An Unexpected Blast

Yesterday I had a very unexpected fun day.

I know that Fridays are normally a day worth celebrating, but yesterday was exceptional.

Of course I started the day at work, but I had a very fun lunch date to attend that included my BFF's Joanna and Jen.

Joanna currently lives in Montana (we like to call her Joanna Montana) because that's where her hubby is based for the Air Force. (We're THRILLED because soon and very soon they'll be moving to the SOUTH! Can I get an amen? Montana is WAY too far from Texas.) Anyway, they were in town so we were tickled pink to dine with her. I picked her up and we met Jen near the Galleria and enjoyed some chatting and calories at a Chinese restaurant. It was fabulous! These lunches are rare. And that's an understatement.

Our time was limited, but I would give anything to even spend just 10 minutes with them. I love that I got to pick up Jo because that means we got some extra chat time in!

Can we just take a moment and praise the Lord for girlfriends? There is truly nothing like them. Such a gift! I do not take my friendships for granted one bit. Especially the ones the Lord has blessed me with for my entire life. There's a bond that can't be broken. And I believe that bond is Jesus.

Me and Joanna! We're pretty much picture happy.

Jo and Jen!

Because we don't have enough pictures together...:)

This is the best we could do to get all 3 of us in a picture. It reminds me of our weekend in Las Vegas.

We always, always miss Sally when we get together, but our homegirl lives in Kentucky! Will we ever all live in Texas again? Oh, I hope so! We love you, friend! (Thankfully, I got to spend some time with Sal just last month and it was glorious!)

After I dropped Jo off, I ran some errands for work then headed to the office to wrap up there.

It was after work that my night got exciting.

My little brother has been in town this week from camp and we've talked about trying to get tickets to see Wicked while he was in town (for one week), but our schedules proved that to be quite impossible.

Until last night.

We decided on a whim, knowing the show was completely sold out, to drive down to the Hobby Center to see if by any chance we could score some tickets.

We arrived super early and the first guy we talked to left us hopeless. (We obviously assumed we wouldn't have a chance, but we live on the edge like that.) As we were walking out to leave, I told him we should just stay just in case anybody happened to have an extra or turn one in. He was up for waiting so we did.

Then we saw a lady that looked legit, so he decided to ask her. (Listen folks, he's never seen the show, he was desperate!) She clearly knew more about the ticket process than the other man and her answer to him about getting tickets was, "It's slim, but possible." She told us to wait and she'd keep us updated.

We found ourselves to chairs and took a seat. After a while she told us there were two tickets, but that a couple was in line ahead of us and if they didn't take them, they'd be ours! At this point we were excited, but didn't get our hopes up. I mean, who wouldn't take those tickets? When we asked her how much they'd be, she gave us a distorted look and explained that they were FREE!

Um, excuse me?

People pay big bucks to see Wicked. Especially for where those seats were located.

We waited a little longer, than about ten minutes before the show started, she walked over to us and handed us the tickets. We both about fell out of our chair. I think our jaws even dropped. Literally. Talk about an unexpected blessing! Honestly, we were prepared to leave without seeing the show. But God is so good, and loves little surprises like that. We were beyond grateful and I'm not sure how many time we told that lady thank you and how grateful we were.

We rushed to our seats right in time for the show to start. I know it was my third time to see it and I just saw it a few weeks ago, but I'll say it time and time again, this show does not disappoint. At intermission, right after Defying Gravity is sung, Kev came over to me and I swear there were tears in his eyes. He's been wanting to see it so bad! And it's flat amazing to those that appreciate the theater.

Needless to say, we left last night a very happy brother and sister, feeling super blessed. Not to mention it was just a fun date before he went back to camp today to finish out the summer!

Thank you, Lord, for unexpected blessings!

I hope you've all had a great weekend! I'm currently letting a load run in the wash as I pack for our Galveston mission trip starting tomorrow. I would SO appreciate your prayers as after this trip, I head to Belize with our high school students. It will be an exhausting two weeks in many ways, but I have no greater joy than to watch these students fall more in love with God and serving Him!

Apples, TOMS, Sprinkles & Belize

Today I had some grand plans to sleep in, relax, blog about Colorado, unpack, clean and so on and so forth. Truly, I've not had almost one day actually at home this entire summer. And the fact that there's only a few weeks left of summer completely kooks me out.

Anyway, all those plans went to the dump with Michaela had the perfect plan to kidnap me and Bethany and drag us to the Galleria area so she could get fingerprinted. Obviously, that wasn't the draw, but when she mentioned Sprinkles Cupcakes, I was automatically on board. A day with those girls in uptown Houston eating cupcakes? Yes please!

We left about 9:30 this morning, then after her little errand we spent the rest of the afternoon goofing off. It was so much fun! I think what makes it more fun is these girls are my future roommies, so knowing we can enjoy a day together makes me excited for what's ahead. I'll definitely miss my current living situation. We have a few laughs ourselves!

After getting finger printed, we headed to Central Market for some lite grocery shopping. It was there that I got to taste a little bit of heaven, the "envy" apple. Bethany stumbled upon the samples and after I tried one slice, I was sold. They are a mix between Braeburn and Gala apples and the sweetest, crispiest apples you'll ever taste. After dinner I had my habitual apple and peanut butter that I'd been looking forward to every day, and it was glorious. I was like a little girl on Christmas morning slicing that thing. For those of you that don't know, I have an odd apple obsession. I'm such an apple dork.



After Central Market we had lunch at Brown Bag and then we headed to an outdoorsy and nature type store that hosted a ton of fun trinkets. We played more than anything before getting serious about finding me some red TOMS, but unfortunately, they didn't have my size. I was so tempted to by the children's book, Everybody Poops, because I'm really mature like that, but upon browsing the pages, we decided it was too explicit. ;)

Fortunately, Nordstrom's was right around the corner and they sell TOMS so we headed straight there. I was so thrilled to find out they had my size! I thought for a split second about whether or not I should buy the ash color or red, but went with what I've always wanted, which was the red TOMS. I'm now praying I can actually pull them off!



Aren't they so fun? They're actually fairly comfortable, too.

After that unexpected trip to the Galleria, our lunches we settled and we drove ourselves to Sprinkles. The cupcakes are so rich there that it would be a sin to go there full. An empty stomach is an absolute must.

We only waited in line for about 10 minutes then purchased these delectable treats!

Go ahead, take a look for yourself.

Is your mouth watering yet? I don't mean to make you jealous, but it should be.

Here is Bethany very excited about her cupcakes. Why wouldn't she be?

Michaela digging straight in! Yum!

I had a moment of silence before devouring my Black and White cupcake. It was only necessary.

Here goes nothin'...

The perfect treat for a great day!

If you've noticed that I speak of shopping and eating a lot, you're not imagining things. It's my weakness.

I came home and took myself straight to my step aerobics class. I haven't been since May so it about killed me and I seemed to be very uncoordinated, but it was fabulous. There's nothing like getting a good dose of endorphins. For our abs segment she made us do 360 sit-ups and to say that I'm feelin' the burn would be an understatement. Oh, but I love it!

Lastly, and on a completely different note, as most of you know we're taking our high school students to Belize in two weeks and we have a little blog to keep our friends and family updated. We would love your prayers as we prepare and as we're there! Our missions pastor caught me at church on Sunday and had me film a quick blurb about the trip. To keep updated, you can read more here at our Building Bridges website! We appreciate and covet all your prayers!

Hope you all had a marvelous Monday. I'm all about alliterations today. Not to be confused with alterations.

Okay, I'm delirious and signing off.

Lindsee the Builder

Hey strangers! I landed back in hot, humid, nasty weather Houston on Thursday evening and haven't stopped since. I totally plan to blog about my vacation to Colorado, but in the meantime, I think sharing my new hobby with you will hold you over.

Friday morning I headed straight to a retreat center for our Belize 101 team planning retreat. These are the rookies of the team that have never been on a mission trip before, so we did some very basic training and team building exercises and it was all around a great, productive time! The main job this team has while we're in Belize is they will be building beds for the camp we'll be staying at. They will also be doing other things, but it will mainly be a lot of physical labor.

To prepare them for this, a crash course in power tools was only necessary. Building a side table was their job this weekend! Although I'll mainly be serving with and helping the 201 team, I figured paying close attention could only help me.

I never imagined they'd actually let me touch a power tool.

Let alone use it.

But alas, they did.

I have to admit, it was quite intriguing. And fulfilling.

And although I'm almost one-hundred percent positive God's call on my life is vocational ministry...

I'm not sure He hasn't called me into carpentry.

I mean, check out that form. And confidence! Doesn't it suit me?

No? You don't agree? Well, I'm not sure Jen's husband Grant does, either. Upon seeing this picture he said, "Let us pray for Belize and those students."

Pray you will.

Build I will.

Forget Bob the builder, Lindsee's in town!

I've got all your carpentry needs covered.

The Weekend I Didn't Take Any Pictures

Although it’s already Tuesday, I felt the need to blog about the weekend. Better late than never, right?

Here’s the deal, though. I spent this weekend doing one fun thing after another and guess how many pictures I took? ZERO. Nada. Zip. Whatever zero is in Spanish. It saddens my heart that you’ll have to imagine all that went down, but sometimes our imagination paints a prettier picture than the real thing, so I’m hoping you’ll let your imagination run wild for this post.

We’ll start out with Friday. If I did have pictures they would be of me and two friends starting the night out at Lupe Tortilla. But before that, imagine God flooding the earth. Though He promised to never do that again, I’m certain Houston was under threat of it. We got the remnants of hurricane Alex, and it was no game. Sweet mercy, I just kept singing all day, “the rains came down and the floods came up…” with a feisty attitude because I was over it.

Normally rain wouldn’t have that kind of effect on me, but I was being really selfish and needed it to end because that night after dinner, we had grand plans to drive downtown to the Hobby Center to see the Broadway musical, Wicked. Let me be even more honest by telling you that I was more worried about my hair than anything. My hair doesn’t last 3 seconds in that weather and my selfishness reared its ugly head again when I refused to wear it curly or up.

Thankfully, after dinner we did indeed make it downtown with no issues, but unfortunately, humidity won the battle over my thick mop and I put it up. Once Wicked started, however, hair was no longer an issue. I was smitten.

This was my second time to see Wicked and it was yet to disappoint. Overall, it was such a fun night with great food, amazing entertainment and fun friends!

Saturday I was able to sleep in, praise you, Lord and then I got up and ready for a cookout we were having at another friends house. And not just any ol’ cookout, their backyard is a theme park complete with a swimming pool, a zip line, volleyball net, and other fun things. We were all supposed to bring a snack to share and I got all patriotic and made a Fourth of July Funfetti cake. My friend Missy gave me that idea and I was shocked I didn’t think of it myself. I was going to bring just a bag of chips or something. Lame!



Unfortunately, the rain put a damper on our outdoor activities, but towards the end we were able to enjoy some time outside.

If I had my camera, you would have seen a bunch of girls sitting around the table chatting, and the men roaming around aimlessly as they waited patiently for the rain to stop.

After the party, as if I hadn’t eaten enough, I met my parents for dinner at a Thai food restaurant, then went home and crashed.

Sunday our church only had one service and I sang in the praise team. I don’t get to do that too often because of other responsibilities on Sunday mornings, but when I do get the chance, I love it. We had a great service then afterward I had enough time to run home, grab a quick bite to eat and take a nap before heading to another cookout with some of my favorite people. Also known as my parents small group. Their small group has been together since I was practically in the womb, which makes these peeps family. We had a great, relaxing time swimming, eating and chatting. Then that night we enjoyed a nice fireworks display from their backyard.

Monday I joined Jen at her parents’ house and we played in the pool with her niece and nephew and just enjoyed chatting. I haven’t seen her since my birthday which is just wrong since we do live in the same city. After a while Jack, Jen's dad, put up a tent for Grace to play in and we totally cramped her style by getting in it with her. Of course, we were prepared with our laptop and People magazine, but that's how we roll. ;)



That night we ate dinner with my parents, then we all went our separate ways, in which I grounded myself to my room to pack. That is until the Bachelorette came on. After that train wreck, I successfully finished washing all my clothes, then organized them to pack. Which will be the story of my life for the next month.

It was a fabulous weekend despite my photography fail.

But you know what I'm looking forward to more than anything? That would be my ridiculously early flight to Colorado tomorrow morning. So early, in fact, that we arrive at 7:30 A.M.

That means I better quit blogging, and that I won't be blogging until I get back. I'm so looking forward to some R&R in one of my favorite places in the world.

Have a blessed week, sweet friends!

Until we meet again...(Imagine me tipping my imaginary hat!)