Watching her grow

Three weeks ago, Chapter One was preparing for their big school year kick off service held this past Monday. When we broke into our small groups, each person in the group wrote down a name of someone we had in our heart that we wanted to pray about – whether it be for them to start coming to Chapter One or just to pray for them.

Immediately, I knew who I wanted to put down – someone I regularly pray for. When I moved to San Angelo, she became my first friend. Next month, marks five years of friendship between us. I know it's silly, but we always celebrate this with the anniversary day of our work. We started work on the same day and on my first day when I had nowhere to go for lunch, she offered to take me with her. Getting to know her a little better on our drive to lunch, I find that we are around the same age, we were going to work in the same department, and we have the same story – we were both single moms to preschoolers. This helped us in building a relationship together because although there were four of us who started work that day, me and her still remain close friends. When we finished training, we actually were separated and moved to different offices. We tried to remain close, but of course, with everyone’s busy schedule, it was difficult at times. Over the years, I have watched my friend go through hard times. She has questioned God and sometimes couldn’t understand why He would allow her to face such trials. No matter what happened though, she continued to be in my heart. I couldn’t give up. I knew this girl was special and God had something awesome in store for her.

So, I wrote her name down. That evening, instead of going back to where we regularly sit, we were asked to stay in our small group and sit with them during the service. When it was done, we were asked to pray in our group for the people on the list. Our small group leader decided instead of her praying over all of the names, we should each pray for the name we put down. We did know them better and we knew their situation. When each of us prayed, I could just feel God’s presence there as we made our requests and lifted these people up to Him.

The following Monday, I was not able to be at Chapter One due to being in Florida. The amazing thing is, she e-mailed me at work asking me what time Chapter One was but she got my “Out of Office” reply. She did not know I prayed for her the week before nor have I mentioned Chapter One to her other than the stories I share about services. Although I haven’t invited her in a while, she has always known the door is open. This past Monday, the Monday of the kick off service, I didn’t return to work yet so I had no idea about the e-mail. I texted her and invited her and her sister… and to my surprise, she said she would come. I was EXTREMELY excited. God never ceases to amaze me. They both really enjoyed the service and their kids even were little helpers in the nursery.

My friend is growing. She has started attending church regularly again and is doing so much to improve her and her family. She has overcome the struggles in her life and it shows. God is placing so many things in her heart and everyday she shares them with me. Last weekend, she told me she anonymously made goody baskets filled with crafts she made to place on her neighbors’ doorsteps. She is on fire for God and this is the happiest I have ever seen her. I am very proud of my friend and it just fills my own heart with this great feeling of joy seeing her this way.

“Therefore, encourage each other and strengthen one another as you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11

I know God is looking down and smiling. I know I am.

Rain rain, go away...

That was the theme of my desk when I walked back into work this morning.

I knew those girls were gonna be up to something while I was gone and they surely surprised me. What I had on my desk was nothing I expected...

I had raindrops hanging from the ceiling, which I have actually kept up because they make everything look so cheery. I had a rain guage, which is actually a running joke between us all. People love to talk about how they got 1/10 inch of rain and stuff and I just never got it. They got me a purple poncho, which is my favorite color (and I also refused to wear a poncho my entire trip.) They got me a ring float because I do not know how to swim or pick out a bathing suit. They got me a pretty cool rubber duckie I can use in the tub, which actually has a "HOT" warming if the water is not the right temperature. And my most favorite thing... They got me a High School Musical umbrella. Yes, they thought they were hilarious doing this. I could picture them putting this whole thing together...

Well, little did they know, I also had a surprise for them. I had souvenirs!!! I brought them back hotel amenities - their choice of soap or a shampoo/conditioner bottle. Hey, it had Mickey Mouse on it, it counts! They found it rather funny actually and surprisingly, they all really liked them.

But of course, I couldn't do just that. For girls who are just awesome to work with, I had to bring them back chocolates - our favorite! It was a good surprise and a good laugh for everyone. I am truly blessed with some of the greatest co-workers ever.

First Day of Third Grade

Diamond has been waiting all summer for school to start and the day has finally come around. She picked out her outfit all on her own. I just can't believe it's THIRD grade already! Where did the time go? This will be her last year at her school. When we got there, they still had the superhero theme going on. All the teachers were wearing Wonder Woman shirts because they are Wonder Women teaching our kids. Diamond's two best friends weren't in her class, but I know she will do fine and have a great year. She always does.

The end

So, if you have managed to make it through all of those posts and pictures, then I'm glad you haven't died of boredom. I thank God for blessing us on our trip and even though we had to face Tropical Storm Fay, we had a vacation to remember. It actually made some things a little easier.
But I was definitely glad to step off of the airplane and be home. There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed. Although it was fun, I missed home and I missed my Ruby too!

Oh, and my most favorite picture is this...
Even through the pouring rain and the winds blowing at I don't know how many miles an hour (note the flipped umbrella), we were still laughing away.

Oh, and for any of you that are thinking of going, I definitely recommend the Disney Dining Plan. It was very worth it!

And finally...

Day 5: Magic Kingdom day!!! Here we see Cinderella's castle and everything else Disney. The pictures say it all.

Day 6: Shopping in Downtown Disney. We got to eat at a Wolfgang Puck restuarant... That was delicious. Then we spent the afternoon at Epcot finishing what we didn't get to do the first day we went. We rode on Mission Space which made it really feel like you were taking off on a space rocket. It was my dad's favorite ride. We had dinner at Les Chefs de France. I had four shrimps and 2 scallops placed nicely on my plate on this stick. In trying to get them off so I can eat them, I pulled so hard with my fork that one shrimp went flying across the room... Woopsy! I guess I'm not made for fine dining!

Epcot and Animal Kingdom

Day 3: We spent the day at Epcot. This was a very interesting park. It had the World Pavilion where you could tour around different countries that were around a big lake. The "cast members" that were in the specific countries were ones that were actually from the actual countries they represented. They even had accents and I love to hear the accents of the world. In the Future World part of the park, they had all these innovative things that were pretty much hands on for kids and adults. One of my favorite rides was one called "Soarin" where it simulates you being on a glider touring the world. If you watch Disney channel at all, you might know what I'm talking about. It's definitely an experience. Something interesting I learned was how everything served at Disney restaurants are all grown and raised there on the resort. It's almost kind of a scary thought. We went through the greenhouse experience and even saw the little shrimpies... All I could think was, "I could be eating one of you tomorrow." Hmmm... made me think twice about my meal.

Day 4: Here is Animal Kingdom. For anyone that loves animals and zoos, this is an awesome park. One of the best things is probably the Safari ride. The animals just roam free and a driver drives you around the savanna. There were several times where we had to stop due to animals crossing. They have right of way over us humans. For dinner, we visited another resort and ate at Ohana. The food was DELICIOUS!!! It was Polynesian style and everything was brought out to you on skewers. We even had the perfect view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks. They played the music that went along with the fireworks and we watched them over dinner. It was beautiful (I have never watched a fireworks show that was synchronized to music.)

Day 1 & 2 ... good weather days

This is all about our trip to Disney World. I am a big Disney fan and you can really tell by the smile on my face when I got there. When we lived in Japan, we visited Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea yearly, but the trip to Florida, is not so easy to make. This is my first time to ever visit Disney World so this was definitely a learning experience for us all.

Our first two days, we spent in Hollywood Studios. These were our only good weather days. The weather was humid, but not extremely hot. We had a blast. I have too many pictures to share so I just went with my favorite.

Back to the real world...

Our vacation has come and gone... Yup, it's come to it's end today. I have lots of stories and pictures to share about our many adventures chasing Tropical Storm Fay...

I'll have to do it later. After a week of vacationing, I need another vacation from that!

Sweet Little Daisy

Every Wednesdays, I teach Daisies at church, which are girls in Kindergarten. This year, I only have one little girl, who faithfully comes every Wednesday. I am so proud of her because she stuck with it all year even though she may have been the only one there a majority of the time. I actually think she is on her way to being an Honor Daisy because you must earn 9 badges to receive this award, and she is already working on that. I'm really very excited for her.

Today was a very funny day. She did the sweetest thing for me. When we got to the classroom, she pointed out a dead cockroach laying there on the floor. For those of you who don't know, I hate bugs! I just left it there and I don't really think she wanted to touch it either. So, all night, every time I'd turn around, I'd shriek a little because even though I know it's there, it surprisingly shocks me every time. For snack, I decided we should go outside and sit on the sidewalk while eating our popsicles, hoping that upon our return, the bug would be gone. Well, dead bugs do not move on their own. So, I continued to do a little scream of "Aah!" and my little Daisy says, "I'll be right back." She comes back with a paper towel from the bathroom and I ask her what she's going to do with it and she says,

"I'm going to use this to cover up the bug so you won't have to see it anymore. I've been thinking about doing this all night."

It was absolutely sweet. Or maybe I finally annoyed her with my little scream. The bug was hidden under the paper towel when we left church. She had a very good idea. I completely forgot about the thing.

Daughters and blogs

My daughter just loves to read blogs with me. We share the computer chair and sit here and read blogs together for a while and I definitely enjoy it. The only problem with it is that she reads my blogs as well. And well... she doesn't always agree with my posts, especially the ones about her. She likes to read them and make sure there is nothing embarrassing about her written in any of them. Sheesh child!!! I don't blame her though. I wouldn't want my mother sharing embarrassing stories about me either.

So... it's about that time again. Seven hours from now I will be waking up to another work week.

The new trend

I went to church today and it seemed like everyone had short hair all of a sudden! And not just at church, but everywhere! It really does look cute and I've thought about cutting my own as well. But today was Diamond's day. She had her back to school hair appointment and she decided to go short with lots of layers and side bangs.

It's beautiful of course, but for some reason, it's just not that little girl hair anymore that I can put in pigtails and have in cute little hair bows (although I still try to convince her to let me get away with it every now and then.) But it's trendy and even though she looks a little more grown up, I like it.
This is her before the haircut. Also note that she is wearing MY shirt (from my skinny days)!!! She likes to sneak in closet and find things she can wear. I made her change it because no matter how much she insisted it fit, I thought it was still too big for her.
And this is her after. Her hair is unstyled because she is getting ready for bed but I didn't have a camera when we left the hair salon. She made a face at first because she really loved her long hair, but she quickly got over it when she saw it was cute.

It's official...

We're in the month of August, which means only 15 more days until my vacation to the happiest place on Earth!!!

I can't wait!!!

And back to school is right around the corner. Where has the summer gone?