Ryan and Lacey's Wedding

This past weekend we had the opportunity to fly up to Lake Tahoe

for Ryan Worrell's wedding. Ryan is one of James' best friends.

They met while at the Academy, and went on a road trip to see a baseball game in every major league stadium before heading down and starting pilot training in Del Rio. While in Del Rio, both James and Ryan became good friends with Greg Balzhiser, who introduced Ryan to his younger sister Lacey. They started dating a few months before our wedding in 2008 and the rest, as they say, is history.

Luckily, James managed to get most of the day on Friday off so we could fly up there in time to catch the end of the rehearsal dinner. All of the wedding festivities took place at the Northstar Resort at Tahoe, which is a pretty ritzy ski resort. All of the wedding party had hotel rooms up there, and the rehearsal dinner was held at a restaurant there in the village complex. Because it's the off season, we had the entire resort to ourselves on Friday night, which was really cool.

Ryan and Lacey gave each member of the wedding party a very unique but useful gift. They are both very outdoorsy people, so they had some fleeces embroidered with a little double knot symbolizing their union. That definitely came in handy as James refused to pack a legitimate coat even though we knew it would be in the 20's and 30's there at night.

After the rehearsal dinner, we all headed up to the giant suite that Greg (who got to serve as the best man) reserved to hang out with friends as they arrived. It was great to see many of our other AF friends who went to other bases after Del Rio. We also got to meet some new people and make new friendships, which is always fun. Ryan and Lacey are such silly, fun people that it would have been really hard for someone not to enjoy the weekend. =^P

James' and my good friend Ren Cowan was commissioned to do Lacey's hair and make up, just like she did mine for my wedding, so we got to spend a good amount of time together this weekend. I also had a special treat on the morning of the wedding. Apparently their official photographer was only hired to take pictures of the ceremony and reception, so I got to be the one who took all of the pictures of Lacey and the girls getting dressed. You can check out the photography blog for all of the nice pictures of the wedding. Lacey has already looked through all of them and loves them so I think it was time well spent.

The ceremony was held on a grassy area overlooking the ice skating rink at the resort. Thankfully, it was warm in the sunshine so the ladies were able to comfortably wear dresses. It was a beautiful ceremony that was specifically designed to honor family. Lacey's father not only walked her down the aisle, but he actually officiated the ceremony. They had Ryan's father read the scripture and pray for them. Also, the first thing the bride and groom did upon reaching the altar was give a large, red rose to each other's mothers. Greg got to be the best man and support the union of his little sister and one of his best friends. Over all it was very touching. James and I were so honored that they asked us to take a part in their wedding.

After the ceremony, I stuck around with James until the pictures with the wedding party were over. We amused ourselves by taking some pictures in front of the beautiful fall foliage. It was so refreshing to see real trees and experience my favorite season - if only for 2 days. Then we rode the Gondola up the mountain to a lodge where the reception was held.

While we waited for Ryan and Lacey, I got a chance to hang out with all of the other wonderful AF spouses/fiancees. We are very blessed to be a part of such a great community of Christian couples! When the happy couple finally arrived, they did a traditional saber arch, and then proceeded inside for a delicious Italian buffet, dancing, cake and making memories! As wedding favors, they gave everyone a little packet of smores ingredients and a fleece blanket so, if you needed a break from dancing, you could head outside and sit around one of the many fire pits up there and make a tasty snack!

One of James' favorite parts of the weekend was being reunited with Luke Rogers, who was one of his closest friends at the Academy. We haven't seen him since the night before James and Ryan took off on their baseball trip, so James made sure to spend lots of quality time catching up. Hopefully it will be less than three and a half years before we see him again!

The morning after the wedding, we woke up late, had a hearty breakfast with our friends, and wandered around the village shops before driving back to the Reno airport. It was not a cheap weekend by any means, but it was 100% worth it to be there to celebrate the union of two or our favorite people.

Cold Tangerines

Lately I've been almost exclusively reading through heavy, substantive books on faith - which is great, but I've been craving something light and uplifting. So, tonight, I decided to pick up one of my favorite "feel good" books and read through it as we're traveling this weekend. It's called Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist. James' mom Nancy gave it to me as a graduation gift. I talked about it in a blog post a few months back, in my list of great books that I highly recommend to my female friends.

You may be surprised to hear that it was Cold Tangerines that originally inspired my blog. The book is full of stories of the small ways God has revealed his love and grace throughout her life. It is difficult to read this book and not get the itch to sit down and write about your life. Her honest, positive, creative energy is quite contagious. So, I felt inspired and convicted to start documenting my life and, in the process, make myself think about how God was working in me and my marriage no matter how uneventful my days seemed.

The last time I read all the way through the book was the week after our honeymoon. We were out in Pensacola, FL for James' water survival, and I didn't have much to do during the day but sit on a park bench outside of our hotel room and read. This little orange book completely sucked me in and gave me a new perspective on marriage and how to find true joy in any circumstance (a very important lesson for any AF spouse!)

This time through, I feel like I can relate to her even more now that I've been married for a while. In each story she tells, I see a little of myself or my friends and all the things that we struggle with. I'm struck by the truth that she speaks about the way we women think and react to different things, and how we are never finished learning or growing. It's an enjoyably challenging read. :-)

Again, I was inspired to take a look back at all I've been through since saying "I do" and reflect on how God has been working in me. I went back and looked through all of my old blog posts and was surprised to see that, already, I had forgotten about some of the things James and I have done! Initially I was writing about my efforts to be a good house keeper, and learning to work as a team in our home. Now that all seems like second-nature and I'm more concerned about what we're doing outside the home (with jobs and friends and church). I spent a lot of time complaining about being bored and wishing I had something purposeful to do with my time. Now I feel like time is slipping through my fingers much too quickly and I'm not able to accomplish all that I need to do! We've experienced a lot of exciting firsts - first vacation as a family, becoming an aunt and uncle for the first time, having our first Christmas in our own home, renting a home for the first time, and buying me my first car. We've also been through some rough times with innumerable health problems and long work hours (for James) and anxiety over an uncertain future. But over all I'd say that we've had a very full and joyful life together so far and I'm really looking forward to writing about what comes next! So stay tuned for more of my musings on life's little moments... I intend to keep this up for a long time.

Anna's Engagement Shoot

One reason I was so set on staying healthy last week was that I was scheduled to take engagement photos for a friend of mine on Saturday. We already had to reschedule once due to health issues, so I was dreading having to call her and tell her that, somehow, James and I had managed to contract the swine flu and would have to push her shoot back another couple of weeks. Thankfully, I was feeling well enough on Saturday morning to keep our appointment.

Anna Crawford was a friend of mine from InterVarsity at SIUC. She was in my small group, and we also hung out on weekends sometimes. She graduated at the end of my first year out there and got a job here in Phoenix as a speech pathologist. When I moved out here in April, we made sure to go grab some coffee and catch up. I was excited to hear that she had met a guy through her small group at church and they were engaged. Not one to miss a business opportunity, I offered to take her engagement photos. She said she would love to have me do that, but wanted to wait until the fall when it got a bit cooler outside. So, after waiting 5 months, we finally got to go out and capture their romance on camera!

Saturday morning, we met up at a beautiful park in the city of Peoria (about 20 minutes north of here) and walked around for a couple of hours, taking advantage of all of the pretty scenery. I also enjoyed getting to know her fiancee Joshua a little bit and hearing about how they met. It's always exciting to hang out with other God-centered couples and hear how He brought them together in unexpected but perfect ways. :-)

You can check out the majority of their pictures on my photography blog.

http://kzwentzelphotography.blogspot.com/

Surviving Swine Flu

As some of you may have heard, James came home early from work last Tuesday after (tentatively) being diagnosed with swine flu. He had complained of a tickle in his throat the night before, but other than that seemed to be fine. I'm sure you can imagine my shock when he called around lunch time saying he had a fever, chills, sore throat and a throbbing headache. He went and saw the flight doctor, who said that he had had H1N1 (officially tested & confirmed) the week before and verified that James' symptoms were exactly the same. However, since he is a strong, healthy person, they didn't feel the need to test him in hopes of getting some of the special H1N1 medication for him. Instead, they sent him home with a couple blue face masks (one for each of us) and put him on crew rest for the rest of the week.

As soon as I heard the diagnosis, I went to work preparing for a desperate war on germs. I have a much weaker immune system than James so we wanted to do everything we could think of to protect me from this virus. I went out and bought a big tube of disinfecting wipes, his & her's bottles of hand sanitizer, an extra tube of Airborne (herbal immune system booster), and a bunch of chicken soup and an ice pack for my poor husband. I did everything I could to take care of him, but most of the time I kept my distance. I did my best not to touch anything he'd touched unless we disinfected it first, and I washed my hands constantly. Seriously - I think I went through half a bottle of liquid dial soap in less than a week. James also insisted on camping out on the couch for four days instead of sleeping in the bed next to me and breathing on me all night. I hated to banish him to the living room, but all of our germophobic measures seem to have worked because I still haven't come down with the flu!

We're hoping it will stay that way until after this weekend because we are flying out to Lake Tahoe for our good friend Ryan Worrell's wedding. He was the one who went on the baseball trip with James after they graduated from the Academy. He honored James with an invitation to be a groomsman, and was understandably worried as soon as he heard what James had. Thankfully God was faithful and protected us in our time of need. Thanks to all who prayed for us!!

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.