Our Ordinary Life

Our anniversary falls about 3 weeks after Christmas. Because of that, we haven't been able to do anything big for it. Bryan does do a GOOD job of always making that day alittle different than an ordinary day, buying flowers or taking me out to eat, so I'm in no way complaining! So this year, we decided not to get anything for each other for Christmas, and put some money toward our anniversary. I love suprises. Bryan came to me a couple of days later and said he had one for our anniversary, he was getting a babysitter (Thank you Mom and Dad Kurty!!!), and it was for two nights!! You can only imagine my excitement!! :-) Time took FOREVER to get to the day of our anniversary :-) lol There is one more thing you need to understand. My husband is very nostalgic! Sometimes late at night I will find him looking thru his high school and college yearbooks, he loves to go back and visit memories, whether by talking about them or physically going to them. He loves history and I would cal...

I stole the title from Dr. Matt Olson from a message He preached at Northland before the college kids went on Christmas Break. I enjoy listening to him speak. He is very down to earth and knows how to connect. He is very real in his preaching and when you talk to him. He is a man that I know God is using greatly in the life of my husband, in my life, and in the lives of many others. Occationally I will find the time to listen to one of his sermons on Sermon Audio. This was his most recent sermon. He preached out of Matthew and focused on when Jesus called out His disciples. The points in his message were:  The call to be a disciple is clear, simple, profound, life-changing, it is also costly (it costs everything), it produces conflict (being one of the hardest things you have done, hardest life to live), and lastly, it is glorious (worthy and eternal)!!! To add anything to this would do it a great injustice, nothing needs to be added to it, especally from me who struggles t...

This was the first year that I have felt motivated to start some traditions, or maybe not start traditions but wanting to do some of the fun things with my kids that I remember doing growing up in my family that made this time special and made memories. Well, I kind of felt that this month of Dec went by really fast. The wedding weekend added to the business but we made it. So there were certain things I wanted to do for Christmas. One of them being making Carmel and Decorating cookies. Well, my twin sister did cut-out cookies with her sister-in-law and kids and talked about the recipe that they used. So I asked for it. I wanted to try something different. The dough was very sticky when we first started out with it but the mound of flour we used eventually helped. The boys had a blast getting messy with the flour, once they caught on they could, and making all the shapes. Aaron getting four on his hands  Before we baked them  Decorating them Danny's Ginger...

My boys  This was a great weekend and it came just at the right time. It gave us great family time. It was good time for me and Bryan to talk and reconnect. We were able to talk and figure some things out. We spent hours in the car and the boys did GREAT for the amount of time they had to sit. It was so good to see old friends, catch up on their lives, and be apart of Megan and Aaron's wedding. We were honored to be apart of their special day!! The first night in the first hotel  We left Thursday night. We wanted to take a day and a half to get there. The wedding was in Alababma. We wanted to get as far as we could on Thursday night so that we wouldn't have far to go on Friday. We got in Friday afternoon and then Rehersal. After Rehersal the guys left to do some activities and me and the boys headed to a very nice couples house. They were so kind and so helpful! The wedding was on Saterday evening. It was very relaxing cuz they had all day to get ready and do pic...

Something I noticed about myself, I love pictures!!! I'm not good at taking them myself but I LOVE looking at pictures of my life and of other family and friends lives. I will spend hours on facebook just looking at everyones pictures. It was about the time that we got our family pictures and were putting them up around our house and then a friend came over and was looking around my house. She made the comment that I had alot of pictures up in my house, on almost every shelf, wall, and something in almost every room. There are just pictures of everything, different stages in our lives, different friends and family. I love having pictures. I got to thinking as to why I love them so much, and the best way to say it is, Pictures are the stories of our lives. They are memories of events, accomplishments, and people we love. They tell the story of a birthday, and an anniversary trip or a suprise, an engagement, a wedding day, of the old friends you had and the things you did with them a...

I had eaten most of it when I thot about doing a blog on this :-) I know, to some that might sound discussting, to some interesting, and others good. Let me explain some backround. I don't have very many memories of my childhood (I just struggle remembering past events), just a few bits of pieces when I was younger. The memories that I have the most of are from my teen years, while we lived in Pifo, Ecuador. During this time, we were homeschooled. Homeschool didn't take all day so after lunch (which was always our big meal as a family, kind of like dinner here in the states) we would head out and play with our friends. We would be gone till dark and come back to the house and have to make our own supper. Us girls enjoyed it cuz we just started experamenting with different stuff. One of the things we started doing was frying hotdogs and putting it on leftover rice. It has now become a favorite lunch option for me. I grew up with tons of rice and I LOVE rice!! Sadly, I marrie...

I'm not sure why but it seems to be this time of the year, the atmosphere, the emphasis, the joy, and perspective that is around this holiday, but I do alot of thinking back over the year. Boy, this has been a full year! We have been busy in ministry, learning things about ourselves, our ministry, our teens, our God, and how to better love, serve, and bring glory to Him. Boy, do we have along way to go!!! By NO means do we have anything figured out! We are a piece of work but anything good that happens thru us is only by God's grace (God giving us what we don't deserve). We have been here at this church, working with the teens, for almost 3 1/2 years. We love these teens! There is just something about working with teens. When we started, I was so intimidated, so wanting them to like me, so self-consious that I think I was fake and not really being myself. I have learned something in these years. They just want to know if you are going to love them and they just want you to...