Winter Holidays and General Fun

Thought I would throw out a few short recaps of some of the fun that has been going on over the last couple of weeks.

I know Lu has mentioned her friend Molly getting married. The event happened the weekend before Christmas and it was loads of fun. It was my first time seeing a Jewish ceremony. It was very interesting to learn about the customs (thanks to Molly who so thoughtfully included descriptions of what was going on and the meanings behind them in the programs) Below you will see a picture I snapped before the wedding, the Temple is gorgeous. really ornate and really pretty. We had a great time and are very happy for Molly and Matt.

For those who didn't see this already, I had to go to work on Christmas Eve Eve (that's the 23rd) but my day started out so great because I go this image as a reminder of our Amazing Father Creator. It was such a beautiful sunrise, and I was blessed to have the time to watch it for a little while and spend time with God admiring His greatness.

While we were hanging with Lu's family for Christmas, we got to see several awesome movies.

First off, we saw Avatar in 3D and all I am going to tell you is I thought it was well worth it seeing it in 3D. I don't want to sit here and rave about it and give away the story this that and the other, but it was really fun. Here is Lu cheesin' it up and having fun with the oh so stylish 3D glasses that we were sporting.

Also we saw Blindside. The movie was really well done and entertaining. A great true story if you didn't know it. For those who are thinking oh it is just a football movie and weren't going to see it because of that, you should reconsider, there isn't nearly as much football involved as one would think. Sandra Bullock was cast perfectly and she played her role really well. There were tons of great and funny lines in the movie too. It was really a great movie I enjoyed it.

Finally as if we weren't already moviedout (i know that isn't a word) we also got the chance to see Sherlock Holmes on Sunday. This one was fun because it was a date, and I really enjoy those with my wife, she is the best. The movie was very entertaining, a lot of action and I was very happy that it wasn't all that predictable. I would recommend this one as well to anyone looking for movies to watch.

Now I am looking forward to time with my family, which I get to see today, so I am excited. They called yesterday and already told us they have seen at least 10 deer walking around the cabin at different times. It is going to be a fun time. I hope everyone has safe travels and enjoys the rest of their holidays and I pray that you all have a safe, fun and happy new year.

Christmas #1 (yep there will be a #2)

We spend the beginning of this Christmas with my family (Lindsey), and it's been great. My mom made some awesome food and it's been fun just seeing my family. My mom and dad got a wii and Wii Fit, and we've been playing with that all morning. I found out I have kind of bad balance and the Wii thinks I'm 31 yrs old! ACK! So I've got to work out on the Wii and redo my body test. :) My mom was really upset because it told her she was really old (she wouldn't let me tell y'all...). My sister was only 1 year off her actual age, and the funny thing was my dad and Brian were 30! We think the age estimate was mostly to do with your balance. Obviously me and my mom have bad balance.
It's still fun. My brother, the triathalete, had already left, or it would've been fun to see where he came in at. We figured his balance would be really good.

Well just a quick update for now. Merry Christmas!!

Busy Weekend

Hey! Long time, no-post, I know. :)

Well this weekend was a whirl-wind adventure! Not really, just busy. It started Friday night with an ornament exchange with some ladies from church. It was really fun to have a girls' night and just hang out and have some great desserts, and I got a cute little Noel ornament. :) Then Saturday I had to come into work because we have an Addendum to one of our projects going out today at 9am. I was planning on working just in the morning, until about 12-noon, but thankfully I got most stuff done earlier than 12. Also our office smelled like diesel fuel or exhaust and it was nasty. I found out from the security guard that it was because the building was running their back-up generators this weekend. Gross and smelly, but I guess it's good to know they work. Then we went down south of town to see Chrissy and Chad's new house! It's so pretty and it was great to see them and the Moffit's. We do an ornament exchange at Christmas too, which is really fun. :)

After that, we ventured back to Atlanta, so I could change and get ready for my friend Molly's bachlorette party! I (with help from a fellow bridesmaid, Meghan) planned the event and of course I was a little nervous about it. It all went smoothly though! We had a great dinner (at a great price) and Molly got some exciting presents (I'll leave it at that) and she wore a veiled tiara and a "Bride to be" sash. Then she wanted to meet up with the guys from the bachelor party, so we met them at Fado in Buckhead, which is a pretty cool place. It was packed and I might have been the only person in the entire bar not drinking, but it was fun and most importantly Molly had fun!

Needless to say I crashed around 1am after getting home from that. Brian and I then got up for church as usual, I was working with the hospitality team and he was working with the Media team. After church we got to go meet up with his grandma for a Christmas lunch at her place. She's so sweet and we had a great lunch. We weren't going to see her over the holidays so we met up with her this weekend.

After lunch, we drove back to Atlanta for my company Christmas party at our office. I totally meant to take a camera to post pictures, but alas, I forgot. It was actually really fun! It was a little weird to come to the office on Sunday, but it was all decorated and Santa and Mrs. Claus were there for the party too! There was some great food, but I only partook of the desserts since I was still full from lunch. The Newcomers (a band of guys from our office) played and it was fun. It's neat to see people with their families and kids.

So after getting the addendum out this morning, I'll be playing catch-up on all the work I haven't finished because of this project. However, I think I'll get to work only 8 hr days for the rest of the week after today, which sounds awesome!

I'm very much looking forward to Christmas and a break.

Next weekend will be fun-filled as well. It's Molly and Matt's wedding, which I can't believe is here, but I'm excited.

Well have a great week! I'll try and post some Christmas pictures sometime (and maybe those house pics we mentioned a long time ago).

Thanksgiving Holidays Recap.

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, and this year I had a great time with family and friends. Due to the scheduling of football, it makes scheduling the holidays pretty easy, we spend Thanksgiving day and some of Black friday with Lu's side of the family, then Saturday (game day) with mine.

I will go ahead and get this out of the way, the game was disappointing because we lost, but it is only football and spending time with my family was way more important.

So back to thursday, we went down to Lake Sinclair since a large portion of the extended family lives down there, and everyone was over at Lu's cousin's house. We has sooo much food. it was fun seeing everyone and meeting a few new people, some that are soon to me related as some of the cousins are engaged. We had lots of fun watching people play corn hole, it was quite entertaining. Then after a while of just fellowshipping, we headed back home. Lu's mom and sister stayed the night with us that night as the ladies were going out to brave the crowds and do some shopping. Happily I can report that there were no injuries and almost complete success at finishing the Christmas shopping list that day, Lu was on FIRE!

I was out shopping as well, but for a slightly more important reason, my Christmas present! We decided to buy a TV, so I needed to go check out the deals and play with the sets in person and make sure the skewing that they do for displaying in the store isn't making the TV look better than it is. I also picked up a few stocking stuffers.

Friday afternoon, we, we being Lu, her sister, my dad and I, went to the Georgia Tech Basketball game. We played Mercer and won, and although it was a double digit win, it still wasn't as convincing as I would have liked. I think this season might be another rough one for my Yellow Jackets. The game was a lot of fun though and we really enjoyed that. Then we all went and grabbed some Tin Drum for dinner. It was a great day.

Saturday morning, after taking sister-in-law to the airport for her to head back to Albuquerque, we drove on up to my parents house for brunch. Mom didn't hold back and laid out an awesome spread for brunch, which was a good thing cause we got there and were pretty hungry. Then it was decorating the house, watching football and hanging out time. It was just a fun day. We missed my big sis, who is working out in Kansas City, MO, but we get to see her in a couple of weeks so that is ok. My job for the day was to put up lights on mom's roof, she really likes the lights. I ended up having to climb up on the roof to hang them all, but again thankfully no injuries to report. Dad made some yummy korean steaks and we kept hanging out through the game. Then Lu and I headed home since we had church the next morning.

After church we volunteered at the Free Gift Wrapping booth our church sponsors through the holidays, and it was a lot of fun. I only had one box to wrap, but of course, Lu and Amy let me wrap the octagonal box. that was quite fun, but the lady was pleased with the job I did, and I guess I impressed the other two worker bees.

Then we went home, and after Lu took a nap, I set to work on helping decorate our house. Thanks to my dad who bought Lu this house warming gift:

A better close up of the front porch all lit up.

All in all we had a very awesome holiday. I am excited that Christmas is right around the corner and that I get to spend more time with the wonderful friends and family in my life.

I am very Thankful.

B-E-A-U-tiful Morning!

Good morning! I feel great this morning! The project went out, and I feel like a nice weight is off my shoulders. I still have a lot of work to do, but most of it is going to wait until Monday. :) Brian and I have kind of a decent to do list for this weekend, but it's not bad, and we'll be able to actually spend some time with each other! I've pretty much seen him for like 8 hrs this week (not counting sleep time), so a full 48 hr together sounds great!!

I was in charge of our church's Operation Christmas Child drive this year, so one of the things I still need to do is take all the boxes to a drop off location. It was exciting because we doubled the number of boxes our church made from last year! It's fun to see our church is growing. :)

I'm also excited because i plan on leaving work at 4pm today! That seems so early! It'll still be light outside! Awesome. :)

I just wanted to post real quick! I hope y'all have a great day!

It's 8:22pm on Thursday night and I'm at work

Yep, it's true. We had a pretty big project going out of the office today, and now I'm waiting on the drawings to upload to the website. I always stay and watch to make sure they get fully uploaded. It only takes about 5-10 minutes to upload because it's just PDFs. For our other project with this university, the drawings are in a 3D modeling program called Revit. Those files are enormous and take about 30 minutes to 45 minutes to upload. Good times.

I thought I'd take advantage of the down time and post a blog! So an update - I'm tired, but that's typical for it being late. I'm missing Bible study (the last one of the semester), which is sad, but there will be more. I'm very happy because I don't think I have to work this weekend. I'm also excited because I'm going to be a part of a fashion show on Saturday! Our church was asked if anyone would want to help out and be in a fashion show and I said yes. It'll be fun - Brian's going to take pictures, so we'll post them.

We do have house pictures...which we need to get off the camera and upload...one day. :)

Other things in life...hmmm...my sister is coming in town for Thankgiving - always fun. Well I guess really my whole family is coming in town for Thanskgiving since they all moved out of Georgia. I usually only get to see my sister at holidays and it's been the same with my brother since he moved out of state for grad school. It makes the holidays even better, getting to see family that I don't get to see much.

...about 5 minutes have pasted and the files are 55% uploaded...

What else is going on...hmm. Well Brian is awesome as usual. He's still very sweet and thoughtful about how he can help out or making sure I get dinner and things like that.

about 8 minutes...we're at 82%...

I keep thinking tomorrow's Saturday, because it's been a long week, but alas, it's not. Tomorrow should be interesting (in a different way, not in a cool way) because we have a 4 hr long seminar on steam design. It'll be very helpful and hopefully informative, but also has the potential to be very boring. I'm sure some of y'all are snoozing already just at the sound of that.

Oh! 100% time to go! Adios!

Illness!

So I was sick the beginning of this week, fever, congestion, throwing up, the works really... It was not a fun monday. The worst part about it was I was all alone, Lu was on a trip with work to WVU. I did get a lot of rest, drank a lot of fluids and just in general tried to get the fever down and not die. It wasn't fun, and I am still not back to 100%, I have a cough and some lingering congestion but all of that will soon go away (i hope). And Lu is back and taking care me which is definitely nice, I miss that wonderful woman when she is gone.

Have a lot going on in the next few days so should have some stories to tell and things to post about and hopefully Lu and I will have time to put together the House Tour post that we should finally have, we had a really fun housewarming over the past weekend, so maybe more on that later too.

Hope everyone out there in the blogosphere is feeling better than I am.

weird days at work...

So for yesterday and today, the rest of my team, all two of them, are off visiting a store. I have scheduled mine yet and we couldn't all leave because that would leave no one to actually run the reports. So I have had a somewhat lonely day yesterday and so far this morning. It is a bit strange that I am running reports that I thought I had successfully passed on to someone else to run. Oh well, I am not really annoyed or depressed/sad or anything like that, it is just a bit weird to be the only one here.

Being the 1 man team wonder that I am is great and all, but it makes it tough to focus, I mean there are plenty of others around, but I am not currently working on anything with them so it is just me and the gentle soothing hum of my two computers.

Does anyone out there in the blogland have any great ideas on how to remain focused at work?



Totally different note, I am pumped at how awesome my Yellow Jackets have been playing, 8-1 is great! And we should be able to beat all the teams left on the schedule, at least that is what the media keeps telling me. I think that the team has put itself in a great position, we control our post season future so just keep winning and we are headed to a BCS bowl.
What a great year to be a ramblin' gamblin' helluva engineer!

Earlier this summer - FREE Chickfila!

A while back, there was an awesome give-a-way at Chickfila. If you dressed up like a cow you got free food. So me being the chickfila lover that I am, convinced my husband to do this with me. :) When I took pictures off our camera from halloween, I discovered a lot of pictures we hadn't taken off the camera yet. So for your laughter and enjoyment:

And my sweet husband "dressed up" too, to get free food. :)

These were definitely taken a while ago, because they were taken in our old apartment. My spots kept falling off, but it was fun. We definitely got our food to go, so we didn't have to stay cows while we ate. :)

October

It's November already! I can't believe it! Where did October go?? We had a fun end-of- October though. Here at the end we bought some pumpkins (2 pumpkins and a gourd to be exact). We wanted to carve the gourd because it was so huge, but we didn't have time. So they just sat and looked pretty on the front porch.

This Halloween was our first one with trick-or-treaters. We were very prepared with candy, since we live next to an elementary school and had seen lots of kids that lived in our neighborhood. However, probably thanks to the misty rain and super coldness we only had a handful of door bell rings and maybe about 10-15 kids. Therefore we have LOTS of leftover candy.

I keep a candy box at my desk at work, so my coworkers will be very excited about all this left over! Now that Halloween is over, I can whip out my Thanksgiving decorations! I don't really have much - really all I have are these Mickey & Minnie salt and pepper shakers! :)

Aren't they cute? :)

Kaboom!

So one of the awesome things that I get to do with my job is give back to the community. Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity of doing a playground build with Kaboom .

I was on the mulch team, below are some pictures of our hard work:

Three truck loads of mulch:


The beginnings of the Playground:


Me dumping mulch near the swingsets so we can fill in once they are set in concrete:


Getting closer, still have to fill in around the structures:


Basically all done:


The whole group and some of the children:

New Toy!

So for those of you that aren't all up to speed on all things google, the newest latest greatest toy that they have put out and is in beta testing is Google Wave. What is that you might ask? Well you could watch their "loooooong" video on here but basically it spawned from the idea of what would email look like if it was developed today instead of 30 years ago.

The end result, well the beta testing result, is part email part instant messenger part sharing website with all kinds of really interesting features. So far there are some really neat things about it, I like being able to go into a wave and edit or reply to any part. Basically it has allowed better flow for conversation. the most useful feature thus far has been the playback feature. so when you get added late to a wave, you can go to the playback button and start at the beginning and see how the conversation progressed until you were added. Makes it so much easier to follow what is going on.

I will update you all more later but so far today, I have had a bunch of fun playing with a new toy.

Love that we have readers!

So sorry that the blog hasn't been updated in a while. I found out this weekend that several of you were dissappointed that the blog hasn't had any new and juicy details about the goings on in the life of the Foxes. Fear not! I have heard your cries and present for your reading pleasure a recap of the last several weeks from my vantage point. (Lu will have to provide her own).

So let me take you back, back to a time when it was still in the 70's in GA, ok, now that you are back at Tuesday of last week, lets go back a little further. The month of October has been an interesting one thus far. It started on a Thursday, which I like a lot because Thursdays are men's group. I have really enjoyed building relationships and breaking down the Word with these men. Getting to know them better as we learn more about Paul has been a lot of fun. Each week I feel like I learn something new or get a fresh perspective on a situation. Great support and encouragement and just have really enjoyed becoming closer to these guys. I have taken the role of coordinating socials for the group, which in turn I quickly renamed myself as the Social Tsar, so far the peoples haven't revolted, and so far we haven't actually had a social, but we are working towards that goal and that is always fun.

October also brought with it more time behind the Mac running the media at church. I had a few weeks off but I am back at it again. Soon though I will have some more time off. Randy and Jacob are great and have really stepped up to the plate and give excellence in what we do on Sunday mornings. I still need to work on getting some fresh content and backgrounds and other stuff for the services, but so far so good. Hopefully we will get some more people plugged in the media team as well so that we can get a good rotation going.

Also the beginning of this month I had the opportunity to participate in our church's mini extreme home makeover. We had a blast working on the house for the family in our church. It was tons of fun, Dave did a great job organizing our crew and everyone worked so hard. The end result (well, where is was last i saw it) we got most of it done and the house just looked so great. everything was fresh and new and clean looking. All that work kind of inspired me to work on our house too.

So we made some time to do just that and continue getting work done on the house. The guest bedroom got painted with some more Oops Paint from The Home Depot. (read $5 dollar gallon paint.) As long as you are patient to find what you want and not too picky on color it is a great way to save money. And sometimes you get lucky and find several gallons of the same color if you have a really big room. So that is now 6 gallons of paint bought at 5 dollars a pop, we saved over 140 dollars on paint so far. And we really like the results we have gotten so far. Still have a list of other things to get done, paint the foyer (probably professionals will be asked to do this), we want to add doors to the master bath, get a headboard for our bed, new chairs for the dining room, new furniture for the living room etc. We did get lots of things up on the walls in the living room and the beginnings of decorating more. We still have a ways to go, but we are really happy with the house so far and look forward to continuing to make improvements.

I have had to experience several weeks of not seeing Lu everyday. Not terrible, but definitely strange to not have by best friend coming home to see me everyday. This isn't the first time she has had business trips and won't be the last for sure, but for some reason the two weeks in a row that she was gone Monday nights were rough on me. I didn't go to sleep till late and slept small amounts. I am just blessed to have her in my life and as my wife. I definitely missed her while she was gone.

Changing gears, K-Life has been going well. Still struggling to get my 10th grade guys to meet with me at a specific time and actually get more than one in attendance, but on the flip side I have been blessed with some great 1 0n 1 time with a few of my guys and just getting to know them better, talk about deeper issues, and figure out where they are spiritually has just been awesome. I am truly excited about where God will be taking these relationships and I pray that I can continue to build on them and show these kids love. It has been a blessing to me.

Last thing I want to talk about for now is, Football. First, the US has qualified in 1st place in the Concacaf region for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. There was a sad situation where Charlie Davies, a starter for the side was severely injured while riding as a passenger in a car the night before our final game against Costa Rica. The young man will likely have an 8 month or longer recovery and miss his first chance at playing in the world cup. The team seemed pretty shaken by this and came out sluggish against Costa Rica, but then fought back valiantly for a 2-2 tie to seal the #1 spot for the US. Also sad was another player, Onyewu was injured late in the game causing us to finish with only 10 men, he should recover from a torn patella tendon in time for the WC though.

On to College Football. My Yellow Jackets are 6-1 and now in at #12 in the BCS polls. Two great wins in the last two weeks, over FSU in Tallahassee (hadn't been done ever) and this past Saturday's (to use a popular interwebs word) EPIC win over then #4 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (aka Virginia Tech). Lu and I were at the game and it was one of the best games I have seen in person at Historic Grant Field in Bobby Dodd Stadium. First time in 17 tries that we beat a top 5 ranked team at home. Huge win. I am pumped for the rest of our season and loving that the Jackets are playing so well. Great win and on homecoming no less.

Well this hopefully has caught you up a little on what has been going on for the Mr. Fox. I might have some news to report soon, so keep me in your prayers, but until next time. I hope you enjoy the read.

Work Update

Work has taken over my life recently. I don't really like that fact, but it's true. I was asked to work overtime, and then told I wasn't working enough overtime. So now I have a goal of going up to or beyond 50 hrs a week. Working a lot isn't tons of fun because I come home eat, relax a little (or clean and do laundry), then go to bed and do it again. I have very little time to do anything else for myself. I'm doing good if I keep the laundry done and maybe one room in the house clean. There's no way I have time to say, exercise or play or read a book (except when I'm traveling for work and have flights I can't sleep through) or hang out with my husband.

However, I've been really trying to focus on the positive things and how God still is blessing me even when I'm tired and feel like I have no time. I'm glad I have a job and that I actually do enjoy. Some days are better than others, but for the most part I really like being kind of nerdy and doing calculations and designing HVAC systems. I like the people I work with and really don't mind spending time with them.

Also I'm blessed because most nights when I get home, Brian's cooked dinner or is finishing making dinner, which is awesome. He made a really good homemade tomato/wine sauce the other night with chicken and pasta. :)

Anyway, I know there are lots of other people out there that have to work a lot, so should just suck it up and be thankful I have a job. And ya know, it might mean that we save up a lot faster for new furniture or to replace our windows for energy efficient ones and stuff like that.

Update

Hey!

So I guess we're kind of bad at blogging. I keep thinking my next blog needs have house pictures, but I keep not cleaning up so I can take pictures...and there's still work to do. One day... :)

I've been crazy busy at work lately. Monday and Tuesday I was at work until 8:30pm, then Wednesday and Thursday I was in Norfolk, VA and Friday was a regular day. This weekend we relaxed, which was awesome. We helped some friends move on Saturday, which was fun and we were really glad we could help.

Work will probably continue to be busy, but I'm trying to see the blessings in the situation and not the stress as much.

On another note, I've decided to try and pursue a little second career of hair styling. I've always enjoyed doing hair, especially for friends, and now I'm getting referred to strangers too. So I was thinking that maybe I should advertise a little more and pursue this. Here's the few pictures I have of doing people's hair (I've done more than these, but I just couldn't find all the pictures):

http://brianandlindsey.shutterfly.com/431

If I've done any of y'all's hair and you have pictures, I'd love to get copies of those for my "portfolio". I'm going to build up my portfolio and make a website and try and advertise some more. If y'all know any brides or girls going to homecomings or proms that would like to get their hair done (I'd travel to them), please let me know of give them my info!

Thanks!

KLife Leader Retreat Weekend

This was intended to be posted a while back... we went on the retreat back in August, the 28-29th.

What a great weekend. We took our group of ten up to Lake Burton in the North Georgia mountains to a beautiful home that was so graciously offered to us for our retreat. The board family was so sweet to open up the home and it was just wonderful to have time away. Got to bond with the other leaders and staff. Of course we ate really well and we all know that is all important in the guy world so that was great. We played with lots of the water toys, Matt and I took our ladies in a canoe ride which was fun. Also got to do some water skiing, some rope swinging, some water balloon launching, some high diving, frisbee catching, and some general lounging before having to pack up and head home.

One of the best things about the weekend was that we played a great get to know you game Friday night. We all had to write down a fact about ourselves that no one else knew. I really struggled because I wanted my fact to be fun and amusing and I kept thinking that Lu would know all of the facts I kept coming up with so I had to think of something good. Then we all had to write down who we thought the fact was about as they were read aloud. Surprisingly both Lu and I wrote down facts about teeth, but I didn't get hers right and she missed mine too. The fun twist was the number of facts you got wrong, meant you had to answer that many questions from the group. It was lots of fun and we got some really good questions and learned fun things about both the people asking the questions and the people answering them. Best fact of the night, one of the leaders judges people by their bumper stickers and then decides to let them over or not. Awesome!

It was a great time with good friends, so thankful for the time.

Random fact, saw Nick Saban's lake house from the water. It was huge and looked awesome, I know were a good portion of his Alabama money went to...

Fear not

We are still alive, and working on the house. a lot of the reason why the blog is neglected. Also a large portion of that is the fact that we don't have interwebs there yet. The company is finally coming out to install it 2 weeks after I called. oh how I wish I had more options. But the price is right for now and once installed it should all work and we can go on a web surfin' safari anytime we like. Another big reason is that Lu has been working a lot lately. In this economy we know that is a blessing. She has been putting in a lot of time to get projects out this month, and it maybe like this for a few months, but we both realize that it is a blessing to be needed so much at work, and I have been able to get a lot done around the house so my honey do list isn't growing as rapidly :)

I will try to update more soon, but that is all I have time to sneak into the blog while at work today. Busy busy busy for both of us!

We are officially moved in!

Last Saturday, we officially moved into our house. We would have never been able to do it all in one morning like we did with out the help of great friends and family. Lu's parents even woke up and drove 3 hours just to come help us, and it was a good thing they brought the truck since we filled up our u-haul entirely, but with the cars and all we only had to make one trip. Props go to the all girl double A team (Annie and Anna) and Lu's Dad, who I believe carried every heavy box (especially the book ones) I was on furniture duty but by the time I was done with that everything else was in the house. Lu's mom made brownies for the entire city of Atlanta, some were coffee, some with nuts and some just plain old regular, we didn't even come close to finishing them.

Matt did a great job packing the truck on one leg... well two legs but a rehabbing knee. I still think my dad and I make a good team, we just work together pretty well. Oh and can't leave out Tiffy, who for important reasons couldn't get sweaty, but instead vaccummed and cleaned pretty much the entire apartment while we were packing the truck. That made the move out inspection so super easy. We loved our apartment and had a great floor plan and all, but it definitely was so good to be in our house.

My mom and Lu did a great job at getting the house livable. The kitchen is almost entirely put together, still a little messy but everything important is in its place, i hooked up the washer and dryer already and they are working, the living room still needs some work but is a place to sit so that is nice, and our bed room we can at least sleep there.

We are still surrounded by lots of boxes to navigate around and a long list of to do's which we are gradually working on but it is fun to be in the house. Thanks to God giving us the strength and determination to work long days and come home and put in more work. We are slowly making things really our own.

Taking off this weekend though to get a short vacation with some awesome friends, when things finally get organized we will be putting up before and after pictures...

House work Update

We have been hard at work so far with our first weekend as homeowners, I have my first of many blisters I am sure. I really like how this project turned out so I wanted to share, even though it is fairly minor and we have done lots of other things inside the house as well. Those are still to come.

Remember our sad broken mail box?

Well after some serious hard work, some sheer determination, a really big crowbar (read 4-foot long) from my neighbor, and a big drill bit. We got the bricks down and through the 6-8 inches of poured concrete in order to get the post up for our new mailbox. Here is what it looks like now.

We will be adding in flowers into the newly created flower bed and maybe some sort of cap stones on top to dress it up a little more, but it looks pretty good now, and we can get mail!

All in all it was a lot more work than expected, but totally worth the effort, although next time i think i will find someone with a jack hammer...

more house updates to come once the other rooms we are working on come together.

Homeowners!

OUR NEW HOME!

We have a house and it is totally awesome so far. We won't actually move in for another week (+a day) but we have already been there a good bit. We are working hard to get some stuff done before we bring over all our possesions. Taking down wallpaper/painting the bathrooms and painting the master. We are still in high spirits about the work we have to do even though wallpaper removal is not a task I would exactly call fun. It has been great to hang out with my wife and get a lot done though.

Here is another shot of the house, from the street:

It has also been really neat, we have met a few of our neighbors already and they are really nice. Someone even placed a neighborhood contact list in our poor broken mailbox...

No worries though, we have plans for the mailbox, we are going to make the bricks into a flower bed and have just a standard mailbox post coming out of them. I think Lu just likes the idea of more flowers at the house. Also someone mowed our lawn for us while we were at dinner wednesday night, (maybe a neighbor maybe the last installment from the sellers old lawn care people) but either way that was also a nice surprise to come home to.

We are very excited about the new place and can't wait to see all of our stuff there and finally be able to entertain guests again. :)

A week away...

So we are exactly one week away from our closing date. It hasn't really hit me yet, but as time rolls closer to having to sign all those papers this is becoming more and more real, The Mrs. and I are going to be home owners. So far the last of the hurdles to get us to closing have been going well. Continue to pray that things will be smooth and we will have no surprises at the closing table. Work is supposed to start today on replacing all the piping in the house. We are very excited and blessed that this is being done, and especially before we move and all our stuff is in there. They should be done in 3 or 4 days.

There is so much to take care of in relation to moving, I am sure we are going to forget something along the way, I just hope it isn't anything that costs us a bunch of money. Already making plans and scheduling cancellation of utilities and tv and internet. I might have to survive cut off from the world for a week or two, but i think i can manage, I have the Mario Kart and the Master Chief to keep me company. And there is always the option of watching movies. We have lots of those for some reason, although I know that they are already packed. Lu has packed everything in sight, but it makes her happy so that is cool. I am sure she would pack me up too if that would make the move easier... :)

All in all though I think we are both enough of planners that things should go pretty smoothly. We have lots to do and lots of running around to do with it. I am most excited about getting the chance to finally stretch some artistic muscles and help design our home. I know that will be a slow process one room at a time as we can save up money for each room, but it will be loads of fun. And the best part is we get to start with our room and I am pumped about the ideas we have come up with for it. It won't be everything we want yet but it will be a big step in that direction and away from boring walls that we have lived with for a year plus in our apartment. (obviously by choice, but who wants to paint and then paint again before moving out?) Anyways I am excited even if I don't show it so well sometimes. I can't wait to have pictures to share and get ideas from others. It is gonna be great!

4th of July weekend!

This weekend was really busy but really fun. First, I woke up Friday to Brian cooking me breakfast in bed, which was super sweet and awesome. We spent all day Friday organizing and packing our guest room up. It's all packed and organized already, which makes me happy. I'm weird and enojy packing and unpacking and getting organized. We still have 2 more weeks and weekends to get our room, the living rm, dining rm and kitchen packed, but we kind of have to wait on those anyway. Then Saturday we did the Peachtree with Brian's family (minus Emily who's in Boston, we missed her though)! It was really fun. I made the mistake of not making time to train for it, so I hurt really bad now. After the Peachtree and some free breakfast thanks to The Home Depot, we went home showered and changed and went to Atlantic Station. Our church was volunteering for a 4th of July Festival at Atlantic Station from 1pm to 5pm on Saturday afternoon. It was also really fun. My women's Bible study group was in charge of the relay races, so for 4 hours we were organizing and running relay races for kids. It was crazy hot, so we'd take breaks every so often, but it was still fun. Needless to say I was exhausted afterwards. So we went home and I collapsed on the couch.

Sunday morning at church I got to help out the media team and Brian. I got to sit with him at the sound/media tables and help run the lights. It wasn't a perfect job running the lights, but it was still fun to help out like that.

We also got to see my parents twice this weekend. On their way into town Wednesday night, they came by and got to see our new house, which was great. I really enjoyed showing them and they really liked it. Then Sunday after church we had lupper with them on their way back out of town.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weeekend!

Always learning

Lately it seems that learning patience, well really being put in situations to be patient are happening quite frequently. Something to be expected I guess when you are negotiating terms and amounts and all the other parts and pieces that go into a housing contract. We made our requests to the sellers and are in a holding pattern to see what they will say. We just have to keep waiting on that though.

In other news, I did get the chance to interview for a new position here at work. The position would be a great opportunity to gain more knowledge of our supply chain and really take a step forward in my career. I am excited about it since it is an opportunity that really fits with my current background and experience. I am also excited at the prospect of having something new and different to work on. I am sure I will have some new challenges to overcome, but I think the benefits will far outweigh the energy and time needed to overcome some hurdles.

Also, for those who don't know, the Peachtree Road Race is on saturday. It will be the 40th running of the race that is the largest 10K in the world. Lu and I will be participating with my parents and sister. We aren't planning on running much, but really just doing it for the fellowship time and enjoying doing something active together. After that our church is helping out at the 4th of July celebration at Atlantic Station. It is going to be like an old school fair, all kinds of fun and games for the kids and the big kids :) My only hope is that we aren't too tired and have enough time to shower so that we can leave a good impression on the people that come to the celebration. :)

That is all for now, I will try to update so more later

So the inspection on the house went pretty well, only a few things that really are recommened to be fixed that Lu and I can't handle on our own, well at least not yet. I still need some more classes in the handy man school. It is fun though because Lu definitely has already put together a honey-do list for me, I know she will help, but it just makes me laugh.

The house has polybutelene pipes in it, which have been known to fail and leak so those need to be replaced, although not necessarily immediately. The other issue is that the siding on the house needs some work in a few places and eventually will need to be totally redone. other than that the house is in good shape most everything else checked out, with a few things to be done here and there.

I applied for a new position at work. Haven't heard anything yet, but hoping I will hear something soon. It would be a great new opportunity that would allow me to learn more about the different parts of supply chain. I am excited about the chance, and hoping that I get to schedule an interview soon. Please pray for that.

Lastly, because our church meets in the movie theater and we have gotten to know the manager really well, we had the opportunity to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen before it came out this week. Lindsey and I had really enjoyed watching the first one, minus a few scenes it was pretty entertaining, so we were pretty pumped about seeing the second installment. Although the sequel was also entertaining it had many more detractors than the first. There were way to many crude jokes and a lot of language (most of it out of character and pointless cursing) I wish they would have made it so you could clearly understand all of the transformers. I liked the movie for the Transformers and visuals, the story has a lot to it, but feels like they just brush over a lot of details and then highlight other things that don't add to the story. Not the best movie I have ever seen and not the worst. Still pretty cool to watch though, lots of neat fight sequences.

Lots of Updates!!

We did have a great time in Disney and I'll try and add pictures later tonight at home. The vacation flew by, but was really fun. We went to all 4 parks and some of them multiple times. There's a new ride called Toy Story Midway Mania and it's awesome! It's a 3D game where you shoot items just like at a fair - like throwing balls at plates to break them, or throwing rings around items or popping balloons, etc. It keeps track of your score and it was really fun to try and figure out how to get higher scores and such. I think Brian and I went on the ride 4 times. :) haha

Brian took this totally awesome picture at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Bari had Disney t-shirts made for the family since this trip marked our 20th year going to Disney. Alex is modeling the back of the shirt and Brian got to wear one just cause we like him.

Here we are in from of the Hollywood Studio's Sorcerer Mickey Hat. Sadly, Alex wasn't feeling very good and wasn't there for the picture...

This is us and Mr. Potato Head at the super awesome new ride, Toy Story's Midway Mania

We got to meet Mater and Lighting McQueen!!!!

In other news, we are under contract for a house!! YAY! It's really like a dream first home! It's got all the amenities we wanted and little to no repairs needed.

Here is what the house looks like. Once we close we will post lots more photos.

Slacking

we have been slacking posting to the blog, so hopefully this week, maybe even tonight, i can convice the wife to put some pictures up or have her write something. if not, i will post about Disney and everything else we have going on.

Later

Post Wedding Post

So as expected the weekend did not dissappoint.

Lu and I both got off work early on friday, she had some hairs cut, I has some lunch with Derik.  I miss him already.  The the three of us piled into the camry and headed to Gainesville.  With i think something around 5 tuxes our weekend bags, lots of board games and some serious excitement for what was ahead, traffic. Ok we weren't excited about the traffic, least of all me, but at 3 in the afternoon it shouldn't take you 30 minutes to go 8 miles around 285.  Fortunately after we got onto 85 north and made our way over to the HOV lane, it was smooth sailing and we arrived slightly early to the church for the rehearsal.  turns out we actually beat the bride there (she and the groom arrived shortly after we did), but so did my dad who was the minister for the wedding and Becca another bridesmaid.

The rehearsal went fine, everyone already enjoying seeing old friends.  We did have to wait on four groomsmen for awhile traffic got them worse than it got us.  We were quite packed in up front in the chapel, but it was pretty awesome as I had a great view of the entire proceeding and a piano to lean on :).  The rehearsal dinner was held on the premises in the lobby of the banquet hall where the reception would be held the next day.  It was some absolutely delicious food.  Anna cousin did a fantastic job, the chicken in some orange marmelade something or another, with the sweet corn and twice baked potatos, the steaks and green beans and yummy carrots and of course the bread and Matt's favorite, pound cake for dessert.  It was all super yummy, so i was already excited for the meal the next day as well.

After dinner we all had the chance to say a few words.  I got a little emotional but held it together, I just don't quite have the gift of speaking as well as Matt does, but my words got a few laughs and it was just an honor to say a little something to celebrate my best friend and his bride.

Lu also said some really sweet things about Anna.  All around good times.  I was impressed as to how well Matt's mom held it together during her speech, it was a different story for his big sis, but it was awesome to see just how happy everyone was and how excited we all were for those two.

After dinner, the boys were staying at Gramma's place, she lives literally across the parking lot from the church.  and so we headed over there for just a good night with Matt.  Some time of prayer, some Settlers of Catan which Matt won through me since I took over for him after he went to bed.   

Next morning after barely making a dent in the food that was left for us, we were all dressed up and hurried over to the church to wait.  Then all the pictures, which is always fun.  Anna was a gorgeous bride and Matt was just smiling ear to ear.  Her home church also had tons of beautiful places to take pictures so we had lots to do.  I had some other random running around to do for Matt (like making sure he had a steady stream of ibuprofen to hopefully prevent his knee from hurting too bad), but we eventually got it all taken care of and had time for some more settlers before the wedding actually got started.

The ceremony was beautiful.  Matt had tears and was trying to hold it in as Anna came down the aisle.  They both just couldn't contain the joy.  It was wonderful to see.  I was amazed that they both were able to clearly say their vows from memory with no help.  All in all it was just a gorgeous wedding, and Matt's reaction to the first kiss was priceless.  So happy for both of them.

Matt and Anna had some more pictures made. Then on to the reception, which was a blast.  Matt smooth as could be really made the best of his torn ACL and came out with a cane, which he tossed to me before he started his first dance with his bride.  I had a blast getting to see lots of old friends and meeting a few new ones, it was so much fun.  They left around 5.  Then after some clean up and getting all the tuxes together, Lu and I drove home.  We then got to have dinner with Derik and his wife Kristin.  That was such a treat.  I really miss seeing them.

All in all a fantastic weekend.  Again I am so happy for Matt and Anna.  It is hard to believe they are already married.  I can't wait to see them when they get back.

Photos to come soon.

Wedding Weekend

So this weekend is gonna be awesome.  I get to hangout with some of the best guys in the world and stand next to my best friend as he is wed.  I am pumped.  We will try to get some great pictures to post on the blog.  

Keep Matt in your prayers though, he tore his ACL last weekend, so he won't be fully himself come wedding day, but good news is that he won't have any problems standing there and he isn't letting it dampen his spirits.  

Other than that still nothing on the house front.  We are still looking and praying.  We will continue to keep you all posted on that as well. but between looking for houses, training for the peachtree (we are doing that with my fam so it will be walking mostly) and getting ready for the wedding, oh yeah and work of course, there hasn't been a lot else going on around here.

Wahoo!

YAY!  My big project goes out today and I feel good about it.  I really think I got things done well and it'll be good.  It's nice to have this done.  We'll probably still have an addendum go out and we'll have questions to answer, but the major work is done. :)

Tomorrow I'm going to follow one of our Commissioning agents around another one of my projects to learn more about what they do to make sure all our equipment works right, so that will be neat.  I'm definitely thinking about taking Friday off too - I've worked enough to take it off without needing any PTO, and it'd be a good time to get my hair cut and have a nice Lindsey day. :)  Then Friday afternoon we're going back out to look at houses.  We have a few that we're really interested in, so i think it'll be really fun!

As far as last Saturday's house hunting went, we just didn't really see anything we wanted and it was all less house for our money, so we'll keep looking elsewhere.

Hopefully we'll have another house update later this weekend. 

House Update 2

Brian had mentioned a house we were interested in, well it went under contract (well the bank had 4 offers) before we could put an offer in, so oh well.  God has another house in mind for us. :)  I have a couple of houses I like, and Brian is "meh" about them, but nothing yet that has screamed "this is it!".  Tomorrow will be another full day of looking at houses - we have 9-10 on our list we're going to try and go see.  It'll be busy, but good.  We'll keep you updated.

Birthday Addendum...

So my birthday got even better.  My wonderful wife threw me a surprise party on the friday after my birthday.  She managed to keep it a secret for the most part, but when I arrived, I already knew what was waiting inside for me, not because I was trying to figure it out, but because I just picked up on some things that seemed out of the ordinary, including noticing cars that weren't supposed to be there.  Lu, was great though, she really made me feel special putting it all together.

She had a pasta bar, two awesome sauces made by two awesome chefs. (Emily (friend not sister) and my Dad).  And she got me a oreo cheesecake and another yummy cake for dessert.  She even made sure that the other cake was what was passed around first so i would have left over cheesecake.  She really is the best.

It was great seeing my family and friends all together to hang out and talk and all.  I had tons of fun.  I really enjoyed it.  Then to top of the Birthday extravaganza weekend, saturday we were able to keep our plans and still go up for lunch with my family and hang out with them which was lots of fun as always.

we also have more house stories, but that will come in another post, maybe by the best wife ever!  we shall see.   

Birthday!

Yep, another April 30th has come and gone.   And it was a great birthday.  I mean kindof lame cause I still had to go to work, but I got to spend a bunch of time with my wonderful wife celebrating my birthday.  She took me to Ted's Montana Grill, sooo good.  We had some coupons and it was my birthday so we also got free dessert.  I ordered my favorite bison burger, The Kitchen Sink.  The Kitchen Sink= bison, your choice of cheese, ham, sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, bacon, fried egg... oh so yummy and incredibly messy.  

The weekend is going to continue the festivities, tonight we are having friends over for dinner and Lindsey is gonna cook, don't know what yet, but i am excited all the same.  It is going to be a fun evening i am sure.  then saturday i get to celebrate with my family, save for Em who is in Mass.  I did get to talk to her though.  But Mom is cooking breakfast and lunch on saturday so that is very exciting.  i can't wait to get some biscuits mmmm...   

Sometime in there we hope to continue looking at house, i am sure Lu has and update for you all on our house hunting.  We have one we are pretty interested in seeing so we hope to get a chance to do that soon, if we can get our schedules to work out with it and all.  Keep us in your prayers as we continue through the house hunting process.  

That is all for now, hope everyone has a good day.

First House Hunting weekend

This weekend our awesome realtor took us out to look at some houses.  Unfortunatley we went to some horrible foreclosures.  It's definitely true that pictures don't do some houses justice.  Here are a couple of pics from some of the "best"...

We think that one was maybe in the middle of being renovated....

This one had just been ripped open by potential buyers (our realtor thought), to see how bad the water damage was.  Obviously it was bad.  You might not be able to see it, but the pipes are rusted, there is lots of mold and rotted wood.  This house also had a dead bird in the sun room.  It was quite the experience. :)  The houses were so bad we just had to laugh about them. 

We did see a nice house at the end, but it was too small.  Our furniture wouldn't fit in the bedrooms.  We have a lot more houses we want to look at though.  So we'll just keep looking. :)

Hopefully we'll have better house updates in the future.  On the plus side, our realtor is really nice and great to work with, and she'll definitely work hard to find us our house.  

Our anniversary!! and more updates

So I'm really bad at posting regularly, but maybe I'll be better over the summer. :)  First, I have some pics from our anniversary!  Brian surprised me with a recreation of our wedding cookie cake, from the Carlyle House. :)

He got it from the Carlyle House on Wednesday and hid it in the fridge in the Leasing office until Saturday.  Then he went and got it when I was in the shower.   So I went to the fridge to get a drink and saw this:

It was a really fun surprise! :) haha

Of course we had to pose with it. :)  It was sooo yummy!  We also enjoyed an awesome dinner at Maggiano's too.

The next weekend (18-19th) we went to Tuscaloosa to visit my parents for my Dad's birthday (it was the 20th).  It was "A Day" at the University of Alabama which was the big day for their spring football game.  Alabama football and football fans are crazy serious about their football.  People were tailgating and they had different presentations and vender

s on campus.  I think Dad said over 70,000 people came out to the game.  It was intense, but fun. :)

Here we are:

My parents really enjoy Alabama softball now too - they have season tickets.  So we went to the softball game after the spring practice game.  Turns out they are really good.  

Anyway, we've had some busy but fun weekends.  I'll try and post soon about our first weekend house hunting - it was interesting. :) haha

363 days...

And every single one of them has been wonderful.  

Yep that is right, Lu and I will have been married for one full year come Sunday April 12th, yep that is Easter, and boy is it a great day.  Not only do I get the opportunity to celebrate having the most wonderful woman in my life for a full year, but I get the chance to share in celebration with my church family that our Lord, Jesus Christ is a risen savior.   What a glorious day.  I am very very excited.

I really hope that all of you can take the time this Easter to really focus on Christ, His love, and what He did for all of us.  I also hope that we can all share with others the truth of His word, His mercy, and His grace that they may begin their relationship with Him.  I pray that each of you are living your lives to the fullest, and that you are a shining reflection of Christ.

Two quotes I wanted to share for you to think about.

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today... is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is simply what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable." ~Brennan Manning

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." ~ Ghandi

Work

So I think Lu has work up to her eye balls to do.  She has been so busy.  Two projects going out, essentially today or tomorrow and she has been working long and hard.  I am proud of her and the hard work she is putting in, I know her boss and company appreciates it.  Luckily these projects are almost over with (for now as far as I know) and she gets a break. 

On the other hand I don't get a break or a day although I am not complaining, Lu earned it and truthfully with a day off i would just likely be a bum.  She is probably going to be super productive etc.  But like I said before I would share more details on me and work.  I recently applied for a new position within my company.  I don't know anything yet, but it is an opportunity that I am excited about, I think it will help me further my career and my skillset.  Please pray for God's leadership in this situation. I would like to hear something one way or the other, and to know that it is God's will.  Thanks.

It's been 1 week...

So it has been a week since i have posted anything, and totally random the title i just typed reminded me that when i played a small portion of that song at Club this week (thanks to babybear's Ipod)  it was hilarious to me that every highschooler in the room knew the words and immediately started singing along...

Ok so what has been going on...  

Well continue to be praying for us as Lu and I go through the process of finding a house.  We have a realtor and will be talking to banks and brokers soon to figure out what our best options are.

I have taken over the media team somewhat at Church and that has been a lot of fun.  It has just been a lot of fun to serve in that capacity and really try and make the slides and visuals be part of leading people to the throne, instead of a distraction.

Lu has started a bible study at her work that meets every other monday.  Really exciting stuff, but i want her to talk about it so hopefully she will post on that.

Last night we had a lot of fun hanging out with a really great friend of mine from my days growing up over in Peru.  It was really great to see her and to catch up on all that is going on in her life.

Lastly, I have a request that you pray for God's leadership for me as I am seeking His will for me at work.  I will share more details on this later, but your prayers are appreciated.

This weekend, Celery and Michael get married!

Next weekend, Easter and Lu and I celebrate our 1 year anniversary.  I can't wait! 

Busy busy

Wanted to write a quick note to everyone who keeps up with us.  We have both been so busy with work and other activities that the blogging has fallen through the cracks.  This week we are house sitting so not being at home adds to our hectic schedule.  I will add more next week when things hopefully settle down a bit.

Court (old post from March that I never actually posted)

So unfortunately, I am quite comforatble with City of Atlanta Traffic Court now. I've been to the court house 3 times now. The first time was for a fender bender and I plead No Lo b/c I didn't know what to do. The second time due to a series of uncontrolable events (in the rain) I got another ticket. This time I was confident that I was not at fault, so I plead not guilty. In Atlanta, if you plea not guilty you are giving a second court date to come back and be heard. Today was that day. I got into work at 6:30am to try and get some work done before my court date. This was mostly because last time I was in court at 8am, I just went straight there from home and I was there until almost 11am!! This time I wanted to be able to get in and get some work done, just in case I was gone for 3 hours again.

Anyway, court is always an interesting experience. My second visit I saw 2 people be taken into custody right there in the court room, due to lots of outstanding tickets or getting a bad ticket and lack of a driver's license. Today

There are so many different types of people in court and they all really don't want to be there. I just try and be patient and not nervous, but it's hard. You can tell other people are nervous too.

Celica = hair dryer

So often times I leave the house without drying my hair, the joy of curly hair.  Well one Sunday recently it was cold and I wanted to dry my hair, but didn't have time.  So Brian was driving us to church in his celica and we turned the air on high and closed all the other vents but the 2 in front off me to try.  AND IT TOTALLY WORKED!  I'm sure I looked really funny drying my hair with the vents in his car, but it was successful and i'll probably do it again.  :)

Maybe next time we'll take a picture of it. :)

house hunting...

So Lu and I have been looking for houses, and sunday we spent a good three hours driving around and just looking at some we had found online.  (pictures can lie you know.)  it was a fun afternoon, but we both realize there is a lot left for us to do in order to get ourselves in a position to buy a home.

It is very exciting, but also a lot of work and probably stress eventually related to such a big life/financial decision.  So if you would, keep us in your prayers.

Ice Hockey Saturday

Thanks to Lu saying yes, I was able to attend a fantastic hockey game on saturday night.  I don't normally watch much ice hockey, pro or otherwise, but when our pastor called me up and asked if I wanted to come, I just don't like passing on free tickets, it was a good thing I didn't cause I had a great evening.  I got to hang out with Brad, Larry and Chris at the game while Lu got to hang out with their wives and the babies, fortunately I think this event helped cement the idea that kids for us are still a ways down the road.  

The game was a lot of fun, we were about 8 rows back from the glass, and basically next to the tunnel that the visiting team uses to get to their bench.  really great seats, all the players looked huge and the action was great.  TheThrashers scored 5 goals, basically all in the 3rd period, the first was 34 seconds before the end of the second period, to come from behind and win the game.  It was a lot of fun and it was great to bond with some of the men that are really influencial in my life right now.  I got a few pictures on my phone, however I have no way of posting them so your imagination will just have to do.

Little Things

Yesterday I got another reminder of just how awesome doing small things for people can really have an impact on them.  Yesterday, my plan, as it is most Thursdays, was to eat at my desk and work through lunch.  I like this because I save money and I get to leave earlier by working through my "lunch break".  

Right around 11:30 I got a wonderful surprise, my best bud Matt and his co-workers, Dustin and Becky, were near my work at a conference and had a lunch break and wanted to spend it with me.  It was a lot of fun, yeah I didn't go home early but I was really blessed to have all of them at lunch. I had a great time and it was fun to show them a little of my work place as well as just sharing a meal together.  Just the fact that they thought of me was great.  

I really appreciated the small gesture, makes me think if I am doing the little things to really impact others lives and showing them the love of Christ.

ValenBirthday Weekend Pictures Part II

We saw a rainbow on the way down there, we knew it was gonna be a good weekend. 

When we got to the pier Friday night, we had an awesome view.  A great reminder of how great our Creator is and the beauty of His creation.

Now again with the pier in the shot.  It really was a great sunset.

Sad this one didn't turn out clear, we tried really hard to get Lu a pocket sized lighthouse...

Lu ready for our biking adventure in front of the hotel.

We found the marsh.  Also pretty in its own way.

Lu's mad bike skills and my awesome picture skills while riding the bike.

Yeah, that's right. Fox's Pizza.

Me and the lighthouse.  

Us on the beach on Sunday morning.  Again enjoying God's beautiful creation and of course each other's company. It was a great weekend.