Weekend Celebrations!

Ok - here's my weekend in a very large nutshell.

Thursday night - Took Jenny out to the Cheesecake Factory for her birthday. We ate way too much and she ended up taking both of our dinners home for meals later. So yummy.

Friday - I got Jenny's present of chocolate covered strawberries and a gift card and decorated her kitchen with birthday stuff when I dropped Molly off at her house. She was excited to see all that stuff!

Friday afternoon - Drove down to Pasadena in record time with my friends Debbie and Kim H. from church. We checked into our hotel, then we met up with 4 other women from church, Kim B., Tamera, Heather and Angie for dinner at this fancy Italian restaurant called Il Fornaio.

Friday evening - GodChicks Conference! It was held at the First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena (Paz Naz). We were greeted by men in suits and tuxes with chocolate kisses on silver platters while we waited in line to go in. That right there told us it was going to be a great conference. While waiting in line, my group got interviewed for their DVD, so we may be GodChicks celebrities!

When they let us in to the sanctuary, there were about 20 women on stage in different time period costumes who stood there like manequins until the show started. They would move when the music would change. Finally, the show started and there was wonderful worship music and singing and dancing and fun! Then Holly Wagner (the author of GodChicks and the one who created the whole thing) got on stage and spoke to us. The theme for the conference was "To Everything There is a Season." We are supposed to live in this season and live every moment to its fullest. She was really awesome and inspiring. She handed out watches (not cheap ones either) to remind us to live in the moment. After the evening session, we were invited to the Patio Party outside where she had the different seasons displayed. For winter, she even had snow brought in! Complete with a snowman and sledding! It was incredible.

Saturday morning, we woke up to rain, a lot of rain, but that was great too. The Kims, Debbie and I all had breakfast at Denny's in the morning and then went to the conference. Again, it was wonderful. There were three guest speakers, Betty Price (who pastors a large church in LA) and Bobbie Houston (who pastors a large church in Australia), along with Holly's husband, Phillip. All of them were wonderful and inspiring with the message of living in the moment and knowing that God has placed us in this time for a reason, so make the best of it. We were truly lavished through the whole conference with gifts (lip gloss, cds), beautiful and fun music (both Christian and contemporary - including the grand finale from High School Musical) and just a wonderful time of learning and growing. I definitely want to go back next year. Here's Kim B., Debbie, Kim H. and me.

We got home in record time with no traffic. I went to Jenny's to take her Chick-fil-A and eat some chocolate covered strawberries and took Molly home.

Sunday - I went to church early to teach the kids during the early service, then went to second service. After service, I had two parties to go to. The first was a surprise 70th birthday party for the wife in the couple who hosts my bible study. She had no idea we were going to do anything and we totally invaded her house. She is such a sweet lady, but she hates to be the center of attention so it really caught her off guard. She was very grateful, but also happy to see us get out of her house.

While at church, my friends Marc and Nikki invited me to their house for a BBQ with a couple of their other friends. So after party #1, I went over there. I guess party #2 wasn't really a party, it was just a get together, but it was still fun.

I got home reasonably early last night and thought I'd try a new workout DVD….now I'm sore, but in a good way. So I guess that was my whole weekend in a pretty big nutshell!

ARRRGGHHH!

It's talk like a Pirate Day! Thanks to Dave Barry. You too should talk like a pirate today. See this link to find out about the day. Down on the bottom, you can get your pirate name too!
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=77573

Mine is Dirty Bess Rackham!
Here is my description -
You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Anyway - it's been a busy week at work, sorta. We have had a lot of things scheduled, but lots of things have canceled too. That's just how things go around here. I had a wonderful Miracle Monday with some church friends. We were able to pray for people who needed healing. I am really looking forward to tomorrow night. I am taking Jenny to The Cheesecake Factory for her birthday. Then on Friday, it's off to the GodChicks Conference down in Pasadena! I can't wait.

Weekend News

Saturday - My little sister, Erin, and I had fun doing a stained glass project. We also had a birthday lunch at TGI Friday's. She'll be 12 on September 18. Then Jenny and I went to Black Angus for dinner. We were going to go to the comedy show, but we ended up shopping instead.

Sunday - I taught the kids at first service for church. During church, we had a guest worship group. Two Or More (www.twoormore.org) rocked the place. They're a Latin/salsa type worship group and they were awesome.

Now back to my normal Sunday routine...

Long Week

This week started out pretty well. Monday night, we had our first book club of the new season. We are reading Warrior Chicks by Holly Wagner. It is about being a strong, beautiful and confident woman who rises in the midst of hard times. I think it'll be a good book for me. Kim, our fearless book club leader, is so wonderful. She gave us prayer partners for the month and she also gave us each a pretty windchime! I had been looking for a new one, but just never got around to buying one. She is so thoughtful. I hear it now as I type.

This week was a long one with lots of overtime and strange hours at work too. I am glad it's over. Staying at work until 9:00 at night or going in at 5:00 am is not all that fun, but at least it's work and I won't complain. Plus, it's some extra cash, which is always good.

So since I worked most of the week, there wasn't much time for anything else, but it was a good week anyway. I'm looking forward to going to a comedy show with Jenny tomorrow. When we went a couple weeks ago, she put her business card in a bowl for a drawing and won 2 tickets. I will also spend some time with my little sister, Erin, tomorrow. It is her 12th birthday on September 18th. I'll fill you in on the details later!

Church Birthday

Today was my church's 10th birthday party. They held 1 service (instead of the usual 4) in a local high school gym. They really outdid themselves. It was a huge party. I helped check the little kids into the Children's Ministry before the service. I imagine there were 1500 people there or so. Their theme was "It's A New Day." God is doing new things all the time and he gives us a new start everyday. Boy, that's so true, especially in my life lately. Afterwards, they had a huge BBQ and games for everyone. I hung out with my friends Jennifer and Stephanie and we enjoyed the nice 75 degree weather. Stephanie is 8 days away from having her baby boy, Trenton. It was a wonderful time and I am so happy to have found such a great church.

Bye Bye Truck

Today I sold my truck. It went to a really nice family whose son will take it with him to college. It was truly a God thing that happened. I prayed that if I was to sell it, that God would provide the right people. This was the only call I got on the truck and they were very ready to take it for a good price. Their son was so excited. He also just recently got baptized and they were happy to see the Jesus fish on the back. I was so glad I didn't have to take that off. I didn't want to! I am sad to see the truck go. It's been with me through a lot - at least 7 states on lots of roadtrips and lots of memories at college, but I am happy that someone else can have some fun with it. So bye bye Old Ranger, I'll miss you.

Fun Labor Day Weekend

This weekend was a fun-filled one. My parents came into town on Friday to spend the whole weekend with us.

Saturday night, Jenny got invited to a party...but not just any party, the first annual Guac-Off for these people. The owners of the house she is helping to remodel decided to have a party at their avocado ranch in Carpinteria. First of all, you have to check in with security at the gate. Then you drive up the hill to the main house. If you've ever taken the tour at Hearst's Castle where you drive up the hill to see the view of the Pacific Ocean, then that's what it's like. So you get to the main house, passing the horse barns and the small animal petting zoo (brought in especially for the kids at the party) where they valet park your car. We wandered into the party and saw the Guac-off table where people brought all the supplies to make guacamole. Of course the avocados were provided by the hosts. The view from their home was pretty incredible. The food was very yummy. The drinks were free (not that I had any). They had a fancy scavenger hunt too. Oh and did I mention that there were several celebrities there? Yeah, Robert Zemeckis (director of Castaway and Forrest Gump among others), Jim Belushi and Elle Woods herself, Reese Witherspoon. Pretty cool stuff.

So on Sunday, the family went to Disneyland. My parents hadn't been there in a long time, so it was fun to see them experience the new stuff there. We did a lot of the regular rides in the main park, but didn't do the new Nemo Sub because the lines were too long. We were on Pirates of the Caribbean when they shut down all the rides because of an earthquake. It wasn't much longer though and everything reopened. It was pretty hot out there on Sunday too, like in the 90+ range. After lunch, we went over to California Adventure. The hit there was the Soarin' ride, twice. Here's a picture of us waiting inside. We also rode the Grizzly water ride to cool off, and we did - soaking wet is what actually happened, but at least we were cool.

We took yesterday to recover, just sitting around watching movies and playing games. All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend.