College D-Day....

Well, I always knew this day would come but I didn't know how weird it would be to come home and really not have my sister nearby! Friday, the 15th of August, we began the LONG treck to Lubbock to move Hillary into her dorm room! Hillary and I had GREAT sister bonding time following mom and dad. We laughed, sang, talked, and she slept from pulling an all nighter making sure everything was packed! The night before we left we had the "last supper" as a family at mom and dad's. I asked her if there was anything she wanted me to do for her in her dorm room and she suggested for me to make her a smaller bulletin board for her large one. SO....off to Hobby Lobby I went! All I knew was 'black and pink' which was different in my mind....every other Red Raider I've ever known is obsessed with BLACK and RED but maybe not in their dorm room attire. I made it simple but she really liked it so it was good. The picture to the right was when I said "see you later" because I NEVER say goodbye's! She is doing great! She went through rush the next week and is now officially a Alpha Delta Pi. Her first day of school was today and she said she didn't get lost. She found the Walgreen's to get her perscription refilled. She knows where the Old Navy, Freebird's and Wendy's is. AND she even drove 2 hours after googling to go visit my dad this weekend at his hunting lease! GO Hillary with independence! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU! And I miss you terribly. See you in 5 weeks! 

Back home and Diseased....

Okay, so here I go again not posting.....BUT.....I have a really good reason! When we returned home from Nicaragua (which was over a month ago) I became REALLY sick with a lovely parting gift in the form of a Bacteria Infection. It was the sickest i've EVER been...it was truly awful. My doctor began to strip my immune system with high powered meds. Let me tell you the ONLY good thing about this was that I was in the comfort of my OWN home and was able to hug my OWN toilet! About the trip.....no words can even say what went on in the lives of our students and adults on the trip. It's all about the HEART-change and it was ETERNAL! My heart is GOD-geared towards missions and reaching out to people in our "big world" so this is always UP my alley, however, what was a special part about this particular trip was that my mom and sister were on it! This picture was taken on the day we left in the Austin airport. I have special memories I hold dear from every overseas trip I've been on but this one will even be more special in the fact I shared it with them! 

OFF to Nicaragua....

Well, I've semi caught up on my blogs! I have been overwhelmingly busy and needless to say have had NO time to keep up with this. We leave for Nicaragua in the a.m. My heart is thrilled and leaping inside to watch Jesus show UP and show OUT! I'm excited beyond words to watch God at work in the lives of our team. There's been a ton of preparation that's gone into this trip and now it's ALL ABOUT HIM! He is going to have amazing and wonderful things take place this next week....I believe it! These trips ALWAYS do something very special in my heart! These are some last minute pix of prep time this week for packing trunks and VBS team. Please pray alongside us for an AWE-inspiring trip! We will come home with MANY, many memories! Check back to see pix when I get home.....

Movie Day with the Boys...

When I was gone for Student Camp I missed my boys so much! They kept wondering when "Daddy and Aunt Holly" were coming home....Alf and Mar had to take our "Camp Chefs" to San Antonio to fly home the day after we got home so of course I JUST HAD to spend some time with them! Off to the Mall and the movies we went. Wall-E had come out while we were at South Padre and Barrett and Brock wanted to see it SO.....that's where we went! It was a VERY cute movie! Brock kept saying "it was hilarious" and Barrett NEVER moved. His eyes were glued to the screen the entire movie! Oh, how I'm going to miss them while in Nicaragua...maybe another movie will come out while I'm gone! :-) 

Fun with Brooke.....

Well, after "Aunt Holly Date Day" with Abby and Karly, Brooke and I had "date night." We have so much fun when we are together! We can talk forever and laugh till it hurts....it's such a blessing to have her as one of my dearest and best friends. While we were at dinner Brooke started telling me about her idea to make some shelves for the girls rooms. So....OFF to Hobby Lobby we went! And an hour later we had our project in the making! The below is the result of our creative juices. I can't wait to see them hanging in the girls room on my next trip to Ft. Worth! Nor can I wait for Brooke and I's next "date night!" 

Hearts bound for Nicaragua

Yesterday we had our first official "work day" for our Nicaragua VBS team! We've been meeting, planning, and praying for several months now but today we started to truly begin to "see" what we are going to be doing with the children of Emmanuel, the barrios (village) we will be serving in. When I was in Nicaragua back in September, Emmanuel was the very first barrios that the planning team visited. That place captured our hearts from the start. The kids were glued to us and we were glued to them. Many of them had never seen themselves before so the cameras started flashing and kids began to see pictures of themselves for the first time. Their smiles were larger than life! This barrios was extremely muddy and there were so many children without shoes and clothes. Emmanuel is one of the poorest villages in Managua and fairly newly established. It has only been where it is for 2 years. When we visited villages that were 5, 7, and even 10 years old you could definitely see the difference. Some of the pix below show the team visiting Emmanuel when we were there in '07. Bruce and the guys helped several ladies at the water pump fill their buckets. It was amazing that the people in the barrios came from all over just to simply get water from this pump. In the picture I lost my sunglasses to the young girl in the green skirt. She tried them on and I never got them back. She thought she was so "cool" with them on.

I'm so proud of our VBS team and how they are already allowing God to prepare their hearts for this trip. 90% of our team of 47 has never been out of the country (including adults)! It is already proven to be such a faith journey for many. Every time I have traveled overseas I pray and ask the Lord to give me a scripture for my personal promise and encouragement. It's interesting what the Lord clearly gave me for this upcoming trip. Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly BEYOND all that we ask or think, according to HIS power." I fully believe that the Lord not only gave this as a prayer to my own heart but a prayer for me to pray over EVERY single person on our team! I'm believing God will show UP and show OUT to every single person in such a personal way! Below are some pix from the work day yesterday! It's so neat to watch the unity of our VBS team come together now that we are really at the stage of "preparing." There were such sweet spirits in amongst the kids as they worked yesterday as well as when they left and carried the buckets with work needed to still be done home with them!Stay tuned....I'll keep updating with Nicaragua information. For now, we leave on July 12th....continue to pray that God will "shower his favor" on each individual heart whether it's a financial, health, or spiritual need!

WHEW.....

That's what I feel like the past three weeks have been since I've posted. My sister is officially a high school graduate and life is about to change dramatically for her moving away from home and starting college! We had so much fun (my ENTIRE family) creating the scrapbooks for the church friends that Hillary has literally grown up with. Check out the pix. My dad officially has "cropping and matting" down. My mom officially understands what "embellishing" means. And my sister.....she can do it ALL! :) It was definitely a great time of family bonding! YEAH! I also painted frames for a few of her friends that we didn't have enough pictures of to create an entire book. The only bad thing about all this is that it has delayed my own graduation gift to my sister of her OWN scrapbooks I was making for all of her highschool years.

The Leuschner's are one of my favorite families and are precious to me! Michelle and the girls came over to hang out one night a few weeks back while Blane was out of town. We were also finishing Camryn's teachers End of the Year Scrapbook. I was showing them my fun camera on my computer and this was one of our pictures

Yes, there are twins in the picture but definitely NOT 6 children :)! Michelle got a small taste even through a picture of the overwhelming feeling of having more than the 3 she's blessed with! Such a FUN night!

Over Memorial Day Weekend we went down to the Condo for several days of fun and rest. Garrison, my precious adopted nephew went with us! I think he thought it was so cool that he got one on one time with Papa Rich, Momma T, Aunt Holly, and Hill without 5 other siblings yanking at the strings! He was such a blast to be with. This is our infamous picture we took outside of one of the stores in Port A. Such a fun memory!

Busy, Busy....getting married!

well, sad to say i haven't made a post in now 2 weeks shows just how busy my life has been. sometimes i wonder how these blogs of young moms with children have a post everyday. my assumption is they are all usually still saved by the usual morning or afternoon naps their precious children take! :) i have to say though that i absolutely love reading their blogs each and every day seeing what's new. for my friends that live far away it makes me feel as if i'm right there in the same town....well, not really but you get the idea! 

so, let's see to catch you up. OLC is out which was a huge relief, however, full force for summer months ahead around the church gives little time for a break. i am headed for the beach this weekend to enjoy a relaxing and restful Memorial Day weekend! 

last week i made a HUGE adjustment in my life and for that choice i'm still suffering today. sometimes i wonder why we make decisions that affect our lives in such great ways. changes are always hard and can be difficult to overcome. i believe in time i will deal with it and gain a great sense of success. the decision was a hard one but i'veheard from many that i will be very plesed with my WISE choice....so are you ready....i bought a MacBook Pro! 

it's been fun trying to learn ething. my friend has a MacBook for Dummies book that she's going to bring me. hopefully it will help this dummy here learn a few things about how ething functions. i've heard that the AppleQ button becomes your best friend. if that's the case, i'm in a true need of getting out and finding something worthwhile to spend my time on! :)

as i've said before, my dear friend rhiannon and i swap creative ideas and so when i was in ft. worth back over spring break i saw a new idea that i wanted to come home and make for my mom for mother's day. well, it was a success and it was fun. take a look at it below....it's always fun to play around with family trees. i thought it would be cool to do more than just us but i didn't have time to collect pix of everyone. i'm still in knee deep in scrapbooks for my sister. we've now started on 5 girl books and 5 guy books of lifelong church friends (of which many of them have been friends since birth)! it's fun but i'm ready to do some of my own scrapping on my 30th year book! maybe in a few weeks. 

okay.....so i know that all of you have probably scrolled all the way through this without really reading it just to see why i got married and didn't invite you! Ha! well, my dreams came true last weekend as i went to go spend time with Mar and my sister at the new Patrick Dempsey movie. i have ALWAYS been a McDreamy fan long before Grey's Anatomy and all the way back to Can't Buy Me Love. this was the ultimate ending to such a "dreamy" relationship. there he was waiting for me standing outside the theatre as we walked in. he had the same smile on his face as the first time i ever saw him. he's such a charmer. 

anyway.....just thought you would all want to know that now in my dreams i'm officially "Holly Dempsey." yes, that is just in my dreams....and someday i'll get help for dealing with the fact that i'm really not married to him. for now, just let me dream!

well, there ya have it for now! that should catch you up! 

 

time with the boys.....

this weekend alfred and maranatha went to a conference in dallas so i kept up with the little kiddos while they were gone. we had SO much fun! friday we went to the park with johnna and william and then afterwards we went to the splash pad. barrett could spend all day there if i would have let him. he absolutely LOVES it! he is non-stop while he's there....brock on the other hand just cracks me up when we go b/c he's so checking this water thing out! i'm not quite sure what he thinks about water spouting up from the ground. he's hilarious how he'll try to fill his bucket up but stand 5 feet away as to if he doesn't want a single drop of water to get on him! he loves it there as long as he's far away from the splashes of water! we went out on the town for a pizza dinner together on friday night and then went to make mom a surprise for Mother's Day! i just always love being with my boys...the bring me such joy and keep me laughing. when we were eating dinner on friday night this man walked into the pizza place holding a dog and barrett said, "i don't want that dog in here." mom and i started laughing at his reaction....he was so serious! he said it again and was adamant so i asked him why he didn't want the dog in there and he looked at me and said "i just don't....tell him i'm allergic!!" JUST LIKE HIS DADDY....I'm telling you! we just sat at the table and laughed!

on saturday which was NATIONAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY if you didn't know :) i spent some time enjoying my therapy! i broke down and went to archiver's to buy myself something new that i could enjoy. i've been debating over buying this for quite some time now and i just broke down and did it! i absolutely LOVE it! it's the greatest way to display all my stickers and embellishments in a way that they are categorized and out in the open! i think i may just go buy me another one. it makes me feel like i'm shopping in my own room when i'm turning it looking for just what i need to make a perfect page!

7 Random Things....

my sweet, precious friend, Leslie made a post on her facebook about random things about herself so i thought it would be fun to put it on my blog. these are probably random things you could care less to even know about me but hey....it's the random, little things we wish we knew about people sometimes!

1. i have a bad habit of not hanging up my clothes each day so when i finally break down and spend time doing it; it usually takes an hour!
2. i sleep with 8-10 pillows every night depending on how many end up on the floor by morning
3. i love flashy and big necklaces
4. i grew up playing kickball and still dream about when we won state 3 years in a row
5. i would give anything to be a kid again and make mudpies while playing in the rain
6. the one thing i absolutely hate with a passion is having to stick my hand down the garbage disposal in the sink when something is stuck...UGH!
7. i LOVE to cook, however, don't do it.....it's SO HARD to cook for ONE and I hate leftovers!

Okay, Steph....I'm ready to read yours next :)