Happy Birthday, James!

Friday, September 25th, was James' 26th birthday! I took it upon myself to make sure he had a wonderful weekend, and I believe I succeeded. =^)

While he was at work, I wrapped up his gifts and set out all of his cards so that he'd be greeted by loving words when he got home. I know that he has been wanting some new shirts for a while now, so I bought him a new tee shirt inspired by his favorite TV show How I Met Your Mother, as well as a nice new polo shirt that he can wear while golfing or to church. He loved them both, and immediately threw them in the washing machine so he could wear them out this weekend.

Friday night we got some of our friends together and went out for a nice dinner at The Elephant Bar. We decided on this venue for the party because The Elephant Bar serves James' favorite dish - Tri-Tip (a special cut of beef beloved by Californians.) We were disappointed to see that they recently changed their menu and no longer serve Tri-Tip, but the food we did get was delicious and the company more than made up for it. James even got a complimentary birthday sundae which he graciously shared with his sugar-loving wife. O=^)

Saturday morning I made James a special post-birthday brunch, complete with blueberry pancakes (a real treat since I dislike blueberries and usually refuse to bake them into anything), bacon and fresh fruit. Then we went out and picked out a new, specialty putter to add to his golf collection (compliments of his family). Then we spent the rest of the afternoon reading together, watching movies, and generally spending good quality time together. I think I ended up enjoying his special birthday weekend as much if not more so than he did!

Dating My Husband

As I mentioned in my last post, our church is going through a new series about how to have a great marriage. In last week's sermon, our pastor pointed out that men and women think differently about dating. Women are mostly looking for a romantic way to connect on a deeper level (which can happen anywhere and really doesn't require much money or planning), whereas men think that in order for a date to be special it needs to be a big, planned out event. James and I found this to be really intriguing because we both definitely think that way.

The more that I thought about it, the more I realized that a lot of times "date nights" are centered around making the wife happy - you go out to a romantic dinner, see a chick flick, take a walk in the park, etc. But I think that women should take their husbands on dates and honor them by doing something they like too. So, yesterday I went with James to the golf course and participated in one of his favorite hobbies for the very first time. Of course, I can't actually play because of my back, but I rode around in the cart with him, watched him play, and had fun taking some pictures. He was even gracious enough to let me try putting once (which didn't work out so well, but at least I looked really cute while doing it!) Over all it was a fun and memorable afternoon and I know he was excited to share one of his passions with me.

Staying In Love

Our church has started a new series about how to maintain a great, God-centered marriage relationship called "Staying in Love." We really enjoyed the first sermon and so I thought I'd post my notes on here. There are definitely some great points that married people, singles, and even divorcees can benefit from!

"Staying In Love - Is It Even Possible?"

Palm Valley Church, September 13, 2009

• All People desire and hope for true love.
• God is love, so we’re hard-wired to desire it.
• As we grow up in our modern society, we wonder if the dream of finding your one true love and living happily ever after is even possible.
• Another question we grow up asking is if there is someone out there for us.
• 1 Corinthians 12:4-8 describes what love is and says that it will last forever. However, people have a hard time buying into that idea because that has not been their experience.
• The trouble is that we look at love through a flawed lens.
• Often, people go to the Bible and look for something that justifies their world-view, and don’t really listen to what it’s really saying.
• Did you ever think that maybe God has a better understanding of love than we do?
• Our problem is that we try to do love our own way.
• We equate love with a feeling, but if love is just a feeling to you then it is easy to fall out of love.
• That is why the divorce rate in Maricopa County is nearing 70% - the economy and other problems are stressing us out and making us lose that “happy ever after” feeling.
• In the Bible, love is defined as a commitment that needs to be turned into a verb.
• So many times we enter into a marriage with a false foundation, so when things don’t turn out like we expected, we assume that marriage is nothing but a false promise of life-long happiness.
• God did not make us to be completed and made whole by loving, or being loved by, another person.
• If you would stop focusing on looking for “the one” and start focusing on becoming “the one,” God will make you whole in Him and then you’ll be happier when you do find the person you want to marry.
• Our pastor believes that marriage is a big mirror for our inner life - you both pour all of yourselves into the the marriage, so if you don’t like your marriage that’s a reflection on you and where your heart is.
• John 13:34 - Jesus commands us to love each other as He loved us.
• He basically says that love encapsulates all of the law of God.
• Philippians 2:3-8 - talks about how to make love a verb. 3 STEPS.

1) Correct your motives ~ Be Humble!

• Make your marriage less about you and more about Him and your spouse
• Ephesians 4 - submit to one another because of who He is
• “Submit” doesn’t mean becoming a door mat, it means you make your spouse the priority and tend to their needs before your own
• For some reason we are willing to do this for so many other, random people in our lives, but not for the single most important person in our lives. Why is that??
• Treating your spouse as less worthy than yourself is dishonoring to them and to God.

2) Consider the messages you’re sending

• We sent very clear messages while we were dating: “I love you.” “You are beautiful.” But as time goes on, we tend to get lazy and send mixed messages.
• We’re so careful about the messages we send while out in public or are around strangers, but we are careless with our family at home
• Learn each other’s love languages and think about how you give and receive love.
• Misunderstanding this about your spouse can breed discontent and kill your marriage.
• Make it VERY CLEAR to your spouse how much you love them, every day.
• Don’t be careless! The Bible is very clear about the damage careless words and actions can do.

3) Create love moments ~ Plan your romance!

• Return to your first love and pour yourself into it.
• Listen to what makes your spouse tick (take note of what they desire or dream about and make it happen!)
• Be “religious” about your date night - let nothing get in the way of your special time together!
• A lot of people complain that they can’t afford to have a date night every week, but date nights are much cheaper than a divorce lawyer!
• Anyway, what you do together doesn’t have to be expensive.
• Guys tend to equate love to events, and think that they have to really plan things out and spend a lot of money for a date to be good.
• But girls equate love to communication and deep connection, which can happen just as easily on a walk around the neighborhood as at a fancy restaurant.
• A lot of us are selfish people who don’t like to serve but want to be served. Consider Romans 5:8.

• When we begin to understand the love of God and all that He did for us, we’ll turn around and try to reflect that in our lives and relationships.
• The answer to our problems doesn’t lie in a self-help book or relying on our own will power to change our attitude.
• Inviting Jesus to be the Lord of our life is a concrete solution.
• Anything that He calls us to, including marriage, cannot be done by our own power. We need Him in order to be successful!
• If we make love a verb in our marriage, it will make an impression on our spouses and it will change their hearts.
• ** That’s the problem with Christianity today. We don’t truly love people and so we are unable to make a good impression on the world and change people’s hearts. Instead, we do just the opposite.

God wants us to be able to experience that incredible love relationship that he hard-wired us to desire, and the first step in that direction is to invite him into your life.

My Family's Visit to Phoenix

James and I were excited to have my family come out and visit us for the first time since we got married. They would have come sooner, but we figured there was no reason to punish them by making them spend time in Del Rio (haha.) I think they were a bit apprehensive about the heat, but thankfully it was rainy and cool most of the weekend so they didn't get too scorched.

One thing I knew they were looking forward to doing was finally tasting an In-N-Out burger, so we took them out to lunch there right after picking them up from the airport. After hearing James talk about it since we started dating 3.5 years ago, their expectations were pretty high, but I think they liked it.

Unfortunately, since it was a holiday weekend, they didn't get a chance to actually see James fly. However, we did take them on a tour of the base. We took them into the squadron and James showed them what he does every day. Then, since we couldn't actually go out onto the flight line, we drove down to the park on base where they have an F-16 out on display and James had fun explaining how it works. Hopefully they will be able to come down for James' graduation so they can actually see the planes in action!

Saturday night was pretty laid back. After giving my family a tour of our house, I cooked dinner and we spent the rest of the night eating and catching up. I was glad to see that they were impressed with our home and with my cooking. Incase you're curious, I made some shredded BBQ chicken sandwiches and sweet potato oven fries for dinner, with apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. :-)

Another thing my family was really excited about doing while they were here was visit our church. Since James and I still needed to go volunteer with the high school group, we figured we would go do that and then have my parents meet us afterward so we could all go to service together. However, James had the brilliant idea of inviting Nate to go with us to the high school group, so we swung by their hotel on the way to church and picked him up. I think he had fun participating in a youth worship service that is very different from what he's used to. I know he also got a kick out of the fact that I got roped into participating in a donut eating contest before the sermon...it was not very comfortable. I think the talk that we heard about the importance of building a relationship with a mentor made up for that though. Hopefully Nate will benefit from what he heard as much as the regular kids did. And as great as the youth service was, the big service was even better, so I think my family was impressed with our new church. I know Nate would have gladly continued going to Palm Valley if only he lived closer. ;^)

After church, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Chipotle (a mutual favorite) and then we went and walked around the nearby zoo and aquarium. It was pretty warm outside so we only saw about a third of what the zoo had to offer, but we did get to see all of the indoor aquarium, which definitely made the trip worthwhile. Not only did we get to see the animals, but we even got to touch some of them! Now I can add petting stingrays to my list of unusual life experiences. Over all, it was a fun outing, and James and I are looking forward to going back at some point so we can see all of the animals that we missed.

We rounded out Sunday evening with a nice dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. They have one in Denver, but my family had never been, so that was a fun, new experience. We all had more than our fill of fabulous food, but made sure to get a slice of cheesecake to take home with us so we could say that we'd had some. It was delicious!

It was a quick visit, but we had plenty of time to relax and visit, and James and I got to share our life with them, which was great. I look forward to finding out where we'll be going next so we can start planning for their next visit. (Yes, I expect you all to come visit us in Germany or Japan or wherever we end up...it'll be fun!)

An Update on Boredom...

As many of you probably recall, I wrote a blog a while back complaining about how bored I was and how we just couldn't seem to find anything fun or worthwhile to fill our time. Many of you wrote some very thoughtful emails with suggestions and encouraging words (all of which were wonderful and I thank you.) I figured you might be curious how things were going in that way.

Well, what can I say except: be careful what you wish for? As you can see by this snapshot of my August calendar, I had at least one big thing going on every single day. Many of them were social engagements, so I can't say that it wasn't fun. But it got to the point toward the end of the month where I felt like I simply did not have enough time to do what I needed to and I got pretty overwhelmed. I actually got excited if James and I had a day where we could just sit around on the couch and do nothing!!

It was definitely a relief to turn the calendar over to September and to be greeted with a blank page. My new plan is to seek a balance between my July and August experiences. I now have plenty of wonderful things to keep me busy during the week so I can enjoy sitting back and relaxing whenever James is home. Life is wondefully full right now, and I hope it stays that way!

A Great Loss...

The day after I got back from Colorado, I received a very hard and shocking email letting me know that one of my best friends from high school, Josh Green, had unexpectedly passed away. Apparently he was out camping with our mutual friend Ryan Dean and their fiancees, and the altitude got to him. He's always had lung problems, having been born with a collapsed rib cage. Anyway, he started having really labored breathing and started coughing uncontrollably. Thankfully, Ryan was an Eagle Scout and is highly trained in outdoor survival, so he reacted quickly. He picked Josh up and carried him to the car and drove him down to a near by fire station where they put him into an emergency vehicle and rushed him to the emergency room. When he got there, he went into cardiac arrest. It took the doctors 35 minutes to revive him. By that time, he had been without oxygen to his brain for so long that he was completely brain dead. His body was unable to breathe on its own and there was no blood flow to the brain. So they kept him on a ventilator until they could find people to donate his organs to, and then his family had him taken off of the life support. I didn't hear how many people they were able to find, but the doctors said that he had the ability to save up to 5 lives because he had checked the "donor" box when he got his driver's license. He loved stories about super heroes, so I find comfort in the fact that he got to be a true hero to someone and will be forever remembered for that.

They had a memorial service and funeral for him that weekend (August 23rd and 24th). I really wish I could have been there, but having JUST returned from the Springs, I couldn't afford to fly back. So I helped spread the word to as many people as I could, and wrote his parents a letter offering my condolences. I can't even imagine what they're going through. As hard as it is to lose someone you love, it's got to be twice as hard since he was about to get married.

I won't go into all of my thoughts and feelings. It's still a bit too fresh to try to explain what his friendship meant. I will say that he was the first one to get me thinking about pursuing a career in film, so I have him to thank for that. He was one of the funniest, most creative, and best loved people I've ever met. I'll always remember him as he is in that picture up there - laughing and talking about his new favorite movie. RIP, Josh.

Mixing Business and Pleasure in the Rockies

Well, now that I actually have a free afternoon to sit down and think, I figured I should tell you how my trip out to Colorado went. Last fall I got the idea to take a week long trip out there to take senior pictures for Nate and his friends. As it turns out, there were several people with different types of photo assignments for me, so I got quite a bit of experience in a short period of time.

I chose to fly out there during the second week of August because a good friend of mine from the Seekers college group at First Pres was getting married on August 15th. His name is Brian Kester, and the ceremony was held at the USAFA chapel. For those of you who have seen my "Seekers" bachelorette video, he was the nice one who came in second place. (James won. ;^) But Brian was one of the few friends who actually made the effort to drive out to CO for our wedding last May, so I wanted to return the favor. The ceremony was beautiful, and I enjoyed getting to spend a good amount of time with some of my best friends. Melissa Scott, Dave and Claire Thorpe, and Jason Snedeker were there. They were all involved in my wedding in some capacity, so it was great to see them again. You can see all of the pictures of the wedding that I took on my photography blog, but here are a few more personal shots of us throughout the night:

As I said, a big part of the trip was devoted to taking pictures for people. You can see the best shots from each shoot either on my website or the photography blog. I had three senior photo shoots, one family portrait, one engagement photo shoot in downtown Denver, and then I took all of those pictures at Brian's wedding. Over all I took over 1,500 pictures over the course of 5 days.

I think my favorite shoot of the week was my brother's senior portrait session. He really wanted some unique shots, so we spent a few hours walking around Manitou Springs and downtown and having him pose wherever we felt inspired. We found some really cool places that created some beautiful, artistic shots. I think we did a good job of getting a variety of shots that are all very "him," so I hope he likes them.

While the majority of my time in Colorado was devoted to work, I did make sure to spend at least a little bit of time with my good friends who are still living in the Springs. I had a couple of good late night conversations early in the week. On Sunday I got to go to Seekers and then eat out with church friends. On Sunday afternoon I went miniature golfing with my good friend Becca. Also, as it turns out, one of my good friends who went through the video program at Air Academy with me has been hired to teach those classes this year. So I went out and visited him after his first day of school. He took me up to the TV studio and showed me all of the improvements he had made. I was excited to see that the movie posters we had hung in there during my senior year are still there, as is the water pipe we all signed when we graduated. Then we took the picture of us in front of the KDET-TV logo for our former teacher, Mr. Cameron.

Of course, I got to spend a lot of time with my parents, which I enjoyed. My dad took me out to eat several times, and I got to help them pick out a new TV. It's always nice going home and revisiting all of the restaurants, people, places that I love. Oh - and I've got to add that the weather felt AMAZING. It was a much appreciated break from the 110* heat. I look forward to having my family come visit us over Labor Day. Hopefully I can return the hospitality I received, and then some. =^D