Eli and Woods

Most of my family and friends know that Ben and I love kids. I talk all about the babies in our family, and people often ask me how they are doing. So, thought I'd blog about our visit to Amanda and Shelby's a few days ago so everyone could see a few pictures.

Ben is so great with kids. I was holding Woods as soon as we got there, but Ben very quickly was holding Eli in his lap and playing with him! Eli is a bit shy at first, so I'm surprised how quickly he warmed up to Ben. I finally let Ben hold Woods for the first time. Woods is already 5 weeks old! Hard to believe.

He is adorable (Woods, not Ben...although wait, yes, Ben too)!!

My camera isn't very good with action shots, so it was hard to get a picture of Eli since he is always on the move. This is the best one I got- he was very serious in that moment about his toy train :) What a cutie!

Amanda looks amazing, and she and Shelby are doing a great job handling the two of them, which was a huge adjustment I'm sure. So amazing how their family has grown so quickly in one year. These kids are so lucky to have a stay-at-home mom and a dad who makes that possible!

13.1

Toward the end of the mini-marathon last year, I was complaining to Jenn that she BETTER not EVER let me do another one of these things EVER again no matter HOW much I say I want to. Of course, when work offered to sponsor employees to run it again, I signed up again. So Jenn agreed to sign up again too. "This year I'll actually train really hard for it," I thought.

Well, of course, I'm still in school, and life is actually busier with the additional responsibilities I've taken on leading Bible Bowl with Ben. I still didn't train well enough to be prepared to run the whole thing without walking, but maybe next year. Last year I hardly ran during the week but would try to get in a long run on the weekends. This year I did more short runs and was a little more consistent with frequency throughout the week, but never did more than 7 miles in a long run training. Not quite enough!! Oh well.

My time last year was about 2:59. My goal this year was 2:45, which I thought was pretty realistic. The whole week leading up to the mini had been rainy and terrible, but the day of was beautiful and sunny, but not hot- absolutely perfect weather! I felt pretty good, too. Had some scrambled eggs with toast and jelly for breakfast and was feeling energized.

Jenn and I ran the first 7 miles straight through. I finally had to stop for a walk, so Jenn decided she would run on ahead since she was still feeling good. I was pretty happy with our time through 7 miles though. From there on a ran and walked, back and forth. As I neared the ending, I pulled out my phone to see how much time was left...less than a minute until 2:45! I had to sprint once I could see the finish line to make it across under 2:45, but I managed- 2:44:55!

Jenn met me at the finish- she had already been there 20 minutes! Ben met me there as well- he fought the crowds to come watch. This was before we had met up on the other side of the fence :)

I ate half a blueberry bagel afterward, and kept saying it tasted funny...only for Ben to point out that it was moldy, so needless to say I didn't eat the other half! Gross. We got a to-go order from Waffle House on the way home, like we did last year, so that made up for it :)

I felt much better this year than I did at the end of last year, so I guess that's a good sign that I was somewhat better prepared. I did have some chafing between my legs...should have used vaseline but forgot!

According to my runkeeper app, here were my times for each mile (funny how they keep getting slower and slower!!!!). Not great at the end, but I was still proud of the outcome.

1) 10:00

2) 10:40

3) 10:52

4) 11:02

5) 11:17

6) 12:18

7) 12:19

8) 13:42

9) 14:08

10) 13:53

11) 13:42

12) 14:02

13) 13:45

14) 11:07

Maybe next time I will shave another 15 minutes off and try for 2:30. That should definitely be possible if I could get a handle on my training!!

Rainbow

After I turned in my last project for the spring semester, I left feeling great, only to get stuck in some traffic on the way home. But, it was totally worth it because I got to get a picture of this AMAZING RAINBOW!!! You could see the whole thing, from end to end, and even a bit of a double rainbow (but I was too close to get the whole thing in the picture). Gorgeous!

"I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." - Genesis 9:13

Homemade Wreath

Inspired by a cute wreath idea I saw on another blog, I decided to recreate it since my front door didn't have anything springy on it. Actually, it didn't have anything on it at all, springy or not. All I needed to buy was some spanish moss and material...I already had the styrofoam wreath (which you can usually get at the dollar store!), hot glue, and ribbon.

Cover the wreath with moss and hot glue it down. By the way, I sprang for the huge bag of moss from Hobby Lobby just in case, and I didn't need nearly that much. But, even the huge bag was only $5.

Now, I followed a tutorial on how to make these flowers, but I found that it really just took trying a few to get the hang of it. So the main thing is just to take a strip of material, start wrapping it in circles as if wrapping it around a spool, and twist the material from time to time as you wrap it. It's hard to understand until you do it.

What I found was that the thicker the material, the better it turned out, so I started folding my strip of material over a few times first to make a thick strip before starting. Some turned out better than others, but really, who cares? They look cute anyway.

I was also very excited by my material- only a few bucks at Hobby Lobby. They have little packs of different pieces of material you can buy from a few dollars up to $10 or so. So handy!

After making several flowers and hot gluing them on to the wreath, I just tied a ribbon around the top to hang it. Pretty simple, but the moss gets everywhere during the making so it is messy!

Overall, I spent about $10 on this wreath, but I have a lot of material and moss left over for another project, so all in all, I'd say it was a good deal!

Easter in LA

We decided about a week in advance that we would go to LA for Easter to visit Ellie and Noah. We found out that Ben's parents and my parents would be out of town, so we figured hey, we should be out of town somewhere too! We went Wednesday night through Sunday and it was so much fun!!

Wednesday night we were greeted LA style with some In-N-Out Burger after being picked up from the airport. YUM! Everything is fresh and the line is long!

Thursday we walked around town, saw Dustin Hoffman walking down the street (and no picture to show for it!!! *sigh*), and watched the presidential motorcade go by on the street where Ellie and Noah live!

Obama was in town for a fundraiser and the helicopter drops him off at a post office down the street. We just went right out from where they live and watched him drive by. They had the roads all blocked off and weren't allowing people on the sidewalk either, so we were lucky to be right there already. Ellie and Noah had rehearsal for the Good Friday service (they are on the worship team and are some of the greatest musicians I've ever heard!), so Ben and I walked around town and got some frozen yogurt at Yogurtland. Ellie made us a great fish dinner and we ended the night with good conversation and some wine (the way most evenings visiting family end).

Friday, Obama went back up the street to be helicoptered away, so this time we just watched from the living room window.

We had a leisurely morning, then went to lunch at this amazing little Italian place called Fritto Misto. All of our food was seriously delicious and we understood why that is one of their favorite places to eat!! Noah's studio is nearby, so he showed us that and let us hear some music he'd written for Falling Skies, a new TV series produced by Spielberg which premieres next month. It was awesome! Can't wait to see it!

We went to the Good Friday service that night, which had beautiful music and was very reverent and quiet, a great way to remember Jesus' death on the cross and reflect on what he went through for our salvation. We ended the night with some Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but I fell asleep...only to wake up and finish some homework I'd been neglecting into the wee hours of the night. But I got to sleep in the next morning since Ellie and Noah had another rehearsal, this time for Easter service.

We drove out to Malibu for the afternoon and had fried fish sandwiches and white wine by the beach. Wow...maybe it was the beach being so close that did it, but those sandwiches were to die for! And look what happened to be carved into the table!

You can't really see it with the lighting in my picture, but the beach is out there somewhere behind Ellie and Ben.

The dessert was equally scrumptious- I had a candied ginger ice cream sandwich, Ben had a key lime pie ice cream sandwich, and Noah had a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. Ellie just nibbled on everyone else's sandwiches. All I can say is YUM-O.

Time in the car to and from Malibu gave us plenty of time to listen to these tapes Ellie and Noah had on personality types. After taking the quizzes and determining that Ben is choleric and melancholy, and I am sanguine and phlegmatic, and analyzing and talking about personality types, and bringing it up again and again in so many conversations...Noah finally reached his "personality-type-discussion" limit so we refrained for the rest of the trip. :)

After some down time back at home and Ellie creaming all of us in a game of Scattergories, we went shopping at a big outdoor shopping area called the Promenade. Dinner was at another great Italian place near their apartment which had delicious bread, but really didn't compare to Fritto Misto!

Sunday was straight to the airport, bright and early. Didn't even get to go to church on Easter Sunday of all things, but so glad we got to celebrate it the whole trip with family!

Sleepover

We had a Bible Bowl sleepover a month or so ago. The guys stayed at our house and the girls went to Lisa's house (she ran the program before us) about a mile away. The girls were low key- only had a few of them and we baked cookies, played a game, and watched 2 movies (well, they watched 2 movies...I couldn't last that late!).

The boys? All I have to say is that Ben sent me this picture around 2am.

Ben is having way too much fun with this Bible Bowl gig!

Egg On My Face

While at church in Atlanta, I overheard the lady in front of me talking about an egg mask to the lady next to her. She said you put the yolk on your face, let it dry for about 15 minutes, this wash it off with warm water. Then you put the egg white on your face, let it dry for about 15 minutes, and wash it off with warm water. I was so intrigued by this conversation that I just joined right in with them.

I later googled it to see if there was anyone else out there doing it, and found tons of stuff about it. Apparently you can add spices or honey or all sorts of stuff to the egg mixture for different benefits. So I decided to try this for myself- straight up egg, none of the mixtures.

I used an organic egg which I would recommend since conventional eggs are more likely to have salmonella and the risk of that with organic, free-range eggs is a lot smaller. I did just what the lady had said and applied the yolk. Apparently the protein in the egg draws out the impurities in your skin. The yolk went on very smoothly and didn't drip or have a funny smell or anything. It felt soft and nice, until it dried- then it was super stiff! I guess that's what most face masks do though. The same thing happened with the egg white- easy to get on, then stiff once dry. The egg white is supposed to tighten your skin and lessen the appearance of pores. Oh, and I had a lot of egg left over, so one egg is definitely all you need.

The result? My face felt extremely smooth, soft, and ex-foliated afterward. I had Ben feel my face, and he said he could feel a big difference. I can't say that I looked any different or that it did anything more than using a facial scrub would do, but hey, the cost of one egg is a small price for a facial! Maybe if I started doing it once a week, I'd see some good results like clearer skin or fewer impurities or something. Give it a try and see what you think!

Party in Atlanta!

Ben and I went to Atlanta a month ago or so to visit Emma, Shanon, and Vera. Vera's first birthday was that upcoming week, so we wanted to celebrate with them. We had such a great time!!! We got there Friday night and had a relaxing evening. Saturday we went shopping, and Ben got some new clothes and shoes (sorry this picture is bad- I had the color setting on my phone all messed up). He got a bunch of stuff because hey, it's vacation, right? :)

We ate at this AWESOME restaurant called Grace 17.20. How appropriate that when we said grace, Vera folded her hands to pray with us! It was so adorable!

Ben had a ginormous sandwich called "The Cluck"...

...it didn't stand a chance against him!

I had a shrimp wrap and the most amazing grits I've ever tasted. I seriously had no idea grits would be something that I would want to stuff my face with and go back again and again for, but that's how I felt about them!

After a lazy afternoon back at the house, lounging in our food comas, Shanon's sister babysat Vera so we could go out. We went to dinner at a Cuban restaurant and had deep discussions about life and marriage and respect. Never a dull moment when the family gets together!

We shopped some more that night and then went for a late-night snack at a place called Holman & Finch. They make 30 burgers a night, which are not on the menu, but if you know about them, you ask your server to get your name in for one. At 10:00, they yell out "Burger Time!" and the first 30 people that had their names in got the burgers. We got one to split, and it was DELICIOUS!

It looks like an average burger in the picture, but it really was the best burger I've ever tasted! Best burger in Atlanta (the Food Network agrees)!

Sorry for the glowing faces...it was dark and the flash was bright!

Sunday we went with Emma and Shanon to their church, North Point. What an amazing place! It just exudes creativity and life.

The hallways leading to the kids' rooms were so much fun! Vera even got her picture with the birthday bear.

The sermon was outstanding! We totally loved it and can see why Emma and Shanon rave about North Point so much.

After a nice lunch, we hit the road. We had a blast and hated that it was such a short trip. Can't wait to see them again soon!

Cupcakes

Coming out of Bible Bowl practice one night, the parents of a high schooler on my Bible Bowl team gave me a box of gourmet cupcakes as a "thank you" for my time with Bible Bowl. I don't think they have any idea how exciting this was to me!!!!!! I admired every single cupcake with such care...and then I ate a bite out of every one of them. :) I did this all week long. It was amazing.

They were from Gigi's- hadn't heard of it, but I'm a big fan now and highly recommend them! The frosting on each cupcake was so delicious and even taller than the cupcake itself! Sounds overwhelming, but it was fab. Seriously.

Break from a Break on Break

That title makes no sense. What I'm trying to say is - I'm so behind on my blogging! My unintended break from blogging was due to overbooking my schedule, as usual. But now I'm on my 1 week break between spring and summer classes, so I intend to do some catching up! Stay tuned for lots of blog posts!