God Goes to Hill Country Camp

Just in case you were wondering...


Wow, what an awesome week.

Rob and I really enjoyed being head counselors. Yes, it had it's ups and downs. Ups being - getting to share a golf cart all week, lots of responsibility, fun perks like Starbucks in the am, and being the 'hands' of our guest speaker during the healing service on Thursday night. Very awesome. Downs being - policing the dress code with the girls, being the last person to go to bed and the first person to get up each day = major lack of sleep, and having to yell at Cabin 5 on the last night. But seriously, I would totally do it again and have some fun ideas on how to do it better, just knowing expectations helps me tremendously! I need to write down my post-processing thoughts so that if they ask me next year, I can rock it! :)


Our trip really began on Saturday, when we drove our own children to McKinney, TX to meet Rob's mom and stepdad. They kept the kiddos for a week, wow, that was an awesome blessing! Sare and E had a great time!! I think Sarah wore them out though, Mom now understands what I mean when I say that Sarah is a hurricane!! (speaking of hurricanes, the first name on the list for 2009 Named Storms is Anna, isn't that random??) Sarah took these first two pictures, thus the blur.


We took 12 of our own students to camp, leaving at 6:30am on our 5-6 hour drive over to Kerrville, TX. Even the drive over was fun, but ironically, the drive home was more fun!!



At camp, neither of us got to work 'with' our kids, but we stayed in the same room as them and saw them throughout the week. God really did a work in their lives, and Rob and I were both at the altar each night, praying with them. Worship was fantastic, a fellow youth pastor and his team lead and it was amazing.

Right before we left, I had an urge to get a pedicure. Turns out, that was a really great idea! And Jennifer gave me these shoes that afternoon, I'm in love! I wore them two different days this week, aren't they cute??



Pastor's Royce and Jason were hilarious this week. I couldn't even keep up, finally got to the point where I'd just smile and laugh cause a comeback was just too slow on the little sleep I was getting. They definitely made the week interesting!



I have ALWAYS wanted a golf cart. I'm not exagerating a tiny bit. Definitely when we worked at Sonrise, but even back before then! Probably dating all the way back to Okoboji in jr. high. And it was totally worth the wait. I told Rob I wanted one for Mother's Day next week, just for getting the mail and jetting around our subdivision. Plus I learned how to peel out to a stop, approach going fast and jerk the wheel hard to skid to a stop. Very fun, arriving in a cloud of dust. The other guys on our team said I reminded them of Tokyo Drift. :) We also had walkies, and that definitely kept it interesting. Let's just say the other staff is confident that our marriage is secure! Also, on Thursday Rob and I started using our iPods to dj music over the radio, that got interesting fast! You'd be surprised what youth pastors listen too!

Came out one morning to find this site on our golf cart. Love these kiddos!!

The last night was our trek to Prayer Mountain, immediately following the healing services. Wow, the weather was beautiful, you could see the stars, but it was lightening simultaneously. The breeze was great too. Very memorable evening!

These are our friends and camp manager for week 1, Matt and his lovely wife Heather. Just to be fair, this picture was taken at midnight or maybe even after on Thursday, so it was late and we were all exhausted. They did a great job this week, and were super fun and encouraging (you can't even know!) to work with.Heather and I really hit it off! She's a Nikon girl too!

These guys, Derek and Clint, (also youth pastors) were our Sherrif and Assistant Manager for the week. They kept us in stitches! Total hams! Also, extremely encouraging. You get the idea that Head Counselor is a tough job and encouragement is needed?? :) Also note the sodas in their hands, camp requires VAST amounts of caffeine. And yes, I was a good girl and the only Dr. Pepper that passed my lips was diet. And lots and lots of Spark.

These are my girls, we took 8 chickas and 4 boys. Every one of them had a good time!!

This is Tammy Burroughs, our DYD's wife. She's amazing. She took 3 of us lady youth pastor/wives out for dinner on Wednesday night and that was so nice! The best part was the prayer that we had when we went back to her house. Very cool! We are blessed to work with people like them.

This is the view I had for 12 hours in the past week. :)


Last time in Buc-ee's (one of four trips this past 8 days!) I noticed this sign and it totally cracked me up!!





Rob and Sarah were playing around in the car on the way home from McKinney today while I was driving. Found this cute picture on my camera when I uploaded. Lucky girl, aren't I??

Hello Blogsophere!

I've missed you!

Man, life has been unreal lately. No time to blog, that's not right! And I hate to tell you, but there will be blog silence again next week, I'll be at South Texas Youth Camp. Can't say I'm sorry, either, cause I'm super excited for it! Rob and I are (gasp!) Head Counselors and you guessed it, we get our own GOLF CARTS! Good thing I was promised that before my little run-in earlier this week. Oh, maybe I forgot to mention that...

So I'm sporting a minivan right now. Missing my Vue. I was headed to a shoot on Tuesday night and went to make a wide right turn (actually that's illegal in TX unless you are an 18 wheeler) when the lady behind me tried to pass on the right. Long story short ($2400 damage to my car later), it is in the shop for the week. I'm most bummed about my 13 year accident-free streak being interrupted. Yes, I bumped a gate at the dealership a year ago, but that did not count, no claim was filed. The good news is that I talked the repair shop into fixing that little blemish for free along with my Allstate repair. You know how much I enjoy a bargain! Plus, it will make my husband very happy and happy husbands are always good!


Sarah graduated pre-k this week. That was hard. And exciting. And funny. She, quite literally, sashayed down the aisle like the little 'princess' she is. It was hysterical! Eli was promoted to 3rd grade with all A's, the little genius! Both of my kids are growing like weeds, it's crazy. We are headed North of Dallas tomorrow to meet Grammy Ginny for a week of fun in the sun in Arkansas while Daddy and I do the camp thing. They are super ridiculous excited!

Oh, and I got a new shirt about a week ago, it's my new favorite, I paid $5 for it. Gotta love that! Old Navy had their famous 50% off their clearance merchandise sale and I cleaned up!The big yellow and black bird makes me so happy! Also, the little gold accent birds. It goes perfectly with my bird bracelet that my mom gave me for my birthday. I need to break down and buy the earrings that match, I'm really into wearing earrings lately!

Also found this one at Target for $4.98, pretty cute!

In other news: I'm in love with my camera. It's going to be hard to leave my baby for a week and view the world from my point and shoot. :( But I'm a big girl and I'll manage. But the d90 was a brilliant choice for me, any heavier and I'm going to have work my way up into it! My bag weighs like a million pounds now. We aren't going to talk about how much $ it weighs! :)

I am, however, looking forward to a weekend with Rob, even if it means spending 10 hours in the car. It's going to be a great week!

Scrapbook Pages

Most of these are from when Lori was here a few weeks back. But I did do two pages today, trying to pull myself out of a frump, unsuccessfully, I might add. I guess I can attribute my bad attitude today to 3 cancellations this weekend, but even mor that that, my kids are being Crab Apples. Rob's gone all day and it's like they are out to get me. I normally don't post when I'm in a bad mood, but I guess I'm just being real today.
We are leaving for kid haircuts in just a bit. Maybe I'll get a Sonic to cheer me up.

PS - notice the '30' on my tape runner. Just found that one today.

Supposed to be Working..

I'm having a hard time getting motivated this morning. It's kind of ironic, because it's only 10am and I've already gotten everyone out the door and dropped off, ran two errands and met with a client. But now it's time to edit and I'm just dragging a bit. Editing is probably my least favorite part of photography, a necessary evil. I've learned a lot in the past few months about how to make the process better, faster, with more quality results, but I'd still rather not. :) Definitely worth the final outcome.

Anyway. I've wanted to share about a little miracle in our lives that took place yesterday. As many of you know, we roofed our house ourselves (with the help of Kimmie and Ricky and a few other awesome people!) last November. Ike had blown off some of our shingles and Blu-Roof had tarped it up in a way that required a replacement. Our first adjuster was a gift from God, he was super nice and easy to work with.

Well, about a month ago we got our fence replaced and it was time to send in all our receipts for our depreciation check. A week ago I got a call from our second adjuster, wanting to come by and see the work, which he did last Friday. Yesterday he called me to ask how come we didn't have any labor receipts. :) Long story short, he was super impressed that we did the work ourselves, and that it looks good! He was very gracious and figured out how to send us that last depreciation check. Awesome, huh?

So once we receive that check, Ike is a thing of the past. Good thing too, Hurricane Season officially begins in 3 days. :)

Memorial Day

Well, 3 day weekends don't generally mean much in our household. :) We mostly laid low today. Sarah and I ran a couple errands about noon or so. I kicked around the house in my jammies before that. Made a couple phone calls. Nothing drastic though. It was great!! I was supposed to have a senior session this evening, but she had to reschedule, so we decided to hit the park. The kids were itching for a picnic. It was absolutely beautiful out. Hot, but lovely. The kids played hard. Rob too! And I played with my new camera, which Rob picked up for me on Saturday. Oh my, I love it. It is going to make a tremendous difference in my business, I can tell already. And I was very thankful to have this afternoon to get to know it. :) I've got another two shoots Wednesday, and I wanted to be confident with it before I put it to hard use. Man, this camera can do so much. I'm super pleased!!

The above shot is just a tiny sample, you can see more on my ATP blog and even more on FB in my photo albums. This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. :)

Ready for a Wedding Consultation

As you probably know, I just created my wedding packages and as a result of that, I was tweaking some paperwork for my consult this morning. Sarah asked me to play with her. She's wearing a beautiful flower girl type dress that someone gave to us, it's severely stained, but will be a lovely plaything for her. (I forsee her living in it, I just gave it to her this am). She had already told me that she looked like a bride. :) Anyway, she asked me to play with her and I said that I couldn't just now, I was preparing for a bridal consultation and she said "Oh, Momma, that's perfect! I'm all ready!!"

I just love how she thinks. :) And I know, this post is useless without pictures. I'll work on it.

as promised.

These are my smokin' new shoes from Lori!

(in no particular order)

I found this sofa in Ikea and fell in love. Good news? Rob loves it too! You can't probably tell, but it's red corduroy and washable. *love*
.I think Rob and Lori were telling me that I was being a whiner at this point, so I pouted. :) I quickly got over it, and for the record? Lori, you were right.
Jennifer sent me a voice text of her and the family singing Happy Birthday. Super cute!!
Me and Rob at Carraba's - I think I was getting a little tired at this point! :)
mmm... free birthday dessert!
Ike waterline in the Strand... so sad. We have so many fun memories down there!
Lori after her hair appointment, she and Jennifer made fast friends. Everybody loves Jennifer cause she's amazing!
um, I guess I was hungry? and Lori only gave me half... :)
This is Lori putting her luggage in my car!!
and this was when she first got to the airport! yay!
I am finding these random 30's all over my house. seriously, found one on my washing machine this afternoon!
aww, balloons! The colors were hot pink and lime green - so cute!
This is the amazing cake that Jennifer made. Recognize it? The journaling spots are from a scrapbook page I did a week ago! I seriously almost cried. (wiped a tear or two for sure!)
Silly girl thought it was cool that she was here! ;)
The candle from my cake!
peek-a-boo!
This is the clan that was at my house when I walked in the door! I nearly wet myself.
love these girls. Missed Kimmie though. :)
beach crawling, we picked up shells for our house decor.
and Rob photographed the whole thing...
I love this one!!
We took a few pics in Rob's office too!
We color coordinated - I'm wearing a black skirt...
and these killer heels. Which I kicked off to shoot the water baptism.
This hat Sarah made me with Rob's help for my birthday dinner on Saturday night.
Lori and I have the same phone, so we thought it was pretty cute when they were charging. :)
And yep, Heidi signed the wall at my scrapbook store! wow!
beautiful self-taken photo of Lori and I. Everyone always asks us if we are sisters. We are in our hearts, that's for sure!
shopping!!
And we love this giant mirror and had to play with it!!


These are my smokin' new shoes from Lori!

so that's a bit of the 300+ photos we took this weekend. It was super fun and I'm exhausted. Time for a movie with Robbie!!

Birthday Re-Cap...

Can I begin with "I don't know where to even begin"??

Oh my goodness....

First off, I just need to say that I have never felt more loved in my life than in the past 3 days. I've thought a lot about what to write here today, but words cannot begin to express how awesome this past weekend was.

Lori being here was incredible. From the moment she stepped into Bush Intercontinental till the moment I dropped her off at departures - we tore up Houston. :) We crammed more into 3 days than an ordinary person would think was even remotely possible!! Not only did we do a lot, we had a blast!! And we recorded almost every moment on camera!! Right before I left for the airport I read a post on Ali Edwards blog about capturing an entire weekend. I thought that was such a good idea, so I literally toted one or two cameras every where we went!! I took way more pictures than I can share here, but I'll put some good effort into it! :)


Friday
So, on Friday we left the airport and stopped for CFA. Right then and there we decided that sharing meals was going to be our thing, to cut down on costs and to avoid tummy overload. :) That proved to be a great plan!! After lunch we went to Jennifer's for an afternoon of hair makeover for Lori. She was still working on a prom updo so we hit Scrapbook Emporium right next door. Found several fun things in there! Then we spent a few hours with Jennifer (who's awesome, I might add!) getting highlights and cut. Jennifer and Lori totally hit it off, which proved to be very helpful later in the weekend! (I knew they would - there was just too much awesomeness in the room!) I do think that Jennifer was a little scared because I was soooo hyper and I'm not sure if she's ever seen me quite like that. Maybe with Kimmie here, I get pretty hyper when Kimmie is here! :) So we finished with hair (which looks amazing!) and left for By Design, pausing at Panera Bread to split a sandwich. (mmmm, bacon turkey bravo). For the record, we did a lot of eating this weekend - but not over eating because of the splitting thing. It was kind of genius! Lori loved the store, all the pink, we totally took a bunch of pictures. We sat down to scrap at 8 and worked about 10 minutes and decided to call it a night. :) We both had been too excited to sleep the night before and had been up way too early!! So we left By Design and went to Scrapbook Junkie - found a few more fun things there. Then Rob was really surprised when we showed up at home at 10pm, we were scheduled to be out till 1am!! So we put on jammies and scrapped in the living room for an hour or so and then called it a night...

Saturday
My kids (bless their little hearts) seriously got up at 6am. I'm still not sure what that was about, but it was the beginning of a trend. There was not one night this weekend that we slept more than 6 hours! We decided, well, we are up, so we might as well head out to IKEA. Lori had never been and we toured every nook and cranny of the store!! I totally got a ton of fun ideas for my house, so it was very inspirational!! And we took more pictures. :) Then we decided to try out Memorial City Mall. Oh my Mall!! It was AWESOME. We are so totally taking the kids there some time over the summer, they have the coolest play place I have ever seen in a mall!! no exageration there, I promise. We hit Penney's, Macy's, Charlotte Russe, New York and Co (I had an additional 30% off total sale coupon) Express, Old Navy and Target. It was way cool!! In all, we walked 8 hours that day, needless to say we were pretty wiped when we got home at 5:30. Upon arrival, Rob threw steaks on the grill (expensive ones that were about to expire = cheap) and we sauted some mushrooms, threw crescents in the oven and whipped up a Moonlight Salad. Wow. Dinner was sooooo good. Topped off with some Kitchen Sink Bars. incredible. About 8:30 we got a sudden urge to check out Michael's and found some steals there right before they closed. Then we finally got to scrapbooking about 9:30 or 10 and worked about 2 hours before bed. Unfortunately, that was the extent of our scrapbooking, but it was cool because we got to do so much more in the way of other things. :)

Sunday
Again, an early start. Had to be responsible this day (boo!) and teach Sunday School and be at service. I really enjoyed documenting the baptism, that's always a neat experience. I got to wear an awesome new outfit that I had bought the day before. I think I forgot to mention that our little shopping trip was extremely productive!! Lori loved our church and everyone was very gracious to her.
After service we waited in Rob's office for a bit and then Monique came and got our children so we could have some grown up time with Rob. After much debate (you don't even want to know how much) we settled on Carraba's (mmmmmm) for lunch and Lori and I split the manicotti. yum. Then we fought our way through traffic down to Galveston and played on the beach for an hour. It was a perfect day, perfect weather and so beautiful. I hadn't been down there since Ike, so it was cool to see what is still there. We started back home about 4:30 but Rob just seemed to be dragging his feet. Of course, I'm freaking out because at 6 we have life groups and I knew we were going to be late. It just seemed to take forever to get home!
Finally we got there a few minutes after 6 and there weren't any cars but Kevin's, and he wasn't in it! Lori loaded me down with our stuff from the car and I walk in the door to a living room FULL of people and streamers and yelling "Happy Birthday!". It was amazing, I promise. I was completley clueless. A bunch of our students were there, and some of our parents from church, and Jennifer and Bart and their kids. And of course, Lori. I nearly started crying several times, in fact I'm blinking back tears just typing it! It was soooo cool. Monique and Jennifer and one of the other moms had coordinated all the food and snuck a house key from Rob and even snuck one of my scrapbook pages out of the house to make a cake with my page!! It was beautiful. That part really got me. And we took tons of pictures and it was just a perfect, perfect birthday!! They provided all the food and even cleaned up when they were done. There are little '30' stickers all over my house now, on my peanut butter and on the mirrors, even on utensils in the kitchen drawers. Every time I turn around I see them, and it reminds me not how old I am, but how loved I am. :) Just for being me. That was the best part.
Everyone stuck around till about 8:30 or 9. Jennifer gave me the gift of joining Facebook for my birthday (along with the awesome cake AND an iTunes gift card) so that's going to be really cool. Lori gave me a new pair of pink Converse - oh yeah, I'm going to ROCK those! And Monique gave me a beautiful silver eiffel tower for my charm bracelet. Rob and the kids gave me a new (much needed) new purse. Kim sent me an amazing set of bird stamps in the mail, I can't wait to play with them!!
After everyone left and we fought Sarah into bed, I burned a disc of all our adventures and then Rob and Lori and I sat in the living room and discussed life and ministry and love and marriage and everything in between. That part was really incredible too! We stayed up till almost midnight again, it was just too hard to stop talking. I can't believe how long we have all been friends and I am the most blessed woman ever!

So, I want to thank all of my friends for the cards, the gifts, the party, and most of all - the love that was so extravagantly displayed this weekend. I really want to thank Rob as well. You would not believe how loving, generous, and supportive he has been this weekend, so helpful with the kids and just wanted me to really enjoy this time. Lori kept joking that 'He really raised the bar" and I totally have to agree. I kept thanking him for his awesomeness, but I'm planning a special thank you. :)

I haven't even READ my facebook page yet, I wanted to document all this before I lost any tiny bit of it. I cannot believe the life I have and each of you are so precious to me, whether you were here (having a college weekend) with me or sent me stamps in the mail or even typed 'happy birthday' on my wall. I have had 30 years of wonderful and for that I am truly thankful!!


PS - I have to run to staff meeting, but I will come back and post pictures very soon!

Pay Per Play for Missions!

So I was talking to theLOFT this evening about going all out for God with missions giving. We've been on a big kick about 'Lost Change, Lost Souls' lately, and the power of a penny. I was on my expotv.com user page earlier this afternoon and noticed that I have made $739 in the past couple years in Pay-Per-Play videos. Talk about the power of pennies!! So I committed to give the rest of my pay-per-play for the year to Speed the Light. I usually average about $30 per month. In saying that I suddenly realized that my kids in youth group could raise that average, and if we all started talking about it - we could REALLY raise some money for missions!! So if you have a few moments, please visit expotv.com and watch a few of my videos. My member name is Antho. I'm pledging to give all of my pay-per-plays through 2009 to Spped the Light - the money buys sound and video equipment and vehicles for A/G missionaries across the globe. It's seriously an amazing cause. Our youth group goal is $5000 for 20096 and we are sitting at $569 for the year thus far. This is something we can all do together!!

Here's a linkie for you! Thanks for your help!!

11 Years TODAY!

Woke up this morning to snuggle with the love of my life... again. And just marveled (again) at how amazing it is to walk through the journey of life with my very best friend. I know how cheesy that sounds, but can I say that I really mean it? Being married to Rob is like attending a sleep over party that never ends. I am so blessed to be with him and we have such a good time!!

It occurred to me as well, that in another 7 years I'll have been with him half my life. Honestly, I don't remember too much about the first 7 years, so pt already feels like I've been with him for half my life. :)

I'm not sure what he's working on over on his computer right now (in the same room, how cute is that?) but he's compiled some sort of RobNanna tribute in song and has it playing gently in the background. I love his brain! I'm super excited for our date sometime later today. We are waiting to hear from the babysitter. Don't know exactly where will go or what we'll do, but he's got a Guitar Center itch and we are thinking maybe Cheddar's. Eli suggested Golden Corral, but he's staying home so he doesn't really get a say in the matter. :)

Eleven years ago I really did make the second best decision of my life (Jesus being the first, obviously). Ironically, it almost didn't happen. Two nights before our wedding we almost called it off, mostly because our family was so concerned about our ages. We seriously were up almost the whole night, in my parents living room in Pisgah, crying and praying and talking it out. I was so scared that I was going to pull Rob off the path of ministry. Little did I know how we needed each other for ministry. I knew, even back then, the brevity of the decision we were making. I knew if our marriage didn't work that he could never be an ordained minister in the A/G - which was his life's dream and calling! That's a lot of pressure on a 18 year old girl!!

I think the thought that turned the tide on our almost break up was imagining the possibility of life without each other. My heart started to break wide open when I thought of him going on about his life without me. And mine seemed to stop right there - I couldn't imagine taking another step forward without him. I felt so complete with him. And that feeling has never changed. Over the past 11 years we've definitely had our moments - but leaving has never been a realistic option because when I look out at the world without Rob anchored by my side - it's a vast grey.

When we were first married I worried all the time that something would happen to him. (his brother, Matt, passed away at 20 and Rob was 23) At that time Rob was diagnosed with a heart irregularity, but it's unoperable and hasn't been a problem so far. I asked God if Rob was too important to me and prayed that He would show Himself to me to eclipse that relationship - and He has.

If Rob would pass tomorrow, I would be ok. God is my strength and I would find all that I need in Him. It would be rough and I would cling to the Lord. But I can't say I wouldn't wake each day still reaching for Rob's touch. He truly is the love of my life, and no other man could ever fill his shoes. I literally thank God for him every single day.

Sorry, I guess that got a little morbid. I'm just so grateful to be with my One. I'm glad we listened to our hearts that May 7th, 1998. I'm pretty sure our kids are glad too! And our church, and our friends, and I'm convinced even our family too!