Freshmen Invasion on Berridge Lane!

Since it's Thanksgiving week, we did not officially have our normal small group meeting. However, we figured that it would be fun to try to get whoever was still in town together to play games and hang out during our meeting time on Tuesday night. I thought we might have three or four kids show up... But sure enough, we had 9/10! I kind of felt like our living room might bust with all of us packed in there, but we had a really good time. The guys had a rowdy game of Apples to Apples going while the girls poured over our wedding album and gushed about the new Twilight movie. We rounded the night out with a quick game of Catch Phrase before parents started showing up.

I think the best part, though, was how the kids got to know us a lot better just by visiting our home and spending a couple hours with us. Of course, they went through everything - examining all of the photos on our walls and in our albums, oooing and ahhing over James' uniforms and other AF stuff... Half of us even had an in-depth discussion about literature as they poured over our rather extensive book collection. By the end of the night, some of the boys were saying they wished we could have small group at our house every week because they enjoyed their stay, and some of the girls left little thank you notes on our white board.

Needless to say - we're going to miss these kids a ton when we move. I think saying good by to our church will be the hardest thing about leaving Phoenix... But who knows. Maybe we'll come back in 3 years and get to see them graduate.

I've gotten pretty close to these three girls in particular - Paige, Carly and Sarah. They are incredibly solid in their faith and are way ahead of the game in terms of living for Christ. I wanted to get a good picture of the four of us... Not the most flattering shot, but hopefully we can try again soon.

"Give so that kids can live" is the catch phrase for our fundraising campaign for the children's hospital in Haiti. Figured I'd put it up there as a reminder for the week. =^)

Recent Happenings...

Lately, I have been blessed with many opportunities to use my media skills. In addition to taking pictures for friends' engagements, weddings, and Christmas cards, I got to head up a big video project for the church, make a wedding slideshow, and I've been given several opportunities to speak to youth about how Godly themes show up in some of my favorite movies.

Last Wednesday night was the 8th annual Palm Valley Church Student Film Festival. Basically, many of the kids put together silly videos and we showed them on the big screen in the auditorium and gave out awards. Since Darius (our youth pastor) knows that I enjoy doing that sort of thing, he asked me to write a script and put together a video starring as many youth mentors as possible.

Now - I warned him ahead of time that if he put me in charge of a project like that, it was going to be very ambitious. But he's always good with giving people his vote of confidence and watching them run with it. SO, I wrote a spoof of David and Goliath and spent a couple of weeks wrangling up other leaders, making fake armor out of cardboard and tin foil, shooting and editing. The goal was to make everyone looks as ridiculous as possible and I believe we succeeded. The kids laughed really hard and the people who actually volunteered to act seemed to enjoy making fools out of themselves out in the public park where we video taped the whole thing...so all in all, I'd say it was a success.

I was also pleasantly surprised when my friend Anna Crawford, who let me take her engagement photos a few weeks back, called and asked if I would put together a video slideshow for her wedding. This is one thing I feel I'm particularly good at, so it was fun getting to work on that at the end of the week. I always feel bad when I can't attend people's weddings because they're far away - so I'm glad that I at least contributed a few signifiant items to her special day. =^)

Finally, I have several speaking engagements coming up. James and I were asked to deliver the main message at all 4 youth services the weekend of December 5th and 6th. Their Christmas series is going to be similar to their summer series in that we're pulling "God-themes" out of movies. James and I chose to base our talk on the newer version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey. I looove this movie and have enjoyed looking at it from a different perspective. The planning is coming along...but James and I think very differently so working together has been slow-going. I'm sure it will be great, we just need to continue developing our main idea. Right now we're talking about how to "Grow your Heart" (since the Grinch's heart grew three sizes after he realized the true meaning of Christmas).

I was also invited back to speak at InterVarsity at SIU on December 10th. For a long time I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it out there since we were already planning on doing a lot of traveling around the holidays. But knowing that we're leaving the country for the next 3 years and I don't know when I'll see these people next really motivated me to make it happen. Since that night is their final meeting before Christmas break, they said they would be willing to let me do a very similar message to the one I'm delivering at Palm Valley the weekend before. So that's a relief - only planning one and a half related messages instead of two completely different ones.

I suppose all that James and I have been doing for our youth group has kind of stuck out because we were named the Youth Mentors of the month at yesterday's meeting. =^D Feels good to know that all of our effort is appreciated, though that's not our main motivation. It's all for God's glory and the kid's benefit, not ours.

Recent Shoots

I have a feeling the next couple of months are going to be good for business. Already, I've gotten to take pictures for a couple of friends, and have a few more small shoots lined up for later this week. Cooler weather and Christmas cards are stirring up demand! =^)

A couple weeks ago, some of our friends from James' class - Dave Ludington and Carrie Gobla - had me take their engagement photos. It was fun because we purposely tried to take advantage of the beautiful desert scenery around sunset. You can check out all of their best shots on my photography blog.

Then on Saturday, James and I went to the wedding of one of the co-leaders of our high school small group. Bethany has been talking excitedly about her wedding plans since we met her in August so it was really exciting to see everything finally come together! Both her and her husband Jeremy have solid, Christian families so it was great seeing a wedding so focused on God's vision for marriage. Unfortunately we were only able to stay for the ceremony as James wasn't feeling great, but I got some nice shots that she can post on facebook when she returns from their Cancun honeymoon!

Tomorrow morning the Officers Spouse's Club on base is holding their annual holiday craft/art fair and I have signed up for a table. I've printed out several of my best photos and have a hefty stack of business cards ready to hand out. I'm hoping that this will create more interest in holiday portraits or other business opportunities. The extra income will be very helpful as James and I are starting to save up for all of the traveling we want to do before we move.

A Taste of Fall...

Well, here we are, a good 2 weeks into November, and it's still in the high 70's and 80's every day and the greenery in the neighborhood has not changed one bit. I'll admit that - compared to the weather some people are dealing with right now - it's quite comfortable. I enjoy not having to worry about being cold or wet when I go outside. However, I am missing out on my favorite season of the year and it's really bumming me out.

I got to thinking recently that if it doesn't look or feel like autumn outside, at least I can use my other senses to celebrate the "season". So, I've been busy in the kitchen of late, whipping up little tastes of fall.

Pumpkin is my new favorite baking ingredient. There's really nothing better than the warm aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon wafting through your air conditioned house. ;^) A couple weeks ago I made pumpkin bread for friends and visiting family. Last night I made 2 dozen soft and gooey pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. We enjoyed a few too many with some friends from church who came over for dinner, so I sent the rest to work with James this morning. I'm tellin' you - those were some of the best cookies I've ever had (with the exception of my grandmother's no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies). So I thought I'd share the recipe.

Wishing you all happy baking and a tasty pre-holiday season!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
2. Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

* I left them in for longer than 10 minutes, but they were still extremely soft (to the point that I worried if they were cooked enough). However, if you let them set up for about 20 minutes they will be perfectly light and spongy. =^)

Drum roll please...

Well, we're moving to Japan! We found out this past weekend that the next base where James will be stationed is in Misawa, Japan and that our report-no-later-than date is April 30th. I would have posted this sooner, since I made a big deal about it in my last blog. But there was a lot of drama surrounding how the assignments were divided up and it sounded like someone might try to make some changes. (Not that it would have affected us much, since the controversy was over the fact that no one besides us wanted to go to Japan and the person who ended up with that slot was pretty upset.) However, we heard last night that the slots are final. SO - there you have it.

Misawa is at the very northern tip of the main island. (See map below). It's one of the more remote bases because all commercial flights have to go through Tokyo, and then you either take a fairly pricey 3-4 hour train ride, or cheaper but less comfortable 10 hour bus ride up to the base from there. =^O However, I've heard that it's a beautiful place and (like any fighter base) has a great community. James' older brother Jon and his wife Claire were stationed there for three years and loved it so we are excited! More to come later... Just wanted you all to know!

Halloween 2009

Our good friend Greg Balzhiser threw a big Halloween bash for all of our Air Force friends at his bachelor pad on Saturday night. We've never really had an opportunity to dress up as a couple for Halloween before so we decided to go all out this year. After doing a lot of brain storming and Google searching, we decided to go as War and Peace (he was a soldier and I was a hippie.) It was a great night because many of our friends had very, very clever costumes as well. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

The fake tattoo reads "Make Love Not War"

Caleb and Jordan definitely had the greatest costumes of the night. They dressed up as the retirees who always shop at the commissary on base and drive us crazy.

Mike and Ashley Leary dressed up as Kanye West (hip hop artist) and Taylor Swift (country singer). There was a big controversy at the MTV Video Music Awards when Taylor won an award and Kanye hopped up in front, stole her microphone and announced that Beyonce should have won instead. Everyone was outraged. I think the costumes are hilarious.

James and I made sure to take some pictures with our good friends Dave and Lynn Gertiser (in the red and orange shirts in the above and below pictures). They are in our class and will most likely be moving to Italy so we'll miss them! =^(