Let it snow!

We got snow on Friday! I got to leave work early, but Jason had to stay late dealing with a snow plow! Molly seems to really like the snow, while Chip isn't show thrilled! Here's them playing!

We walked the dogs a bit Saturday morning. Then, I stayed at home and read a bit of this book called "Crazy Love" while Jason went hunting with Lee. They didn't see any deer. :(

Sunday, we went to Dobson to see the Fulk side of the family, which was nice! Then, we went to TNT, which was about our need to control the things in our lives and working on giving them over to God. It was a tough topic, but good to discuss!

Earlier this week, I went to a Corinth Women's luncheon with my friend Abigail. It's nice to finally know a lot of women at the church!

Christmas Parties!

Our internet has been down a bit this week (I found out due to a Charter upgrade), so that's why I've haven't posted thusfar!

We had a fun week last week! Admist the dealings at work, we had our CFA Christmas party on Thursday night! (12/10) Picture of us above.




For the past 2 years, we've done an employee only party, but this year, we ate at Catawba Country club for dinner and got to invite guests.




We played a game where each of the employees had to pop a balloon by sitting on it. (I had to cheat and use my earring!). Some had money in them and some didn't. It was quite entertaining because my co worker Mike popped two balloons with no money, so he had to go again. He jumped on one balloon for about a minute before it popped!




We had some of by boss Lori's friends play songs. We sang bits of everything, form Christmas sons to a few 80's.

Highlight of the night: My co worker Amber and Lori sang "Baby Got Back." (Lori had the song on her ipod.) We've seen Amber sing this before, but it's just as good the second time around!




We had a great evening of just relaxing with one another!

We discussed "love is not rude" for life group. It really applied to my life since that week, the phone run non stop at work! I know that's a good thing, but it can be very annoying when you're in the middle of concentrating. I've had to watch my tone of voice when I answer the phones to make sure I'm not conveying rudeness.




Saturday, we went to Chapel Hill to see Newton Conover high school football team play in the state championship. Our friend Greg is the offensive lineman coach, so we rode with his wife, Abigail and their 6 month old Lincoln. It was extremely cold and they lost terribly, but we enjoyed the fellowship!

Sunday, we went to the contemporary service, which we haven't been to in awhile. We alternate now between traditional and contemporary services, but haven't been able to go to the last two Sundays. Ther sermon talked about how we don't have the excitement of Jesus coming into the world.

In the afternoon, I went with Liz, Deda, my great aunt Peggy, and mom to see "Miracle on 34th Street" at the theater. Cute play! Jason stayed at home to make a cheesecake for the TNT Christmas party later that evening. We had lots of people show up and had great soup! We wrapped the presents we bough for our kids from the ALFA organization and did a gift exchange. The "regulars" of TNT were very excited to have such a great turnout!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We put up our tree today! We had hoped to go to Boone yesterday to my mom's cousin's tree farm and pick out our tree (like we did last year), but it snowed 3 inches there. We were a bit disappointed, but maybe next year!

Here's a few more Christmas decoration pictures!

It's been cold this week and Jason & I are feeling it! We've had sore throats and sneezing! But we are thankfully not sick.

Jason's work will probably get busier, since his co worker retired on Monday. He had to work overtime two hours on Wednesday, but will be off the whole week of Christmas. Everyone else took off, so Jason is using 12 hours comp time and 1/2 day of vacation. It works out great!

We talked about humility and Christ's sacrifice in life group. We're on the "love is not boastful" line of 1 Corinthians 13. Saturday, I worked at nursery for church, which was easy. Jason worked out in the yard for a bit.

Yesterday afternoon, we watched "Beyond the Gates of Splendor", which I borrowed from my co worker. It's a documentary film about the 1956 murders of five missionary men in Ecuador by the Waodoni, a tribe of violence that has since become peaceful.

I'm familiar with the story since Jason and I watched "The End of the Spear" back when we dated. It's one of my favorite films and made a huge impact on me. The five men wanted to befriend the Waodoni to share Christ's love, knowing that no outsider had made peaceful contact with them.

A few years after the murders, Elisabeth Elliot, her daughter, and Rachel Saint moved into their territory, living with the men who killed Elliot's husband and Saint's brother. Evenually, the tribe members came to Christ, and stopped killing others.

The documentary had each widow tell really sweet stories of their young marriages and life in Ecuador. The hardest part was one of the men from the search party talking about seeing Nate Saint's body. He couldn't even put the rope on him to pull him out of the river.

It's such a remarkable story. Nate Saint's children were later baptized by saved Waodani men who killed their father. What a true representation of the power of Christ's love and forgiveness!

I'm doing the Corinth Women's newsletter and I want to profile Elisabeth Elliot's books about this story and these films since they died on January 8th.

Saturday night, we ate at Panera Bread, then went to Kohls to shop for a child that CFA has adopted from the Family Guidance Center (which has a shelter for women coming out of domestic violent relationships). We enjoy buying clothes for her! Before Thanksgiving, we shopped for a child from the ALFA organization (deals with people and families impacted by AIDS) that our TNT bible study adopted.

Then, we went to Abigail and Greg's to celebrate his birthday and enjoyed watching football and playing Apples to Apples. I think we're going to go to Chapel Hill on Saturday to watch Newton Conover play in the state high school championship. Greg is one of the coaches.

Today, we've spending some time resting since we've decorated the tree. We're watching "King Kong" tonight at TNT.

Last week, we had some friends over to play Wii, which was fun! Here's some videos of boxing!

Thanksgiving Week!

Our days at work were slow this week. On Tuesday night, Jason went down to play Wii with Adam and Lee, then wenIt hunting early the next morning. He went to his mom and Gary's later that day to see them. CFA decorated the office on Wednesday, then had lunch and the Best of Beers come and bring some soft drinks, teas, and beer. I sampled some good tasting drinks, such as Cane Cola (soft drink made with sugar cane instead of corn syrup), and House Call (a lemongrass tea).

Chris and Lesley came in Wednesday, so we had dinner at mom and dad's with them. I headed to church to work, but there wasn't too many kids. Thursday, we went to Charlotte for the Garth family Thanksgiving. There were about 40 or so people there. For dinner, we ate at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Mike and Becca got two new kittens and brought them! Both of them fell asleep in my lap for awhile. So cute!

Friday, we played lots of Wii! Jason got a pinball game, and a trivia game. I kicked my brothers toosh in boxing! Jason got a funny video of me!

Saturday, we watched the UNC vs. NC State ballgame at mom and dad's again, then ate some soup I made for dinner, then played more Wii! Mom seems to like it alot!

Chris and Lesley have an energic cocker spaniel named Frankie. He loves to play and I got a cute video of him playing tug of war with Chris!

Sunday, we had a baby shower for Lesley at my house. She got cute things! My two second cousins, Corrina and Olivia, were helpers! Here's some pictures!

Saying Thanks!

We are both ready for a break from work! Jason gets off Wednesday too and we get to decorate the office on Wednesday, so it's more like a free work day!

Friday, we talked about envy in life group. One of the first scriptures we read was Psalm 37: 1-3, the first part saying, "Do not fret because of evil men, or be envious of those who do wrong..." This struck me because I read In the Presence of My Enemies by Gracia Burnham this week. She and her husband Martin were held hostage by Phillipine rebels for a year back in 01-02.

She talked about how they struggled with envy and hatred especially as they saw their captors eat more than they did and not share when they could have. Martin would say how they were suppose to love and serve everyone, even terrorists. They came to the point where they decided to be thankful for any food they had and it helped with their survival. Martin ended up dying in the jungle when the Phillipine soliders rescued them. Another hostage was killed and Gracia got shot in the leg.

I read the book in two days because I couldn't put it down! It convicted me of how spoiled and unthankful I am. It is a great testimony of how the grace of God carries us even in the most horrid situation.

Envy has been a great struggle in my life since I'm bad about comparing myself to other people. I've really tried hard not to do that but since the miscarriage, I'll admit I have failed many times. It's so easy to question, "Why me?" I think I'm starting to climb back up from the hurt of this experience. I have seen good come out of it, especially connecting in a new way with my parents, who had a miscarriage 22 months before I was born.

Saturday, we got to see the Bost side of the family to celebrate Thanksgiving. John was in from Hawaii and Mathew and Rachel back from Florida. I'm glad we got to see them all!

It's been quite rainy today, so we couldn't walk the dogs. We had a nice life group about distortions of God, and how our experiences have shaped wrong ideas about him. It's a constant struggle to see God's love despite the unfair and bad things that happen. But, Jesus experienced hurt and unfairness, so who can we better relate to then Him?

Laugh moment of the week:

When I came home for lunch Friday, I watched Jimi climb inside a blanket on the couch. He hid in between the layers.

Be Kind!

We had our friends Abigail and Greg over Saturday to watch the 2nd half of the UNC game and play Wii. It was lots of fun! We played some new things, like darts and air hockey! Their 5 months old Lincoln (who we saw when he was a day old) just chilled, as you can see below.

We let the dogs see Lincoln and I was so happy that they were really gentle with him. He laughed a bit as they licked him and I got a cute video!

The work went went by a bit slow. My work had a flu shot clinic on Tuesday and I got my first flu shot! I think it just made me a bit tired. Jason had Wednesday off for Veteran's Day. I usually take off, but I was a bit behind since we had our flu shot clinic the day before. So, he was nice enough to take my car to new places to see why the check engine light is still on.

We did go to a nice dinner for a non profit organization called Safe Harbor on Thursday night, which was nice. Life group was on kindness. The book we're reading goes through the 1 Corinthians 13 about what love is. So, this week, kindness. I find that so challenging especially with a job in customer service. Some days, I don't feel like being kind to anyone...especially phone calls! So, it was a good lesson.

We walked the dogs again on Sunday! At TNT, we continued on "distortions of the world" and how that affects our way of thinking. It asked for times you've realized things were just wrong with the world. Deep stuff!

If I can only keep kindness on my mind this week!

Beautiful November Day!

It was such a lovely day that we took the dogs on the Greenway near our house. We haven't walked them in awhile and since we were out there for about an hour, we wore them out!

Tonight, we had a good TNT bible study about the distortion of the world. Mainly, we talked about the fall of Adam and Eve and how that creates the sense of "things not being right" in this world. But God's compassion and love shines through in those moments of hurt too, which is what we've experienced in the last month.

Yesterday, we raked leaves in the morning and then went to the library. We got the movie, "The Dark Knight" and watched it last night.

Friday, my work had a sales meeting all day, but we get off work early on those days which was nice. We learned about that "patience is the red carpet upon which God's grace approaches us." (From Max Lucado's A Love Worth Giving)

Last Sunday, we went to Ikea with my mom, Linda, Gary, Will, Mandy, and Aida. It is a huge place, but neat to go through.

Last Saturday (which was Halloween) was a yucky rainy day. I helped with a Soup Kitchen at Corinth for lunch, then came home with a migraine. We were suppose to have a block party at 4:30, but it got cancelled due to the rain. We just stayed inside and watched "Footloose." An 80's film is the perfect way to spend Halloween, right!