Beautiful day!!

Josh & I had a fun day today!

We slept in a while, got cleaned up, ate some lunch while watching infomercials & talking about how someone would have to be crazy to spend so much money on such a thing, then headed outside to do some yard work. The weather is AWESOME these days, in the 70's with the occasional day of rain. (Sidenote: the wildflowers are in full bloom too; I love seeing ALL the bluebonnets, as well as the pretty red, pink, purple, & yellow flowers growing with all the GREEN... so pretty.) Josh did some mowing & pulling weeds while I trimmed bushes in the front & back. It was nice to just spend time outside being productive - I'm glad we had a free Saturday that was also so nice out!

Then we headed to Best Buy & bought The Blindside (in our opinions, a must-own) as well as a fun DVD pack of 4 Hugh Grant movies, including Two Weeks Notice, Music & Lyrics, & Mickey Blue Eyes, for $9.99!! What a great deal! So, we'll be watching a movie tonight!

Then we got smoothies & walked (remember, great weather) over to Target & browsed there, mainly in the kids' toy section, because that's how we roll. I showed him toys that I played with as a kid (like Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, & big buckets of chalk). They have these vintage Barbies out now; there were a couple from 1965, 1985, & some other year, so I was able to show him the progression of Barbie & what she looked like when I played with her... not so glam. We decided our girl(s) can't play with Barbie because she wears not modest clothing. Bummer.

After a quick run to the Heeb (HEB, that is), we are home for the rest of the evening. I may have to think of another reason to go outside, though....

LATE update!

Wow, almost a month since I blogged... what a loser!! Unfortunately now that I sit here to try to not be a loser... I don't know that I have much to say. Let me think.

I went to five showers in the last month... four baby & one bridal. I think that's enough to last a while. Of course they were all fun, & I like being able to make people feel special. & thankfully none of them have included ridiculous games! Games, yes, just not the "grin & bear it" kind. (If you've been to a baby shower, you know what I'm talking about.) In fact, today's couples baby shower really focused on the guys/the father, which was fun! They had a competition where the guys had to wear bibs & suck prune juice through tiny bottles as fast as they could to see who could do it the fastest. It's amazing how guys will do anything to win a competition - the faces they made drinking that stuff were hilarious, but they kept going! Oh yes, & half of the guys were pastors from our church. I hope those pictures pop up somewhere expected someday; that'd be funny.

Josh & I are in the works planning a vacation with Zac & Cara to San Francisco! We decided 2 years in a row in DC was enough to see all we cared to see, so we're heading west this time. If you have any recommendations on things we should do, let me know!

So I've done John MacArthur Bible studies for the past year & a half or so, & I really enjoy them, so I downloaded a few of his sermons for a couple trips I've taken recently. I love his sermons! He speaks TRUTH unapologetically. One of the series I listened to was about how he thinks the number one problem with the American church (which, that's a whole series on its own) is the lack of ability to discern who is a Christian & who is not. God has revealed so much to me regarding this topic. Consider your definition of a "Christian" - does it line up with Scripture? ALL of Scripture??

I really recommend John MacArthur for a good Bible study or sermon.

Ah, then there's the Africa/India trip some of our pastors/leaders just got back from... God is going to be doing some stuff in our church, GOOD stuff that I'm really excited about. Maybe I'll blog about that soon....

Anyways, there is a bit of an update on our lives. Hopefully I'll get back on here sooner than later. :-)

Birthday Weekend!

Two weekends ago, Josh took me to Austin for my birthday. He took Friday off & we drove up, dropped Sage off with my parents, then went to have a fun time together! I documented our trip well with pictures, so here we go!

We drove to the mall & picked up our movie tickets to see When in Rome!

Then we ate in the food court - I got this South Philly Cheesesteak, which is the REAL kind mind you, just like we had in Philadelphia!

We walked around a bit & I got a nice calf massage by the iSqueeze - ahh.

We saw the movie, which was cute! Then went to get some cupcakes at Sugar Mama's Bakery in the South Congress area. They were super yummy! Mine was vanilla on vanilla, called the Marilyn of course!

I loved these hanging light things in there!

We checked in to our hotel downtown, the Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin (yay for getting deals on Priceline!) & I took a nice nap, then we headed to dinner at Sandra Bullock's restaurant, Bess Bistro. It was yummy & a cool atmosphere. I got chicken pot pie & Josh got fish & chips.

We got a taxi there & back so we wouldn't have to pay for parking, & what came to pick us up but the Land Yacht, party central! It was funny. Loud music, crazy colors, all wasted on us just wanting to get back to our hotel!

This was the view from the hotel balcony toward the Capitol. Pretty!

The next morning, we slept in, checked out of our hotel then headed to brunch at Magnolia Cafe. I got the guacamole omelette - guac, black beans, bacon, & jack cheese, with queso on top. SOOO GOOD!

Driving toward the Capitol to take a tour - pretty view!

After our tour of the Capitol, we went to the Domain & pretended like we could afford to be there, then went out to my parents house to ride with them to one of the best meals of my life...

THIS!! Crab, asparagus, & sweet potato fries, finished with French press coffee & a birthday dessert! My dad's birthday was last week, so we always get together to do a joint birthday dinner... this was a good one!!

Then we went back to get Sage & headed back to SA so we could be at church the next morning. It was a very fun birthday weekend!!

No time to blog!

Work got crazy this week & I'm helping throw a baby shower tomorrow night (YAY WHITNEY!) so I've been quite the busy bee!! But I've got a few blog ideas floating around in my head so stay tuned for when I get some free time!

"No time! There's never any time! I don't have time to study, I'll never get into Stanford!"

- anyone?? :-)

Homemade natural cleaner

I'm blogging because I don't want to clean the bathrooms.

That is my least favorite thing to clean, by far. Not necessarily the toilets, although it's not that fun, but the counters & the tub... blah! The tubs mainly because I can't get down on my knees for very long so I usually can't get a good scrubbing in. But, it's next on the list - so far I have cleaned the guest bedrooms & the living room.

You know what's a great all-purpose cleaner? Equal parts water & vinegar. I have a squirt bottle with the mixture that I use in the kitchen, tile floor, window sills, etc. It's cheap, & has no chemicals. Yes it stinks a bit, but not for long. I love it (as much as you can love a cleaning product).

All right, back to cleaning....

January cleaning

Somehow I decided this week I would clean the whole house. As in, even the things I don't clean on a normal basis - the top of the fans, the baseboards, etc. I really don't enjoy cleaning so I'm not quite sure how I decided this was a good idea. (I am great at tidying up - I so much prefer being neat & tidy to being meticulously clean!) It needs to be done, I suppose. Instead of breaking things into tasks, like spending one day just cleaning all of the windows & another day scrubbing all the cabinet fronts, I'm breaking it into rooms - bedrooms one day (since two of them are pretty easy), study another day, etc. I'm already behind... today I was supposed to clean the living room but had less time than anticipated. I guess since I created this crazy schedule, I could allow myself to stretch it into next week. I mean, who spends their BIRTHDAY week cleaning the house, right?!

The sinus infection still lingers in the form of a croaky voice & cough. I'm hoping in a couple days I'll be back to normal. I decided the worst part of not being able to talk (much) is not being able to sing - I sing all the time, & it's quite the bummer to not be able to.

I'm excited - Friday Josh is taking me to Austin to hang out for a couple days for my birthday! He's taking Friday off so we can have fun. I'll have to make a list of things I want to do. :-)

Have a great week!

Book Review: Safely Home by Randy Alcorn

The plot: A Chinese man comes to the US for college & several years later, he & his American roommate end up spending time together in China. Basically, the American has his perception of China, then as he spends time there with his roommate, he sees the real China behind the facade - the politics, the censorship, the persecution of Christians. (This book is fiction, based on real situations & information.)

What we talked about in book club: I hadn't read it yet by the time we met for book club because our library didn't have it, so I read it after we met. That being said, I wasn't very involved in the conversation & don't remember tons of it. I do remember everyone talking about one part of the book where the Chinese man's wife had saved the box that their Bible came in, simply because it carried the book that was so holy & precious to them (since unregistered Bibles are not allowed in China).

Recommendation: Read it, read it, read it. Period. Not only is the story a page-turner, it is SO eye-opening to the conditions in China, particularly for believers. We can be so unaware of what is going on in the world, & we need to be praying for our family there. God used this book to do a lot in my heart (you can read more about that in this post) so it was life-changing for me.