Update.

Life has been quite busy lately, but it has been a lot of fun. From spending time with family to catching up with friends, it has been great.

A couple of weekends ago I went to parent house while Matt went to his parents house. I was able to celebrate my Dad's birthday with him, my mom and Sasha. I was also able to spend time with my grandparents. We went and saw movie (Hotel Transylvania) with My Granny and Papaw and I spent the night with them. On that sunday I also went to their church with them, which used to my church. It was so great to see everyone from Lowery. After church I went and saw my Grandpa and Grandma and spent time with them for awhile. That night Crossroads had their Fall Festival and that was great fun. Family means a great great deal to me, so anytime that I get to spend time with them, I enjoy it.

Last weekend Matt and I went to my parents to celebrate Callie's birthday and also I was due for an upgrade for my phone so we went to get that taken care of. I love birthdays. So any chance that I get to throw one for someone, makes me happy and excited. Callie's birthday is in a couple of days, but we threw her a small birthday party friday night, a surprise party. Matt, my parents and I decorated the house a little before we met her for dinner at Ihop. After dinner we went home and when Callie came in Mom, Matt and I jumped out and yelled surprise. It was fun. We had a great time. On Saturday I got my new phone, and IPhone 5. I was able to sell my IPhone 4 back and got $165. So with the Apple Care Plus my phone ended up only costing $152. I thought that was a steal of a deal. It was another great great weekend with family.

Last night Matt and I were able to go to Hillsdale and hear from Sarah Hodges and Cindy Reynolds about their Non Profit Organization The Aegis Element ( http://aegiselement.org/ ). This is such a great organization. They are going to Africa to help woman that are coming out of sex trafficking. If you don't very much or anything about sex trafficking and the horrible hold it has on women and children's lifes, please visit their website and become educated on this horrible issue that affects the entire world. I honestly cannot wait to see what God has in store for them and the women and children they are able to help.

On Friday night one of our Eteam kiddos, Courtney, is coming over for dinner and spending the night with us and on Saturday I am driving her and myself to Kansas. She is going to get to see her family and spend time with them, while I go to a dear friend of mines baby shower and then spend the night and go to church with another friend and her family. I also get to see another one of out Eteam kiddos, Justin, while in Kansas. So needless to say I am VERY excited for this weekend.

On November 15th a chapter is closing for many people, the Twilight Saga is coming to its end. I'm getting to see the premiere of Breaking Dawn Part 2 with two of my great friends. One of which I introduced to Twilight 4 years ago. It's crazy to think that Twilight came out in theaters my freshman year of college. I am excited to see the movie, but sad that it's ending at the same time.

If you know me very well, you know that I love love love holidays! And if you didn't know me well enough to know that, now you do. For Thanksgiving this year we are spending the weekend before with Matt's family because his Dad has to work late into the evening on Thanksgiving Day. So on Thanksgiving we will be with my family. Our tradition is usually to go to my Papaw and Granny's house and my Grandma and Grandpa come up, then that evening we go see a movie. I know that may seem like a weird thing to do on Thanksgiving night, but its our tradition and I love it. Also we will go Black Friday shopping, my favorite, and Matt just loves staying up late and waking up early to go SHOPPING, haha not.

Most of you may know this, but for Christmas we are going to Disney World with my parents. Again, if you know me very well you know I am a Christmas Lover and Disney Nut, so these two combined together is fantastic! We are also getting to spend time with my Cousin and Cousin-in-law who we haven't seen since October 2011. We are so excited to see them and Mickey Mouse! 47 days!!

Sasha Dawn and I at Dad's Birthday Lunch

Friday Night football

haha, 3D movie fun, love my Papaw

Fall Festival

Happy Birthday Callie

My Love

Breaking Dawn Part 2 here we come

Well I think that's about all the updating I have for now. I hope you didn't get to bored with it all. Have a great night!

Eteam España~ Day One in España

Day One in España was great and tiring. When we arrived it was in the morning, so that meant we had to fight jet lag and stay awake the whole day, well besides a small nap, so that we would get adjusted to the schedule faster. Maybe I cant remember jet lag from my other trips, or perhaps I’m just getting old, but man the jet lag really kicked my booty this time. When we got to the Hostel (hotel) we stayed at the whole time we were there, we got a little settled. The homes in Spain are very small, so we didn't stay with Spaniards or the Missionaries. The hostel was very nice. Once we were settled in I went up to the church with one of the missionaries to set up for a surprise birthday party for Damaris and Kelsey. I had talked with the missionaries before we went and we planned a time for the girls a birthday party! I made banners with their names on them, and bought a happy birthday banner, made presents and bought birthday girl pins for them to wear. I was very excited for their party. Birthdays are very important to me. Anyways, we got set up for the party, and we got to meet the other missionaries that hadn’t been at the airport and got to try some new foods…one not so new thing, but so much better there and in European countries, the bread! Oh my goodness, if I lived there I would seriously weigh 500 pounds due to the bread and my love for it.

After we ate we had some classes and then went back to the hostel for a short and much needed nap. Once we woke up from our nap we went on a tour of the town we were staying in. We also got to go to a place that made Churro’s, which were delicious. When we went on our tour we were broke up into little groups and learned about some history of the town. The group that I was in got to meet some of the church members that we ran into walking in the town, which was neat. Once we were done with our walk we went to one of the missionaries homes for dinner and to watch a soccer game! It was a great first day!

To catch you up on Matt and I’s life…we recently moved, Matt got a job teaching 9^th grade Physical Science and I will be going to school starting the 20^th. I am excited to see where God leads us on this new Journey. Tomorrow Matt and I are finally going to celebrate our One-year anniversary. On our anniversary we were babysitting and decided to have friends over and to celebrate when we got moved since we moved to the city and had more options to eat. We are going to eat at a steakhouse and go to the lake that we went to on out first date, and then come back to the apartment and go swimming. I love having a pool in our apartment complex. Oh and we are going to eat a bite of our wedding cake, which I’m a little nervous about. Ha. I’ll be sure and post pictures.

Here are some pictures from our journey to España and from our first day in España!

New York City Skyline

Welcome to Madrid, España

Storks Nest

Soccer Game

Eteam España~Training Week

I think I am going to do this a little bit different than I first planned...if I put everything I wanted to in one post it would be FOREVER long, and I want to be sure and talk about all the details. So I am going to start with training week!

Please let me tell you how God truly blessed us with an amazing team! We could not have asked for a better group of teens. When this team was put together, God truly had his hand in it. We became not just a team but a family!

Training week~ This week is such a vital part of Eteam, this is where you really get to know the people you will be spending the next 3 weeks with! When you first meet these people, sometimes for the very first time, or for the first time in person, it's sometimes hard to believe that at the end of those 3 weeks you will have become so close that it will hurt to say goodbye!

During training week we had classes on various things, spiritual warfare, biblical basis of missions, life as a missionary, creating meaningful relationships and many others! Damaris, Caitlin, Tyler, Emily, and Justin learned a mime and we all learned three songs in Español, Poderoso (Stonger), Sólo Dios Puede Salvar (Mighty to Save) and Dios de Maravillas (God of Wonders). We also learned face painting and balloon animals skills. Every night we had a service with unbelievable worship services and amazing speakers that challenged us in different ways. On the last day we have the concert of prayer, where you get to pray with your team about different things, and pray for the other teams!

Two of the most important parts of Eteam, in my opinion, are the team building activities and team meetings. As for the team building activities this is where you learn to work together as a team under pressure and under certain circumstances. You start to see how your team will work together not only in those instances, but also on the mission field. Team meetings are where you start opening up to one another, where you can come and ,as Uncle Neil says, "be naked and unashamed", where you can lay down those burdens that you've been carrying and let your team help carry them, where you can sing at the top of your lungs worshiping God together, where you laugh so hard your stomach hurts, and where you know moment by moment your team is becoming a family!

Here are some pictures from training week:

Stay tuned for posts on the rest of our trip!!

Update

I don’t know why it is I forget to blog!? A lot has changed since Christmas. I now work at one of the Elementary Schools where Matt and I live. I am a half day Paraprofessional; I work with children that have behavioral issues. Matt and I actually both work there and work in the same classroom. I love that we both have the schedule now, it is wonderful! Matt and I moved into Matt’s grandma’s house in the first of January. She fell in October and broke her femur; she was put into a nursing home for rehab. So we moved into her house and took on the rent while she is in the nursing home, she was getting so close to getting to come home, but she fell again and it caused her to go back to where she started. Hopefully by the end of the summer she will be as good as new and get to come home.  

Matt and I applied to be E-Team leaders in October, we weren’t sure if we would be accepted this year, because we are both quite young and haven’t been married long. When we applied we knew that if were accepted then it was what God wanted, but if we weren’t accepted it wasn’t what God wanted for us at this point. Both Matt and I went on E-Team when we were in high school, so it holds a very special place in our hearts. We found out in December that we had been accepted to be leaders but didn’t know where we were going yet. I was SO excited when we found out, it came in an email and I nearly cried when I read it! We finally found out in January that we were going to Spain! It has only been 3 months that we have known, but it seems like we have known a lot longer!! We only have 59 days until we finally get to meet our team in person. We will go to Nashville on June 7^th and stay there for a week for training, learning songs in their language and a mime. I cannot tell you how excited Matt and I are for June to get here!!

Matt will hopefully get a job this fall at a school in either the Tulsa or OKC area. He has taken one of his tests to be a teacher, but he still has more to take and we are waiting for the results from his first test. I will be really starting my degree this fall once I start at either OSU-OKC or TCC. It is scary not knowing what the next few months will hold for us, but we just have to trust God and wait on his timing to know where we will be.

I cannot wait to share with you about E-Team, and where God takes us. I will try to be better about remembering to blog. Hope you have a great week!