Non-Birthday Weekend

Me with my friend and co-leader, Angela!

This past weekend was buuusy!  -But good.  Cody and I helped out with Revolution Weekend (like Disciple Now) at Parkhills.  I co-lead the 9th grade girls with a good friend from our weekly small group and Cody was a co-host for the 11th and 12th grade boys.  It was a jam-packed weekend but definitely worth it!  We went through 4 study sessions on the topic of Christ-like Community, the students built/decorated Derby cars for the major race Saturday afternoon, and we had a rally (guest speaker and worship band) Saturday evening.  Everything went great and I think the students enjoyed it --and hopefully left having learned something and being motivated to move forward in their relationships with Christ.

Our girls decorating their journals for the weekend.

My loves giving me my birthday card before the Derby race started.

Cody's 11th and 12th grade guys in the race.

Our girls all in costume and with accessories --aka home-made spears, swords, and I believe we also had an ax-- (It was a Spartan theme) for the race.

Our girls in the race.

Set up for the Rally Saturday night in the Parkhills sanctuary.

It was also my birthday on Saturday.  Cody has made it clear -as I did to him when he turned this age- that I am now officially in my mid-twenties (I turned 24).  Weird!  Lol.  Not really, but a little.  Anyways.  Cody did manage to give me his sweet card during the business Saturday with Revolution Weekend but otherwise we have postponed birthday-ness until this coming weekend.  Which was just fine with me.  By the time we got home from RW Sunday afternoon we were both exhausted!  My friend who was my co-leader, our additional leader, and our 9th grade girls did surprise me late Saturday night with a delicious German Chocolate Cake and 24 glowing candles!  It was super sweet -and I honestly was not in the least expecting it... at least not until they called me downstairs and I walked into a dimly lit room filled with people... then I sorta guessed what was going on lol.  Thank y'all for that sweet gesture!  I really appreciated it : )

Hair before...

Also... this is on a more random note, I had been wanting to cut my hair for a while now and decided to wait until after my sister-in-law's wedding.  Then I decided I wanted to do it around my birthday.  (Note:  I had been saving a Groupon for a hair cut and massage for moooonths to wait and use for just this occasion.)  So I made an appointment and went in Friday morning before RW stuff started.  I cut off about 11 inches!  Big hair cut.  I have never had it THIS short.  I have cut it fairly short twice before... but this is the shortest, and at least so far I really love it!  I have told Cody that I hope he means it that he likes it... cause I may be keeping this hair style for a while.  The one thing I'm still nervous about is that I haven't tried it curly yet!!!  -Which could still be disastrous; we'll have to wait and see. My hair is naturally curly... but probably at least half the time I straighten it.  This short it could possibly be awful curly... hopefully it's at least okay so I don't always have to straighten it now.  I haven't mailed it in yet, but I'm planning on sending in my hair to Locks of Love.  And if I'm being honest... I did not cut my hair for that purpose.  BUT when I realized it was reallly long and I wanted to go short, I looked into it and found out my hair would be long enough to donate, and so I decided that's what I would do.  Anyways.  Enough rambling about my hair.

Adjusting to missing a lot of hair!

11 inches off... a little more when you pull it all the way out.

... And after.

Also a little off of everything from above -Cody's grandma turned 85 last week and we all enjoyed dinner out to Olive Garden for the occasion.  It was a nice dinner out and of course a birthday dinner wouldn't be complete without singing and cake.

Happy 85th birthday, Grandma!

On our way to Grandma's birthday dinner.

So that's our latest update!  Hope everyone is having a great week!

Picture of Community

Christ calls us as believers to live in community with one another.  This isn’t a new realization to me; however, I will say that I’m still learning, and haven’t always had a clear idea what that might really look like.  This weekend though I saw and experienced a beautiful picture of what this community is suppose to look like, and I just have to share.

Last week I had a friend come to hang out and visit (and introduce me to her new baby boy since I hadn’t been able to meet him yet) and her visit was exactly what I needed.  I had reached a point of being beyond frustrated that I’m still on crutches and stuck in the apartment and not suppose to move much and unable to do simple things easily.  Having her stop by to hang out and talk was a breath of fresh air that I truly needed.  Her visit in itself was wonderful.  Before she left she asked what she could do to help out (our apartment had gotten really messy and dirty… due to me unable to tidy up and Cody being super stressed and coming home late almost every day lately) and I didn’t want her to have to do anything because I didn’t want to be a bother and I was embarrassed by our apartment.  I tried to think of some quick easy little things she could do in the study where we had been visiting. (We had managed to thankfully keep that room and the guest bathroom decent enough.)  She did those few things, went to the restroom, and I was expecting her to be about to leave, when she stuck her head back in the door and asked if we were good enough friends that I wouldn’t get mad if she just went into the living room and tried to pick up a bit for us.  While I was still embarrassed by how our home was, I said yes and she shut the door to our study and went and picked up a bit.  Before she left she asked if her and her husband could bring us dinner or do anything to help over the weekend, and after telling her that actually we’d be gone (Cody to Austin for his race and me to my parents since it wouldn’t have been a good idea for me to stay alone) she asked for a key to our apartment to come and tidy up while we would be gone.

We came home late Sunday evening to our apartment picked up, tidy, and clean.  Her and another friend came and took out our trash, organized, did the dishes and our laundry.  Our home was the nicest it’s been since before we found the blood clot. 

I just wanted to share because I honestly felt like it was a wonderful picture of us living in community.  We didn’t ask them to do anything.  She asked if they could and genuinely wanted to help because she saw an opportunity to do so.  Actually when she asked for our key and explained what she wanted to do, I was really hesitant.  I mean, it was our mess, our home, nobody else should have to bother with it, and I was still embarrassed by it.  She said to me that this is the type of thing community should do for each other and that she honestly wanted to help.  And she was right, that’s exactly what it was -a picture of community. 

We are extremely grateful to our friends for their help, and for giving us a glimpse into what living in community really looks like. 

Parkhills

So, a lot of stuff kinda has been going on lately with our church, and I guess I feel like sharing.  About a year ago now, we started attending Parkhills Baptist Church here in San Antonio and around November we finished new member classes and officially joined.  We're part of a Married-Twenty-Something's Bible Study group that we've really enjoyed on Tuesday nights.  Also, this past spring we started attending FUEL -which is the middle and high school youth group- and helping out some.  This summer (as has been mentioned at one point) Cody and I led a small student home group for students that just finished 9th or 10th grade on Wednesdays.  We have really enjoyed meeting and getting to know these students!  We had a small group, but they were great kids! -and we hope to continue to get to know them through FUEL as the school year starts back up.  On that note, tonight was our last summer student home group!  It all went by quickly and unfortunately we missed two weeks due to the Ohio trip.  We ended up just hanging out and playing Catchphrase and Apples to Apples to end our summer with them tonight. 

As the school year is about to start back up, Cody and I are going to be helping teach Sunday School for the first time.  -I don't know about Cody, but I'm a little nervous about it!  Some details could probably still change, but for now it looks like Cody will be teaching 6th Grade Boys all by himself, and I'll be joining to co-teach with a friend of mine from our Tuesday night group, and I think we'll have 9th and 10th grade girls.  She taught this Sunday School class all last year (possibly before as well) and her husband is the semi-Youth Pastor, so she's very experienced with the youth group -and I'm very glad for that!  I'm excited to start getting to know these girls more, to get more involved with the youth group, and to spend more time and get to know my friend (Linsay) even better.

This past Sunday our pastor, Robert Welch, was in a serious car accident on his way to our Children's Camp.  Another driver coming the opposite direction crossed over the highway and hit him head on.  The other driver passed away at the scene and Dr. Welch was airlifted to a hospital.  They said due to the severity of the accident that it was amazing he survived.  Thankfully he did and only suffered (I think) a broken heel, fractured pelvis, and two or three broken ribs.  He's in a lot of pain and it will be a very long recovery, but he'll be okay.  We'd ask you to please take a minute as you read this to pause and say a prayer for our pastor, for his recovery and pain, and for his wife (Ruth) as she helps him through it all. 

Lastly I'd like to share about our Sunday nights at Parkhills.  Whenever we can we've been attending this fairly new thing called The Gathering.  It's a fairly small (hopefully to start growing) get-together of people who come together for about an hour and a half simply to be a community in prayer for one another and to praise our Lord.  We sing and worship and take time to share what's going on in our lives and to pray for one another as people share prayer and praise requests.  It's been an amazing picture of community that we are excited to be a part of, and we are excited to see how God will work through it and continue to deepen the relationships there.  If you're ever in San Antonio and have a Sunday evening free, you should let us know and join us!  It's really awesome, and anyone and everyone is welcome. 

Anyways.  It's almost 10 and we've yet to eat dinner.  I should probably go cook something up!  Just felt like sharing about what we've been doing with our church : )

Today...

June 16th. Today has always been a special day for us. Granted it's lost a lot of specialness now that we're married, but still, I'd like to mention it. 7 years ago today, Cody and I became an official couple. We went out on our first real date. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant and followed it up with a game of miniature golf -at the end of which we were feeling kinda spunky, and so we got soaking wet by climbing into the fake waterfall/river thing at the park. We splashed and played and after losing feeling in our freezing fingers and toes (and realizing if we didn't leave soon I'd miss my curfew), decided to call it a night. Once back in Cody's car- after a lot of smiling and staring, he finally asked me to be his girlfriend. So that's the lovely story of our first date and how we officially started dating back in high school. It was a fun and wonderful evening, and I will never forget the way he looked at me right before he asked me to be his girlfriend... Anyways... I just felt like reminiscing and sharing.

On a separate note, today was also our first FUEL Home Group! We are members of Parkhills Baptist Church here in San Antonio, and are a part of a Twenty-Something & Married group called Exchange Couples. Lately we've also started becoming a part and helping out with the youth group, called FUEL. Over the summer instead of their regular FUEL night, they do Home Groups. We decided we'd like to lead one to become more involved with the youth, and so tonight we had our first FUEL Home Group! We were unnecessarily nervous going into it since we've never lead a group like this before, but we only had 2 students tonight, so it wasn't much of a group! We actually really enjoyed it and had a good intro talk and hopefully our group will grow in the coming weeks. So that's something new we're trying and are excited about over the summer. We'll keep posting about how it goes. Hopefully the 2 students from tonight liked us and will return next week!