recent fun events

In recent weekends Jer and I convinced two of our favorite couples to bring on the babysitter and hit the town with us. Both these mom's and dad's are such great parents and i admire their commitment to loving and caring for their children. When ever i have kids (Lord willing) i will definitely be calling up these two women to cry, laugh and hound them with questions!

Below are Grant, Sarah, Jer and I at a YUMMY hibachi grill! How can you not love all those hibachi tricks! i always eat twice my weight at those places- i just can't resist!

Another night we went out with Trevor and Erynn the couple who has the Melt Your Heart Cutest Little Sisters EVER! Twice a month we head over to their house to spend time with them and study the bible and worship together. It's so fun! The girls (one 2 and the other 4) "lead" us in worship songs usually Joy to the World or Amazing Grace... unless they get confused and suggest "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". SO CUTE! anyway we stole Trevor and Erynn away for an awesome night at the Cheesecake Factory followed by a Stars game (thanks Mark!).


Other fun events consist of one of the loves of my life getting engaged! It was a great night and i must say KH you looked beautiful- definitely got that 'engaged glow'!

Another fun highlight was getting some QT with my mom at the mall! so fun :) we ate at the California pizza kitchen and covered the whole mall stopping at our favorite shops. MOM we need to take more pictures! here's an older one just to give a shout out.

i can show off one of the items we got though! A fun red dress from the beloved Forever 21 to wear to Cassie's wedding. i got it with a gift card that i'd had for over a year... then i got a shirt from Anthropology with a gift card that i'd had since December 2004!!! What is wrong with me! i am such a gift card hoarder!!

Ok, till the next picture down load...!

Bored watching the super bowl...

ok Molly got me to do this personality test.  i have a love hate relationship with these things- love them because i am fascinated by different personalities, hate them because they take me 10 minutes to answer each question.  so this time i just whipped through it.  who knows if it's right but i love reading them :)

here are my results: 

The Counselor Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in reaching their goals, and enterprising and attentive in their interpersonal roles. Counselors focus on human potentials, think in terms of ethical values, and come easily to decisions. The small number of this type (little more than 2 percent) is regrettable, since Counselors have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions. Although Counsleors tend to be private, sensitive people, and are not generally visible leaders, they nevertheless work quite intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues. This type has great depth of personality; they are themselves complicated, and can understand and deal with complex issues and people.

Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, Counselors are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Indeed, because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, mutely withdrawing from human contact. At the same time, friends who have known a Counselor for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that they are inconsistent; Counselors value their integrity a great deal, but they have intricately woven, mysterious personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

Counselors have strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another's emotions or intentions -- good or evil -- even before that person is conscious of them. This "mind-reading" can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even Counselors can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others' feelings so keenly. Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena and to have visions of human events, past, present, or future. What is known as ESP may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in the Counselor, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.

haha! i loved the ESP part!  hahaha!

if you want to take it your self go HERE

hmmm?

Find out Which Lost Character Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!
ok- i retook it with jer and i came up with this. i feel good about it!
(jer is kate, hahaha!

Am I the only one?

I am sure many of you have read or heard of the story of the prodigal son. If by chance you haven’t read it the story is in Luke 15:11-32. Read it or this blog will make no sense. Every time I have heard this story I have always felt bad for the older son. (Which is weird because if I should be able to relate to anyone in the story it’s the younger, screw up brother. I have a sweet and beautiful older sister that was pretty obedient to our parents and never seemed to get in nears as much trouble as I did! But for some reason I always read this story and found myself taking sides with the older brother against the father.) Yes, why ARE you rewarding the younger when it’s the OLDER that has been so obedient? Where IS the sense of Justice?!!

But I always shoved this out of my mind and tried to take from the story what I thought I was supposed to take; that we are all prodigal sons and should be thankful for the forgiveness offered and move on to the next parable.

Well while reading my “Anger” book Jones talks about this parable and says something that I had never really picked up on. Jones looks deeper into the exchange between the older son and the father and I was amazed at what I had been missing. He describes the older brother’s anger as ‘sinful concealing’ opposite from ‘ sinful revealing’. (Sinful revealing is those of us that get angry and explode at others, sinful concealing is those of us that turn inward and withdraw from others.) He describes the older brother this way because in his anger about his younger brother’s warm welcome, he refuses to go into the party. “He did not blow up; he simply withdrew and clamed up. The father, however, did not." Which is interesting but what really got me was the kindness of the father next to the anger of the older son which i had never really seen as wrong. "The father wisely approached his son to initiate conversation and draw out his thoughts. He exposed the man’s resentment toward his father and jealousy toward his brother.”

This may seem small but I had never seen it like that! I had never seen the tenderness of the father reaching out to his first son! So, this lead me to reread the story in Luke and I was again amazed at another big chunk I had been missing.

So the son responds to his father’s initiation by arguing, “All these many years I have served you. I have always obeyed what you said. But you never gave me a young goat so I could have a supper and a good time with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came back, you killed the fat calf. And yet he wasted your money with bad women."
This is where I usually would say to myself, “Yes! What do you say to that?!” But this time I really understood the father’s response. “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Somehow I had always ignored the first sentence, “My son you are always with me.” Not that the father was saying, 'Big deal about you! You are hear all the time.' But he was saying, 'YOU are always with ME. You always have my presence! I am always here, you are always with me!' Isn’t that what we really want?!

On top of that he says, “All I have is yours!” Second to giving him his presence he gives his son all that he has! It's like the father is saying, 'a calf and a party? That's all you want?! But you are with me!? This is all yours!'

How much like the older brother am I that I didn’t hear the father correctly either! So natural it is for me to complain, demand, compare and condemn. Oh, how I want to realize the depth of those words, “My daughter you are always with me” and realize I have everything that I need.

I never knew how much the story of the prodigal son was really about the father.

a few pics

siblings on my side- Christmas day. (why on earth didn't i take more pictures??!)

tess and i at Mels bachlorette party- yes i had to chop off a little inappropriateness of the cookie we had been decorating.

this is the fun part!!

ah the old roomies! together for mel's bridal shower

mel's wedding day! notice chavon going to work on a tear in mel's dress! ekk! oh but these are the great stories after it's all over!

in the brides room waiting for the big moment

and this is what all those hours of waiting can do to you

Something Great

Then I heard something great
Like the voice of a multitude
Something Great
Peals of thunder
MIGHTY thunder
Like many waters
The sound of Great waters
Hallelujah!
Give praise to our God!
Something GREAT
Like the sound-
The sound of our LORD
Something GREAT.
From His mouth
Like deep waters
The Lord, mighty in battle
Something GREAT
The voice of a warrior!
I heard Him
Peals of thunder
HALLELUJAH!
A new song!
The sound of thunder
Terrific and mighty
I heard HIM!
The Lord
JESUS

my first homemade lasagna. i couldn't be more proud if i'd birthed a child.