Hi everybody!!
I started a new blog!!! There are only a few posts on it so far, but I wanted to be sure and let you know because my Greece missions trip series just started! There will be all sorts of information about why Greece, what happened while we were there, etc. Also, lots of pictures!!!!!
Hop on over and check it out! It's called Diving into Grace.
Much love to all of you! I have been trying to keep up with everyone as much as possible... looks like y'all are doing great, and the kiddos are growing up!! Sheesh!
Strengths Finder 2.0
Do you know what you do best, or how your brain functions? God created us with very unique gifts and talents. Gallup has tried to narrow down the different giftings to 36 strengths. It is incredible to find out why you do the things that you do, and why others don't do the things that you do. For instance, why does Andrew love having a to-do list? Sometimes when he comes home, he'll ask, "ok, what are we doing tonight?" I'll reply, "I don't know... you want to watch a movie?" "Nah, we did that the other day... let's do something else. How about knocking out some of the things on our to-do list?" To which my response is, "Nooo, I don't want to be productive."
Take me for example. My number one strength is Belief. I was so glad to find this out. It explained so much and brought so much freedom to know that I'm not a freak, I was created this way... :) Someone who has Belief as a strength is very passionate and has a strong sense of values and morals. Things are very black and white... not a whole lot of gray area. Now, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that are standard morals and values - especially as Christians. James 1:27 says this:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."In my case, my morals and values are something that I am so passionate about that I will live and die for them. Jesus died for me, and I'd be happy to die for Him. Women and children in sex slavery around the world, I would risk everything for them. Hmm, I wonder if missionaries as a collective group have Belief as a core strength.
I would suggest that everyone go out and get this book (you have to buy the book to get the code for the online quiz)! It could be a fun Christmas gift, you can find out so much about your relatives and friends. :) Even better, you'll find out how God made you.
My strengths are: Belief, Responsibility, Arranger, Connectedness, and Strategic. When I worked at Church Media, we had to take the test out of an older version of the book. Two of mine were swapped out; I had Developer and Maximizer instead of Arranger and Strategic.
What are your strenghts???
One Year Anniversary
We decided to take a trip to the beach for our first anniversary. Andrew is like a fish and just loves the ocean. Since we are currently "po" a.k.a. "poor" newlyweds, we decided to check out South Padre, Tx. The price was right, it wasn't during Spring Break, and the water is blue... perfect!
The drive down there was about 10 hours... which is definitely long, but we keep ourselves entertained with great music, taking goofy pictures and silly videos. Randomly three famous people died during our trip: Michael Jackson (We were in shock... I thought everyone on the radio was playing a terrible joke); later on that day we found out Farrah Fawcett died; and then Billy Mays (Oxyclean) died on the day we left to come back home. Weird.
Our trip was so much fun... I have some pictures to prove it. Some pictures will seem kind of strange because the worst thing ever to happen on a first anniversary trip happened to me. I severely burned. It was so bad that the more research I did on how to treat my skin, I found out that I actually got sun poisoning. Awful!!!! My skin was so red it was turning purple; everything from the neck down was 2nd degree burns. I now know how to treat the worst sunburn of all time... if any of you need any pointers in the future give me a call. My face was fine and didn't burn... the secret - Aveeno. On the rest of my body I used Banana Boat - never again!
All in all, it was an awesome trip. Andrew took care of me just as great maybe even better than my own mom would have. I just can't get over how awesome he is!
Ok so... enough talking.... here are the pictures!
One of the silly pictures
Our set up
The rivalry
Read my shirt...
Bored at the beach... trying to be artsy
Blowing up the raft
Covered from head to toe... literally. I got burned on the first day.
We stayed inside the second day, and this is what I looked like on the third (final) day. :(
Pitiful
Missing the cool water
Again with the artsy-ness
Going out to dinner on our anniversary!!
Drawing in the sand
Yea!!
Being silly
The drive down there was about 10 hours... which is definitely long, but we keep ourselves entertained with great music, taking goofy pictures and silly videos. Randomly three famous people died during our trip: Michael Jackson (We were in shock... I thought everyone on the radio was playing a terrible joke); later on that day we found out Farrah Fawcett died; and then Billy Mays (Oxyclean) died on the day we left to come back home. Weird.
Our trip was so much fun... I have some pictures to prove it. Some pictures will seem kind of strange because the worst thing ever to happen on a first anniversary trip happened to me. I severely burned. It was so bad that the more research I did on how to treat my skin, I found out that I actually got sun poisoning. Awful!!!! My skin was so red it was turning purple; everything from the neck down was 2nd degree burns. I now know how to treat the worst sunburn of all time... if any of you need any pointers in the future give me a call. My face was fine and didn't burn... the secret - Aveeno. On the rest of my body I used Banana Boat - never again!
All in all, it was an awesome trip. Andrew took care of me just as great maybe even better than my own mom would have. I just can't get over how awesome he is!
Ok so... enough talking.... here are the pictures!
One of the silly pictures
Our set up
The rivalry
Read my shirt...
Bored at the beach... trying to be artsy
Blowing up the raft
Catching some waves... he later got a boogie board
because the tube kept deflating... haha
because the tube kept deflating... haha
Covered from head to toe... literally. I got burned on the first day. We stayed inside the second day, and this is what I looked like on the third (final) day. :(
Pitiful
Missing the cool water
Again with the artsy-ness
Going out to dinner on our anniversary!!
Drawing in the sand
Yea!!
Being silly
Sneaking a bite of the cake... it tasted just as good as our wedding day... no lie!
We saw this on our way home... it's our date (6.28.08)!!
We saw this on our way home... it's our date (6.28.08)!!
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaack!
Hey everyone!! I have been a terrible terrible blogger the past three months - so sorry about that. This summer has been crazy/awesome, and I can't wait to update you on what we've been up to! It's a goal of mine to post once a week (I hope I can keep up with that). Everyone looks like they are doing great! Y'all's blogs are so much fun to read!
Here are a few highlights of this summer: our first anniversary, guitar lessons, sun poisoning, three weddings in June, a true understanding of Grace, some incredible answers to prayer, Laugh! with my Shaw girls, a lot of volunteering, a marriage conference, beach trip with the Baileys, a live recording of Life Today, revolutionizing volunteerism within our department at church, learning patience and humility, new job, Hillsong United worship with Samantha.... wash, rinse, and repeat. :) All of these awesome stories (and pictures) to come over the next few weeks!
We finally put pictures in our frames... oh about a month ago. :)
Here are a few highlights of this summer: our first anniversary, guitar lessons, sun poisoning, three weddings in June, a true understanding of Grace, some incredible answers to prayer, Laugh! with my Shaw girls, a lot of volunteering, a marriage conference, beach trip with the Baileys, a live recording of Life Today, revolutionizing volunteerism within our department at church, learning patience and humility, new job, Hillsong United worship with Samantha.... wash, rinse, and repeat. :) All of these awesome stories (and pictures) to come over the next few weeks!
We finally put pictures in our frames... oh about a month ago. :)
This is one of our favorites!
Love you guys!!!! Talk to you next week!
Love you guys!!!! Talk to you next week!
What a Change!
Wow, so much has happened in the last week! We are excited to announce that we have a new apartment!!! Our complex is called Cross Creek at Grapevine Ranch ::: Click Here ::: Check out the pictures on the website - it's awesome! It is in Grapevine, Texas - hip hip hooray! Grapevine is such an awesome town. It's right in the middle of the metroplex, but it's hidden by a bunch of trees. They have the coolest downtown area. It feels like you have stepped back in time onto an old movie set. They have festivals and all sorts of family-friendly events all of the time!
Now for the big news.... drum roll please...............................................
We are no longer a Cares Team! We are very excited about this and have so much peace. It's really been a long time coming, honestly. We are definitely not the typical 'poster children' for Apartment Life. Some how we have managed to slip through the cracks with the organization, and God has given us the freedom to release ourselves from our commitment. We realized after a while that we were doing it for the wrong reasons (free apartment and bonus at the end). The residents deserve better than that. It hasn't been an easy season and we are looking forward to married life without the extra 70 hour/month commitment.
Both Andrew and I have a heart and calling for ministry, but that just wasn't it. We are excited that we now have the opportunity to get involved in different ministries at church and take classes so that we can grow in our relationships with God and be more effective in ministry and life in general!
Pictures of the new place to come !!
Love you all!
Now for the big news.... drum roll please...............................................
We are no longer a Cares Team! We are very excited about this and have so much peace. It's really been a long time coming, honestly. We are definitely not the typical 'poster children' for Apartment Life. Some how we have managed to slip through the cracks with the organization, and God has given us the freedom to release ourselves from our commitment. We realized after a while that we were doing it for the wrong reasons (free apartment and bonus at the end). The residents deserve better than that. It hasn't been an easy season and we are looking forward to married life without the extra 70 hour/month commitment.
Both Andrew and I have a heart and calling for ministry, but that just wasn't it. We are excited that we now have the opportunity to get involved in different ministries at church and take classes so that we can grow in our relationships with God and be more effective in ministry and life in general!
Pictures of the new place to come !!
Love you all!
Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock
Just a little bit of an update:
We are still waiting on the 'okay' to move into our new place. It's taking quite some time which gets old, but as I was brushing my teeth this morning, God reminded me that I hadn't been talking to Him about it. It was a 'duh! moment' for sure. Why is my first reaction to complain instead of just talk to Him and ask that He provide and take care of us? I know that He will, but sometimes I think He likes us to come to that conclusion first and simply ask.
"Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." - Psalm 55:22
"And yet the reason you don't have is that you don't ask God for it." - James 4:2
Thanks for all of the prayers and comments! We love you all!!!
We are still waiting on the 'okay' to move into our new place. It's taking quite some time which gets old, but as I was brushing my teeth this morning, God reminded me that I hadn't been talking to Him about it. It was a 'duh! moment' for sure. Why is my first reaction to complain instead of just talk to Him and ask that He provide and take care of us? I know that He will, but sometimes I think He likes us to come to that conclusion first and simply ask.
"Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." - Psalm 55:22
"And yet the reason you don't have is that you don't ask God for it." - James 4:2
Thanks for all of the prayers and comments! We love you all!!!
