Ugly Sweaters & Date Night

These past few days have just a bit busy for us.  I finished my youth ministry class last Thursday, we have finals this week, and then we are leaving to the Dominican Republic in 9 days.  We are so extremely excited and ready for a vacation!

Today at church, we had an ugly sweater contest and I'm sad to announce that we did not win.  Unfortunately, we didn't get early enough to church for our pastor to see us before he announced the winners, otherwise we would have won.  Nonetheless, everyone who saw us laughed and told us that we should have won.  

Here is a picture of our costumes.   

In the middle of our busy week of classes and studying for finals, we still made time to go out on a date.  I want to encourage all couples to set aside one day of the week to go out on a date.  It doesn't matter if you've been married for 1 year or 40 years, or if you have kids or you don't, just go out and have fun with each other. Your marriage will be healthier and I just know you'll be blessed.  

Here is a picture of us on our date night. 

   

Please keep us in your prayers as we take our final exams this week.  Thank you :)

Let us not grow weary

This past week as I was reading Authentic Spiritual Mentoring by Larry Kreider I came across this cool story and I just had to share it.  A young man holding a Bible ran up to Larry Kreider to share his story.

My folks are not Christians, but recently I opened up this Bible I found lying on the coffee table. After reading in it, I realized I needed Jesus. I gave my life to Christ and then drove around with my Bible in hand looking for a church family. I found a church building near where I lived and walked in.
The first person to greet me was a young lady, and after telling her my story, she called her father over and said, "Tell my dad what you told me."
The dad listened to my testimony with interest and then examined the Bible I held in my hands. "Fifteen years ago," he said, "I witnessed to a man I served with in the military. He declined to receive the Lord but agreed to take the Bible you are holding. The man I witnessed to was your father!"

How awesome is God! Just when we are discouraged thinking that what we are doing is not making a difference, He shows us that He is sovereign and in control.  His plans are better than ours and He is clearly working even when we cannot see.  So if you are feeling discouraged today, take heart and be encouraged.  God is working behind the scenes, we just need to trust and obey, He will take care of the rest.  So keep on handing out Bibles, having conversations with strangers, praying for the lost, sharing your testimony, and preaching the Gospel; God sees the bigger picture :) Blessings. 
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Gal 6:9 NIV).

Thanksgiving Fun

So Tim and I drove down to St. Louis, MO to spend Thanksgiving with the Thompson's.  We had a great time meeting new relatives, eating, and playing games.

Wednesday, was the turkey frying day.  Cousin Andy went all out with this event: frying turkeys, chickens and fries.  We also watched a couple of holiday movies, as is tradition.

I was glad to finally meet Jill :)

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Later that night, we skyped with my family since it was Masha's birthday.  We joked, laughed, sang happy birthday and had a great time :) YAY for Skype.

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 smoochies

The next day we went to Beth's parent's house for Thanksgiving and family pictures. We were absolutely stuffed, and that was only the beginning because we then went to Andy's family for a second meal.  After we were done eating, we went back to the Thompson's and played Rock Band with Hannah and Sammy, needless to say that my fingers were sore, but it was fun.

The night was not over yet, this year we decided to try midnight shopping for Black Friday.  Oh my, the mall was full of people, and the lines were ridiculous.  Unfortunately, Tim didn't buy anything since some stores were still closed, but I found some cute, cheap things.  After three hours of shopping, we called it a night and went to bed.  I don't know if I'll be doing that again next year.

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The next day (Friday) was packed with activities, I later found out that this was a typical vacation day for the Thompson's.  First, Tim and I went to Starbucks for some studying; it's impossible to get away from this even on vacation.  Then, we went to watch Sammy's soccer game, her team won 7 to 1.

This was followed by more games with Hannah & Sammy: Mario brothers, Just Dance, and Dance Revolution; I was sweating so much with these dancing games.  

After so much dancing, we were starving, so we drove to St. Charles for dinner.  This was a really cute place with tons of restaurants and little shops.  We ate at Llywelyn's Pub, a restaurant that used to be a bank.  On the second picture you can see us eating inside the bank vault :) Oh, I can't forget to mention that Beth made me try a fried pickle, which turned out to be pretty good.
Of course the night was not over yet.  After eating a huge meal, we went to play laser tag; that was so much fun and quite the workout, I can't wait to do it again :) Afterwards we went to get ice cream, and ended the night with a trip to the movies, we watched Puss In Boots.

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This morning, we ended our trip with a visit to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, yummy.  They're so bad, but so good.  Now we're back in study land, and it's time to get back to work.

Caribou & jambalaya & Flowers

Today we went to Caribou to study, Tim says that he concentrates better at a coffee shop than at the library, go figure... While Tim worked on his Hebrew, I worked on Old Testament (my favorite class) and drank some white hot chocolate.  Tim has also been working really hard on a paper for his biblical theology class, he has chosen to write on the fear of God.

We didn't reward ourselves with Chipotle tonight; instead I made one of our favorite meals: shrimp & sausage jambalaya, fried plantains, and green salad.  Delicious, and the best part is that I made enough for leftovers tomorrow. If anyone wants the recipe, let me know.



     

Here's a picture of me and the pretty Fall flowers my lovely husband bought for me.  I still cannot believe that it is still Fall in Chicago, no snow yet and no complaints here :)

Yummy Chipotle

After a long day of studying and doing research, Tim and I decided to reward ourselves with some Chipotle, Yummy :)
On another note, we have been really blessed these last couple of weeks.  Last Sunday, one of the elders from Northwest Family Church (the church we might work at) took us out to lunch, and today another elder and his wife took us out.  YAY! We're so excited about the relationships we have begun to form at NFC; the people have been really nice thus far.