Creasy

My best friend Carrisa went to be with the Lord last Saturday, December 11th, 2010. I miss her so much, but I am so happy that she is with her Savior now (and her big bro and dad, too).

I just wanted to post my speech from her beautiful memorial for you all to read again if you'd like. :) (I strayed a bit from my "script", but this is what I had typed out in front of me that day).

________

Carrisa was my best friend. We were 6 and 7 years old when we met. She's the one who had the great memory, not me. In fact, she remembers the day we met, and this year on October 25th she emailed me to jokingly wish me a "Happy 18th Anniversary". One thing I do remember is the first time I went to her house to play. We played a silly game of make believe in her back yard. I got to meet her huge family. I didn't know it would be the beginning of a rare type of friendship that a lot of people never get to experience.

We were basically inseperable since that day. We were in the same class all through elementary school and the same program for Jr. High School. In High school we got to choose our own classes, so of course we took almost all of the same ones. Even in college we were attached at the hip.

I have shared almost all of my life experiences with her. We grew up together. She was a sister to me. We went through everything together. I hugged her tight when she lost her brother 13 years ago. She loved my brother even when others didn't know how.

We eventually grew out of backyard make believe into things like boys, music, and individual interests. In High School we both became interested in YoungLife and our friendship deepend even more. We went on countless trips together to Woodleaf, mission trips to Mexico, and camping. We had a tight knit group of AWESOME friends who held us accountable in our Christian faith. Many of these friends had the privilege of being with her in her final moments here on earth.

After High School, we decided we'd move out of our parents' houses and into "adulthood". We were able to spend a year as roommates along with our friend Meghan. I think we knew that being roommates would be a test of our friendship, and we came out the other side of that realizing that we were more like family than just friends. We realized we could get through anything together, even if it was something that was really difficult for a while.

Carrisa stood next to me as my maid of honor on my wedding day. She held my bouquet while I shared vows with the love of my life. A few years later, I sat in the next room as she delivered the love of her life, Norah Olivia. After thousands of memories shared, we got to share the biggest, most important moments of our lives with each other.

Carrisa was such an amazing friend, not just to me but to everyone she knew. She invested time and love into so many people. She loved planning parties and playing games. She loved serving others. She was rarely seen without a smile on her face.

Most of all, she was an amazing Mother. She only got to spend 18 months with Norah, but she poured a lifetime of love into her. We want Norah to know her Mommy so we all need to tell her about Carrisa when she's old enough. We want her to know how much her Mommy loved her.

This week has been full of every emotion I could ever imagine. I have been so sad that my sister is gone. I have been grieving about events that haven't even happened yet that we're going to wish she was here for. I have been in disbelief that this is even real.

I have also experienced a joy and peace that could only come from God. Carrisa accepted Jesus into her heart at a very young age, and she kept that faith through the end of her life here on earth. I truly believe that she is now in heaven with her Savior. That is where the joy comes from. I know she is free of pain and worries and other earthly concerns. I also know she is planning a heck of a party for Jesus' birthday! I will miss her so much. Thank you, Carrisa, for sharing your life with me!

________

Also, as we went through our pics to find some for the slideshow, I came across this note. It pretty much sums us up. :)

My Birthday is Tomorrow!

My birthday is tomorrow (which is technically in only a few minutes now!) We're going to have our friends over and hang out, eat dinner and cake, and hopefully have a good time! Pretty much since after my 21st birthday, I've felt kind of "old" to be having birthday parties, so I tend to procrastinate on planning something for myself. I just decided to have my party (which is tomorrow) a couple of days ago. So, I don't really have much planned and my house is still a mess and it's almost midnight! Oh well, it will be fun anyway (I hope!)

Today at work we had CHEESECAKE to celebrate my birthday. It was deeeeelish. (It was from Upper Crust and it was Cheesecake, so there was pretty much no way it could go wrong). :) It's been a BIT hard doing my diet this week since we went out to Chili's with Tammy for my birthday last night (I had a big ol' burger, and later she had an ice cream cake for me), today we had cheesecake at work, tomorrow Carrisa is making a rainbow chip cake for my party, and next week my grandparents want to take us out for dinner. ACK! Last week I lost 3 lbs, but I'm preeeetttyyyy sure I might gain that back. Hopefully not MORE though!

Anyway, my birthday celebration started last night with dinner with Tammy and Ryan. She got me EXACTLY what I've been wanting since I started planning our Maui trip - a new digital camera! Wheee! I can't wait to use it! It's really compact and has way more megapixels than our old camera and I'm so excited to take it to Maui. This morning I was getting ready for work and I heard someone knocking at my door... I answered the door and there was Nae holding the "sassy pants" gift back and sweet little Joey holding a birthday bouquet of flowers for me! :) They were almost as big as he was, so they were kind of drooping but it was PERFECT! What a nice thing to start my day with! Nae got me a butterfly beach towel that I asked for for Maui and she ordered me some Mary Kay mascara, because I've been on the hunt for the perfect mascara! Sooo nice.

(I wish I had a picture of Joey holding them!)



When I got to work, my WBF (work-best-friend) had set up the cutest gift basket on my desk! It contained a yellow tea pot that I saw at the store when we were on our lunch break one day, a bunch of different teas, the cutest tea bag rest, some yellow dish towels for my kitchen, and a few other things. It was so cute and such a nice suprise! I love it.




Later we had cake and all of my co-workers signed a card for me. I got 50 bucks from the company as a birthday gift and my boss got me a gift, too (scarf & gloves).

So far it's been a great birthday and it's not even my birthday yet! I'm looking forward to spending time with our friends tomorrow. I always feel sooo blessed on my birthday every year. Sadly Nae & Seth already has plans so they won't be there, but that's okay! Oh yeah, I'll be 25 so... I ummm... can rent a car on my own now...? Awesommme! haha! :)

Thanks for making my Birthday so special, everyone!

Weekend at Lance's

My parents spent a week in beautiful MAUI and I watched Lance for part of the time they were gone, from Friday after work until late Tuesday night. He was sooo good! He is really growing up. He has his schedule DOWN. He knows what to do and when to do it and how to do it! Haha.

He was very good, and very sweet! My parents anniversary was during their vacation. Before they left, Lance said his gift to them would be to promise to be good and that they'd get a good report from his caretakers. He did a great job of keeping his promise. Lance wakes up very, very early. Haha. He would of course want to eat breakfast right after his morning shower, so I would have to get up with him. He would wake up, take a shower, and then come in and wake me up and get started on his day. He took care of everything. He made coffee every morning, and made my coffee special by adding a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar to it. :) On Saturday we went to Chico and hung out at my house because I had a bunch of laundry to do and I didn't really pack for more than one night at my parents. Lance was VERY excited to play Ryan's Xbox360 while he was gone. Here is Lance carefully looking through alllll of Ryans games to see which one he should start with first!

I got three or four loads of laundry done and Lance had a blast! We also went to Subway for lunch which was of course a treat for Lance, and we were home in time for dinner. :)

Sunday we were up early again, but Lance let me "sleep in" until like 7:30 or 8! In the morning after breakfast, Lance sat on the couch and drank his coffee and read Oswald Chambers and then opened up my dad's bible to look for a verse that my dad told him before they left on their trip. For a while he couldn't find it and he was getting pretty frustrated. Eventually he found it and read it over and over until he memorized it. :) After thinking about how he got frustrated he said "Lynds... when God brings you to the bible, he doesn't want you to get frustrated. He wants you to have patience!" Haha. He's so cute. The verse he memorized was, Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Here's Lance doing his studies :)

We went to church and got to see the boys. :) We spent some time at my parents, and Lance played his rented video game. Then we went to bible study at Lynae's and Lance helped with the kids and played on Nae's computer. It was so great to spend time with the boys. James watched a Veggie Tales movie with the Wion girls. He was a little bit scared because there was a big "Rock Monster" in it and I saw him close his eyes a few times but he didn't cry. :) He was brave!

The next two days we were up very early again because Lance had school starting at 7:30 one day and 8:30 the next. After school Lance went STRAIGHT to working on his math homework. He's been doing long division, which, I'm embarassed to admit that I don't really remember how to do all the way! I felt really stupid when he was asking me questions! haha. I had to tell him how smart he was and how proud of him he was. I also told him that it's really smart of him to work on his homework right away instead of procrastinating. While he worked on his homework, I worked on making my magnets that I hope to sell on Etsy in the future. These ones were sort of a trial run. The little pictures were really cute but the glass bubbles I bought are not very clear and sort of distort some of the pictures. I found some crystal clear bubbles online so I'm going to have to get my hands on those before I start selling.

Here is Lance hard at work on his math homework and below that is a picture of my magnets! :)

My parents got home at almost midnight on Tuesday night and they looked very happy and very tan! I have only heard about bits and pieces of their trip, and I can't wait to hear more! Overall, Lance was nearly PERFECT and I had a great time hanging out with him. I don't see him very much and it was nice to have a pleasant time with him. I am very proud of him. I am so glad that my parents had a nice break and a truly wonderful vacation. They're both saying that it's by far the best vacation they've been on. And I think Lance's good behavior (and not to mention WEIGHT LOSS!) was really the icing on the cake. On Tuesday after school we went to Safeway and Lance picked out flowers for my mom and we got a jumbo beer for my dad as well as a card for the two of them for their anniversary. Hopefully coming back to that, and the good report that Lance promised, made their anniversary week perfect! :)

I like...

k, so I love love love this clip! It's sooo cute and funny. haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

Sometimes I wish I can be like her! Sometimes I do make a running list in my head of all of the things I love, which "My boys" (not the show - Rynie, James & Joey) usually tops my list. They're the best! BUT, I wish I could be like her every day because more often than not, I usually have a running list of things I DON'T like running through my head instead. God has blessed me with sooooo much to be thankful for, and I really, really shouldn't take that stuff for granted as often as I do. So, I guess I'll make my "I Like" list now!

I like my Ryan
I like my James
I like my Joey
I like my whole family
I like my paycheck
I like Ryan's paycheck even more
I LIKE MY WHOLE HOUSE! (CLAP!)
I like my couch
I like my pillows
I like my church family
I like babies
I like my FRIENDS
I like my work friends
I like my work doggies
I like my marriage
I like my weekends
I like my Savior
I like His promises
I like my future kids
I like my TV
I like all my shows
I like movies
I like the sunshine
I like buying little presents for my boys
I like leaving love notes in Ryan's drawer
I like my house stuff from Ross
I like my clean water supply
I like my Mexico family
I like my computer
I like my friends' kids
I like my Facebook
I like my Amazon.com & Ebay.com and Etsy.com
I like my Lyme prayer group
I like getting flowers
I like my birthday
I like Christmas
I like loving others
I like hugging my boys til they wiggle away from me
I like pictures that have captured great moments :)

I could go on foreverrrrrrr, so I guess I should stop for now. It feels so good to count my blessings! Thank you, God, for EVERYTHING you've given to me... above and beyond what I could have ever imagined.

Now I want to say something that I like - at least one thing - about the people I love (and they thankfully love me back, too!) In no particular order, by the way!

Rynie:
of course I could list a million things, but I'll try to keep it to a few. He's my BEST FRIEND. We laugh, argue, love, and live life together and I love every second of it. He mirrors God in that he's my provider and protector and he loves me unconditionally.

Jamesie:
What a special little boy he is! I've always told Ryan that we have a "special bond". He is an inspiration to me; he is joyful in situations that I would go crawl in a hole, but he keeps on dancing and smiling. He is a sweetheart and a snuggler. He is a comedian and adorable and loving as can be. I love his sweet face, his sweet kisses, and his beautiful spirit!

Nae:
God has blessed me with a wonderful friend who also happens to be my sister. :) She is a strong woman, a wonderful mother, a Godly example, a fun friend, a lover of beautiful things. She loves others in many ways, and has always been a great big sis for me to look up to.

Joeypie:
Sweet and flirtatious, playful, loves music and dancing, wild, and cute as can be! I love making farties on his neck and forcing kisses upon him. I love watching him dance, eat, sleep, everything! He's precious and full of energy!

Mom & Dad:
Very strong parents and great friends. They both work harder than anyone I know. My mom gives all of her strength and love to her children. My dad finds joy in giving words of encouragement and telling his girls how beautiful they are. They LOVE their grandchildren. :) They are wise and strong and have put all their trust in Him who has sustained them the past 30 years!

Creasy and Nory:
Carrisa has always been a wonderful and very giving friend to me. We've been through it all, pretty much, and we still love each other and consider each other Family. She is very generous, fun-loving, a great mommy, and loves to par-tay! I can go to her with my joys and my sorrows and she can understand them both. Nory is a sweet bundle of FUN. I love how she is not shy with others. I love her dance moves and the little words she's starting to say. I love to hold her and kiss her and tickle her. She loves her mama and her mama loves her! She is playful and as sweet as can be!

Seth:
He is hard-working and a great leader to his family. He puts all of his energy into what he does and likes it all to be perfect. :) He is generous with his time and service to others. He is energetic and loves meeting new people and talking it up with old friends, too. He loves his wifey and his sweet boys and has always kept his faith strong in the Lord who has sustained him and his family for many years.


Tammy:
She is so generous and hard working. She has done a wonderful job raising her children. She is very loving and likes to show her love through quality time and gift giving. She has taught Ryan very valuable things and he is a wonderful man because of the great family he had growing up. She loves her son with her whole heart, and is very protective of her family and friends.


Jessica & Dusty:
They have both been friends of ours for EVER. Jessica is loyal and honest. She has a great sense of humor and a drive to succeed. She really gives it her all in whatever is set before her in life. She is inspiring in how hard she works and how well she cares for others. She seems very close to her family and loves her friends. She makes an effort to keep her relationships strong. I appreciate what a great friend she's been to me for many, many years and still counting! Dustin is a very unique friend and I feel blessed to have him in our lives. He brings a lot of humor to our lives (often disgusting, but funny nonetheless!), and I hate to love him / love to hate him! Haha! He is a jokester and is as boy-ish as can be. Deep down he is a very loyal friend and actually a very loving person! If he says "I hate you!" it really means "I love you"!!! He has always been there for us and his friends when we needed him. When James was born and they lived in Sacramento, Dustin and Jessica were a great support to Nae & Seth. When we bought our house, Dustin helped us paint and move for hours and did a great job, too! He is hardworking and is very loyal to his friendships.

Carla & Tones:
Tones is also a unique friend and I love that he is great friends with Ryan. He has a drive to do well in anything he is involved in; work, friendships, writing, games. He is also a loyal friend (we have a lot of these!) and loves his wife and doggies very much! He has a sense of humor and loves playing games. Carla is such a servant and loves to love others! I always have fun with her whether we're shopping, seeing a movie, or just hanging out with the girls. She loves her husband and her friends, and gives her best in all that she does. I feel very loved and encouraged by her!

Adam & Ashley (And lil Lucy, too!)
We love these dear friends and wish they lived closer! They are brave and aren't scared to move, meet new people, try new things, take different jobs, and just LIVE LIFE. Adam has been friends of ours, especially Ryan's, for years and years. He has always been a great friend to both of us, and Ryan loves that he shares the same interests as him... mostly SPORTS! :) He is smart and works very hard and loves his family very much! Ashley is so pleasant to be around. She is funny, so sweet, and so easy going. I loved visiting her this summer and getting to spend time with just her and Lucy without our boys. :) She loves her family, too, and is so good at loving others!

Lance:
Another inspiration in my life; he knows he is blessed and works hard to be a good boy even when it's hard. He is blind to other people's faults and just loves them unconditionally. He is a wonderful uncle to his boys! He loves his doggie and his Best Friend, his Dad. :) He is very loving and social and likes to bless others. He is an artist! He likes to learn new things like guitar and different types of P.E. like jujitsu and stuff like that. Some times may have been difficult growing up, but I am so thankful that I've had him in my life to help me learn patience and unconditional love, as well as accepting people who are "Different". :)

Teryn:
She has been SUCH a blessing in our lives, starting with Nae and then to the rest of our familiy, especially me and my mom. She LOVES her Savior and is not hesitant to soak herself in His love. She is so loving to her friends and especially her family. She is easy to talk to and will tell you like it is if she needs to, which I love. She is honest. She gives her all to her family and is a shining star of a mommy. Her boys are very loving and snuggly, and fun-loving and energetic! I love to see Lexi's smile! Daniel is a wonderful leader to his family and does a great job of loving on them. He has so much in common with Ryan and I wish they lived here so they could be BFFs!!!

Robin:
My WBF (work best friend)! She saves me from being stuck with just the stinky boys and my boss! She lets me vent and talk about everything that stresses me out, and understands all of it. She is so much fun to talk to and hang out with. I love our walks, and IMing from 5 feet away and talking crap and making jokes. She loves her friends and family and, again, is very loyal to her relationships. She is hard-working and takes her job seriously. She doesn't put up with BS. She knows where to find great deals. She has a great husband who just adores her and he, like Seth, loves meeting new people. He doesn't take anyone's BS either! I'm very blessed to have Robin in my life, and have someone pleasant to talk to each work day!

Housewarming Party

We finally got around to having our housewarming party! This one was just family... we decided to have a separate family party since having everyone at once would be WAY too many people. There were 14 of us tonight counting us and also counting James & Joey. We planned this party for two weeks ago but I got a stomach bug the day before and had to cancel. :( But this time I was feeling much better. We had everyone come over at 7 and instead of having a whole meal or something, we just had ice cream sundaes. It was so yummy! I just bought a big tub of vanilla ice cream and then we had hot fudge, caramel sauce, nuts, cherries, crushed up oreos, mini m&ms, whipped cream and SPRINKLES! :) I think everyone enjoyed it. I bought some low-fat vanilla for Lance and my mom picked which toppings were appropriate for him. My mom also brought James some dairy free chocolate pudding (his fav) so that he didn't feel left out. He was sooo cute. So was Joey. Joey ran around our house screaming and laughing and being stinkin' cute. James soaked in all the love he got from me and all of the grandparents and great grandparents and everyone else. He's such a sweetie and he brings so much joy to my heart!

So we cleaned the house like crazy the last few days. It was a lot of work but I'm glad that we were kinda forced to clean everything at once and make everything look nice. Ryan helped me a lot and I was sooo thankful for his help. I really want it to stay clean and looking nice but we're doubting that it'll even be this way for 24 hours. haha! We have no one to blame, either, since we don't have any kids yet. But whatever. I also hung a few pictures and things like that to spruce up the house. I'm glad I had something to motivate me to do that, too. We also finally moved the treadmill and exercise bike out of the garage into our exercise room. Right now our house looks GREAT! Let's hope it lasts. I went around taking a bunch of pictures after everyone left (I should've taken a few more while people were HERE, but oh well.) Oh, we also found a couch on Craigslist and went to look at it on Thursday. We decided that we liked it a lot and it was a good deal so we picked it up today about 5 hours before the party. We LOVE it! It's a sectional type of couch so the main couch and the loveseat are connected, and this one also has a chaise lounge connected, too. It's exactly what we were looking for! Now we can relax on the couch and not be in each other's way. Also, tonight there was totally enough seating since about 6 people can fit on the couch comfortably, and you could fit 7 if you want to be pretty snuggly with your couch-mates. Our new area rug looked weird for some reason with the new couch so we moved it into our dining room under the dining table. I really like it in there! I think it'll look even better if/when we get a new table. Especially if we get it in a dark brown stain like we want.

Here are some pictures of our place:

(I used my cell phone camera so some of the pics aren't very awesome)

Our awesome new-to-us couch! (I claimed the chaise area for myself)

My parents got us this new table lamp that was on our "wishlist". :) So pretty!

Since we got the couch today, we didn't know what to do with our old one, so we put it in the extra room behind our kitchen near the back yard and now we have a 2nd "living room". I need to put our couch cover back on cuz that plaid-ness is pretty uggo. If you know anyone who wants to buy this or maybe just have it for free, let me know. I guess they guys had to take our door off to get it into our house so it'll be a bit of a hassle to get it out of here and into someone else's house. It's HUGE! And with the couch cover it's not so ugly. If you take the back blue pillows off it's seriously like the size of a twin bed.

Here's our bedroom with the bedding that I LOVE and some new paintings I got from Ross.

Here are the flower paintings up close. They match our room sooo well.

My dad came over the other day and hung our new black mirror in our black-and-white themed bathroom. I love it! (Still very in love with my shower curtain, too!)

This is our exercise room. treadmill, stationary bike, TV, and weighted hoola-hoop. I also have a stability ball I need to blow up and a couple of resistance bands and 5 lb weights. I hope we actually make use of this room. We definitely need to especially if we're going to Hawaii in November!!!

I decided to just get some off-white sheer curtains that will match anything. These ones were from Ross and were only like 8.99 for the two panels and the "scarf" that goes along the top. I got 3 so i only spent like under 30 bucks to cover 3 windows. :) Yay!

This is our little accent table from Target, and the wooden decorative square peices are also from, you guessed it, ROSS! What, am I Carla??! I'm JUST now realizing how much stuff we have from there. I at least got these like 3 years ago so I didn't just go on a Ross shopping spree all at once. hahaha!

This was a wedding gift from Carrisa - it's a black and white picture with two simple flowers. I really like it. It looks great in our hallway. I would hang it in our black and white bathroom but I think it's too big. I think it looks really nice where it is.

That's it! I hope you enjoyed the pics! We had a great party and I'm so, so thankful that we have such a loving family surrounding us, and such a great house too!

Things are coolin' down

It's been a while since I've posted, and I've been putting it off even LONGER because I knew it'd have to be a pretty big post to cover everything. The four main things that went on since I posted last was Mexico, Ryan's bday party, some pretty life-changing health issues with James, and finding out that Nae is pregnant again! Wheee!

They pretty much started to share the news right away and I was one of the first people to know, since I was in the other room while she told Seth. A few minutes later, they came in and told me, and then we told James. He got the cutest smile on his face. :) Then we took James over to grandma & grandpas and he told them "Guess what? Mommy has a new baby in her tummy", and he told uncle Lance, and then we went over to tell "Great Grams" & "Bestifar". Everyone was VERY surprised - including Nae & Seth. :) But we're sooo very excited. We're all hoping for a girl. Nae will find out if it's a boy or a girl before this year ends (late Nov / early Dec?). She (or he) is the miracle we have been praying for...

As you pretty much all know by now, James has had some pretty scary health issues lately. I won't go into all of the details since you probably already know (and they're outlined in Lynae's blog, lynaesthoughts.blogspot.com). But basically he's lost a lot of his strength and mobility and it has changed his life and the lives of his family members. We all had lots and lots of tears while he was in the hospital with these new developments. It's still very sad to see him try to sift through the emotions of dealing with his loss of body function at such a young age. But gosh, he is such an amazing little guy. He still bobs his head and "dances" to music. He still has a big smile on his face when we spend time with him. He says things like "I'll be right back, I'm gonna go [do this or that]". And then we bring him to go do whatever it is that he wants to do... go get a book, go hug his brother, etc. He's so, sooooo, soooo special to me. Please join me in praying for him each time you think of him or his family. He needs healing, hope, and help sorting through his emotions. He's been very emotional, which I can only imagine is caused by constantly realizing over and over again that he can't move his arm, or crawl over to his room, or play on the computer, or do what he used to be able to do a month ago. I pray that God will give him (and his parents) peace during this time, and that the doctors will be able to find a solution for what's going on with him. He's the love of all of our lives, and it deeply saddens us to see him this way. Thank you for your prayers, everyone.

*****

So, Ryan's bday party seems like forever ago now, but we had a GREAT time! He spent weeks drafting up trivia questions for a "Game Show". Basically, each category has a different subject such as "sports", "my friends" (ryan's friends), "video game characters", a bunch of different TV shows, etc. Then each category would have like 5 or 6 questions under it. There are two teams of 3 people. One person from each team goes up and challenges each other in a certain category. Whoever gets the least amount of questions correct in that category is eliminated, until an entire team is eliminated. The questions were fun, creative, and awesome! I was so proud to see Ryan really get into something and have such a fun time being so creative.

Ryan made everyone wear a paper bag on their head that said something funny when they got eliminated. Joey and Nory came, too, and had a great time playing together and trying to get into trouble by pushing the buttons on Uncle Ryan's electronics.

Jessica made the best of it... :)

*****

Mexico was A-MAZ-ING! I loved it sooo, sooo much. I hadn't been in a few years, and I had never been with Yugo Ministries (I went with Amor Ministries in the past). It was a different experience... We stayed in a hotel instead of camping. The house was a similar size and stuff, but a way different type... with drywall and paint and all that. In the past I've done stucco houses and they look kind of un-finished on the inside when we leave. This one looked like a real HOUSE when we left. It was so cool. The family we built for was awesome. It was a grandmother, Aurora, and her grand-daughter Marilyn. They also had close family that lived next door. We made great friendships with all of them despite the language barrier.

I'm amazed each year at how touched I am by the whole experience. I think I tend to go into it thinking "psh, i've done this 10+ times... I've got it down. Let's bust out this house, shed a tear or two, and drive home." It's just not that simple. Each experience, each family, each house, each neighborhood is different. Each year is completely life-changing. I LOVE IT. Somehow each year is also very, very different. Most years I come back on a "high" for God, I guess you could say. It's kind of like you're drowning in Church-like stuff and in God-like experiences and people, and it lasts into the weeks after you return from the trip.

This year was different. I came back sort of depressed. I don't know if depressed is the right word. But I was emotional. Part of it was that the James stuff happened soon after. But also, I made really good friendships with the family. I missed them, and I knew I might not see them for years, or maybe never again. It made me so sad to think that even with their new home, they might be cold, or dehydrated, or hungry. I prayed and prayed that God would comfort them and give them everything they need, and that they would seek Him first. I also felt a little bit depressed after coming back home, because my life felt so purpose-less. In other words, I felt like I was doing "God's work" when I was over there. I was almost envious of the people from the states that live there and work for Yugo Ministries and do God's work every day of their lives. How tiring, but how MEANINGFUL and fun and exciting. I just felt like... what am I even doing here in the states? In my big, stupid house. With my boring, pointless job. With no goals. I still don't have some kind of big "goal" for what my life should look like. BUT, I have realized (and they talked about this at church in Mexico), that basically, you don't have to be a missionary in another country, or a pastor, or a christian musician or the head of a big church ministry to be doing Gods work. Those positions are very fulfilling and I am SO thankful for the people who have been called to those positions. But I think every person can make a difference in their own lives, in their current jobs, in their current "worlds". I think that if you are in prayer that God has your life where he wants it, and that you try to live his scripture in your daily lives, that you WILL be doing "God's work"... even if it's not building a house every week for a new family. Although, it feels pretty good to do that every once in a while, I must admit. I think I just got lost over there in loving others. It felt so good, and maybe I hadn't truly done that in a while. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but those are my feelings on the situation. Please pray for my new family in Mexico whenever you think of them (or me). Thank you!

*****

I guess a few more things happened this summer, too. I took what I've been referring to as my "Crazy Trip". I was feeling kind of overwhelmed here and just felt like I needed to get out of town for just a couple of nights. I visited Ashley & Lucy overnight while Adam was camping with his father-in-law. It was so fun! We just mostly had girly time, made a great dinner and an awesome dessert... watched a chick flick, stayed up late. Went shopping in Reno. I also got to re-meet Ryan's cousin who I've only met one other time before. She's right around my age, and she happens to also live in Susanville where Adam & Ashley live. They've become good friends this past year or so after we "introduced" them via Facebook. She is a very sweet girl, and I wish we all lived closer so we could hang out more.

Anyway, after departing from Susanville, I took my "Crazy Trip" (not because the TRIP was crazy, but because I was crazy)... BY MYSELF to Truckee. I had fun being alone. It was relaxing. I basically went on the trip to relax. I got a facial/massage at one of the ski resort places nearby. I went in the hot-tub one night and even chatted with strangers (eeek!). I explored Truckee and even got to know my way around a little bit (with the help of our GPS!). I took about a 20 minute drive to a beach and had lunch and read my book while I laid in the sun. It was awesome! On the way home I took a detour to Roseville and did a little bit of shopping. It was a good trip. It's sort of weird that I went by myself, but I think I needed it. I'm a true, full-blooded introvert. Haha! So it was right down my alley.

*****

I also got Ryan tickets to a Giants game for his birthday. We just went about two weeks ago. My company was having a party in Mountain View where our other office is, which is in the Bay Area, pretty close to SF. They paid for our mileage and our first night there. Then, we drove to SF the following day and stayed the night there and went to the Giants game the next day. It was so fun! Our seats were awesome, and it was also the annual "Dog Days of Summer" so people got to bring their dogs, and there were like 800 cute doggies there! Before the game started, they paraded them around the field. It was SO cute. We had an awesome time -- and they WON! :)

Summatimmmeee and the livin's easy...

More like BUSY! This summer we've already bought, painted, and moved into our new house and I took a 4 day trip to Oregon with Lynae and Joey. In just THREE WEEKS I leave on a mission trip to Mexico with my dad & my church. I'm looking forward to it but I can't believe how soon it is and how unprepared I feel! As long as I have sunscreen, my meds, and a Costco sized box of thermacare heat packs, I'll be fine! :) Right after Mexico we'll probably have a party at our house so that everyone can see it. We'll probably actually have 2 different parties - one for Family and one for Friends or else I'll be overwhelmed with the amount of people at our house! Before then I need to finish unpacking this place, and then clean everything. It makes me want to buy a bunch of new stuff to put in our house and decorate our house with. Ryan won't let me. Haha! I asked him if I could spend 500 bucks, and he asked me if he could. Haha. Nahhhh. August and late July are also full of BIRTHDAYS and probably lots of parties. Ryan, Carla, Carrisa & Jessica's bdays are all within about 3 - 4 weeks of each other. Nae & Seth's anniversary is right in there, too. My boss' bday is also in early August and I'll probably have to organize getting her a cake as soon as I return back to work from Mexico.

Anyway! Oregon was way fun. I got to spend 4 days straight with my sweet Joey-pie. He's sooo cute. The car ride back seemed a bit grueling, but the way there went pretty fast. It was great to spend time with Nae (without our husbands! haha!), and see Teryn and her sweet kiddos. They're so snuggly. Chasey went to me right away and snuggled his little head against me. Caden always held my hand and gave me a running hug when I came back from wherever I was. They're both so sweet and so cute. We hiked Multnoma Falls which was beautiful (but reminded me how OUT OF SHAPE I am!), and ate lunch at their restaurant. Yummm! The kids were so good the whole time. We stayed up late and chatted, and woke up early with the cuties. We went shopping at Ikea & the mall (no sales tax! wahoooo!). We stopped here and there for Joey to play, and he would dance and find rocks to throw and yucky stuff to try and eat. He's sooo cute. His go-to dance move is the squattin' move, and his best but lest frequent move is his "spin move". :) I'm in love with his spin move. We also went to a birthday party for Caden & Chase's cousin and Josiah found a slide there that he lovvvvvvvveedddd. Here are a few pics! :)

Like I said, I still have a lot to unpack but one thing I had to finish was our bathroom. I LOVE our new shower curtain! I'm doing a black and white theme.

Shower Curtain:

Black & White Towels:

Soap covered in pretty paper by ME! :)

My new makeup bag. SO CUTE. Got it in Oregon with no sales tax :)

Ryan and I had "date day" today, and now he's watching baseball and I'm enjoying some Nutella on a spoon. DE-LISH. We went to the olive garden for lunch. Then we killed some time in between lunch and our movie by checking out the sales at Ashley Furniture. They had a few couches we liked and 2 or 3 dining room tables that we liked. I think Ryan enjoyed it more than he thought he would. And we were really only there for about 10 or 15 mins. I asked him on a scale from 1 - 10 (10 being the most grueling) how awful it was, and he said 4 which i think is pretty good. HAHA!

Anyway, I better go and eat dinner now that it's already 8:30. Should probably work on unpacking more boxes tonight, too. Happy 4th of JULYYYYYY!

Long Weekend

We have a 3-day weekend for Memorial day. Wheeee! :) It's already been fun so far. My boss was gone yesterday (Friday). Today (Saturday) was Joey's first birthday party! I had such a great time watching his cute little self walk around, open presents, and eat his cute cake! I'm sure Nae will be posting pictures soon. He is suuuuch a sweetie. He stared at Daddy the whole time that we sang Happy Birthday, and he just looked like a little angel. I gave him about 100 kisses before we left. He had little sugary "buttons" on his cake, and I stuck one to his nose with frosting. He looked sooooo adorable. He didn't even know it was there. :) I love that little guy. James was happy to help him open his presents (I think he thought it was his birthday again a couple of times!) :) I can't believe Joey is already ONE! It seems like only about 3 months ago or so that we were at the hospital watching him come into this world. Stop growing up so fast, Joey-pie!

Today after the party Ryan and I went to the batting cages at the mini-golf place. I've only done it one time. This time I did 4 coins-worth which was like 60 pitches. eek! My first round (15 pitches) I did pretty good, but by the 4th round I was SO tired. I probably only hit like 3 of them. *SIGH* It was still fun though! Ryan did the fast pitches, too and he is good! I would probably scream every time because they are REALLY fast. When they hit the back board it sounds like a gun going off.

We're still waiting on the bank to do the underwriting for our loan and everything. I'm guessing we'll close probably mid-week on the week of the 6th - 12th. But that's just a guess. Hopefully for sure by that weekend. We have an extension in until the 18th but they don't expect it to take that long... that was just a safety net. I went to World Market to look for a present for a friend, and also to check out the wine selection because I want to get our realtor a little gift for when we close. Since I know basically NOTHING about wine, I was kinda just going by the picture on the front. I found one with a good picture and picked it up to put in my basket. I then realized that the name of it was Menage a Trois. Uhhhh. Yeah. I decided to put it back. I don't want to send the wrong message! YIKES! That would be an awkward gift.

Ya gotta check out this blog someday. http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2010/05/sweet-charlotte-girl.html (Start from the beginning to see her whole story. This is her latest post though.
She also wrote this book: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Carry-You-Sacred-Dance/dp/080546428X

What I've been up to

PACKING!

We found out that we most likely will NOT be closing this Friday like we had hoped, so I'm now counting on the close date on our contract which is June 3rd. Hopefully we can get painting done and then move in asap! I want a little bit of overlap time so that we can get this place cleaned up and the new place prepped. I can't wait! In the mean time, I've been packing up stuff we don't use every day. I still have a TON more to pack though.

LOST!

The LOST series finale was on last night. I've been a devoted viewer since Episode 1. All of our friends love it too, so we had a get-together last night to watch it. It was fun! There were a lot of parts of the finale that I liked, but knowing that was the END... the LAST episode, and seeing how many of the mysteries went unanswered, made me over-all NOT like the episode. I was disappointed! I was hoping for the last scene to make me go "Oh my gosssshhhh!!!!!". It did not. I had fun preparing for it, and watching it (up until I realized it was THE END). The episode itself will probably slowly grow on me, but I don't think I'll ever be totally satisfied. *sigh*. That was my favorite show. My new favorite is Modern Family. That show is soooooooooo funny. I also think that it could be entertaining to a lot of different types of people; many age groups, girls, guys, parents, teens, grandparents... I LOVE IT. If that show gets cancelled I'm be so pissed! I'm bummed that Flash Forward is getting cancelled. It is not in my top favs but it's still one that we've watched consistently and I was hoping to keep watching it. Guess not. :(

I made LOST cookies. It's supposed to be a beach. I used crumbled cookie for the "sand". I really wanted to put little crashed airplanes on them but I didn't know where to find that sort of thing.

CRAFTS

I've been getting back into craftsy things lately. My latest thing is covering soaps. It'd probably be cooler if I actually MADE the soap myself, and then covered it, but I'm not that devoted. Without having to make the soap, it's actually a pretty quick craft which equals instant gratification. They sell 3 packs of soap for 5 bucks at Ross, so it's pretty cheap too. Here are some that I made for my mom and mother-in-law for mother's day:

I also recently got together with my craft-night-girls, Robin and Rachel, and we made jewelry. I made a necklace. It turned out cute! (sorry, no pic right now). Robin's earrings turned out great. They look store-bought. Rachel made some spiffy necklace which required crocheting that she's been working on for a while now. It looks really good! I wish I had more talent! But it's fun no matter what.

VACATION

We want to do something special for our 5th anniversary. Unfortunately, February is pretty much THE busiest time for Ryan at work. It's likely that he wouldn't be able to get the time off. So we probably need to plan our vacation either at the end of this year, or not until next year in May-ish. I've been wanting to take a big vacation before we decide to have kids because we might not be able to do something like that for several years once we have a baby. No, we don't have an official PLAN of when we're going to have kids, but we just know that we are probably getting a bit closer to that time now that our 5 year is coming up (plenty of time as "just" a married couple), we're buying a house (stability? Not that we couldn't have stability without a house. In fact, we'll probably be MORE poor. But somehow in our minds a house = stability. Still haven't figured out the logic behind that) :) So, perhaps we'll start trying in about a year. NO PROMISES PEOPLE! :) It's just a thought! Might still be a few more years. Who knows. No official plans yet.

Anyway, my "big vacation" plan is to go to HAWAII! I think a 5 night, 6 day trip will be best for us. I also want to go this year so that we don't have to wait like a year to go. I'm thinking November is best. Then it can count for my birthday, too! :) I first started researching Oahu because that is where Lost was filmed and you can go on a Lost Tour and see all of the places, swim at "kate and sawyers waterfall", and take pics in front of the yellow dharma barrack houses. It just sounded FUN! That is, until I watched the finale. haha. Just kiddinnnnng! But seriously, it might not be AS fun now that it's over and they'll probably tear down a lot of stuff. Plus, before we would've had a chance to meet or at least SEE the actors, but now that they're done that wouldn't happen. I still think it'd be fun. BUT, I found out after talking to a few people and researching online that Oahu is probably not the best of the islands. Parts of it (honolulu) are kinda big-city-ish, crowded, touristy, etc.

I took a "which island fits you best" quiz, and I think Maui or Kauai are going to be better choices for us. I've read that you should try to visit at least 2 islands when you visit hawaii, but that seems to be easier said than done. Right now I'm leaning toward Maui. It seems like it might have the best of all things. Some privacy, some touristy stuff to do, some nature-y stuff to do, etc. Hawaii is all I've been thinking about! I think I've been driving Ryan CRAZY talking about it. "Which island do you want to go to, what do you want to do, do you want to learn to surf, do you want to parasail with me, do you want to go on a dinner cruise, do you, do youuuu?" Yeahhhh. I see how that can get annoying. Especially when all of that stuff goes through my mind at bed time. I just want to make sure that we both have lots of fun. We don't always have the same interests, so it's something we need to plan ahead.

I haven't booked anything yet because we kind of need to see how our finances go after we move in to our house. We have some money saved for a vacation but you never know if we'll have to use it another way, or how much we'll be able to save in addition to our travel fund. So we'll see! I liked the reviews of Maui Coast Hotel on travelocity ( http://hotels.travelocity.com/hotel/hoteldetail.do?propertyID=34894 ), so we might stay there. Who knows! If anyone has been there before let me know what you think! Ashley also sent us a link to a condo from her boss which seems to have good prices and a great location. I believe it's in Kauai if I'm remembering right, so maybe we'll stay there if we go to Kauai! I can't wait to be sitting on the beach with a Mai Tai in my hand and my boyfriend (aka Husband, aka Ryan) by my side!

in escrow!

We've been in escrow for about 2 weeks now. We're SO excited! We're supposed to close June 3, but our bank lady told us it might end up being a little bit sooner, like the very end of this month. I've been packing up boxes of stuff we don't use everyday and going through all of our crap and organizing stuff. It was nice to have the Mexico rummage sale right around the time I wanted to get rid of some stuff!

We are SOOO excited about our house. Everything worked out really, really perfectly. We've been looking for houses since early this year. We started out pretty slow, but then got more serious about it in the last couple of months. We looked at a lot of houses in Chico, and also considered a few houses in Paradise because they were significantly cheaper. (Although, you do pay for that in gas and inconvenience). We made an offer on a house that was really cute. It was a little bit small but it had a beautiful back yard, and it still had 3 bedrooms like we wanted. It was a great house over all. I didn't love the size of the kitchen or some of the flooring, but the rest of the house was great. We had to put a really low-ball offer in since it was listed for more than we could afford. We didn't get it. I wasn't totally bummed, but I also wasn't sure if we'd find what we wanted before the deadline for the $8,000 tax credit.

We looked at this house on Ceanothus that was listed for basically exactly what we set as our "max" in our minds. We went to see it and it seemed SO nice and big!!! We had looked at 2 other houses that day and they were horriblllllle. This one seemed perfect. It was an REO and we knew that it was under market because we could see what other houses on the same street were listed for and selling for. We figured someone might just make a higher offer than us, above the asking price, and we'd lose out. But we though "hey, let's give it a try!". When we went to write the offer, our realtor called to see if there were any offers. It sounded like there was one other one being submitted but he didn't know how much it was for. We figured they were probably offering the asking price like us, so he suggested we offer $500 more. I guess it did the trick! They counter-offered us for the same price, just with a few stipulations like a shorter escrow time (works for us!) and a shorter amount of time for inspections and things like that. So, even though it was technically a "counter offer", they essentially accepted our offer! Woo hoo! We signed agreement papers like 2 or 3 days before the cutoff for the $8000 tax credit, AND we also signed in a small window of time to where we not only qualifed for the $8000, but we will also get $10,000 from the state. YAYYY! The 10 thou will be payed in increments over 3 years. so we'll get a little over $3000 around tax time for the next 3 years. YESSS!

I just feel so blessed. The timing was PERFECT. We qualified for both tax credits. We got a great house (built in 2007) for UNDER market and still in our price range. It's bigger and newer than the houses we had looked at. It's in Chico in the 95973 area which we like. We'll be moving when it's not rainy outside. It's just perfect for us. We feel kind of poor now since our payments will be a lot more than what we're used to paying in rent, but I'm thinking our taxes the next few years will make that a lot easier! We just never thought we could get a house like this in our price range. A few little downsides - we needed to buy a new stove, and we'll need bathroom mirrors since there aren't any. Also, the backyard is tiny and pathetic but that doesn't really bother us. Almost no yard work!

Here are a few pics of the house from the real estate sites. We'll take more pics when we move in! :) :) :)

(Garage is in the back)

Here's our charming (read: small and pathetic) back yard! :)