poor buddy baby

My preshy dog hurt his tiny back, and he is just more pitiful than words can express. Lance took him to the vet today, so he now has two medications and is not allowed to jump AT ALL for 3 weeks. If you know my dog, you know a few things: 1. He already loves you. 2. He loves to jump. He jumps when he's happy and when he has to potty and when he wants to eat what you have and when you're holding a baby and when you walk in the front door and... well, he just loves to jump. I'm not sure how to keep his paws on terra firma for 3 weeks, but I will definitely try. And just because he's cute:

So say a little prayer for my pup and his back... and hopefully he will back to his old self in a few weeks!

chris lee's wedding

Our dear friend Chris got married at the end of July, and we had a wonderful time. If you want to see their beautiful professional pictures, you can see Erin's fabulous blog. She is incredibly talented. Wow. Here, though, you will just see pictures of Lance and me. So sorry.

Kasey Spain, my sweet freshman year across the hall neighbor (affectionately known as my ATH... and yes, I still call her that). And for some reason, my eyes are overly enthusiastic in this picture.

Sweet Aaron Rector. So glad he's back on our continent!

Awww Luke! Haven't seen this kiddo in forever.


My sweet loves Stefie and Katie. Such beautiful girls. It was just wonderful to see them and catch up with them.

Okay, so Lance, Chris, and I took this picture on the first day that Lance and I met... way back at Kadesh 2002. After that, we took it every six months through school... and on our graduation day and on the day Lance and I got married. Love it. I will have to hunt down some of those pics and post them. They are fabulous.

Um, and I just realized that I don't have a single picture with the bride. She was a beautiful one though! Congratulations to both of you... and thanks for giving me the opportunity to see lots of my friends! It was a wonderful night!

milestone day

Today, I ran a mile. That may not seem like any big deal… and if you’ve been running for years, it’s probably not to you. To me, though, this is huge. I haven’t been able to run a mile since… college? Maybe? I think I ran a mile like twice all the way through college. I am a terrible, terrible runner. And today, I ran a mile.

I’ve been getting up and running in the mornings before work. When I first started about a month ago, I could barely, BARELY finish a quarter of a mile. Yes, it’s sad. I know. Every day I have forced myself to run a bit (sometimes a matter of mere steps) further than the day before. Well, except for the day that Buddy wrapped his leash around a rosebush. I was too cranky to finish that day. Let’s not talk about that. I have a couple of goals in my new-found runningness: 1. I want to run at least a 5k. Maybe a 10k, but I get overwhelmed thinking about it, so I choose to focus on the 5k. 2. I want to run a mile in 8(ish) minutes. I have never, never done that.

I should also mention that my natural running stance is more like Phoebe than anyone else…

Like, it makes people laugh. I have been working very hard to run in a way that will not make people laugh. I guess that’s my third goal. 3. I want to run without anyone laughing at the way I run.

I also feel like I should mention how very, very much I hate mornings. Lance has a video of me attempting to hit him for trying to wake me up on our honeymoon. Youch. Anyway, I have been waking up early, and I have to say, that part is going far better than I’d anticipated. I get to see a sunrise every morning, and I start my day awed by my God and His creativity. It has been a blessing. Every morning, I sing in my head, “Who paints the skies into glorious day? Only the splendor of Jesus!” And this week, I’ve been running with my friend Lorrie and her dog Fudge (who is FAR better behaved than Buddy), and that has been great too! We spend our warm-up and cool-down time just talking about stuff. However, I can’t talk while running. Too hard.

Anyway, today is (quite literally) a milestone for me. Hopefully there are many more to come.

summer = almost over....

It’s hard to stay caught up when life is so busy! I genuinely thought I was going to get a break, but VBS was last week, and it was ridiculous too. I even skipped on Tuesday to go to the grocery store and was still absolutely exhausted. Plus there was a summer youth series at Legacy Thursday night. You know it’s a rough week when Friday is your only day to not do church stuff… And I must admit, my house was a disaster, and we had very few clean clothes. Yes, it’s true. And it wasn’t even bothering me until Thursday morning. I knocked a bunch of things over trying to get ready, and it made me so cranky. Anyway, Lance and I stayed home and just hung out Friday night… and then I spent all day Saturday cleaning while Lance was at a Kids for Christ rally thing. Oh yes… there was a church thing on Saturday too! We were also taking food to some folks who just had a baby and hosting small group at our house Sunday night, so I also made pork in the crockpot and baked 4 dozen cupcakes on Saturday… and then I begged to go swimming, so we went to some friends’ backyard (they weren’t even home!) and swam for awhile.

Since the last time I posted, probably the most exciting thing that’s happened was that my friend Chris Lee got married. (And that happened on July 31st, so obvi not much too terribly exciting has happened since then…) He is the one who introduced Lance and me, and he is very special to us. Chris and I were actually in an MPulse group together the summer between 7th and 8th grade and then were in a Kadesh group together the summer between 11th and 12th grade… and we have stayed friends ever since! The wedding was very sweet, and it was a tremendous blessing to see some college friends again… and I will have to post pictures soon… after I take the time to upload them.

Well, also, we had 18 people at our house for small group last night! I guess that’s exciting too! Holy moly! We were packed into our house, and we started running out of food there at the end… but it was a lot of fun. I am definitely going to have to find some more good recipes for large groups of people. I probably can’t make spaghetti every time!

Can I just tell you how ready I am for summer to be over? There is just too much going on in the summer to try to even breathe. I loved summer when I got to be a part of summer. When I just get to be extra-super-busy and husband-less but still working while it’s uber hot outside, summer loses some of its appeal. Yes, I am now 25, and summer is officially lame.

two whole weeks...

Nothing terribly eventful happened the week of Lance being at Cornerstone (praise the LORD! Cornerstone was when my mom was hospitalized last year…). Lance was gone from Sunday to Friday and came home on Friday (yes, with more tire trouble on this trip) and left for another camp on Sunday. During the approximately 36 hours he was home, this is what happened to my spotless house:

We washed pretty much everything he owns so that he could repack and leave again. It was out of control.

Sunday morning, Lance began loading his suitcases into my car. Buddy HATES suitcases because he is smart enough to know that they mean someone is leaving. He just cried and followed us around all morning. This was the heart-breaking sight I got to witness while Lance was loading the car:

(The people before us had cats, so we have a cat door into the garage. Buddy can fit through it but prefers not to. He mostly uses it as a giant peephole.)

I rode down to camp with Lance in an empty rental van (I bet we looked hysterical) and spent the day down at Three Mountain, explaining to everyone that, no, I will not be staying for camp because I have to work. I rode back with John West that evening, and he and I had a ridiculously long conversation about fruit. I didn’t think it was weird at the time until Lance asked me what we talked about, and I said “fruit” and then I realized it was weird. Evs.

To keep myself occupied when Lance was gone, I cleaned the house, watched SYTYCD, and shopped. Shopping is my activity of choice when Lance is gone. It’s one of the few things that I genuinely enjoy doing by myself. During the two weeks he’s been gone, I have purchased/ordered the following:

Plus some other assorted things... mostly things I deemed too boring to take pictures of/blog about. It’s a good thing he came back. I would have shopped us into the poor house. Well, that and I missed him like crazy.

Since Buddy was my little four-legged bestie for the past two weeks, here are a couple shots of him and his cuteness/hilariousness:

And now my love is home again, and all is right with the world!

almost caught up...

On Friday and Saturday, we got ready for Lance to go to camp and for me to help hostess a shower. We did lots of running errands and laundry and some working in the yard… I don’t even remember what all, but I know that I went to Walmart, Target, Hobby Lobby, the bank, took Lance to get a haircut, picked up a UHaul trailer, and Target again that day. Then that night I was dusting and knocked over something glass and cut my finger and started bleeding and made Lance clean up the broken glass. Yes, sometimes I’m a baby, and I’m okay with it.

On Sunday, Lance’s group left for Cornerstone during Bible class time. I always get sad when he leaves, but there were kids and parents and other assorted vagabonds (not really) all around when we said our goodbyes, so I tried to be strong. It’s times like that that I completely love my giant, Victoria Beckham-style, face-obscuring sunglasses. They hide tears like a champ. Anyway, he left, and I went to church. After church, I went back to Walmart (yes, again) and then went home and cleaned my house like crazy. I cleaned from maybe 12:30 or so until 2:30 and then got ready to head to the shower. I took my fondue fountain to the shower, so I had a ton of stuff to take – the fountain itself, the skewers, a vase to put the skewers in, the chocolate, some marshmallows and pretzels left over from the last usage, the paper goods, the glass plates and cups from the church, some ribbon, etc. I got there like 25 minutes before the shower was supposed to start (which was 5 minutes late for the early I was supposed to be) and hurriedly set up the fountain (people were already there and standing around!). About halfway through the shower, the dirty dishes are piling up, so my friend Corie and I started doing dishes… and never ever stopped. For like an entire hour, we stood at the sink washing dishes. The shower ended at 5:00… and small group was at my house at 5:30 (hence the hours of pre-shower cleaning)! I cleaned the fountain enough to stick it in the box (and splattered chocolate on the front of my khaki pants – super!) and threw all my stuff together and ran to my car. I pulled up to my house right at 5:30, and people were already arriving! I ran in, changed pants, and turned on some lamps/lit candles/tried to be a good hostess. Then, with guests there, I stain treated my pants. Um, hello, I cannot have a chocolate stain on my khaki pants. My guests can wait. We had small group until like 8:00 or so, then I ran up to Central Market to get my groceries for the week. You can tell what an exhausting day it was by the fact that this is one paragraph and one day.

I promise - more pictures/fewer words for the next post.

another busy week...

After the July 4th holiday weekend came another busy week. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) On Monday, we had Bunko, and I always have a lot of fun there. I sat with Stacey and Jenn (and another girl whose name I don’t remember, but let’s not tell her that) during dinner, and I love getting to hang out with them. They crack me up, and I don’t get to see them all that often. Plus, about halfway through the night, Jenn let me steal Abigail, so I got to snuggle a preshy little baby for the last half of the night. So fun!

Oh, plus I had a doctor’s appointment Monday morning and another one Tuesday afternoon. I did have a nurse/technician person whom I don’t think had ever drawn blood in her life. I’m a pretty easy case (I’m so pale that my skin is practically transparent), and I have had a lot of blood drawn in my lifetime without ever having any problems with it. Anyway, first this girl looked completely lost in the world when I asked her to do my left arm instead of my right since I was heading straight to work after the appointment and was worried I might be sore. She put the tourniquet on my arm and had me squeeze the ball thing and ran her finger back and forth across the inside of my elbow for – no lie – at least 30 seconds… before looking at me and going, “Do you know if you have good veins?” WHAT?! Talk about scaring a person to death! Anyway, it was a bit ouchie pouchie, but it didn’t bruise, so I guess I can’t complain too much. That’s the only interesting thing that happened at either doctor.

So then Wednesday, I picked up dinner and went straight to church after work (like always). I knew there was a girls’ lock-in, and I had planned to stay for like an hour, but I ended up staying until almost midnight. Yikes stripes. I am too old for that. I think the girls had fun though. They turned on the blacklights, wore neon clothes, and had a girls-only hilarious-dancing dance party.

This picture was my attempt at taking pictures of the dancing without a flash. It simultaneously makes me happy and makes me dizzy. (Notice that Jesus looks really sad in the background. That somehow makes these pictures more entertaining.)

Obviously, I was sleepy on Thursday (I AM 25 now, you know). Then Thursday night was a summer youth series at Richland Hills. It was great to be there (I saw Sister’s bf Brent), and the speaker was fabulous (as if Patrick Mead is ever unfabulous), and it was a lot of fun. I got home at like 8:30 and was just wiped out. I basically sat on the couch for like an hour until Lance got home and then went to bed. I’m so much fun.

I'm almost caught back up to real time...