christmas eve

so i'm back tracking a little bit here, but that's ok. i was able to spend christmas eve with some close friends of mine, brian, delia, and their son luca. i went to their christmas eve service with them and then we went back to their house and proceeded to make home made egg nog and glazed pecans. the egg nog turned out great! (nicely done brian) i made the glazed pecans with this nut roaster that brian got delia for christmas. the box "claims" that it takes 10 minutes....yeah right. 1 hour later and two burns on my fingers the pecans were finally done! were they worth it....? i think so. they were some of the best glazed nuts i've ever had. i had a great time having "girl talk" with delia while brian finished wraping gifts. then we watched "it's a wonderful life" while eating our nuts and drinking our nog :-) we stayed up entirely way too late, but we had a great time as always. thanks bri and del!

it's a wonderful life...is it???

as i sit here this morning, i'm trying to pretend that it's any other day but christmas day. i mean, i would have never thought that i'd be spending christmas day alone. waking up to a big house on christmas morning by yourself is not what i dreamed for me. can i just say that being far away from your family stinks! as i sat watching "it's a wonderful life" last night with some friends, i couldn't help but relate to george bailey. everything he dreamed of and had set out to do, never happened. i feel that way sometimes. oh how i wish god would give each one of us a glimpse into our lives. what would things look like if i was never born? has my life really made an impact on other people around me? how would my life have turned out if i'd taken a different path? what kind of person would i be if things would have gone MY way? it's hard to know. we can only imagine and imagine away i do. i question god this morning as i sit alone. for those of you that know me well, know that i thrive on people. i get my energy from being around people, so being alone on christmas morning is torture for me. i don't know god's purpose in allowing me to be alone this morning. i'm sure it will make sense some day, years from now when i look back on this christmas in 2008. i'm sure i've offended someone in being so "negative" on christmas day, but i hate being fake. i'm all about being real. when it comes down to it, i have lots to be thankful for, but i'm still sitting here on the couch all alone and that just plain sucks. merry christmas!!

holiday baking

so...most of you know that i LOVE to bake:-) i think i could do it every day! i've been a baking fiend over the last week. this is what i've made so far...pumpkin dip, peppermint bark, ginger snaps, christmas cutout sugar cookies w/icing, buckeyes, white chocolate covered pretzels w/sprinkles, and these peppermint brownie balls. i made the cutout cookies with my girls. we had a blast, although we were totally over the decorating by the end of the night. :-)

i love surprises!

so a couple of weekends ago i flew up to indy to surprise my best friend allison. i had been talking with her husband and mom over the last two months in order to make sure that she would be surprised and have the whole weekend free. it worked out perfectly! she was in complete shock when she saw me and then she started to cry. oh how i love surprises!!! it had been over a year since we had seen each other and i was in some dire need of bonding time with my best friend. i had a blast hanging out with her and being able to see her whole family :-)
not only was i able to surprise her, but i was able to surprise my whole family as well. i didn't tell any of them that i was coming. my mom was throwing danelle, my sis-in-law, a baby shower that sunday so i drove up to my parents house and surprised everyone at the baby shower. it was so much fun!!! it was great to be there for the shower and to be with danelle :-)

song writers..

i am amazed by song writers/singers. i love to sing and am grateful that i am able to use that talent that god has given me, but i am not a song writer. i wish i was, but i have to realize that, that is not one of my gifts. i so admire song writers. i wish i could write lyrics that inspire and move people as they do me. as most of you know, i am very passionate about music. music can have a way of moving and speaking to me so much. i love how it can make me laugh, bring tears to my eyes, pump me up, inspire me, but i love it most when i can relate to the lyrics and the artist that wrote them. there are times in which i feel like certain songs kind of sum up my life story. it's amazing to me how much music moves me. i cannot imagine a world with out music.

i went to a concert last night, "behold the lamb of god" by andrew peterson. it's one of my favorite concerts. this was my second time going to it. he always has a bunch of different artists help him with the concert. ie..bebo norman, sara groves, jill phillips, andy gullahorn, andrew osenga, etc. the first part of the concert, the artists sing a couple of songs each and it's a very chill and laid back atmosphere. they talk in between and they are so random and hilarious. then the second part of the concert is the christmas part. andrew peterson wrote "behold the lamb of god" about 10 years ago and it consists of 11 songs that tell the coming of christ. it's amazing to see him take the old testament stories and turn them into songs. the soundtrack is amazing! one of the reasons why i like this concert so much is that it is very humble. the concert is not about the artists, it's about sharing the coming of christ, the real reason for christmas. their hearts are so genuine. it's so refreshing to go to a concert like this.

jill phillips sang a song from her new album called "all the good things". i could totally relate to it. the song is basically looking at the big picture and seeing how everything in our life is good. even when we go through crap and hard times in our lives, it always turns out good. god always brings good out of hard times. that's one of the biggest things that god has been teaching me this year. i am trying to find the good things in every trial i go through and i KNOW that he will bring good out of every situation. it's hard to see it sometimes, but we are always able to look back after time and see the bigger picture and it becomes clear to us why god did it the way he did. i love getting to the place where you can look back on those hard times with joy in knowing that god knew what he was doing all along. he always does. even when things are crumbling and failing around us, god's plans never fail. i will leave you with the lyrics to "all the good things"....



Every once in a while the world stops spinning enoughThat I can take a step back and get the pictureI see the twists and the turns, I see the patterns they formI see how perfect they are and I remember
All the good thingsAll the good thingsAll the good things you’ve done for me
Though the feeling is real I know it’s fleeting to feelOne day I’ll forget you are here and start to wonderIn that season of doubt, You’ll still be showering meWith blessings I can’t see, that can’t be numbered
All the good thingsAll the good thingsAll the good things You’ve done for me
Forgive me for my shortsighted look at this worldWhere you keep proving that you know what you’re doing
If I could see like you do with your perspective viewThe fires I’m walking through would look much differentI’d see those difficult days for who they made me becomeAnd I would count them among
All the good thingsAll the good thingsAll the good things You’ve done for me

5k Reindeer Run

so this weekend i did a 5k with one of my good friends jen. it was the reindeer run and it's for fun. there is christmas music and at the end of the race they have hot chocolate and cookies. they gave jingle bells for everyone to put on their shoes. and people dress up in christmas costumes and they have a contest. it was a really fun race and it was nice because it wasn't timed, so it was very laid back. it was 40 degrees so it kind of fit the theme of the race, but we were freezing our butts off.

halloween party

so my friends jared and jocelyn and rob and kelly hosted the most amazing halloween party!! they sure do know how to throw a party; they didn't miss any detail and the food was amazing!! the theme was hollywood glamour. i decided to dress up as an actress from the 1920's. i had a blast getting all dressed up. i live for this kind of stuff. they actually had a red carpet leading up from the sidewalk to their front door and had hired someone to take pictures of everyone "walking" the red carpet. how fun!! here are some pics :-)

oh the retired life....

so my parents were just here in fl with me for over a month! oh to be retired :-) someday....sigh
it was great to have them here and to have them get to know my life here in fl. it's hard being so far away from them because i feel like they miss out on so much of my life. it was great to have them go to church with me and meet so much of my spiritual family. they really enjoyed their time here and met a lot of people who became fast friends with them. i have recently got connected with some people in my church that i didn't know very well and people from pioneers and i just feel sooo blessed for all the wonderful people that god has placed in my life. i am so lucky!! i feel like fl is really home for me (sorry mom :-)) and i am so thankful that god has brought me here and placed me among so many wonderful friends! life is good...

some prego pics that i took of my sis in law at 7 1/2 months

family vaca to the outer banks

i really do love blogging...i'm just horrible at finding the time to update my blog :-) so back in oct my family got together in nc at the outer banks. it was my first time here and it was wonderful! my dad rented a house right on the ocean and it had 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. there were 10 of us that met up from indiana, georgia, and florida. we just spent the week relaxing, shopping, and taking in the outer banks. it was great to see my sister-in-law and brother (it had almost been a year!) and it was the first time i was able to see my sis since she became pregnant. so that was fun to see her belly stick out:-) we were able to take some great family pictures on the deck of our house and they turned out great. here's a few from the trip!

Learning to say NO!

so, lately god has been teaching me a lot about saying "no" to things. i have a tendency to over work myself and to commit to everything that i think i should do. i am slowly but surely starting to see the need for allowing myself to say no. so many times when i'm approached with opportunities, i always feel guilty if i say no, but i know that this is not what god wants for me. even if it is something "good", i can't do everything. it feels good to be in a place in where i'm saying "no" to things and not over doing it.

BSF (Bible Study Fellowship)

so about a month ago, i started a new bible study called bsf. my mom did it for 7 years and i have a few friends that are in it right now. i've always heard great things about it and i finally felt like it was the right time in my life to start up. it basically runs the course of the school year and we meet every monday night. it is for men and women both, but they don't mix men and women together. it is very structured. we start at 6:55 and end right at 8:45. they don't waste your time and they keep attendance each week. if you don't do your study, you're not allowed to answers the questions in your discussion group. i've only been going for a month now and it is for sure my favorite bible study i've ever done in my life. i know that i tend to exaggerate sometimes (ok, a lot), but i promise i'm not exaggerating on this. one of the biggest reasons why i wanted to join is because i wanted to learn more about the bible. i've been a christian almost my entire life and my relationship with god has been way more relational than it has knowledgeable. i have really felt a desire for more knowledge in my life recently and i knew that this study would help in that area. it has been amazing! this year we are studying the life of moses. sometimes i feel like i'm hearing the story for the first time. i am learning so much history and god is teaching me SO much about himself. i have such a passion for this study right now and i'm so thankful that god has place me there. one of the things i really like is that they use what they call a "fourfold" approach. first you learn what you get out of the questions that you do daily on your own. then you learn from the others in your discussion group as you go through the questions. the third "layer" is the 45 teaching session (our teacher is amazing btw). and the fourth is the notes that you get after you meet on monday. i am so enjoying it and i know that i am in it for a purpose. SO much has happened since i've started doing this study; i have been spiritually attacked quite a bit. but god is helping me to persevere and the study has been really helpful and applicable to what i've been going through in my life lately. i am so thankful that god knows what we need even before we do :-)

Goodbye....

so today was kind of rough. i lost a teammate this week that was sort of expected but not. cheryl kay henderson was diagnosed in her later years with muscular dystrophy. for 10 weeks now, she has been back and forth between the hospital and a rehab center. she was doing so much better that when she went into the hospital and we had such great hopes for her getting better, but god had different plans for cheryl. she went to be with the lord on wednesday, sept 24th. she is now rejoicing with her heavenly father with no wheelchair! it's wonderful to know that she is in heaven now, right where she wanted to be, but we miss our cheryl. this morning we gathered round our team table and we started sharing memories about cheryl and the funny things that she used to say to crack us up. it was a great time of laughing and crying as we looked back on her life. goodbye cheryl! we miss you but are happy that you are with god.

IT'S A GIRL!!!

so i just found out that my brother and danelle are having a girl!!! i'm so excited to know what it is finally!! now i can go out and start buying clothes for her:-) i am going to be the only aunt this baby has, so i have to spoil her rotten! i can't wait to meet my niece! congrats dave and danelle! i'm SO happy for you both! i can't wait to have her join our family!

Finding the good in the bad

this morning my team met up to do our bible study. we are doing a max lucado study on the gospel of john. the title of the lesson was called "the loss of a friend". the scripture for this lesson was john 11:17-44, the raising of lazarus from the dead. one of the opening questions max asked was to think of time in your life when a bad experience turned out for good. the first thing that came to mind was when my best friend paul died, 16 years ago. looking back on that tragedy, i can see good things that came out of it. the biggest thing is my best friend allison ringger. when paul died, she felt god telling her to reach out to me and to be a friend to me during that hard time. so she started to talk to me and invite me to do things with her. we became fast friends and before i knew it she had become my very best friend! we have been best friends for over 16 years now and even though we are 20 hours away from each other, we remain just as close as when we lived 5 minutes apart from each other in high school. i thank god often for how he has blessed me with her friendship. she is like a sister to me. we've been through pretty much everything you could think of and have created thousands of memories together:-) so allison, thanks for being obedient to god! you are the best thing that came out of paul's death. i am so thankful for how amazing you are and how special our friendship is! love you girl!!!

Global Xperience 2008 Brazil

ok, ok, i'm a slacker. i'm sorry it's taken me to update you all on my missions trip in june, but i've been swamped! so this was my first missions trip in 11 years! 18 of us headed down june 8th for 9 days. it was a jam packed trip i must say. we experienced so much! we did vbs, fed the homeless, served at a women's outreach, ministered to women in prison, went to an orphanage, participated in a couple of church services, and led worship in portuguese. Here are my teammates below....
i must say that the brazilians are amazing people!! they are so warm hearted and giving and they love to serve. they blew me away. i was so amazed at how willing they were able to give up their time, gas, energy, sleep, to help with translation, transportation, serving alongside us... whatever the need was, they were right there to help us. and most of the people helping us were young men. i feel like there are so many men in america who fail to step up and serve in the church. i was very impressed needless to say. it really made me think about how selfish i am with my time here in america. so thanks to my new brazilian friends for knocking me upside on my head :-)

so...there were a couple of really cool things that happened on the trip for me. the first one was that i had an opportunity to lead worship in portuguese on three different occasions. the first time we led, we were at the women's ministry at barra church. do you remember, in my prayer letter, when i asked that god would take me out of my comfort zone? well, sure enough, he came through on that one :-) for those of you that know me real well, you know that i am very much a planner and organizer. normally when i lead worship at church each week, i have my nalgene bottle full of water, hot tea, cough drops, and i have about two hours of time to warm up my vocal cords, not to mention that i'm also singing in a language that i know:-) so that morning that jay and i lead worship, it was 8:30 in the morning, i hadn't gotten very much sleep, i had no water, no hot tea, no cough drops and i hadn't warmed up my voice. i was extremely nervous to stand up in front of 100 women and "attempt" to sing songs in their language. before i left for brazil, i had worked on some pronunciation on some of the words and i had written in notes on my music. well...it just so happened that i couldn't find my music with the notes of them anywhere that morning. i was freaking out inside, when god reminded me that he was in control and not me. i had to give it over to god and let the holy spirit work through us. it was amazing to see how god showed up!! once we started singing, a peace washed over me and i could feel the hold spirit singing through us. it was so cool to be able to worship with these women in their own language. my teammates were spread throughout the church singing in english and it was such a cool reminder that even though there were two languages being sung, it all sounds the same to god. how precious it was to worship one god with my sisters in christ all the way over in brazil. i am so thankful for god allowing me to be able to do this through his strength!
the other really cool thing that god allowed me to do was to share my testimony on the trip. i had actually been praying for more opportunities to share my testimony, so when jay asked me to share, i knew it was god answering my prayer and that i had to be obedient to it. i was scared to death! it was the first time for me to share my testimony in front of a large group. it was at a small church of about 100 people. it was tricky doing it with a translator too. i was super nervous to get up in front of everyone, but as soon as i got up in front of the microphone, a peace washed over me and god gave me every word that needed to come out of my mouth. it was amazing to see him get me through that experience. afterwards, people were coming up to me hugging me and crying with me and telling me how much it ministered to them. praise the lord! i am so excited that my testimony is able to be used to glorify god and to minister to others. i am truly grateful for this experience that god gave me on the trip :-) when god calls us to do something, he will give us EVERYTHING we need to complete it.

thanks to all of you who supported me on this trip financially and for all of your prayers! i cannot thank you enough for being a part of my trip in this capacity! thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! i'm looking forward to taking another missions trip in the future, hopefully to brazil again. the brazilians we came in contact with are so amazing and they hold such a special place in my heart...

Brazil 2008

So here are just a few of the many pictures that were taken on my trip to Brazil in June. More to come on that.....enjoy!

what's the purpose of an armadillo?

so I've kind of always wondered what the purpose is of an armadillo? i mean, they are the ugliest animal I've ever seen, so clearly they're not here for beauty. what do they do besides terrify people and make them scream? i must say, even though I am absolutely terrified of them, when I see an armadillo that has been hit by a car and looks like the picture above, it just cracks me up. some time, i would like to lay next to one that looks like this and imitate it :)

today was very revealing in the fact that i actually discovered ONE purpose to an armadillo (courtesy of my fellow co-worker, ben grames). did you know that they actually make roadkill guitars out of armadillos? gross, i know. they are called charangos and it's a popular folk instrument in South America that sounds a little bit like an ukulele. the armadillo's hollowed out body is used as a resonating chamber. here are some disgusting pictures of what it looks like. i can hardly even look at the pictures. apparently the armadillos in argentina are hairy. you can bet that you'll NEVER catch me playing one of these things. for those of you who don't live in florida, be glad that you don't have to face these ugly creatures on an almost daily basis.

i'm new at this, so give me a break

ok...so this is my first post ever! how exciting:-) it doesn't take much to excite me. i've been wanting to start a blog for quite some time and here it finally is. i'm guessing it's going to be quite a work in progress, but i know that i'm going to enjoy it. i live about 20 hours away from my immediate family and friends, so i thought it would be nice to start up a blog so i can do a better job of keeping them updated on my life here in florida. i hate how much they miss out on my life and vice versa. so hopefully this will help! oh....it's my sister-in-law's birthday today! happy birthday sis! i love you:) AND....for those of you that i haven't told yet, i'm finally going to be an auntie!!! yes, my brother and sister-in-law are expecting. danelle is almost 15 weeks now and is due jan 3rd. i can't wait to find out what it is!