I like your faces.

I'm coming to Austin this week. I'll be in town Tuesday afternoon thru Friday morning (yes that means Posse on Thursday). If you'd like to hang out and crack Busey jokes, call/text/comment me. Because I love your words and voices, but I also love your face.

In your FACE.

I absolutely love it when God is in my face. Well, not so much when He's convicting me, like in my face saying, "STOP THAT!" and pointing out my flaws, weaknesses, and avoidable stumbles in my walk. But I love it when He's in my face showing me He's there and listening.

This morning in Sunday school, we were talking about how God took care of Baby Moses. The lesson for the kids was that God takes care of them just like He took care of Moses in the river. When they said we'd grow spiritually from working with kids, they weren't kidding! Who doesn't need that reminder that God is always taking care of them?

Then I get to big church (I teach during the 8:45 service and then worship at 10:45) and there's this beautiful glossy flyer card thing for the upcoming sermon series: Marriage - For Better or For Worse. Katy gave me some encouragement because she knows those sermons eat at me, and not in a convicting way. September 7th is "How to be a good husband". Anyone interested? :o)

Then tonight, I texted Denver for Lucie (because she got on my bed, walked over and nuzzled a picture of him, then snuggled in my lap) to tell him she loves him. He responded with "Do you know who Need to Breathe is?" Um, YES. "Yea, they're my show tonight." Friends, this is HUGE. For several hours tonight, Denver will be ministered to, whether he realizes it or not. He will be surrounded by Christ's message and be in a room where people are worshipping the love of their life - JESUS. Being at a Christian concert is extremely powerful, and it's hard to not feel it deep inside of you.


God's fighting for him so hard, y'all. He's been telling me to be patient and faithful this entire time, and even in the darkest times He's been there (even when I felt left - but that was to build patience) and now He's giving me a burst of answered prayers. I've prayed so many times for God to put things in Denver's path that make it hard if not impossible to ignore Him. Um, hours of praise will do that.

God is so cool.

patience...

Do you ever have those days where you just can't stop praying for patience with the people around you? Okay, all of you moms obviously do, but I mean everyone else.

Do you think God cuts you a little slack when PMS is involved?

I really hope so...

Gary Busey will pull out your endocrine system

I am not going to do a full on recap of the splendor of my 3 days in the hill country, because there's entirely too much awesome to be contained in a blog. This entry is still going to be lengthy, but decidedly condensed. Prepare for a highlight reel, full of visual aids.

Kicking off the trip with several hours with Eryn in Austin was PERFECT. You know how you miss people, and you know you them, but then when you finally see them again and you realize how much you really missed them? Yea, that happened to us. Eryn, you're way too beautiful, girl. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Tuna helper.

Thursday night was Ray, Sarah, Kevin, Tom, Shan, and me. I did not win at beer pong, but I think with beer pong, everyone's a winner. Same with Circle of Death. Fallopian Tubes.

Friday was golf day. You know the day is about to be awesome when you pile in the truck and Ray looks at Kevin and says, "Kevin, I need to know if you have any Kenny Loggins." And is then SHOCKED that the answer is no. SERIOUSLY. Anyhoo, golfing in Burnet is unique. I did not enjoy when the bee flew up my shorts. I did enjoy the tumbleweed the rolled across the fairway, the empty shotgun shell next to the cart path, and the multitude of deer just chillin' throughout the course. (for the record, I totally just typed "coarse" and went "oh crap!" and fixed it.) On the way back to the house, we had a little fun with Tom and Cody in the bed of the truck. Trust me, washing the windsheild while going downhill is HILARIOUS.

Friday night, almost everyone else arrived. The only person who maintained complete sobriety was Cody, but that's because he's on medication that prevented him from drinking. We drank for him, naturally. I lost at beer pong, repeatedly. My game was just not on this weekend!! It's okay, though, because there were a lot of good times all around.

Saturday morning I got the best wake up imaginable. I was being gently nudged awake and opened my eyes to the angel that is JEN HERNANDEZ. She rocks my world.


Saturday morning was also the time when Ross and I (while taking breaks to make fun of Karl) took an hour to get to the punchline - Gary Busey is Egyptian! We laughed so so hard, because we think we're HILARIOUS. We were taking pieces of Busey-quotes, comments our friends had made, pop culture notable quotables, and snippits from Wikipedia to create an hour of laughs that all started with Gary Busey threatening to "pull out your endocrine system." We discovered that the ovaries and testes are included, so Busey was probably just threatening to rip your balls off. We meandered along and talked about vulvectomies (because Sarah started that on the golf course while talking about her job). Moving right along, A&E in the Classroom made an appearance. At one point, I was mentioning how when my friend Russell was killed, his casket was filled with special things he had loved, including but not limited to a copy of Blazing Saddles. That coupled with the previously mentioned educational television led to jokes about mummification. And voila! PUNCHLINE. When the ancient Egyptians were preparing the body for mummification, they removed the organs. They removed the brain with a hook through the nose. Part of the endocrine system is in the brain. So you see, Gary Busey wasn't talking about violence at all. He was just wanting to prepare you for mummification.


We always have fireworks on the dock Saturday night. This year, Karl tried to kill us. He lit an M-60 then accidentally threw it behind him and straight into the box of fireworks. We are some fast movers when our lives are threatened. Luckily, he just burned a hole in the box and did not light the entire dock on fire.

There was this group of drunken fools from a few houses over paddling around on a water trampoline (see image below), getting entirely too close to the balls of fire we were shooting into the air.

The water cops arrived and gave them all tickets for being retarded. Not really. I mean, they got tickets, but more because 1. it's illegal to be on the water after dark without a light on your "vessel" and 2. they were all blatently TRASHED. We thanked the cops for getting them off the water.

Obviously I love the traditional big fireworks in the sky. I also REALLY REALLY like it when Cody and Ray revert to little boys with fireworks. We had "cock fights" which means they would do a circle of those chicken fireworks. My favorite was the military renactments with tanks. The losing red tanks were dubbed "The French Tanks"

BEFORE:

AFTER:


I had to leave when the fireworks were done because I had to be at the church by 8:15 this morning (obviously, I was late, but only about 5 minutes). I packed up, got lots of hugs and hit the road at, oh, 12:30. I had some near death animal experiences on the drive home. It spooked me a little when I was driving 65 mph on hills in the dark (hey, that was the speed limit!) and a deer sprinted across the road. But what really made me soil my pants when one was just chillin' in the road. No "deer in the headlights" look. She was looking around!! Luckily, there was a stop sign just past her, so I had already begun to stop. My car stopped about 3 inches from her, and then she ran off. My final near death experience actually resulted in death. After 11 years of driving, I have now offically created roadkill. That poor little armadillo didn't stand a chance. But hey, my brand new tires took it well!



I got home at 4:30 this morning, and it was totally worth it. What an AMAZING weekend!! I talked to Denver several times over the course of the weekend. That stirs a lot of feelings in me, but God put me where I needed to be. When I have that much awesomeness around me, its pretty much impossible to be depressed. Seriously. God blessed me beyond belief. I have amazing friends and so much love in my life. Plus laughter is good for you, and I laughed A LOT. Thanks so much, y'all.

kids say the darndest things!

There's pros and cons to having such a close family...

Pro- My cousins are very supportive and always there for me to lend an ear or cheer me up. Plus I can babysit.

Con- the following story.

So, I'm watching Dallas, Monica, and Charissa, 3 of my cousins' kids. I was going to the restroom when Rissa starts hollering that Monica hurt herself. I hurry out, and the 2 of them are standing there, looking guilty. Then Rissa busts out with, "How did your husband hurt you?" Um, what? "I heard that you and your husband broke up because he hurt you. What did he do?" "Well, first of all, y'all are 6. Secondly, he hurt my FEELINGS, not like hit me or hurt my body. And that's all you get to know because like I said, you're 6."

Sometimes, you just gotta laugh. I mean, they totally understand splits because Monica's parents divorced last summer. They're just curious. And if they weren't so stinkin' cute...

so ready.

I am fired up for this weekend most of the year. It may not seem like much, but it's always so much fun and awesomeness. It's the weekend we go to Ray's lakehouse for his birthday. I miss my friends a lot, so this is an even bigger deal since I moved away from Austin a few years ago.

I'm heading out this afternoon and making a pitstop in Austin for some special Cobb time (Eryn, get ready!!) then heading the rest of the way to Lake LBJ tonight.

I have to head home a little early, meaning Saturday instead of Sunday, but for a good reason. This week is promotion Sunday!! Its my first day as a legitimate Sunday school teacher! I'm so ready. YES.

Basically, this weekend is guaranteed to rock my face off. BRING IT.

the world is just awesome.

I really like the Discovery Channel. I like Deadliest Catch. I like Dirty Jobs. I like A Haunting. I like Mythbusters. I don't like that breaking in show or verminators, but hey, not everything is a homerun.

That being said, it's the greatest week on Discovery: SHARK WEEK.



I freakin' love 'em. I like watching them eat fish. I like when Great Whites jump out of the water. I like when idiots swim with them. They're big and creepy and scare the beegeezus out of me, but I love watching shows about them.