A campfire is for OUTDOORS only!

SOOOO this past Friday night Brett and I went on a date night. He wanted to do something different, so we went to the store and bought firewood for our fireplace at our apartment! It was the first time we were using it, so of course we were excited. Brett gets it all ready while I am standing behind him asking a million times if he is SURE this is how it's supposed to work. Not long after, the fire is crackling and we are getting ready to watch The Office. This is when we realize that our apartment really stinks. Like seriously, it smells SO heavily of smoke and fire that we both begin to think something is terribly wrong. Our eyes are beginning to burn and we begin to look around the room and see that it is filled with smoke. I turn to the fireplace and I can visibly see smoke POURING from the fireplace INTO OUR APARTMENT! Naturally, I am freaking out and suffocating from inhaling so much smoke (maybe there is exaggeration there, maybe not). So our next step is to figure out what the HECK was going on with our dumb fireplace. Because obviously it was the fault of the fireplace, not me or Brett. ***This is where everyone says "Ooohh you didn't open up the chimney, did you?"*** No. We didn't. And we didn't even know we needed to. I guess I just assumed that chimneys were naturally open. How else would Santa be able to get in?! So Brett gets out the oven mit, pulls the lever, and the chimney opens...and they lived happily ever after. The End.

I might have left out a few pieces to this awesome story:
1. We had actually seen the chimney lever before we even started the fire, but we jiggled it and pushed it and nothing happened, so we assumed it wasn't anything we needed to worry about.
2. Before Brett stuck his hand in the fireplace, we decided to pour water on the fire to at least make it stop. This caused for what looked like the black smoke from LOST to attack our living room.
3. Because the entire apartment was so smoke filled, we opened every window and door to air it out. This caused for a FREEZING night of watching The Office.

Luckily, our walls and mantle did not turn black from smoke. Lesson learned....don't build campfires inside...aka make sure your chimney is open before using your fireplace.

As much as I thought I was going to die from a fire in my apartment, I can now laugh at what will be a really funny story to tell our grandkids someday :)

the hair

Okay, here is a picture of my new haircut, along with our pumpkin child named Penelope!

November ALREADY?!

I cannot BELIEVE how fast October flew by! It was a busy month, that's for sure, but I am still in shock that today is November 1st! Many new things have occurred that I would LOVE to share with you:

1. I chopped my hair off! Picture to come soon...but it is short. I'll give you a day or so to imagine what it looks like.
2. We are currently looking for a new kitchen or dining room table. The beautiful table we are hosting for our friends Kelli and Teddy will be leaving us the last week of November. They are able to move into a new place that has room for it, so we are on the prowl. We can't decide if we want to get something cheap for the time being, or invest some money and get a table that will last us for years and years. If you know of any good deals or anyone getting rid of a table, let me know!

3. Brett is doing "No Shave November" but he started the second week of October. Weird. Here are some pictures of his progress...

October 10th

October 15th

October 23rd

October 27th

We'll see how long he lasts.
4. I ended up NOT making the slow cooker Chicken Parmesan. We took a second look at the recipe and realized it was not what we thought it was. Lots of mushrooms and stuff....ew.
5. Today I am making puppy chow and a new chicken and rice casserole. Hopefully it turns out!
6. Brett and I celebrated 3 YEARS of dating on October 29th and 3 MONTHS of marriage on October 31st. I'm sure eventually we will stop counting our dating time...but for now it's still fun!
7. We already ordered our Christmas cards through Shutterfly and are excited to receive them soon (they have great deals for a limited time so you should check it out @ www.shutterfly.com)

Check back soon for a picture of my new hair :)

blessed

I feel so blessed these days. Nothing in particular has changed to make me feel this way, but I think I am just becoming more and more aware of the Lord' blessings in my life, which makes me extremely grateful to think about. Something that has stuck out to me the past few weeks is this verse in 1 Thessalonians.

"He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it"  - 1 Thess. 5:24

How blessed are we to have a Lord who cares about us, who is faithful in providing for us, and who calls us to certain things in life, not so that we can fail, but so that HE can work THROUGH us. This has been a big encouragement as I get anxious about Brett and I's future and all of the unknowns in life. I am encouraged to know that if I am walking with the Lord, seeking His approval over man's, and searching for godly counsel among other believers, that I will be in the midst of God's calling for my life. Truly, I am blessed.

This weekend was the first time that Brett and I were apart since we've been married. He was at a "Men's Advance" (because men don' retreat) for our ministry. Of course I missed him, and was lonely around the house, but I was able to busy myself with lots of different things. I went to a Gospel Men's and Women's Conference at my church. Dave Bruskas was our guest speaker and he did a wonderful job. For the first time I was able to really comprehend what it means in Genesis 3 about "your desire will be for your husband". This doesn't sound like a curse to me, so I never thought anything of it. But the word desire really translates to mean the need and want to control him. Well DUH this is a curse! I can't tell you how many times I try to control and manipulate Brett. As women we think this is normal and just how things will be, but we should not overlook the fact that this is a direct effect of our sin and not how God intended our lives to be. If you want to listen to the talks from this conference, it should be up on Redeemer's website soon:
www.redeemerlubbock.org.

Hope you have a good week!

found the camera!

Brett found our camera! We actually left it in the center console of my car, not in Houston...which is a lot more convenient. So I'll give you a quick update and then show you some pictures!

This weekend we drove out to the Ragtown Gospel Theatre on Friday night with some of our staff team. This was quite the experience! Lots of elderly enjoying some good gospel music and drama performances. Overall, I enjoyed it. Brett on the other hand was extremely sick to his stomach that night and I don't think he was able to muster up even a smile :(. On Saturday we gladly accepted some free tickets to the Tech game against OSU. It was my first game of the season to go to, but unfortunately we lost and left extremely sunburned. Still it was fun to be a part of all the festivities again! Sunday was my first in three weeks to be back in childcare at church! We teach the 4 and 5 year olds, but because of being sick and then out of town, I haven't been there in a while. It was fun to see all those kiddos again and it's really fun to see some of them TRULY get the lessons we are doing. It's neat to be a part of sharing the gospel with young kids! Sunday night we enjoyed some fellowship with our gospel community at church. We are grateful for finding a community of people to connect with outside of our Campus Crusade bubble we feel like we are in sometimes.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to make Chicken Parmesan in the crock pot....I'll let you know how it turns out :)

Brett and I at Ragtown Gospel Theatre

Here are some of my favorites from our Houston visit:

Braelyn getting her bath at Nana's house

Sweet baby playing in her tub aka the kitchen sink.

All kids love Brett more than me...I'm not bitter though.

He will be a great Daddy in the FAR future :)

I would walk 500 miles....

Okay so maybe I wouldn't really walk 500 miles, but it's a fun song I used to sing in Young Life...and since we just drove 500 miles to Houston, I thought it was fitting. I really might consider walking that far to see my cute niece though which is what Brett and I did for our long weekend. We drove what felt like forever on Friday afternoon and finally got into Houston at 10:30pm. Not really sure how this happened, but we actually went 30 minutes out of the way. I cannot even count how many times I have driven the same drive to Houston from Lubbock, but we must have just not been paying much attention because we found ourselves on a different route, which ended up being fine. Saturday morning I was eagerly up before 9, waiting to see my niece, Braelyn, who I hadn't seen since June! I was so lucky to get to spend 3 days with her, my sister and Brad, and my parents. We were able to pick up Brett's sister Jessica and her new husband Griffin from the airport (they were coming home from their honeymoon). It was fun to hang out with them, see their new place, and go out to dinner. I'm really glad we were able to see them. We also had the privilege of getting to spend some quality time with Brett's other sister Julia on Monday afternoon. Her apartment is right next to the Galleria in Houston and is really cute! It was fun to connect with her and hang out. Overall, we had a good weekend! I rekindled my love with the card game Spades, and got some GREAT recipes from my mom that I cannot WAIT to try! We just made the 500 mile trip back to Lubbock and I realized I forgot my camera in Houston (at least I hope I did, cuz it's not in my purse). So I will leave you with this picture I stole from my sisters blog. Hopefully more to come when we get our camera back!

wedding weekend!

This past weekend, Brett and I went to Austin for his sister Jessica's wedding! This was SO much fun for several different reasons which I will now share with you all:

• This was the first wedding Brett and I have been to since our own. Because a lot of what was said at our wedding was a blur, it was really fun to actually be able to listen to the message given and the marriage vows. Made me feel all lovey dovey toward Brett :)
• This was the also the first time for me to see all of Brett's family since we've been married. Literally, the WHOLE family (aunts, cousins, grandmas, on ALL sides). On Friday night we went out to eat to Chuys with the immediate fam (minus Jules). Saturday we had a bridal luncheon for Jessica at Hula Hut on the lake and that night we had the rehearsal dinner. Sunday morning was an early one. We arrived at the wedding venue at 8am to begin setting up the place and getting everything ready for the 11am wedding. Needless to say, I really felt a part of the family (being in all the family pictures helped)! I spent LOTS of time without Brett by my side, which was really good because I was able to connect a lot with my new fam! Here are a few pictures of the wedding!

  

• I found my dream house. Well, at least my dream living room/kitchen/dining room. We were blessed to stay with a friend of the Marcos' and they have an AMAZING house. Pictures? DUH.

• The weather was perfect, there were trees, and there were hills. All of which make for an awesome combination of nature (unlike what we see in Lubbock).
• Got to spend about 14 hours with Brett in the car. We jammed to some old DC talk cd's, had an EXTREMELY lengthy conversation about what we could be for Halloween (we still don't know, not like I would tell you if we did), slept, laughed, and surprisingly didn't get lost ONCE!

 

Overall, it was just an amazing weekend! I am excited about our next trip on Friday to Houston. We will be visiting my family this time since we have a long weekend. Looking forward to 18 more hours of car time with Brett and seeing my sweet niece!