Steve and Becca Hendricks

Our move to Florida

2012-01-20T11:02:00.002-07:00

I realized that many people know we are moving to Florida and havequestions about why. I thought it would be nice to sit down and sharewith everyone how this came about.

This began about 2months ago. I had begun praying about becoming a part of a recoveryministry. Each branch of the recovery ministry would need a leader. Some of the areas would be Divorce, PTSD, Alcoholism,Addictions, Codependency, among many others. I was interested in theGrief area. When I approached Zach and Sara about it, the response I got- as if it had already been discussed between the two of them, was"actually we have news for you, Zach is thinking about applying for CampusPastor position in Florida". Immediately I felt that I was beinggiven a closed door to what I felt God had been leading me to ask. Ithink I must have looked confused or maybe I said something, I can't remember,but Sara said something to the effect of "you should start praying aboutgoing with and joining us in ministry". They did want us to beinvolved in their ministry, but they wanted us to be involved with them inFlorida. Our talk that evening lastedquite a bit longer, but I still didn't really think that we would even considerit. I am not much for moving around, I tend to really stick with what'scomfortable and despite loving the ocean I have never been Florida, much lessconsidered moving there. I have moved once as an adult, to Virginia, whenI was 20, I think. It ended horribly and with only enough money to get usto Evanston, Wyoming, my ex-husband and I headed home feeling defeated afteronly 3 months away. I loved Virginia; I just didn't love our livingthere. I was a kid; I had no business being married, let alone venturingoff with a man 10 years older than me and that I had only known for about 2years. I don’t regret spending that timeaway, looking back it was quite an adventure and I’m really glad I had thatexperience.

So,getting the news about the job that Zach wanted to apply for, I sort of had itin my head that I wouldn’t even pray about it until I knew he had the job andit was a done deal. Well, I started topanic a little when things in the house stared to get sold off and the packingbegan… he hadn’t even had an interview yet. While Zach and Sara were praying about moving to Florida, I was still tryingto wrap my head around the idea. Sofirst I began entertaining the idea of going, and then I began to pray. Over and over again as I prayed about it,asking God to give me an answer, I was being told
that it wasn’t my decision to make. Myhusband, the leader of our home, would have everything he needed to make thatdecision. (His divine power has given us everything weneed for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by hisown glory and goodness. – 1 Peter 1:3) That if I trust God, then I needed to trust that he isleading my husband that whatever decision he came to, I needed to submit andbelieve that God would show my husband His will and that my husband wouldobey. This has been one of the greateststruggles in my marriage. Up until about6 months ago I saw myself as the leader in our marriage and the only onecapable of making any decisions. That isfalse, and I want to tell you that was very unbiblical thinking and not at allhealthy for my marriage. We had beendown this path before. Allie was about 6months old when we visited my family in Colorado. My Aunt and Cousin began talking to Steveabout helping him move there and when we visited again, it didn’t take long forhim to get a job. It was a good job too,so I went back to Utah by myself to wait for Steve to get a home for us to livein. He was able to find himself atrailer and a nice family friend to allow him to park it in the back yard so hecould have power and running water. Hemade himself a little home in that trailer while I stayed in Utah. I had a job I loved and I started enjoying myfreedom. I would go days without callinghim and when I did talk to him, he talked about reading his bible and prayingand I, on the other hand, was not doing well in my walk with the Lord. It was a very unhealthy situation. Steve was ready for me to move to Colorado,but I was unwilling to leave my job, my home, my freedom, my, my, my… The time came at the end of July that,despite what he was telling me he had prayed about and what he wanted, I toldhim I needed him to come home. I couldn’tsee God moving me and our baby to Colorado to live in a small trailer with nohot water and no heat. The idea ofstepping out in faith wasn’t even a thought back then. I could only see what I wanted to see and controlledthe situation and my husband even though my husband was clearly communicatingto me that that is not what he wanted. Ican say now, looking back that he has never really been the same. In the yearssince then I have ignored the strain that had added to our marriage, I refusedto see my faults and began to tear him down any chance I got. In a process I began about 6 months ago, Istarted to see how much he’s been holding our marriage together with hispatience and forgiveness he’s been giving me. I am still working at being a better wife. Learning biblical principles for marriage andseeking ways I can build him up and show him love.

So now as I faced the possibility of a very big change in life, Iknew I didn’t want to leave God’s will on the back burner for my own selfishdesires or what I thought was right and since God was clearly communicating tome to not allow anyone except my husband to make this decision I knew I hadbetter start praying a different prayer. I started to beg God to help me be submissive. To learn to listen to my husband and to tellhim how much I trust him and believe he can lead our family, if only I wouldlet him, which I was willing to work really hard at. So one night after house church, listening toyet another very convicting group discussion, I told him how I felt about himmaking the decision about Florida. Witha broken spirit, out of his mouth came the fear he had about making thatdecision because of what I had done years ago when he told me to move toColorado. I suppose I knew it wascoming. God had been preparing me to hearthat, and in the past I would have allowed anger to take over and I would haveshut him down, telling him he was wrong for thinking the way he does andinsisting I was right out of pride and determined to not take responsibilityfor my actions. I’ve spent years complainingthat we have a huge lack of communication in our marriage and here my husbandsat next to me, opening up and telling me exactly what was on his heart. I’m so thankful to say that even though I didthink for a second that I should be able to be mad at him, and that he shouldjust forget about it and move on, that is not how I responded. It broke my heart. I knew that he wasn’t keeping track of my failures;he was telling me something he couldn’t tell me before. I begged him for forgiveness and asked him tonot hold it against me. I promised himthat I would not to that to him again and that I have been praying and God hadbegun preparing my heart to receive Steve’s decision as God’s plan for us. Steve told me he forgave me but the nextcouple of weeks I continued to pray that Steve wouldn’t be worried about myreaction or my past mistakes when he prayed about Florida. I was terrified that God would be leading usto go (or stay) but the decision would be made of fear (or pride) and thatbecause of my mistake in the past that we would not be able to fulfill God’splan for us. I kept praying and with allof my heart, I begged God to help my husband forgive me. When the day came that I felt I needed toknow where we stood on the move, I asked Steve if he had come to a decisionabout going to Florida. Very confidentlyhe told me that yes, we are moving to Florida, and I told him thank you formaking a really difficult decision for our family.

I could spend time telling you about all the circumstances thatlead the Sutton family to press forward with their plans to move and everythingthat has happened with Zach’s application process and their house in Floridaand all that supports our decision to move, but I really just wanted to tellyou why I’m moving to Florida.

adventures in baby sitting.

2010-08-24T23:24:00.000-06:00

So I have taken a job. I am watching 2 sweet kids every other week. Hunter is 2 and Anabella is 8 months. They are soooo dang cute and I'm really happy to be watching them. I did have a my doubts for a split second. It happened like this: I scooped up Anabella (who was quite fussy) and leased Boston to run to the grassy area downstairs so Boston could mark the two trees that are nearest to our walkway. I was only down there for about 30 seconds and as I started walking back to the stairs I could hear my door handle. I figured Hunter was trying to escape and hurried up the steps to catch him in the act. Fully expecting to catch him trying to open the door I grabbed the door knob and started to turn. Boy was I shocked when that was as far as I could get. Hunter had moved the dead bolt just enough to keep the door from opening. Right away I started trying to coach the 2 year old into opening the door for me. No such luck and Allie was still sleeping. Not that it would matter if she was awake, I have clearly threatened spankings if she goes near the door handle (I had a friend whose 2 year old would unlock the door and escape and the thought terrifies me). I went through about a hundred stages of panic and finally walked back down the stairs to start looking for someone who might be up and outside that I could use their phone to get Steve home to unlock the door. One guy was a jerk and laughed in my face and then another took pitty on me, maybe my tears and the baby in my arms helped. I called Steve and left a voicemail, hoping he'd be on break and get the message quickly. After about 5 minutes (which seemed like 5 hours) I could no longer talk to Hunter through the door because all I could hear was the vibration from the lawn mower. So I tried my next door neighbors. They let me call Steve again and also tried the emergency maintenance number, left a voicemail for a return call. No one responded but I was standing right on the sidewalk when the maintenance man showed up for work at 8:57 A.M. I told him the situation and asked if he could help. He set off for the key to my apartment and I met him at my door. I felt like I could finally breathe when he pushed the door open. My apartment was so quiet, and he chuckled a little, looked at me and said "he's asleep". Hunter was passed out on the couch, clearly exhausted from all that work he put into locking my door. Allie was still asleep in her bed, and about 5 minutes after I sat down on the chair and cuddled Bella under a snuggly blanket in my arms, she was out too. Peace and quiet. Allie woke up a few minutes later and we spent the next 20 minutes cuddled up watching cartoons.
That was my first couple hours of baby sitting. Today went much smoother. I've got some adjustments to make, but I am really excited to be taking care of these kids.
thanks for reading. :)

A rainy mourning.

2010-08-19T12:23:00.003-06:00

I saw a facebook post today from a woman who had a baby die from the same defect that Collin had. Today is what would be that baby's first birthday. The mother said that of course it's raining because Heaven screwed up, that they should have been able to raise their daughter. How, even in your grief could you say that God "screwed up"?? God has a perfect plan for every one of us. I am so sad for that mother. If only she knew how God could comfort her if she would just let Him. I know everyone deals with their grief differently, and I don't want to seem like I'm passing judgement on her, I just pray that she understands.
When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous have a refuge. - Proverbs 14:32
He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken - Isaiah 25:8
The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him - Nahum 1:7
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. - Matthew 5:4
I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Matthew 6:19-34
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is ligh - Matthew 11:25-30
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you asthe world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid - John 14:27

There is countless bible verses about how God is there for us. Last night during Terry's sermon on Ezekiel 15 and 16, I was thinking to myself "have I forgot how God rescued me?". I don't often think about what God saved me from, it wasn't just that he saved me from an eternity in Hell but he also saved me from the grief I could have had without him, he saved me from a life of sadness, a life where I could have gotten lost in partying and my priorities could have been a lot different. I'm so thankful for how God has transformed my life. He has been so good to me. I don't just have Him to thank for securing a place for me in Heaven but also that he rescues me from the pit of this world every day.

forgiveness.

2010-08-18T23:11:00.000-06:00

This topic comes up so much in my life. I never really thought I was a forgiving person, but really it is my desire to forgive, whenever forgiveness is needed. I am surprisingly able to let the past go with little effort. I guess that's part of being a child of God. I know God wants us to forgive. I have posted many things in the past about this very same subject. Most of all tonight, on my mind, is the guy who raised me. Ken. I haven't heard from him since Collin was in the hospital. He said some terrible things about me to my aunt and then didn't even call me after my son died. I don't need to go on about the many reasons I'm justified in not speaking to him. I may not always be innocent in conflict, but in this case, I did nothing to provoke his behavior. I felt abandoned and betrayed. It's been 4 years and I have given it little thought. I figured he didn't want to be a part of my life anymore so why try. Recently I found out he is sick. I don't know many details, but I know enough so say I am not willing to let him die without ever seeing him again. Am I still angry with him? Sure, but not to the point where I want to spit in his face, or call him bad names. God has a way of softening my heart and preparing me for something I may have once thought impossible. I came really close to just going to see him today. I on my way to the church after some shopping with a friend and realized I was going to be driving past the road that would take me right to my Grandma's trailer, where I believe Ken is staying. I drove by and there were no cars in the driveway, I don't know if I would have stopped if there was but now I know I can't keep putting it off. I'll be praying that his heart will be prepared for me to be there, and I'm not sure yet if I'm going to take Allie with me or not, or when I'll go, or if I need my mom to go with me. I haven't worked all that out. I can say too that I am very thankful for grace when it comes to myself, so I hope that I can show the same to others that I need as well.
Well, thanks for reading. :)

Percy Jackson

2010-08-16T22:58:00.000-06:00

Ellie and I watched Percy Jackson and The Olympians, The Lightening Thief. I enjoyed the movie. I laughed at moments that were supposed to be serious though. It was a little silly at times. Uma Thurman played the best Medusa I've ever seen. There was a part where they go to see Hades and as they enter Hell they look down into this pit and it's all fiery and people are screaming. I was thinking to myself that that was the only part of the movie that was realistic. Revelation 20 talks about it being the "lake of fire".
Revelation 14:10 the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Also, in Matthew, Jesus talks about being sent into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Anyway, the movie was good and it was clean, which is nice. I liked the action in it. It was nice that Ellie came over to watch it with me, even though I kept having to pause it to take care of things. At one point we took a 2o minute break from the movie so that I could go clean up a mess Allie made in the bathroom. That's another story for another day.
Thanks for reading :)

Worship 2010

2010-08-15T22:54:00.000-06:00

Today was such an awesome day! God is so BIG!!!

It started out just okay. I went to church but after having a bad morning, I wasn't really feeling up to facing 25 4th graders, but did it anyway. The kids were great, as always. Their hearts shine Jesus so much and I love to see the joy in their faces when they can remember their memory verse or when they know the story we are reading. I'm so glad that I asked to help in the 4th grade classroom with Tricia.
So then after church was over, I left Allie with Steve so that I could spend a couple hours with my friend Shannon's daughter, Ellie, taking pictures. We had planned it and she was already at home getting ready. We headed downtown to a couple locations I had been thinking of. She is so photogenic and was a very willing model. After some picture taking we went to the State Capital building for a worship concert on the lawn. The first band was from The Rock Church, it was their youth band, but they were just about finished when we showed up. The second group was from New Pilgrim Baptist Church, some gospel singers that were amazing! The last band was from Life Church, and they are great, but we only stayed for a few songs and then ran off to find some different locations for pictures.

It was a long day, but so much fun! I'm so thankful for my friends and for what God has given me. Taking pictures gives me so much joy and I have God to thank for that gift.

it's been a while

2010-08-13T12:00:00.000-06:00

It's been so long since I blogged, not that I don't have anything to share, and I haven't been too busy, I really don't have a good reason. I guess I set my mind to think I can only blog when I have something profound to share, but really I can blog about anything. I was reading one of my favorite blogs today, the 50's houswife blog, and she inspired me to just make a random list of things. She said sometimes she just wants to share a list of things going on. So that's what I'm going to do.

1. I LOVE taking pictures. It's been going better than I could have hoped and despite a broken camera and doing a whole shoot in the lowest quality, I'm still going at it.

2. Allie is almost 3 and I enjoy being her mommy so much.

3. Steve has been working 2 jobs and is gone all day most of the week, I miss him but appreciate his willingness to provide for us and allow me to be home with Allie.

4. I am possibly going to be starting a baby sitting job, every other week for 2 kids. A 2 1/2 year old boy and an 8 month old girl. I am really looking forward to it, but I needed to start next week and I have too many conflicts, so I hope it doesn't make him pick someone else, but rather just find something temporary for the week.

5. Summer has gone by entirely to quick, I can't believe it's already starting to cool down during August, which is usually our hottest month. I'm ready for the temps to drop a little, but not ready for winter!

6. August 8th, came and went without a second thought. I was busy with a photo shoot and it wasn't till I was typing out the date in photoshop on one of the pictures that I realized I didn't relate that day to being the day that Collin died.

7. I still haven't seen Where The Wild Things Are and we even have it.

8. I have a library card and it is getting used!

9. Last night I went to the Summer Concert Series downtown to see Matisyahu and it was great. My friend Shannon and her daughter Ellie joined us.

10. Steve and I may be getting involved in the Biker's for Christ as part of a support team. I am looking forward to it, but then missed the meeting last week.

I might do this again next week just to get back into the groove of blogging. thanks for reading. :)

Are you on the diving team?

2010-05-06T09:50:00.001-06:00

So it was about 8:45 this morning, while taking Boston for a walk, that I realized I can no longer use the dumpster as the place where I throw my garbage away. As I walked around the side with the warm bag of Boston's last night’s dinner, trying to get it to the garbage as fast as possible because, well, that's gross. I stopped short as I hear a "hello" from a lady standing up against the dumpster and then I see another pop her head up from INSIDE the dumpster. They were shoveling their findings into the back of a small red pickup truck. I wanted to say something like "here's a bag of dog crap to add to your collection" or just simply hand it to them, but the words would not form in my mouth, possibly because I was trying to hold my breath. So I’ve come to this conclusion: Only throw in the garbage what I want to give to the dumpster diving team.

Forgiven

2010-04-27T17:14:00.001-06:00

Lack of forgiveness, at times, is directly linked with pride. I never want to be known as someone who doesn't forgive. If you've hurt me in the past, I want to extend the same kind of grace to you as I would ask you to give me. Also I've decided to consider something that Johnny said at Day 1 on Saturday. I know nothing. If you've told me something about someone else, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear it. Sure it is a little difficult to altogether pretend you didn't hear something that you really in fact did hear, but I'm choosing to treat people as if I did not hear something about them. Johnny mentioned from personal experience, that similar behavior made friendships suffer, and I value my friendships far too much to contribute to that kind of division. Maybe it's crazy to think that I can just pray a simple "God, take this from me, make it never come back" and that it'll never come up, but I believe that God is a very big God and that doubt will only make me less confident in God's power. My doubt doesn't, in any way, make God less powerful.

God commands us to forgive. Matthew 6:14 says "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

So then for a little encouragement I've read Psalm 103:8-12. "The Lord is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

It's been a sin that God's working on me with that I've judged the actions of my friends, I've harbored bitterness toward people for the things they've done. I'm sharing this only because I hope that if you have been dealing with similar issues that you will not continue with that behavior. God desires us to live peaceably with everyone whenever you can. I like what Romans 12:18 says "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone".

To Write Love on Her Arms

2010-04-21T23:13:00.001-06:00

If you could imagine for a moment what it would be like to be in so much emotional pain that doing something like cutting your arm or pulling your hair, causing physical pain to yourself seems to be the only way to make that emotional pain go away. It’s never a resolution but only for an instant is it relief. Over 120 million people worldwide suffer from depression and about 4% of the population cope with that depression by way of self mutilation. Self mutilation is not only very unhealthy but also very addicting. An organization exists to raise awareness for depression and self mutilation. TWLOHA (to write love on her arms) has been around since 2006. Today they have asked people to write “love” on their arms to raise awareness for this problem.

What makes me passionate about this cause? Well 2 people in my life (that I know of) have struggled with “cutting”, a form of self mutilation. The first is Andy, a 27 year old boy I’ve known since we were small children. At times I’ve referred to him as my brother and others my friend. His life has led him down a path of self destruction. Trouble with the law along with alcoholism has been a common trend in his life for the past 8-9 years. Not only has his destructive life style hurt his family and friends but has also made him a non functioning member of society. I have a great amount of love for my brother but have not been able to have a healthy relationship with him in years. My hope is not that you will think ill of him or consider him a bad person but just understand the pain he carries. I am choosing not to list the tribulation in Andy’s life. Truthfully I don’t think I know all of what he deals with. I’ve seen him go from bad to worse in the last 8 years. I’ve also seen a few good things as well. Where no one looks forward to jail, he was able to spend some time reading the bible in jail and was baptized a couple years ago at Calvary Chapel. I do believe that he can be healed of his illness and I continue to pray for him.

I am the second person. In my teenage years I had struggled with a mild depression, never severe enough for attempted suicide and mine was most often treated with medication. **The rest of this paragraph may be too graphic for some, just a warning** the problem with my cutting was my increasing curiosity for how deep I could go. Eventually knife blades and my own finger nails could not give me the results I wanted. I’ve long since forgotten the trigger that caused me to go for the Lady Bic sitting on the edge of the bathtub, but it didn’t take much to break it open. I stood over the sink with the floppy razor blade and put two tiny cuts into my wrist. I can’t remember or begin to imagine what made me thing to push harder but I decided to do it again, this time cutting deep into my wrist after watching what was happening, I grabbed a hold of my wrist to stop the flow of blood. For a few minutes I just sat on my bed trying to think of ways I could cover my wrist without anyone noticing, but since I couldn’t even move my hand without blood pouring out (and I hated the sight of blood) I eventually decided to walk down stairs and wake my mom up. She took me to the ER and I got 8 stitches. Before I could leave the hospital, I met with a lady who was pretty much convinced it was a suicide attempt and it seemed easier to tell her what she wanted to hear that to try and explain what was really going on with me. I would tell people that I just wanted to see what it looked like, or that I was seeking attention (when really I wasn’t even thinking of the attention when I was doing it, in fact I totally believed I would be able to hide it). There was no support, just medication. My parent’s disappointment was my punishment. I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t the last time that I ever used self mutilation to cope with my despair; I just stayed away from knives and razors after that. I didn’t do it often, and when I did I usually dug at my skin with my fingernails or pounded my fists into a wall or, at times, against my legs. I would also grab a fistful of hair and pull. I never admitted I had a problem because the way I saw it was that I wasn’t as bad as most. As far as I was concerned I had it under control. I never sought help and it wasn’t until sometime in 2007 after I made Jesus Lord of my life that I realized I was totally free from that bondage. It hadn’t ever happened very often, but I knew it was over. Most of the people in my life, even my closest friends would have never known that part of my life. I decided to share this with you all today, on this day that TWLOHA has asked that we write “love” on our arms, because I’m hoping that someone out there can see that there is help out there and that you can be set free from the pain of depression. My case may not be that bad, but others out there are suffering. If you or someone you know is dealing with depression please go to their website. www.twloha.com

Cutest little dress

2010-03-26T12:00:00.005-06:00

Friendships are such an amazing thing. If you allow your friendships to be centered around God they can be great but if you try to force a friendship out of something that is hard to maintain then not only is it like a dripping faucet but it’s also not glorifying God. I have struggled with my balance of friendships my whole life. When I was younger I would do stupid things to maintain unhealthy friendships. I was a follower and could be convinced of anything. I’d agree with one girl even at the expense of another. I was boy crazy and had very few boys in my life that were only friends. I’ve hurt people and I’ve been hurt. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve started to balance things out and feed into healthy friendships, while making tough decisions about unhealthy friendships. Now I’m able to feed into healthy friendships that will be glorifying to God.
Yesterday I joined two of my friends, Carly and Stacy so that Carly could find a wedding dress. I’ve seen this love story unfold and I was feeling so blessed to be there. The first couple places we stopped just couldn’t give her what she was looking for. The last stop, David’s bridal, had a few options and the first dress she tried on was THE DRESS!!!! As she walked out of the dressing room and stood in front of the mirror we all made the kind of sound you only hear in a bridal shop when the girls all love the dress. She walked around in it for quite a while and in the end she left with that dress. I can’t wait to see it all come together and how beautiful everything is going to be. I’ll be taking pictures and I’m beyond thrilled.

2010-03-24T16:00:00.002-06:00

Steve and I got a puppy. He’s a 6 month old Dachshound named “Boston”. He’s completely housebroken, and is great with Allie but other than that he’s quite difficult. He’s so cute and cuddly but when I’m going about my daily business, he is always underfoot. If he’s totally content laying next to me on the couch and I get up, he wakes up right away and joins me in my task. He also barks, at everything. I had to get him a sonic bark collar because I think my neighbors would have killed me if he kept barking as much as he was before. He’s gotten a lot better about it since he first came to live with us. He seems to be trainable, it’s just going to take a lot of work. Allie plays with him for hours, tug o war and tag seem to be the games of choice.

My second new roomie is Stacy Craig. A friend of mine who just moved to Utah from Missouri. She has been out to visit a few times and decided a few months ago to pack up and make the trip west. I’m so happy to have my friend staying with us, even though the poor girl only gets a mattress in Allie’s room. She’s a good help and a lot of fun to have around. I know what it’s like to pack your life into a car and drive across country to a place your not too familiar with, no job and no security. I hope to be a good friend for her while she’s making this transition. She’s been a great friend to me and those of you following my blog might remember the drawing she did for me in July. If not go back to the July posts and look at the drawing in my blog written about Collin’s birthday and when Apollo died. http://ushendricksfolk.blogspot.com/2009/07/weekend-of-loss-and-remembrance.html

27 Short years

2010-03-24T15:45:00.009-06:00

I’ve just celebrated 27 years! It’s strange to think of how much happens in a year. It seems like everything has just flown by so fast I can’t imagine how I’ve fit everything in. I am happy to be 27, I do feel a little older. Too old now to blaim stupidity on my age. Although some would disagree.
To celebrate my birthday I invited a bunch of girls to come have dinner at my favorite place, Wingers. I have ate there for my birthday the last few years but this year decided it would be nice to do a girls night out for my birthday. Amy, Stephanie, Sheryl, Annie, Natalie, Stacy, Tiana, Audra, Grace, Carly, Mikey, and Diane came. Dinner was great and we even lucked out with $2.50 margaritas! Everyone seemed to enjoy dinner and I felt so blessed to have those ladies join me. After dinner 5 of us went to see Alice In Wonderland in 3D. The movie was great but when we got out of the theater it was snowing so much and my car was already covered. The roads were not too bad though, thankfully.

Social Networking

2010-03-24T13:08:00.000-06:00

I deactivated my facebook account today. I’ve become too attached to it. While I still feel it’s a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, I just think I need to make it less of a habit. The cons seem to be weighing out the pros lately. People seem to think that they can add a smiley face to the end of any message, no matter how rude and that makes it ok. I’ve spent too much time checking people’s status updates and going through hundreds of pictures. It’s time to focus on what God’s will is for my friendships. Stacy and I visited a friend today that told us one of her reasons for not wanting a facebook account is that she needs to connect with people, see them face to face, give them hugs and talk to them. I think that’s a good point. Social networking seems to be a way for people to say whatever they want and because they don’t have to see the person face to face it makes it ok. They can add a smiley face to the end of whatever rude thing they have to say and it makes it ok. Post endless picturs of your friends doing things they may not want documented or they may not want their past randomly showing up on their profile. “Daisy tagged a picture of you” and you look and your in bar 4 years ago pole dancing. Jesus threw my sins into the ocean but your friends keep fishing and tagging your drunk face in the picture.
Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not at all saying that if you have a facebook account that there is something wrong with you. I’m not suggesting everyone take random breaks from facebook. This is just something I chose to do for myself. I need to spend more time with God. This is a time for me to do that. There wasn’t a bible verse that I related this too or anything like that. I just need a break.

A new home and almost a new year

2009-12-17T09:39:00.021-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged and it's hard to know where to start since so much has happened in the last few months.

I have been wanting to share about the Weekend to Remember in Park City. It's a Family Life marriage conference. We went last year as well and loved it so much we decided to go again this year. It was a little different and we did have different speakers. We didn't stay at the Marriott this year but the place we did stay was just right behind the Marriott at a place called Carriage House. We got a really good deal on our room and were excited to have a little kitchenette and table so that we wouldn't have to eat out but it was so warm in the room that I didn't sleep very well the first night and when I got into the shower the next morning I was a little uncomfortable with the fact that there were cracks all in the bottom of the tub. I am more the type of person to deal with being uncomfortable rather than to ask for a change but I figured I could ask for an upgrade and be willing to pay the difference in cost for the next night. I was blown away when they gave us a huge room the second night and didn't charge the difference.

The conference was great too, I would love to share my favorite part but it's been a couple months ago now and I really don't remember one specific thing. Park City is so beautiful that time of year!
So when we got home from the conference, we had a new apartment waiting for us to move into. We signed the papers the day before we left for Park City and we could move in anytime. It took us a couple weeks before we could really live there but we did it and even though we're still slowly moving stuff over from my folk's place, we love our new apartment and Allie seems to love it as well.

Living Room

Allie's room

Master Bedroom

The dining room

So October was a busy month for us, November not so much, despite our efforts to have a guest for Thanksgiving dinner, we spent it alone in our new apartment.
Last week I went to a Women's Christmas Luncheon at church. Alison had a great message and Shelly sang beautifully. The next couple of weeks will be very busy too. December has been happening so fast that before I know it, it's going to be 2010!

30 years

2009-09-27T18:44:00.036-06:00

Not everyone gets a 30th birthday celebration the way Steve did this year. I was determined to make it special and I think I succeeded. Not without the help of many of our greatest friends though. I definitely could not have done it on my own.
So it started out on Friday the 18th. We had planned to meet a couple for dinner and then go to the Boyz II Men concert at the Utah State Fair. The tickets were free but still, due to seating, we needed a ticket. I was really upset when we got there to get tickets and they were gone. I thought our whole night was ruined. My friend suggested I look on KSL to see if anyone changed their mind about going and would you believe that people were selling their “free” tickets. I was frustrated but we did end up getting our tickets, so that’s all that mattered. After dinner at Diamond Lil’s we headed to the fair and got seated for the show. It was really great. The guys from Boyz II Men are a little older but it sure didn’t show in their performance. It was excellent!
Sunday at church Steve and I were invited by some friends of ours to go see a movie, upon arrival Steve found out that it wasn’t just them but a group there to surprise him for his birthday. I had arranged it ahead of time for Steve friends to come and see the movie “All About Steve”. It was a great movie, we all laughed so much our cheeks hurt and then went to dinner afterward at La Puenta. Having friends there to share Steve’s birthday was excellent and I’m so glad they joined us! On our way to the restaurant I told Steve that there was another surprise that I had for him. I told him to ask for the days off for us to go to San Diego on Tuesday. I had wanted to arrange his days off ahead of time and not tell him what was going on until we were already on our way, but that didn’t work out since I didn’t get his supervisor’s phone number to request his days off.
So after spending my day on Monday packing and making the necessary arrangements with our friends that were already in San Diego. They were staying at a time share and had already been there for almost a week. We would not have been able to go if they hadn’t invited us to join them at their condo and if my mom didn’t work for Jet Blue. We were very blessed by having to pay very little for the whole vacation. Not to mention my mom’s willingness to watch Allie for the days we were gone.
So our flight out there went very smooth. We had no line to check in, no line through security and after the plane took off and reached 37000 feet we were free to move to whatever seats we wanted. So Steve and I both had window seats, which was a lot of fun. We landed a little early and called our friends to come get us, then headed for the Navy base on Coronado Island. After a quick lunch and a stop to buy our Sea World tickets we headed straight to the beach. I hadn’t really planned on getting in the water since I have a small sand phobia, but I went ahead and got in anyway, it wasn’t so bad, and after I caught a glimpse of a dolphin off in the distance I forgot all about that nasty sand. We spent the better half of the day there having a great time.
The next day we planned to spend the day at Sea World. We got there just before it opened and were there till closing. Our first show was Believe, the Shamu show. It seemed to go by so quick and I wanted more! After that we went to Shipwreck Rapids, which is a lot like Rattlesnake Rapids at Lagoon. Thankfully we put the cameras in a locker because we got drenched! Then we headed to the other side of the park for the Pet show, which was a lot of fun. We also rode Journey to Atlantis, the roller coaster. That was a lot of fun, after doing the big drop and getting splashed by water you go into a large tube that happens to be a not so sturdy elevator that goes up quite a ways and sends you back down another drop. It’s pretty short but lots of fun. We were able to make it to the SLL show (Sea Lions Live) which was very entertaining. We saw everything there except the Clydesdales and we didn’t go on the chair lift or the viewing station thing, but we’ll definitely hit those next time! By the end of the day we were all very tired and ready to get back to the hotel to relax. We had some dinner and hung out in the hot tub for a while. We met a group from Utah while in the hot tub, that was pretty funny.
Our first plans were to come home on Thursday but we had been having such blast that I called my mom and asked for an extra day. So Thursday morning Steve and I hung out at the condo while our friends went to Tijuana to buy some Mexican goodies. When they got back we headed back out to Coronado for some fun at the beach. On our way out to Coronado we could see the fog off in the distance and it looked thick. Sure enough when we got to the beach we saw that the fog was very thick. I stayed up on the beach and read my book and wrote in my journal. I really enjoyed listening to the waves and relaxing by myself. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t even see Steve and our friends playing in the water and little droplets of water were gathering on my arm, my book, my journal and I was a little cold but really it was worth it. Every once and a while I would see someone walk by, or sea gulls would come invade my space, no doubt searching for more jerky like they had taken out of my purse the first day I was there. It started to get dark and I was getting a little nervous about not being able to see. It wasn’t much longer before everyone came back to where I was sitting and we headed out. We left the fog on Coronado Island and when we got to the condo we headed out to the pool where we played silly “guess what sea world animal” games and met an Aussie couple in the hot tub. I enjoyed quizzing them about the differences in our culture vs. theirs and found out that they have their own version of Dancing With the Stars that I must find online for my viewing pleasure.
Friday morning we wanted to fit one last tourist attraction in before heading to the air port. We went to Old Town to see some of the museums and walk around some of the shops and such. We had breakfast at a place called O’Hungrys. After walking around Old Town for a little bit we headed back to the car to go vacuum the sand out and return the rental. There was a slight issue with car rental that was quickly resolved and we were off to the airport. This time the flight was almost full and we didn’t have the luxury of sitting next to the window. I had a bit of a hard time with the movement of the plane and I think I may have experienced a small case of air sickness. Thankfully I didn’t throw up and the flight was over pretty quick. Steve’s brother picked us up from the airport and I was very glad to see Allie when we got home. It was such a short trip that it’s hard to imagine that I was there just a couple days ago. I can’t wait to go back. I’m already planning the next trip, we want to take Jordan, it will be a great experience for him.

Introduction: Should We Let a Theologian in The Shack?

2009-09-06T14:50:00.004-06:00

Ok so I was I sitting there flapping my gums, minding my own business when a book sitting on top of the file cabinet caught my eye. Finding God in The Shack by Randal Rauser. So I asked "What's this?” After a little explanation I was offered to take it home and read it. "Let me know what you think, Grace read it but she didn't like it." I was interested so I gladly shoved it in my purse and started reading it the first chance I got. I have a tendency to pick a book up and then get bored and put it down. Because of this I have about 5 open books right now; actually it's honestly probably more like 10. Despite my bad habit of not finishing books I have dedicated myself to finishing this book with full report on what I liked and didn't like and why. I don't think I'll be having a problem finishing this book though; I was only on page 2 when I made my first note.

Although I was aware of the book's basic premise, when I finally read the book I
was struck by the boldness of the narrative as William P. Young confronted evil
in all its ugliness. In a day when many Christian bookstores are full of volumes
on "victorious Christian living" but few, if any, on the dark night of the soul,
The Shack was distinctive for forcing the reader to confront a truly unthinkable
crime. Even more impressive, the narrative did not stop with a safe appeal for
justice for all, but instead pushed the reader on to the possibility that within
God's world forgiveness could extend even to Missy's killer. This profound and
daring treatment of evil was complemented by a depiction of God that was
striking in its innovation and theological sophistication.Pg 2, Finding God in The Shack

This was only page 2! I couldn't believe how well he hit the nail on the head; this was exactly why I liked The Shack. Then he went even further to talk about why people are maybe missing the whole point of the book by getting hung up on the little things, allowing "busyness to crowd out reflection on the meaning of life".

The situation reminds me of the film Jack Frost, which tells the unlikely story
of a man named Jack Frost (played by Michael Keaton) who dies in a car accident
on Christmas Eve. One year later he returns to his grieving wife and son
reincarnated as a snowman, wouldn't you immediately interrogate him on the
nature of life after death, the meaning of life, the nature of God-something
along those lines? But Jack's young son Charlie is more concerned with
enlisting his snowman father to beat the neighborhood bullies in a snowball
fight. So preoccupied is he with trivialities that he never broaches even
one profound question with his father. While we may find it hard to
understand Charlie’s lack of interest in his father's unusual afterlife, the
fact is that there are many "Charlie Frost Christians" who are more preoccupied
with the trivial equivalents of bullies and snowball fights than life's most
important questions. Pg 3, Finding God in The Shack.

A very profound point the Theologian author was making. The author of The Shack has so much to show us, but we could be missing out on all of that getting hung up on "Papa". The author then ends the Introduction by saying:

After All, it is through wrestling with new ideas that one learns to deal with the nuance and complexity that characterizes an intellectually mature faith. The Shack will not answer all our questions, nor does it aspire to. But we can be thankful that it has started a great conversation.

I couldn't agree more.

Women's Retreat and family picture

2009-08-24T18:50:00.012-06:00

Well this past weekend I went to the Women's Retreat at The Yarrow in Park City on Friday and Saturday. Friday I caught a ride from my friend Teri and we made it up there at about 4:00. We got checked into our rooms, relaxed for a minute and then I headed down to have dinner with some friends.

I guess the restaurant inside the hotel was the most logical place for everyone to come for dinner because we were slowly joined by more and more ladies there for the retreat. The only problem with that was that the restaurant manager had obviously not planned for that many people and only scheduled one server. This one guy managed to get drinks, take orders, pass out checks and take payments along with all the in-betweens. I felt really bad for the guy. Many of the ladies that came later ended up sitting for close to a half hour before getting their order taken. The server did a really good job for what he was handed though. Many of us ordered off the lunch menu and it was excellent. I ate the salmon, which is usually what I have. Someone had sweet potato fries, I tasted them and then realized I should have ordered me some of those!!

They were so good that I sat down next to my friend Catheryn and shared hers. She even had this really good sweet / hot dipping sauce that I really wish I knew how to duplicate.

Our first Session was at 7:00 that night and lasted about an hour and a half I think. After that was over, Catheryn and I went to Albertson's to pick up some random things and then we hung out in a friend's room and drank iced espresso and did what ladies do best, talked. It was really nice, there was about 8 of us hanging out in there.

I made it to bed really late and got up really early. Breakfast was in a really big tent because they didn't have enough room inside for our large group. Our session's through the day were all amazing.

Margaret Becker did a wonderful job and surprisingly took on all the sessions, giving us messages about life, our gifts, staying positive and shared a little about herself too. I enjoyed her very much and I'm so glad we had the chance to listen to her speak.

The retreat ended early which was actually a good thing for me because I had to get home and then turn around and leave again with my family to go to our friend Marinda's Annual Pictures in the Park. Marinda gets us along with other friends of hers and takes pictures of everyone. She does a group picture

and then individual family pictures,

this year she even took a picture of just the kids. There was actually a few camera's going but I only have the pictures from one for now. I just love the way the pictures turned out, even though both kids were pretty irritated about the whole process.

Herrin girls.

2009-08-10T08:54:00.003-06:00

Well the night before last night I was watching a special on TLC about Kendra and Maliyah Herrin. For those of you who don't know who they are you should go to http://www.herrintwins.com/. They were conjoined twins that were separated by the same surgeon who did Collin's surgery. Their surgery was the day before Collin died, all day long. I remember the news crews were there and there was a lot of commotion about it. On the TV special about the twins they also showed the Collin's surgeon and another surgeon. I absolutely hated seeing Collin's surgeon on TV then and I still hate it now. The twins surgery made her famous. Collin's surgery was nothing to her. I'm not blaming her, she didn't do anything wrong in Collin's surgery. It's just how rude she was to us, acting like how dare we ask for her to do his surgery when she clearly had her fame to worry about. It's so frustrating. For her to say she wouldn't do Collin's surgery because he would die anyway, but then separate conjoined twins!!! Are you kidding me? I hope that my irritation at the doctor does in no way reflect how I feel about the twins getting a chance at a normal life. I am so very happy that they were successfully separated. I think that is a medical miracle and God should be given the glory on their lives. I think it's amazing. This special that was on TV, exactly 3 years and 2 days since their surgery and they are getting prosthetic legs. My frustration is that I don't understand why my son's surgery had to be so much less important than the twins. Were their lives of greater value to her? So maybe there was a greater chance of survival with them, conjoined twins. Please! Even if she truly believed that my son had no chance at all, is it completely necessary to make that thought so blatantly obvious to me? Well I know this has been kind of a rant but seeing that TV special just brought up all that. I guess I need to ask God to help me forgive that woman for her harsh behavior toward me, praise Him for using his hands to separate those twins and ask him to remind me that He's still in control.

Just a day at the beach.

2009-07-31T21:00:00.014-06:00

While my camera uploads the pictures from today to my computer, I thought I would write about todays events. I took over 200 pictures, so you know it was definitely a fun day. First, I was up at 5 am. with Steve, I've done it this whole week to help encourage and support him. I actually found that I like it because I have time to relax before mayhem wakes up!
So this morning I'm awake, it's all good, Allie gets up, it's still good, then my ear starts to hurt again. This has been going on for a few days, the worst ear ache I've ever had. Even my jaw hurts. So I'm kind of in pain and Allie is getting mad about everything. She cried because she wanted her shoes on, because I gave her only one banana, and because she didn't want cereal (but because I don't speak the language of whineandcry I didn't catch on to that immediately). So I finally decide that I need to put ear drops in my ear and lay down (so the drop would drain into my ear). Trying to decide why Allie is so angry I give up and turn Caillou on for her. That made her happy for a minute. She was crawling on me and pushing her feet into my ribs when I finally decided to take my mom's advise and take her outside to play. Now she's getting mad at me because I'm walking around the house to get her clothes and shoes and grab my bible study to take with me outside. She wants me to pick her up but if I pick her up it takes twice as long to gather these things, and she's still mad. So I put her down and while I'm going through the clean clothes to find her something she dug her pretty little plastic shoe heel into the top of my foot so hard I almost cried. Finally I'm getting her changed and dressed and we head outside. Oh I forgot the sunscreen. Then I forgot her water. So I did have to come back we did get some peaceful play time outside...til she decided she needed to buckle the chair (it's got a buckle to help keep it closed) but Allie doesn't know how to latch buckle's yet and it just makes her mad that she can't buckle it. It made her mad when I did it for her, when I tried to help her and when I put my foot on the step next to her. I could not make this child happy! So I was getting pretty worn out, but still managing. We headed inside where she sat for another episode of Caillou and a peanut butter tortilla. Good, now she's calm, I'll go get on the computer. Thank God I did that! My friend Kathy was inviting anyone to join her to go the beach in Herriman for a swim. I told her I was up for it and made the arrangements.
So while I waited for Jordan to get home from school and Steve to get home from ZLB, I packed some snacks and our swimming stuff so that we would be ready to go as soon as Steve got home. Steve got home at about 2:00 and we left soon after. One quick pit stop to get gas and we at the beach within a half hour. It was better than I even expected. Pretty clean, small, easy to get to (although some would argue that), and our friends were there waiting. I was happy to see my friend Mandy with her husband and baby, they are such a cute family! Judah is not even 4 months old and is a very sweet baby. I made it just in time to see her first dip in the water, with the cutest dang swimsuit ever.

Allie had to be woken up from her nap to get out of the car and wasn't really ready to just dive into it, so I held her for a little bit and then started getting her changed into her swimsuit. Surprisingly after only about a half hour nap she wasn't cranky at all (boy was I shocked). I took her over to Ellie, who right away started to bring her buckets full of water to dump in the sand. Allie got into it pretty quick and Jordan was in the water with Pierce floating around in a little green tube they brought with them.

My friends didn't stay long but after they left, Jordan and Steve started making sand castles and digging holes to bury themselves in, while Allie braved the cold water up to her ankles and played with the bucket that my friend had left for her.

Steve buried Jordan and then started to dig his own hole (which sounds terrible all typed out). It took him a while, lets face it, it had to be much bigger of a hole than Jordan's. He got into the hole and realized it wasn't wide enough for his shoulders and had to get back out to widen it.

So when he finally fit in the hole we started to cover him up. I had to help because Jordan just couldn't get all that sand pushed fast enough. I'm not so sure that Steve was happy about me helping since I gave him 2 nice round mounds in the chest area...I was just giving him what he always wanted!

When Steve came out there, even with what had filled into the hole, there was still a big enough hole for Jordan to fit in to be buried again. So because he had laughed so hard about Steve's sand mounds I gave him some too, and Steve made him a mermaid. He was saying "NO! NO!" but laughing really hard so I know he thought it was funny! So a little more bur
We had so much fun out there, we'll definitely do it again.

Every morning is the start of a new day.

2009-07-29T06:06:00.005-06:00

I just love the way the sky looks when the sun is just coming over the mountains. I really wish I had a better view of the east mountains from where I live. I really like how quiet mornings are too. I sat outside for a few minutes and watched the birds fly around the tree next door and a few cars drive by. I just love how God's mercies are new each day (Lamentations 3:22). I'm not even thinking about yesterday's garbage because I left it at the cross last night, today is a new day! God is so faithful to forgive us (1 John 1:9). I realized yesterday that I've been holding on to anger and resentment toward someone. In most cases, if I become upset with someone, it's fairly easy for me to pray through it and just let God take hold of the situation and let it go. This is different, maybe because this man is who I considered to be my dad. I don't even call him that anymore. I'll give you a little background of the situation:
When I was pregnant with Collin he delivered a car to us, a 1992 Oldsmobile Regency 98. Most of you know of it, it's still a car we drive today (well except the last month because the registration is expired). Anyway, he was very kind to give us the car like that, ready to pass safety and emissions and asking nothing in return. I was, and still am very appreciative about that car. The night that he dropped the car off, he was on his way to Arizona and asked if I would gather the things left in the car and put them in a box in the trunk so that he could stop by on his way back through, going home to Wyoming, and pick up the box. The next day I did as he asked and waited for his return. It didn't happen and eventually, I'm not sure how much later, he called to tell me that he had been in too big of a hurry and was already back in Wyoming. It wasn't a problem, the trunk is huge and one little box wasn't making any difference to me. Well when he did finally come back into town Collin had been born and it was either right after his surgery or right before, it must have been right after because things were bad enough that I didn't want to leave the hospital. The conversation I had with him about the box in the trunk was very short and it never crossed my mind that he would be upset about not getting the belongings from the trunk at that particular time due to the circumstances. Surely he would be understanding to the situation and not really expect me to make a special trip away from the hospital for some receipts, a handicap tag and a bluetooth headset. He didn't seem altogether interested in coming not the hospital either and I got the feeling he was in a hurry to get out of town again. Well only a couple days went by before the news made it's way back to my mom through my "dad's" sister that I refused to let him come to the hospital and that I wasn't appreciative about him giving me the car. My mom was so angry, knowing that wasn't true, she set my Aunt straight about it and called me to ask for the box. She came to the hospital, got the box, and took it to my Grandma's house where "dad" was staying. She gave him the box, without a word and neither of us have spoke to him since. I was really too busy to care about it at the time. After a while, it started to bother me that he hadn't even tried to call me. He never even attempted to justify himself, at the very least I figured he would just deny it and I would just let it go to avoid confrontation. It just never happened.
I don't share this story with you so that you see that I am justified for being angry with him because, even though what he did was undoubtedly wrong, I am not justified for being angry 3 years later. When that happened I had no knowledge of what God instructs us on in reference to harboring anger toward others. "You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others." - Collosians 3:13. Along with that there is many other verses just like it. I really feel like it's only hurting me to be so angry with him. I don't think about it every day but when I do think about him I am really bothered by how I feel. My mom says I need to see him to get some closure, but I'm not sure how that would help since I have nothing nice to say to him. So my prayer is that God will help me to forgive him without having to receive anything from him. One day I may see him and I just hope that God will have prepared the way to approach him without contempt.
God is so faithful, I'm not worried. I just love being reminded that every day is a new day and we can have new beginning with God any time we ask for it.

A Weekend of Loss and Remembrance.

2009-07-21T14:33:00.015-06:00

So this last weekend was Collin's 3rd Birthday. I knew that it was coming up and up until about a month ago I had planned on doing something. Getting together like we did last year and hanging out at the park or whatever. Then I started to get the idea that it would be weird to continue doing it. That people must think that it's unhealthy to keep having a party on his birthday, even though it's not like we're throwing a birthday party with cake and balloons and all the children's activities. I just like to get together. So last Wed my mom suggested doing something and she said that she had made the mistake of not doing that with J.J. So I decided she was right and I started inviting people to come. It was such short notice though that most people couldn't make it due to other plans.

Then the planning took a back seat when all day Friday Apollo's health was really looking bad. The last couple of weeks have been hard for him and he was in quite a bit of pain. The last few days he couldn't even get up with out help most of the time. We waited and waited on Friday thinking that he was going to pass away at any minute. My mom and Steve ended up moving him into the garage onto a blanket and wetting him down with the hose so that he wouldn't be so hot. We were up really late on Friday and Steve even stayed up all night with him. Saturday late afternoon he did pass away. It was the saddest I have ever been about losing a pet. He was the best dog and we'll never have one that was as loyal and loving as he was. He was the smartest animal I have ever known too. I wanted to share a couple of memories I have of Apollo The Great.

The first day he was home alone we had to put him in the front yard because we were not sure how Sheba was going to treat him and we couldn't leave him in the house because he was a naughty puppy. I was at school and my parents were at work. I came home from school and came in the house. I started to look for him then remembered he had been put in the front yard, so I went back outside and started to call for him. He started to whimper and yelp and I looked everywhere but still couldn't find him. Finally I called my mom and she told me to check the window well. Sure enough, that's where he was. How he fell down there I have no clue. So I went down stairs opened the window and rescued him from his dark prison. He was so small then and I carried him and let him lick my face and say his "thank-yous". His whole life he never got close to the window well again and sometimes my parents would tease him by calling him from their window, I would laugh and laugh as he jumped at the window well whining and barking at them. Maybe you think that's cruel but if you could see a hundred and twenty pound dog afraid of a window well he couldn't even fit in anymore, you would laugh too.

The summer after we got him, he was maybe about 6 months old by then, we had a family reunion in St. George, UT. I was allowed to bring a friend of mine with because I didn't know anyone in the family very well yet. So my friend Lori and I, and both dogs piled rode to St. George in the back of the truck (with a shell). We set up at a campground next to the lake. Lori and I in the tent and my parents in the truck. Well the dogs were not allowed to be in the water so while we went and played in the lake the dogs stayed at the campsite. We left our tent open, I don't know why, and when I got back he had thrown up on my sleeping bag. We joked forever that he did it to get back at me for calling him names. I fought with him like he was my brother because he was always chewing on my shoes and peeing in the house and he always bugged Sheba when she was trying to sleep. So it was like he deliberately puked on my sleeping bag.

He never forgot where we used to keep the treats. For years the treats were always kept in the hall closet. Him and Sheba would come in from being outside and always be rewarded with a treat. He learned basic commands like "sit" and "shake" really quickly. A few years ago the treats stopped being put in the hall closet and they started to be kept in the dining room, but he would still walk up to the closet door and lift his huge paw to hit the door, signaling that he was ready for his treat. Even saying the word "treat" would send him running to that door.

He liked to cuddle. On the floor, on the couch next to you, on the chair in your lap (all 120 pounds of him) and he would even sometimes walk up and stand face to face with my dad while he was sitting on the chair. I always laughed really hard though because he would be standing there with his feet on my dads lap staring at him, trying to get something from him or sometimes just getting a good ear scratch and almost always when he would get down he would take a step back and jam his paw right between my dad's legs (if ya know what I mean)! *The picture is not mine, found it online for humor*

One time we went to the Liberty Park with the dogs and we were walking through the playground between the swings. Someone was there with their tiny Pomeranian pup and it was just yapping like crazy at our dogs. Apollo was still pretty young and he was curious. It was like he didn't quite know what that thing was. The owners looked a little scared at first when Apollo started to approach the yapper, but calmed down after they realized he was a teddy bear. Apollo lifted his giant paw and dropped it down right on top of the Pom, which was no bigger than Apollo's paw. It was so gentle, it was like he was trying to get it to stop, push "snooze" or something. He lifted and did the same thing a couple more times. We all laughed and laughed, even the owners of the Pom. *The picture on the side is not Apollo nor is it a Pom but I found it online to give you an idea of the size difference.*

One time while he was playing in the front yard he grabbed a hold of the cable on the side of the house and started to run, pulling it so hard and so fast that the TV that the cable was connected to flew off its stand in the basement. We heard a loud "crash" from the basement and after seeing the TV on the floor didn't know how if had fallen...found out who was to blame after seeing the cable across the lawn outside.

He learned how to open the gate and sometimes he would just leave to go for a walk, or to let the other dogs out so they would go for a walk and leave him alone.

There is so much more, he was just the biggest, smartest, most loving dog! It's so hard to believe that he is gone and we all miss him very much but I am glad that he's no longer in pain.

So Sunday after church I came home to get Jim, the other dog, and take him to the park with us for the get together we were having for Collin's birthday. It was very unorganized and we didn't have any chairs and it was right at Allie's nap time. Not many people came but the ones that did were so great to have. Only a few people came with their with kids and they left fairly early for naptime and such. So after that, those of us still there, really just sat and talked, Allie fell asleep in her stroller and Jordan and my dad went for bike rides. It was a really nice afternoon. I can't believe how supportive my friends have been to me.

I can't share stories of my son's life with people without having to tell them that he's in heaven and that's awkward for people to have to hear, but I want to tell people about my son. I can't find a balance. This year I decided to share the old blogs that I wrote during the time Collin was in the hospital. There are so many people that didn't know me then that are asking about him and I have forgotten a lot. I love answering people's questions but I just thought it would be a nice way to share. I guess I didn't realize that people would be so sympathetic. I guess it's hard for people to understand that I'm OK. That experience didn't make me lose my mind like others seem to think it would. I don't want my friends to feel sorry for me, or to think that I am angry or depressed because of it. I want my friends to know that God is so awesome that he delivered me from all that! My friends are amazing though, one even wrote a song:
Collin’s Song
Happy birthday to you my dear child

It feels like forever though it’s only been a while

Since I held you in my arms and I kept you safe from harm

Now you’re in Gods hands

Happy birthday to you my sweet baby

How I wish that today was the way that it should be

With a party for you and your family too!

But I know that it wasn’t the plan!

Today you’ll have your birthday In heaven, but not too far away

Oh the angels will sing!

What a joy it must bring To have God sitting right by your side!

This day is going to be hard

But it’s nothing that I can not handle

Know your mommy loves you

And I’m right there, it’s true!

As Jesus helps you blow out your candles!

Happy birthday to you my little one

It was only when your life had just begun

You were taken away brought to heaven to stay

And I was left here on the earth!

Happy birthday to you big boy

Thoughts of you today bring so much joy!

So we’ll all celebrate this sweet and special day

And remember your moment of birth!

Today you’ll have your birthday In heaven, but not too far away

Oh the angels will sing! What a joy it must bring To have God sitting right by your side!

This day is going to be hard

But it’s nothing that I can not handle

Know your mommy loves you And I’m right there, it’s true!

As Jesus helps you blow out your candles!

Another friend drew a truly amazing picture:

So the weekend was full of sadness and memories, but in the end God gave me comfort.

Like I said in a note I posted on Facebook "Happy Birthday baby boy, you get a puppy. I don't know exactly what goes on in heaven but I do like the thought of Apollo nuzzling his head on Collin's lap after playing for hours in beauty beyond our imagination".

no weapon will work against me.

2009-07-16T20:01:00.002-06:00

So this was a blog that I had posted a while ago on myspace but recently I have dealt with a little more of the attacks and the Holy Spirit really just reminded me of this. So I felt like sharing it again and I hope that all who read it are blessed by this promise that God has given us.

no weapon will work against me Current mood: relieved Category: Life
I have been having some problems with someone trying to hurt me because she herself is hurt. She's trying to hit me where it hurts the most and that's my family accusing me of something I definately did not do, and then I believe that she is even going to the extent of getting others involved. It's very sad and I havn't really known how to handle the situation. However I know that God is with me while I'm going through all hardships so I've just been closer to Him through this. I was sitting here thinking too much and decided to look for something on ebible.com, which is an awesome site by the way. I was not really searching for this but I found:
If anyone attacks you,don't for a moment suppose that I sent them,And if any should attack,nothing will come of it.
I create the blacksmithwho fires up his forgeand makes a weapon designed to kill.I also create the destroyer-
but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged.Any accuser who takes you to courtwill be dismissed as a liar.This is what GOD's servants can expect.I'll see to it that everything works out for the best."GOD's Decree.Isaiah 54:15-17

just in case you feel that only the King James Version is the correct version of the bible:
Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

I just love how the Lord will give me answers to questions I havnen't really even asked yet. God is good!

The Great Lost Shoe.

2009-07-06T19:39:00.003-06:00

So this weekend was the College and Career group's Camp in Paradise, Ut. Steve and I were blessed to be able to go this year and had been looking forward to going. We had sessions Friday and Saturday then church on Sunday at the camp then came home on Sunday after lunch. I would love to share everything that happened throughout the weekend but honestly there is just too much, but the one thing that impacted me the most was the part of the weekend that wasn't even planned.

It started with a lost shoe. We were all trying to hurry to get out of the Camp and on the road so that we could get to Brigham for the fireworks and we were already running behind. When I walked past Kandi and Shane's tent they asked me if I knew how to get there. I didn't even really know where we were going, I just told them to hurry because we were leaving. Everyone piled into the least amount of cars they possibly could, Steve and I in the Calvary van with some other leaving only 2 open seats. Shane came running up to ask if there was an extra seat for them and then went to get Kandi. We all sat there wondering what was taking so long and why weren't we on the road yet. Feeling rushed, Scott went to find out what the hold up was. As it turned out Kandi couldn't find her shoe. So she came running up anyway with only one shoe and about 30 seconds later Shane followed with her other shoe. So all was well and we were on our way. I had been thinking we were only about 10 minutes behind schedule but it was probably more like 30. We lead the line of about 10 cars for Brigham City fireworks. Shane was feeling really bad, he even said there is nothing worse than having a bunch of people waiting for you. I reassured him it wasn't a big deal and he didn't bring it up again. Scott was driving the van and he had driven the road a few times before so he knew where he was going but still missed the turn. He decided to keep going to the next road but as he got closer to the road he saw a car in the ditch. I didn't think he was going to stop. I thought he'd be worried about being even later than we already were and missing the fireworks. I was wrong. He pulled over and jumped out as did every guy in the cars that followed as did some of the girls and both the Pastors. The car was wedged with it's back end in the ditch and up against a fence so it didn't really look like it would be easy to get it out. The girl, who was alone in the car, had to defend herself for a minute when some of the guys were teasing her about if she was drunk or texting, but then the settled down when they realized that she was pretty upset and it wasn't really the time for jokes. A few minutes after assessing the situation, the boys gathered around the car and pushed it out of the ditch in about 10 seconds with little effort (see the video here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=127110924571&ref=mf ) Why not? God had placed us there to help her, he wasn't going to leave it at that. Then after some cheers and a crowd full of "praise God" shouts, everyone piled back into the vehicles and were off to the fireworks. I was reminded of how down Shane had been about holding up the group and I made sure he knew if it wasn't for that we would have passed by there before the girl drove her car into the ditch. His spirits were up after that and so was everyone else's. We were all amazed at how God had put us there to help her and no one cared about being late for fireworks anymore. So we joked a little about just watching them as we drove down the road, or getting there just as it was ending. Hey, we'd miss traffic because we'd be going to opposite direction as everyone else. So sure enough when we made the turn for Brigham the fireworks were already going, so Scott pulled over and so did everyone else, except one car (I guess they decided to risk it). Everyone got out and watched fireworks for a minute. We sang some songs like Neil Diamond's "Coming to America", "God Bless the USA", also the national anthem, "glory glory hallelujah", some Christmas song, just for a joke and then every one started to form a circle for prayer but we were still in the singing mood so people started doing the "Hokey Pokey". Even throughout prayer some people began to sing praise and worship songs. I had never seen anything like that. We stood on the side of that road united for prayer for probably a half hour. It was amazing! Even after we got back to the Camp, a lot of people were still talking about the girl in the ditch. Pastor John pointed out a part in the bible that talks about how our actions can be the biggest witness of God. I know that sometimes it's hard to do something for someone and not see if it impacts them at all, in this case we will probably never know until we enter into God's kingdom and I'm perfectly ok with that. I'll continue to pray for her anytime I think about what happened and praise God for the great lost shoe.

Three Pound Brain

2009-06-24T13:44:00.005-06:00

So I've been listening to some various sermons from Pastor Steele Croswhite from The Rock Church in Salt Lake. One thing I've noticed, other than his serious undying passion for the gospel, is that he points out that the human brain is only 3 pounds quite often. I can't say that it's every sermon because I haven't listened to every sermon but he says it in every one of them I have listened to. His way of teaching is so fantastic that I just can't say enough nice things about listening to his sermons but I do chuckle every time I hear him say "three pound brain" The latest one was that he was trying to get the point across about just how great and powerful and awesome our God is, which is next to impossible since it's beyond our comprehension, but he said "God is God and we have a three pound brain". Basically that we cannot measure how great and powerful and awesome our God is, but we can measure our abilities to what fits inside a three pound brain. Everything we do, everything that we think and all the ways we function are controlled by no more than a three pound brain. Which is quite a bit, but nothing compared to that of God. We don't even have a number to measure God's greatness, power and awesomeness! It's such a awesome thing to just sit back and think about.

It was always going to be a bowl.

2009-06-12T17:08:00.023-06:00

Well I know it's been a while since I posted. I have been so busy. It's something about warm weather that makes us go a little social! We have been to bbq's and parties and other social gatherings.

We visited the Natural History Museum, which was a ton of fun. Jordan had been there before but if I ever had I definately didn't remember it. The funniest thing happened while we were there. Jordan was talking really loud because he does that when he gets excited, well we kept telling him that he needed to lower his voice but he just couldn't. While he was standing in the middle of a circle shaped aquarium with weird looking frogs in it, Steve reached over and dumped a little tiny bit of water on him. He came running out of there so fast yelling about how the frog had splashed him and then he was telling all the other kids not to stand in that aquarium because the frogs splash. Let me tell you, those frogs were barely moving, much less splashing people. It was so funny. We laughed so hard, and I think he still doesn't know that Steve dumped water on him.

Another great thing is that Fellowship at the Farm has started back up for the season at Wheeler Farm on the first Wednesday of each month. We've gone to two so far. The most recent one was just a couple weeks ago. The Potters Field Minstry came to show us how awesome it is that God is the Potter and we are clay. While they are talking and sharing with us their testemony this guy is litterally forming a huge pot. He spends time on it, shaping it, digging out the insides (because it's full of itself), and he even carves designs into the side of it. It really looks like he's just about to be done with it when he collapses in on inself. He had cut it so that it would fall but we didn't know it was on purpose until he started to make a really big bowl. He starts to form the bowl, taking time, making it just right and when he finishes it he explains how he knew from the very beginning that it was going to be a bowl, just like God knows the plans he has for us right from the very beginning. The clay didn't know what was happening to it, but the Potter knows the whole time. It was always going to be a bowl. Maybe we collapse inside ourselves sometimes only to be shaped into something different, but God's plans for us are always going to come out the way he wants. I can't wait for them to come again, it will be awesome.

We went to a really beautiful wedding for our friends Chan and Skipps. I was so surprised to see my friend Nikki that I haven't seen in a very long time. I met her almost a year ago while she was in Utah because her daughter had been severely burned and was at the Burn Unit at University of Utah hospital. My heart had really gone out to her and some of you may already know the story about how he daughter won the raffle at the Barlow Girl concert (if not then refer to my myspace blog from October 9th, 2008). Her daughter passed away a few months ago and I wasn't able to go the funeral so I was really happy to see her at the wedding. The ceremony was really beautiful. At one point both the Bride and the Grooms parents came forward and each both sets of parents took turns saying a blessing for Chan and Skipps. The reception was not your typical reception. Chan is a tai kwon do teacher and some of his students were there to give us a show. Chan took a part it it too with a really cool kick that I would never be able to acomplish! They ended the reception by singing a few worship songs.

Some other things: I watched some a few of my friends get tattooed, it only made me ink hungry.

We saw a band called Revive. They are from Australia and had some really great tunes.

Went to Meuller Park a couple times to BBQ with our friends from College and Carreer.

I visited The Rock Church again.

So there you have it. That's not even half of all that we did either! I love it though. I absolutely love spending time with my family (and that includes my church family as well).

The Week leading to the Resurrection

2009-04-16T19:06:00.021-06:00

Well I know it's a little late to be getting to this now, and I could have just shrugged off sharing how my week went, but I decided it's better late than never. What an awesome week it was too! We've been going to a study on Monday nights to watch a series called The Truth Project. It's a philosophical look at Christianity, put bluntly: The (only) Truth. We've really enjoyed it and have even stayed behind to fellowship and sing worship together. It's the same group of people that we fellowship with on Saturday nights too. It's very interesting, and I've really been learning a lot. It's really hard to repeat, because there is a lot to it, but basically it's teaching that none of the philosophical questions that people ask can be answered without putting God into the equation. How do you know what's right or wrong? The answers varied but basically it came down to that most people believed "you just know” or “you have a feeling". Well then, where does that feeling come from? "You're born with it, it's your conscience." What makes you born with it, how are people born with it? Here comes the pause..."You just ARE." Wow, that's logical. Well it's easiest and best explained if you look to God, the Creator of all and the bible where He teaches us that He made people to know the difference between right and wrong because of his instructions. Did you know that originally, in Webster's Dictionary, the definition of philosophy was "to enlarge our understanding of GOD"? The later editions have edited out "God", compromising the original meaning. It's been an awesome learning experience. I could blog all on that but there is so much more I want to share!

On Wednesday Allie and I went to Discovery Gateway to hang out with Our Friend's Shani and her son Alex. It was a lot of fun! This was the first time that Allie was old enough to really enjoy it and play. She loved the water and got pretty wet, thankfully it was a warm day so I didn't really have to worry about her being too cold. It wasn't a long play date, both the kids got pretty tired after a couple hours so we headed out. I ran out of gas on my way to go get Steve, so that sucked, but it turned out fine and as Steve came to save the day (thanks to our friend Brande driving all the way from Sandy with a gas can) we even got the chance to talk to an old friend of ours which was very interesting. It's always good to see old friends to be reminded why we don't miss our lives B.C.

Friday we went to a Good Friday service at the church, it was a short message about Jesus' death on the cross and what it means to have our sins paid for in full. This woman described how Jesus was taken to Jail when he hadn’t done anything wrong. He was beat beyond recognition. They pushed a crown on thorns onto his head to mock him for calling himself a King. They ridiculed him, laughed at him, and forced him to carry a heavy piece of wood through crowds of people. His wrists and feet were nailed to a cross and when the cross was stood up the weight of his body would have pulled at those nails in his wrists and feet. He felt agonizing pain that we couldn't even imagine. It didn't end there, so much more and all so that we wouldn't have to spend eternity in hell. After the message, we were given the chance to come forward, take a nail and hammer it to the cross. It was done as a symbol for nailing our sin to the cross and leaving it there where it belongs and where it's forgiven. Almost everyone went forward to put a nail in the cross.

Friday night we had the privilege of going to a traditional Passover Seder Supper at a friend's house. We were very blessed to enjoy the evening with people who we knew, but hadn't really spent much time with. It's great to get to know people better and dinner is always a great place to fellowship, people are always happy when they eat. We really had a great time with it and went through the whole ceremony, each of us having a little part in it. We went to 2 of them last year and each one has been it's own experience that we have enjoyed very much. It's nice to take time and recognize Jesus as our Passover Lamb.

Saturday morning we rushed out the door to get to the Easter egg hunt for the kids. I was surprised to see that they used real eggs, kind of gross if you ask me, but hey whatever. Allie was able to get one egg, she happened to be standing right on top of it when they blew the whistle. Jordan was nice enough to share a few of his eggs with her though.

Later in the afternoon the kids colored some eggs and even Allie played a little part in it. There wasn't many but they seemed to enjoy themselves.

Our celebration of life weekend continued on Saturday night, we went to The Rock Church for a worship service and message by Steele Croswhite. The music was absolutely amazing, it's was beautiful. I can't even describe it. Two different bands played and Steele did the message in the middle. It was great to listen to him preach. He is passionate about it, he spits and yells and throws his arms all over the place. Pastor Steele is so on fire for Christ, he radiates God's glory. At one point in the message he explaining God's love for us like the love a father has for their own Child and how as parents, if our kids were to ask us what they could do to please us we wouldn't tell them to guess or work hard, we just want our children to love us. God is the same way, he isn't expecting us to work toward our salvation, and he’s not asking us to guess what he wants us to do. He tells us what he wants. He wants us to turn our lives over to him, love him, and accept that Jesus died for our sins. That's his instruction to us, it's really that simple. It doesn't have to be hard because he loves us enough to just tell us right up front what he wants from us and it's easy! At the end of the service it was time for Baptism. They said it was the most people they think they have ever had get baptized in one night. I think it was 15 people. I loved watching Pastor Steele as people would confess they have taken Jesus as their savior he would dance around in place and get all excited!

Resurrection day services were so awesome. The church was packed. I always enjoy Pastor Terry's sermons and it's great to have the topicals. It's important that even though the message of the resurrection is something we have heard over and over that it doesn't change the way we feel when we hear it. The resurrection is so important to understand the power of God. Jesus rose from the dead, and not in a zombie kind of way like so many non believers are making this out to be. One small detail that goes by unnoticed:

Jesus folded up the cloth that had lain over his eyes next to the burial cloth. During that time when someone would get up from their meal, if they were done eating they would wad their cloth up and put it in their plate, but if they were coming back they would fold it nicely and place it next to their plate. Jesus is not done here yet.
Later we went to some friend's house. We listened to music, laughed, ate tons of food and fellowshipped. It was a great end for our week. We have so many blessings to be thankful for. Next Easter won’t come fast enough.

A couple of busy weeks.

2009-03-29T20:19:00.013-06:00

Well it's been a couple weeks since I last blogged. It's not that I haven't had anything to blog about because I definitely have. So to start out with, the big news, our new car was rear ended. Only 9 days into it, still with a fresh temp tag on the back window. We were sitting in the left turn lane on Bangerter hwy at the entrance to i-15, the light was red, and we had been stopped for about 20 seconds or so, count to 20 right now and you'll understand that it's long enough to be seen as completely stopped at a red light. She knew she had messed up and took the blame right from the start. We had a little trouble getting Allie out of the car because neither of the back doors would open, so Steve pulled her over the front seats and we made sure she was fine, which she was. I talked to the woman who hit us and she admitted that she had been looking at a vehicle that was high-centered on the median and when she turned around it was too late to stop, she tried to go around but was too close at that point so she ran into us. She was probably going about 30 MPH when she hit us and there were tire marks from her so I don't think she hit the breaks, she was counting on being about to go around us, but with no time to react properly it just didn't work. She was very remorseful and was terrified about Allie being in the car. The police showed up and made the report and we though we would just be able to drive the car away, but when we pulled off the bumper we realized that the frame was pushed right into the tire, there was no way at all for us to drive the car away. We called a friend to come get us and watched our new car get towed away.

So her insurance company gave us a rental, told us to buy a new car seat and a week later offered us a $1200, which we hesitantly accepted.

Also this was the week of the scrapbook expo which I've been really looking forward to, so bright and early Friday morning I hauled my butt out of bed and got out of the house in time to pick up 2 girls so we could get to the expo by 7:00 AM and stand in line for an hour to get our tickets, then stand in line for another hour to get into the expo. It's well worth it to get a table to sit at all day and scrapbook with friends. We got started right away with some shopping, after all we needed some supplies for all the scrapbooking we planned to do. I had to leave for a little bit to pick up my paycheck but other than that I was there till midnight. The next morning I went to Coffee Talk where we talked about what was acceptable in the bedroom in God's eyes. It was pretty interesting, and a few giggles and a couple hours later I headed back to the expo and scrapbooked till they kicked us out at 6, then we got together at Crystal's house to scrapbook into the night again. I was so tired the next day and had scrapbooking on the brain so bad that I was thinking about page layouts and pictures non stop. Yeah as you can see I took one really lame picture and we are missing one, Caitlyn was already gone when I snapped this picture on my blackberry... I should have got some better pictures of us.

So then this past week I was able to go to a concert because a friend of mine had one extra ticket. My husband stayed home with Allie so that I could go see Big Daddy Weave and Josh Wilson, which if you have never heard then you are seriously missing out! Josh Wilson opened up the show and he is unique because he does the work of a whole band all by himself. You're imaging a guy with cymbals strapped to his knees and a head gear type harmonica holder, maybe something strapped to his back... It's not like that at all. He strums the guitar to sound like a drum and records it by pushing a pedal with his foot and then he makes the sound of the base doing the same thing, then he can add acoustic or anything else, no cymbals or headgear required. Big Daddy Weave was great. They had an awesome energy and the place was packed. I had a great time and decided to stick around for autographs after the show. I was even able to get a picture with Big Daddy Weave.

music makes me smile!

2009-03-15T22:22:00.008-06:00

In the last couple of weeks I have been blessed to attend two great events. The first one was the Jeremy Riddle concert. I have really loved Jeremy Riddle ever since I first heard "Sweetly Broken" sang by the worship team a couple years ago. That song was so moving that I wanted to hear it more, I got hooked on Jeremy Riddle that way. If you have never heard him then you should definitely listen to that song! Steadfast, the local band that opened for him was great too. They are from the Life Church, which was where to show was. They had a lot of energy and their music was great! Then Jeremy Riddle came out and shared with us that he was sick, which strangely didn't seen to effect his singing very much, he was still awesome! One thing that I really liked about the church stage was the lights; they had these white blocks on the wall with lights behind them and when they would flash it made the whole thing look like it was rippling. It was pretty cool! While we were waiting for Jeremy Riddle to come on the girl in front of me, who goes to Life Church was telling me that their worship team is really great, so I told her that we have a pretty good one too. It was kind of funny that we were having that conversation because Scott, the worship leader from my church was who we were sitting with.
So then today we went to Pucks n Praise to watch a makeup Grizzly hockey game. They have done these 2 years in a row now. For the make up game, they invite churches from the valley to sell the tickets to church members and half the cost goes directly to the Salt Lake Rescue Mission. The game was really terrible for the first two periods. Not one goal was made, seriously. I was pretty bored. Then they woke up in the third period and made 3 goals. The first one they kind of worked for and it went in with so much ruckus that no one noticed that it went in, Steve said I was the first one to notice and my yell was what alerted everyone else that they made the goal. The second one was an awesome play, the player had the goalie out of his goal with his back to the goal and he passed it off to a teammate who sucker punched the goalie so smoothly that we were laughing. The third one was ridiculous, the goalie was away and no one was even close to the goal, it was made a griz team member from about 20 feet away! Too easy, but that goalie looked pretty mad, he was in the team shelter. Well that got us all pumped and ready to worship. When the game was over we all headed to one section of the arena to get ready for Steele Croswhite. I had never heard of him, but on Wed his brother spoke at the church as a guest. This year was a little different than last year in a better way. They turned off the lights and it was more like a concert. Last year they had all the house lights on and it felt kind of weird to look around a huge empty arena. Steele and his band were awesome. He introduced us to his 9 month pregnant wife who was singing by his side. She was so adorable and so pregnant. He talked about how she makes him want to be a better man and that he doesn't even want to sing unless she is with him. It was very sweet, but most of all Steele gave all the glory to God and praised the lord with a great enthusiasm and love for the Lord. He was shining God's light in an awesome way. I just kept thinking "I'm so glad I came, I can't imagine missing out on this"! Steve thought it was great when he asked everyone if they felt the way this specific Psalm was describing, and then he said if you don't then you'll have a really "sucktastic" walk with Jesus. Steve laughed so hard about that one! This guy had an awesome stage presence and was so on fire for the Lord that when it was over I wasn't done, I wanted to hear more. I think we'll be visiting the Rock Church sometime. Steele's bands along with a few others rotate to do worship on Saturday nights. I have heard great things about The Rock but we have never gone, I truthfully was thinking something along the lines of snake worshipers or something crazy like that. Wow, how my imagination can take over sometimes.

Search and drive away!

2009-03-04T22:06:00.009-07:00

Well after putting it off for years, Steve has paid off all fines, took the written exam and paid more money for a drivers licence than most people pay their whole lives, Steve now has his licence! So then after all that now we're on our way to purchasing a second vehicle. We headed out to look at a small red hyundai first, which I wasn't too interested in. After that we went to IKEA to kill time til we could head out to Eagle Mountain where we looked at a Ford Explorer that was a little too much money for the worth and Allie took her first real hard face first dive into the ground. So we called our car search adventure to and end for the night and headed to church.

Today after we both went to work this morning we came home and picked up Allie so we could head out again. We went to Costco, signed up for a membership and picked up a pizza to take to a friend of mine that has been put on bed rest. On our way to take her the pizza we stopped at ToysRus for the Wii Fit. I've been wanting it so bad for months now and since I've done it on some of my friends systems I know that I'm motivated to do the workout with it, which is pretty important since I've really let myself go the last few years. Not that I ever really watched my weight before but if I don't start now I fear ending up like one of those tabloid beheamouths that pull dead dogs out of their folds. EWW!!!!

So after dropping off the pizza and taking a look at the newly painted nursery we headed in the oposite direction as yesterday to good ole Roy, Utah, not after going to oposite direction to drive past the Air Force Plane bone yard, to look at a smaller but newer car. Much more in our price range. We took a look at it started it up and decided it was the car for us. The guy came out and showed us the body damage that it had and we said we'd be back with the money and asked him to have the paperwork started for us. It took us a little time to find a Chase out there and we found a really nice Christian lady that reminded us both a lot of my Granny, gave us some very interesting directions but somehow we still found the place, passing some place called Building God's Way, I'm kind of interested to find out what they do, although I'm guessing they build churches. We went back with the cash and had our new car within a few minutes. That wan an incredibly easy buy! Steve drove and I followed close behind seeing as that it doesn't have any plates yet, tomorrow we'll do the safety and emissions then we'll start getting things fixed that may need attention. We came home and played the musical car game to put the Saturn in the front of the driveway with my mom's PT Cruiser parked behind it and the Olds on the street with a space in the driveway for the Ford. There will be many days of musical cars to come! Praise the Lord for that! Tomorrow will be Steve's first day driving himself to work, and my first day to sleep right through it!

No Talking.

2009-02-27T21:35:00.007-07:00

There are 2 times you absolutely do NOT talk.
1. During church (except during times of confusion to quickly answer a question, or if the person sitting next you didn't hear which verse to turn to or something important that was said and it should be quick, anything longer than 4 or 5 words is too much)! This is not hard; shut your mouth for one hour out of your whole week, that's all I ask.
2. during a movie. Tonight my husband and I went to see "He's just not that into you". It was a very worldly idea on love and relationships, but an okay romantic comedy. It was even better how the guy sitting behind us felt the need to have open dialogue with his wife through the entire movie, barely leaving 30 seconds of silence between quips about something that just happened and theories on where the movie was going.
I'm sure there are other times to keep your trap shut as well but right now I'm trying to forget about the guy in the wrong theatre out of my mind.

Also this morning on the way to drop Steve off at work we had to detour and take Bangerter to North Temple instead of staying on 201 to 215 like we usually do and then we were stuck at the North Temple off ramp for 40 minutes waiting for the road to open again after a few cars played hockey on their way to work. That pretty much sucked. My day was really good after that though. I headed over to hang with a friend for a little bit, then after picking up Steve from work I mailed pictures to my grandpa and got to work with enough time to log in to my programs and be ready to take calls by 1:30. I have really enjoyed ARUP, but I don't think it would have been as much fun without Jessica. She was also contracted through SOS and we have been sitting next to each other since the first day. We have a lot of laughs, including our brief fantasy of CSI:SLC with Dr. D the lab rat Pathologist (Jessica is a college graduate lab rat in need of a serious career, ARUP was a moment of desperation). I didn't actually play a part in CSI:SLC, mostly we were just joking around about how Dr. D (Jessica) needs a really kick butt job and that could work. We compare our experiences with Callers. I had one on the second day that was insistent that because he has called for years and years and never given more than a last initial he was no way going to give up his entire last name to me. When I politely asked for his whole name, explaining that it was requested of me to do so, he hung up. Well the unfortunate thing about that is at this particular time of night Jessica and I were the only ones taking calls so when her line rang we were sure it would be my caller hoping to get a different agent that would lazily not ask him for his last name. It wasn't him so the next call that came to me was...we'll call him Sam... He tells me it's him again and I got really excited and said to him in my most enthusiastic voice "Well hey there Sam, it's so nice to hear from you again"! He wasn't enthused; he started to explain to me about how he tried to get someone else but the phone transferred him to me again. So I asked him "Sam, wouldn't it have been easier to just give me your last name to begin with"? I really dislike it when someone would rather waste time and energy to get their way than to just give it up. Well he still wasn't willing to budge; he said "Fine it's Sam H-U-L-K"! By the way he slowly and unsurely spelling it out, it was obvious to me that he was taking a piece of his childhood dream of being a big badass green dude or maybe a body building blonde by coming up with that name, but all I needed was a name, any name. So Jessica and I had a good laugh over that one that night and for a couple days after even. That was about 2 and a half weeks ago and I hadn't talked to him since, neither had Jessica, we were just talking about that a couple days ago. So tonight when I asked for my caller's name and the caller answered with "Sam". I very excitedly said "OH is this Sam Hulk"? Yes it was! I'm guessing he had been calling the old line this last couple of weeks and was already irritated that whoever he talked to tonight decided to transfer him to the correct line. It's always great to have a good laugh at work and Jessica and I seem to get plenty. Between the courier's calling telling us there are no "cooties" (i.e. infectious contents) and my pal Skip in Little Rock who is just an absolute delight to talk to each day!
At the end of next week our job there will be done and Sam can go back to talking to lazy reps who won't ask for his last name and Skip will have to be kind to someone else. Jessica is going to start working someplace where her PhD will be put to good use (other than the derby court). I'll be cutting back to only have one 6 hr/week job which I'm very thankful to have considering there is a lot of people out there who don't even have that!
That wraps up my rant/reminiscing session for the night. Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoy.

Becca Law

2009-02-22T21:23:00.003-07:00

Well this was probably one of the most eventful Sundays I've had in a long time. Yet again I was ready, Allie was ready, Steve was ready and we were out of the house by 9! Worship service was awesome, Scott sang with a lot of heart and the rest of the crew played so awesomely. There was another Amena Brown video shown(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNhp9z0njNY), I always love her stuff. Enjoyed another great service from Terry although we had some guy that kept yelling out "Preach"! Every time that Terry would start to get excited about what he was talking about, then it seemed like Terry was quieting down every time the guy did that. I started to get kind of irritated at the guy, I felt like he was being disrespectful and distracting. Don't get me wrong, I love the occasional "Amen"! And "Hallelujah"! It’s expected from our crowd! Calvary is like a bapticostal church. It's a non denomination Christian church but it's a little like the Baptist church and a little Pentecostal. I'm never surprised by what people yell out during service, and the first time the guy yelled I wasn't surprised, but after he had said it about 7 times I was wondering if he was mocking Terry. The end of service was really cool too because we heard a new song from Scott that he's never sang before (or at least that I can remember).
After service we headed to teacher prayer, which I had to take Allie out of because she was getting mad and making too much noise so I just headed over to check the 2 and 3 year olds in. We didn't have many kids, half as much as usual and it was pretty uneventful, no huge fits. We had a kid pee his pants and one who kept kicking, but that's not a bad day at all. I had some Mom drama when a grandparent tried to pick a kid up without a claim ticket and I have never seen her before. That really sucked, I wasn't happy about being the bad guy but I had to turn into "Becca Law" for a minute. After all was said and done, I did what was right and unfortunately I'll be on that parents crap list for a while. I just really hope she doesn't stop coming to church because of it. That's sad but it happens. I would be ecstatic if she would go to a different service, and I would even be happy if she still comes to the 3rd service, just as long as she doesn't stop coming all together. I'll have to remember to pray for her this week and maybe you can too.
So I finally calmed down from that and Steve fixed the gate in our classroom that we've been having problems with for a while and we went home. We didn't stay home for long before we headed out for Costco and Walmart for some things that we needed. We ran into some friends from Church at Walmart and talked for too long so then by the time we got home it was time to leave again for our Fireproof bible study at Sonrise Baptist Church. That was really cool and I'm so excited about it!
So now it's late and I'm going to head to bed but thanks for reading!

Another action packed Saturday!

2009-02-21T21:44:00.011-07:00

Well my day started out really well, Allie woke up with great timing,
Steve was ready to go when I was and I was able to get my hair and make-up done. I love mornings like that, no fuss. So we headed to the church so that I could go to Coffee Talk (a women's bible study held the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month). I got there in time to choose my seat, get a coffee and chit chat with some of the ladies. The lession was about how important it is not to let ideas of unhappiness enter into our marriages, not to let that "grass is greener on the other side" thought enter our marriage. We all know someone who has felt that way for sure.

While I was in Coffee Talk Steve was doing some more work on the car. He managed to get all the spark plugs replaced and then come in and have some time to chill and hang out and wait for Coffee Talk to be over. He got the car working so good, it doesn't have a studder anymore and it starts up really well.

So then after Coffee Talk I went to a friends house to have my hair dyed. She did an awesome job on it, I just love it! While I was standing around with 10 pounds of foil on my head, Mindy fed Allie some spagetti-o's. Allie loved them as you can see! It was nice to get my hair done and hang out with a friend at the same time. Steve poked around in the car for a little bit and even Mindy's husband joined him for a little bit.

After my hair was finished we headed over to the church for the College and Career bible study group. I wasn't sure what to expect because it used to be led by Scott, the worship leader and we would break up into small groups and go over an outlined study. Steve and I haven't been in quite a while and knew that there were some changes happening so it was exciting to experience it as a new thing and meet some new people. We started it out by playing a game much like "Rock, Paper, Sizzers" but it was "Man, Monkey, Gun". Man beats Gun because Man made gun and Gun beat Monkey because Monkey would be dead, and Monkey beat Man because that's just how it is. We were supposed to play until only one person was standing, I think some people sat down after only one round, but anyway I won. Scott said my prize was a carrot, how kind of him. I guess that Pastor Terry and Pastor John are going to take turns leading this group but today there was a guest. Pastor Bob! He took over for John when he left the Calvary Chapel he was senior Pastor at in California. He is overflowing with Charisma as he starts off his talk. He starts off talking about before he was saved by grace that he used to look for fights. That he was always fighting and enjoyed it but now he fights the "good fight" and enjoys it even more. I like how he starts this off because he had my attention right from the beginning. He's reading 1 Timothy 6:12-20. Which instructs us to fight the good fight. It goes into how Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate and didn't give in. I love how The Message version says "He's the only one death can't touch". How amazing that is to think about. The passage also tells people who are rich to stop being obsessed with money and to share the wealth. Paul also tells Timothy to guard what he knows, not to give in to what may look really good but not be of God. So back to Pastor Bob -
He goes on to tell us that we need 2 really important things in the battle for the Lord: We need prayer, we should be going to God frequently and not just for ourselves but we need to be praying for others more than ourselves; and our sword. In Ephesians 6:17 the sword is explained to be the word of God, the bible. He made a good point that we don't fall into Sin, we jump in. It's true. We know well enough to know when something is a sin or not, we choose whether we sin or stay away, not to say that it's easy, it's just something we do. Not one of us is without sin, we all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Let's face it as Pastor Bob says (not in his exact words, I couldn't write fast enough) No one seeks coucelling because they got into trouble for running as far from sin as they could. Good point Pastor.

After a short question and answer sesion we go into some food and fellowship. Everyone is just hanging out, talking, having a great time. I love these people, they are my brothers and sisters and I'm proud to say so!

Follower

2009-02-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well I had a very interesting day. Not unlike any other I started the day with dropping Steve off at work and then heading off to the Nursing home to do some organizing and filing, that kind of fun stuff. I hadn't been there long when a very young resident came rolling down the hall and stopped in front of me like she does every morning. She had a paper in her mouth and when I showed an interest in what it was she showed me a picture of Jesus with children around him. She said "It's Jesus Christ", in her somewhat slurred, deep voice. I asked her if she knew Jesus and she said "Yes" and then I told her I know Jesus too. Then I leaned in close to her and put my hand on her back and told her Jesus loves her, in a very sincere tone, which I was sincere, it's very true. She smiled so big and looked so happy. That was such a cool moment!

So the morning goes on and I get done all I need to get done so I gather my things and go. I had a couple errands to run but then I stopped by the D.I. If your not from around here, that's a huge thrift store chain that the Mormon's run. I like second hand shopping, something about other people's trash that makes me think "treasure". So I start off in the kid’s clothes and move around the store but when I got close to the shoes I noticed a woman looking for her son, she was calling his name and looking around. I felt a little bit of anxiety for her and wanted to go ask her if she needed any help, but an employee pointed her in the direction she thought the kid went. The woman got out of earshot and felt the need to share with me her judgment. She said something about how the woman should have put her kid in the cart so he didn't wander off. I hate it when people bring you in on their ideas in hopes of you agreeing with them so that they feel justified in passing judgment on another person. I politely said to the worker "it's not nice to pass judgment on people". She started kind of arguing with me and saying something about there being a rule that kids must be kept in carts (as if they could even make such a heinous rule). I kept walking and trying to get away from her and this is about the time that I realize that I've seen the same out of place looking guy twice now and feel like he's been looking at me both times, but maybe just looking in my direction. I didn't have much room in my mind to give it much thought because I was still thinking about stupid worker lady bothering me about whether she was or wasn't passing judgment on lady who nearly had a heart attack looking for her kid. So I kind of wandered past the women's unmentionable's where they had put some women's clothes in and then I saw the guy again, and again I was pretty sure he was looking at me. I was starting to get irritated. This guy is not pushing a cart, has no merchandise in his hands, he's wearing a hoodie with the hood up and now I'm pretty sure he's following me. After giving him a huff and walking a little faster so that he knew I was irritated with him for not leaving me alone (which is the same thing I do to wal-mart employees when the continue to stock shelves right in front of what I'm looking at, and that's kind of how I felt toward hoodie dude at this moment). Then crazy judgment lady comes walking up to explain to me some more about how she was certainly not passing judgment on scared mom, so I'm already irritated because of her and creepy dude and walk toward the front of the store, and as I turn the corner I notice that he is still oddly close to me and so now I'm not irritated at him, I'm kind of scared of him. I walked up to the cashier and it crossed my mind just to check out and leave but then I have the 30 yards or so to walk to the car and not many people are in the parking lot and hoodie dude doesn't seem to care much about drawing attention to himself. So I told the cashier I thought I was being followed and she waved over the manager. When the manager started walking up I turned around to point the guy out and sure enough, as if this doesn't make him look even more suspicious he turns around and makes a straight path for the back of the store. I'm sure of it at that moment that he was definitely following me around. I was pretty creaped out and just wanted to pay for my stuff and go, so they checked me out and the manager asked me about the color of the guy's hoodie and then walked me to the car. I've never had anything like that happen before. It took a while before my heart rate went back to normal, I don't think I'll be going into Ghetto town D.I. (which is about a half a block away from my job) alone anytime soon though.

Another awesome Sunday!

2009-02-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

The day started with a good laugh at the fact that my son let his buddy have one of his giant stuffed animals to sleep with. Jordan's first sleepover. I guess he figured his buddy couldn't say anything to him about sleeping with a stuffed animal if he had one too.

Service today was no unlike any other as to where we went and the people we saw, but the message is never exactly the same. This week we went through 2 Corinthians ch 6 and 7. Two whole chapters. Terry said it was a record. Not that he is trying to go through the bible as fast as possible or anything, I'm sure he wasn't shooting for the most chapters read in a 45 minute period, it just turned out that way.

He was talking about Salvation. "There is joy in this journey". I love it when he says that. It's so true. Even though there are ups and downs in a Christian's life and we are not saved from troubles and hard times, we always have Immanuel meaning "God with us"! In chapter 6, the apostle Paul is recognizing the contrast in our walks in his letter to the Corinthians. I love what Paul writes, he's really a man who knows what it's like to love the Lord with all your heart but still have troubles. He even says:

"In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate. Although I don't do what I know is right, I agree that the Law is good. So I am not the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them.
I know that my selfish desires won't let me do anything that is good. Even when I want to do right, I cannot. Instead of doing what I know is right, I do wrong. And so, if I don't do what I know is right, I am no longer the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them.
The Law has shown me that something in me keeps me from doing what I know is right. With my whole heart I agree with the Law of God. But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. What a miserable person I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is doomed to die? Thank God! Jesus Christ will rescue me". ~Romans 7:15-25

How amazing is that! We also watched the Casting Crowns video for Slow Fade today, it talks about how you don't fade away from God in a day, it takes time, it's a slow fade away. It's so true. Even though we have ups and downs in our walk, the object is to keep your eyes on the Lord. Pastor Terry talked about how we don't have to go to church to be a Christian and that it's not the only way to be connected with God but that we should, we need to be "challenged by the word of God"! He's so right! Opening our hearts to what he is telling us. I know I have struggled with that, thankfully my down was followed by an up, getting back on track with the Lord feels like a victory, maybe just a small one but still victory!

I learned today that chapter breaks in the bible were added around 1300 by Stephen Langton. He had to go into chapter 7 right after 6 because it was totally tied together. Most of the book is, but this was really tied together. I encourage everyone to read it, although I'm sure most of you wont, in fact some people probably stopped reading this blog at the mention of Jesus or the bible. I'll keep praying for you.

He also explained the difference between Godly Sorrow and Worldly Sorrow. Godly Sorrow produces repentance and Worldly Sorrow produces death. Being sorry for something but doing it again would be Worldly Sorrow. When peter was sorry for denying knowing Christ he wept and repented, which was a Godly Sorrow, he was truely sorry! Judas though had a Worldly Sorrow, after he turned Jesus in he went out and hung himself. I could go on and on about this for so long and reference more bible verses but that's not what I'm writing about today. So the whole time the Pastor is up there talking about this message that obviously his heart is fully involved it, the two women behind me are using the 45 minutes of Pastor Terry's floor time to chit chat. I don't like that at all. Why sit on the second row, directly in front of the Pastor and talk while he's talking. I thought it was rude and was so distracted at some points that I missed what Pastor Terry was saying. I should have politely asked them to be quiet or gave them the universal signal for "shhh" but instead I turned around and asked them "are you bored". Now this is a perfect example of what the apostle Paul was talking about. I knew that was wrong. Sure they were wrong for talking but wow that was a rude way of telling them. They just gave me a dirty look and then later after service blamed it on the infant, which I'm quite aware doesn't require a whole lot of talking to during a perfectly good sleep session. Anyway if I run into them again I'll be sure to apologize, not for asking them to be quiet but for the way I said it.

So the other thing that happened today was that we brought my dear friend's son with us to Church. The sleepover, remember. Well he said he had fun! Jordan was so excited about it. My mom said that Jordan showed him his bible and explained the bible tabs to him and read vegi tales stories all the way to church. How awesome is my little evangelist son!

So anyway I had an excellent day! I really only meant for this to be a short blog about my day

but I just wanted to share so much with you all. Thanks for reading. I'll be trying hard to keep up the blogging!