Summer Lovin'

This past weekend was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Me and Seth are getting better at actually taking our "days off" off. Since Sunday is considered a workday for us, we have Fridays and Saturdays off. This weekend we decided to go to Six Flags on Friday. My ankle is finally healing up and walking does it some good, so we decided to just take off and go. Just the two of us, no students, no cats... just us. We had a splendid time. I don't think I've ever just gone with one other person, there’s always been a nice group of students or friends, but he proved once again to be my most favorite person in the world… there's no one I would have rather gone with. We laughed a ton and had a blast. There were basically no lines, so by early afternoon we had ridden everything and decided to go shopping in St. Louis. Our anniversary is coming up and we needed to do some shopping. I ended up getting him a TON of new clothes. Seth is trendy, but unique in his own way, but he would love it if he could just get by on only having 7 t-shirts in his closet and rotating those out weekly… and I of course am the TOTAL opposite. If it’s cute and it fits… I want it. Don’t really care if there’s no room in the closet. So anyways, I was shocked that Seth let me spend so much money on him, but we both came to the agreement that he desperately needed some new clothes and with the anniversary coming up, we could splurge. This helped me out a ton because I had no clue what to get him. So that problem was solved.

Seth at Six Flags:

Me at Six Flags:

This whole Six Flags thing was really his idea and he really did have a good time! =)

Josh came in late that night and stayed at our house. We woke up Saturday and ate breakfast. Josh needed some clothes for tour, so Seth went to St. Louis to go shopping with him. I broke my Saturday rummage sale tradition and went to a baby shower for one of my dear friends up here. I hit up some of the shops and boutiques here around town and somehow ended up with a new pair of jeans. Saturday night was Seth’s ten year class reunion. The reunion was not too crazy but it was not quite normal either... but hey... that just about sums up life in Centralia for you. Seth has been out of school for ten years! That’s crazy to think about… what’s even more crazy is that I’m not too far behind him.

And to end our weekend Sunday night was our church’s annual 4^th of July Celebration. This year was bigger than last years… we had lemon and orange shake-ups, watermelon, hot dogs and other odds and ends. The fireworks are always awesome. We have some members of our church that do pyrotechnics as a hobby and they really do an amazing job.

I had some fun with the camera that night...

Our 1 year anniversary is one week from today! It is on a Tuesday, and because we are taking off next Thursday for a mini-vacation we will have to move worship practice that night. It’s a small price to pay to get away. We decided a while ago to take a mini vacation for our one year, and were headed to Gulf Shores, but now that has changed and the destination locations have been narrowed down to Orlando or Chicago. We want to take a trip to Disney at least once before we have kids and although we are not there yet, we are moving closer to that season of our life. And then Chicago is just simply amazing and we both love it there. We will be making a final decision here in the next day or so. Either way we go, I am stoked!

Last week we started out youth small groups that are led by some of our youth volunteers, tonight we will start our “core group” which is basically a more intense discipleship small group for the kids that are more serious about their faith and really want to go deeper.

Two Sundays ago we had 95 students at our youth service. Seth just keeps growing more and more and continues to blow my mind with how gifted he is at ministering to students. Every student that he comes in contact with falls in love with him. He just has a God-given ability to reach deep within them and minister to them where, and how, they need it most. Although I am at every service and deeply involved with the youth music, I have found great joy and purpose in simply being by Seth’s side to encourage him and support him. I find great joy and strength in being his partner in ministry.

We are always on the go and our lives basically revolve around our student’s lives. We are learning to set boundaries between spending time with students and spending quality time together. It’s not a big deal now, but when the time comes for us to start a family, we don’t want to have to drastically rearrange our schedules and priorities. The incredible thing is that we love what we do and we both get paid to live this amazing life that God has blessed us with, so priorities just tend to fall right into place.