Quick update

Just thought I would give a little pre-Christmas update.  I realize I haven't blogged since AUGUST, but this is what has overtaken my "spare" time.  Our church is doing a production of Imagine Christmas.  It originally was done at Willow Creek Church near Chicago (which is a HUGE church), but we have adapted it to our much smaller church and are performing it this weekend.  I originally saw some info about this when we were at the Willow Creek Arts Conference and thought it would be great to do NEXT year, but God had different ideas and we got the go ahead and push to do it this year.  I originally thought it was near impossible, but God has proved me wrong again and it is turning out fantastically.  God has moved in ways in our little church I have not seen before and I am so excited about what He is doing.  I am the "production manager" (I couldn't figure out what to title myself so I thought this worked) and it has been a lot of work, but amazing!!!!!

I'll try and get some pictures at our rehearsal tonight and post them.

Also, below is a picture of where Alyssa will be working for the next year.  It's about 6 1/2 hours from us and Tim and I are taking her on January 2 down there to work in housekeeping.  Now, I know those of you who have seen her room might question this, but God does have a sense of humor and I know she will do great!

Another Sleepover.....and a new bedspread

Sunday morning the older three girls left for church leadership camp. Of course, I got no pictures of it because I was rehearsing with the worship team for church. I did get to say goodbye right before they left because they were leaving from the church, though. This is the girls' favorite camp all year and I do know that they have to hike in with all their stuff about 2 miles once the vans drop them off. And I know that this is the camp Alyssa and Jenna have told me (this is Sammy's first year) contributes to the most spiritual growth and development as a leader. I am so excited that they all got to go this year and I can't wait to see what they have to tell us when they get back.

After church I came home and Tim was sleeping. I figured he must not have gotten any sleep at work last night so I just let him sleep all afternoon while I cleaned up the house from the whirlwind of the girls getting ready to go and made a grocery list and menu for this week. He didn't get up until almost 8pm and we watched the Olympics for a little while and then went to bed. He was still tired after all that sleep so he was REALLY tired.

Tara and I ran some errands today to get a smog check so we can register the Excursion, fuel up both cars (I went and switched cars with Tim at work). It was quite depressing because both cars were empty and run on diesel so I spent over $200 on fuel today. Then Tara and I ran to get some medicine for Duncan (no, he's not sick, it's just heartworm and flea medication) and went to the grocery store. So tonight Tim is working and Tara gets to have a sleepover with our next door neighbor, Megan. We made alphabet pasta and red sauce for dinner because they decided against hot dogs.


I forgot to add that Tim was at Linens and Things the other day and since they are closing, everything is on sale at 50% off or more. Tim found a great bedspread set that included everything, including throws, pillows, etc. on sale. It was just the colors we were looking for and gives us some options when we finally get around to painting the bedroom. The only problem is that Duncan has gotten into the habit of laying with us at night for a little while before we go to sleep (he sleeps in his crate, though) and so I have to put the old bedspread on top of it so he doesn't ruin the new one. Oh well....such is life with a HUGE Great Dane.

Book Review--The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

In case you are catching up, I was asked to be the special events coordinator for our women's board at church. Part of this job was helping to plan the Beth Moore Event I blogged about a few posts ago. I also have helped with coordinating our "Summertime Talks" we have held throughout the summer and my biggest event of the year will be planning our annual Christmas "event". It used to be a Christmas tea, but we scrapped the tea thing because we would get hundreds of teacups from women from the church to use and it was a nightmare to get them back to them all. This is our biggest outreach of the year as we usually get 200 or so women and many of them don't attend ours or any church.

Anyway, our board recently had our overnight retreat and we were assigned this book to read:

Now, I should have known that our Women's Ministry Director would have never chosen a "fluffy" book for us to read, but when I got it, I really had my doubts. Well, I actually did get it read for the event and I really have to say that I enjoyed it and was challenged by it.

This book discussed our Christian life as training for the race for the prize and then discusses ten different disciplines or practices to focus on. I know...I know that was probably not good English ending a sentence in a preposition, but "on which to focus" sounded clumsy to me. But I digress.....I really did enjoy this book and I have decided that I want to focus on adding or improving one of these practices each month. The first one is the practice of celebrating....this could be a really fun month! As a matter of fact, I do want to find more joy in all that I do and learn to celebrate the little things. Hopefully, I can keep you all posted on how I am celebrating each day and you will keep me accountable.

Trip to the Zoo (and Fairytale Town)

Alyssa and Sammy went camping with some friends and I wanted the rest of us to do something fun, we decided to head over the hill to the zoo. Jenna's friend Kyle also went with us. It's not a huge zoo, but big enough. One of our favorite animals was the Red Panda and they had some baby Lemurs that were adorable.


The Red Panda


Lemurs (the babies were in a spot where it was hard to get a good picture so we took pictures of the adults)


My absolute FAVORITE animal in the zoo....a Tara butterfly!

We also went to Fairytale Town, which is right across the street from the zoo. It is really just a huge playground (2.5 acres, I think) with a lot of Fairytale themed stuff. They also had some animals themed with different Fairy Tales (i.e. three little pigs, Eeyore, three billy goats gruff, etc.). We actually had a lot of fun there and Tara made some new friends while she was playing.


Sitting on King Arthur's throne


Cinderella's Carriage


We're off to see the wizard!

Before we headed home, we stopped at Joe's Crab Shack and had dinner. I had a shrimp salad that was awesome! After dinner, we walked down to the dock and saw a seal swimming in the river (I didn't think they had seals in that river). It jumped right out of the water and onto the dock right near us.


The Seal

We did stop at our Cabela's on the way home (it is in our town, but about 30 minutes away from the house and we don't drive by there too often) so Tim could look at roof racks for the Jeep so we can put luggage up there as well as taking Duncan when we go to 49er games. Tim hadn't been to Cabela's and I had only been there when they opened last year. We didn't have nearly enough time there and it totally made me want to do some more "outdoorsy" type stuff (okay, camping). It is quite an amazing store!

Beth Moore Event

Our church, along with another local church, recently sponsered a Beth Moore Satellite Simulcast. Being the special events coordinator for our women's board, it was my responsibility to do some of the planning and preparing for the event.

The simulcast was a Friday night and Saturday morning and about 200 women attended the event. Besides the food, getting volunteers, etc. I was also asked to run the audio and video by our church's media person as she was going to be out of town. I felt that was a more daunting task than anything else. It went off well, though, although for Saturday morning we provided a continental breakfast and all the fruit I got from Costco was bad. I need to take the receipt back today and try and get my money back. We called Costco and they told us to go ahead and do that since someone had thrown away all the fruit and trays from the fruit.

I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures on Friday because I was too busy trying to make sure everything was okay. Also, I think my camera lens had a smudge on it because there is a funky blurry look to my pictures and after I figured that out and cleaned my lens it was gone. I wish I would have noticed it earlier, but sometimes it is hard to see that kind of stuff on the little LCD screen.


Our registration and welcome table for Saturday.


Breakfast Saturday morning


The simulcast

Happy Birthday, Jenna!

Tuesday was Jenna's birthday and it has been our tradition since the girls were little for me to take them to lunch. She decided she wanted to go to sushi and we went to one of the local casinos that has a sushi restaurant. We had edamame for an appetizer and then had our sushi rolls. I don't get to go to sushi very often and ths was really good! It didn't have too much rice in it (which is one complaint I have about sushi rolls....they have more rice than other fillings).


Afterwards, we went and saw "Mamma Mia". It was really cute and the music was fun, even though I am not a huge ABBA fan.


Tim was working so we are doing Jenna's birthday dinner later this week, but Jenna went to dinner with friends anyway so it worked out okay. Actually, it ended up that my annual "Pride and Prejudice" night was scheduled for that night so I got to go to that as well. A group of us have been getting together for at least 10 or more years to watch the A&E version of "Pride and Prejudice". We always have tea sandwiches, fruit, scones, as well as various other treats and then this year we had trifle for dessert. It started out that we were attending a local Shakespeare event, but it got too expensive at least 10 years ago so we switched it to "Pride and Prejudice". I forgot to take my camera, but I am hoping to get some pictures from the woman who hosted the event. She is originally from England and lived near where they filmed the mini-series so she has a lot of stories from around there. Her mother was there as well and so we got a lot of background. It was so much fun and it is really great to introduce someone new to the joy of "Pride and Prejudice" every year. This year about 14 women attended and several had never seen or read it so that was awesome.

Our Motorcycle Trip

Since Tim and I missed going away a few weeks ago, we decided to participate in a Police Memorial Run this last weekend that wasn't too far away from us. We rode over with two other guys who are in Tim's motorcycle club on Friday and then participated in the run on Saturday. I don't know how many bikes participated, but I heard anywhere from 2000-5000. It was amazing to see all those bikes lined up and the whole freeway was closed off for the run so it was just motorcycles as far as you could see in front and in back of you. I tried to get some good pictures, but it is really hard to take pictures when you are riding and can't really see through the LCD screen. It was a really beautiful ride and then afterwards there was a big barbeque with all kinds of vendors of people selling things.


Dinner was a bucket of seafood....yum


Bikes getting ready to take off


Bikes leaving....all you could see were bikes in front and in back of you

That night we went to visit our friends that we tailgate with for football games(they also own the parents of Duncan) and had dinner and stayed the night with them. We made plans to go to the first game of the year in just a few weeks. I can't believe that football season starts in just a couple of weeks! To me, that is the beginning of the holiday season with all of the birthdays and holidays we celebrate in the fall through Christmastime.

Yesterday I spent the whole day catching up....unpacking, cleaning up, laundry. Why does it seem like when you leave for a weekend, it will take the whole week just to catch up? Today is Jenna's birthday so I will take her for her birthday lunch and to go see "Mamma Mia" and tonight I am doing my annual "Pride and Prejudice" night (yes, we watch the 5 hour version!) with friends. Tim isn't home so we will do Jenna's birthday dinner later another night.

The Girls' Trip to the River

THe girls took a trip with the church youth group to the river the other day and Sammy took a couple of pictures I thought I would share.

Veggie Chili and Pita Chips

I am really trying to make an effort to cook and eat healthier and so last night I made Veggie Chili, salad and pita chips. It ended up that everyone (except Tara, who doesn't like much) liked it. The biggest problem was that after taking all the pictures during cooking, it was really late by the time we actually got to eat dinner.

Here are the ingredients for the chili....

It's pretty easy in that you chop up all the veggies, cook them, add the spices, cook some more, add the beans and tomatoes, cook some more and....voila....you are ready to eat.


I know the picture did turn out sort of "yellow", but it looked really good.

My pita chips are a staple around here and something I make a lot when I need to bring a snack to an event.

Here are the ingredients....pita bread (I use whole wheat), olive oil (I usually use garlic olive oil, but didn't have any so I made my own, but they are good with plain olive oil as well), and salt.

First you cut the pita in half.....
Then you open them up......
And then cut them in 1/4's......

Then into 1/8's......
And tear them apart......
I use about 2 bags of pita bread (12 whole pitas) when I make them.....
I lay them out in a little "puzzle-like" configuration, brush them with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and bake at 350 for 12 minutes.
Here is the finished product!
I love to keep these around for a healthy snack for the family to eat. We keep hummus around to dip them in a lot and I have to admit that I usually don't make my own. My mom's husband makes the absolute best hummus I have ever had and I have not gotten around to get his recipe yet.

Meanwhile....while I was making dinner, Duncan disappeared into my bedroom and fell asleep on our bed. I think he is looking a little too comfortable here.

Singing Debut

Sammy lost her camera about two years ago and found it yesterday. She also found some disks that she had saved videos and pictures on. This was one of the videos she found. Tara, who was four at the time, found Sammy's camera and filmed herself singing "Five Little Ducks". She is quite a clown!

Tim's Doings

Tim has been a little busy fighting fires. He was over in California fighting some of their fires a few weeks ago and brought home these pictures.

Somehow this is ironic to me. It's being sold by Lucky U Realty...hmmmmmm.




The devastation is awful, but it amazes me how those trees are still standing!