Shari and Jesse's wedding

What can I say about Shari and Jesse's wedding? It was great! We were definitely honored to stand up for Shari and Jess =). Terry was twice honored to give the message for their marriage... And I'll tell you what, it was a really phenomenal message. And I'm not just saying that b/c I "should" since I'm his wife and all. It was so great. It definitely added to the specialness of the ceremony.
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Okay, so back up. We arrived Thursday. I viewed Shari's final, stunning dress fitting and got my first real pedicure and manicure w/the other three bridesmaids, Rosanne, Jamie and Anna.

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Waiting to be pampered...

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Friday was mostly spent at the church decorating. The fellowship hall in the basement looked much better than at our wedding, which was at the same church. Then of course was the rehearsal. Noah was to be their ring bearer but had a really difficult time practicing. He just wouldn't do it for whatever reason - tiredness, new people, I really don't know. It added some stress to the practice, but it turned out all right for the real deal, thankfully.

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For the rehearsal dinner we had a barbecue at a shelter in Canyon Lake Park. It was a nice, laid back affair. After putting the kids to bed at my parents, I went out w/the girls to Ruby Tuesday. I know I'm a pastor's wife and all, but I had my first margarita. It was just okay... They didn't blend it. Then we had a lot of fun in their hotel room. I haven't had that much fun in so long - I seriously can't remember when.

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Saturday, I spent a lot of time getting ready. As an aside, I really don't know how women daily spend that much time on their appearance. The curling of the hair and the extra make up... It's just not for me. But it was fun to look really nice for the wedding. By the time I got to the church, Shari was ready and it was time for pictures. Shari and Jesse saw each other beforehand, but did it in a really special way. No one else but the photographers were allowed in the sanctuary. Jesse was at the alter w/his back turned. As Shari began walking down the aisle, he turned around and the photographers captured both of their reactions. None of us watched, though we could have, disobediently. It took a lot of self control not to peek!

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We took tons of pictures which reminded me how tired of smiling I got at my own wedding. I could never be a model - all that fake posing and smiling. Ug.

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The wedding began at 2pm. I was SO excited. Shari had waited a long time for this day and I was just so happy for her. .
Noah and Kynlee (Terry's cousin's eldest) did a fantastic job and ring bearer and flower girl. Of course, we did bribe Noah. We got him a brand new Thomas train for doing so well!

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As I said already, the ceremony was amazing. It was just so moving. You could palpably tell that God was in their union. Before we left the get-ready-room to line up, Jamie offered me a tissue to hide in my bouquet but I declined b/c I don't usually cry for these kinds of things. But the look on Jesse's face as he listened to Terry's message and the music, studying Shari's face was just indescribable. I felt like I was intruding on something private. So...I cried a little =).

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The reception was quite fast, or at least it seemed like it to me. I missed some of the best man's hilarious speech (he gave Jesse bikini briefs =) b/c Evie came over and spit up her entire huge mouthful of peanuts on my dress. Classic.

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And then they were gone. That part always makes me a little sad for whatever reason. It's probably a little kinda strange and selfish, but I always do get a little bummed when they leave.

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Terry and I drove separate so he could leave Sunday morning for Jr. Challenge camp at Maranatha. I stayed til Wednesday. This way I was able to see Shari and Jesse open gifts Monday evening - they didn't leave for their honeymoon to Redlodge, Montana til that Friday. We got them a nice clock and lamp off their registry. I was glad too. They got a lot of kitchen stuff, which is course necessary but not as fun for setting up house.

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Oh, and just to reiterate just how great and moving the wedding was... The photographer and his wife came to Terry's parents church the next morning. He said he came b/c he'd never been to a wedding like that, ever, and wanted to see what kind of church would have such a wedding. What a testimony!

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If you want to see all my pictures, I put most of them on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110427&id=610031113&l=e2c77c56fb

Ern and Ang

Ernesto and Angie Alaniz arrived late Thursday night, July 9th. They are our friends that recently became missionaries to the Dalit people in India.
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They were in India for six months and have just returned for a short break. They arrived in Chicago like two days before and drove straight here. We definitely were honored to receive them. We had missed them and had a great time.
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Friday night Terry and some youth group kids planned a party at The Building for Ern and Ang. It was great fun. I made a huge video that is at the end, but here are some pictures if you don't want to watch 10 minutes of funness.

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The Party

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Ern and Ang have had to eat rice and vegetables with only their right hand for the last six months... We thought we'd treat them. Ernesto ate that whole steak it was so tasty!

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We also played many games in reference to their work in India. Here Ernesto is deep in thought b/c he has to guess the title of a blog he or Angie wrote based just on a couple sentences students read to him. He started out w/six Cokes. If he guessed wrong, he lost a Coke. If he guessed right, he got one back that he had lost. It was harder than you'd think.

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They brought back Indian breath freshers that resembled dried herbs. It looked like fennel seeds to me. You had to chew them up and swallow them. Here is Terry's reaction:

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This is just a shot of The Building and the kids and adults that were there. Most were outside at this point, I think.

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They are reading a card we signed for them.

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These boys are playing a obstacle course that was supposed to be like Gladiators in India. But really, the only part that was like India was the ice cream they had to scoop and eat w/only their right hands. Except there's no ice cream in India...

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All the kids wrote down questions for them to answer.

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Noah is eating an ice cream cone, obviously.

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I didn't get any pictures from the best game of the night b/c I had to go home to put our kids to bed. The students all had to impersonate Ernesto's "Your mom is an astronaut" song that he sings at the end of all his India movies. Thankfully, Terry got all the footage, which you can see in our video, along w/much more. But that definitely was the best part =). Such a good idea.

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Saturday we all went for an eight hour double date. We got coffee, ran errands at Walmart (which was a little overwhelming for the Alaniz's!), ate at Applebees and watched Public Enemies b/c we all enjoy movies quite a bit. We opted for that over Transformers II and I'm glad we did. Anyway, we had such a nice day w/them. It was definitely hard to say good bye. We have a great time w/them and miss them already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLJeFbSJKVQ

things i should have known about laundry...

That's right. I should've known better than to let these two mistakes take place.

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Mistake #1: Washing jeans w/shirts. Rather, washing unzipped zippers together in the same load as things you would rather not get torn up. For the longest time I thought I had some kind of moth that would do this to my clothes. When I mentioned it to my mom, she knew my offense. She knew that she had taught me better...

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Mistake #2: Apparently you can't soak a knit shirt in mostly bleach for too long. That must have been the problem, it was just for too long? I began soaking it on Monday and remembered it today as I started laundry. It looked fine in the bucket but when I put my hand in to grab it out, it just tore apart. I have no idea if the bottle would have warned me of this taking place. But why would I read that?

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Mistake #3: Apparently I shouldn't blog while Evie is awake. Or, I must remember to make sure all toilet lids are shut. You can guess what happened. I'm typing away at this and hear the splash of water. She was in the guest bath playing in the toilet. Hope the Thompson's remembered to flush!

life verse?

Excuse me as I make this post all about me - my journal, my thoughts.
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Lately I'm in this big battle for my faith. I'm learning all this great stuff and it comes w/a fight. It seems there's always something I'm struggling with, struggling through. There's always something someone says or something I read or something I see that gets me. Even this morning there's something and that's why I'm here.

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" But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. " Philippians 3: 7-9

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I was just reading about these verses in this book that I've almost devoured in a few days, "Tired of Trying to Measure Up" by Jeff VanVonderen. These verses have been at the forefront of my mind for a while and the chapter I read was more or less a lot about them. As I was making Noah and Evie's lunch, I thought about how Paul had it all before he was a Christian. He was such a good man. I mean, he lists all that he had going for him to put confidence in:

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"If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless (Phil 3: 4-6)."

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From my book, "God confronted Paul with his need for Jesus. I think the more good works we have going, the harder it is to know, or to remember, that our only hope is God. It's not just that 'things go better with Jesus.' Jesus said, 'Apart from Me you can do nothing.' (John 15:5) "

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I completely agree w/Jeff here. My daily life testifies for me. I'm always upset w/the daily reminders that I'm not as good as so-and-so, that I'm not a better wife or mother, that I'm not as creative, that I'm not as busy. The list really does go on and on. So when I say that there are things that I struggle w/daily, I mean it. These short-comings distract me. They make me think that if I can get them, I will finally be satisfied.

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But the thing is, I think I will praise God for not allowing me to succeed in all the ways I wish to. I thank Him that I am a failure. He never lets me succeed. I'm always doing a bang up job at whatever, or at least that's what I hear in my mind. And God uses these condemning thoughts to point me to Him. Thank God for my failure b/c it's bringing me to Him. He knew I meant it when I prayed (over and over and over and over) to know Him better. He's just not fast enough for me =). But he knows what He's doing, in His time, not mine.

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So I thank you Lord that I am not who I want to be, contrary to what most of the church and even Switchfoot would have been strive for. B/c if I was all that I desired, I would have no need for You. I would have self-righteousness and a fleeting, empty sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. Thank you that I can't glory and put confidence in my flesh (my marriage and how we should be more "made for each other", how good my kids are, how good other people think I am, how busy I am, how right my doctrine is, how nice my house is, how "right" I am in every single area of my life - like I said, I fail at all these things) b/c it's dung, refuse, crap and s___. I say the word in my head b/c it's true. Told you my flesh isn't perfect. I get annoyed w/my husband and my kids too. But God still loves me as I'm learning.

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My own sense of satisfaction and fulfillment and approval and acceptance and love must come from Christ and Him alone. I can't do this good looking flesh stuff. I just can't keep up. And thank God for that.

****In our Christian circles we think that we have bad testimony's because we were never really "that bad." But Paul was as close to perfect as you can get. I mean, he was the man. Before he was a Christian and especially afterwards, he did everything "right." But God showed up and showed Paul that even his religious activities didn't matter. It didn't matter how good he was. It didn't matter how "right" he was, how he did everything "right." It doesn't matter for me either. I doesn't matter how good or how bad I am. All that matters is Jesus.

jump like a frog

Who would have thought that the day Noah wore his shirt that says, "Jump like a frog," that we would actually see one. A frog that is.

Apparently there are lotza frogs here. I think if that's true then our yard is the exception.

We went on a bike ride Thursday night before Ernesto and Angie got here. We didn't get very far b/c this crazy good college marching band, the Colts, was giving a performance at the high school. I didn't hear the whole story but they said they always stop here b/c in 1999 when they had a fire in one of their trucks, the community helped to rebuild it. So they were here. We stopped our bikes to watch. We found a frog. I've always loved frogs. I killed a lot of them from over-playing w/them as a child. We wouldn't let the kids hurt this one though.

Terry took some video w/his phone and emailed it to himself. Here it is, though the quality is pretty bad. It's still cute to see what you can of their responses, but mostly to hear the squeals of excitement from little Evester.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTJsHAlQRsg

N&A wedding video

I tried and tried to put this up on facebook... Since that wouldn't work, I put it on youtube and sent it to the wedding party. Now I'm putting it on my blog for safe keeping! Enjoy!

The song this video is set to is the recessional, what they walked out to after the pronouncement of Nathan and Ana Kveene. Mathew West's "More."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6PCJzAmSek

Evie's swimming lessons

Evie had her first swimming lessons this week every day from noon - 1pm. Noah had these last year as they're for 6 month olds thru 3 years old. He was quite big but Evie is just right.

My friend Kristin instructs the class and the moms help the kids to do the actions. So it's like parent led. We sang songs, went down the slide, jumped from the side, blew bubbles and floated around trying to get them to kick. The basic idea was just to get them used to the water.

Evie did pretty well. She wasn't afraid. She seemed to think she could swim all by herself. Yeah, not so safe.

Anyway, here are a few photos that Terry took today, the last day. I also spliced together a video. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6l3EjjZohs

Noah's fall(s)

Noah has hit his head TWICE this week. Although it may look like just two falls in these photos, it was really only one.

And it seems strange b/c I thought he was out of the falling down stage that Evie is in. Evie seems to bump her head daily and somehow she's still alright. For instance, I was swinging w/Noah on my lap at the park today. Evie was coming up behind me so I got off so I wouldn't hit her. While I was untangling myself from Noah's long legs, the swing kept going, although it was a pretty gentle swing. The plastic part bonked her head and she's got a nice bruise there now.

So what happened to Noah? He was playing like a monkey and was climbing all over daddy's back on our front porch steps (there are only 2 of them). Daddy was trying to get him off b/c it was quite irritating while he was talking on the phone. But Noah wasn't cooperating and he fell off as Terry got up. He kinda fell down the two steps and bonked his head right on the concrete. Apparently he hit his nose as well. I thought it would bruise bad, but it's just scratched.
That fall on was Sunday. He actually tripped again but these photos were taken before that happened. On Monday he tripped while walking up the stairs to the water slide at the pool. That fall left a bruise on the bridge of his nose and more scratches. Daddy was in the water waiting to catch him so he had nothing to do w/it. So you know we're not child abusers b/c who would put proof up on their blog?

July 4

We were invited to our friends' cabin for the 4th of July - Royce and Brenda, which is also the chiropractor =). There are a couple of popular lakes around here and lotza people have cabins on them. I don't even remember which one we went to but we've been to both. I think I like theirs best.

It was a great time and I even got in the water towards the end! No pictures of that thankfully! But here are some of everyone else =)

I'm painting Evie's toenails red to be patriotic and match mine (I did her fingers too but that didn't go as well). She does pretty good at staying still, mostly b/c she's interested, not b/c she knows to. If she sees me painting mine, she whines and hollers until I do hers too.

Evie needed a life jacket even though she didn't swim b/c the lawn goes right down to the edge of the lake. It drops about 4 feet to the water. It made us all nervous so we kept a close eye on her.

Plus, I had help. Here is Cheryl watching her so I can have a little more freedom.

Doesn't she look funny?

Terry is such a good daddy. He played for hours out in lake w/Noah even though he didn't really want to get wet.

I was really far away but our zoom is pretty good. Terry's tossing the boy.

Noah spent most of his time lounging on this inflated turtle. It was just his size. That way daddy could play w/other kids too b/c there were youth group students there as well.

Emily and Erica check in on Noah.

Even though we've been here for two years, I'm still not used to the fireworks. Everyone shoots off fireworks in town like a week before the 4th. And even after the 4th is over. I'm used to it being illegal to shoot them off in town. But I guess you can here... We bought $5 worth and we got our moneys worth. They were pretty lame =)

Noah plays w/his "paratrooper." The chute didn't open and there wasn't even a guy attached to it, just a card board tube. Noah got to stay up til almost 11pm watching the real fireworks at the lake w/daddy. He left when daddy yawned and Noah said, Let's go home. That's a record for our boy. They never stay up that late! Well, Evie was in bed by like 930 but still.