Snow Day!

My mom has worked at Black Diamond Elementary School since I was in first grade. Apart from never having to worry about forgetting your lunch money and getting to see inside the world of the top-secret teacher's lounge, the best benefit to her job was that we were always among the first to know when school was closed for snow. Long before it showed up on the local news, my mom would get the call from the school employee's phone tree. I remember how the snow transformed our yard. My parents have 5 acres of property-- an eternity of playspace to a kid in the snow. My brother and I would sled down the driveway, build snow forts, have snowball fights and build snowmen until we were frozen. Then, we'd come in and sit by the fire, drink some cocoa, and we'd be back at it again as soon as we were thawed out. Snow days were my favorite.

On Tuesday this week, I had my first grown-up snow day (note: just then, when I tried to type "snow," it came out "snot." "snot day." Gross.) and it was amazing! It was just like being a kid again. It had been so cold here that when the snow fell, it was falling on top of ice. We here in the greater Seattle area are not used to getting much of this kind of weather, so the whole area just basically shut down. Eric and I watched the news until about 6:30 with our brekfast in bed. Then we walked to the store to buy hot chocolate, batteries for the camera, and a few other snow day essentials. We spent a few hours on work that we had brought home with us in preparation for the storm. Then we headed up to the local golf course to go sledding with my sister's famiy and my parents. I almost hit my head on a tree. Seriously. I was *this*close. We put up Christmas lights on our cute little house and finished decorating the inside. Then it was off to my sister's house for chili dogs and "White Christmas." What a great day! It was different from, but every bit as enjoyable as my childhood snow days. Hooray for God for being so creative and for making something as fun and beautiful as snow, and for an unexpected day to hang out with my hubby!

Here are some pictures of our house and car in the snow, us in the snow, our neighborhood in the snow, random palm trees growing in Enumclaw (serious) covered in snow, and a bonus picture of our Christmas tree. Thanks to our awesome friend Jeanne for helping us pick it out and set it up when she was here over the weekend. Love you, pally!

I'm Alive, I Promise!

Hi, friends! Guess what the hubby and I are doing this weekend? Moving into our new house! We are homeowners! Hooray!!! I am really excited to get moved in and settled. This will be my 7th move in 5 years, so it will be nice to be able to stay in one place for awhile. I bet you want to see some pictures of our house, don't you? OK, you can:

Here is a picture of the outside of our house:


And here is another one:


Isn't it just about the cutest little house you ever saw?

Here is a picture of the washer and dryer that the sellers took with them which they were NOT supposed to take. They didn't do it on purpose, and our most awesome real estate agent in the whole world bought us a set to replace the ones they took.


Here is a picture of my kitchen. This is the room I am most excited about in the whole house. I know it just looks like a normal kitchen, but let me take just a moment to explain to you the kind of kitchen I have had for the last year. The fridge is old and has no working light inside. I have a grand total of 2 cabinets in the entire kitchen, one of which is under the sink and clearly must house the trash can. My counter space is equal to approximately 2 square inches. The stove is one of those tiny apartment stoves that you can't even cook a pizza in without it touching the sides and getting all burnt. And the dishwasher? Non-existent. And let me tell ya, 2 people make a lot more dirty dishes than one people. A lot! Anyway, I LOVE my new kitchen! I was unpacking things the other night and trying to decide which of my many, many cabinets to put things in. It was awesome!


Hooray for God for our new home! And guess what else? Hooray for God for our first anniversary! It was this past Sunday, and we celebrated by spending Saturday night at the Mayflower Park Hotel in downtown Seattle. We went to the market, had lunch at Lowell's, ordered a movie in our room, slept in and had room service for breakfast... it was awesome! Well, except for the bus ride there and back, but that is another story for another day. I'm off to do some more packing!

Tagged

Jeanne tagged me with the book list, and I have a feeling if I don't post it pretty soon, I'm going to get in trouble. So, here we go:

A book that changed my life: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis- it was the right book at the right time. I was struggling with feeling like what I believed didn't make any sense. Even though I know that God is too big to be understood, the logic of this book was just what I needed at the time to keep me on the right path.

A book I've read more than once: The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, The Harry Potter series, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

A book that made me laugh: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

A book I would take with me if stuck on a desert Island: Hmmmm... no idea. Other than the obvious survival guide or something like that

A book I wish had been written: Um... The next Harry Potter book would be nice... I always hate it when I finish one and have to wait for the next one!

A book I wish had never been written: The Shipping News. I had to read it in high school and I HATED it! I was so mad when it was recently made into a movie... I refuse to watch it!

A book I've been meaning to read: (this answer used to be blue like jazz, but I've started reading it since I started working on this post a couple of weeks ago, so now I don't know...)

I'm currently reading: Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller
The Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum... there are 14 Wizard of Oz books. Did you know that? They are really fun. My hubby loves them and has them all.

Real Friends

I know it's been awhile since my last post. Things have been very busy around the Pritchard household lately. Mostly, we've been working on planning a big, fat, fabulous 30th birthday party for our dear friend Rebecca. The party was on Friday night, and it was wonderful. Everything went just the way we wanted it to. We spent about 4 months planning and preparing for this party, and part of me is kind of sad that it's over! But it really was a perfect evening- good weather, good food, good friends, and I think our friend Rebecca felt really loved and special, which was the entire goal of the party, so that was awesome. I could go into lots of detail about the party, but what I really want to say about it is this: Planning a party of this scale is a lot of work. I won't lie. It's lots of hard work. But I can not tell you what an absolute joy and pleasure it was for us to be able to do this for Rebecca. And I'm not just saying that to try to sound nice. I really mean it. When you have someone in your life that you care about as much as we care about her, it really is a joy to be able to do something fabulous to bless them. Rebecca's friendship has been such a blessing to me over the past 10 years that I can't even begin to show her how much I care about her-- a big party is just the tip of the iceberg! Everyone should have a friend as great as Rebecca. That would be awesome! Thanks, Jeanne, for being such a fabulous, lifetime friend! I love you! Hooray for God for picking us to be friends!

I'll try to post pictures from the party soon... but I'll have to get some from Jason first, because I was so busy, I forgot to take any!

Also, in case you are curious, all is well with our house-buying process. It appraised for $7,000 more than we're paying for it, and we close on September 15th. Thank you for your prayers!

Home Owners?

I love the Northwest. I love how we have 4 distinct seasons, and it never gets super duper hot or cold. I love the trees and the mountains, the lakes and the rivers, the plants and the flowers. I love Seattle and Portland. This is a great, great place to live! But we pay for it, don't we? I am overwhelmed by how expensive everything is. Since I got married, I've really been feeling like we will just be stuck renting forever (think squints from The Sandlot- FOR-EV-VER). Home ownership just seemed like such an unattainable goal. I didn't know what to do to even begin to reach it. However, my best friend from forever happens to do home loans for a living. So, we set up a meeting with her this past Saturday to discuss what we could qualify for, how we could make it work, etc. To be honest, I thought we would be at least a year out from even being able to seriously think about buying a house. But she is really good at her job and encouraged us and helped us figure out a way to get into a house. So, we thought we'd start looking around. We drove around town looking at what was for sale. And then we found it. The one and only house in our price range happened to be a well-kept, super-cute 1926 craftsman. Tiny, but that's all we need right now. So we put in an offer. CRAZY! Our real estate agent (whose kids I baby-sat for 8 years before college) said we're not going to see anything else like this come around for awhile, if ever. So we went for it. They accepted our offer! Our inspection is on Sunday afternoon, so hopefully that will go perfectly and as of September 15th we will be homeowners! Any prayers you could offer up on our behalf would be very much appreciated. Here is a picture of what will hopefully be our first home:



Hooray for God for answering our prayers and helping us get out of the rent cycle and for providing all of our needs and a lot of our wants!

*** Update *** We had our inspection yesterday. The current owners are going to do a couple of small things for us like getting the chimney cleaned, but other than that, we're set. Now we just have to wait for the appraisal from our lender, and then we will be done and we should close on September 15th. Hooray!

2 presents and 2 big ol' kids

This is the story of 2 presents and a couple of big ol' kids.

When Eric and I were dating/engaged, we didn't get to see each other much. He was living in Seattle and working noon-10PM and I was living in Enumclaw (an hour away) and working 9-4:30. It was not an easy time for us. A couple of months before were married, Eric's cousin Pamela came back from a mission trip to Mexico. She brought us 2 finger puppets as a gift- a boy and a girl. Since we didn't get to see each other very much, she named the boy Eric and gave it to me and named the girl Paula and gave it to Eric. That way, we could carry each other with us at all times. I kept Eric in my purse in a special zippered pocket. This was present #1.

Present #2: Julianne and Zeke gave us a digital camera as a wedding present. They made sure to give it to us before the wedding so that we could take pictures on our honeymoon. We didn't have a camera, so it was the perfect gift.
Big ol' kids: My husband and I refuse to be boring grown-ups. Sometimes that causes us to do things that some might think are stupid or weird. We don't care. Hence, our honeymoon pictures. Most people would take pictures of scenery, have someone take pictures of the happy couple, etc. Not us. We took pictures of Eric all around Victoria. That's him above by a fountain outside some government building.


Here he is listening to a piper when we first got into town.


Here he is holding a Canadian flag outside of one of our favorite pubs in Victoria- Irish Times

We had so much fun taking pictures of Eric in Victoria that we continued the tradition once we got home.


Here he is watching the sunset with Paula from the lifeguard chair at Pritchard beach.



And here is the happy couple and their pet giraffe, Perry, nestled in amongst our nativity set at Christmas time.

Hooray for God for being able to have fun in life, and for a husband who doesn't stifle my child-like spirit!

Crazy Times and a God who Provides

What a crazy couple of weeks this has been! We went to Portland for the big Cascade reunion. They did a really great job putting that event together. If anyone missed it, next time, don't! Seriously-- it was great to see everybody and hear old groups sing together again and have chapel again. Then, my hubby had a crazy, CRAZY week at work. He worked almost 80 hours. Gross. Then on Friday, Rebecca came to visit us. We had a great time with our good friend! She got to stay all the way until Tuesday morning. It was so nice to get to spend some good quality time with her. We went to dinner, went shopping, took her to some of our favorite restraunts, read magazines, took naps in the shade, ate and hung out with the fam, went to the races, saw a fireworks show... it was great! (thanks for coming, friend!) I mean, we stayed with her when we went to Portland, but seriously-- she was so busy with the Cascade event that we didn't really get to see her much at all until we took her out to celebrate when it was all over. This week is going to be crazy again... Eric's sister is getting married on Saturday and Eric is in the wedding and I am doing the flowers. Tonight is the bachelor party, so Eric will be out late for that, and then he has to go do a job for work before he can come home. Then tomorrow is the rehearsal and dinner all the way out in Enumclaw. Then Friday I have a Dr. appointment, then I have to run into Seattle to pick up the flowers, then spend the rest of the day putting all of the arrangements together. Saturday is the wedding. It's hard for us to be so busy because we really are just so in love that we want to be together all the time, and a regular work day is quite enough apart-ness, thank you very much. But do you know what is great about God? He gives us just what we need. Yesterday for the 4th, Eric and I turned down all invitations and just stayed home together all day. We needed that so badly. I think the last time we did that was probably on our honeymoon. If it wasn't for that time together, I would have been crying when he left for the bachelor party tonight. But even though I would prefer to have him here, I was able to smile and sincerely say "have fun!" when he left. Having that time together yesterday will help us get through the rest of this week. God is so good to us. Hooray for God for meeting all of our needs and a lot of our wants!

Life updates

Well, I haven't really posted in awhile. Here's what's been going on with me:
* I'm still working on planning the shower for my sister-in-law
* I'm also planning a party for my friend Rebecca's 30th b-day. Let me know if you want to be in on the planning, and I'll tell you where to sign up!
*My mom is taking our family (mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, niece & nephews, brother, husband, aunt, uncle &cousin) on a cruise next April to Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel. Fun!
*My hubby is looking for a new job. This is a good thing for several reasons including, but not limited to the following:
1. His current job involves working with a lot of poisons
2. His current job is ridiculously poorly managed
3. His current job requires him to work wierd hours, even though at the beginning, he was told that it wouldn't
4. His current job does not allow him to get enough sleep-- ever
5. He has other things that are important to him like our marriage, church, and the band
So... he had a job interview on Tuesday for a much better job. Please pray that God would do what's best for us where a new job is concerned. We really need a change.
*The band had a show on Friday. After the sound guy and the other two bands were paid, the Upset Victory guys got $2 each! :) It's exciting to be a part of my hubby's blossoming music career. Make sure you go to their website and join their mailing list so you can keep up-to-date on what's happening with them.
*My job is getting better. I am getting more and more training and finally starting to feel like I know what I'm doing.
*There are currently 2 people in my life who cause me to constantly struggle with my attitude, and I'm related to both of them, which means there is no escape (no, my fabulous husband is not one of them). God is really working on my heart, but it's hard. Feel free to pray for me about that.
*My niece graduated from the 8th grade yesterday. I am so proud of her-- she is so much more sure of herself at 13 than I was even through high school. She is one of my favorite people of ever. She looked so cute and grown-up in the dress she wore to her dance last night. I can't belive she's going to start high school in the fall!
*My hubby and I are coming to Portland. We're staying with our dear friend Rebecca and we're really excited to get to spend some time with her. I am grateful for Rebecca and how comfortable it is for us to be around her. She's the kind of friend that didn't go all wierd on me just cuz I got married. She loves Eric almost as much as she loves me, and I love that the 3 of us can hang out and have a good time.
*I'm excited to see all my Portland friends this weekend!

That's all for now. If you're going to be in Portland this weekend, let's make sure we get together at some point!

Hooray for God for life and all of its craziness and the things He teaches us through it all!

HELP!

So... I am throwing a bridal shower for my sister-in-law, and I am having a really hard time thinking of ways to make it special. I can't really do a fun theme because she just wants gifts from her registry- which is a good idea since she's never lived on her own before and she needs a lot of stuff- but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to make it not just another boring shower. The other problem is that I really don't know her that well, and that makes it hard to do anything really personal. But I found out on Saturday that no one was throwing her a shower, which I thought was ridiculous, so I'm doing it. Any bright ideas?

Girl's Weekend!

This weekend, my family is splitting up into two very distinct groups: girls and boys. The boys (My hubby, dad, brother-in-law, and 2 nephews) are going fishing over in Eastern Washigton. The girls (myself, mom, sister, and niece) are staying at a new hotel in downtown Bellevue for some good food, shopping, and relaxing. I was thinking about it this morning, and I feel so blessed to be part of a family where 3 generations of girls can just hang out together and really enjoy each other's company. These 3 girls are the most important women in my life. We love and support each other through the good stuff and the not-so-good-stuff, and I treasure these relationships. I am really looking forward to spending some time with my girls. Also, I'm looking forward to staying in a nice hotel, having my room cleaned for me, being steps away from great food and shopping and doing some serious relaxing. I wish I could just go now, but we all have to go to work/school first. Hooray for God for 3 great girls who love and support me and for the opportunity to do the same for them! Anybody else doing anything fun this weekend?

Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning at 8:21 and I have already been up for approximately 2 hours and 41 minutes. In case you are unable to figure this out for yourself, this is a completely inappropriate time to be awake on a Saturday. My hubby and I do not usually sleep the day away on a Saturday because we like to go out and get breakfast at our favorite breakfast place before a) band practice starts and/or b) they close the griddle and I can no longer get pancakes. So, usually we get up around 8 or 8:30. But not 6 or 6:30. That's just ridiculous. But, Eric and I both have to work today (gross) and we still wanted to have breakfast together, even though he had to leave an hour and a half earlier than me. So, yesterday I bought a couple of cinnamon rolls and we had those and coffee for our Saturday breakfast today. I know this is starting to seem like a complaining post, but I'm getting to my point, I promise... You see, I HATE mornings. HATE. Getting out of bed is one of my absolute least favorite things to do. And those of you who know me well (i.e. have been my room mate and/or family member) know that for me to get out of bed an hour and a half earlier than necessary is quite an accomplishment. So, guess what? Hooray for God that I get to have a husband that I love so much that I want to get out of bed early on a Saturday just to get to have breakfast with him before he has to leave!

Portland Bound

Well, since most of you who read this blog live in P-town, I thought I should let you all know that Eric and I are coming down for a visit. My friend Dave is graduating from Cascade next Saturday (April 29th), and we're going to be there. We'll be coming down Friday night and staying until Sunday afternoon. We'd like to see as many people as possible while we're in town. Let me know if you'd be interested in meeting us at Spag after church on Sunday for some lunch. The last couple of times I've been to town, I've tried to get peole to come out to lunch on a spur-of-the-moment thing, and not too many people have been able to come. So, I'm going to give the ol' "let your friends know you want to have lunch with them after church a week in advance" method and see how that works out. We're excited to see you all!

Birthday Fun

So, yesterday was my birthday. I am a big fan of birthdays. I think it's fun that everybody gets their own special holiday and we celebrate how awesome we think they are. This birthday was a special one for me... it was my very first married birthday. It was so great to wake up next to my husband in bed and hear him say "Happy Birthday, Wife!" We both took the day off of work and spent it together hanging out in our awesome city. We had pancakes for breakfast at Luna Park Cafe (our favorite breakfast spot), took a lovely drive along Lake Washington Blvd. (all the cherry trees are blooming), Went to the Experience Music Project (my sister bought us a membership as a wedding gift), went to Elliot Bay Books (sign in the children's department said "attention: all children left unattended will be given a free espresso and a puppy."), Went to Pike Place Market (bought some beautiful tulips), did some shopping around Westlake (nothing exciting to say about shopping), Watched a Movie (Ice Age 2- pretty funny. Eric said he'd like to see a live action movie where Ray Romano and Queen Latifah had a romantic interest in each other) and went to dinner at the Icon Grill (great dinner, and the most AMAZING ice cream sundae I have EVER experienced). So, it was a great, great day. Oh, and my birthday present? My hubby recorded the song he wrote for me and put it on our ipod so that I can listen to it whenever I want (which will be daily, I assure you.) It was a great day, and I am excited to see what the rest of this year has in store. Hooray for God for letting me turn 27!

Here we go again...

So, getting married is basically an absolute guarantee that you are going to gain weight. Seems to happen to everybody. Thankfully, Eric and I have not put on so much weight as to have to buy bigger clothes, but neither of us is happy with our overall health at the moment. So... we joined a gym. Ugh. I love being in shape, but I really really hate working out. Well, at least the cardio part. I don't mind the weight lifting so much. But it is definitely more fun to go with my hubby and work on a common goal that to be doing it all alone. And our gym is pretty great. As part of our membership, we get to meet with a trainer once a month. Most gyms I've been to give you a brief consultation when you start, but then you're on your own. So, I'm pretty excited to have monthly access to someone who will help me design a workout to meet my goals. I think I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I am NEVER going to be one of those people who can just eat whatever they want, never exercise, and still be in shape. It's just not going to happen. If I want to be healthy, I'm going to have to work at it. I'm also playing volleyball right now, which is kind of my reward for working out. I mean... I LOVE volleyball, and working out makes me better at it, so I'm really glad that I still have an opportunity to play competitive ball. It's quite a bit slower than it was in my college days, but it's super fun. I'm excited to start honoring God more by taking better care of my body. Hooray for God for giving me the motivation and the tools to make it happen!

More Pictures and a question

Here's some more wedding pics. I will post some from the honeymoon soon.

Hooray for God for creating marriage! I promise to blog about something else pretty soon, but I'm just so excited to finally be able to get some pictures up?

Here's a question:

For those of you who are married, how long did it take you after your wedding to get all of your thank you cards out? Would you think someone was a bad/ungrateful/rude person if she took, just for example, 6 months to get them out?

If you're not married, would you be horribly offended to not receive a thank you card until say, I don't know, maybe, hypothetically, 6 months after the wedding?

Not that I have any personal experience relating to the subject... :)

I'm Back!

I'm sorry it's been so long, friends! It was great to see some of you at Tim's wedding yesterday. When I got home, my fabulous husband had our internet service all ready to go, so now I can blog freely from the comfort of my own home! So, with apologies for the long delay, here are a few more pictures from our wedding. I have hundreds, so it's hard to pick just a few. Does anyone know anything about "flickr?" Would that be a good way for me to share some more pictures? Anyway... I'm glad I promised that I would post some more wedding pictures, because it gave me an excuse to look at them again! Our wedding was such a wonderful day for us. And the best part is that every day since then has just gotten better and better! Horray for God for marriage!

Band Practice

Once upon a time, my husband was at band practice. And I was there, too. And I had nothing to do except for to think of something to blog about. Also, the once upon a time is right now. So, as previously stated, I am at band practice. Eric is in a band called Upset Victory. I have a link to their web site on my main page. They have a couple of shows coming up, which is exciting because they've been working on recording their EP for a long time, so there haven't been any shows for awhile. Someday, Eric will be able to make a living just with his music. That will be great. In the mean time, though, we're trying to juggle 2 full time jobs and a full time band, which is quite a challenge. For example, today we both had long days at work and didn't get home until 5:45. We should have left our house for practice at 5:30. So, we changed really fast and ate in the car on the way here (we were lucky this week... we usually don't get to eat first). We'll get home at around 10, just in time to get ready for bed. On Monday, March 27th, they have a show that starts at 10 PM. 10 PM!!! Remember how I said that we both had full-time jobs? That start at early, grown-up morning times? Yeah, so all of this full time everything is going to be a bit tough. But we can handle it! Hooray for God for giving my husband such great talent and the potential to get to make a living doing something that he really loves. Also, hooray for my husband for having the courage to do something about his dream!

Happy Birthday!

First of all, let me point out that this is my SECOND post of the DAY!

Now, on to the matter at hand:

Today is my husband's birthday! I am so glad he was born! He has made the past year the best one of my life so far. Every day with him just gets better. Even when the lifey things of life get tough, Everything about life with him is so much better than everything about life without him. I feel so ridiculously blessed to be in a love like this. Eric makes me feel like the most beautiful, treasured, valuable, and loved girl in the whole world. The very best thing about his birthday is that when God made Eric, he had me in mind, and I'm celebrating that today.

Happy Birthday, Husband! I love you! A LOT!

At last!

Friends, it has been a very long time since I owned a computer. I had a laptop in college, which served me well. Sadly, as things go with technology, it was outdated by the time I graduated. So, I have been without a personal computer since April of 2001. I've managed to get by using computers at work during breaks, but now that I'm trying to manage a household of 2 instead of just 1, (hooray for being married!) it's getting more and more difficult to stay organized. Eric and I have been computer shopping since we got married. We had planned to buy one with all of the dollars we were given for wedding gifts, but other things came up that we had to spend our money on. So, we've been casually looking and trying to figure out how to come up with some more dollars.

Most of you know that Eric started a new job a few months ago, and they gave him a work truck, so his car was just sitting around not being driven. A couple of weeks ago, we started getting parking tickets because you can't leave your car in one place for more than 72 hours in Seattle. Lame. So, we decided to sell the car, because we just weren't driving it enough to justify the costs of keeping it around.

The next day, we went to the Apple store. (no comments from any of you apple haters out there, please). We were able to purchase a new imac (that's his picture there at the top of this post) and ipod for the amount we sold the car for. So, now all we have to do is figure out what kind of internet connection we should get, and then, at long last, we will have joined the 21st century! Hooray! Now I can blog from the comfort of my living room, and I'll be able to get the promised wedding pics posted, not to mention getting all of our bills and junk organized at home!

Silly New Blogger

So... last night I was talking to my dear friend Jeanne for a good long time (thanks for the chat, pally!). At some point in the conversation, I mentioned something about how I hadn't had a single comment on my blog since I changed the format. She said "well, you must have the comment moderation thing turned on." Turns out, that was precisely the case. And not only was I not aware that I had it on, I didn't know where to go to moderate the comments. Hence all of your comments not appearing on my blog. So, now I've got that all straigtened out, and you should be able to comment to your heart's content without any trouble. I'll get this thing all figured out one of these days. It will be most helpful when we have a computer at home (soon!) and I can blog at my leisure instead of hurriedly durring a 10-minute break at work. Thank you all for your lovely comments. For those who requested it... I will post more pics from the wedding when we acquire the aforementioned computer at home. :) Horray for God for my friends!

Volunteering

I know a lot of you know my job title, or at least the name of the organization I work for. For those of you who don't know, I am the Volunteer Coordinator at Vision House. Vision House is a Christian Non-Profit that provides transitional housing for homeless moms and kids and also homeless single men in a seperate program. We currently run 2 women's homes with apartments for 15 families as well as a beautiful child care center, and 2 men's homes with room for up to 8 men total. My job is to recruit, train, and schedule volunteers. It is very rewarding and very challenging work. We have all sorts of volunteer opportunities from office work and building maintenance to working directly with Vision House kids. Many of the people in my family have become Vision House volunteers, and I know they have been blessed by it. The picture in this post is of my sister and my niece volunteering at the Vision House Kid's Christmas Party. I had a really cute one of my mom with one of the little boys too, but I can't post pictures of Vision House kids. I'm wondering what sorts of volunteer activities other friends and family members are invloved in. So, if you have a second, leave a comment and let me know what kind of volunteer work you are currently involved in. Or, if you're not doing volunteer work, would you like to? Are you just too busy, or have you not found the right organization yet? What would motivate you to start volunteering? I just came back from a great volunteer manager's training put on by the United Way, and it made me curious about the volunteerism of the people I know. So... comment away!

You Know Who You Are

This is a tribute to one of my life's greatest friends. She is true and loyal and real. She has always loved me without reservation. I have never had to pretend with her. She is kind and giving and talented. She does her very best for her family. I admire her parenting skills. She has let me share in the lives of her kids, which has made me more loving, and has taught me a lot about the way God loves us. She is smart and funny and so quick-witted that it sometimes takes me a minute to catch up with her. She has a strenth about her that can only come from her choice to depend on God. She does not fake it. There is nothing false about her. She is willing to be vulnerable so that other people can learn from the things she has experienced. She is capable and skilled and willing to try new things. And she is so fun! She is just generally an excellent person to be around. I have looked up to her my entire life and will continue to do so. She has been facing some really heart-breaking challenges lately, but I know she will face them with grace, dignity, and love because she is serious about letting God work in her heart. I just wanted to take a minute to let the world know how special she is to me and to say "Horray for God for my Sister!"

Being a Grown-up

It seems to me that getting married is this magical thing that makes people start treating you like a grown-up. In general, people tend to take you more seriously and expect more of you. Well, I have a secret: My husband and I are a couple of big ol' kids, and we have no intention of growing up EVER! Oh, sure, we'll pay our bills on time, probably buy a house before too long, and be generally responsible citizens. But when we do the dishes, we will have soap fights in which I grow a soap beard and he grows a soap cone out the top of his head. When we go for long walks in the park, we will jump from mole hill to mole hill, pretending that the grass is RED HOT LAVA!!! We will stay up late, eat ice cream for dinner, make weird faces at each other in the bathroom mirror, and go out for breakfast every Saturday morning. We will kiss at red lights, and then make up silly songs about it. And we will laugh and laugh and laugh. And we will be happy. Hooray for God for giving me my perfect husband!