Spring Has Sprung!

In the past several months, I have come to realize how heavily I rely on my planner.  Things often get so busy that, if I didn't write down what I was supposed to be doing, I would completely forget to do things.  Last week was no different, though most of the chaos was unplanned.  Thus why I haven't gotten to this entry earlier.  I had a whole paragraph typed out to explain how my week went, but I decided not to include it since much of it was a blessing in disguise and a chance for me to learn about giving of myself and sharing my resources.  While it was crazy, it was a huge blessing for me to be able to serve in the many and various ways I was given the opportunity to do, and thus, I don't want to detract from that by making it sound like it was a burden by listing it all off.


Regardless, it WAS a busy week, and this will be no different.


Some highlights of the past week are worthy of mentioning, though.  In the midst of all the chaos, I was able to grow some friendships that I hadn't otherwise had the opportunity to do.  Tuesday, I was able to go to lunch at Panera with Michelle Farmer, someone I originally met at Wayside and have ran into on several occasions, but never had the chance to get to know much in depth.  We had a great conversation (so much so that we didn't realize that there were literally people standing around watching us waiting to snag our table the minute we moved) and I'm looking forward to getting to know her more as time goes on.


I also had the opportunity to go on the Edwards' Officers' Spouses Club Retreat.  I have to admit that I was initially severely hesitant to agree to go.  Over the past several months of being involved, I've found it somewhat hard to connect with many of the ladies in the group.  I realize that the majority of them are older than I am and already have kids of varying ages which I've learned is a barrier for most people.  I also don't live on base and am not actually a military wife, which also makes it harder for people to relate to me, though I try my best to relate to them.  In addition, I've found some of the common interests of the club don't as much apply to me (I'm very frugal, hate shopping, I'm not much for dressing up or fashion, etc.).  And to add to all that, I've found myself to be very busy and time management has led me to miss several of the events.  All that being said, leading up to the retreat, I have to say that I wasn't even sure I was going to be a part of OSC, next year.  In hindsight, I am glad that I went.  While all the above qualities still apply, I feel like I did have some breakthroughs with several of the ladies.  I added many new people to my Facebook friends (which we all know makes friendships official, right ;)?), as well as getting to know some ladies that I didn't know as well a lot better than I would have, otherwise.  The ladies that I spent most of the weekend with were really great and made me feel like a part of the pack.  I didn't once question myself amongst them and didn't feel like any of the things I was lacking (kids, military affiliation, etc.) mattered to them.  The ironic part is that several of them will be moving away in the next months.  However, going to the retreat has made me rethink my position on "renewing my membership," so to speak.  I have met some really cool ladies, even in the last couple weeks. It still might take a little more convincing, but hopefully some of those cool ladies will help me weigh the pros and cons of it all when decision time does come around.  I guess I didn't even mention in all that what we actually DID at the retreat :-p.  We headed to Temecula, CA and walked around Old Temecula.  It's really cute and has a lot of nice shops and boutiques.  We also did some wine tasting, olive oil tasting, ate at some nice restaurants, did some sight seeing, and hung out.  There are some pictures (the ones I'm in, anyway) on my Facebook page, but since it's not my album, I can't share the link on here.  (Sorry Grandma).  Long story short, I'm glad that I went.  I think one of my favorite moments was went Michele was lost looking for the hotel when the Pink song came on and she belted, "Took a wrong turn...once or twice...."  Good times :).


As for my art classes, last week we learned about how you can use colors to express your emotions.  We read "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Seuss and looked at how the artist used different colors in his paintings to represent different emotions.  Then we talked about how they made some of the colors they used.  The kids picked out some colors that they wanted to paint with and we painted self-portraits of us happy and surrounded them with things that made us happy.  All the kids did a great job.  They got to share with their friends about what they painted.  One little boy told me that his was actually him sad because he was sad at home, and the others all painted themselves and talked about that, as well.  This week, we'll talk about warm and cool colors and paint landscapes with whichever they like better.


We lost our softball game, last week, but we tried our best!  I actually caught a fly ball and got someone out at first (not in the same play, but both things I was proud of :)).  Regardless, hopefully losing the past two games will help insure that we won't get demolished like we did last season.  The last couple games have been more fun than last season, so if it keeps up that way, hopefully it'll be more enjoyable. 


Anyway, I'm heading into town with Adam tonight to meet up with the Wrights and Strongs for dinner at a newish restaurant in Lancaster called BEX.  It's our first time there, so I'm excited to see how it is.  Until next time....

March Madness

Well, the second of the two baby friends I watched today just left.  I guess that gives me a few minutes before Adam comes home to try and cram in a journal entry.  


My second art class last Friday went pretty well.  I was shocked to have five children in my class as I thought there were only five signed up, one was absent, and I only had 3 there the week before.  Regardless, things went well.  It was a little more chaotic this go around since the three new children were all boys, two of which weren't really sure about staying without their parents...and thus didn't.  I wasn't that uncomfortable with them in the room...and actually taught them something new, as well, so that made me feel good.  We learned about shades and tints by coloring on black paper, doing some paint mixing in plastic bags, made a value scales and a couple collages.  I think they had a good time.  I think this week we'll learn about using color to express emotions.


I said that Adam's been working a lot, and this weekend was no exception.  He worked most of the day Saturday and Sunday morning, but I'm sure he didn't mind missing my Scentsy party as a result :-p.  I had a good time with the friends that made it to my house for the party (thanks for coming!) and Adam and I headed across the street afterwards for some pizza and Rockband.  Sunday, Adam (like I said) worked in the morning and I headed to church.  We both got home around lunch time and then caught up on TV shows we watch that we had missed with the crazy week we had (I think I was home for about one night last week!).


A lot of our friends have been going through some really tough times, lately, and that's been on my heart a lot.  There's been a lot of illness, death, and other really hard things going on.  If you wouldn't mind joining us in sending up a collective prayer for friends and family that need some strength right now, we sure would appreciate it.  My prayers and thoughts are especially with the town of Byron, IL and the friends and family of Megan Clift over these next two days.


I've been working hard on collecting donations for Relay for Life.  My church has put a team together and I'll be walking the relay in less than 2 weeks.  Thanks to many of my friends and family, I very quickly surpassed my original goal of $100...and by pretty quickly, I mean in less than 4 hours.  I decided to increase my goal to $250, and I currently only have to collect $10 more to reach that goal!  I am amazed at all of your generosity and am so grateful for your contributions and to be able to help American Cancer Society more than I originally thought. To think that I was initially hesitant to even participate (I'm a little busy :-p) and knowing how much you have backed me up makes me that much more grateful that I decided to do it, afterall.  Thanks!


The highlight of today for me has been watching Colin "play" guitar.  Here's a picture:

He was very careful with the pick and refused to play it any other way.  He also, surprisingly, only dropped it inside the guitar once!  I think we have a future rockstar in our midst.  I'm gonna miss him when he moves in a few weeks!

Well, Adam's home and I have laundry to do.  This might shock some of you, but you can't get much done with a baby around :-p.  I hope all of you had a good week/weekend and look forward to hearing from you soon.    -Erin

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I can say that since I haven't posted since last July, right?  I can't believe how fast time gets away from you, but feel blessed that I've been busy enough to neglect this journal (as strange as that may sound).


Life has been a whirlwind since we returned home from our Christmas trip to Illinois.  I've stayed busy with Homemade Gourmet (which I coincidentally started doing just last journal post :-p).  I haven't tried too hard to schedule parties since I've also stayed quite busy with other things, but I've had events pretty regularly every couple weeks or so.  I decided to dedicate my profits from that to our friends in ministry that we regularly support.  It's taken a quite a while to even accrue a profit to speak of, but hopefully my friends will soon reap the benefits.


I also started teaching my friend Elizabeth's daughter Aubrey preschool at my house the week after we got back.  While that was short lived (she wasn't quite ready for that, yet), I do still watch her younger brother Colin (and occasionally one or both of his sisters) at least twice a week.  They are fun kids and keep me pretty busy, but I'm going to miss their family when they move next month! 


On top of those two things, I recently (as in today) started teaching art classes at Edwards Air Force Base.  While I was initially VERY apprehensive about starting something new in my life and about how they would be received (by both parents and children alike), today's class gave me a lot of hope and joy about teaching.  This session I have just one class of 3 and 4 year olds.  The five of them signed on to learn about color and todays lesson we dove right in with a lesson about primary and secondary colors.  We mixed colors and made color wheels and rainbows.  The kids were SO great.  They were super attentive and responsive and seemed like they had a great time.  Aubrey is in my class there, too, and I was really proud of how well she did.  Next week, we'll learn about shades and tints.  I'm excited to continue forward and to watch the program grow.  In fact, it went so well that I'm toying with the idea of starting a class in collaboration with the Palmdale Mom's Club so non-Edwards people can be involved, as well.


In other news, Adam and I went to Death Valley camping a couple weekends ago.  I'm very glad that we went early in the year.  It was already really warm.  Not unbearably so, yet, but we did each drink at least a gallon of water per day we were there.  There were a lot of really neat things to see, though, that we don't have in this neck of the desert.  It was nice, too, just to get away for a weekend together.  We hadn't been on a trip for a while, so the quality time with no commitments was very enjoyable.  Here's the link to some of the pictures we took that I've posted on Facebook:


ttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070384&id=48701321&l=f0da58d746


Adam and I are taking another swing (pun intended) at softball, again.  Our church signed up for the Spring league in Lancaster and our first game is tonight.  If you ever wanted an illustration of the difference in weather between the midwest and here, starting your spring softball league in Mid-March should do the trick.  And if that wasn't enough, the last game of summer league was on my birthday (IN NOVEMBER!!!).  I wasn't too fond of my experience last go around, however, we found out after the season was over that we were misplaced in the top bracket of the league because one of our qualifying games had been smoked out by a wildfire.  This season, the city promised to put us in the lower bracket, so hopefully we won't get stomped and it'll be more fun for me :).


So, I think that covers a good chunk of the notable happenings going on.  In any free time we come across, we've been enjoying spending time with our neighbors and trying to reconnect with some friends.  We had what seems like TONS of birthday parties to attend, I've played bunco a few times, Adam's working on finishing building a workbench, and I have tried to keep up on the house.  We play a lot of Rockband, try to keep up with some TV shows, but mostly find enough time once all that is scheduled in to come home and crash.  


All that being said, I'll do my best to do better on keeping you up to date on our lives.  If you're ever curious and this doesn't suffice, I'm always just a phone call away (which is much easier for me to keep up with since I can multi-task while I chat!)  I'd love to catch up with you when you and I have coinciding free time :).  Until then, peace out!

Well, talk about time getting away from you!  I can't believe the month is already over!  Needless to say, I've kept myself pretty busy.  I'm honestly wishing I had a huge cup of coffee right now, and the day isn't even close to being over!  Luckily, I purchased a planner at the beginning of the month, so even though it's been crazy and I'm kind of wiped out, I don't have to remember what we did to be able to tell you :).

This month, I started a new direct sales business called Homemade Gourmet.  It's basically a company that sells dinner mixes, drink mixes, desserts, etc. to make cooking super quick and super easy.  I am far from a chef and I don't really like cooking, so this was right up my alley.  I am so excited to be able to make awesome food for Adam to come home to instead of having to rely on him to make dinner from what we have lying around and do it before our stomachs eat themselves in hunger :-p.  Things have been going pretty well, so far.  I had a "cook-off" party to get my business somewhat off the ground running.  It's been kind of a slow start, but it's definitely a relationship business, so I've been doing my best to build my contacts and referrals and get the ball rolling that way.  My friend Elizabeth has been gracious enough to double book a party she was already having and include my business in it, as well...so my first official party will be August 7th at her place.  Hopefully I'll get some bookings off of that start moving forward some more.

We've also been working hard on building relationships with our friends and neighbors.  Up until this week (which is too busy to even attempt) we've been having friends over for dinner pretty regularly (which Homemade Gourmet also is awesome for....especially since, for one of the meals, all I had to do was throw it in the crock pot and have it ready when they got here).  We've also, sadly, had to say goodbye to several of our good friends that have moved, this month.  Camille and Will, Bethany and Paul (and Stevie), and Leanna and Nathan (and Makaela) have all hit the road.  We'll miss all of them, but are sincerely hoping that our paths will cross very soon.

Adam and I have also joined a softball league with our church.  We had our first game a couple weeks ago and our second one this Friday.  While the 9 p.m. start time isn't really ideal for me, it is far too hot (100-120 degrees) to do it any earlier than that.  Our first game was really successful, and it was really fun to see how well everyone did!  I'm looking forward to our game on Friday...if the league would ever tell us what time it's going to be at.  

Last week was quite the busy and random week for me...but very rewarding because of that.  Monday, I got to have coffee with Sarah Tyndall, a girl from our church.  We actually graduated with the exact same degree, so it was fun getting to sit down and talk to someone we both could relate to (there's too many engineers around here that don't get it ;)).  

Tuesday, I ended up spending the whole day over at my friend Elizabeth's playing with her daughters to give her a break and some adult conversation :-p.  

I spent the next morning with her, as well.  We took her daughter to preschool, her other daughter and son to the doctor, and then spent the rest of the morning hanging out with my friend Jen and her two kids.  When I got home, I set to getting the house ready for dinner with the Fodges before we had to say goodbye, and then they rushed off to rehearsal at church, and we rushed off to The Well for some heart to heart with Pastor Todd. 

Thursday, I stayed home to let Ryan and Sandy's (who also moved...but only about 3 blocks away, so we permitted it.  That and they're renter is the new vet, so we approved of that choice, as well :)) cleaning crew into their old place.  While they worked, I had visits from Laura Gulley, Leanna to bring Makaela over while she ran errands, and Daniela our new neighbor from down the street.  When Daniela left, I got a call from Kim asking for help getting a splinter out of her elbow.  Then Adam and I scarfed some food down and headed to church for worship practice (Adam just dropped me off, not actually rehearsed. :)).

Friday, I spent the day doing stuff around the house and baking pecan pie muffins for Saturday.  Kim and Jason had us over to play Rockband and have dinner that night, which was SUPER fun.  We're looking forward to doing it again!

Saturday, I sat at Ryan and Sandy's garage sale with Ryan all morning.  They were gracious enough to let me set up a Homemade Gourmet table (hence the pecan pie muffins for samples) and I think it was good exposure.  I'm not sure if anything will come of it, but it never hurts to get your name out there...and i definitely handed out a bunch of cards.

That night, we headed down to North LA to have dinner with Adam's cousin Dan and his new wife Amanda.  We went to the Eclectic Wine Bar and Grille thanks to the gift certificate we got for signing up as NPR subscribers last year.  It was really expensive, but nice to splurge and great to spend time with family.

So that, in a nutshell, brings us up to this week.  Yesterday was a pretty easy going day for me.  I spent most of the morning being lazy and then caught a burst of motivation around 2 and worked on straightening up the house and cleaning some boxes out of the garage.  And today, I practice for worship rehearsal with Heidi, spent a little time across the street at the Tiegens', worked on prepping my new Homemade Gourmet catalogs, ate some lunch, did some work for Create, and now this.  In less than 30 minutes, I'll also be off to church again for the first day of Create (our art camp I mentioned several entries ago).  It's going to be 3 nights of teaching kids about Jesus, God, and printmaking.  I'm pretty excited about it, and while there won't be tons of kids, I think it'll be a lot of fun with the ones we have....and good practice for if we ever do it again with a larger group.

So, with Create the next three days, worship practice Wednesday, and our softball game Friday, I'm bracing myself to be pooped by the weekend.  However, I'm very excited to say that we'll be spending the evening with none other than Candace Hatchett in Pasadena on Saturday...and that we'll also be heading to Redondo Beach to hit up Adam's friend Bob Wilson's homebrew party.  I'm playing piano at church Sunday, so with all this excitement and not much sleep...this could be interesting :).

Well, we hope everyone has been having a great summer, and that you do your best to make the most of the rest of it.  I have to say, I'm super excited about some of the things we'll be doing in August....but I'll leave you on the edge of your seat, for now :).  Thanks for all your love and prayers.  Things keep getting better in CA, and I'm super excited to see what happens in the months ahead!  Happy rest of July!

It's update time, again.  Unlike the last couple weeks, this one has gone by pretty fast.  Perhaps that's because I spent the last 3 days making curtains.  Regardless, I can't believe tomorrow is Friday...and that Adam doesn't have to work for the next 4 days.  Both are crazy notions to me, at the moment.

So, to pick up where we left off: Last week was a rough week for me as far as being emotional goes.  It's safe to say that adjusting to a new place is definitely not something that happens over night (or is even complete after over a year).  I was really disappointed that we didn't get to see the Woods' while they were in California, and that more or less snowballed into me feeling a lot of loneliness and homesickness for my friends and family back in the midwest.  Saturday was no different.  I was really antsy and, while we had planned to spend the day relaxing and doing nothing, we ended up filling it up the morning and afternoon with grocery shopping and softball shopping.  Then we headed to Adam's friend Keith's new house to check out his new digs.  We ended up staying up really late (mostly because I was being emotional :-p) and then hitting the hay.

Sunday was Camille's last day at The Well and Arianna Niebling's baptism.  Both left most of the church in tears (I say most because I know at least one person (Adam) was not crying.)  To add to the fun, we also went out to a surprise lunch for my friend Christy Starr's 30th birthday.  We ended up going to the restaurant we swore we'd never eat at again after we had gone with Adam's aunt and uncle Julie and Jack, but it was for a good cause.  We learned yet another important lesson, though...do not eat out (especially at this place) right before softball practice.  It definitely didn't sit well.  And to add to the discomfort, the 106 degree temperature taught me what it's like to be seconds away from passing out.  Good times.  Needless to say, the rest of the evening was spent drinking a lot of water and trying to recover.  

So the last few days, like I said, I've spent the better part of making curtains to try and save on our cooling bill.  Strangely, some of the fabric I used seems to have an unbearable odor to them now that I'm done.  I've washed them 3 times, today, so we'll see if that did the trick.  Otherwise, I'll be making at least three more pairs of curtains before I call it quits.  I took a break from sewing, today (the sewing room gets quite hot during the day, so it was a welcome change) to paint.  I'd say I finished the gray, but some touch ups still need to happen, so I'm reserving the celebration until I feel completely done.

In other news, we met a couple of new neighbors, last night, and got to know the next door neighbors a bit better, too.  It was quite interesting.  The couple that just moved in across and down the street seem pretty cool.  He (Lee) works on base and his wife (Daniella) is from Germany and is going to go back to school in a month full-time to get a nursing degree.  They just moved from a rental in California City.  I somewhat volun-told Adam that he was going to help them get stuff inside, and though they didn't really need much help (Lee's dad came in to help) it was good to go say hello.  On the way back, we stopped next door to say hello to Tim and Sirell who were sitting out on their patio.  We figured it would be nice to talk to the neighbors we've "known" longer, too :-p.  We learned that Sirell is pregnant with her 11th child  and has served as a surrogate for the last 7 pregnancies.  She has 3 children of their own, and then 6 surrogates with another on the way.  I've never met a surrogate in real life, so it was really interesting to learn that we live next door to one.  She said this is her last pregnancy, but she keeps in touch with all the families she's carried for.  Crazy.  

So, I guess I'll take care of what is somewhat of an elephant in the room for me, on this day.  For people that don't know, four years ago today, my dad passed away very unexpectedly of a brain aneurism.  While I think about my dad everyday, there's certain days and moments that are harder than others.  Our family does their best to be strong...that's just the type of people we all are...and we try not to dwell on the day in a negative light, but there's so much of my dad still around during this time of year that's it's hard not to tear up and relive the moments of that day.  So much has happened in the past four years, and yet, it's still really hard to believe it's been that long since we had to say goodbye.  Thankfully, we have very understanding, loving, and supportive friends and family that surround us, hold us up, and give us strength.  Thanks for all your love and prayers.  You will never know how much it means to us that we are not alone.  Thank you.  That's all folks.

Well, this has been another long week, but it has gone by much faster than last week (if that makes any sense).  It just seems like Sunday was so long ago.  Not too much to report from last Friday.  Adam and I both had an anti-social night and stayed in to catch up on "Hell's Kitchen" (at least I think that's what we did.)  I also got to talk to my uncle Chris, who I don't hear from often, and my mom for a while.  It was a nice end to the day.

Saturday, we both slept in until about 9:30 when we were waken by a phone call from Adam's friend Bob Wilson.  They (Bob, his roommate, and his roommate's girlfriend) were heading to Ridgecrest and wanted to know if we'd be up for lunch on their way through town.  We always like when people come to visit, so we whole-heartedly took them up on the offer.  We scrambled to clean up the house before our visitors arrived and then watched "Gilmore Girls" until the momentous occasion.  (Yes, Adam does watch Gilmore Girls with me....and I'm pretty sure he enjoys it.)  We were going to take the crew to Golden Cantina.  It's one of our favorite places in Rosamond to bring visitors because it's right on the runway for the skypark, so we've yet to have a visit where we haven't seen a plane taking off or landing.  It's a pretty cool atmosphere.  Well, apparently Golden Cantina doesn't open until 4, so we headed over to Ramone's.  We've heard good things about Ramone's, so we had high hopes.  We were NOT impressed.  Adam found a large piece of plastic wrap in his enchilada, and the prices were definitely not indicative of the quality of food.  We finished off the experience with ice cream at Fosters Freeze.  We had a great time and are looking forward to the next visit.

To finish off the day, we headed into Lancaster to buy some regulation softballs to help hone our softball playing skills.  Afterwards, we headed over to Adam's friend Keith's new place.  We got the official tour (we approved :-p) and then hung out and chatted with him and his parents for a while before heading home.  We ended up renting "The Hangover" from the Red Box.  I had very low expectations from all the thing I had heard, but it actually wasn't too bad.  I thought the credits portion was a little unnecessary, but it wasn't a horrible movie (if that says anything).  

Sunday morning, we woke up "early" to have some pancakes before church.  We went to service and then did some quick grocery shopping, afterwards.  We got together a last minute softball practice that afternoon...and we're a little nervous about how badly our team might do :-p.  At least we'll have fun doing it...or something.  I think we'll need a few more practices.

Monday, I spent the day mowing the lawn and painting.  That's literally all I did, that day :-p.  Tuesday, I worked most of the day on a brochure and registration form for "Create" (the art camp we're doing at church).  My computer was not my friend, that day, so it unfortunately literally took me all day to get that worked out.

Wednesday was spent cleaning and prepping for our two nights of dinner guests.  We had our friends Will and Camille Griffin over on Wednesday for grilled teriyaki chicken.  Their packers came that day, so we thought we'd spare them another meal of restaurant food and have them over.  They head out for Monterey on Sunday, so it was also nice to have one last hurrah before they go.  We're looking forward to visiting them sometime, too.  Last was day two of dinner guests.  This time we had our "one last hurrah" with Paul and Bethany Wojotwicz and their one year old Stevie.  It's always interesting having kids over, but Stevie took to his first attempt at climbing stairs on his own (with his dad's help and supervision).  This time, we had stuffed shells, homemade french bread...and my disaster of a strawberry shortcake dessert.  You see, after spending the morning doing some more painting, I literally spent all afternoon in the kitchen...and I think I may have tried to do too many things at once because I accidentally replaced the Baking Powder with Baking Soda.  It was awful...and embarrassing, but I guess it's a mistake I won't be making again anytime soon.  At least the shells and bread turned out good and made up for the disaster of a dessert.  

I've kept myself pretty busy today, as well.  After a small breakfast, I spent the morning painting, again.  I've decided that small doses of this might be the best way to get this done without burnout.  If I haven't already mentioned this to you, our walls have AWFUL texture.  It's fine once it's painted and everything, but it is so deep that the most effective way I've found to paint it is with a brush...which obviously takes longer.  When I tried the roller, it didn't get into all the divots, etc. and I had to use the brush for touch-ups, anyway.  Even with the brush, there's still a few spots that I have to go back and touch up, but far less than with the roller.  The painting is coming along, though.  And while it's going to be a long ongoing process, I think it's going to be nice when it's all done.  I stopped painting at noon and took to making a few phone calls, typing this, doing some laundry, and working on dishes from the last couple nights.  This evening, we're joining Matt and Dania Rottman at church to clean.  Hopefully that won't take too long and we'll have the evening to relax.  And with that, I'm off to be productive to help reach that relaxation goal.  TTFN.

I think it's fair to say that this week has been a long one, for me.  I don't know if it's because I crammed a lot into a few days and don't have much to do today or tomorrow or what.  Regardless, today I have been very lazy and not very motivated.  I'm happy to say, though, that as long as the week has been...and as much time as I've wasted today, I think the rest of the week makes up for it.  


Last Saturday, we woke up "early" (Adam was actually up long before I was...which doesn't happen often) and took Lacy for her first hike in the mountains with her new shoes.  She did fine, except for losing one every once in a while.  We're still fine tuning the strap adjustment.  She also did a great job filling them with sand and little prickers from all the weeds she ventured through.  Hopefully they won't be too hard to clean out before the next time.  After our hike, we did a little quick shopping in Lancaster before we had our friends, Luke and Katie Goossen, over for dinner.  It's always nice to have dinner guests....especially ones that don't mind that we are a far cry from sophisticated or winning any awards for hospitality (I'm working on that :)).  We grilled out, talked, ate the amazing dessert Katie made, and generally had a good time.  We enjoy the kind of company that surprises you when you realize how late it's gotten!


Sunday, we spent a good portion of the day in Palmdale.  We got to witness Elizabeth and Kevin Daughery's son Micah's baptism at church (and will get to see Todd and Sarah's daughter Ari's this Sunday).  After all that, we headed to the mall, initially to get our tires rotated and to get an alignment, which turned into getting all 4 tires replaced and balanced and an alignment.  It was an expensive (and long) trip to Sears, but hopefully the tires will last longer, this time.  In the meantime, I got my quarterly hair cut and a curling iron in an attempt to  someday be able to duplicate what the stylist did (yeah right.)  Once we got home, Adam and I headed out to the ball field to try and hone our skills before our league starts up.  Yes, you heard that right, Adam and I joined a softball league with our church.  We'll be in the co-ed league to, as Todd says,  be a light instead of preaching to the choir in the church league.  It makes me a little nervous to be in a more competitive league, but Todd seems pretty comfortable with us being a light that's not good at softball :-p.


Monday, I dedicated the day to relationship building.  My new friend Marci (also from Illinois...Collinsville, actually) was gracious enough to drive me to my doctor's appointment in Palmdale.  To make the trip a little more worthwhile for both of us, we left a little early to have lunch at Quiznos.  After finding ourselves at a Quiznos "coming soon" and one that no longer existed, we turned in the towel and headed to Wendy's, instead.  It was no Quiznos lunch, but it was really good to spend time with Marci and her new daughter Aly, regardless.  Marci ended up dropping me off at Heidi's house, since we were overdue for a hangout session.  Heidi was working on "a cake for a friend's anniversary."  As was later prematurely revealed to me by her son Jack, it was a belated gift for Adam and I.  It was delicious and we were touched that she thought of us.  


Last Friday, I got an email from Todd telling me that him and his wife Sarah had been discussing the possibility of putting on an art camp, this summer, and asking me if I'd like to be involved with helping make that happen.  Of course, I jumped at the opportunity, and because of my lack of self-transportation during the day, Tuesday was filled with tidying up the house in preparation for the brainstorming and planning meeting that ended up being at our dining room table.  I'm really excited to see how this all plays out.  The plan is to do a three day "camp" in the evenings to teach kids about printmaking while tying it into a theme that teaches them a little about God, as well.  We'll be teaching them several different methods of printmaking, and Todd will be doing a short devotional each night.  At the end of the 3 days, we'll have a public reception at The Well to see some of the best of what each child has done.  It's exciting to me to be able to use my degree to do something productive :).  I also quickly set to work, Wednesday afternoon, on the promo video that we'll play at church and possibly distribute to other places interested in viewing it.  Here is the finished product, for your viewing pleasure.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:



Create: An Art Experience For Kids from Todd Niebling on Vimeo.


Last night, Adam and I picked up Heidi and headed to church for a music ministry meeting.  Our current worship leader is leaving in a few weeks since her husband is getting re-stationed in Montarey (We'll miss you, Will and Camille!).  While I'm sad to see them go, I am excited for the added opportunities to play more piano at church.  I'll also have a couple of weeks in the next couple months that I'll be singing, as well.  It'll be pretty busy for all us musicians while we're sans a leader, but I'm looking forward to the added effort to pull together and make things happen.


So that brings me back to today.  It's been probably a good hour or so since I started this, but in the meantime, I've been a bit more productive than I was when I started out.  Not only have I accomplished yet another journal entry, but I have managed to chat with Dan Davis, Amanda Moloney, Christy Starr, and Karimah Salaam.  Adam should be calling, soon, as well, to report his departure from work.  Maybe I'll take this opportunity, then, to actually get dressed and brush my hair :-p.  Later!