intern speaker night. Every other week we host a leader in the conservative movement here at the Sacher House for dinner. Mr. Goeglein is the VP of External Affairs for Focus on the Family, and he was one of the longest serving aids for President George W. Bush. He recently wrote a book about his time in the White House, which he titled "The Man in the Middle" as Karl Rove described his job position when it was originally offered to him. Almost all of us got a signed copy of his book. He spoke to us about conservatives are losing the political battle because they are not engaging in culture, in the sense that conservatives do not engage themselves enough in the things in life that shape the worldview of society. Hollywood and the entertainment world, philosophy, and the arts. Why do Christians and conservatives feel like that is not important to engage in? We've let the liberals claim that territory and it is the stick shift that directs which way the people will go.  He had a lot of great points - thoughts to chew on. *(much like the food.) He said our generation is a beam of hope because we actually understand the problems that conservatives are facing. I think he's right, and I think the first start in regaining strength in the cultural fight is restoring the culture of life. I hope and plan to do just that. The first step in moral change is to respect human life again in this country. To make the chance to live and experience life as we know it a basic human right. And we are the generation to do it."            - Amanda Haas

*added by Caleb Parke

Tim Goeglein is a courageous patriot. He encouraged and challenged me. His straight-talking honesty and courage inspired me, and I can't wait to finish his book, The Man in the Middle.  For the record, I am only one the second page, but it does have a catchy start.

He told me about Caleb from the Bible claimed a mountain. Read about it here.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win great triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." 

           - Theodore Roosevelt

"For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living...What shall I return to the Lord for all His goodness to me?" 

           - Psalm 116:8-9, 12 (NIV)

"Orthodoxy is my doxy - heterodoxy is another man's doxy." 

           - Bishop Williman Warburton

"It takes great struggles in life to make strength. It takes fight for principles to make fortitude. It takes crisis to give courage. And it takes singleness of purpose to reach an objective." 

          - Margaret Thatcher 

You will probably hear more about Amanda, or Mandy, or Shmanders (ok, that's not really a real nickname).  She is awesome. Here's a video to prove it:

Ok, but here is one that you probably haven't seen:

She's up to a lot of work in pro-life movement and I can't wait to see how God uses her. She truly is a woman after God's heart - basically a rockstar for prolifers. The next Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann...

Recap:

Be honest. Fight for what you believe is right. And do it with joy!

Red, White & Blue in D.C. Memorial Day Weekend.

"Without Memorial Day there wouldn't be any other holidays." carrytheload.org

National Memorial Day Concert at the Capitol

Spent a good portion of Memorial Day with the other interns watching Fox News.  Unfortunately, the Memorial Day Concert was ended because there was a severe thunderstorm. It was moving to hear the story of a gold star wife and how her husband paid the ultimate price for our country.

Memorial Day Outfit w/ Katie.

Blue v-neck: PacSun

Patriotic Plaid: H & M

Pin-striped shorts: PacSun

Calculator watch: Target

Shoes: American Eagle

(You know you want to look like me ;)

Arlington National Cemetery. Memorial Day 2012.

Walking around the Arlington National Cemetery today was humbling.  To see the expanse of tombs, and read individually a few tombstones is a sober reminder of what each soldier gave - the ultimate sacrifice. Each represents a soldier who was a son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father. When I put myself in their shoes, I am overwhelmed with how little I am. What am I living for? These people gave their lives for freedom, so that we can live peacefully in this country.  They are true heroes.  They truly inspire me. What am I doing to make sure that their sacrifice was not done in vain? I left the Cemetery feeling inspired and challenged, overwhelmingly blessed. God has blessed our beautiful country in so many ways, and the best I can do for my country is to put my life in His hands.  To serve my country, I must serve my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ with everything I have.

Harmony (a former intern and current Grassrootser at LI) visited us at the Sacher House.

May God bless our brave men and women in uniform.

The all-American girl, Carrie Underwood summed it up perfectly on twitter, "Today is one of 365 days to honor and remember them."

Now we're in the living room watching Military Reunions/Homecomings on the National Geographic Channel.

Sites, Strangers & Guac...It's Friday night!

Today for work, Eliza (our Fearless leader - she looks like T. Swift) sent us on a scavenger hunt to traverse D.C. with an all-day metro pass and no other means of transportation. We couldn't use our phones or the internet, but we could use strangers and the actual sites. There were four teams. (Mine was the best, because we were the only team with four, and not three). Our team name? Four Freedom!

First stop: the Kennedy Center. Then we split into 2 groups. Abbey and me. Danielle and Ryan. Lunch a.k.a. shovel food down with the other teams and pretend like you're not in a hurry. Then finish finding the other stuff in the hot sun until 4:30. My team won! $25 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory. Worth it? I think so.
The best might've been when Ryan and Danielle paid a homeless person 75 cents to find out where the Boy Scouts Memorial is located.  The other was watching Abbey talk to every person within a half-mile radius of us.  Abbey also managed to network with three interns in the process. Go Abbey!

Metro Ride with random vacationing family (they're cut off, but they have three beautiful kids).

From L-R: random dad, Abbey, Danielle, Me!, and Ryan (he's my roommate!), random mom

We came back to the house pretty much dead, but we proceeded to have a party in the kitchen, mostly because everyone was eating dinner at the same time.

Guacamole with Mandy, a week after we'd said we were going to make it.

And the girl in the middle is Pamela, haha, I forgot to add her to the description. My b.

I can now say I've made Guacamole without my sister. Impressed? I'm growing up sooooo fast.

Now, it's our first Friday night, and we are not sure what to do. I mean we are Conservatives and most of us are Christians, some of us are Catholic (that's a joke! I know they're pretty much the same thing ;)  But seriously, what should we do?!?!

Right now, we're watching hockey. I'm a new fan. Unfortunately my team, the Penguins, are out, so I'm a neutral viewer. My clothes are in the dryer waiting to be folded. 

Here's to Friday night! Any suggestions on what we should do? Even for future reference...

I'm related to George Washington's wife and...

Today was free slurpee day at Seven-Eleven, and we had our first Webinar with the one and only, Darin Miller (known more commonly at LI as Emily's husband or the one with voluptuous hair).  Darin and Patty Simpson had a live webcast from the LI Studios - and I snagged a photo with them:

Darin is awesome. He's the one that told me about Grove City College. I met him campaigning in Ohio, the summer of 2010 (you know, the midterm elections where Republicans had historic victories). We were roommates, and we campaigned like it was our job (it might've been...). 

But before the Webinar, I was about to leave the 5th floor to go to the Studios, when Chris, the head guy in Grassroots, stopped me to talk. He told that he wanted to lead the interns on a historical tour in Alexandria. That is if the interns are interested. And I'm pretty sure we're interested - Chris excels in the field of History. I've always known I was related to George Washington through marriage, (his wife).  And because of that, Christ let me know that I'm also related to General Robert E. Lee's wife. Life changed forever. Now I really want to tour the land where my ancestors walked and lived.

So, was today a good day? You bet it was!

Work hard, play hard.

I'm located on the 5th floor in the Leadership Institute. 

I get to work on the twitter site:

And the Facebook site:

And tonight, we're all going out for karaoke! That's my kind of work hard, play hard ;)

Here's a little bit of practice for me:

All in all, an awesome day! Tomorrow is picture day!
I'm ready to get my smile on :)

First Impressions...

Today was the first day of my internship at the Leadership Institute - Orientation. Typical rainy Monday morning, but that didn't stop 12 ambitious, positive interns.
I wore my token Grove City College "Grover" outfit - my Crimson shirt, tie and SGA pin. I truly repped Grove City. Breakfast and lunch were provided by LI (Leadership Institute :)

I'm so excited to intern with all these awesome people, and I have my very own desk!

And Christine Rousselle is teaching me how to juggle (not soccer) tennis balls. Christine is a boss. She's the one making the intense face in the picture near the lower right hand corner. She's an expert blogger and she got hundreds of thousands of views from this post. The Blaze called her the next Ann Coulter!

More to come on Ms. Rousselle and the other gifted interns!

Summer Internship: Leadership Institute

I'm very excited to say that this summer I will be interning at the Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C.

Here is my bio taken straight from their website:

I will definitely keep you updated on how my internship is going. The best part is that I've wanted to intern at the Leadership Institute since I was in high school. Praise God for this awesome opportunity. I will be visiting a lot of my friends in DC. Don't worry, I will also blog about that too!

Here's to things changing.

Come Back Down by Greg Laswell (feat. Sara Bareilles)

This song has a transitional tone to it, much like my life right now.

My Junior year ended (more to come about school), I'm at home (more to come on that), and I'm about to start an internship in Washington D.C. (more to come on that, too!)

I'm working on summer goals:

I definitely want to work on my pride, and I've been focusing on self-control lately.

I listened to a decent amount of Greg Laswell and I encourage you to as well.

Also, check out this song that my friend, Bekah, just posted on facebook.

My mom is Superwoman

I've heard it said, “A mother sets the tone for her entire family’s day in the first ten minutes she’s awake.”

- It's a stone in the shape of a heart.

My Mom is...

1. Beautiful

2. Selfless

3. Spirit-filled

4. Spontaneous

5. Full of life (also her favorite number)

6. Passionate

7. Positive

8. Talkative

9. Wise (<-- That's her maiden name ;)

10. Funny

11. Athletic

12. Loving

13. Joyful

14. God's child (my favorite number)

15. Fierce

16. Sensitive

17. Forgiving

18. a friend

19. a prayer warrior

20. my role model

21. Superwoman

One for each year I have been blessed to be with my mom, Cathryn Lynn (Wise) Parke.  She has taught me so much, and I love calling her on the phone while I'm at school to hear her lively, encouraging voice.  She has such a solid faith, rooted in Christ. She exemplifies Christ in so many ways.  She wakes up every morning and sends me a text message (a Bible verse), feeds the horses, sends my sister to school, works, takes care of my grandma who lives with us, takes care of the horses, keeps the house going and regularly attends church and women's Bible studies and prayer meetings. No, my mom is not perfect - she has been broken, but not conquered.  I can't wait to see how God continues to use my mom in mighty ways, and moms all over the world.  Happy Mother's Day! 

(This is for you Chloe ;) We love our Mom.  I see a lot of similarities between my mom and Sarah Palin. Both forces to be reckoned with.

Thankful Our Mom Chose Life =)

Bristol Bashing.

Bristol Palin, the daughter of former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, recently blogged about President Obama's sudden change on the issue of gay marriage.  And any time a Palin speaks, they do it at a price.  They are relentlessly attacked, yet they keep going.  Bristol keeps fighting for what is right.  Her blog post, Hail to the Chiefs - Malia and Sasha Obama, was highly cited and misquoted on several "lamestream" news sources.  I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that I stand with Bristol and millions of other Americans in my support for marriage between one man and one woman.  I, too, expect our President to give a better explanation for a supposed policy change. Obama came out of the closet in his support for marriage, and he cited none other than his daughters as a big reason for it.  Great, I hope they are doing well in school because our country can't afford any more of Harvard Law grad Barack's policies.
You can follow Bristol on Facebook and get her book on Amazon.
(I hope to someday get my copy of Not Afraid of Life signed by Bristol.)

Summer tease.

Summertime is full of sunshine and music, so I thought why not preview some band t's. Here you go:
My friend Kory has this shirt. It's sweet, trust me I've seen it in person:
(My favorite songs: Summer Tongues (it has summer in the title),

(For $16.00 you can have this, from Anchor & Braille)

I couldn't do this without a shirt from these classy guys:
(Music: Rhythm of Love

(For $20.00 you can have this, from the Plain White T's)

I've never heard of the band for this next shirt, but I really like it...Is that allowed?
(My choice: I Can't Wait (It's a good song)

(For $15 you can run around in this shirt, from Runner Runner)

All these bands, shirts and more can be accessed here.

We workout.

"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." - Vince Lombardi

Tonight my IM (that's Intramural, from the Latin words intra muros meaning "within walls")team played in the Championship game against AEX, the only team we tied during our undefeated season. IM Sports are kind of a big deal at Grove City College. For example:

You can visit GCC's Intramural Website here.

The Game: AEX scored within the first minute of the game. We're both pretty good teams. We had several close shots, and we had several of our friends cheering for us. (For me, that means a lot) My roommate, Jordan, the one with blood on his shirt in the picture above, scored a good 98% of our goals during the season. This was his last game because he's graduating (one of the coolest kids you will ever meet, I'm not even kidding - I'm gonna miss him so much).

Jordan is the RA of a freshman hall, we're known as 1MC, but our team is 1MU because we've combined 1MC and 1MJ the other hall in the L-shaped Memorial building. 1MU(united). At halftime it was 1-0. We started the 2nd half with, "Ronald Reagan on 3..." which made me ecstatic. The 2nd half was full of great opportunities and some good, quality soccer, but we ended the game with 0-1 loss to AEX. Then we ended our season with a prayer in the middle of the field. I love Grove City, almost as much as the guys on my team. I've learned so much from them, and it was awesome getting to know them better through soccer, my favorite sport and the only one I've played since I was 3 years old.
Alas,

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. - Vince Lombardi

Union Rags to riches.

The field for the 138th Kentucky Derby, the fastest two minutes in sports,is set to race after 6PM and is one of the strongest in years.

My bet: Union Rags
Odds: 9-2
Jockey: Julien Leparoux
Trainer: Michael Matz
Owner: Chadds Ford Stable (I love Fords)
Breeder: Phyllis Wyeth (Ky.)
Starts, record, earnings: 6: 4-1-1; $1,198,800

I'm hoping he wins right now!

We lost, I'll Have Another won. Make sure you clarify when you tell people that. They might think you are a raging alcoholic.  Someday I'm going to get it right.

Summer lovin' PREVIEW

I'm interning at the Leadership Institute this summer in D.C. I'm from the country and I have an older brother, so this whole shopping for clothes thing is new to me. My solution? Blog and get input on what I'm looking at. So here we go! I'm just trying to look good ;)

(via PacSun)
Monro V-Neck Tee
$19.50
PacSun Exclusive! This lightweight heather colored V-neck comes in a multiple colors. The tri-blend construction creates a stretchy shirt with contrasting stitching on the shoulder and a chest pocket with Hurley patch.
Solid color body.
Blank, unmarked back.
Regular fit tee (classic).
19.5" shoulder, 29" length.
Medium shown and measured.

(via PacSun)
Modern Amusement Cyrus Trinidad Shorts
$49.50
These striped shorts are shouting summer style. The Cyrus Trinidad Shorts are white with a cool blue dotted striping scheme. A soft cotton construction that is light and airy, but durable enough to withstand the summer squalor. Modern Amusement supplements the look with some sweet branded details.
Four pocket design.
Modern Amusement logo at waist.
21.5" length, 11.5" leg opening.
Size 32 measured and shown.
Machine washable. Imported. 100% cotton .

Cover. payphone.

I love the song "Payphone" by Maroon 5, especially the radio edit...My friend Whitney told me about this fly guy, Tyler Ward, and I love his cover of Payphone. Check it out & Support him!
It's perfect chill music - studying, sitting in the sun or going for a drive. enJoy.

Do you like any covers? Do you follow a rising star? Let me know!