Catching Up

Its been so long since I've posted a blog, I kinda forget how to do it.

Its been a month since I last blogged and here are a few reasons why this is:

• April started with an incredible retreat for the women of the Stirring. It had been probably about a good ten years since I'd been on a women's retreat so I was really looking forward to it. I had a great time getting to know people better, seeing breakthrough in peoples lives and having some breakthrough of my own. I already can't wait till our next retreat so that I can look back on this one and see how much I've grown.
• On the day I left for the retreat Ruby officially started walking. I called it official when she took 27 steps all on her own. Now her favorite thing to do is walk laps around the house. She's just so adorable and proud of herself.
• We thought about buying a house and then said "what, we're crazy!" :) With our dear friends the Borgics finding a great house to buy we caught the bug and thought we might be able to get a great deal ourselves. We'll there are certainly great deals to be had but the Lord definitely confirmed to us that now is not our time. So three weeks of house hunting ended where it always does - with us happy and content to be in our little place paying sweet cheap rent and waiting on God.
• We paid off our student loan! Hallelujah! Instead of buying a house God revealed a different path which led to us paying our student loan off leaving only our truck payment which should be paid off in 6-7 months, a year ahead of schedule! Then we can really start saving for that down payment for the perfect house God is saving for us. At this point I'd like to give a shout out to Brett and Emily Faulknor for hosting the Financial Peace class that we went to that helped us get out act together and find peace with living within our means.
• I like reading the Bible. Sounds like a "duh" statement for a Christian right? Um, not for this one. I've known the Lord my whole life and have never really enjoyed reading the Bible. It was never alive to me. But a change has taken place over the past few months which leaves me desiring to read the word for no other reason than to know God more. I always felt that i had to read the Bible out of obedience which made it such a chore. Then I realized that God does not want my obedience as much as he wants my heart. So now whenever I feel overwhelmed with reading the Bible to where I'm rushing through to the end of the chapter just so I can say I finished it - I stop. What's the use in reading it if I'm not giving it a chance to go deep and change me? Now I'm reading through Genesis just going "oh, so this is God's story... this is why we're here..." I'm loving it!
• Along with reading the Bible I've also been reading he Harry Potter series for the third time. Gotta get ready for the sixth movie coming out in July. Man, I love those books!

Well, that's a little taste of what's been going on the past few weeks. Life is good - but that just means I may be a little too busy to blog about it :) We'll see how long it takes till my next blog...

An Overnight Date!

I have to say that ever since Ruby was born I've been counting down to an overnight date. I didn't know when it would happen but just the thought of it kept me going during those first few months of long nights and no sleep. It took a little longer than I expected but finally, after a year and one month, we got to take that overnight date!

If you recall from my Valentine's Day post Nathan had surprised me with a night at the O'Brien Mountain Inn but we were unable to go because I-5 was closed due to the bad weather. Greg and Teresa at the Inn were kind enough to let us reschedule.

Our night was just amazing. It started with a dinner at Jacks which I had been craving for a long time. Then we went out to the Inn to meet Teresa, the owner, who shared with us that she was upgrading our reservation to the Petite Suite just because she wanted to bless us. As soon as we got in our room a lightening and thunder storm started up and it rained and hailed on and off for a few hours. When Teresa said that she wanted to bless us I don't know if she realized how real that became for me. Everything about the night, from the beautiful room, to the incredible weather, to the fireplace and homemade chocolates made me feel so taken care of by God. It's weird to think that things like that can do that but I really felt a sense of God's provision down deep which is very timely for some things that we are going through.

It was so lovely to get to sleep straight through the night without worrying about being woken by Ruby or one of our cats (who frequently jump on me or wake me with some annoying gesture during the night). The breakfast that was delivered to our room was amazing and the presentation was beautiful.

As we were leaving we chatted with Greg and Teresa and two of their beautiful girls (they have seven kids!). They are some of the nicest people we've ever met and it was obvious that the special ingredient in their business was the Holy Spirit as they clearly have a radiant love for the Lord.

Nathan and I really got a chance to connect and just be with each other. I realized that I always knew how important that was but I didn't realize just HOW important until we got away.

So thank you babe for planning this - I can't wait to do it again! And thank you Beth at Public Health (Nathan's work) for giving Nathan your gift certificate to the Inn so we could be able to do this! Thank you mom and dad for watching Ruby overnight so we could get away! And thank you Greg and Teresa for creating such an amazing atmosphere and for blessing us the way you did!

Incredible

Nathan's brother Nick drew this last week. He's in Iraq with the army and has both incredible talent and a lot of time on his hands. I love this drawing Nick - I think you captured Ruby perfectly! I can't wait till you can see her again in real life - she needs to see her Uncle Nick!!!

A Great Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend and I'm just now getting around to writing about it. The weather was beautiful. I got to take a nap each day. We took an amazing family walk over to check out Rivercrest park. I got to read outside in the sun. We went to a fun dinner for the Redding Rancheria Community Fund on Saturday night that we got to dressed up for and my wonderful mom watched Ruby. And we topped it off with church which was great and Ruby cried a little bit less than she normally does in the nursery (those nursery workers are the best!)

Here's some pics of our fun time.

Nathan said I looked like his hot 1950s housewife in my dress and the apron I was wearing while feeding Ruby her dinner (I didn't want to get anything on my dress!)

We stayed at the dinner way later then we intended because we were trying to win a spot in the trivia contest which had hundreds of dollars as the prize. We didn't get in the trivia contest but I did win our tables centerpiece (lame!).

Just a cute picture of Ruby - she is always so excited to see any of her grandparents. It makes it much easier to leave her knowing she probably would rather be with them anyway! :)

My Ruby

I just wanted to share some of the adorable pictures my friend Bethany took of Ruby recently. She got a new camera and was playing around and I am just so lucky that she decided to do this when Ruby was around. Thanks Bethany!!!

Here's Ruby and her best bud Madison, Bethany's daughter.

Birthcoach

I had the pleasure and privilege of being Anna's birthcoach. It was a new experience for me but I loved every minute of it. It was an interesting life lesson to have Matt and Anna believe in me, that I could coach Anna to her goal of a medication-free water birth, when I didn't even have the confidence in myself. Their belief in me, combined with AMAZING training from my mother-in-law who is an incredible doula (certified birthcoach and childbirth educator), and lots of prayer gave me assurance that I could do it.


I prayed for it to be a spiritual experience for all of us and it absolutely was. I know angels were in the room when Malea was born, rejoicing in the birth of this future history maker. I also don't think it was coincidence that I had a word spoken over me just hours before going to the hospital. A friend and mentor had prayed that she saw me coming into my motherhood in the Lord - that I would be a spiritual mother to many out there. I have never thought of myself as a mother; I mean I am a mom to Ruby, but I don't think "mother" when I think of myself. So this word was new to me, but it felt right. I reflected on this on my way to the hospital, where I was about to coach a dear friend through the physical process of becoming a mother herself. I love it when God gives us a tangible example of what He is doing in the spiritual realm.


Anna did an incredible job - she is really a model for labor where you stay in control and relax though the pain. I decided that I'd love to coach another birth at some point in my life (maybe Anna's next baby - ha ha Anna!) but the key to it all was that Anna really listened to me and did what I told her to. When I said relax your legs, she relaxed them, when I said breathe, she did, when I told her to stay in control and not to panic, she focused and let her body do the work to get Malea out. It was beautiful and several times I teared up over what I was witnessing - the sacrifice Anna was going through to let Malea come into this world. Think about it; it's an incredible picture for our lives.


Thank you Anna and Matt for letting me be a part of one of the most precious days of your lives. It has now become one of my most special days and I will treasure it forever.

Redbox VS. DVDPlay

Have any of you ever rented a movie from one of those red kiosks in the grocery store? It's a great deal if you want to see a new release and you know you'll watch it that night - you rent it for a dollar plus tax. You give your credit card info and if you don't return it the next day they charge you a dollar a day till you return it. We've done it several times and have always been good about returning them the next day - or so we thought.

About a month ago I went to return a movie we got at safeway at the kiosk in Raleys and discovered that it wouldn't accept it because the kiosk in Raleys was a different company - so I had to return it at Safeway. Up till that point we had been under the impression that all the red kiosks were the same company - and it tells you that you can return the movie to any kiosk. Well, that incident started me worrying because I was pretty sure that Nathan had successfully returned a movie we got at Safeway at Raleys a few weeks before that.

It turns out that I was right. I got an email from DVDPlay saying that we were being charged $25.99 for WallE because we never returned it. Except we had returned it the day after - only to a Redbox machine. Dumb. I don't know how Nathan made the machine take the DVDplay movie but he did.

So I called DVDplay trying to get them to reduce our charge in light of our stupidity but they said they couldn't do that. If we were able to get the movie back from Redbox, we could return it to DVDplay for a half reimbursement. I laughed and said "yeah right" - how were we supposed to get the movie back. But I had to try anyway. So I called Redbox and gave them all the info and was told I'd hear back within 7-10 days if they found it. About two and half weeks later, after I had given up all hope of getting WallE back, I got a call from the local Redbox lady. She said that she was sure she had a DVDplay WallE lying around somewhere and she'd be happy to leave it for me at Raleys! So last week I went and collected the darn movie that caused us so much problems.

Since we liked WallE we decided to keep it rather than go through the hassle of getting half of our money back. So we officially bought a used movie for $27! Isn't that outrageous!? Oh well, lesson learned. And hopefully you can learn from it too - pay attention to the name on the red movie renting kiosks!