Confession

Alright friends, it's time for a confession. I'm not sure why, but I feel the need to come clean. I have acted cool and non-chalant about it up to this point, but I feel as though I have been living a lie. The truth is, I am looking forward to the Royal Wedding.

When I was home this past weekend, I was talking with my mom and she was saying how she was so surprised how excited everyone is. And I agree, it doesn't really make sense. We're not British, this isn't the wedding of our one day king. And yet, for some reason, I am intrigued.

I would like to act like I have more important things to do with my time than watch a wedding of 2 people I don't know. But for some reason, I click on all the little stories about it on my Yahoo home page, and find myself wanting to learn more about them.

I'm not sure what the fascination is, but I'll admit, I'm fascinated. I tried not to be, but I just can't deny it anymore. I guess as girls, there is something in all of us that loves weddings and princesses, and when you put the 2 together, we can't help ourselves. We would be lying if we said we didn't like the idea of marrying a prince, and having a beautiful extravagant wedding that the whole world was looking forward to and cared about.

So when I get home tonight, I will go ahead and set my DVR to record the event. Of course I'm heading down to Nashville this weekend to cheer on all my friends running in the half marathon for our friend Libby, so I won't be able to sit down and watch it til Sunday, but you can believe I'll be checking out all the pictures and reading all the stories online tomorrow.

So is anyone else with me? Or do you all actually have more important things to do with your time?

P.S. My friend Jen pointed out on facebook the other day that our friend Kari kind of looks like Kate, and I agree. Do you see the resemblance?

Weekend Recap

Happy Tuesday, folks! Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!

We spent our mostly out of town visiting family. It was my parents year for Easter so we made the trek up to Columbus Saturday morning. Visiting my parents was great and relatively uneventful - which was nice. We went to church on Easter, visited my grandma who is in a nursing home for the next few weeks since she broke her hip, and had the family over for Easter dinner on Sunday night. Derek had Monday off since he works for a church so I switched my Friday off to a Monday and we were able to stay in Columbus Sunday night. Monday morning we went out to breakfast and then headed down to Northern Kentucky to stop by Derek's parents house, since the last time we saw Derek's mom she was in the hospital.

Linda is recovering well from her surgery and has already had 2 rounds of chemo. Today will hopefully be her third. She will receive treatments every Tuesday, so if you would like to lift her up in prayer today and for the next 13 Tuesdays after today I know she would love it. We are praying that the chemo totally destroys all the cancerous cells in her body and that the side effects would be minimal. Linda was feeling good yesterday, which was great to see, and it was good to catch up and be able to hang out at their house like normal. Two of our nephews were there as well, so we had a fun little afternoon. And of course, I took no pictures all weekend, fail!

We finally arrived home around 7:30 on Sunday night, only to find our garage door broken. It would raise up about 6 inches and that was it. As I walked in through the front door, I saw the memo board I made that was hanging in the hall broken and fallen on the floor. My first thought was that our house had been robbed while we were gone. I don't know why I thought that, but luckily as I continued into the house it was clear that the memo board was the only thing that was broken and nothing was missing. Upon further investigation, it appears that one of the garage door springs broke. So my guess is that as we left the house and shut the garage door, it fell down instead of closing gently, which caused the memo board to fall. I'm just surprised we didn't notice it, but we were in a hurry to leave and I don't remember watching it shut.

Of course I had my Bible study girls coming over that evening to make friendship bracelets - something they've been wanting to do all semester, so I am so thankful that Derek called the number on the door and they walked him through everything that could be wrong and figured out it was the spring. Hopefully we can get someone out to the house to fix it today, which I'm sure will cost several hundred dollars. We looked online and the parts alone are over $100 plus the cost of labor and we should be out at least $200. Has anyone else noticed how expensive life is? It seems like there is always something that you weren't planing on spending your money on that needs attention. So far this year we've had unexpected dental expenses, taking all of our pets for their yearly vet appointments which ends up costing way more than you thought it would, we had had to get a new roof, which I'm really glad we got when we did because we have had crazy storms here for the past few weeks and I'm pretty sure we would be having some serious leaking issues if we didn't get a new roof, but that was still thousands of dollars, and then we've had some medical bills and some car maintenance and when you add it all up you realize you could have gone on a really really nice vacation if life hadn't happened. Oh well! I'm very thankful that we have the means to deal with these unexpected expenses as they come up, but I wish I could be using that money for other things!

And if you made to the end of this long rambling post - I'm impressed! Hope you enjoyed your Easter and have a wonderful week living in the reality that Christ defeated sin and death, and we are free! He is risen!

Good Friday

Isaiah 53:4-9

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
   and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
   stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
   each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
   the iniquity of us all.

 ⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
   yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
   and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
   so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression^[a] and judgment he was taken away.
   Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
   for the transgression of my people he was punished.^[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
   and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
   nor was any deceit in his mouth.

This was part of the section we read in Bible study this week. So fitting. One of the questions was, "How would you like to respond to the Lord Jesus Christ?" 

I admitted that I was not a big fan of questions like this. I remember the first time I really heard of Jesus' death on a cross for our sins. It was the summer I turned 16, about a month before my birthday. I knew growing up that Jesus died and rose again, but never fully understood all that he actually suffered, or understood that the reason for that suffering was our sin. Learning this wrecked me. I was a mess. I had never felt so loved, yet so undeserving. So my response was to give God the only thing you really have to give when your 15, my life.

Now, almost 12 years later, I reflect on Good Friday, on Jesus' death and suffering, and how I would like to respond, and I just don't know. It feels like there is no response that is adequate. I feel lame saying anything because compared to what Christ did, any response I could have seems like it would be so pathetic that I feel bad to even say it. 

And then I had an epiphany. I realized that there is no adequate response. There is no way we could ever begin to express our gratitude or try to give something in return that would even be close, and that to try to muster up the right feelings or emotions is just trying to earn grace. 

All God wants is for us to say, "I love you too." After doing that for 12 years, one thing I know for sure is that I am not very good at that, so even then, I still wish that I had more than that to offer. But I don't. And I think that's an ok place to be. Humbled by God's love, and realizing that there is absolutely nothing I can do to adequately express my gratitude. And knowing that I am going to have to keep coming back again and again to ask for more grace. I am humbled.

Happy Good Friday, friends. Spend some time remembering the one who actually gave his own life so you could spend eternity with God instead of separated from Him. 

Ski Trip Recap

I can't believe I am just now getting to posting about our ski trip. But we had a great time. We headed up to the mountains Tuesday evening and woke up to ski Wednesday morning.

The conditions weren't bad for it being the first week in April. The weather was nice and warm, although the snow did get a little slushy in the afternoons. This was Derek's third trip out to Colorado and his skiing has improved immensely since the first time he was out there. We got him on the black diamonds and took him on some really fun runs with some great views. I think he really like it - which is good for me because I really liked it! Here are some of my favorite skiing photos:

My dad, Derek and my sister, Julie, all following my mom down the hill.

Me, Jules, mom and dad

Me and D!

10 Mile Station

The T-Bar

View from the top

They made it up the T-Bar successfully - it was Derek's first time!

The very very top

The other side of the mountain

Dad skiing down from the top

Snow cats

Other highlights from the trip that were non skiing related were getting to hang out with Julie and her boyfriend Jeff and my parents. Wednesday we went out for sushi:

We ordered so much it came on a boat!

And we managed to eat it all...

what we started out with....

...and how it ended. So tasty.

I loved spending time with my parents and especially Julie and Jeff. We don't get to see them nearly enough. In fact, we exchanged our Christmas presents while we were there because I'm pretty sure the last time we saw them was last summer. Here are the four of us:

So that was our Colorado trip in pictures. It was such a fun trip, and I wish we had more vacation time so we could do it more than once a year.

Meeting Callie

Last Tuesday Derek and I headed out west to go skiing and visit my sister. A few months ago I happened to mention this to one of my favorite bloggers, Callie of Through Clouded Glass, when we were e-mailing back and forth. She said that she lived in the general vicinity we were heading and suggested that we meet up when we headed out there. I loved the idea and was definitely in!

Originally we were going to go out there in February, however some conflicts came up with Derek's job and I was so bummed that we might not make it out there. We worked it out that we could go in April, which worked out wonderfully well, because Callie's baby boy Wyatt came early and if we had gone when we originally planned we probably wouldn't have been able to meet up. And bonus - we got to meet Wyatt too! So Tuesday night my mom picked Derek and I up from the airport and we got to meet Callie, her husband Derek and their adorable 2 month old baby!

I was so excited - this was my first time meeting a friend I had meet through blogging. And I would say it was a success. We found them without too much trouble and then we all had dinner together. Callie is super sweet, just like I knew she would be, and Wyatt was even cuter in person than he is in pictures. It was also so fun to get to meet (her) Derek, and get to know him. You get to know people through their blogs and I have read a lot about Derek but you don't really get to see their personality because they aren't the ones writing, so it was fun to get to know him better. And I think the 2 Derek's got along great, which is good because he is looking forward to meeting up again next time we're out there.  My camera wasn't cooperating so I didn't get great pictures (Callie has better ones here and you can read what she had to say about our meet up!) but here is the best one I got of Me, Callie and Wyatt. (I brought my point and shoot and it was set to the wrong mode, so sorry for the blurriness and the fact that my jeans were tucked into one of my shoes - I was a mess and am blaming it on just having gotten off a plane!)

Callie - I am so glad we were able to meet outside of our blogs. You and your family are so sweet and we had a great time hanging out and getting to know you guys better. I can't wait til we can do it again!

I'm Back!

Hi friends! Sorry for the long absence. I have been out of town vacationing and for a conference for work. And so while I have lots of things to blog about it, since I have been gone for so long, I don't have much time. But I will get to it! For now, I would just like to show you a little picture of what I came home to yesterday:

Half my dog was missing!

So the back story to this is Derek and I were in Colorado from last Tuesday thru Saturday. While we were gone we told the place we boarded him to give him a haircut. We got home too late on Saturday to pick him up, and I had to leave to go to Louisiana for work on Sunday, and I left earlier than they opened. So I didn't get to see him til I got home last night. And when I finally saw him I couldn't stop laughing.

Before:

After:

And they left his tail all bushy, which just added to the hilariousness of it. I told Derek he looks like a baby deer with his skinny little legs. Hopefully he will at least keep cool as the weather gets warmer :)

I'll be back (hopefully) soon to begin the recap of my last weeks worth of adventures.

Ephesians 3:20-21

"Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

via

This is my memory verse for the last half of March. When I first decided to memorize it, the thing that made me like it was the reminder that God should be given glory, and that I was not made or designed for it. Which is very true, and I need to be reminded of this often. However, in the past week I have been more focused on the promise that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. I have been convicted that my dreams are not too big, but not big enough. That God has something bigger and better planned than I do, so that when I want to feel discouraged because things are working out according to my plan, I can be excited to know that the reason is because God can do bigger things than I can even imagine. But I still must remember that He will work things out for His glory, and not mine. 


I remember at the beginning of the year talking with Derek and both of us having this feeling that God was going to do something big this year. I don't have any idea what that might be, but this verse excites me because I know that God can do things I haven't even imagined yet. And honestly, I have already seen big things. Things that might not seem big to some people, but that are huge to God and His kingdom. So I know I need to remember that my definition of a big thing is not always the same as Gods, and that the ultimate goal is His glory and not mine. But it's still exciting. I love living with the hopes that my life in 5 years will look nothing like I imagined because God is able to do immeasurably more than that.