The Senior Girls Conquer San Antonio

There are certain times that I feel extremely blessed to be able to do what I get to do. This past weekend was most definitely those weekends!

Friday afternoon I loaded seven high school seniors in what I like to call, the big ole’ mama suburban, and we headed to San Antonio for the weekend. It was an absolute blast! Seriously, can you believe I get to do this for a living? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, someone pinch me.

A few highlights from the trip are:

1) The lack of Bluebonnets on I-10. Seriously, folks! It wasn’t so much of a highlight as it was a disappointment, but whoever spread the seeds, apparently forgot to spread them over I-10. This time of year their breathtaking, especially on a boring drive like San Antonio, but this drive we were taken by boredom.

2) Well, boredom isn’t the correct term as I did haul seven high school senior girls to San Antonio and the laughs and conversations are endless. It’s amazing what gets confessed when you have them trapped.

3) Speaking of conversations, that was the biggest highlight. Oh, I loved every minute of every conversation. Serious and mundane. They bless my heart! As much as I try to invest in them, they invest in me just as much, if not more. Not a minute spent with them is a minute wasted. If you’re looking to get involved in your church, look no further than the high school or college girls, I promise you won’t regret it.

4) Our picnic! Saturday afternoon we planned for a picnic at Brackenridge Park right next to the zoo and it was perfect. It was beautiful out, which made for a peaceful lunch! We also happened to be an attraction as every time the trolley drove by, we waived at them and they waived back at us. It was such a setup. People must think there is a picnic in that exact spot every Saturday.

5) We visited the Rivercenter Mall for a bit, and while there I played around, then purchased a $2 brown belt and $2 wallet. I’d say I scored.

6) Remembering the Alamo. You can’t visit San Antonio without remembering such a historic landmark. Of course, everybody’s mom was visiting as well. At least we got a nice lady to take our picture who told us it didn’t matter what our hair looked like! I, however, beg to differ. You can’t take a picture with hair in your face. Especially at a place you only visit every few years. That’s a tragedy. Thankfully, the wind stopped for 2.3 seconds for us to get a decent picture with the half the Alamo in it.

7) Playing the game Quelf. Have you heard of it? I actually did not play, but observed the three hour game and it was hilarious. I don’t even know how to explain it to you.

8) Eating dinner at Iron Cactus on the River Walk. It’s so tasty! All eight of us split fajitas which was perfect. The best part, however? We only had to wait 10 minutes. Score! When the rest of the river walk is easily an hour wait, you’re extremely thankful for a 10 minute wait. While waiting I was taking a picture of the girls, acting like their mother, when a sweet lady asked if I wanted to get in the picture with them! Of course I did, so I handed her my camera and at the exact time a man that was in their group hopped in our picture. It was hilarious. Come to find out, he was an Academy model. As in Academy Sports & Outdoors. Good times!

9) Seeing the Last Song with my girls. Every single one of us cried our eyes out! Good movie, but don’t see it if you’re seeking a good laugh. Thankfully we were prepared with a roll of toilet paper. No lie. We were also the only ones in the theater besides one other couple! I loved that!

10) Sweet conversation on my bed after the movie until 4:00 am Saturday night! Staying up that late is getting harder and harder to do, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

11) Realizing this was our last big hoorah until they graduate come June. That realization makes me both sad and happy! Sad because it will be tough to see them leave, but happy because I’m so excited for them all to move on to their next chapter in life, college! I’m not going to lie, getting a new group of freshman girls next year is a little scary and a huge change for sure! But I know the Lord will prepare my heart and give me a love for them that I have for these girls.

However, these girls remind me constantly the shoes my next group has to fill. They think they’ve hung the moon, and frankly, so do I!

We'd made up an "itinerary" of sorts, and the day before we left I felt that it needed a cover sheet. I'm a huge dork, but somehow they still love me for me. Ha!

If you've not had a Beaver Nugget, you've not lived.

And now begins the picnic series!


Cuteness!



I'm the leader that lets her peeps climb trees.

And then they're not sure how to get down!


Joy had skill in taking this while she was in the tree. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that.


Aren't we so grateful for timers on cameras?

This is called the run around crazy and pose! It's fun. You should try it.

Pre-jump position...

We have serious jumping skill. We did this with the timer! All I can say is, GO US!


The infamous elevator shot!

They clean up nice!

Remembering the Alamo!



I'm the most blessed of all! Love these girls to bits.

Eyebrow Catastrophe

Back in the day I had what I like to call an eyebrow affliction. The tweezers were unfortunately my BFF and we had an undying love. We spent many hours together lying on my bed plucking practically every eyebrow in sight using my tiny little hand held mirror.

I think the obsession with my eyebrows started young as I resembled Brooke Shields in her prime, yet I wasn’t near as attractive as she.

In fifth grade I took a razor to my unibrow, which we all know is an eyebrow tragedy. To my mom’s horror, I walked down stairs to proudly show off my new look. It was then that she saw my eyebrows were the size of a #2 pencil mark. It was bad. Very bad. I’m not sure what it is about the hair on my face that I’m so enthralled by. It’s quite the mystery!

My eyebrow sickness continued well into college until I decided it was time for some eyebrow therapy. Seriously, if counseling would have been offered for this type of sickness, I would have been the first to sign up.

About the time I started taking accutane, I decided as well to go on an eyebrow plucking strike. I wouldn’t take a tweezer to my face if my life depended on it. I needed to reclaim my eyebrows for myself in a bad way! Talk about a time in my life when I felt not the tiniest ounce of self-confidence or attractiveness at all. It was a humbling few months, to say the least. Nothing but honesty, folks.

After nine months of accutane, and a huge dose of patience, my face looked normal again. It’s pitiful that this sounds like an awful “Your face!” joke. Feel free to laugh. Please. I laugh about that time in my life constantly. I finally had normal eyebrows and my face was as clear as crystal.

Since then I’ve not had near the infatuation with tweezers. The Lord broke me free of my tweezer addiction and I’ve truly never been more thankful.

A few months back I was at my parent’s house searching for something when I ran across a ton of my old pictures. I’ve also been a picture freak as long as I’ve lived and my boxes of photos did not disappoint. I scanned a few and since then they’ve been filed away into a folder on my computer until I resurrected them today. It was then that I realized what these pictures were worth. Not only are they middle school and high school oldies, but they are treasure and memories forever.

I would have no greater pleasure than if you would join me on a walk down memory lane.

I present to you, in no particular order, the bad eyebrow years.

You actually can't see my eyebrows here, but this was my graduation party. My parents small group has been in existence since I was born, and half of us graduated the same year so we had our party together. These were some of our decorations. Isn't that neat? What's even neater is that we're still all friends and love each other!

Prom! It was all about the poofy dresses that year.

Senior year D-Now. BFF's still.

Me and Jen at our Senior Send-Off.

Homecoming senior year! Jen, me and Sally. At least my eyebrows were dark.

Birthday celebration!

Cousins!

A serious lack of eyebrows! This was on the Ferris Wheel at Kemah. Can you believe I remember where these pictures were taken? Joanna, remember how we screamed the entire time?

Camp senior year in Colorado. That year our worship leader was David Crowder! Awesome!


Senior pictures!

This was FRESHMAN YEAR! Exactly 11 years ago.

Freshman year again! I didn't always have bad skin. Ha!

This was sophomore year volunteering at our fall festival. Clearly we were in over our heads. The eyebrows started making an appearance, but soon faded.

Into this! Sophomore year Christmas party. Mercy!

This was the night before Joanna got engaged. I had just started growing out my eyebrows! I think I was well into accutane then as well.

I'm surprised I graduated with such little eyebrows.

Prom!


If you enlarge this one you can see the teeny eyebrows! Shout out to Jaclyn who did my make-up. Love her!


Squinting appears to make the eyebrows appear smaller. Oh wait, I had no eyebrows!

Did my friends ever try to rescue me?! ;)



Senior year for some reason created a serious lack of eyebrows. Someone help a sister out!


The end.


Okay, so maybe this was a little more than an eyebrow shout out. It was a little walk down memory lane as well. I think it was fun! The blessing in it all? All these peeps are still my BFF's. I'm so grateful!

I hope you and your eyebrows have a fantastic Thursday evening. I don't even need to add a "now" picture as they've been normal for as long as I've blogged! Over three years! Praise be!

Be Trendy

I've really been struggling with what to do with my blog design. I'm not sure "struggling" is the correct term, as it sounds over dramatic but I really want a cute blog template without paying tons of money. You get my drift?

Anywho, I found this really cute website of free design templates that I'm loving. And what's even better is that it's called Leelou. Do you see the resemblance? Lindsee Lou, Leelou? Love it.

So, until my fickle self decides what it wants to do with the blog design, I'm going to take full advantage of Leelou's blog layouts. I also took it up a notch and went to a 3 column layout. I'm so moving up in the world!

Thank you, Leelou, for your precious, free designs! I love my new "Be Trendy" design.

BTW, I'm working on my Q&A post. It's been fun but it's time consuming! It should be up by Friday, at least the first part.

Have a happy Wednesday, peeps!

An Easter I Won't Soon Forget

My family had a wonderful Easter Sunday! It started out a little wet and gloomy, which was kind of disappointing because we'd all planned on it being fairly nice outside, however, by about 3:00 this afternoon, the clouds rolled away, taking the humidity along with them, and it turned out gorgeous! My eyes are now reaping the consequences of sitting outside for too long with my BFF, pollen, but I'll forgive it because it's too pretty not to be outside this time of year. Like I've said countless times, our beautiful weather is few and far between in Houston.

Anyway, enough about the weather.

I had to be up super early this morning to be at church for praise team, but it was so worth it. I've really missed singing on a consistent basis for a while now, so I'm excited to be back on the praise team rotation! It's such a fun blessing to be able to serve in that way

All of our services went very smoothly, and both contemporary services were packed to the brim, which is always expected.

However, what we didn't expect, nor plan for, was the fire alarm that went off during our last service about 15 minutes into the sermon!

All of the sudden the sirens started going off, and everyone just started looking at each other. Our pastor stood there kind of stunned as well and of course on top of the loud, obnoxious noise was an automated ladies voice saying, "This is an emergency, please exit the building."

I mean, are you serious? Is this really happening?

I've literally been in church my entire life, yes that's only 24 years, but in all those years the fire alarm, as far as I can recall, has never gone off. Let alone on Easter Sunday when there are easily 1,000 people per service in attendance.

After what seemed like minutes, but was probably only one minute, people started exiting calmly and collectively. No one running, no one screaming, just a calm mass exodus. It was very surreal.We all waited outside for about 10 minutes, then got the thumbs up to go back in, that everything was indeed, okay. The real miracle is that most people returned and the rest of the service went off without a hitch.

Who knows if it was spiritual warfare, or a divine appointment, but either way God had a plan for that small interruption. Making it most definitely one of the most memorable Easter services I've ever been to. I give huge props to Pastor Dave for re-grouping and re-focusing everyone back to Christ and what he did on the cross. He still presented the gospel clearly and about 30 came to Christ! Praise the Lord!

After church, we headed to my parents and ate some delicious food. We even got to enjoy some pre-wedding cake, because our pastors wife is making the cake for their sons wedding in May, so she's been practicing. We got to be the taste testers and I was all about volunteering.

Looking back it was a great, relaxing, refreshing, recharging kind of a day. We sang my favorite Easter song, Worthy is the Lamb, and with that alone my day would have been perfect! What's your favorite Easter song? (Truly, I say that's mine but I have about 27.) I just love Easter!

The "fake" wedding cake! Tasty!

My sweet family of 5. Love them!

Our friends, Jan & Stuart. They're like family to us! (Really, my parents entire small group is like family. But they weren't all there. Shout out to them. They're the best group ever! And they've been together for a sweet forever!)

Brother. Sister. Brother.

Mom likes her little boy and girl plant holders!

At this point we were being completely silly! But I think it's cute!

Check out my ginormous ring. I love it.

Smile!

At this point Kev was just playing with my camera.

I can't wear white without getting something on it. Bummer.

Kevyn and Jane! Best buds!

My mom and Jessie. Jessie has been apart of our family since Katrina! We love her!

Our beloved pastor and his wife, Dave and Kathi. We love them!

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope your day was delightful!

In The Grip of The Biggest Loser

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in Houston, Texas that was undeniably obsessed with the reality TV show, The Biggest Loser. Some might call it an unhealthy obsession, but I like to refer to it as a very strong liking toward said TV program.

Okay, well actually, once upon a time isn't the correct reference as I am still very much gripped by The Biggest Loser. It still holds the number one spot in my ranking of TV shows. Glee & The Office come in at a very close second. If you asked me why I love it so much, I would have no idea. I simply love it. Although I did attempt to explain my love for it here if you're still intrigued by my love for a simple TV show.

To be completely honest, since I have such high aspirations in life, my bucket list includes visiting the Biggest Loser Ranch (which I just might get to do this summer), meeting the infamous Bob Harper & Jillian Michaels and attending a live finale. Yes, folks, I aspire to much. My parents are so proud.

About a month ago we were at our monthly youth pastors network meeting and somehow Biggest Loser came up in our conversation. I think it's because we were explaining our theme for our summer camp which happens to be Biggest Loser. (Before you all go thinking that was my idea, think again. It was completely 100% my bosses idea, but one that I very much encouraged and loved.) Anyway, one of the other youth pastors from a church around the corner from us popped up and mentioned that they were bringing in Michelle Aguilar from season 6 one Wednesday evening.

I immediately flipped out. They didn't have to ask me if I knew who she was when I basically yelled that she is my favorite contestant of all the seasons! I know I acted completely ridiculous, but I was excited nonetheless.

Of course they invited me to come and meet her and not two seconds later it was in my iPhone calendar.

That day was yesterday.

After work I headed straight to the church along with Mary, Dana and Megan, all of whom love the show as well.

The only bummer was that I knew I would have to leave early because I had rehearsal for Easter at the same time.

Once they let all the students in, I asked one of my youth pastor friends if I could meet her. Of course he obliged and pointed me towards her standing by the sound booth. At that point I got super, super nervous. What do I say to her, is all I kept thinking. But, I knew that if I left without getting the chance to meet her, I would have been totally irritated with myself.

I walked up to her, and mumbled something to the effect of, "Hi Michelle. Um, I'm so glad you're here. I work with girls. Thank you for coming. You're my favorite and um, always have been. And, um, thank you. Um, you're great. And I, um, can't wait to hear your story"

Seriously, I acted like a complete and utter idiot. She was so sweet, asked me my name, said thank you, told me she was nervous, and yada, yada, yada. And then we commemorated by taking a picture. (One of which, to be completely honest, I don't like of myself, but beggars can't be choosers.)

After worship, they introduced her and she proceeded to tell her story and then they went into a Q&A session with her of questions that the students wrote down.

Of course the first question was about how Bob & Jillian were in real life. Her answer?

"Bob, on T.V., nice. Bob, off T.V., mean. Jillian, on T.V., mean. Jillian, off T.V., nice."

I kind of figured.

There were a ton more questions, and then I had to leave a little before she ended. I loved every second of it! Meeting her and listening to her. I knew her story already because of how much Biggest Loser honed in on it during her season, but it was nice to hear an un-edited version.

If you've not heard her story, please click here to listen to her I Am Second video. I think I Am Second is such a neat ministry and she was blessed to be apart of it!

And I was blessed to get to meet her!

Next bucket list item? Get her to speak at one of my girls retreats.

Hey, it could happen!