World's Largest Water Balloon Fight

When I last left you I was hoping to go see Julie and Julia with my friend Kaelyn. Well Kaelyn didn't get her homework finished, so I thought I was just going to have a nice relaxing evening at home. I went out to run some errands and finish buying gifts for all the festivities of the weekend, and as I was on my way home, ready to settle in for the evening (it was a long week at work and I was pretty beat) I got a call from Keith. He and Derek had been up at LCA for lunch that day and were getting a group together to go to the world's largest water balloon fight (held at UK at midnight on Friday - 119,00 balloons - broke the world record). Keith said that some of my favorite LCA girls were planning on going.

At this point I came to a crossroads. Part of me was really looking forward to going to bed early. It had been a long week, I was up late Thursday night, and worked all day Friday. I also had a pretty full weekend ahead. However, in the craziness that has been the past few weeks of my life, I haven't had a chance to make it up to LCA or see any of these girls. (I hope Matt Harrison doesn't read this.) So while I am 26 years old and have no business being at UK for a huge water balloon fight amongst high school and college kids that started at midnight, I took a look at my life, and figured this wasn't that different from what we do at Young Life camp, and my life isn't normal for a 26 year old. I spend a good chunk of my free time hanging out with high schoolers. So while the old woman in me was all about a quiet evening at home, I really wanted to see my LCA friends, so I figured what the heck. At 11:00 pm on Friday night, I got changed and headed out to with Keith, Derek and our friend Carter who was at our house, to go meet my LCA friends and head to UK's campus.

And, you know what, it was actually a lot of fun. It was amazing to see all the water balloons flying through the air, and a good water balloon fight is always fun. Here is a picture of all of us:


It's funny how often I feel like being lazy (i.e. a previous post when I talked about waking up and running in the morning) but as soon as I get up and do whatever it is I am thinking about doing, it always ends up being so much more fun. I rarely ever wish I had just stayed at home and been lazy. I need to remember this when I am tired and don't feel like doing anything. It definitely was not what I anticipated, but usually it ends up more fun that way. =)

Celebrate!

At my office, my co-workers never ceased to be amazed at the shear volume of weddings that Derek and I attend. And truthfully, every year I think that I won't have that many to go to, and every year more and more friends keep getting engaged. This weekend however, has brought the ridiculousness to a whole new level. It all started Thursday night with my friend Carly's bachelorette party. On a side note, I meant to bring my camera, but left it at home, however, since it was at home, Derek took this opportunity to photograph what was happening at our house while I was gone:


Apparently it was the best nerf gun war ever. I love it! My house was transformed, but completely put back together by the time I got home. I love that these guys come over to our house and do crazy things like this every week, but even more than that, I love that these guys are excited about reading the Bible together and learning what God has for them. I have to confess that in my weak faith I doubted that they would want to do more than just hang out and have fun, especially given that they go to a Christian school and have a class called "Bible" where the Bible is their text book, but God in his grace has given these 16 and 17 year old guys the desire to read his Word and grow closer to Him. How awesome is God? So good and so much bigger than I could ever know.

I say all this not to say look at what we have done (or what Derek has done) but to say look at what God has done! We have only had the privelage of witnessing it and experiencing God's grace in allowing us to be a part of it. Ok, so that was a big tangent, but its my blog and I can write what I want :) And it's called Where Your Treasure Is and this is definitely something I treasure. I think they are coming over again tonight. It is amazing to me that they would want to spend their Friday night at our house hanging out with a guy who is almost 10 years older than them - but again God is good and so much bigger than us. But I digress again...

Back to celebrations. So Thursday was a bachelorette party. Saturday during the day we have a baby shower for Arlen, who I work with. Saturday night is Carly and Ryan's wedding. Sunday is a wedding shower for my friend Karen, who is our friend Brent's fiance. So that's four, count them, four, celebrations in one weekend. Ridiculous. But I love it. I feel so blessed to have wonderful friends that we get to celebrate weddings and babies with. And my friend Jade is due to have her baby any day now, so maybe that will happen this weekend and we can add one more celebration to the craziness!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, I'm going to enjoy my one free evening of the weekend by hopefully going to see Julie and Julia with my precious friend Kaelyn (as long as she gets her homework done:)

<3

Columbus!!!

This past weekend we went to Columbus to visit my family and celebrate my birthday and my sister's and mom's birthdays. I'll give you a few highlights:

1. We took Moose to the dog park. They have an excellent dog park in Columbus, and it has a lake that they can swim in. There is nothing Moose loves more than swimming in the lake.


We take him with my aunt and uncle's dogs and they have toys that they throw in the lake and the dogs retrieve them. We almost lost Moose when my uncle threw a toy out and his dog beat Moose to it, but Moose didn't realize it, so he kept swimming. We called his name but he just kept swimming further and further away. Luckily my uncle threw another toy behind him, he heard it splash and turned around and came back. Crisis averted.

2. We celebrated birthdays, as I mentioned earlier. I got 2 new vacuums! I know what you are thinking, who asks for a vacuum for their birthday and why would you need 2? Well I actually already have one that works. So now I have 3. One for the upstairs, one for the downstairs and a light weight stick vacuum for the steps. It may sound ridiculous, but when you have 2 long haired cats and a large long haired dog, and vacuum your house multiple times a week, it makes sense. No more lugging the heavy vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs!

Here is a picture of my sister sporting a few of her new gifts:


A shower cap and a pair of pink frilly underwear =) For every gift giving occasion, our grandma, Grandma Lo, gives us a gift bag full of lots of goodies. The exciting thing is you never know what's going to be in the bag, it's whatever Grandma Lo comes up with. Julie got a cute purple shirt, a thesaurus, a thermometer, 15 shower caps, and pink frilly underwear. I got a pair of gardening gloves, some gardening books, a vitamin book, a can of mixed nuts, a bengals cuzi, and some 1998 Kentucky Derby cards. And I got a sweet Kohl's gift card! It's always a fun time opening Grandma Lo's gifts.

3. Other fun things that happened were frisbee golf, shopping, dinner at the Cheesecake factory, and sitting around with my family and friends who I wish I got to see more of. I miss them lots and feel like my trips up to Columbus are never long enough.

Respectable Sins

So it has been a while since my last post. I apologize for that. I was out of town for 5 out of 7 days last week, which made it difficult to keep the blog updated. But don't worry, this is a real long post to make up for it. Things are still a little crazy and I am going to be heading back out of town on Thursday, to go up to Columbus to see my parents and celebrate birthdays with them.

Today's post is something I've been wanting to do for a while now. Our Bible study read the book Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges over the summer and I wanted to share a little bit about it that stuck out to me and encourage you to read it if you have not done so already.

Respectable Sins is a book about the sin in our life that we either don't notice or justify by thinking that it is not that big of a deal, or that compared to what we see others doing, we're really not that bad. Jerry Bridges uses words like "cosmic treason", "rebelling against God" and "despising God" to describe our sin. Even the smallest little sin that we may justify as not being a big deal or not hurting anyone is despising God. So if the title of the book didn't catch my attention this certainly did. I don't despise God. I love God. But John 14:20 says "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me." Maybe Jerry Bridges wasn't so far off.

But the beauty of this book, is that while it starts out with a bit of a punch to the gut, it goes on to remind us that our sin has already been forgiven. Bridges writes, "The only sin that can be successfully fought against is forgiven sin. We cannot begin to deal with the activity of sin in our lives until we have first dealt with its guilt...God through Christ has dealt with our guilt. The only basis for God's forgiveness is the blood of Christ shed on the cross for us." And that is the beauty of this book. It lays out how we can fight against sin in our lives, not through our own power but with God's power. It is also super convicting with about 13 chapters on common respectable sins so you can have plenty of practice fighting against sin with God's power. Chapters with titles like "Ungodliness, unthankfulness, selfishness, pride, impatience and irritability, judgementalism, etc. But its good, because we need these things pointed out to us. I for one want to love God and I know the best way I can do that is to be obedient and this book took me a huge step in that direction.


In other news we had our young life planning I beekend this weekend. It was lots of fun. We got some good planning for the semester done. I balled like a baby as we had some time to talk about why we love Kari (this was her last young life leadership with us). We also went canoeing, which I was real excited about becaue as you may have read a few posts back our last canoeing trip failed. This one was loads of fun, except for the 3 trees that Derek ran us into, which cause our canoe to be invaded by spiders, followed by us tipping. The current pushed us into a tree stump that was sticking out. Because we were trying to turn we hit it with the side of our boat instead of head on. I leaned over to avoid being stabbed by the broken limbs of the tree, which caused us to tip and our canoe to get pinned up against the tree stump, which took forever to free. I think most people canoeing ended up tipping because others tipped them over, I'm pretty sure we were the only ones who managed to tip because of the river. That's embarassing. Oh well, good memories right? So fun hanging out all weekend with our fabulous LCA team and wonderful young life leader friends. Love them all!

An Eventful Weekend

This past weekend was very eventful. Our friends Cory and Dana tied the knot on Saturday night, my friend Kari had a fabulous wedding shower and Derek and I got to experience a small taste of parenthood by having to take care of a very sick puppy.

On Friday night Derek and I returned home from our friend Ryan's birthday party, walked into our house, looked at each other, crinkled our noses, and asked each other, "What is that smell?" I'll spare you the details of what that smell was, although you may be able to guess. Our puppy wasn't feeling so hot, so we spent the rest of our evening cleaning Moose's crate, and the carpet and walls around it. Luckily for you I don't have pictures to document our evening, however I will give you a rather humorous mental image of myself at 5:30 on Saturday morning, wearing a mid-calf length bath robe, Derek's tennis shoes, and a bandanna around my face (bad-guy style from old Western movies) to keep me from gagging, carrying a bag of poopy clorox wipes from having to clean Moose's cage AGAIN. With that, I will move on to higher points of the weekend.

Saturday night we attended the wedding of Dana Hinkle and Cory Burns, friends from Northern Kentucky. Funny story about how we met. Dana and I met my freshman year of college in weightlifting class. Every Monday, Wednedsay and Friday, Dana, her best friend Heidi and I lifted weights together. Fast forward three years to my senior year of college when Derek and I had just started dating. He took me up to Northern Kentucky to go to a show for the band that his older brother is in. Surrounded by a bunch of people I didn't know, I got so excited when I saw Dana, someone I acutally knew. I proceeded to be a polite girlfriend and introduce her to Derek, only to find out that she was dating Cory, Derek's older brother's best friend, and that she was friends with Derek's whole family. I felt really cool. So here we are several years later, celebrating the joyous occasion of Cory and Dana's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and was so fun to get to see Northern Kentucky friends that we don't get to see often. I wasn't able to get a great picture of the happy couple due to lighting issues and not really understanding how my camera works. But here is a picture of Derek and I at the wedding:

Another highlight from the wedding is I got to wear one of my favorite pairs of shoes that matches with very few outfits, so I felt very happy all evening that I was wearing them:


Also, definitely the cutest highlight of the night was that our little nephew Henry was the ring bearer. He can bearly walk and was precious as he teetered down the aisle. Here is a picture of him hitting the dance floor in his precious little tux:


He is too cute. In other wedding related news I also attended Kari's bridal shower today. The girls who put it on did a great job. It was really beautiful and I am so excited for Kari to get married. Here is a picture of me, Kari and Traci at the shower. The three of us lived together for 2 years in college and I love them both a lot!


Also, because Kari is leaving Lexington :( Derek and I wanted to get her a going away present. Derek is really crafty at heart, but because he is a boy he lacks the ability to actually be crafty. But he came up with the idea of making her a candle holder with 2 Corinthians 2:15 on it, that says "For we are the aroma of Christ..." So since I am the girl in the relationship, even though I am not crafty at heart, it was up to me to figure out how to make Derek's idea into a reality. So I thought I would show you all my first attempt at craftiness.


She may have just been being nice, but Kari seemed like she liked it. (It's not super in focus, but again, I don't really know how to work my camera - but you get the idea.) I'm just glad that it turned out somewhat how I envisioned. I feel like the gift doesn't do justice to express to Kari how much we love her and will miss her, but I'm not sure that there is a gift that does. Luckily I have been able to see Kari somewhat regularly since she has moved back to Louisville, but once that changes it's going to be very hard. I am going to miss her lots. But before we can get all sad we need to celebrate the fact that she is getting MARRIED!!!! So I will end this blog on a happy note with best wishes to her and Stephen.

It's a beautiful morning...

Most of you probably know that I get every other Friday off of work. And I'm a sucker for sleeping in so I usually don't wake up until 10:30. But yesterday my boss was out of the office all day so I needed to go in at 8:00 this morning to get him up to speed on where we are with one of our projects. So I didn't stay up late last night, and instead went to bed at a reasonable time and got up at 7:30 this morning. I ate breakfast and went into work for a half an hour and was home before 8:45. When I got home I decided to spend some time reading my Bible and then went for a run at 9:30. I went for my "long" run, which is 3 miles. I know for many of you that is not a long run, but for me it is. My goal is to be able to run 5 miles by Thanksgiving.

It was such a delightful morning. It was sunny but not hot or humid yet, and a cool breeze was blowing. I love running through my neighborhood because I think it is beautiful - this is what it looks like:
But as I was enjoying my run I was thinking to myself, Why am I such a sucker for sleeping in? Why don't I wake up early on my days off and the weekends and spend time with Jesus and make it out for my run when it isn't blazin' hot yet? Every time that I am able to convince myself to get out of bed early, I always love it. The morning is my favorite time of day, especially when the sun is out. I don't know why I so easily roll over and keep falling back asleep until 10:30. I guess my immediate desires for comfort and sleep win out over what I know is best for me. I think this is a lot of times a metaphor for life. The things that are worth it take some discipline and putting off of our immediate desires, but in the end it is always worth it.

So I got home for my run and proceeded to take my dog for a walk, and by the time I was home and taking a shower it was 10:30, the time I usually would have woken up. I still had the whole day ahead of me and I felt great because I had exercised (myself and my dog) and spent time with Jesus. So, I was able to go to the pool for a few hours (one of my favorite things in the world) with Sarah, Carly and her sister, and enjoy all of my beautiful day off.

Death is Not Dying

I found this on another blog today, and it is awesome, so I thought I would share it. It is a 37 year old woman who has terminal cancer and very few weeks/months left to live. It is her thoughts on what she has learned in life and her thoughts that she wants to share with her children. She loves the Lord and this talk lays out the gospel so well, but is challenging for believers as well. The way that she sees life and lives it knowing that her time is limited is an encouragement for how we should live our lives. It's about an hour long but totally worth it, and it didn't seem like an hour when I listened to it, so I highly recommend that you check it out.

Death is Not Dying

WEG

Today is a day when I really love my job. One of the projects that our company is working on is we are providing consulting services to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for transportation improvements for the World Equestrian Games. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is basically the Olympics for horses and it is coming to Lexington in the Fall of 2010.

My role in this project is very small. I create traffic simulation models to hopefully ensure that the transportation plans that are being made will be successful. Because of that I get to go to meetings once a month where I get to sit and listen to very smart people come up with how they are going to handle all aspects of transportation in regards to this event. Let me tell you, I just sit there and listen (while furiously taking notes) and am amazed at everything that goes into this process. All of the details that are thought through and all that goes into making sure that people who have likely never been to Lexington can get to and from the event (most of whom will have to park somewhere besides the Horse Park and take a bus there) just everything that goes into it, I am amazed at their smartness and thought processes.

One of the coolest things is they will be thinking through various issues and say, "Well, for the Salt Lake City Olympics, this is what we did." That's right, these people have been in charge of handling all of the transportation issues for the Olympics, Super Bowls, and pretty much any major event. And I get to sit in a room with them and listen to them figure out how they are going to make it all work here for the WEG. Such a cool job. I love it!

Sometimes I wish that I had their jobs, but those people are constantly moving from city to city, wherever the next event is and spend their lives traveling, which I probably wouldn't enjoy. But it is amazing to sit in a room and see how they figure out these complex issues.

Here is a picture of something you might see at the Equestrian Games:


Also, I learned interesting facts about the endurance event at the meeting. On one day of the WEG, there will be an endurance event, which is a 100 mile race. It begins at 7 am and lasts until between 7 pm and midnight. Riders don't have to ride the horse the whole time, they can walk or run beside it if they want, they just have to ride it for a certain distance or time, I can't remember which (but it wasn't very much, I want to say like an hour or 10 miles or some very small percentage of the time) and they have to be on the horse when it crosses the finish line. I guess the purpose of this is to not wear out the horse by riding it the whole time, but could you imagine running or walking next to your horse for like 90 miles? Sounds crazy to me. It would be interesting to see though.

Weekend with Matt and Chelsea

So last November I won a free canoe trip and cave tour in Indiana at a silent auction. I was real excited about it and couldn't wait for the chance to use it, but for various reasons Derek and I weren't able to go until this weekend. The place we were going to go is about 45 minutes west of Louisville, so we decided to stay with our friends Matt and Chelsea Rupp on Saturday night and they were going to canoe and do the cave tour with us on Sunday.

We showed up in Louisville Saturday evening and had a delicious Mexican dinner then proceeded to play Derek's new obsession Settlers of Catan all evening. It is a real fun game, our friend Bryan introduced us to it when he came back from South Carolina and so now Derek is introducing it to all of our friends who have not had the joy of playing yet. All in all we played 4 games in a less than 24 hour period.

Sunday morning we woke up around 7:3o to pack some snacks, head out to breakfast and go canoeing. Around 7:45 I got a call from the folks at the canoe rental place to tell us that the river level was too high and they were closed - so there went our plans for the day. So we all went back to sleep and postponed our breakfast at Wild Eggs by about 3 hours. Since canoeing was no longer an option we decided that the next best option was to play some more Settlers of Catan and go to the pool. Which, if you know me, I love the pool so that was not a bad second choice. The only thing is, I was so excited to blog about our canoe trip so now I have to blog about the pool. So below, you can see a few photos from the pool.




I think one of my highlights from the day was when Matt and Derek asked a 3 year-old boy if they could play with his football.

So below you will see Derek asking the boy and his mom if they can play with the ball.


And here is Matt picking up the ball:


And now they are playing with it:


They are really funny. Overall it was a very fun time with the Rupp's in Louisville, and even though we didn't get to go canoeing or do the cave tour it was good fellowship and was great to see them and catch up.