Sunday, December 30, 2007

Merry Post Christmas!

I told someone at church Merry Christmas this morning :-) Guess it's time to change that to Happy New Year! I can't believe 2008 is only a day and a half away! I'll have to write a reflective post on 2007 and all it's excitement and the endless possibilities of 2008, but we'll save that for the next one. Right now I'm still in the Christmas mood. :-)

During the holiday Stephen and I flew home to Alabama to spend some time with his wonderful family. We had such a good time being with them and eating yummy southern food, even though there were some humiliating moments during the traditional game of Dirty Santa. Being around his family always reminds me of God's love and kindness...it just flows out of them! (yes, even you, Frank)

Then Stephen's dad drove us to Atlanta to spend a few days with my family. We had fun playing lots of games and being our normal competitive selves. It was good to have some time to celebrate Christmas with them and just hang out. Then we miraculously managed to fit all our presents, clothes, and wedding gifts into our bags so that we didn't have to worry about the flight home. It was a great trip and we had such a great time with our families.

We hope you guys had a very Merry Christmas as well! We are so thankful that God chose to send His Son to the earth as a baby, who would one day to die to take the penalty for our sins. What an incredible gift we have been given and we look forward to the day when our Savior returns to earth.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this."
Isaiah 9:6,7

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Never-Ending Thank You's

Sorry it's been a little while since we've written. We've been somewhat busy with Christmas things, and a lot busy with finishing up our thank you notes from our wedding. Yep, the oh-so-dreaded thank you notes. I'm a little ashamed to say that we haven't finished sending them all yet and it's been 3 and a half months since the wedding (thank goodness for the 1 yr grace period!), but let's be honest here, we had well over TWO HUNDRED thank you notes to write, so it was bound to take a little time...

We are extremely thankful for those gifts, and more importantly for the people who gave them, but it is no easy task to write that many notes. I am extremely happy to say that we should have the last ones finished tomorrow!!! My goal has been to be completely done by Christmas and we are going to make it!

So let's move on!

This past weekend Stephen and I went on a little getaway to Pasadena. We got a fantastic deal on a hotel room from Priceline.com and decided we would go away for the weekend, relax, and finish up some Christmas shopping. It was so great. We caught a movie, walked around the street-front stores in Pasadena, ate a great dinner at Cheesecake Factory, and overall had a fantastic time just being together. We've decided that we need to do this about every 6 months, and next time we're going to San Francisco (assuming we can afford it!).

While we were walking around Pasadena we walked right by this little beauty parked on the street:
It's a 1955 Chevy Corvette and it looked incredible! Needless to say Stephen stopped and stared for a while and then made me get out my camera so he could take a picture of it :-)

It was a great weekend and now we're gearing up for our trip to Alabama in just a few days! Hooray! Hope you guys are enjoying this time of the year. Don't get stressed about the gifts...that's not what it's really about anyway.

"For God so loved the world that He sent his only Son, that all who believe in Him may have eternal life."
John 3:16

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Gifts and More Sickness

Well earlier I wrote about Stephen being sick and it seems like now it's my turn. Our week has been pretty low-key as a result of me not feeling too great. I say low-key, yet we still went to a Jr High Staff Christmas Party, XChange (Wed. night Jr High service), and out for a date night dinner at Outback tonight. Now that we're back home I'm thinking Outback a day after throwing up may not have been my brightest idea....

Oh well.

The Staff Christmas Party was a lot of fun. The Bierhorst's house was absolutely beautiful, set up with fine china, candles, and Martinelli's Sparkling Cider for our staff of about 30. Pretty impressive, I must say. But the best part by far was the quality fellowship we shared. That and the best game of White Elephant I've ever played. What a fun group of people we get to serve alongside!

Stephen and I walked away from the White Elephant game with a gift basket of Starbucks treats and a toddler carseat. Yep. A toddler carseat. The lure of the gigantic, wrapped box was too much for us to pass over, so we chose our unknown gift and ended up walking home with it. Needless to say we got ragged on the rest of the night about our plans for children in the very near future. WHICH IS DEFINITELY NOT OUR PLAN! Although as a disclaimer, I must say that God is definitely in control of our lives and not us. :-)

The carseat looks somewhat like this:
We're either going to give it to Goodwill or use it at another white elephant party. :-)

On a different note, I must say that Stephen has taken wonderful care of me as I've been feeling ill. He is such an attentive and caring husband. Last night I was feeling pretty sickly. He climbed into bed and started praying that God would heal my body quickly. The second he finished praying, I ran into the bathroom and after a few unpleasant moments of hugging the toilet and praying for Christ's return, I felt much better. God definitely answered Stephen's prayer quickly! :-) Today has been a much better day, thus the bright idea of mine that we should eat dinner at Outback. I have no idea what I was thinking considering the only thing I had eaten all day was crackers and half a bagel. Hopefully tonight won't be similar to last night. So far, so good.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Hockey Anyone?

Saturday night we went to see the L.A. Kings play at the Staples Center in downtown L.A. The Kings really aren't that great, but we still had a lot of fun. Here's a few pics for you guys:The Staples Center is also where the Lakers play. We're hoping to go see one of their games next!

And lastly, my handsome husband in downtown L.A. after the game. He did a fantastic job driving us through the crazy L.A. traffic and streets!I love being married to this man!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Oh Christmas Tree

We put up a few more lights outside today and I spent part of the afternoon wrapping presents. It's Christmas time! As I've already said, our little apartment doesn't have room for a big tree, so we bought a mini tree and I finally took a few pics of it!


Hooray! Now we're about to walk out the door to go to an L.A. Kings hockey game. The majority of our days are spent doing normal stuff and hanging out at home, but I sure love it when we get to go do fun things like this! We'll be sure to take some pics!