Shower at the Lake

The day after VBS we (me & Nathan, Joy & Brad, Mary & Randy) threw a couples shower for Kyle and Kristy. We had a great time. It was the perfect release after the marathon work schedule. We got there around 1pm and helped Mary with the final preparations. They have a darling lake house on Medina Lake. It's so pretty, it could be photographed in a magazine! Randy grilled for us and we had a feast.





Here's a picture of the happy couple. The wedding is July 12th. Kyle is our Worship Leader and Kristy if our music teacher at Concordia.

Surfers' Paradise

It's over! One more year has come and gone and and it was an awesome week. VBS is a big deal at Concordia and this was our biggest volunteer year ever. We had over 650 volunteers. People signed up to lead various stations and gave hundreds of hours while others gave us maybe 30 minutes of their time. Each and every minute given is precious and we're so thankful for the team that God assembles. Some of the greatest volunteers can't even vote or drive yet. Here's a little way we said "Thank You" to them.....a daily drawing. Here are 2 videos of our last two drawings. One is for a $25 itunes gift card and the grand prize was for an iPod nano. Pardon the screaming videographer....







More pictures later this week...
Ahhhhhh-it's good to have a life again!

3 more days

Update on Construction...in Pictures

I'm too tired to write so here's an update in pictures of our new Worship Center in progress....

Happy Father's Day!

After church we went up to Georgetown to celebrate Father's Day with dad. We had a great dinner. Thanks for a nice afternoon, Dad! You rocked the grill!!!


Dad loved his Hunter Oscillating fan...

Brian Schulmeier-Social Planner

Brian Schulmeier is such a good friend and he does a great job at getting a group of friends reconnected. I haven't seen everyone in this circle of friends for a long time! We were doing well for quite a while with the help of weddings. Saturday we went to El Mirasol for dinner and margaritas. Its hilarious to think back to the days when we were all young and single. We'd frequent El Mirasol because their margarita's are pretty potent and we always had a blast there. In case you didn't know, El Mirasol is basically La Fogota. It's the same family. Same menu. Same strong margaritas. If your alcoholically in shape (meaning you are used to drinking alcohol-tee hee!!), you can handle two of these margaritas but you need a DD, for sure. One rarely goes in and has 3 margaritas and makes it out independently walking. I'm not saying any names....hmmm...Amy K., Stacey, Rusty, Brian, ok....AND me. Trust me, it's not pretty. We all have a story.

Well, Saturday night was not like "old times" in that respect. We still had dinner and wonderful margs but this time we were catching up, passing around babies and talking about politics instead of talking about which bar to go to next.


Guy and Debbie are moving to Austin.











Brian and Becky argued like normal as they shared funny (funny to Brian, Nathan and me- not funny to her) stories about her hell-ish experience in the Brisbane airport and all her luggage. ALL her luggage.










Thanks for organizing this, Chuckle-head! It was fun!

Happy Birthday, Bethany!

Bethany is a teacher at Concordia and she and I were roommates for a brief time before Nathan and I got married. I've known her for about 8 years. wow! Her birthday is today and we got together on Friday night for a little celebration. It's always fun for me to go to her place. I lived there myself for about 4 years. It's a great duplex in a nice, quiet area. She and Kari live there still.
Here's our silly girls night.

Carrot cake cupcakes....mmm!




It took a little effort to get her candle lit. Here's Kari, Candice and Sara lending a hand.











Candice and Bethany

Sara, Joy and Kristy














This is one of many goofy shots. i love this picture of Rachel. Oh, and yes, I do have a shirt on!












We totally don't act our age...
Check out Joy's eyes!! Whoa! And look at Sara's tongue! Does that hurt?!

Surfers' Paradise

That's the name of our VBS program for this year. It's our 2nd year with our own written curriculum. Here's a look at what's been going on...





One more week of prep time. Pray for us!!!

VBS and a Snake

Yikes! Work is insane right now. 10 more days until I'm surrounded by 1200 children and 500 volunteers! VBS is soooo much hard work but once the week actually gets here, I am reminded at how "worth it" it is. I get so excited when I think of all the little hearts that will grow closer to Jesus and make huge impacts on their families at home. So many parents come up to me and thank me and my amazing team for bringing their family back to church. It's awesome to see kids run across the courtyard in such a hurry to get into the Worship Center so they can join all their friends in worship. To see a church full of hundreds and hundreds of kids praising the Lord is overwhelming and I'm so blessed to witness it every Sunday and every year at VBS.

Meet my 2 wonderful summer interns....Aubrey and Becky! They have been working so hard on decorations. I will go around campus and take pictures of their works of art. They are doing a GREAT job! Thank you, girls!

After a long day at work Nathan and I went over to his moms to catch a snake she found in the hall closet. Here's our very own snake tamer--Nathan.
Check out that snake tounge. Neat stuff!!!

Rock N Roll

November 16th is the date for the San Antonio Rock 'n Roll marathon and 1/2 marathon and Nathan and I just signed up to run the half. This will be his first race bigger than a 5K. I ran the Houston 1/2 last January all because Jo asked me to run it with her and then she bailed! Joy agreed to train with me and she and Icommitted and accomplished our goal which was to finish it without keeling over and dying. We actually did pretty good for two girls that did the least amount of training possible. The most we ever ran before the race day was 10 miles. Or so we thought. We ran in my neighborhood and would do our long runs at McAllister Park. We thought we tracked the course out correctly but we were about a mile and three quarters too short. Oh well, we finished it in decent time and received our finisher Tshirts and medals. The Houston race was awesome and it will be hard to beat. From what I understand, the city of Houston is one of the best places to run a marathon. The crowd is amazing! In fact, I saved my list of memorable moments of my 1/2 marathon while in H-town...

Memorable moments of the Houston half Marathon

1. Seeing Nathan at the starting line and finish line
2. Getting to the top of the bridge and seeing the half runners joined with the full runners. Seeing all those runners in front of me and behind me was overwhelming!
3. Four high school aged gals standing at a bus stop doing a cheer for all the runners passing by! They were so cute, they made me laugh!
4. The guys standing in front of their house dressed as old ladies with fuzzy robes, fuzzy slippers, cold cream and pink sponge rollers cheering us on.
5. Family standing outside their home drinking mimosas out of champagne glasses. I remember thinking, “Mmmm, that sure looks good!”
6. Running behind a mom with a shirt that had a picture of her 2 kids and the shirt said, “If you can read this, you’re running behind my mommy!”
7. Around mile 8 or 9, a group of spectators holding signs that said, “We love you ALL! To us, you’re all Kenyans!”
8. Around mile 10 spectators offering cups of beer. It was temping but I passed.
9. A guy at mile 2 holding a sign that said, “I’m hung-over and YOU’RE running the marathon”.
10. Having dinner on Saturday night with the Kari and her parents, David and Cathy and Joy.
11. At mile 12 there was a police officer that was on duty at his post and he was clapping and cheering for all the runners.
12. Seeing all the dogs with their families reminded me of Zeta.
13. At mile 6, Bon Jovi came on my iPod with “Oh, we’re half way there! Oh, Living on Prayer!”
14. Giving high fives to several spectators who were homeless. Their spirits were high and despite their dark appearance they had bright smiles.
15. At mile 12 in downtown Houston one of my favorite songs from Women of Faith conference came on my iPod and I just ran with my hands in the air and I was praising God for giving me the strength to RUN.
16. Right before I crossed the finish line a gal sprinted past me and I looked down and saw she had a prosthetic leg and I was so inspired by her! What a champ!
17. As I crossed the finish line, I remember looking down and thinking to myself, can I really stop now? Is it really over? What do I do now?
18. Experiencing this with Kari, David and Cathy and my faithful running buddy who I had to beg to sign up- Joy! (Who had a killer time of 2:29:12. What a show off, huh?!)

I look forward to new memories but I'm not looking forward to those butt crack of dawn early morning runs. Wish us luck!