Happy Birthday Nathan!!

Today we celebrated Nathan's 26th birthday. He enjoyed a restful day at home just hanging around. He did have to help me with a few things, but they were all very minor tasks. I spent most of my day in the kitchen baking "the birthday cake" and an apple pie/crunch recipe. My fist time making both recipes and they turned out great! We celebrated tonight with some friends and enjoyed some great fellowship; and, of course, some laughs over the wii. :)

Tomorrow we are having our families over/up/down for some taco's and probably more time on the wii :) I will try to remember my camera this time so I can add some pictures of the birthday festivities! For now its just Happy Birthday to Nathan with pictures to come!!

We've Conformed

Nintendo Wii has been out of stock since around Christmas, I think. We weren't really in the market for one until just a few days before New Years. We hung out with our friends the Shimok's and played their wii. It was so fun!!! After that, we discussed purchasing a wii as "happy birthday to us" in place of birthday presents for each other. We were in a bit of a dilema, though as no one had any wii's in stock. Well... that was all about to change on January 22nd.

We heard from someone at church that Toys'R'Us had Wii in stock and they had just bought theirs. On Thursday night after we ate dinner and were watching an episode of House Hunters, we began to think about what we should do on our one free night... our "date night." I said I thought we should take a field trip to Toys'R'Us to which Nathan replied " I was just thinking that like 2 minutes ago" Our fate was decided... or the fate of the wii... i'm not sure which. So we did conform and bought a wii this past week. It has been very fun despite the sore arms and shoulders from bowling and tennis. I've even stepped outside my comfort zone and played baseball!

Yesterday, we played a few rounds of golf (the only way that Nathan will ever play gold, I might add) and I discovered I missed my calling in life. I was quite accomplished until the 9th hole where there are 3 different island/cliff things you golf from. That took my score from 0 to + 12 or something like that. All that to say, I still beat Nathan at golfing (currently the only game on wii I can beat him at!). Then last night we joined our friends from church (the ones who notified us of Toys'R'Us's secret wii stock) and we played wii fit with them. Throughout the day I have been noticing different area's on my body that are feeling a little bit sore that weren't before so I suppose that what everyone says is true. I was only on the fit for maybe 10 minutes and it did its job. Its job (combined with a pretty out of shape me) made a very compelling argument for purchasing a fit but we will hold off on that. Maybe we'll go against the traditional 1st year anniversary gift of paper. Or maybe the paper gift will be the receipt from the wii fit? I just don't know but we are really enjoying our wii.

Wii Fit Tip: From what I understand, Wii Fit is about 10 bucks cheaper at costco than anywhere else so if you are in the market... you might look there :)

Over and out for now... Mii (personalized wii character) is calling my name :)

Out Motivation of Love

I read this this morning in the "Experiencing God Day-by-Day" Devotional. It was really encouraging to me so I am sharing it with you.

Our Motivation of Love

"O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:25-26

You Do not "organize" the kingdom of God; you "agonize" the kingdom of God. You cannot be close to God without being affected by His love. The heavenly Father loved His Son with an eternal love. Everything in the heart and life of the Father was released to His Son. As the Father expressed His love for a broken and sinful world, this passion was manifested through the life of His Son. The Father initiated His plan to save mankind, and out of a heart of devotion, the Son accepted the assignment that took Him to the cross.

As Jesus walked among people, the Father's love filled his Son. Jesus recognized that no ordinary love could motivate Him to go to the cross. No human love could keep Him perfectly obedient to His Father throughout His life. Only His Father's love was powerful enough to compel Him to commit His life to the saving purpose of His Father.

Jesus prayed that God would place this same love in His disciples. He knew that no other motivation would be sufficient for the assignments God had for them. God's answer was to place His Son in them. It is impossible for a Christian to be filled with this measure of love and not to be on a mission with God.

You will be incapable of ministering to everyone God sends you unless you have His love. You cannot forgive others or go the extra mile with others or sacrifice for others unless you have first been filled with the boundless love of God. Seek to know the Father and His immeasurable love; then allow His Son to love others through you!

Counsel One Another

I came across this blog page from looking at my friend, Amber's blog page. It is a really neat website with a lot of encouraging words and also some great suggestions on books. There are also articles pertaining to various counseling things that are great too. I was really encourged as I came across it and read some of the posts. Check it out sometime!!

Counsel One Another

January 20, 2009

First, I must say this is not about the Inauguration that took place. This is a completely different event in Nathan's and my life :) We both remembered and mentioned to each other that 4 years ago on January 20th, we decided to date :) I'm sure our wedding anniversaries will be much more exciting to celebrate... but until we got married January 20th was always the "big" date for us. So it was still fun to look back on the funny progression of events surrounding that time. We are very thankful for each other, and thankful for the blessing of being married.

January

I can't believe January is more than half over now! It has gone by so very fast. We are house-sitting again for our pastor and his wife. They are visiting their kids in the midwest, so we get to keep an eye on their dog Toby. Toby is great. This also means I have access to the internet so I can update our blog.



Christmas and New Years both came and went without any pictures on my part. OOPS! There were so many other camera's out and around I just never got around to having mine out. But we spent Christmas and New Years with my family and had a really fun time. We played with the newest addition to our family, Emma our neice, a lot. She was tons of fun!! To see a few more pictures from the holidays, you can see April's blog or you can also visit Nathan's blog. They both have pictures up... mostly of Emma because she was the highlight of both trips :)



Now life has just gotten back into the swing of things. Busy as always but enjoying it all! The Lord has continued to be faithful in blessing us as the new year has started. It is always so awesome to just step back and look at everything the Lord has provided!! Priase Him!