This past weekend, my church hosted their first-ever youth rally (at least the “first-ever” part was the consensus when asking around church).  For a first one, I must say it was a huge success.  With my husband’s ideas and pastor’s organization, the whole thing went decently smooth. 

We started off with a rousing game of dodge ball.  Starting with games was especially important after attending one youth rally and seeing some kids walk in “off the street” only to leave 5 minutes later.  We figured that if you start with a bang, then those kids who are visiting for the first time might actually stay!  I don’t know if it worked, but to my knowledge, no one left…

Anyways, back to the game.   Oh yes, it was rousing.  The acoustics in our gym are…well, there really are no words except loud and garbled.  As a result, half of the teens had no idea what was going on.  Which resulted in a sort of “organized chaos.”  During said chaos, the teens had a blast.  Dodgeballs were flying everywhere, kids were running everywhere, and all spectators were cracking up laughing.

After the dodgeball, we had pizza.  Yummmmmm.  Of course, always a safe way to go with teens. 

After scarfing down our food, we proceeded to the auditorium for preaching and bible quizzing. 

All said and done, there were 80 teens that came out (about 130 people total).  29 of those teenagers were from our scope of influence (church, school, or visitors of those kids).  We had 5 first time visitors from our group, and I had the opportunity to lead one of them to the Lord! 

It was an encouraging and exciting evening.  I was so blessed to be a part of it.

This past Saturday was a great day.  I had to work in the morning, but that afternoon into evening, I went shopping with a friend.  When we arrived hom after dinner, I could see that my husband had burned the big brush pile we had out back.  I was disappointed that I had missed it.  Until he told me that there were still plenty of coals left.  We proceeded to the store to get marshmallows and spent a wonderful evening outside in the 26° weather, roasting marshmallows, enjoying the fire, enjoying the stars, and hanging out.  The fire was incredibly hot.  So much so, that I was not even the slightest bit cold.  That might have had something to do with my huge, puffy, winter jacket, but that fire was really hot….

This morning, the ground was blanketed with a nice frost.  Even though I was running a few minutes late, I took the time to take a few pictures. 

It snowed yesterday!  Unfortunately it was dark when I got home, and melted by the next morning.  However, I managed to take a picture in the glow of my headlights when I got home!  It was so pretty!

I have way too many things to blog about.  As a result, I was feeling overwhelmed and kind of avoiding blogging.  lol  Which only adds to the list of things to blog about.  Too avoid this overwhelming feeling, I’ll just give a brief summary and catch up!

1.  Christmas Vacation
Christmas vacation was amazing.  Not only did I greatly enjoy visiting my family and friends in nice, warm, sunny California, I also got to celebrate the New Year back in my own home.  I technically had three Christmas celebrations.  The one in California, one when I got home, and one with my in-laws.  All were so much fun and relaxing.

Someone asked me to tell them my favorite part of Christmas vacation.  I couldn’t decide, so instead, I just listed all the things I loved about it:  meeting and playing with my nephew, playing games and hanging out with my family, hanging out with friends, really, the list goes on, but this will be a long enough post with out lengthening this list.

2.  While Christmas shopping:

3.  Warming the Heart
My Crochet business is still doing great!  Within the first two days of being back at work and online (etc.), I received 6 orders!  So, back to the busy-ness of keeping my customers happy.  I’m really enjoying it, and pleased with how this year has started off.  I just introduced 2 new items, and I think both will be a hit.  To see the most recent posts, visit my site!

4.  First snow of the season!
This morning, I woke up to a thin blanket of snow!  It was so pretty, but as I write this around noon, all the snow is already melted.  I’m hoping the snowfall of this morning is a promise of better things to come. 

There are a couple more things I need to blog about, but I didn’t want to use up all my creative juices on this one post. 

Christmas is such a busy time, but this year seems especially busy.  It could be that I’ve just forgotten how busy December has been in the past.  It could be that it truly is busier.  Regardless of the reason, things have been crazy hectic.  In spite of the craziness, I’ve been enjoying this month.

We got our tree earlier than ever this year.  The original plan was to get a “small” one since we weren’t going to be celebrating Christmas at our house this year.  We still wanted to get a tree as we were hosting the youth group Christmas party and wanted things to be festive.  Besides, the gift exchange isn’t quite the same without a tree to put the presents under.

Matt overseeing the gift exchange at the party.

We set out in search of the perfect tree.  Well, we found the perfect tree, but it would never fall under the category of “small.”  We found a Concolor Fir Tree.  We had one of these once before and haven’t been able to find one since.  Well, we found one this year, and decided to go for it in spite of our original goal of “small.”  It really is quite beautiful!

I was so happy to get all my Christmas decorations out and spread around my house.  I had extra fun this year as I had gone shopping after Christmas the year before and added to my decorations.  As a result, it truly was like Christmas getting to put up new decorations and find new places to put things!  Fun stuff.

In keeping with the Spirit of Christmas, I wanted festive fingernails.  My husband kindly obliged and practiced his artwork on my nails.  As a result, I have adorable Christmas light nails!  I’ve gotten lots of compliments.  Also, women seem to think I’m lucky to have a husband willing to do my manicure.  lol  I almost love telling people that my husband did my nails just to see their reactions. 

I’m the one that did my toenails, and while they’re not bad, they are definitely not at the same level of artistic quality as my fingernails.  Therefore, I will not be posting a picture of my toenails at this time.  lol

I still have a lot of activities to look forward to: tonight is the school Christmas program, Saturday is caroling, Sunday is the cantata and church fellowship, and then back to work!  Somewhere in there, I have to find time to pack.  Wow.  Craziness.  But that’s what makes it fun, right?

A day or two before Thanksgiving, I witnessed this sight:

We did eventually go out to celebrate this event, but I forgot to take a picture, so this one just has the mileage.    Our poor car is getting older. 

As the miles go by, I find myself liking my car more and more.  It’s so fun to drive.  It drives much more like a car than a van, and is so comfortable to travel in.  I’m so thankful for my new car!

Day 10:

Day 12:

Day 14:

Day 15:

Day 17:

Day 22:
It looks nice and shiny because of the vitamin E that I’ve been putting on it.  Also, the band-aid is just to protect it.  The only thing on my band-aid is the aforementioned vitamin E.    I must say I’m thrilled to be down to a band-aid instead of that bulky bandage.  I switched to band-aids last Sunday (Day 17).

 

Wow, it’s been a while since I posted.  First, there was the wonderful Thanksgiving break.  I had Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off work and left early the previous Wednesday!  My break was marvelous.

We went up to Pennsylvania to my sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving.  It was a nice, relaxing time.  We hung out, played games, took naps, went through clothes.  All in all it was great fun.  We left for home about 9:30pm on Thanksgiving night.  Ironically, this put us arriving in town a little before midnight.  We decided to stop at Wal-Mart “just to see what Black Friday was like.”  Neither one of us had ever experienced black friday in the “let’s wait in line for things” way, so it was a great experience.  When midnight rolled around, people started going crazy.  It was quite fun to sit back and enjoy the spectacle.  To my knowledge, no one was trampled or otherwise injured at our Wal-Mart.  After selecting some DVDs on sale, we hurried to the checkout lines.  Most of them (by 12:10am) were already 20 people long, but we managed to find a short one.

Friday and Saturday were stay at home and get things done/do nothing days.  Part of the day I would do nothing, and the other part I would get things done.  lol  Made for a very pleasant weekend.  Of course, I wound up rather sore as I helped Matt move 2 great big Crepe Myrtle bushes.  Those things must have been a couple hundred pounds each!

The weekend ended with a sense of satisfaction.  That’s what I  call a great Thanskgiving!

A week ago, when Matt was out of town, I was in charge of the wood stove.  I did a great job getting a really hot fire going.  As I was putting more wood on, I smashed my thumb.  Really badly.  It even took the top layer of my fingernail off.  It hurt soooo bad!  While I was concentrating on the pain in my thumb, I realized the wood stove doors were still wide open.  I thought, “This is gonna hurt for a while, I’d better shut those doors.” 

Oops.  I touched the hot metal handle, resulting in a second degree burn on my left palm.  My thumb didn’t hurt anymore.    My wonderful in-laws came over and tended to my burn. 

The morning after it happened:

The second morning after the burn:

5 days after I burned my hand:

It’s starting to get better instead of worse!  This morning (8 days after I burned it):