K#2 Birthday Week

This year, K#2 6th birthday falls on Friday. Pete and I will be at the Leadership Summit until 630 pm that day. So, a little parental guilt on my part. I have never yet not spent the entire day with one of the girls on the birthdays. When I realized this conflict, I asked K#2 if it would be OK if I still went to the Summit but we would go out to dinner for her birthday to the restaurant of her choosing. We rarely go out to eat and if we do, it's normally breakfast or lunch because it's cheaper and quicker. She of course chose Chuck E Cheese's (Or Chuck E Diseases as I prefer to call it).

Aunt Sue and Uncle Jeff won't be around all week-end because Uncle Jeff has a race this week-end. We invited them over tonight for a special birthday dinner with K#2. She has now deemed it her birthday week and is all aglow in the glory. I guess this makes up for being the middle child. Whens she is older and lists all of the ways she was slighted, I can refer her back to her birthday week. Tomorrow night is off to Nanu and Papa's for a sleep-over and special birthday dinner with them. More presents too.

Here is a quick video of her cake and the blowing out of the candle. She said the candle stunk and she just wanted it blow it out the entire time. Check out the cake - it is a chocolate mouse cake with a chocolate basket of chocolate covered strawberries on top of it. I had it so together today that I didn't bother to realize it was a chocolate mouse cake and had it sitting out for a bit today while I started dinner and made room for it to fit into the fridge. It caved in a bit ....

Good Eats

We just got home from a FABULOUS dinner out! A has been on the Communitas Team since the beginning so we've had a lot of time to get to know her. A and C were married at the end of June so we are just getting to know C. With their honeymoon and a new apartment and adjusting to a new life, we haven't been able to see each other. Tonight they invited us over to their apartment for a home cooked meal.

I asked A what could I bring. She said well lets talk about the menu. I say well, Pete can't eat pasta, bread, pretty much anything in a package. Can you deal with that? She says, Well that's pretty much how we always eat. Some meat, fresh veggies and fruits, fresh herbs. That's not so hard to work around. Love her! That's is how we like to eat too.

We thought it would be fun to practice what it will be like to socialize in NYC in 850 sq feet. It was so much fun that we went to the park across the street for dessert so the kids could spit out their watermelon seeds there. I pride myself on being a good cook but I generally don't eat anything I cook and therefore end up having salad or cereal for dinner. A and C are SUPER cooks! We loved the meal that they spent all day preparing for us and getting to chat with them wasn't too bad either : )



Yes, that is the bride in the bounce house that you see below. You just gotta love a woman that not only dyes her hair bright pink for her wedding day, but also gets in the bounce house that she had provided for all of the kids at her wedding to play in.

A Better Place To Be

"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Jeremiah 29:7 (NIV)"

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Have you ever been somewhere you didn’t want to be? Maybe it was a job, a town, or a marriage. Maybe it was a stage in life, like singlehood, or a state in life, like a disability. It’s very possible that as you read this, you’re wishing you were somewhere else – anywhere else – living a different life, but you know it’s not likely that anything is going to change any time soon.

God has a word for you. It’s the same word he gave a group of people when they were stuck in another country, exiled from their homeland. They’d folded their arms and said, “We’re going to wait this thing out, and when we get home, we’ll start living our lives.”

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God told them, “You’re not going home any time soon, so start making your lives here. Plant gardens, buy homes, let your children get married, and pray for the peace and prosperity of the place where you’re currently living because, by doing that, you too will be blessed with peace and prosperity” (Jeremiah 29:5-7).

Don’t invest your energy in hopes of leaving; instead invest your energy in the people around you. Don’t be physically present but mentally somewhere else, thinking of the future or the past, thinking of someplace else. Our journey with Jesus requires we be fully present in the present.

You may feel like you’re in exile too, but God is still working in your life; and his message to you is: Dig in and fully embrace the life around you." - Jon Walker

I've been feeling like this a lot lately. Things will change once we get to NYC. I can't wait until we get to NYC. When are we going to get to NYC? I've been missing out on the here and now. I don't want to think like this but what if I never get to NYC. What if this has been all about the process that God has been having me go through and the end result is not NYC? I've put my life 'on hold' so to speak in the last couple of months waiting to leave. I've made the decision TODAY to live for TODAY and not worry about tomorrow or the next day or really the day that we might get to NYC.

I've made the bold move to plan for next month. I've been afraid to do that because 'what if we leave?' I need to trust in God's timing. He knows what plans we have and what plans He has for us. I know it will all work out. What if we do leave? Then everything will work out. Maybe not the way that I want them to, but they will work out.