new pages

that lori girl harassed me on IM tonight to scrapbook and I caved. The beach page was already in progress, but it got a little crazy this evening. (I'm thinking crazy in a good way) And the other just fell out of the sky on me. Not sure about the transparency over the scalloped paper, but in my tired brain, it worked. Well, off to bed. Church starts early.

Goodbye.

adios. farewell. au revoire.

at least for a few days.

After much tussle with this horrible DSL connection with Verizon, Rob and I have decided to move on to greener pastures. So the sad part is that there will be no posts for a few days - unless of course I get to desperate and run to Starbucks for a little browsing and recaffeinating. :) But the good news is that when I'm back up and running I'll be running! We'll be with Comcast by the end of next week. yay! So it's not forever, only for a little while. Have a great week ya'll!

(clap clap clap)

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS.

That's where we've spent the bulk of this week. We were approached to take our elementary students to kids camp with the bribe of two nights in San Antonio.

The trip itself was hard and frustrating, but our family time was awesome. I loved San Antonio. I overheard Rob tell some people that it was 'a little too Texas' for him, but I'm starting to think that it can't get too texas for me. :) I did have to laugh, in one particular store there was a banner proudly displaying "Made BY Texans FOR Texans". In case you were wondering whether Texas was it's own country or not... it is.

Highlights of the trip. Hmmm. We took the kids to Rainforest Cafe. They loved, loved, LOVED it. They immediately started begging to go back. It was quite an experience - so far out of our ordinary. Also, walking through the Alamo - it's so rich with history. Stop any native Texan and they can tell you all about it. The Riverwalk. By far that was my favorite. It was cooler down by the water, and it was so romantic. (even with the jabronies) Especially neat after dark. And we totally splurged and took the kids on a horse-drawn carriage ride. It was so special, I'm glad we did. They loved it. Sarah loves animals right now, so she thought Nellie was pretty special. It was just a very special trip and I'm really thankful for our life right now. Still pinching myself. ;)

HAIRSPRAY

I am so excited, today is the day I see Hairspray! Yay!! Zach Effron, Melanie Griffith, Christopher Walken, HERE I COME!!

the garden bloomed ;)

And lookie what we have here. I enjoyed a semi-productive evening of scrapbooking. As it turns out, Kimmie's wedding has been terrific inspiration. A girl is really freed up when she's allowed to work with black and pink in florals! Creativity is just oozing out of my pores, it seems. I've done a bit of lifting here, some heavy inspiration from the garden, but it's good to move beyond my creative constipation and I'm about ready to scrap on my own two feet again! :)

a ringbearer, a flowergirl and two photographers.

Squeezed in one page this afternoon, pretty exciting since that meant Sarah took her first nap since moving to Texas. Praise God! I did start another page, and it's coming along, but I probably won't finish it until tomorrow. I'm hanging out at home tomorrow, tackling laundry and scrapbooking... just laying low. I may not even do my hair. I need a down day.

1st Kim and Ricky Page...

Finally forced myself to stay up a bit and play after the kids went to bed last night. I'm so glad I did, it was super fun and I love the way this page turned out. This certainly won't be the only page from Kimmie's big day, but it was a fun first one.

Oh my United...

Amazing. First of all, Joel Osteen's church is ginormous. That in itself was pretty incredible. The church bought and converted a pro basketball stadium. Wow. Unfortunately, it still feels a little stadium like, but it was great for the concert. I don't think I'd want to go there on Sunday mornings, but that's good since I kind of have a church home. ;) So the stadium was PACKED. An usher told one of our students that there were more than 20,000 people there. And most of them were teenagers or college students. I was cool with that though, sometimes I feel like I fit in better with that crowd. :)
I was supremely disappointed to not see Joel Osteen. I didn't expect him to speak or anything, but I did figure he'd do a welcome to our church kind of thing. I mean, come on, it's UNITED!! Maybe he was on vacation or something, but like I said, it's UNITED! Oh well. Maybe on one of our vacation Sundays we can go check it out, it's only about a forty minute drive.
So then the concert. Wow. These guys are just so talented. It was almost hard to worship, I was so enrapt in watching everything; the lighting, the video, the facial expressions of the singers. One of the guitar (pronounced gi-TAR when you live in TX) players looked so much like Matthew Fox from LOST - I found that a little distracting. But the music was amazing. They did a really good mix of old and new - which was good because I'd barely listened to their new album, simply because we don't have it yet. They did a lot of my favorites, but I was sad that 'One Way' wasn't in there and 'Jesus is my Best Friend.' details.
Speaking of details, I think I forgot to mention that we didn't wind up bringing our children, one of the ladies from the church volunteered to take them for the evening. Yay! So I really got to enjoy the evening.
We stopped at Whataburger on the way home - a Texas specialty. It's our second time eating there and it was really good. Like McDonald's french fries and Burger King burger. yummy.
Overall it was a great evening. I'm so excited about the way things are going with our group. We had eleven students show up for the trip, which was just an awesome turnout, so we are told. I feel like we are really connecting with them. Sunday School went awesomely yesterday and I am so excited to be teaching it. I love how we are such a team here, it makes everything so much more fun! Just really praising God this morning about all He's doing.

I guess we are homeowners.

So Rob and I spent the day working on the house. He toiled in the yard - fighting fire ants and mowing, weedeating and replanting some flowers. It looks great. I spent the day scrubbing floors and bathrooms and just sprucing up the place in general. We did snag a quick photo of us in front of our new home. I love it. I'm looking forward to having a chance to personalize it a bit - some paint and a bit of tlc - but it's totally becoming us and it's a really great fit.

I had a blonde highlight moment today and spaced that I am teaching youth Sunday School starting tomorrow. oops. But we are doing Purpose Driven, so it's pretty easy to pick up. Kind of ironic that I'm teaching out of that book again, we just finished it in the young adults class at HAG. Rob wanted to go through it in youth though, because it's so foundational. It will set the tone for the next phase with these students, and I'm excited (and nervous) to start! I had to laugh, last week I noticed that the church bulletin said "youth pastors - Rob and Anna Thoreson". It's kind of weird to be recognized for my efforts, but I guess they are big about that here. Pastor Larry and Linda have been awesome about having me included in everything, especially staff meetings. I consider it a joy and a privilege and it's so cool to be working hand in hand with Rob.

So tomorrow is a big day. It's our third Sunday at Trinity already, but bigger than that, we go to see United again. I'm so excited! Unfortunately I haven't found anyone to watch the kiddos, so they are going with too, but United with children is far better than no United. I'm pretty psyched, since we never made it to the concert in March. It's crazy though, it's at Joel Olsteen's church. Rumor has it that it's the largest church in the country! James River is the biggest church I've ever been too, so I'm anxious to see what this is like. I haven't read any of Joel's books (although I have a few) but I have seen him on tv a few times and he's real likeable. It's crazy to me that we live close enough Houston to drop in for a concert! Anyhoo, I say all that to say I should have some awesome photos for you tomorrow night!

expo.

Alot on my mind this morning. but mostly just really thankful for expo. This move would have been so much harder without the extra income from my little side job. :) Moving is just so expensive. We had help too, from the church, but still, buying a house and I think I neglected to mention that we bought a car too. It's just been crazy. I'm looking forward to about September when our finances even out a bit and we can start to do more than just get by. know what I mean?? But instead of complaining, I'm just really thankful for expo right now, it's been a huge blessing to me and so many other people I know. If you haven't checked it out yet, then please take time to do so. It's been huge for us.

sunglasses and bowling

So we've decided (as a family) that it's pretty much too bright here to go anywhere without eye protection. I, of course, had to document it. Also, we went bowling with some students yesterday. Eli loved it, he's been begging to bowl in real life since we got the wii. I enjoyed the incredible surprise of accidently winning! Also felt the need to document it, cause I'm pretty sure it will never happen again in the course of my natural life! My score is usually right about 67. :)

another page

Not super impressed with this, but at least the photos are documented. Just telling the story of how we bought our house and forgot what it looked like. :)

Because inquiring minds want to know...

There's been some discussion about where my laundry facilities are located. It's actually in a fun little closet right off the breakfast/dining area. I love the addtional shelving above, in fact there's a whole shelf you can't even see in the photo and all of our cereal stockpile is stashed up there. I'm thankful for the easy location, a lot of times in TX laundry is located in the garage which is not air conditioned. This is really convienient and I'm actually barely missing my basement.
Also, this is a photo of my built in shelving. Rob had the great idea of using it for scrapbooks, since it's a very high quality shelf that can 'take the weight' of a lifetime of memories! :)

34 days later...

I have finally resumed scrapbooking. At least enough to do one page today. Thanks for playing with me Lori! :)

feels like home..

One of our youth sponsors gave me this bumper sticker yesterday. Rob won't let me stick it to the car just yet. I'm still working on him. :)

Not so much on the blogging lately.

I apologize. I've had a lot on my plate. In fact, this past week I can't seem to get enough sleep. I think my body is just finally revolting against the last two months of insanity! I've been big on deep thinking and prayer lately, but just haven't had a lot of access to the internet to post. Also, we've been so busy with getting settled and getting our lives set up here in Texas.

I can't believe we live in Texas. how did that happen?

I say that, but I really like it here. There are definitely downsides (ie: fire ants, hurricanes, 91% humidity - I'm not exaggerating) but over all I feel like we are a really good fit, now that we have a car with air conditioning. We love our church already, our senior pastors are amazing people and we are so excited to work with them. We are finally meeting with them tomorrow, which is kind of funny because as of tomorrow we have been here 2 full weeks already! insane! Pastor has been really ill with a inner ear problem, so we haven't gotten to spend any time with him, so I'm really looking forward to us all connecting tomorrow. Plus, the kids are heading out to a babysitter, so we'll have grown up conversation and that sounds good to me!

I feel really behind already. Can you be behind when you've only lived somewhere for 2 weeks? I just haven't hardly worked for Expo at all this month (so frustrating) and I have so much in the way of paperwork to catch up on, oh, and housework! But at the same time I'm trying to enjoy the summer with the kids because Eli will be trying public again in the fall and Sarah starts pre-school too. I want to enjoy them while I have them home! I have no idea what will happen in the fall, I'm toying with the idea of a job, the extra income would really help with a house payment now. :) But I'm so committed to all my commitments already, I don't know...

Well, Rob shut off the tv, so I guess it's time to crawl into bed and let tomorrow take care of itself. toodles.

when life gets tough, the tough go to the beach.

that may be my new philosophy. Rob had today off so we took the kids to the beach for a while. It was pretty fun. We love being so accessible to the water, but it would be nicer to find something closer to home. Sarah LOVED the beach. She kept going out as far as we'd let her and just giggling when the waves got her. Eli was more cautious, but he had a blast searching for shells and finding some hermit crabs to look at. Anyhoo, we enjoyed the surf and the sand, but tomorrow it's back to work! :) Lifegroup meets at our house!

Houston, we have a problem.

Yeah, that's been me and Verizon all week. Our internet has been on since last friday, but we couldn't access it. Rob finally got it worked out today. grrr. I've been a little grouchy without my internet. But we finally have it worked out and now I can FINALLY share some photos of my new lovely home! I'm really in love with the house now that we are here. It's just so light and airy and fresh. Make sense? Plus it's really easy to move around in, purposeful. These aren't photos of every room, but it gives you a general idea. The kitchen is my favorite room, it's not huge, but it feels spacious because of the open-ness. I also love our master suite. Eli walks in our room and says "how come your guys' room is so big?" and I said "Cause we pay the mortgage!" :)